A Possible Murder Mystery... Chapter Two!

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:    A Possible Murder Mystery...  Just Trying it Out, Sort of...

Chapter Two
Flying Fists and Lemons!

Seemingly appeased by Leonard’s assertions, Cruikshank eventually departed for his office and the multitude of duties that commanded the attention of the general manager of the busiest, most successful hotel operation in all of Washington State.  As he left, he flipped down  the full bank of lights just inside the south entrance of the barroom.  As was his usual routine, he would not reappear until evening.  It was nearly “opening time,” 11:00 AM.  Re-coloring the almost iridescent and perfectly tailored, lightly-colored suit Cruikshank always seemed to prefer, softly muted light spilled out from the long bar, cascading down the two steps that led into it and flooded the gorgeous “sunken” cocktail lounge with illumination.  The light seemed to darken his apparel, and like a magician's trick, the general manager seemed to disappear, into smoke or a kind of mist.      

As the room became revealed in its warm glow of light, the first thing any onlooker noticed were the enormous natural Douglas firs, as if a forest had taken root under the floor

boards extending their coniferous foliage out of sight above the roof line.  The firs acted as a giant row of columns, a kind of oversized fence between the booths that lined the outer three walls and the interior tables and chairs.  The carpeting, done in a swirling pattern of light and dark blues and soft reds, was interrupted only by a small section of wood flooring placed at the edge of the carpeting nearest the bar.  

On weekends and holidays the floor accommodated dancing in the evenings hours.  During the cocktail hour, from 5:00 until 6:30 PM Monday through Friday, the wood floor became the perch of the “Wood Nymph,” a scantily-clad young woman, costume matching the fabric of the stools and bartender vests, who dispensed silver-dollar-sized ham and beef sandwiches priced at six for a half dollar and, at times, other hot hors d’oeuvres offered at ridiculously low cost or free of charge to “happy hour” patrons.  Most of those who populated the inn’s bar and lounge were transients, business travelers on expense accounts and well able to afford the time and the fare, attracted by cocktail waitresses who, without exception, might have been just at much at home on runways or movie sets.  Cocktail drinkers savored the great and abundant food and low-cost beverages daily, treating themselves, as most were convinced, to their “just desserts,” after-business-hours’ rewards.

Leonard was not to have a pleasant shift this particular day.  It was a Friday, and Leonard mistakenly thought he had actually made it through his workweek without incident.  At precisely 11:05 AM, Mavis entered the barroom, seated herself upon a stool near Leonard’s side of the bar, doing so with her unselfconscious ceremony, placing her purse on a neighboring stool.  She next positioned a large amber ashtray just to her right, then fished through the commodious handbag for her Kent filter-tipped cigarettes and gold lighter, placing those objects just to her left, the lighter on top of the cigarette packet.  The purse stood erect on her right, a kind of sentry between Mavis and any patron who might seat him or herself on the adjoining stool.  The purse was rich looking and quite large.  Jack had returned from his stock-gathering forays into the walk-in cooler and liquor closet.  He busied himself arranging bottled beer in the coolers, labels facing front, bottles perfectly aligned and spaced as if awaiting a military inspection.   He knelt as he continued to fill the beer coolers, eventually looking left and up at Mavis and her neatly placed objects that foretold a lengthy stay.   “That sack is gigantic,” Jack mused.  “She must carry silver ingots instead of a coin purse.”  The handbag was made of sturdy brown leather and matched her shoes.  The woman was dressed fashionably, and obviously had expensive taste.

   

Nodding at her, Leonard said, “Mavis.  Are you alright?”  

“I’m fine, of course, Lenny, and you?”

“Mavis.  Do you think it’s wise of you to be here?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

Leonard walked to the other end of the bar, and busied himself with chores that needn’t have been done.  He selected a clean bar towel from a cabinet placed about midway under the long bar and wiped a dry glass, elevating it to the light to inspect it for spots.  Jack watched Leonard and thought, “It’s almost a cliché.  He’s an actor pretending to be a bartender in an old movie.”  Jack approached Mavis and said, “Good morning ma’am.  What may I serve you?”  As he spoke, looking straight into her pale blue eyes, he placed a cocktail napkin on the bar in front of Leonard’s wife.

“I’ll have a bourbon manhattan straight up, and don’t skimp on the bourbon.  In fact, don’t short pour the sweet vermouth either.  Cherry and an olive.”

Jack mixed and then served her the drink.  Mavis emptied the large stemmed vessel of its potent contents almost as fast as one might pour the drink on the floor.

Jack said, “Was the drink satisfactory?”  

