After we rang off I went into the bathroom and looked at my face in the mirror. I do this every time I have a date. I also do it when I shave. The two events sometimes coincide.
I stared at the mirror trying to remember the last time I had been on an “official” date. But I knew this wasn’t an “official” date. It was more of a “virtual” date. It was still a date though, because Melanie had said as much. When it comes to splitting hairs I’m the demon barber of Fleet Street. As I said, I try to forget everything that ever happened to me during my life so I had trouble conjuring up my last official date. Unfortunately my 17 percent success rate included all my dates. I did remember a number of dates that I had in the army, mostly in the towns that were off-limits, but they weren’t “official” dates, take my word for it.
I once dated a girl named Mary Margaret Flaherty, but that was long ago and in another town: Wichita. I once asked her to marry me but she turned me down. I do remember that. It’s the main reason I live in Denver. After she said no, I fled Wichita and traveled around the country for a few years trying to “find” myself. I found myself in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Los Angeles, St. Louis, and Philadelphia again because I fell asleep on the bus. I passed through Seattle once but didn’t stick around. I have never been to San Luis Obispo, and how many writers can say that? I know of one lucky bastard who can’t.
It took me a long time to recover from Mary Margaret’s refusal to marry me, though. I got over it when I went back to Wichita at Christmas and my brother Gavin gave me a word processor. I don’t really understand the connection between my PC and Mary Margaret, but I have never questioned it. All I can say is, thank God for Bill Gates. If he hadn’t parlayed DOS I would still be moping around.
I gave up on my face and went into the bedroom, opened my closet and looked at my taxi uniforms. I own multiples of everything. Not everything in the world, just in the taxi game. T-shirts, jeans, underwear, socks. That’s everything. But I knew it was time to break down and do what I never had any reason to do before, which was to buy some decent clothes. The waiters at Bombalini’s didn’t mind serving me when I came in dressed like myself, but I think a lot of that had to do with my ponytail. The owner of the Italian restaurant is also my barber. His name is Gino Bombalini.
Every month I go to Gino’s Barbershop for a free haircut. Gino is a man in his sixties, he’s from the old country, and I once did him a favor— I helped his nephew overcome a chronic gambling problem. The odds of my success were slim, but that’s Vegas for you. Ergo, Gino won’t let me pay for haircuts or spaghetti dinners. I don’t even know why I work anymore.
Suddenly the Heigger business faded from my mind. I couldn’t have cared less what all that crap with the disappearing office meant, because I had a date with a pretty woman.
I calculated that I had six hours to get ready for the date. I could have been ready in six minutes except I had to buy some clothes. It had been so long since I had been on a date that I literally had to stop and think about the things that women expected of a man on a date, and clothes was one of them.
I also remembered something about corsages. I couldn’t recall going to any proms in high school or college, but what has that got to do with my memory? Maybe the corsage flashback had to do with the job I once had delivering flowers. I got suspended from Rocky Cab after I became the main suspect in a kidnap, murder, and suicide deal that I really don’t want to go into. As you can see, I have better success remembering my murder charges than my dates. While I was waiting around to be exonerated by the boys down at DPD, I delivered flowers for a living. I might have delivered some corsages to a few boys who got roped into wearing tuxedos, unless I’m thinking of movies about teenagers who dress up like adults and go to proms where terrible things happen. Proms are bellwethers of the future.
I decided to go to Cherry Creek Shopping Center to buy some clothes, but I won’t drag you through the entire mall. When I arrived at Cherry Creek I parked as far away from the cabstand as possible and went in by a rear entrance. Taxi drivers hate to be seen “on the sidewalk” by other taxi drivers. It’s like seeing your school teacher at a grocery store when you were a kid. If I have to explain that, then you were never a kid.
I got back to my crow’s nest and unloaded my packages in the bedroom. I had bought a pair of what my Maw used to refer to as “trousers.” By this she meant “pants.” They were gray. From my perspective they were elegant yet subdued. I also bought a matching sports jacket. I almost bought a shirt that was blinding white, but for some reason a salesman stopped me from doing that. He was young and resembled George Lazenby. If you don’t know who he was, consider yourself lucky. He looked as bored as hell wandering around the department store, which was virtually empty. But I knew that he was “keeping an eye” on me. This I was used to. Water off a duck’s back. I had just draped the trousers across my left arm and was picking up the blinding white shirt when he came out of nowhere like James Bond and said, “May I help you, sir?” He had an anxious look on his face.
