Memory Man

Dark, cool, musty, smoky, where light fell funny and everyone looked like someone you knew or wanted to know. Or, more likely, wanted to forget. Where everyone was your friend until he was your enemy and cracked a pool stick over your skull. Where things were quiet until they weren’t. Where you could drink away anything that life threw at you. Where a thousand Billy Joel wannabes would serenade you into the wee hours.

Only I could drink a thousand drinks and never forget a damn thing. I would just remember every detail of the thousand drinks down to the shapes of the ice cubes.

Decker took a seat at the bar where he could see himself in the reflection of the big mirror behind the stacked rows of Beam and Beef, Glen and Sapphire.

He ordered a dollar draft, clutched the mug between his hammy hands, and studied the mirror. Back corner and to the right. They had sat down there, the couple he’d followed into the place.

The gent was late fortyish, the girl half that. The man was dressed in the best he had. A pinstripe wool three-piece, yellow tie dotted with blue flecks in the shape of what looked to be sperms on their way to fertilize an egg, and a dandy pocket handkerchief to match. Hair swept back revealed a lined, mature brow — attractive on a man, less so on a woman, but then life had always been unfair that way. Impressive diamond rings on the manicured fingers. Probably stolen. Or fakes. Like he was. His toenails were probably clipped too. His shoes were polished, but he’d missed the backs. They were scuffed, which came much closer to the man’s actual nature. He was scuffed too. And he only wanted to impress on the way in, not on the way out. After the way out, you’d never see the prick again.

She was doe-eyed and dough-brained. Pretty in a vacuous, seen-it-a-thousand-times sort of way. Like watching a 3-D movie without the requisite glasses; something was just off. The lady was so blindly faithful and oblivious that part of you just wanted to walk away and leave her to her fate.

But Decker was being paid not to do that. In fact, he was being paid to do the opposite.

She was dressed in a skirt and jacket and blouse that probably cost more than Decker’s car. Or the car he’d once had. The bank had gotten that too, as banks often did.

She came from old money. She was so used to the privileged life that was attached to such status that it made her incapable of understanding why someone would work so hard to snatch from her things she simply took for granted. That made her a potential victim every minute of every day of her life.

Such was the current moment: the shark and the dummy. Decker saw him as a six, a dirty number in his mind. She was a four, innocuous and uninteresting.

They touched hands and then lips. They shared drinks — he a whiskey sour, she a pink martini.

Figured.

Decker nursed his beer and bided his time. He looked at them without seeming to. In addition to the number tag, to him she was outlined in orange, the guy in purple, the same color he associated with zero, an unwelcome digit. So the guy really represented two numbers to him — six and zero. It seemed complicated, he knew, but he had no difficulty keeping it straight because it was just there in his head as clear as an image in a mirror.

And it wasn’t that he saw them exactly in those colors. It was the perception of those colors. That was the best and only way he could explain the sensation. It wasn’t like they taught a class on this. And he had come to it relatively late in the game. He was just doing the best he could. After all, he thought he’d left the world of Crayola back in kindergarten.

They continued with their lovey-dovey, hand-holding, foot-rubbing, heavy-petting afternoon fun and games. She obviously wanted more. He was unwilling to give it, because you teased a mark. Rushing could only mean bad things. And this guy was good. Not the best Decker had seen, but serviceable. He probably made a decent living.

For a purple zero.

Decker knew the guy was waiting to make an ask. A loan for a business prospect that couldn’t miss. Some tragedy in his extended family that needed financial remedy. He wouldn’t want to do it. Hated himself for it. But this was his last resort. She was his last chance. And he didn’t expect her to understand. Or say yes. The debate framed that way, what other answer could she give? Except, “Yes, my darling. Take double. Triple even. Daddy will never miss it. It’s only money, after all. His money.”

An hour and two more pink martinis later, she left him there. Her parting kiss was tender and moving, and he reacted in just the right way, until she turned away and his expression changed. From one of reciprocal tenderness and love to one of triumph and some might even say cruelty. At least that’s what Decker would say.