Her reply either ignored the question or, thought Jack, confirmed her enjoyment of it, the probable instantaneous “buzz.”  “Another,” she said.  Jack built another, thinking to himself, “Is she out to drink herself into a quick stupor, or is she exceptionally talented?”  He placed the freshly made concoction on the beverage napkin in front of her.  Leonard said from the north end of the bar, “Jack, can you come over her a moment.  I want to ask you something about the glass washer.”  It was a ploy, but he switched on the washer to validate the ruse, and to try to drown out the ensuing, whispered conversation.  “Can you please ease up on those drinks of hers?”

“Why,” the younger man asked.

“Listen.  Mavis is my ex-wife.  To be accurate, we’re separated, but I’ll have a final divorce in a less than two months.  She’s kind of a lush, not only that, but sort of an angry and mean drunk.  If I could legally do so, I’d call the cops right now, but she hasn’t done anything yet.  She will though.  She’ll get crazy.  Violent.  Or maybe she won’t, this time.  I hope.  Just, please, ease up on the quantity of booze you put in that shaker.  OK?”  

Jack agreed to soften the blow of the next manhattan.  He also said he’d try to engage Mavis in some light-hearted conversation.  He’d try preemptively to diffuse any anger that might erupt should she have too much alcohol.  As he left Leonard and returned to Mavis, she said, “Another,” this time in speech that seemed a touch slurred from the first two highly potent cocktails.  Jack tried secretively to short pour the drink, but Mavis had her gaze aimed with eagle-eyed fixedness on Jack’s dispensing of the bourbon.  He said, “I understand you’re Leonard’s wife.  He’s a great guy.  I’m really lucky to be working with him.  He’s teaching me so much about the art of bartending.  What do you do for work?”

“Just pour the drink,” said Mavis, “and I’m watching, so don’t try any short fill.”  

“Uh, yes ma’am,” said Jack.  “These are powerful drinks, Mrs. Hoaglund.  Please be a little cautious.  They can really pack a knock-out.  I know from experience,” he added, a nervous laugh punctuating the comment. 

“Mind your own business, you snotty little nobody!” Mavis snapped.  Jack studied the woman.  Her eyes hardened the even features in an attractive face.  She had light brown hair, coifed and lacquered and brushed away from her face.  Mavis was not quite pretty, but rather “handsome” as some women who are not quite pretty are often described.  Her figure was trim and well formed.  She looked to be and was apparently in good physical condition.  

Leonard moved back to his side of the bar.  As he and Jack passed Leonard said, “Thanks for trying.  I’ll take over.  I’ll try to talk to her.”  Before he could utter a word, Mavis had downed the third manhattan.  She threw the glass over her shoulder.  It hit the floor and broke into a puzzle of shards.  She then stood up on the bar rail, grabbed Leonard’s tie and began hitting him in the face with her hands and fists.  Leonard did all he could to ward off the blows, finally using all his strength and the bar itself as a wedge to release Mavis’s grip on the necktie.  Finally he was able to back away from her outstretched arms and grasping hands, and those formidable fists. 

Unfortunately for Leonard, the cored lemons, all of them now peel-less and pulpy, still rested on the bar.  Mavis began grabbing the lemons, two in her left hand, one in her right, and began pelting Leonard, aiming for his head.  The whole crazy, frenzied attack happened so fast, as if no deterrent could have reacted quickly enough to stop the assault.  And then, as quickly as it happened, it was over.  Mavis, her face now a dark scowl, packed up her cigarettes and

lighter, grabbed her handbag and stormed out through the north barroom door that led to the hotel kitchen.  Leonard was bruised, his nose bleeding badly, his face and hair dripping lemon juice.  The back bar was fragrant, but sloppy, with lemon pulp!  Leonard and Jack began to mop up the mess.

“Don’t say anything to anyone here about this.  OK?  It’s happened before.  I thought she was finished with this kind of thing.  Please don’t say anything to Herb, I mean, to Cruikshank, Mr. Cruikshank,” said Leonard.

“I wouldn’t.  Hell, why would I?  I don’t know and I don’t have any contact with the general manager.  I wouldn’t say anything anyway.  It’s nobody’s business but yours,” said Jack in reply.  “Geez, I really sorry, Leonard.  She’s really, uh, interesting.  Kind of scary.  What was the cause of all that?  I mean, why’s she so angry with you?”

Leonard said, “Hell, I don’t really know for sure.  Probably the separation and divorce.  Rejection, maybe.  Cruikshank has been warning me that the episodes make the customers a bit uneasy.  No shit!  What the hell!  Me too, for crying out loud.  He’s asked me to think about working somewhere else for a while until the thing cools down.  God, I’m glad there was no one else here this morning.  What a break!  Listen, I’m just going to get to the washroom and clean myself up.  Be right back, OK?” 

