Read Get Real for Free Online Page A

legged it to the elevator.

9
    W HEN D ORTMUNDER WALKED into the OJ Bar & Grill on Amsterdam Avenue that Wednesday night at ten, the big low-ceilinged square room was underutilized.
     The booths along both sides and the tables in the middle were all empty. At the bar, along the rear of the room, Rollo the
     meaty bartender, off to the right, was slowly carving tomorrow’s specials onto a black blackboard with a stub of white chalk,
     a gray rag in his other hand. The regulars, as usual, were clustered along the left side of the bar.
    It being April, the regulars were discussing taxes. “I might declare my bowling ball as an expense,” one said.
    The guy to his right reared back. “Your
bow
ling ball!”
    “We wager certain amounts,” the first regular explained. “Only then I’d have to declare how much I won, and then pay tax on
that.
I asked the guy at the drugstore, which way do I come out ahead, he said he’d get back to me on that.”
    As Dortmunder angled toward Rollo, he saw that the barman was groping in the direction of “lasagna,” but hadn’t quite reached
     it yet. Seeing Dortmunder, he nodded and said, “Long time no see.”
    “I been semiretired,” Dortmunder told him. “Not on purpose.”
    “That can be a drag.” Rollo pointed his jaw at the black-board. “Whadaya think?”
    Dortmunder looked: LUHZANYA . “I don’t know about that H,” he said.
    Rollo considered the entire word. “At least I’m sure of the L,” he said, as Andy Kelp joined Dortmunder and said, “How you
     doin? It isn’t a Z.”
    Dortmunder turned to him. “What isn’t a zee?”
    Kelp pointed. “That thing there. It’s an S.”
    Rollo went akimbo, chalk staining the seam of his apron as he brooded at the blackboard. “It sounds like a Z,” he decided.
    “Yeah,” Kelp acknowledged, “but you gotta remember, it’s a foreign tongue.”
    “Oh, lasagna,” Dortmunder said, catching up. “I think you’re right. I don’t think those languages even have a Z. Except the
     English do.”
    “And the Polish,” Kelp said. “What
they
don’t have is vowels. And Rollo, what I don’t have is a drink.”
    Rollo at once put down rag and chalk. “You two,” he said, “are bourbon on the rocks.” Reaching for ice and glasses, he said,
     “Who else we got tonight?”
    Understanding that Rollo preferred to know his customers by their drink preferences, as being conducive to good customer relations,
     Dortmunder said, “Well, we got the beer and the salt, and the vodka and red wine, and I don’t know what the kid drinks.”
    “He hasn’t settled down yet,” Rollo said. “He’s still making up his mind.” And he pushed forward toward them a round metal
     bar tray on which appeared RHEINGOLD WORLD’S FAIR 1939, atop which now stood two glasses containing ice cubes, a white plastic bowl with more ice cubes, and a bottle labeled
Amsterdam Liquor Store Bourbon—”Our Own Brand.”
“I’ll send them back,” he said.
    Picking up the tray, Kelp said, “Good luck with the menu.”
    “I’ll need it.” Rollo frowned at the blackboard. “Anyway,” he said, “I know there’s got to be a Y in there somewhere.”
    Dortmunder followed Kelp as he carried the tray down along the bar past the regulars, where the third was now saying, “The
     idea of the flat tax is, you just pay the same as one month’s rent.”
    Rounding the turn at the regulars, Dortmunder and Kelp trooped down the dim-lit hall, past the doors marked POINTERS and SETTERS over black dog silhouettes, and past the crammed-full narrow storage space for boxes of deposit bottles that had been a phone
     booth before the communications revolution and a certain amount of vandalism. At the end, while Kelp waited, Dortmunder pushed
     open a door on the right to reach in and switch on the light. Then they both entered.
    This was a small square room with a concrete floor. Beer and liquor cartons were stacked ceiling-high against all the walls,
     leaving an