“The who?” Sailor demanded of Ace.
“The Chaim Rabinowicz clan.”
“The who?”
“They’re some Chasidic family.”
She racked her brain for any memory of Chasidim coming around her father’s offices, or even hearing them mentioned except when he complained that they smelled bad. “Spell it.”
“I can’t, Sailor. I’m told your dad did them wrong.”
“And the rabbi said they’re the cause of the trouble?”
“No, he didn’t. Goose explained to me that under Jewish law, you can’t inform on another Jew. He said there’s bad energy, whatever that means, and you need to fix it.”
Bad energy? So that was a euphemism for them having revenge on their minds. “By doing what? Giving them money?”
“I don’t know. This isn’t my neighborhood. But if this family is like the gang families I used to deal with, then honor is important, and saying you’re sorry and you were wrong should mean something.”
Did Ace suspect she was at fault? “So now I have to take the blame for what my dad did? Fuck that. He’s to blame. I’m not. I paid off his debts best as I could. I wasn’t part of his business.” She was saying way too much; years of unresolved frustration burst out of her mouth and flowed into his ears. “I was only his daughter on a birth certificate and when I needed someone to pay for my shit. I’m not, repeat, not getting tarred with his brush.”
“Well, the rabbi is sending some muscle here to help protect the bar. I figure if the Rabinowicz family are sending troublemakers, they’ll see the muscle and back off. But you have to pay them.”
“I’m paying off a couple of Chasids to just stand in the bar looking tough? How much am I paying them?”
“Up to you and them. I’d start by offering minimum wage.”
Well, that was better than she expected. “And suppose these people I’m supposed to beg for forgiveness are not behind the troubles in the bar? Basically, I pay off a couple of the rabbi’s thugs to stand around with their arms folded, and what do I get out of it?”
Ace shrugged. “You eliminate suspects.”
“Fuck it. No.”
Ace leaned in to look at her eyes. “I’m a consultant, and you don’t have to listen to me. But my advice goes like this: your business doesn’t end at your door. Your bar is part of the Williamsburg neighborhood, and you need friends in the neighborhood. They need to know you’re the kind of person they can work with.”
“And that means paying a bunch of shitheads in black coats to just stand there?”
“Maybe they’re nice guys. Maybe they can get up on Karaoke night and sing ‘I Will Survive.’ I don’t know, Sailor. I do know this, though. Goose stuck his neck out to help me with this, and now his rep and mine are on the line. So if you don’t at least try this plan, we’ll lose face and not be able to help the next time.”
#Bullshit.
#GoodLookingDoesn’tMeanSmart
#Bullshit
****
Ace's phone rang at about 9 PM. After a brief conversation, he told Sailor, "Two guys called Dov and Mendel are on their way over. I hope you'll be nice to them."
Sailor had calmed down and reconciled herself to the inevitability of this thing happening, at least for the moment. She HAD hired Ace, and he WAS smarter about that stuff than she was, and she DID want to be on good terms with him.
It was more than being on good terms that she wanted, Sailor realized. She wanted to take care of him. And she wanted him naked.
Moments after the call, a disturbance began between two patrons. Both were tall men in the uniforms of a private sanitation company, one bearded, the other wearing a backwards baseball cap.
"Motherfucker!"
"No, you're a motherfucker, motherfucker!"
#WittyBanter #BothMotherfuckers
Sailor looked around for her bouncers. Axl was off for the night. Jack was on break, probably around buying his nightly chocolate milk at the bodega. Jill was in the bathroom.
Crap.
A barstool rolled across the floor.
"Motherfucker!"
A swing and a miss. She scanned the room - Ace was moving toward the pugilists. It wouldn't be a lengthy brawl with Mr. Montgomery at hand.
Sailor grabbed the bar phone and tapped nine-one-one. She had to turn away from the struggle and cup the phone close to her ear in order to hear.
"Nine one one operator, state the nature of your emergency."
"Yeah, there's a fight at my bar. The Hole."
"Look out!" Pippi shouted.
A violent crash directly behind her. More bar stools rolling across the floor. Ace was on top of the bearded man, had his arm pinned in a hammerlock. The intensity in his eyes, in his face, in the tautness of his muscles, startled her. Was he going to break the guy’s arm?
The man in the cap, holding a jaggedly broken beer bottle, thrust it directly down at Ace.
"No!" Sailor shouted.
Ace cried out and grabbed his back. Sailor threw herself at the man in the cap and knocked him off-balance. He didn't shift far, though; he was probably twice her weight. He didn't even drop his bottle.
