And De Fun Don't Done (39 page)

It was the same horror show outside in the car; Les had forgotten the windows again and was almost half dead with heat exhaustion and dehydration before he managed to find the buttons to get them all down, get the radio going and the air-conditioner set at warp ten. Some hillbilly song was twanging away as he turned right outside the flats and headed south. Ricco's shouldn't be too hard to find, thought Les and there has to be one of those roadside diners, or whatever they call them, on the way. The guitars and fiddles wafted easily out of the speakers as he drove along. Might even get myself a big ol' mess of crawdads, grits and sourdough flapjacks. Norton gobbed revoltingly out the window. And a plug of chewin' tobaccy as well. He drove past chicken shacks, pizza parlours, Mexican restaurants, McDonald's and others before he spotted it. A fairly big, cream-coloured brick restaurant with tinted windows and a sign out the front saying ‘Howdy Neighbours Pancake Inn' next to the usual brace of American flags barely moving in the light breeze. It took up the whole corner, with parking for about six hundred cars plus the entire United States Polaris submarine fleet. Norton fish-tailed the T-bird into the parking lot, locked it up and stepped inside.

Howdy Neighbours was clean and modern in the usual American foodchain style, with seating for about eighty or more. Brown vinyl booths, chunky wooden tables in the middle and old iron or copper cooking utensils hung on the wall gave it a bit of chuck-wagon, old-homestead- out-on-the-prairie atmosphere. The place was about half full of fat arsed, black or white seppo families and retired couples shovelling food down their screeches with both hands. Les sat down in one of the booths and looked at the menu. It was on the table like a big paper serviette
with all the sloppy junk food for breakfast imaginable. Extra tender buttermilk pancakes, yeasty buckwheat, southern cornmeal, etc. Short stack and eggs, a western breakfast, one egg toast and grits, three little pigs in blankets. Everything from a Reuben to a Neighbours burger. A smiling blonde waitress wearing pigtails and a brown shirt and skirt, who looked like she'd just come from a square dance, drifted over. She had a glass of iced water in one hand a percolator full of coffee in the other.

‘Well, hi there,' she beamed, placing the glass of water in front of Les. ‘May I help you?'

‘Yeah,' Norton smiled back. ‘I'll have eggs benedict, hash browns and a Neighbours steak with mashed potatoes and gravy, thank you.'

‘Alright,' beamed the waitress, sounding like a game- show host and Les had just answered a $5000 question. ‘And how would you like your steak.'

‘Medium rare, thanks.'

‘Any toast with that?'

‘Yeah, righto.'

‘What kind of bread? Wholemeal, wheatmeal, cracked- grain, white French…'

‘I don't really give a stuff,' cut in Norton. ‘Just some that ain't got any mould on it'll do.'

The waitress looked at Norton for a moment then gestured with the percolator. ‘Coffee?' Les shook his head. ‘Okay then. This'll be up soon.'

‘Thanks.'

Norton waited about five minutes and the first course arrived with a flurry of smiles. It was on a tray. Two fat, buttered muffins with an egg and a thick slice of ham sitting on each and then it looked as if someone had poured a forty-four-gallon drum of yellow glossmaster paint all over the lot. The hash brown was about as big as a manhole cover, only a couple of inches thicker. Christ, thought Les. How am I going to get through all this? And I had to go and order a steak as well. He picked up his knife and fork and dived in. Actually it didn't taste too bad; only there was just that much of it. Les ordered some
orange juice to help wash it down and looked around him while he was eating. There were families knocking down the same size meals only with chips, Coca-Cola, ice cream and pancakes drowning in maple syrup, chocolate sauce and God knows what else. Christ! no wonder half these yanks look like Sumo wrestlers on steroids, thought Les, as he spooned some more Taubmans Daffodil Wall- pamur down his throat. Then came the pièce de résistance. The Howdy Neighbours, all-American, cut on the premises, US prime steak. It was a piece of boneless sirloin, with a bowl of instant mashed potato swimming in gravy and a bowl of salad with a couple of cherry tomatoes sitting on top.

‘Hey! How good does that look?' beamed the waitress.

‘Yeah,' replied Norton, giving it the once over. ‘Like a gangrened foot.' The he thought he heard the waitress say, ‘I-went-away-to-get-some-four-seven-eleven.'

‘What was that?' said Norton, looking from the steak to the girl.