“I’m buying some clothes for a date,” I said.
It was only after I walked out of the store that I realized he had virtually taken over my shopping trip. He asked me to try on the “slacks” as he called them. When I came out of the dressing room he folded his arms and started chewing on a thumbnail. Then he hurried over to a clothing rack and began picking out various shirts. He held them up to my chest like I was a mannequin. He didn’t frown as deeply as dog-track security guards do, but there was a resemblance. He finally raised a pale-blue shirt and said, “This.”
That’s all he said.
Then he asked me if I intended to wear “those tennis shoes” on the date. I told him no. He asked me if I would mind telling him what I intended to wear. I thought he was getting rather familiar, but I told him I had a nice pair of brown dress shoes at home. The next thing I knew we were in the shoe department and he was holding up a pair of black shoes that were subdued yet inexpensive. I was sold.
The clerk was wiping his forehead with a handkerchief when I walked out of the store.
But here’s the funny thing. After I took all the clothes out of the sack, a pair of black socks that I hadn’t bought tumbled onto my bed. George must have accidentally stuffed them into the sack along with my shoes during the flurry at the cash register. I thought about taking them back to the store, but then I realized I did not have a receipt for the socks. What an ironic situation—it almost had the quality of a moral quandary. What was I to do? Try to return a pair of socks that I hadn’t paid for? People went to jail for trying that.
But when it came to a toss-up between moral quandary and false imprisonment, I would take guilt any day. I kept the socks.
Let’s jump ahead a few hours.
I went down the fire escape and approached my two-tone ’64 Chevy—and suddenly I didn’t want to climb in. I didn’t want to sit on the seats wearing my new slacks. It was at this point that I started thinking it was time to buy a decent car. Maybe George would help me to buy a car that matched my shirt.
Well, there was nothing I could do. My date had already started. I climbed into my Chevy, pulled out of the parking lot, headed down to Colfax Avenue and drove east toward Aurora. I arrived at Bombalini’s with fifteen minutes to spare, but Melanie was already there. I hate being both early and late simultaneously. It throws off my metabolism.
Melanie was sitting in a late-model Plymouth when I pulled into the parking lot. I had an urge to ask how long she had been there. I recognized the urge though. Or perhaps I should say, my internal Univac recognized the urge and quickly analyzed it. It had to do with a desire to know how late I had arrived. The purpose of this analysis was to ameliorate the feeling of inferiority that I experienced at not arriving ahead of her. This urge did not apply only to racing women to parking lots, it had other applications in my life that were equally meaningless. I really did need some kind of goddamn therapy. But instead of bombarding Melanie with questions about her driving habits, I smiled and waved.
She climbed out of her car and said, “Hello, Murph!”
I heard that exclamation point. It had been a long time since I had heard a woman express delight at my arrival. Long, long time.
“Hello, Melanie,” I said. “It’s nice to see you again.”
She was wearing a tight dress and carrying a small purse that matched her high-heeled shoes, but I don’t want to get into a long-winded description of clothing—you probably had your fill of that during my shopping spree. I know I did.
Instead I’ll give you a thumbnail sketch of Bombalini’s. It was a small restaurant that seated perhaps thirty people maximum. The carpeting on the floor was a deep, dark red. The walls were wood-paneling halfway to the ceiling and the rest was red velvet wallpaper that always made me think of spaghetti sauce. There were booths along one wall, and tables in the center of the room. Small, lit candles rested in red glass cups on the tables. The overhead lighting was dim. Gino Bombalini is a romantic. He wasn’t on the premises that night, but whenever I show up and he’s there, he always asks me why I “no bring a date.” So I felt a mild form of chagrin at the fact that he was not there to see me escort a pretty lady into his beanery.
