Off the Road - 24

a jazz novel on a typewriter

4

Dean kept a little green note-book which he puts next to thoughts for things like plots to folks he has not written. He starts the last biscuit, which lies in shreds, on the plate as we leave for the Café Integral’s front doors and I was thinking that this could be mine bought that is the way the biscuit uncrumbles. We went up to Hotel Rosslyn because we needed to out of the stained close and in to a warm martini as the saying goes. Once up in our flat Dean questioned whether I was up for the task, but I affirmed that there was no case of ennui in my bones. He looked around his bag and a Rusty stiletto which he had picked up in one ghetto or another for the price of a stretto. I called bloated from all of the expresso and tea, but I scoffed at the idea that I should do anything until an attack of the bathroomitis struck. It was a strange overpowering feeling like an amoureuse. “Doo, do-doo, do-doo, do-do-doo.” It was a bludgeon in the gut from a land in Gomorrah.

 So down we went and we shouldn’t use the car but did so anyway with a gentle keystroke and a pinion on the gas. The wheel out of the basement garage and I looked both ways barely managing to avoid a truck that was barreling down through in through the out lane.

 Then I almost shrieked, though it did not go outside the car, “That truck driver has his brain to arrange from the use of cocaine.” And suddenly a thrill came up through my esophagus because there was still the befoulment of the line that I had done. Perhaps drinking eau de cologne would fix it but I doubted that. It was a pest that would not clock out except minding my stomach with gin. But I got my bearings and we drew around twice just to make sure we saw signs for commercial space for lease. I noticed that one had not even denuded their mannequins. Miles would make some improvisation off of that I am sure.

 And then my iPhone buzzed like a wasp left behind from the last chapter. I handed it to Dean and told him to see what it was because I had no friends or companions who wanted to contact me at all. Dean, with an act of volition in part to stay out of perdition typed the code that I had him with an act of contrition. It was from the same number as for and told us to start looking at a dive called TUH, and then it gave an address far out but still within Los Angeles but barely. So flat on the highway and then turned up the crag of the mountain towards the TUH. The The were finally managing to strike TUH like a gramophone in a pair of white sneakers.

We ducked through the screened door as if it were a fruit and vegetable stand and had to get used to the very dim light that was thrown over the mahogany tables and pine chairs. There were at least a dozen people with one man behind the bar who looked at us as if to say that “we don’t serve their kind in here” meaning droids of course.

 But finally, he did speak: “You don’t look like you come from around here, that means see some ID.”

This was no problem because I always had my driver’s license in my pocket because once I had been caught without any form of license other than one for fishing. Dean took a moment looking first through his gene pockets and then through the Oxford cloth shirt. For a moment I was worried that he did not have any form of ID at all but then he remembered that he was wearing a belt with a pocket in it and produced a driver’s license out of that. I’d never actually seen any proof that Dean knew how to drive a car so it surprised me as well.

The bartender took both of these looked at them saw that they both were from Massachusetts. He then looked at each picture and matched our faces to them, which clearly meant he had seen false IDs before and was making doubly and Tripoli checked. But who what it come up here? Then I realized that it was probably something akin to the mob and was checking that he served martinis to the right kind of people.

“So what brings you here?”

I was to plastered to respond but Dean had iced tea in his things and replied with an even gesture: “We are looking for some who cars and were told that you might know something about them.”

The bartender stood quite and then and only then did I notice that he only had one leg with the other leg propped up against the bar. It seemed to stare back at me with a glowering tilt.

The bartender then said: “I may or may not know about some hookars, who is asking?”

“We were dispatched by a young lady in a blue dress named Alice who claims she is the rightful owner.”

“I would not know. And if I did tell you it will cost you something.”

“Is it money you want or will you take supplies?”

“What sort of supplies would you be offering.”

 Going over to the bartender he reduced some of the white rock and even in the dim light the rocks scintillated and sparkled. But the bartender asked him to open up a bag and then the bartender took out an eyepiece and examined one of the white stones. Apparently, he was pleased and he put back the eyepiece and raised four fingers. Normally I would have expected Dean to bargain with him but he took out another three then bashed them into the bartender’s grimy glove and moved his ear to listen so that no one else could hear.

The bartender whispered and Dean understood and noded quite clearly and in a moment we were back in the car driving north towards the Camino.