“Of course,” Jack replied.  “I’ll take care of any customer who may wander in.”  As he watched Leonard stumble away, a bar towel dabbing at his wounds, Jack thought about the incident that had just occurred, and then had an unkind thought.  “If it weren’t so damned pitiful it’d be a heck of a comedy routine.”  He chuckled somewhat mirthlessly to himself and thought, “Poor old Leonard.  Maybe he should wear a clip-on tie.  I'll mention it when he comes back...”  

Jack had been facing the south door as Leonard left, but as Jack turned to face the opposite direction, he noticed Florence the salad chef, whom he secretly referred to as “Florence of Arabia,” a term from which both he and Leonard derived much amusement.  The nickname was applied one morning as Jack watched Florence deftly slicing and wacking at lettuces and other salad greens, arugula, carrots, onions, fresh spinach and other vegetables, preparing them for the lunch crowd.  As she knifed through the various ingredients, they seemed to explode in a great cloud around her blurred, rapidly moving hands, leaping and seeming to soar into the air around her, like a kind of storm, a sand storm, Jack thought.  Like “Florence of Arabia.” 

Humbly Submitted 09-22-18 -- Joel K.

A Possible Murder Mystery... Just Trying it Out, Sort of...

Reflections and Observations -- A Bright Passage from the Fantasies of Youth 

to Illuminations of Advanced Maturity!

This Episode:    A Possible Murder Mystery...  Just Trying it Out, Sort of...

Chapter One – Leonard and Mavis

He was completely into the dance, executing a kind of arabesque as he performed the routine -- more ritual than tedium -- that started his workday every day, five days a week.  His arms were flung wide, extending, his legs gliding as if on ice, first to his right, then back to the left, fluid, nearly artistic.  Or, at least to some, it seemed like a dance, and it amused them to think of it as such, certain staff members of long-standing, fellow employees of Leonard’s, principal day-shift bartender at the Beech Tree and Basswood Inn. 

Leonard began his workday as he normally did, placing the bottles of liquor, spirits and cordials on the three rows of shelves that lined the back bar, situating the bottles in precisely the same, pre-ordained order that was seen to each day, and had been the duty of the chief day bartender for the three-and-a-half year history of the inn.  The bottle formation was twinned on either side of the back bar, gloriously displayed, underside and back lit, adding to their almost hypnotic profusion of color.  The ridiculously tall and ornate bottles that contained the yellow-gold liqueur with the stylized Italian military hat-corks went to the center, additional cordials with their rich hues and textures to its flanks.  Then came the expensive “call-brands” of bourbon, rye whiskey, scotch, gin, vodka and other spirits in their precise positions, in accordance with their popularity and ease of grasp by the always-rushed corps of bartenders, day and nighttime crews alike.  

  

The rules that governed bar procedure were set down by a state-controlled liquor board in Washington State during the late 1960’s and on into the 1970’s, and one of the sacrosanct “laws” mandated that all bottles containing alcoholic beverages had to be removed from the back bar, locked away from closing until opening time and replaced upon the back bar at the start of the following business day.  The wells and automated dispensing system that contained “house brands” were similarly governed by the rules of after-hours storage.  The system had to be locked or otherwise disabled. 

   

Leonard undertook the task, the daily routine, faithfully, with remarkable grace and efficiency, seemingly with a certain kind of gratification, and, oddly, with a measure of gleefulness, each day of his working life.

Not Leonard, but it could be him when he aged into his
later 50s or early 60s...  unless he's dead!  

Leonard Hoaglund was the “day bar manager,” a largely ceremonial title conferred as a result of a kind of privilege he enjoyed.  Leonard was a relatively tall man, standing perhaps six-feet-one-inch.  His height and exceptional reach were advantages in the daily bottle re-placement routine.  He was almost handsome, his hair a darker shade of blond, stick-straight and brushed back over a forehead that was low and sometimes rippled in concentration, gray and white strands of it having invaded the proud blond profusion of his prime.  He was solidly built, robust and almost always in a pleasant mood.  His widely spaced blue eyes were full of fun and laughter, his nose prominent but straight, his mouth wide and frequently made even wider by a smile that was consistently genuine.  Now in his mid-forties, more than 20 years into a professional life spent primarily “behind the bar,” Leonard, in mock earnestness, professed his preference for  the more elegant title “beverage host,” and it was thus that he frequently introduced himself to new patrons freshly perched at the long and beautifully appointed bar of the famously successful Beech Tree and Basswood Inn.

