Book II – Chapter 27: Bartender

Posted On July 20, 2020

Illustration by Eyugho

Content note: Attempted noncon, please read with discretion

This wasn’t the motel Demos was used to. Normally his exploits took him to the edge of town, to sad, sticky roadhouses tucked between gas stations and pawn shops. They were far from the people and places he knew. He didn’t want to be caught, to be recognized — not by them. Not by him.

No, this wasn’t a motel at all. It was downtown, all fifty floors gleaming in glass and steel — a luxury hotel. Four stars at the very least. Demos had found a tourist lost near the university campus — a tall, dark Italian with a voice like honey. His name was Sante, or Stefano — something with an ’S.’ Whatever landmark the man was looking for was long forgotten.

The tourist whose name began with an ’S’ was behind him, knees digging rivets into the mattress. Demos’ hair was wound between the man’s fingers, his head pressed so hard into the pillow that it felt personal.

“Stefano— ah!” Demos choked. It hurt. It hurt so much he couldn’t think of anything else.

That was the point, wasn’t it?

The stranger hadn’t corrected him, so that was probably the right name at least. The man was sweating and growling like a steam engine and Demos couldn’t help but think about how disgusting it was.

“Hah.” Stefano’s teeth bared with his grin. “Sei proprio una puttana.”

Demos tensed. Why did they always do that? Why did they always call him a whore? His fingers curled into the loose sheets, prying them from the mattress corner.

His next breath was a hiss, sucked in between teeth. “Stai zitto.”

“Rilassarvi, sto solo scherzando.” Stefano laughed. There was something cruel about it.

Just a joke? Just kidding? What was so fucking funny about this? Demos twisted, wrenching his arm free only to be pinned back down against the duvet.

“Vaffanculo.” There was ice in Demos’ voice. “Non mi toccare.”

The grin on Stefano’s face faded into something darker. His lip twitched, eyes locked hard as if he’d never been told ‘no’ in his entire life. His grip on Demos’ hair tightened — it hurt more now.

“Quindi stai cambiando idea?” Stefano spat onto the sheets. “Non puoi farlo.”

Now it was Demos’ turn to be told ‘no.’ Changing his mind wasn’t allowed, not at the home plate — or whatever baseball metaphor this was. Something scorched in his chest, pumping hot, liquid ire into every vein in his body. There were people who could tell him what to do, and Stefano was not one of them.

Demos pried his arm free, grasping at his discarded slacks. The butterfly knife clicked and snapped, the handle shuddering in Demos’ grip, the tip pressing just beneath Stefano’s chin. It was the soft, boneless underside of the man’s jaw, a spot the blade could enter and run straight to the roof of his mouth.

“Yes.” Demos panted. The knife pricked blood. “I can.”

They were both still for what felt like a long time. Only sweat dared to move, dripping from the stranger’s neck down the back of his spine. His next breath shivered as if it were the last one he’d ever take.

Finally, he pulled back. Stefano was panting and shaking, gathering up his discarded clothing like he was about to miss the last train out of hell. He stumbled over a pant leg, somehow managing to wrench the jeans on.

“Fottuti Americani. Tu sei pazzo!” Stefano spat again, this time on the art deco carpet.

The door clacked, then slammed shut. The tourist had abandoned his own hotel room.

Demos was reeling. “Io non sono Americano!”

The butterfly knife hit the door with a heavy thunk, one of its two handles splintering off and clattering to the floor. The blade was shaking — Demos was shaking. His teeth threatened to fracture against one another and the burning in his chest had spread to his entire body, leaving fingers and knuckles tingling.

He weakened on the wrecked pile of sheets and pillows, hunching forward into his hands. Breath caught in his throat. Demos tried, and failed, to curb the saltwater that was now running down to his jaw. It was wasted energy. Why was he like this? Why did he do this?

There was one good thing about crying, abandoned in some tourist’s hotel in the middle of the night — no one was there to see it. Not them. Not him.