‘A-l-A or Heinz 57?' Les just looked at her and slowly shook his head. ‘I think I'd better give you A-l-A,' said the waitress.

‘You haven't got any A-l-B, have you?' said Les. ‘Low- cal, sodium free, anti-cholesterol, have you?'

‘I'm sorry sir. We don't.'

‘Okay then, sweetheart. Hit us with the A-l-A.'

The waitress came back with a small white-labelled bottle full of some black shit that looked like octopus ink and tasted like concentrated Worcester sauce. Les slopped some over his Neighbours all-singing, alldancing, all-American steak and got into it even though he was almost full. It wasn't too bad, as far as steaks go, just that Les was flat out getting it down on top of the other. But he forced down as much as he could, figuring a bit of protein wouldn't go astray. They could stick the mashed potato, however. It tasted like dog shit that had gone white after lying out in the sun. A nice coffee to go with the toast wouldn't have gone amiss, but Les decided to save himself for Ricco's. All up the bill didn't even
come anywhere near twenty dollars with tax. Les figured Annie Oakley deserved a few extra dollars for putting up with him being a smartarse, so he left the US equivalent of a rock lobster on the table and split for Salmo.

The drive down to Salmo took Les about twenty-five minutes and was fairly pleasant despite the midday heat. He wasn't thinking about a great deal as he cruised along listening to country and western music and dropping the odd reprehensible fart now and again. Only how much Marlow and his mates reminded him a bit of his other ‘Hooray Henry' mate Sir Peregrine Normanhurst the third, and whether Joey Hubcaps had shelfed him to Ricco yet about taking a team of drunks back to the condo and having a party. But stuff him anyway. If Ricco could swipe a big bag of money from the Mafia and knowingly involve Les, then expect him to keep his mouth shut, he could put up with one small turn back at his flat.

Norton slowed down when he saw Ricco's Rendezvous approaching on the right. There were no people around again and the same number of empty chairs and tables out the front. As he pulled in he noticed Ricco's blue Mercedes out the front of the coffee shop and if Les wasn't mistaken Vinnie's monstrous green Cadillac was parked next to it. For some reason Les parked right on the corner, keeping some distance between his car, the other two and the coffee shop. When he locked the T-bird and walked around he stood next to the boot for a moment, half joking with himself as to what scene out of what movie he'd be playing in today. For some other strange reason three came to mind:
Prizzi's Honor
,
Crossing 54th Street
and
The Getaway
. Shaking his head slightly Les started walking over; it was only about fifty feet or so but he was sweating before he got there.

The glass door had a sign on it saying OPEN. Norton stepped inside to find the place wasn't all that big but nicely air-conditioned with soft lighting. There were about a dozen chairs and tables to seat four, the walls were mainly black with murals of beach and boating
scenes on them. On the left was a small counter with an espresso machine and a till sitting on it, next to several glass jars full of biscuits or chocolates, some artificial flowers and a stack of magazines. Behind the counter was a small alcove that was obviously the kitchen. Tinted windows faced the streets, and a door with EXIT above it in the back wall probably led to the toilets. The place was empty except for Ricco, Vinnie and Laverne sitting at a table near the back wall drinking coffee and a bloke behind the counter in a white shirt and black trousers standing with his arms folded. Ricco and the others were dressed designer casual as usual and Vinnie was smoking another monstrous cigar. The bloke behind the counter had thinning black hair and a sallow, pock-marked face, and looked like every Mafia heavy in every Mafia movie Les had ever seen on TV or at the movies. He looked at Norton suspiciously as Les came in with a smile on his face and walked straight over to the three against the wall who looked up from their coffee and stopped whatever they were talking about. There was no smiling greeting nor ‘good to see you, Les, glad you could get here'. Nothing. If Norton wasn't mistaken there was a distinct air of tension hanging above the table.

‘G'day, Ricco,' said Les. ‘How's things? Hello, Laverne. G'day Vinnie.'

They kind of stared at him for a moment then Ricco spoke. ‘Hey Les. How are you doin'?' he said quietly.

‘Hi, Les,' said Laverne.

‘Les. Nice to see you again,' said Vinnie impassively, before almost disappearing in a cloud of blue cigar smoke.

Les wasn't quite expecting a red carpet or twenty vestal virgins waiting out the front waving palm fronds and throwing frangipanis. But the reception so far made him feel as if they didn't give a stuff much whether he was there or not. There was definitely something in the wind and Norton had half an idea what; nevertheless, he batted on regardless.