"Bad idea," the big man said. "I was just gonna cut up your bouncer before. Now I'll cut your pretty face."
Sailor froze. She was in good shape but had no real fighting skills. She’d only taken kick-boxing classes for exercise.
A dark shape moved between them. She saw a huge man in a black coat and broad-brimmed hat. He moved directly at the drunk and threw a single punch. Another man, similarly dressed but smaller, came from the side holding a stool and swatted the hand holding the bottle.
Ace was getting to his feet, still holding his back. He kept his lips tight, but it was obvious he was in pain.
The two Chasidim dragged the man in the cap outside. The bearded man stayed put on the floor.
The sounds of a beating came through the door.
Jill emerged from the bathroom and looked around.
“Take some pictures of the mess,” Ace said, leaning his weight on the bar as he held his back. He looked at some patrons by the door. “Hey, sorry, guys. We’d appreciate anyone who’ll stay to be witnesses, or leave us your card so NYPD can call on you later.”
“A free beer if you do,” Sailor said. “Whatever we have on tap, Pippi.”
Pippi nodded understanding.
“Oh, dude,” said Jill to Ace. “You’re bleeding like crazy.”
“I’ve had worse,” Ace said.
Sailor’s gut went all butterflies. She’d never seen anyone bleed so much or so red. “No, he’s right.” Sailor took his arm. “Come in the back. Let me try to stop the bleeding. Gabby, wrap some ice in a clean bar towel and bring it back to my office.”
“I’m fine. I’ll take care of it,” Ace said through gritted teeth.
She led Ace back to the office. “You can’t see that wound to take care of it properly. Let me look and if it’s not too bad, I can clean and bandage it. Take off your shirt.”
“Naw, I can shake it off. Just got to put pressure on it.”
“Shut up. Take off your shirt and sit on the corner of the desk.” #OMGSoMuchBlood #KeepItTogetherGirl
Ace shrugged, winced a little. Still in pain. Pippi arrived with the makeshift ice pack as Sailor was opening the first aid kit. She’d just bought a new one, fortunately; the old ones kept getting used up.
The wound was very bloody. She pressed the ice pack on it. Ace was obviously familiar with what to do next; he reached back to hold the pack in place while Sailor washed her hands in the office sink. Next, she cleaned the wound with alcohol. It had to sting, but Ace didn’t make a sound, just looked at the framed picture on the wall and kept his lips pressed together. That was the framed picture Sailor’s dad had told her to live by. She hated him, but she kept it as the only thing, other than money, that he had left for her. “Every man builds the world in his own image. He has the power to choose, but…”
Sailor felt that she was about to use that power to choose, and that she might use it wrong.
She dabbed the wound with a gauze pad, threw the pad away and applied another. Ace, still weighing the used ice pack in his hand, finally set it on the desk; the bar towel was bright red. Still he said nothing. Sailor applied some surgical tape to hold on the gauze.
“It needs a few stitches,” she said. “I’ll take you to the emergency room.”
“It can wait till closing,” said Ace.
There he was, still with his shirt off, and it was something like she had been imagining – his bare chest and back had many white lines of varying lengths. She made the choice; she traced her finger across one of them on his shoulder blade.
“What was that?” he asked.
“There was some blood on there,” she lied.
“No, I don’t think he got me anywhere else.” He looked at his shirt, which was on the chair and was sopping with blood.
“All these scars – they must hurt you.”
“Not so much. Feels a little tight, texture’s a little funny to run your hand over it. But you know what hurts?” He clammed up, looked away.
“You can tell me.” Sailor left her hand on his chest. She knew it was wrong, but she did it. The choice was made; she was no longer resisting and building this relationship toward the closeness she had been imagining. She wanted to feel him, to ease his pain, to make him feel safe as he had never felt before. She moved in to hold him around the waist. “You were brave.”
“I almost wasn’t,” he said. “Brave isn’t really anything. It’s just doing what you have to do without thinking about it. But I almost didn’t do that. Shit. I almost let you down, Sailor.”
“But you saved me.”
“I froze. I saw the bottle, and I got a flashback from being stabbed. I felt the knife going in and coming out, first the light touch and then the pain. The goddamned tweaker had a serrated knife, a fish-boning knife. You must have seen those. He made this little a-ha sound, every stab…” She felt his breathing speed up. “Damn, I lost myself. You almost got hurt.”
“I’m okay. I’m worried about you.”
He folded his arms around her shoulders. It felt good.
“No, don’t be. Worrying is my job.” Then, lifting away his right hand, he traced the remaining line of her mostly faded black eye. “You have some scars, too.”