And they never would.

#

Ferris used to be good at staying up all night. Back in high school, and especially in college, he’d done plenty of sundown to sunup study sessions. He’d flipped through text books, typed quietly enough to avoid waking anyone, and scratched page after page of annotations into a notebook.

Now, on his living room sofa at 3:30 AM, he could barely keep his eyes open. He felt old.

The fact that he was lounging probably wasn’t helping. Stanley was curled up against his ribs, snoring and kicking in his sleep. The book in Ferris’ hands didn’t want to stay upright and the text inside was just as stubborn. He had to stay awake. Seamus would be home any minute now and missing him wasn’t an option.

Ferris pinched the bridge of his nose a little too tightly. Maybe a bit of pain would keep his eyes open. Ten seconds passed before he realized his head had drooped forward. Nope, didn’t work.

“Stupid book,” he said. “Focus.”

It wasn’t the book’s fault. Seamus was late and Ferris was losing a battle with his own body. His eyelids sunk, followed by his entire frame. The sofa consumed him in a warm embrace — the paperback wilted onto his chest. His breathing slowed.

The front door opened with a wild crack. Ferris jerked upright, followed by every single hair on the back of his neck. The book fumbled and Stanley nearly toppled off the side of the couch. Wide eyes locked on the figure silhouetted in the doorway. It was Seamus. Finally.

“You’re home,” Ferris said. His throat was dry.

Seamus gave a crooked smirk, or at least Ferris thought he did. It was hard to see his expression in the dark entryway.

“And you’re awake,” Seamus said. “Why are you awake?”

Seamus was already peeling off layers, draping his coat over the back of a chair before tossing his keys onto the kitchen counter.

“I was waiting for you. We need to talk about the office.”

“I know, I know.” Seamus gave a hard sigh, followed by his best impersonation of his friend. “Don’t go in the office! It’s for working, not jerking.”

“No, that’s not—“ Ferris eased Stanley back onto the floor. The pug wobbled on the carpet. “Why is it that every time you do an American accent you sound like a fucking cowboy? Is that what we all sound like to you?”

“Yes.”

“Just— just go in there.” Ferris gestured toward the door as best as his half-asleep arm would allow.

With a huff, Seamus crossed the apartment to reach for the long-forbidden room’s door. His figure disappeared beyond the threshold and a light clicked on, spilling a white rectangle into the living area.

“There’s a bed in here.” Seamus was shouting, as if he were in another building and not another room. “Whose bed is this?”

“It’s yours.”

Seamus popped his head back out past the door frame. “How’m I supposed to use this bed if I’m not allowed in the office?”

“Oh my god, you schmuck.” Ferris gripped the either side of his own head. “It’s your room now. You pay rent, it’s your room.”

If the light had been any brighter, Ferris would have noticed the flush that came to his friend’s face, or the half-shocked, half-elated arc of his lips. Seamus didn’t speak at first, only turning to look back inside what was no longer called the office. His room.

After a moment, a suspicious squint crossed his eyes. “Do I have to keep it clean?”

“Just don’t start a roach colony in there and you can do whatever you want.”

“Finally,” Seamus said. “Some respect around here. Ah. I might be a bit late on that rent, though.”

Ferris’ hands dropped. “What? You’ve been working your ass off. What did you spend it on?”

“Eh, manager’s share of the tips went up.”

“Wait—” Ferris’ once-weary eyes had sharpened to a glare. “Managers aren’t supposed to get any of your tips.”

Seamus shrugged. “Not what he said.”

Ferris swallowed. Was this what Demos felt like when he wanted to kill someone? Thoughts of kicking down doors and beating a human piñata until quarters fell out crossed his mind. No — later. This wasn’t the time for that. Ferris scratched the back of his neck. It tingled for some reason.

“Check the desk drawer,” Ferris said.

Seamus barked a laugh. “You think I’m going to use a desk. That’s cute.”

