NO Quarter Read Free Page B

The flake factor is high for jobs in the Quarter, astronomically high in its restaurants. I expect to see several new faces every week, and expect they’ll be replaced before I get to know them.
    The party never stops.
    I pitched my smoke, relishing that lightheaded rush you get when you haven’t had one in hours, and started back toward the floor. Ours is a good restaurant—less pricey than a lot of Quarter joints, sizable portions and, like I said, a locals’ haunt. Real people come here, people who read Tarot cards in the Square and work at the gift and T-shirt shops and tend bar and sell Lucky Dogs from vending carts on the street corners and eke out livings like people do everywhere. Locals, keeping the French Quarter functioning for your amusement.
    I felt a snit coming on. Familiar pointless anger tingled my raw nerves. But there was nothing to do with it. Nowhere to aim it.
    Now that I’d had my smoke, I wanted a drink. Before I could reach the dining room floor to get to my tables, deliver checks, get my customers and myself out of here, this week’s bicycle-delivery kid came toward me. Our eatery is open twenty-four hours and we deliver free in the Quarter. What more could you ask for?
    “Hey, Bone!” A kid, yes, but sometime during the last few years “kids” had somehow become twenty-five-year-olds, which this one was. His head was shaved, the lack of hair compensated for by the junkyard’s worth of ear piercings and the compulsory goatee. What was his name ... ? I accessed that memory file.
    I retrieved the name. “Hey, Spit.” No lie, it was his handle. People get called what they want here.
    “Somethin’s goin’ on down by the river. ‘Round the Moonwalk. Cops. Lotsa cops.”
    I shrugged and went past, and he went to the pickup window. If you’ve got a bike, the stamina, and a willingness to carry a wad of cash through the streets at night, you can make very respectable money doing deliveries. A percentage of Quarter-dwellers become shut-ins on their days off. They order their cigarettes and beer from the corner grocery, they have their meals delivered at night from the restaurants and delis. Quarterites usually know how to tip good. Hell, half of us are waiters and bartenders ourselves.
    By now I needed to get back onto the floor. My tourist four-top was nearly done feeding. My other two tables looked ready for their checks. But Nicki came rushing off the floor past me, a petite hand over her mouth, tears in her eyes. I saw her college-boy eight-top getting up, shuffling out, still hooting and hollering and blustering. Neanderthals.
    Customers come first, yes, but Nicki had worked here awhile. I actually knew her. I turned, followed a few steps, and gently touched her elbow.
    She spun, hand moving from her mouth to cover her eyes. Her other hand was a fist she knocked against the wall by the coffee pots.
    “I’m not crying ‘cause I’m hurt, I’m crying ‘cause I’m mad .” Which apparently made her madder. She thumped her fist harder. “Fuckin’ ... fuckin’ ... creeps .”
    I squeezed her elbow and backed off. She didn’t want to be watched, and I understood. I went out to my tables. It didn’t matter really what the yahoos had said. What mattered was that they could say it ... or thought they could. Thought they had the right. Hey, fuckit dude—she’s just a waitress, ain’t nothin’.
    You’re working for tips, their tips, you just take it. Take it.
    I wanted that drink more now. Wanted to do other things as I tracked the eight Neanderthals past the windows, out of sight along Decatur. But what was there to do? Take it. Nicki, me ... all of us who do this shit for a living.
    The yokel with the mustache wanted me to recommend a place for him and his plump friends to go drinking. An authentic New Orleans waterin’ hole. I thought of several places I might send them ... thought wickedly, hidden under my servile face. Thought of all the authentic New Orleans experiences they