Sailor realized that they were in her office and the police were on their way and two Chasidic guys she didn’t know had beaten the crap out of a sanitation worker and that if no one came in the door she was going to have her way with this man.
Ace’s face was close to hers, his lips almost against that spot below her eye.
“I shouldn’t,” he said.
“Do it.”
He kissed her there, once, twice, then moved down to her lips. One quick kiss.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re my boss.”
“I don’t care,” Sailor said.
He pulled her to him, his arms around her, and they planted kisses on each other. His body felt so right, so perfect that she felt her own tension melting away. She could feel the wet gauze pad under her arms where they encircled his waist. His hands cupped her shoulder blades and drew her closer. Those hands were so strong and yet touched her so gently; the skin to skin contact thrilled her. He broke the kiss, and his breath on her ear made her jaw tremble. “We all have scars,” he whispered. “It doesn’t matter.”
Someone banged on the door. “Sailor!” Pippi shouted. “Cops are here.”
“Shit,” Ace said, and let go. “Oh, man. Yeah. I should put my shirt on.”
They went out together. Three policemen and one woman were in the barroom, two talking to Jill and some witnesses, two taking care of the handcuffed men. The two Chasidim were standing by, arms folded. Ace went to the police. Sailor went to the two men.
“Mendel and Dov?” she asked them.
“Dov,” said the bigger one, “and Mendel,” gesturing at the smaller one.
“Thanks, guys. I need to talk to Chaim Rabinowicz, right?”
They shrugged.
“Not our thing,” said Dov.
“Twenty-five a night good for you guys? Each?”
“It’s a mitzvah,” Mendel said. “Just don’t tell the rebbe if I smoke a few cigarettes.”
****
That night, by repeating over and over in her mind #NoBootyCall #HeWorksForYou, Sailor managed not to call Ace to come to her apartment. He was badly cut and needed to rest anyway. But she knew that moment could not be undone. Her choice had been made. It might be his choice, too.
The time was wrong. The business was in crisis; they were both in daily danger. When his job was done, maybe there would be something before he returned to Kentucky.
****
The next morning, Sailor was greeted upon her arrival at The Hole by a bike messenger in rainbow-colored spandex shorts. Without taking off his helmet, he handed her three envelopes. "Sign," he said, holding a clipboard and a pen. "There, and there, and there."
"What's this about?" she asked.
"You're being served," said the messenger.
"Want a drink?"
"No, I'm working," said the messenger.
"Want a coke?"
"You're on."
Sailor unlocked the bar; none of her employees were due in for two hours or so, but she had paperwork and inventory to do.
Inside, she gave the messenger a glass of Coca-Cola. He took it in a few swigs, thanked her, and left. She set the envelopes down on the bar, wasn't ready to face them yet. She had to reach out to this Chaim Rabinowicz family, but how could she do that? She texted Ace.
Sailor: Come in when you can a bunch of bullshit here
A while till the reply.
Ace: Just coming in to work Sailor
Sailor: Yeah we need to work.
Ace: About that other thing
Sailor: We'll talk in person
Ace: Yeah good idea
The roar of his motorcycle announced his arrival about twenty minutes later. He was neatly dressed. Sailor noticed the bulge of his dressing under the back of his shirt.
"How you feeling?"
"I can shrug it off," he said. "But, Sailor, I froze yesterday. I feel shitty about that."
"I wasn't hurt. You did great."
"It doesn't matter. I wasn't sharp. I want to be as advertised. I need to protect you. I'm not a coward, Sailor. PTSD is not the same as being a coward."
"I know that! And you must know I wasn't mad, considering…"
"Yeah. Considering."
Sailor served him an ice water, as he preferred, and took a Diet Coke for herself. She should have made her choice clear. "About that. Don't regret it."
"It was unprofessional," he said.
"It was unprofessional of both of us, but that doesn’t mean it was wrong."
"It won't happen again," Ace said.
"Don't promise that. I mean, unless you aren't attracted to me."
"I am. Very attracted to you. But…"
"But you think it’s a problem because you work for me. Or… you think it’s a problem because you can’t trust me?”
They stared at each other.
“I trust you. Of course I do.”
More staring.
“I don’t regret it. It wasn’t a mistake.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s get the work done, and then …”
He nodded, stiffened a little. “Yeah.”
"Okay, I'm going to open these." Sailor took the envelopes off the bar. She read fragments of them. Her stomach sunk. "Negligence. Personal injury. Who are these people?"
She handed the papers to Ace.