“Just look in there before I break it open over your head.”

From inside the room, there was some shuffling and a clunk, followed by silence. Seamus stepped out of the room with an open envelope in both hands.

“You got me a ticket for Doublecross?” Seamus’ voice was heavy — withered. It wasn’t at all the delight Ferris had expected.

“What’s wrong?” Ferris said. “I thought you liked them.”

Seamus’ hands fell to his side. He leaned against the doorframe, half of his figure cloaked in shadow. So much of him was dark — the rings under his eyes, the stubble that had scattered across his jaw. His lips were set in a thin line — tight and unmoving.

“I do, but I can’t go. I’m covering that night.”

“You’re—“ Ferris forced down the scream that had wedged in his throat. “You can’t be serious. Your schedule was open — I checked!”

Seamus’ schedule was not so much a planner as it was an assortment of mismatched napkins and receipts, scrawled with ink and magneted to various surfaces around the apartment. Still, it was usually accurate.

“It changed. Sorry that— that you wasted your money,” Seamus said. He was still avoiding eye contact.

Ferris didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t very good at ‘gift-giving’ or ‘showing he cared about people.’ It seemed as if he’d failed once more — another item to add to the list of things he couldn’t do like a normal person. He looked at his hands.

Seamus turned the envelope over, picking through the contents. “There are two tickets here. You were going to go with me?”

“Yeah.”

Neither man spoke for a while. Ferris was supposed to be looking out for Seamus — taking care of him. Here his friend stood, income stolen by some clout-bloated bar manager and sporting lines on his face that he seemed to have stolen from an old man. Ferris had to do better than this.

He faked a smile. “Get some sleep. Don’t worry about the rent, okay?”

“Thanks, Ferret. For, uh— for the room, too.”

The bedroom door shut and Ferris was alone in the living area. He marked his book, setting it on the coffee table. Pressure was building in his skull, an approaching storm front promising a nice, steady agony. He dragged his fingers over his temples, as if he might be able to stop this growing headache with his bare hands.

Ferris would have to do something — this wasn’t right. This wasn’t the Seamus he knew.

The Seamus he knew smiled sometimes.

#

An open table tucked in the back of Ristorante Giorgetti’s dining area didn’t feel like the best place to be doing the books. Normally, Ferris would have the privacy of the back office, but Gino and Roberto had laid claim to the little room for the last two hours. For now, Ferris was exiled into this public space with a calculator, stacks of papers, and a pile of incriminating notebooks. Fortunately, 3 PM was not a busy time for the restaurant.

Ferris’ fingertip dragged down the ledger, checking values, then double-checking them. Fortunately, nothing had to be legal — it only had to look that way. Unfortunately, Victor was old-fashioned and insisted on using ink and paper for their records, instead of acknowledging the 21^st century like a normal human being. Maybe it was because they’d be easy to burn, if it came to that.

Ferris peered at a line of text, then shuffled through the old books to compare figures. The stack went back a decade and the ledger from 2002 was already yellowing. Pages flipped between his fingers before he stopped on the sheet he was looking for. Ferris’ next breath stalled, caught in the traffic jam that was his throat.

It was his father’s handwriting.

His fingers went numb, but he didn’t notice. Ferris hated when this happened — when he wasn’t expecting it, when he wasn’t ready. It took a lot of mental preparation to think about his father and at this moment he’d been caught wide open — unarmed.

The 2002 ledger — it would have been the last one with Harold’s handwriting in it.

He dropped his pen, drawing a hand up to nip back the glassiness that was developing in his eyes. A hand touched his back.

“Hey,” Demos said. “Did you eat?”

Ferris didn’t look up. Maybe if he sat perfectly still, Demos wouldn’t notice the humiliating grief he was attempting to suffocate in his own chest. His back made a faint, involuntary shudder.

“Not yet.”

