CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A waitress in an orange uniform with a white apron and cap set the basket of hamburgers and a second one of onion rings in front of Barney Baker, who already had a bottle of beer going. And I had the glass of Coke I’d ordered. I was against the wall in a half-booth with Barney in a chair opposite me—he still couldn’t fit into one of the orange upholstered booths proper. Hovering behind us was a cartoon mural of customers rushing from all directions to get into the Parkmoor.

Which was a restaurant across the street from the Tic Toc and a block up DeBaliviere. As we’d approached, I wondered if a Midwestern twister had, Oz-style, lifted up the Tudor-style brick cottage and dropped it in the midst of the street’s gaudy neon-lit businesses and onto a big, mostly empty parking lot.

Parkmoor drive-ins with dine-in service were spotted around St. Louis—their owner was the inventor of the tray carhops attached to car windows—and this branch stayed open a few hours after the drive-in service had ended, to handle the late-night crowd after an evening of strippers, cocktails and back-room gambling. Earlier the Parkmoor on DeBaliviere catered to after-school teens from nearby Soldan High and grown-ups stopping in after golf or tennis, and anybody on their way to or from the zoo or the Muny outdoor theater.

Barney and I were just two of perhaps a dozen patrons, none teenagers, who were looking for something to soak up the booze they’d consumed. Or top it off with a bottle of beer, like Barney. And hamburgers and onion rings. Pat Boone was singing “April Love,” despite it being August, on a jukebox whose selections and volume were designed not to offend. The bedraggled adults in booths and at tables were like predictions of how the town’s teens would turn out.

If that blow to my stomach hadn’t made me lose my appetite, watching Barney eat would have.

“You just happened along?” I asked.

“Not exactly,” he admitted, taking a bite of hamburger that reduced the sandwich by a fourth. He chewed and swallowed, either polite or considering his answer; he had a paper napkin tucked bib-style in his sport shirt under his suit jacket. “I was on my way to see Joe. I just stumbled onto those two, roughing you up.”

“One of them was Joe’s bouncer. Didn’t you recognize him?”

“Sure.” He reduced the burger to half of its former self. Chewed. Swallowed. “But I never liked him. Look, I saw some poor asshole getting the shit beat out of him, and then it turned out to be my friend Nate Heller, so I was happy to lend a hand.”

He’d lent a belly, really, bumping that blond up against the wall.

I sipped my Coke through a straw like I was Archie and he was Jughead—or Moose. “Why were you dropping by Joe’s?”

“Well, now there’s a coincidence.” He dipped an onion ring into a puddle of ketchup. “I’d only just heard you were in town, asking questions, and thought I’d give Joe the ol’ heads up.”