"All the same law firm," he said. "Let's read the accounts." He scanned them. "Okay, this is the guy Jack and Jill threw out whose date said he roofied her drink. And this is the girl dancing on the table, the one who fell, and I caught her. And this is somebody who said she was cursed out when a drink got spilled on a cashmere sweater. I wasn't here for that, right?"
"No, it was a few days before you got here. Axl was there to not handle it. Should I take these seriously?"
"I'm not a lawyer, but they look like petty shit to me. But it will cost you money to get them dismissed, and if they go to the papers or the TV, there's more trouble you don't need. Just call your lawyer. My guess is he says fax them over."
Ace set the papers down on the bar. Then he scratched his head and picked them up again. He lifted one. "This one. I have an instinct it's more important. Let me get a copy of this one."
Sailor nodded. She had recently fired her father's lawyer, Avram Rosenzweig, who charged five hundred dollars an hour, and hired a woman in the neighborhood, Damaris Camacho, whom she had met at yoga class.
"How do I get in touch with Chaim Rabinowicz?" she asked Ace. "It's not like there's a Chasidic phone book or something."
"Okay, I'll work on that. Goose will take me back to Shloimy's and we'll talk to the mosgiach."
"To where? To the what?"
"I got it, Sailor."
"Okay, thanks."
She came out from behind the bar, meaning to head to her office and call Damaris. "Come back for lunch? My treat."
"Sure. You want me to bring some rugelach?"
"Oh. Wow. I haven't had rugelach in years. Sure."
****
Ace didn't make it back for lunch. Waiting for him, Sailor got distracted with paperwork and forgot to eat. Damaris was out of the office but had told her to fax over the papers.
Jack came in early, told Sailor he was thankful for what he had learned, and he was going to work for a higher-paying gentleman's club in Newark. He said he could do his shift that night if she wanted.
"No, just hang on." She paid him for a few days' work in petty cash, and he shook her hand and left.
Pieter arrived early for his set, dumped his gear, and went out to lunch. Ugly Ike, who had been away for a few weeks, probably locked up, made an entrance, unsteady on his feet. He went to the jukebox and put on his usual song, "Cowboys from Hell" by Pantera. He whooped and yelled, "I like me some malt liquor, boys!" Sailor signaled to Axl to deal with him. Axl slid his phone into his pocket but had only taken a few steps toward Ike when Ike did a little shimmy and threw up gluey white stuff on Pieter's amp.
#FuckThis
Axl took a firm grip of Ugly Ike's arm and steered him toward the door. Sailor met them there. "Ike, you're banned from the bar."
"It's a free country," he answered, vomit on his chin.
"You came in here drunk. That's all I need to ban you from here. If I see you again, I'll get you hauled in for disturbing the peace."
"I have friends," he said.
"Me, too," Sailor said.
"Who are your friends, bitch?" Ike snarled.
"I know the moshgiach."
Ike gave another heave and deposited a dose of upchuck, mostly on the floor, but also on the collar of her cream Juan Carlos Abando top. #OhWellItWasLastYear's
“That’s enough,” Axl said, and ushered Ike none-too-gently out the door.
Sailor retreated to her office to get a spare top. She opened the locker and realized she had forgotten to pick up her dry cleaning, so she had no spares. “Damn it!”
Groaning, she wet a paper towel with water from her Evian bottle and wiped it off the best she could. It was still too obvious. So she dug around in the closet, found a scarf and tied it around her neck to cover the puke stain on the blouse.
The jukebox began to stutter and skip.
Axl came back from ejecting Ike and collected a wet bar towel to dab at the vomit spots on his button-front shirt.
"Get a mop," Sailor told Axl, and pointed at the mess on the floor.
Sounds of the motorcycle outside.
There was Ace, finally. Pieter the musician came in behind him and went to set up his equipment.
"Oh, so now you show up," she exploded at Ace. "I was waiting for you for lunch, so I didn't eat."
"You should have eaten," he said, and shrugged. "You have to take care of yourself, Sailor."
The jukebox stopped, then started again, not where the song had left off.
"And Jack quit, and you weren't here to talk him out of it."
"Damn," said Ace.
"My amp," said Pieter. "What is this mess?"
"I might as well close this place down if I don't get your help, Ace," Sailor continued. "I'm counting on your support."
"You have my support," he said. "I was out getting you some information."
"Later. I just can't take any more right now."
"Okay, later."
Sailor thought she was done, but more anger surged up in her, and she realized she wasn't. "Couldn't you have fucking called me?"
"Yeah, I could have. Sorry, I can be a little too focused when I'm investigating."
"I might as well close the fucking place down!"
"What is this shit on my amp?" Pieter protested. "Sailor, I was only gone twenty minutes."
