The Starlight Lounge was closest, out at a traffic circle near Lynn Beach where the causeway to Nahant branched off. It had been built after the war and was called the Redwood: a lot of glass windows, a lot of exposed pine stained red, the kind of restaurant that sold fried clams and hamburgers and frapps before the fast food franchises were invented and put them out of business. After that for a while it had been a bait and tackle place, and then it was a place that sold ceramic lawn statues, and then a pizza joint, and then, for a long time, an abandoned building except for a month in the winter when Christmas trees were sold out of the parking lot.
In 1989 somebody painted it all over a dark blue, windows included, put in a bar and a bunch of cheap tables and chairs, installed a spinning strobe light in the high center of the room, hired a bunch of waitresses to work topless, and The Starlight Lounge was born.
It was still bright daylight when I parked there at 5:20 in the afternoon. There were a couple of motorcycles parked outside and a truck full of cement sidings was nosed in at an angle taking a space and a half, as if the crew hadn't been able to wait a moment longer when quitting time came.
The inside of the place was painted the same dark blue as the outside. I took off my sunglasses and waited for my pupils to dilate. The strobe reflector in the ceiling turned slowly, scattering the light like confetti. There was heavy rock music playing. I didn't recognize it, but I didn't expect to. All rock music sounded to me like glass being ground.
To my right there was a long nearly empty bar, where once maybe there had been a soda fountain. I went over and leaned on the end of it. One of the bartenders came down to get my order. He was wide faced and curly haired with the sleeves of his white dress shirt rolled up over his thick freckled arms. He put a paper napkin down on the bar in front of me and said, "What'll it be?"
"Got any draft beer?" I said.
"Nope. Bottle only."
"Got any New Amsterdam Black and Tan?"
The bartender grinned at me.
"You got to be shitting," he said.
"What have you got?" I said.
"Bud, Bud Light, Heineken."
"Bud," I said.
The bartender got me a long neck, popped the cap, put a glass beside it, and went away. I looked around the room. The guys from the forms truck were at a big table down the bar drinking beer and making small talk with the waitresses. There were two guys in motorcycle jackets at another table, and there were four waitresses. All of them bare chests and short shorts and a lot of hair.
Leaning on the far end of the bar opposite me was a guy with a round head and sloping shoulders. He too was wearing a white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled. The music banged away through a couple of speakers up high somewhere in the dark blue top of the dim room. I drank my beer. The bartender returned.
"You want another one?" he said.
"Not yet," I said.
"Who's in charge of this joint at the moment?"
"In charge?"
"Yeah. There a manager or anyone?"
"Me and Vie, I guess," the bartender said.
"Vie the guy at the other end of the bar?"
"Yeah. Mostly he's the bouncer. It get real busy he comes back here with me. But usually one man can handle it. It's a beer crowd, not a lotta mixed drinks, you know."
"How about if the bouncer end gets real busy."
"Oh, sure, I'll come around, give him a hand. But Vie don't usually need much help. Whaddya need?"
"I'm a private cop, looking for a guy's missing," I said.
"I want to show his picture around to the waitresses, see if any of them know him."
"Yeah?"
"I don't want trouble from Vie, or you," I said.
The bartender shrugged.
"I don't see no harm to it," he said. He turned and jerked his head at Vie, and turned back to me.
"You got some sort of license or something you want to show me?" he said.
I took out my wallet and showed him. Vie moved down the bar toward us, casual, just strolling down to see what's up. Nothing he wouldn't be able to handle. Up close he was shorter than I was, but thick, and long armed. His short crew cut was flecked with gray.
There was some buildup of scar tissue around his eyes, and his nose was thick and flat.
"Guy's a private eye," the bartender said.
"Wants to ask around after a missing person. I said I didn't have no problem with that.
You?"
"He show you something?" Vie said. His voice was a soft rasp.
"Yeah. He's legit."
"You make the piece?" Vie said to the bartender. The bartender grinned.
"Right side, back on his hip," the bartender said.
Vie nodded approvingly. He was studying my face.
"You used to fight," he said.
"Yeah."
"Tough way to make a living."
"Had its moments," I said.
"Yeah," Vie said in his soft rasp, "It did. Who you looking for?"
I took out my picture.
"Name's Anthony Meeker. Been gone about a week. He may have dated one of your waitresses."
Vie and the bartender both looked at the picture. Then they looked at each other.
"Yeah," Vie said.
"That's Anthony."
"Tony the Phony," the bartender said.
"Tell me about him," I said.
"You know who his father-in-law is?" Vie said.
The waitress who was serving the forms guys yelled "Vie."
Vie turned easily, rolling against the bar so he was looking at her.
"This jerk was grabbing my tits," the waitress said, nodding at a long-haired kid in cement-stained white overalls. He and his four friends were laughing, secure in their numbers.
Vie walked slowly over from the bar toward the boy.
"That's like the only rule in this joint," the bartender said.
"You can't touch the waitresses. You start letting them touch the waitresses and they'll be fucking them on the floor in a half hour. Place would turn into a zoo, wasn't for Vie."
"Think he'll need some backup?"
"Vie? Naw. Watch."
Vie stopped about three feet from the table, and spoke in his soft rasp.
"Look all you want, don't touch. Capeesh?"
"Hey, Vie," the kid said, playing to his friends, "she's flapping them hooters in my face, you know? Hard not to take a bite."
Vie nodded.
"You kids are new here. You didn't know. Now you do. You touch one of the waitresses again, you gotta leave."
"What if we don't want to leave?" the kid said.
Vie said something too softly to be heard. The kid leaned forward in his chair.
"What was that?" he said.
Vie hit him a nice left uppercut that looked like it didn't travel more than six inches. It knocked the kid out of his chair and sprawling backwards on the floor. Vie stepped maybe a step back, and stood balanced easily, hands hanging loose near his hip. The kid lay on the floor a moment, dazed. The other three were frozen in their seats. They were probably tough enough kids in their neighborhood. But this wasn't how fights started in their world.
First there would be some smart remarks and then some threats and then one guy would push another guy and some other guys would usually break it up, and maybe one time in ten a few punches were thrown, and then someone broke it up.
"You think I can't take all four of you?" Vie said in his soft rasp.
I couldn't see his face. But the forms guys could and it told them something. None of them said anything. The long-haired kid on the floor was sitting up now, his forearms on his knees, still listening to the bells ringing. Vie turned and walked back to the bar. v "He's the one hired me," I said.
"Phony Tony's father-in-law?"
"Yep."
"Julius Ventura?"
"Yep."
"Why's a guy like him hire a guy like you?"
"Hero worship," I said.
The long-haired kid got his legs under him finally and wavered over toward Vie.
"You sucka-punched me, you sonovabitch," he said.