Fred was actually Frederick Tapley, Junior. He’d inherited the bar from his old man, Fred Senior, who’d died about twelve years ago. Why the father had bothered to call the place Fred’s Original Bar and Grill was beyond me – I didn’t think he’d had to worry much about people ripping off the name.
It was a little after 3am, which meant the place had closed for the night about an hour ago. That’s one way you can tell the “human” bars from the “supe” bars. Although the law says you can drink wherever you want, regardless of species, most people – as well as those who aren’t – tend to prefer the company of their own, especially when they’re relaxing. So, although bars catering to supes tended to stay open until dawn, the ones with a mostly human clientele usually closed around 2.
I know the owner of every supe bar in town, but I’d never met Fred Tapley before, since his place catered to humans. He was a big guy, with a thick mustache and brown hair combed forward in a vain attempt to hide a hairline that was not so much receding as it was in full retreat. A couple of Robbery detectives, Pryce and Dalton, were already taking his statement. After exchanging nods, Karl and I joined them – I figured it would save Tapley some trouble, and save us some time, by not making him tell the story twice. Dalton performed introductions, then told Tapley to go on with what he was saying.
“I got the last customer outta here just before 2,” Tapley said. “That was Ritchie Patinka, one of my regulars. When he comes in, which is most nights, he always stays till closing. I guess I can understand why – his wife is the original psycho bitch from hell – but I ain’t gonna let him spend the night here, for Chrissake. So, like, ten minutes later, I’m sweepin’ up, when there’s a knock at the door. I yell, ‘We’re closed! Come back tomorrow!’ and go back to my sweepin’. But the knockin’ don’t stop. So, in case the guy didn’t hear me the first time, I take in a good breath and this time I fucking bellow it: ‘WE’RE CLOSED. GO HOME!’”
“But the knocking didn’t stop?” Pryce asked him.
“Fuckin’ A right, it didn’t. It keeps on, like I never said nothing at all. I figure it’s some drunk who got kicked outta another bar at two o’clock and decided to try his luck here, ‘Closed’ sign or no ‘Closed’ sign. So, I figure I’m gonna have to tell him to his face. So I pick up Fats, in case he’s gonna be, like, belligerent, and go to the door.”
Dalton looked at him. “Fats? I thought you said you were alone.”
“I was,” Tapley said. He took a couple of steps over to the bar and picked up a two-foot-long piece of sawed-off pool cue. “This is Fats – short for Minnesota Fats. I keep it under the bar, in case somebody gets a little too feisty, you know? Usually just showing it is enough to quiet a guy down, even if he is half in the bag. I’ve only had to use it for real a couple of times.”
“Alright, fine,” Pryce said. “So you and Fats here go to the door, and…?”
“And I open it, of course. Well, there’s a fuckin’ elf standing there. And the second thing I notice is that the bastard’s got a greenie with him.”
“You mean a goblin?” Pryce asked.
“Yeah, right – a fuckin’ goblin. Like I said, that’s the second thing I notice. The first thing is the cut-down shotgun the elf is holdin’ – and it’s pointed right at my chest.”
“Did either of them say anything at that point?” Dalton asked him.
“Yeah, the elf tells me, ‘Back the fuck up.’ So I do. Then he says ‘Drop the bat.’ Stupid bastard doesn’t even know the difference between a bat and a pool cue.”
“I assume you complied anyway,” Pryce said.
“Bet your ass I did – I wasn’t gonna get myself shot. Not over what was in the till, or even ten times that.”
I decided to make a contribution to the interview. “What about the goblin?” I asked Tapley. “Was he armed, as well?”
“Yeah, he had one of them knives they carry, must’ve been a foot and a half long. But I was a lot more worried about the shotgun.”
“Did he say anything?” Karl asked. “The goblin, I mean.”
“Aw, he made some kind of noises. If they was supposed to be words, I couldn’t make any of ’em out.”
“Tell us what happened then,” Pryce said.
“The elf says open the register. So I do. He’s standing next to me the whole time. In fact, I thought about grabbing the shotgun, since the little bastard was so close. But then I figured if I try it and miss, they end up cleaning my guts off the walls. Fuck that.”
“Good decision,” I said.
“Yeah, whatever. So, I open the register, and the elf hands me a paper bag. ‘Put the bills in here,’ he says. Then he makes me lift up the drawer, so he can get at the compartment underneath, where I stash the big bills. I don’t get a lot of big spenders in this joint, so there’s only a couple of fifties in there. He gets those, too.”
“What’s the goblin doing while all this is going down?” Karl asked him.
“He’s just standing the other side of the bar, holding that knife and shifting his weight from one foot to the other, like a kid who gotta go to the bathroom real bad.”
“Then what?” Dalton said.
“So then the elf tells me to lie on my face, with my hands over my ears. This is when I start to get real nervous, cause I figure he’s either gonna shoot me or beat my head in with my own pool cue. So as not to leave witnesses, you know?”
“But he didn’t, since you’re standing here talking to us,” Dalton said. “So, what did he do?”
“Well, I can’t hear nothin’, but I can feel the vibration in the floorboards that tells me they’re walkin’ around. Then, after a few seconds, I can’t feel that no more. I wait a little longer, just to be safe, then I take my hands away from my ears, and I can’t hear a thing. I get up, real slow, and sure enough, they’re gone. So I find my phone and call 911.”
“You’re supposed to call 666 when supes are involved,” I said.
“Oh, yeah,” Tapley said, “I forgot. Anyway, it worked – you guys are here, right?”
Pryce asked for descriptions of the perps but didn’t get much that was useful. The elf was short – duh – and wearing a dark-colored T-shirt. The goblin looked like a goblin. He was green and furry.
The guys from Robbery were making arrangements to have Tapley come over to police headquarters later and look at mug books when Karl and I decided we’d learned as much as we were likely to, and left.
Outside, Karl shook his head. “Elves and goblins working together. Jeez.”
“Only one of each, so far,” I said. “But you’re right, it could be the start of a trend that’s gonna catch on big-time unless we do something about it.”
We got into the car, and as I started up, Karl said, “And what exactly did you have in mind to do, oh wise man?”
“The crimes are caused by addiction to Slide, right? Slide is being pushed by members of the Delatasso family. Stop them, we stop the drug from circulating. Eliminate the drug, and we get rid of the crime.”
“So we’re gonna do Calabrese’s dirty work for him?” Karl didn’t sound too happy about it.
“No, we’re doing the City of Scranton’s work. It just happens that Calabrese’s goals and the city’s goals converge this time.”
We’d gone a couple of blocks when Karl said, “Remember that rule you told me about once, ‘Locken’s First Law’?”
“‘You can do everything right and still lose,’” I quoted. “Yeah, so?”
“So, let’s say we succeed beyond our wildest dreams. We drive the Delatassos out of Scranton for good, and the supply of Slide dries up to nothing. Then what’ve we got?”
“Peace and quiet?” I said.
“No, just a different kind of noise. What do you think’s gonna happen when all these addicted supes can’t get a fix, no matter how much money they steal to pay for it?”
“They all go into rehab?” I knew that wasn’t what he meant.