Cover Charge | 14 June 2021
The door charge was $10. Sure, it was all I had in my wallet, but I needed to make $60 that night and this was a calculated gamble I would bet on myself to win.
BNR Response
I handed the doorman my $10 in cash and walked into the darkness of the bar. As always, there were girls dancing to the right in the kind of soft-core way that makes Happy Hour types feel adventurous yet safe. I didn’t see Rita in the cage so I continued to the bar. Luckily, Nigel was eventually visible so I bellied up to his side of the service and gave a familiar nod in his direction.
The place was darker than usual but filled with the same mix of after work stiffs and afternoon regulars. Pretty soon the lightweights would stumble home and we’d be left with the drunks stuck to their stools and tourists coming in once the theaters let out. I used to enjoy the vintage photos on the walls, which at once felt like a mixture of 21 and a more adult TGIFriday, but now they just seemed tacky. When I looked up I noticed that the ceiling was cobweb ridden and clearly hadn’t been cleaned since the last health inspection. The alcohol was always well- stocked with a nice range of anything you could desire, but then again, that’s where the money is, right? At least, that’s what I used to think until I was taken to the kitchen last Summer.
After getting my usual from Nigel and promising to pay on my way out, I head towards the restrooms only to slide past the line and into the kitchen. I was pleased to hear Louis Prima replace the sound of Pink that had been playing in the main bar. They had stopped serving food at this establishment when Franky Fingers seized it from the bistro owner who owed him a few K and turned it into a mob-run go-go bar. Now the kitchen was used to launder money and house weekly Thursday poker games. I was a ringer at poker and was hoping I was early enough to sit in before the blinds started. I slouched into a chair next to one of the familiar greasy dudes, this one happened to be one I knew, but who could never remember my name. Before I knew it, I was up $500.
Having made the money, and then some, that I needed to get out of my current pickle, I threw in my last hand got up from the table. Not wanting to cause suspicion among a group of mostly unknown but all verifiable gangsters, I leaned idly against an unused range and finished my scotch. After another hand, at once sensing the urgency of repayment as well as the calm in the room, I made my way for the swinging double doors that head back out towards the restroom and retired cigarette machine. I had just about made it out when a hand on my left shoulder stopped me. It was the last person I wanted to see: my source.
I’d just published a story for the Tribune on a rival crime family and leaned heavily on information from an anonymous source that I met at this very establishment. He was hesitant to go on the record, fearing retaliation, and so I may have told him that I would pay him for his information. This non-sanctioned and highly unethical call on my part was due to both one too many scotches and a looming deadline where I was expected to deliver the scoop. He clearly hadn’t forgotten my offer as I had hoped he would.
I may never know what came over me, but instead of handing him the $500 I had just won, which likely would have bought me more time to deliver the additional $500 I had promised, I ran.Nigel hollered after me as I blew past the bar, tab still unpaid.I nearly mowed down a few out-of-towners in the entryway in my haste, and once I hit the street my instincts really kicked in.I was in a gypsy cab and headed downtown and towards temporary safety.Now all I had to figure out was how quickly I could get the Trib offices to pay my debt of $60 to my intern co-conspirator who was holding my press badge hostage. Luckily, he didn’t know that I would have paid $6,000 to get that flimsy laminated ID back.