  The bar contained perhaps 20 well-padded stools whose fabric colors and pattern matched those of the gold, brown and muted orange of the bartenders’ uniform vests.  Black, half-Windsor-knotted ties, white broadcloth shirts with spread collars, black trousers and shoes completed the ensemble of each wearer.

The “bar-backs” dressed the same, while enjoying none of the adulation accorded the experienced, full bartenders.  A bar-back was the name given the “apprentices” who stocked the bottled beer and soft drink coolers, fetched ice, refilled bar fruit containers, changed the empty beer barrels for fresh ones, and performed other back-up tasks for the talented and often amazingly, acrobatically skilled bartenders.

The above image

represents a "Barback," though

the blue hair is not typical

Daytime bar-backs, however, were placed in a somewhat different caste.  Inasmuch as the day crew did not endure quite the same frenzied pace as that of the night staff; the day man doubled as bartender.  Almost instantly nicknamed “Jack the Bar-back,” better known to his family and friends as Jack Rosnov, he was an experienced bartender, relegated to the lesser status given his short tenure on the job.  Despite his newness, and his age – 25 years old on this fine June day in 1969 -- just a month and a half into the job, Jack enjoyed a kind of special relationship with Leonard.  They were similarly endowed, each having a talent for wit and humor, silliness too, and as such became almost instant friends and confidants.  Jack often seized an opportunity for a short break at this juncture in the early going of the daytime, pre-opening routine, studying the routine, the “dance” that Leonard employed each day with the bottles and the back bar, marveling at the latter’s skill and speed.  

Jack abruptly ended the break and sprang back to life and the appearance of industrious briskness, almost seamlessly, as the big boss, the general manager, the highly regarded “czar” of the Beech Tree and Basswood Inn entered and placed himself at Leonard’s end of the long bar.  Jack had never met the man formally, though he knew this was the magnificently tailored, barbered and elegantly appareled Herbert Oswaldo Cruikshank, the “Oswaldo” an homage, Leonard told Jack on a rare quiet mid-morning as the two chatted aimlessly, to a distant but wealthy relative of Latino descent.  Leonard acknowledged the GM with a slight smile and a nod, while completing the bottle placement exercise.   He next began the daily task of placing a great quantity of lemons and limes in almost militarily aligned formations on the bar, strategically situated on either side of a wooden cutting board upon which he had placed two razor-sharpened, superbly polished knives.  Cruikshank sat silently, posed in a respectful stillness, until Leonard was at last facing forward, ready to begin another daily chore, that of coring lemons for twists, and then slicing the limes that would adorn the margaritas and Cuba libras of drinkers whose elbows would bend and flex throughout the afternoon and evening in growing appreciation.

An image of an angry woman, shown
here to represent Leonard's angry wife whom
we'll meet in another chapter, possibly!

“Leonard,” began Cruikshank, “How are you, today?  Everything going well?”

“I’m fine.  Everything’s OK,” said Leonard with a nod and a broader smile.

Cruikshank asked, “Listen, do you think your wife will come in today?  I mean, do you have any reason to expect that she’ll come here today?”

“Oh, Herbie, good god no.  Hell no.  I sure don’t think so.  She’s got to have learned her lesson by now!”  Leonard spoke confidently, with conviction.  Only one person in Leonard’s sphere of family, friends and acquaintances called him “Lenny.”  To everyone else he was always “Leonard,” the name he obviously preferred.  By contrast, and this took Jack by surprise, Leonard called the feared and revered Mr. Cruikshank, “Herbie.”  

Jack later learned from him that Leonard and “Herbie” were close, truly intimate friends of many years’ standing.  Only Leonard dared call him “Herbie,” and then only when both men thought they were alone, out of earshot of any hotel staff personnel.  Jack’s presence during the conversation was almost surreptitious, though not by design, he being in the darkened barroom and partially concealed by an open cooler door.  Neither of the two speakers glanced his way, and Jack hurriedly finished that portion of his re-stocking duties, and left the bar, retreating to the lower regions of the inn and its commodious storage facilities.   (To be Continued...  Possibly!)

[Special Note:    Please be apprised that the perpetrator -- false modesty eschewed for the moment -- has received his first royalty payments for his Illustrated Children's Book, "An Awful Beautiful Day  (Or...  Me and My Chicken Pox!)".   (Illustrated by sibling, Kris!)  Those avid fans of fine literature may wish to purchase the aforementioned book at its quite reasonable cost.  Please visit...   www.amazon.com ...and key "Joel Kriofske" in the search window o reach the author's entire canon of literary achievements.   Profound and sincere thanks to one and all!] 

Humbly Submitted 08-30-18 -- Joel K.