Dealt Kindly

There’s something liminal about being behind the bar of a hotel, especially high end spaces used to host upper echelon parties, business groups in the area from their respective homes in desperate corporate America, looking for a taste of the lifestyle of the beautiful, dirty and rich. I can see them pulling at their suits pulled straight from the rack, fitting but not tailored, pants that are just a little too long and nice shoes that are in desperate need of repair, despite their polish. When lined up at the bar drinking over-priced well whiskey, they seem nervous- as though someone would be able to point them out as an imposter, destroy the fragile anonymity that is afforded to the travelers who pass through the doors of the hotel.

For me, a long time resident of the night life who was a bit long in the tooth for the neon lights and rhinestoned entertainment of the casinos and play clubs that lined the streets of downtown Las Vegas, it provided a consistent income with minimal amounts of dramatic outburst, out of hand drunken behavior and pushy patrons trying their luck at trying to take home the bartender. The appeal of this challenge has never made sense to me, we are a cynical species, prone to ridiculing poor interlopers who attempt to woo us before laughing them off and charging them for their next drink. These days I don’t have much energy for the games, preferring to simply top off the beverage and move my way down the line. I had more important things to keep an eye on.

Any city that doesn’t sleep is home to any number of night-walking types- from prostitutes and drug dealers to black market art fences and escorts that charge you a thousand dollars just to take your call. They’re easy to spot if you know who to look for- something in the eyes and the turn of the mouth. A prostitute will order a beer and nurse it for an hour while she waits for one of these hapless Mid-Western drabs to screw up enough courage to talk to her- chasing the fantasy that they’re still young and haven’t ruined their knees playing football for a chance at college far away from home. Or even those with suicide in their eyes looking for something to take the pain away, pain that they can’t share with the women who they promised to share everything with. I don’t like to keep the tab open for those men, they deserve the chance to feel numb. I can’t imagine feeling that trapped in my own skin.

On the other hand, there are the men with perfect suits and gold rings on their hands with cruel mouths and metal credit cards tap-tap-tapping on the counter of the bar to get my attention. Would that I could sneer at them like the old days in tiny bars wallpapered with band posters and street signs. The pressures of the “customer service” driven environment of the hotel help me keep my thoughts to myself, though I would be lying if I didn’t ring up an extra drink or two for myself on their card- just for the annoyance of tolerating them at the bar.

It’s these men who bring in the dangerous dealers- or substance, arts and artifacts, followed by personal security guards with slow expressions and hulking shoulders that I can hear hiding their stutters behind gritted teeth. It’s these same men that mistake patrons for escorts and pressure women into appetizers with them as they crow about their jobs and ego, then get aggressive and offensive when turned down for a badly proposed nightcap. I’m used to men like these, they’re easy to appease and distract but I hate them. Hate the world they represent, hate the entitlement that they carry through their lives, hate the damage they do with their hedge funds and connections. Men like these would do well to avoid my bar because they will often find themselves on the wrong end of the right escort. Fortunately, they don’t know this when they walk in.

For years I have watched escorts strut through the lobby of the hotel on their way to an appointment, and while they usually sauntered in and out without stopping into the hotel bar one of them to come take a seat.

She ordered a Dirty Shirley, a drink that I fancied myself, but often didn’t order because of the juvenile connotations of its non-alcoholic partner. We didn’t speak much, my attention being absorbed by a shark in a blue suit further down the bar waving his money clip at me, making sure that the inlay and diamond accent caught the overhead lights. She smirked at me across the bar when I turned away from him and let my posture relax, making the horrific faces that I wish I could pull off directly at him. Like all good bar patrons, she slipped away with no fuss, leaving a $50 and a black business card. When I picked up the card, a light grey text on the white background declared “Basileia Incorporated” and a local phone number. On the back, scribbled in black ink was the phrase “look for the green dresses.”

At the time I had no idea what she meant but I was pleased for the tip and her her quiet solidarity made the rest of the evening tolerable. The incident faded from memory until a few weeks later when a beautiful young woman in an emerald tea dress sat at my bar and ordered a Dirty Shirley. Shocked, I turned to double-take, trying to discern if this was a repeat order, but the brunette grinning at me was most certainly not my quiet patron of a few weeks ago.