"It only took Ike sixty seconds to puke there, okay? God, Pieter, get off my back already! Or take your mellow bullshit music and your fake accent back to Amsterdam and play for the whores, okay?"
The jukebox flat-out stopped working.
"Oh my God, Sailor," said Pieter. "You are too stressed out."
To Sailor's relief, Gabby came around the bar with a rag to help clean the amp. Axl was mopping, but not very efficiently.
"Many of them are good women," Pieter argued, "trying to find opportunity in a new land. They come from all over the world, you know, from Ukraine, from Africa?"
"Yeah," Gabby said.
"We'll get through it, Sailor," Ace said, and moved over to fix the jukebox.
Sailor retreated to her office again, pounded on the desk with both fists. She checked her phone and found a voice-mail from Damaris Camacho saying it might be cheaper to offer small sums of go-away money to the plaintiffs, cheaper but not good in the long-term since that might encourage more nuisance lawsuits, and anyway she had put the court dates on her calendar and they could talk again in a week when she got back from her sister's wedding in Puerto Rico.
#Shyster
A little while later, Gabby came through the open door. "Sailor," she piped.
"Yeah, what's up?"
Sailor studied the waitress, her slightly slumped stance, the slight shake in her shoulders, the downturned eyes. "C'mere, what?" She beckoned.
Gabby came around the desk and stood by her, clearly wanting comforting.
"What is it? Something's bothering you."
Gabby fell into her arms, sobbing, head on her shoulder.
#AbandoBlousesAreMadeForTearsAndPuke
"It's okay, tell me." Sailor tried to hug her, wasn't sure at first if she should, but finally got a firm grip.
"My uncle." Gabby wept. "It's just… I was going to go to college with that money, and it's all gone. I mean, that's okay, but…"
Sailor had never experienced such fierce crying. When the news of her parents' death in the plane crash had come, all she had done was leak a little from the corners of her eyes and then say, in a quiet voice, "Good riddance."
"He… He needs a home nurse for about a month. He gets out of the hospital, but he needs… and I just don't have …"
"Oh, no," Sailor said. "That's terrible."
"I'm sorry," Gabby said. "I shouldn't bother you. I know you have a lot of problems here. You get that, right? If it wasn't for Uncle Mitch, I mean, I don’t know. I might’ve died. He kept me off drugs so I could finish school. He was a great role model for me. This guy was like stalking me, and he…" She dissolved into tears. "There's just no way I can pay for the… I'm sorry, Sailor. I shouldn't, I know."
Gabby broke free of Sailor's hug and stood by the side of the desk. "I’ll have to figure out a way to deal with it. It's not your thing, I know."
"He was like your dad, right?" Sailor said.
"Yeah, when my dad died, and my mom was dead even before that, he was there and he stepped in and treated me like his daughter, you know?"
"Well, I'll tell you something," Sailor said. "I don't usually tell my staff personal details, but I really want to help you. You see, I'm an orphan too."
"Wow, really?"
"Yeah, I am. And even when my mom and dad were alive, they weren't exactly loving. And they never said they were proud of me, except sometimes saying I had good genetics. And I don't have anyone like your Uncle Mitch. You know, my teachers were just about the only role models, and they didn't really care that much either."
Gabby sniffed. "Oh my God, Sailor. Okay, I understand what you mean. You had it tough, and I need to understand, like, that sometimes things are tough." She started to turn. "Well, thanks for listening anyway."
"No. That's not what I meant. Shit! I'm sorry, Gabby. I'm still trying to learn people skills. I can't hint, so I'll just say it. I missed having someone in my life who was looking out for me, right? So I don't want you to lose someone like that in yours. How much do you need?"
"No, Sailor, I didn't mean it like that."
Sailor opened her safe and took out her personal checkbook. "A month's care, how much?"
"It's about three thousand dollars. No one can…"
Sailor wrote her a check. "Three thousand five hundred."
"I can't take it."
"Take it or you're fired." Sailor extended her hand with the check. "Tell Ace I said he should walk you to your bank branch."
Gabby finally took the check and tucked it into her fanny pack. She looked at Sailor, then began bawling.
"No one… no one ever … this is so generous."
"No, it isn't. You owe me interest. When you can, pay me back three thousand five hundred and five, okay?"
Gabby smiled through her tears. "Okay."
Sailor sat back in her office chair, heaving a sigh. Her arm brushed across something soft. She looked at the armrest. One of her cashmere sweaters was draped across it. It was last season's style, but at least now she could remove the puke and tear-stained blouse. Who the hell cared about style around here anyway?