Whenever I go for a haircut at his barbershop he tells me to look at the girly magazines on the table while I wait for my turn at the chair. The magazines are wrestling magazines that occasionally show pictures of women in bikinis. Gino thinks the bikinis will make me want to get married.
“Murph!” said the combination cashier/maître d’ as Melanie and I entered the restaurant. His name was Luigi. He was a nephew of Gino. “Welcome to Bombalini’s!” he chirped. Luigi was a goodlooking kid in his early twenties, but I don’t want to get into another longwinded description—let’s just say he looked like that twenty year old in The Godfather.
He started to turn his face toward Melanie, but then his head jerked back toward me. He looked my wardrobe up and down, and his face went blank. He looked up to my head, and while I cannot say with certainty, I had the feeling he wanted to double-check my facial features in order to ascertain that it was actually me wearing tasteful attire.
“It is so good to see you back, Murph my friend. And what is the name of this lovely young lady?”
He gave Melanie that quick, subtle once-over that Italian males are so adept at. I knew right away that Uncle Gino would be getting a phone call later in the evening. I tried not to have mixed feelings about this, but all of a sudden I wasn’t looking forward to my next haircut.
“Her name is Melanie,” I said. “She’s my date.”
The second statement slipped out before I could bite my tongue. I really ought to get out more often.
Luigi escorted us to an interesting booth in one corner of the restaurant. It was a table for two, and interesting because it was built at a right angle so the occupants practically sat on each other’s laps as they chowed down. A number of large potted plants more-or-less hid the table from the view of the other customers. For obvious reasons, I had never been seated there before.
I remembered to wait until Melanie was seated, then I slid into the other 90-degree seat and managed not to bang her knees with mine. The upholstery was super soft. I felt like I was seated in the first-class section of an airliner headed for Reno.
“First things first,” Melanie said. She opened her purse and reached in and pulled out two twenty-dollar bills and a ten. It took all of my willpower not to bicker with her, and I don’t have much willpower to begin with. She had pretty much used it all up.
“Thanks,” I said, automatically reaching toward my breast pocket. “You’ve got a dollar-forty coming.”
“Keep it, cabbie,” she said with a smile.
I’ll admit it. I had felt tense and uncomfortable up to that point, but after Melanie tipped me I felt like I was sitting in the front seat of #123. I was in my element. I couldn’t have been more cool, calm, and collected if I was parked in front of the Brown Palace eating a Twinkie.
Luigi brought us menus then discreetly evaporated.
I opened my menu and began perusing the dinner section. I felt like a phony. I knew I was going to order spaghetti even though I really wanted a pizza. I noted that Rice-a-Roni was not on the menu. I prayed that Melanie would not be annoyed.
“What would you like ...?” I said. I almost added “to eat” but stopped myself in time.
“I’m eating what you’re eating, Murph,” she said.
“Do you have a preference?” I said.
She closed her menu, set it on the table and looked me right in the eye. “Pepperoni pizza,” she said.
I almost died right there in the booth. Who was this woman? “Would you care for some wine?” I said.
“Thank you, but no,” she said. “I never drink and drive. And I’ll bet you don’t either, do you cabbie?”
“That is correct,” I said nonchalantly, as I closed my menu. “It is against the law to drink alcohol while driving a taxi.”
Luigi took our order. After he brought us sodas he faded into the shadows.
That was the signal for The Dreaded Small-Talk to begin.
Melanie told me that the postal test was much easier than she had expected. She said she had received a letter in the mail telling her that she had passed, which she credited to the fact that she had studied. “There are books you can buy that have samples of previous tests,” she said.
“I did not know that,” I said. Had I known it when I had taken my own postal test I still would not have bought a book. I’ll admit it. I did not really want to work for the post office. I only took the postal test for the same reason that I do everything: I exist.
“Do you enjoy driving a taxi?” she said.
By the time the pizza showed up, I had Melanie in stitches. I was telling her cab driving stories. I may have already told you a few of them. The interesting thing about my funny stories was that none of them were funny when they were happening to me. This was also true of my cab stories that weren’t funny. I felt like I was homing in on an insight into the nature of storytelling, but then Melanie asked how I happened to be out in the boondocks when I came across her stalled car.