“Okay. What the hell is this?” I’ve never been one for niceties, and strange coincidences in my bar by way of what I knew to be less than legal commerce didn’t set me up for feeling particularly comfortable about the situation. She shrugged and took a sip of her drink, smiling coyly.

“My boss likes to find hotels with female bartenders who know their shit. She says you’ve been around a while and know what’s what.”

Non-plussed, I picked up a glass from a recently empty seat and deposited into the wash sinks behind my bar.

“Okay, so what. I have to screen johns for you? I’m not here to get involved in anything like that.” She reached forward and placed her hand on mind, ignoring the fact that every muscle in my body stiffened at the unexpected content.

“No, she just wants someone who has eyes and a brain in case something gets weird.” She took her hand back and sat back, fixing me with a foxlike stare and taking the straw in her mouth. I guess if you sell sex for so long, it eventually becomes a part of everything you do. I’ve never been comfortable with what usually passes for “sexy,” just a little too tall and too masculine to pull off that “alluring” look. “Just…keep an eye on us when we come in and out. We always wear the same color and order the same drink.” With a wink she slid me a $50 and another business card with the word “pink” written on the back, and like that she was on her way to the elevator leaving me gaping with the card in hand. It didn’t look like I was going to be given a choice in the matter- and it’s not like I was really going to be able to refuse the request. I was a captive lookout.

Years later it occurred to me that I could have simply asked for my schedule to be changed but at the time I didn’t think I had much choice.

For nearly a year I had the regular patronage of girls from Basileia, all drinkers of the same unique Dirty Shirley and once a week, one would deliver me a business card with a note describing the colors of the dresses. I’m an observant bartender if not downright paranoid and I never was able to really choose who the patrons of these girls were, but they must have been well-behaved because never was my presence called on for any described “weirdness.”

Bartenders aren’t typically known for their longevity in the field and those who don’t end up managing their establishments often fade into obscurity and relative poverty as their looks fade, long hours on their feet and often the vice of substance takes its hold on them. At one time in my life I nurtured the idea of being a musician, but that ship has long since sailed.

During the dead heat of summer, when even the air conditioning didn’t seem to cut through the heat, a regal woman a few decades my senior strolled through my bar with the same confidence that I had seen each week in a rainbow of beautifully tailored dresses. Her gentleman guest looked more like a leashed pet than a partner, and she dismissed him subtly to a seat in the corner while she leaned over the bar to beckon me over.

“My name is Rahab,” her voice was deep, as if she’d smoked for years but eventually gave it up and it smoothed into a resonant tenor. “I wanted to thank you for looking after my girls.” In her hand was an envelope, thicker than what would hold a piece of paper or a note. I opened my mouth to question her but she held a finger to her lips and retrieved her arm candy to disappear into the lobby. It took me a moment to process that I was holding the envelope and when I tore into it, I nearly dropped the contents on the floor. Bands of hundred dollar bills, neatly wrapped with a total amount: $20,000. I’d never seen so much cash in my entire life and immediately retreated into my storeroom to inspect the envelope further. Along with the cash was a bundle of papers and a hotel room key: 217.

My stomach felt like it was going to drop through my pelvis and roll across the floor in a disgusting bundle of wet flesh that I would slip through and fall as I abandoned my place at the bar and bolted for the elevator, jamming my thumb against the button to get to the floor. For a second story room, I could have sworn that the elevator slowed to a crawl.

Hands shaking, it took several tries to open the door to the room, and inside I found nothing more than one of our hotel rooms, beautifully serviced with a bottle of champagne on ice and a single glass next to a small black book with a worn cover. I threw the envelope on the bed and snatched the book, opening it to the first page to read, in an antique and scripted hand: “It is the gift of being unseen that is given the most authority.” The notation was signed “Rahab,” though I immediately got the feeling that it was not penned by the woman who had passed me the envelope.

Inside the pages were notes, names, phone numbers, monetary amounts- a tiny ledger that held enough information to topple political and corporate empires. A subtle knock and the latch made me spin, startled, coming face to face with the brunette in the green dress who I had met nearly a year before that. Her foxlike grin wreathed her face as she shut the door behind her.

“If I were you, Rahab, I’d pour myself a glass of champagne. We’ve got some paperwork to do.”