There was no response. Ferris could tell that his friend was looking at him — looking at the table, the open notebooks. Demos’ hand was still there, warm. The touch tightened, fingers squeezing his shoulder. Demos had noticed.

“Are you—“

Demos was interrupted by a finger snap. It was Emily.

“Demos.” Emily gestured at a table of executives that had been there since brunch. “Wine.”

“Be right there,” Demos said. The hand on Ferris’ shoulder held fast for one last moment before slipping away. Ferris breathed out.

He watched his friend approach the table with a wine list, exchanging words with the customers that were too distant to make out. Without warning, Demos glanced over, catching his eyes for only a second before turning back to the table.

The chair beside Ferris scraped outward before a figure dropped into the seat. Emily had joined him at his makeshift work station.

“Mind if I sit with you?” Emily was already opening a laptop. “Apparently the office is just an old men’s club now and I’ve got inventory to finish.”

Ferris pulled a few papers into a stack, making room for her.

“Sure,” he said. “Uh, how’s school?”

“It’s good. I think I’ve decided what my focus is going to be.”

“Criminal law?”

Emily grimaced. “Ew, no. I want to do immigration.”

Ferris bit his lower lip, wishing he hadn’t jumped to such an obvious, and wrong, assumption. Not every Giorgetti ran around shooting guns into the air and bathing in money.

“I can help the family in other ways,” Emily said. She smiled.

That was right — half of them weren’t even citizens. It had taken a lot of time, money, and forgery to keep the whole family in place. So many of the people he knew had come from other countries. His coworkers, Seamus, Nadia—

“You’re making a face like you just had some mind-blowing epiphany,” Emily said.

“I might need your help with something later. You and Gina.” Ferris flip-flopped his pen between two fingers. “And I don’t make faces.”

“You absolutely do.”

From across the open space, he could see Demos still going over the wine list with the table. Ferris could tell the smile on his face was fake, even if the customers couldn’t. It looked like torture.

“Why is Demos recommending wine, anyway? Where’s your sommelier?”

Emily groaned. “He got married. Went off to France, of all places. I’ve been making Demos stand in and he’s losing his mind. I mean, he’s great at the wine part, but every time someone claims ‘white wine is for women’ or asks him to fill the glass ‘to the brim,’ he loses a year of his fucking life.”

That would explain the braced smile, the slight twitch that suggested Demos’ internal dialogue was nothing but screaming.

“We’re so short-staffed right now,” Emily said. “It’s a nightmare. Sergio’s had to cover the bar — even our sous chef had to go and get carpal tunnel.”

Ferris looked up from his notebook. “The bar?”

“Yeah, he—“ Emily’s attention was stolen by a couple at the entrance. “Ugh, hang on. I have to go play hostess. I swear to God— why does anyone come to a restaurant in the afternoon?”

He didn’t watch her leave. His attention drifted toward the opposite end of the room where the bar sat. It was dark, glossy wood, curving into a smart ‘L’ with a clear view of the piano. Liquor bottles stood in rank against the wall and a half dozen leather-topped bar stools hugged the curve of the counter. Sure enough, Sergio was there, adding ice to a cocktail shaker.

Ferris pressed his mouth into laced fingers. This could be really good. It could also be really bad. Seeing Sergio behind the bar felt natural — it had been that way since Ferris was young. It wasn’t, however, where the man wanted to be. Ferris could remember the day they’d hired an actual bartender. The grin on Sergio’s face could have shamed the sun.

This was not a normal restaurant. Every staff member had been hired on the dual qualities of exceptional skill and the ability to keep their mouths shut. They went hand-in-hand. Demos had picked a bullet out of Nicky in the kitchen. The corpse in the back of Victor’s Lincoln still hadn’t left Ferris’ nightmares. The first Ristorante Giorgetti had burned down.

His father had died here.

Ferris’ head lowered, fists propping him up by the forehead. They treated their employees well. One couldn’t expect others to keep their secrets without first offering respect. There would be no more triple-shifts, no more skimmed tip jars. Seamus could work hard, but not too hard. He could rest.