‘Well,' said Les, rubbing his hands together. ‘You said to come down for a cup of coffee. So here I am.'

‘Ohh yeah. That's right,' replied Ricco, sounding a little vacant. ‘I ahh… it slipped my mind.' He looked at Les for a moment then turned to the man behind the counter. ‘Hey, Sammy. Make this guy a straight white. A good one.'

Just a good one? mused Les. What about the ‘Ricco special' and all the grouse food? ‘Listen, if you've got business to discuss or that, don't worry about it. I can come back some other time.'

Ricco put a hand up. ‘No. You came for coffee. You should have coffee.'

‘I can't stay all that long anyway,' lied Norton. ‘I met some Australian blokes last night and I arranged to have lunch with them today. I got to be back in town at one o'clock.'

‘You met some buddies from Australia, did you?' nodded Ricco. ‘That's good.'

‘Anyway, sit down, Les,' said Laverne.

‘Okay, thanks.' There was a kind of mumbled reception from the others as they moved their chairs around slightly when Les sat down. ‘Hey, thanks for the meal the other night, Vinnie,' said Les, still attempting to make polite conversation. ‘It was real good of you.'

‘My pleasure,' said Vinnie. ‘That was a nice-looking broad you had with you. Did you make out?' His face disappeared again in another cloud of cigar smoke.

‘What was that?' asked Les.

Vinnie caught Laverne looking at him a little soberly. ‘Did you enjoy yourself?'

‘Yeah. I bit her on the ted a couple of times, threw her up in the air then kicked her khyber out the George Moore.'

‘Excuse me?' said Vinnie.

Les noticed the others looking at him oddly as well. ‘Yeah. I enjoyed myself.'

Norton attempted to make more polite conversation while he waited for his coffee, talking about nothing in particular and saying that he hadn't been doing much, just taking it easy and keeping quiet. He waited for a
reaction to this from Ricco; there was none, so Les figured Joey the limo driver hadn't said anything yet. Les let Ricco lead with the trip out on the boat and only mentioned about the cyclone in reply. He made no mention of the bag full of money. The way Ricco and Vinnie looked at each other Vinnie was more than likely in on the scam too, or at least he knew they'd been out on Ricco's boat. Laverne added briefly to the conversation by mentioning the dolphins. But the way Ricco was almost forcing out the words, and judging from the unmistakable set of dark rings under his eyes, it was obvious he had more on his mind than the lack of lunchtime clientele.

Norton's coffee arrived. Les smiled up a thank you and got a lingering, expressionless look in reply. The coffee was good, though nothing special and definitely not worth over half an hour's drive across town and back for. Of course this didn't stop Les from saying how good it was after he'd stirred his sugar in and that he was sorry he didn't have time to stay for another one. The thought that Les would be pissing off soon seemed to please Ricco and the others more than his comments about the coffee. So they all sat there having a great time. Les sipped his coffee, Laverne stared into hers, Ricco said nothing and Vinnie puffed on his cigar. Sammy stood behind the counter with his arms folded. All that was missing was an old wooden clock ticking on the wall.

Les was down to his third-last sip when the door opened and a dark-haired girl wearing blue overalls with ‘Salmo Linen Service' written across the front in white walked in carrying what looked like a bundle of tablecloths and serviettes. She wore sunglasses beneath an Elmer Fudd cap sitting on her head; dangling round her neck was a set of Walkman headphones, and a lump of chewing gum ground from one side of her mouth to the other.

‘Linen service,' she drawled. ‘Where you want it?'

Sammy looked at her impassively. ‘On the counter.'

‘Alrighty.'

‘You're two hours late.'

‘Yeah,' chewed the girl. ‘We're flat out after the storm yesterday.'

‘Where's Jenny?'

‘Doin' two runs east. I gotta do the whole friggin' southside. We're up to our asses in dirty linen.' She dropped a piece of paper and a biro on the counter. ‘You wanna sign this?' she chomped.

Sammy looked at the docket then signed it. The girl smiled a quick thanks and walked back out, adjusting her headphones under her cap as she went through the door. Les took another sip of coffee and watched Sammy place the parcel of linen under the counter. The others didn't say anything, hardly even bothered to give the girl a second glance, and went back to talking about absolutely nothing, managing to leave Les completely out of the conversation while they did. Norton reflected into his coffee for a few seconds. There was enough left for two good sips; he swallowed the lot in one go then wiped his mouth on a paper napkin.