Kansas City Noir Read Free

had one of those faces that sort of collapsed when he didn’t talk, mouth and chin merging into a flat, frowning pond. When he took off his hat, the light shined on his bald, freckled head. He’d still be standing in his spot when I left a couple of hours later, the same bottle of Bud he had when I first came in half empty and parked in front of him. He barely said a word to me in those days. Just nodded if we looked each other’s way. But then as I began showing up every night, he started saying hello and I’d say hello back.
     
    Evening

    Fran and I drop our plates onto the crumb-graveled carpet for our beagle to lick. Partly chewed pizza crust, orange grease. Slobbered up in seconds. I reshuffle the cards.
    I’m going to sleep, Fran says.
    Say what?
    Turn the TV off.
    I’m still up.
    Turn it down then.
    It’s not loud.
    Please.
    But it’s not.
    Shhh.
    I shut off the TV, go out to the living room. I sit in the dark fingering my knife. The way Gene has vanished, an eighty-year-old man. I can’t help but notice the empty space at the bar. Like a radiator turned off. All that dead air, dead space.
    Funny what you learn about a guy after he’s gone. For instance, Tim and Lyle said that Gene would come to Mike’s at eleven in the morning. He would stay all day and apparently be pretty toasted by the time he left at closing. Really, he never seemed messed up to me. Maybe he kicked in and drank like a horse after I left.
    One night, Gene told me he had taken his landlord to court. It wasn’t clear to me why. I believed him, and whatever the reason, he made it seem like he’d won the case. After he disappeared, Bill told me Gene lived in his car. There never had been a court case or a landlord. Bill had put him up in his place but not for long. Said Gene wandered around the house with nothing on but his skivvies. I couldn’t have that, Bill said. Not with my wife in the house and the grandkids coming over. I don’t care if he is a vet.
     
    Next day
    Hey, Lyle, Mike says.
    Mike, Lyle says, and takes a seat near Tim. He has his hair roped back in a ponytail and wears an army fatigue jacket that hangs well past his hands. His feet dangle off the bar stool and tap the air. He reeks of pot.
    I was just getting ready to leave, Tim says.
    No you’re not, Lyle says.
    He turns to me.
    What’s going on? Working?
    Absolutely, I tell him. Staying busy.
    You were in Afghanistan, weren’t you? How was that?
    Good. It was good.
    That’s good.
    Actually, it was kind of crazy.
    Crazy can be good, Lyle says, and he and Tim laugh.
    Mike, I’ll have another, Tim says.
    I notice Melissa come in the back door.
    Hi, Melissa, Mike says.
    Hey, Melissa, Lyle says.
    Melissa, what’s up, Tim says.
    Hey, Melissa says.
    She sits next to Lyle and orders a Bud Light and a shot of Jack. She has on heels, gray slacks, gray jacket, and a white blouse.
    Won my case, she says. Got him off.
    Since none of us know who she’s talking to, we all nod at the same time. Melissa smiles. She starts talking about the first time she came in here as she always does. I don’t know why it bears repeating. I mean, I’ve got the story memorized. But she likes telling it. Maybe it gives her a sense of seniority. After Lyle she has been coming here longer than the rest of us. Like it makes her feel she belongs is what I’m saying.
    It was just before closing, Melissa says. Mike and Lyle were shooting pool. Gene was in his usual spot. She remembers Mike saying he was about to close. Then he let her stay and the four of them had beers and got stoned after Mike locked up.
    Gene got stoned? I say.
    Yeah, Melissa says.
    I hadn’t heard that part before.
     
    Evening
    Fran tells me that instead of doing a geographic, I should go with her to visit her sister in St. Louis. It would be cheap, she says. No hotel or eating-out expenses.
    Sounds okay, I say.
    Did you order a pizza?
    Not yet, I say. I’m tired of pizza.
    What do you want?
    I don’t know. Shit, what’s