He could smile again.

Ferris closed the notebook, then turned toward the bar.

“What’re you having?” Sergio said. He was already grabbing a whisky bottle. Ferris leaned onto the counter, one elbow supporting his weight.

“A serious conversation with you.”

Sergio set the bottle down. “Aw, damnit.”

“I think I know someone who could take over the bar for you. He’s good at it, hardworking, friendly—“

“You’re making it sound like there’s a catch.”

“Yeah.” Ferris’ tone darkened. “There is a catch. He’s a friend. You’re going to be personally responsible for his safety. And if you get him wrapped up in any mobster bullshit, I will throw you into the ocean.”

Sergio placed a hand on his chest, followed by a theatrical gasp. “Me? Corrupt another person? I think you’ve mistaken me for Demos.”

Ferris decided not to think too hard about the comment. He tightened his glare.

“Sergio.”

“Yes, yes.” Sergio lifted a loose fist, pinky outstretched. “Giurin giurello.”

At the edge of his line of sight, Ferris saw Demos hurry across the dining area to answer the phone. Part of Ferris thought he should run this by the Ghost first, but the other part already knew what he’d say. He accepted the pinky, hooking his finger with another grown man’s. The curve of his knuckle tightened and Ferris’ voice dropped.

“I’m not kidding about drowning you, Sergio.”

Their hands parted.

“Don’t you worry.” Sergio patted the side of Ferris’ face. “I’ll watch your friend as if he were my own child.”

That was probably best for everyone. Ferris already felt as if he’d been babysitting the Brit for the last six years. Then again, Seamus had always watched his back in turn.

Ferris sighed. “One last favor.”

“This better be a fun one,” Sergio said.

“You think you could kick someone’s ass for me? He’s a manager at a bar downtown.”

Sergio’s face lit up like a five-year-old at a birthday party. This was a fun one. “Sure! I’ll bring Benny. You want a, uh, ‘call in sick’ kind of beating or a ‘your own mother won’t recognize you?’”

“Give him a new profession.” A glare caught the lens of Ferris’ glasses, masking one eye in a panel of white. “One where he won’t need his hands.”

Sergio responded with a pair of finger guns and a click of his tongue. A woman waved a hand from the other end of the bar, attempting to catch Sergio’s attention.

“Bring your friend tomorrow.” Sergio slung a small towel over his shoulder. “I’m tired of pouring drinks.”

With that, he turned to attend to the customer. Hopefully this would be the last night he’d have to do so. That was, if Seamus wanted the job. Ferris snapped open his phone, tapping keys until he found the right contact.

– Hey Seamus, you got a second?

It took a moment before his phone buzzed back at him. Ferris’ thumb tapped over the number pad, keys clicking as one word after another was punched out onto the screen. There was another buzz. This reply had come faster.

“Merda santa.” Demos had returned from the phone. “You’ll never guess who just called.”

Ferris blinked at his friend. Demos was in rare form — wide-eyed, breathless. That look might have been mistaken for terror if not for the glowing smile over the Italian’s lips. Who the hell could possibly have been on the phone?

Ferris squinted. “Jesus?”

“No, better,” Demos said. “We got— oh, fuck. We got a Michelin star.”

“The tire company?”

“No, I mean— yes. I mean— you know exactly what I’m talking about, you asshole.” Demos elbowed Ferris in the side. If it was meant to hurt, he’d failed. “The Red Guide. The news is probably going to be here, I — I have to tell Nonno. We’re understaffed. Cazzo, we don’t even have a bartender.”

Just as Ferris started to wonder why he got so much pleasure out of this flustered version of Demos, his phone hummed once more. His eyes scanned the text before looking up to match his friend’s. Now was as good a time as any to break the news. Demos was already so wound up he was practically shaking — a good mood, if anything.

“Actually.” Ferris snapped his phone shut. “You do.”