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"Only I'm in the adult entertainment
business while they're doin' children."
    Johnny Dosso frowned.
Looked mean. "I can buy and sell 'em. The whole damn lot of 'em!"
He shook his head. Was dizzy. Recovered. "Fuck 'em! They all used
to cheer me when I was quarterbackin' the team. Even if it was you
that made the scores. It was me got you the ball."
    Johnny seemed to soften
again, the liquor ruddering him one way, then the other. "I know I
didn't throw so hot. I know it was you with your fuckin' fine hands
that made me look good." John shook his head to clear it. "They
don't understand. I had ta go into the business. Didn't have a
choice.
    "My son ...." The tears were flowing
again.
    John was thinking of the
son who'd killed himself over ten years ago. Z had gone to the
funeral; big Catholic brouhaha with not a word about a hell-bound
sin like suicide. Gun accident, everybody said. Priests , as well.
    As for John's wife, also at the
burial, the two of them had been estranged for years, John's string
of hookers having a lot do with the bust-up. Like any good
salesman, John used the merchandise he peddled.
    "Well," Johnny said, wiping his hands
quickly across his eyes, brushing away the tears, "piss on 'em all.
Piss on the kids whose families pushed 'em into bein' doctors. And
fuckin' lawyers." John made an obscene gesture. "The girls at
Northtown? All bitches. All of 'em. Pretending to be virgins, so
some rich bastard'ed marry 'em. That don't make 'em nothin' but
whores. The cunts." John laughed. "Had my share of 'em in high
school. Same ones as wouldn't spit on me today."
    John had pulled himself together. Why
he'd come to the reunion at all, Z couldn't guess; maybe to remind
himself of the friends he used to have; maybe to recapture long
lost innocence.
    "Been good talking to you, Z, but I
got to go."
    Dismissed, Z tripped the catch,
pushing back the massive door to ease himself into the August
oven.
    Nothing else to be said, he shut the
door. Again, the heavy thunk.
    Z clear, John jerked the car into
reverse, the limo's tires slipping, twin clouds of rock dust
shooting under the car as it swerved into the street. Wheels
cranked the other way, John revved the Lincoln's powerful engine,
then jumped the car into gear to squeal off down Howell, turning
left to careen along 32nd, headed for North Oak.
    All of this happening a
long two days ago: a "reunion experience" Z would never subject himself to
again -- though he hoped Bud would be pleased with the
result.
     
    * * * * *
     
    Chapter 3
     
    Though business types drank wine with
lunch in fancy restaurants, Bud's didn't open until 4:00,
Gladstone's lowlife tanking up later in the day.
    Bud's Tavern was located near a
ramshackle of empty warehouses along the Missouri river, north of
the ASB bridge, Z arriving a little after happy hour.
    Leaving the Cavalier, he crossed the
cracked concrete walk to the tavern's paint-flaked door.
    Hesitating before going in, Z turned
back to check on the Cavalier (the car hunkered down to seem
not-worth-stealing,) then looked up to admire the rusty,
rivet-angled superstructure of the ASB, the old bridge no longer
carrying cars but still transporting trains. The ancient span's
auto lanes had been recently torn down a viaduct replacing them:
the substitute, another soulless concrete road that accidentally
crossed a river.
    Turning with a sigh, tugging open the
tavern's door (the door solid enough to keep in the riffraff,) Z
paused to let the stale smell of hops and malt leak out. (Some beer
joints like this had taken to calling themselves "Drinking
Establishments," Z speculating that the difference between "joint"
and "establishment" was about a buck a bottle.)
    Bud's was the sort of
place where a person in a clean, checkered work shirt and
steel-toed boots was overdressed; would have looked that way if the
light inside was better, Bud keeping the wattage low to shield the
regulars from the reflection of their red-veined noses in the
mirrored glass