I set my crust on the plate and looked at her.
“I was taking a man to an address west of Wadsworth,” I said. “You may have seen my cab go by on the gravel road.”
“I didn’t really notice,” she said. “My car had been stalling on me for five minutes. I was freaking out.”
“I know the feeling.”
“Where was your fare going?” she said.
I shrugged. “It was just a house about a mile beyond the spot where your car broke down. I guess it was some sort of ... office.”
A lightbulb went on inside my head. I began to wonder the same thing that Melanie was wondering. What exactly was that building where I had dropped off Weissberger? Not that its function mattered. What did matter was that I had dropped him off there. Maybe I could drive out there and see if I could track down Weissberger, and ultimately Heigger.
“Why are you frowning?” Melanie said.
I looked at her, then tried to remove the wrinkles from my face without using my hands.
I cleared my throat and said, “I was just thinking about something. I had a strange experience on Saturday.”
“If it’s anything like your other strange experiences, I want to hear it,” she said giggling.
“No, it’s nothing much, it’s just that ... on Friday I picked up that fare and took him to Broomfield, and then on Saturday I went to the place where I had picked him up but it was gone.”
“What do you mean, gone?”
“It was a lawyer’s office. But ... the office had been cleared out. The lawyer wasn’t there anymore.”
“Where did he go?”
“I have no idea. The janitor told me ...” I stopped abruptly.
“Told you what?” she said.
I raised my head and looked around the restaurant at the people who were eating real dinners. The place was packed but quiet. They were the kind of people I always think of as “clientele” rather than “customers.” I didn’t turn my head so much as my eyes. I was starting to get a funny feeling.
I cleared my throat again. “He told me that nobody was leasing the office. The lawyer must have moved out on Friday.”
“Did the janitor say where the lawyer went?” she said. I shook my head no but didn’t say anything more.
I picked up my napkin and dabbed at my lips, then said, “Would you excuse me for a moment, Melanie?”
“Certainly.”
There was no need for further explanation—I think we both knew what I was getting at.
Bombalini’s has a great men’s room. It’s down a hallway and around a corner and can accommodate only one occupant at a time. The door has a lock on it. When you use the can at Bombalini’s you feel like you’re flying first class.
I entered the room and locked the door, closed the lid on the toilet and sat down. I had to think. As I was talking to Melanie about the disappearing lawyer’s office, a thought had come to me all at once. Melanie had said that she’d received her test score in the mail even though she had told me that she’d come to Denver at seven this morning—which meant she could not have received her mail unless she had driven back to Broomfield during the day, which I had no reason to believe she had done, since she told me she was in Denver on business other than buying me dinner. I glanced at my wristwatch. It was getting toward eight p.m.
I began to suffer from what is known in the world of big business as “creeping doubt.” I had learned about that when I worked for Dyna-Plex. It has to do with business plans, but let’s move on.
As I sat there on the lid of the can, events from the past few days began swirling around inside my mind like psychedelic background colors in the opening credits of half of the Roger Corman movies produced in the 1960s. Mr. Zelner’s death, Mr. Heigger’s disappearance, Weissberger’s and Heigger’s questions about Mr. Zelner’s last words, the clicks on my AudioMaster, my stolen car, and most inexplicable of all, the fact that I was on a date.
Why would Melanie tell me she had read a letter that she could not have received?
I pictured Melanie leaning over the fender of her car out in the boondocks. And now we were in a restaurant and she was asking me questions related to Heigger.
The intensity of my funny feeling increased. Someone knocked on the door.
Startled, I stood up and flushed the toilet. I glanced around the restroom and noted that it did not have a window that a man could crawl out of if for some reason he wanted to.
I washed my hands at the sink, made a racket of yanking paper towels and drying my hands, then tossed the wadded paper into a wastebasket that had a pedal-operated lid. I braced myself and opened the door.
It was Enrico the dishwasher.
“Hey Murph!” he chirped. “That is some beautiful lady you are with tonight. Where did you meet her?”
“Broomfield,” I said, as I strode past him.