He woke her with a kiss. It was a gentle kiss on her cheek but it was enough to cause her to stir, to open her eyes. He could see that she was still pretty much out of it and he was sorry to disturb her, but he knew he couldn’t let her sit there like that.
“If you want to keep sleeping, go into the party room.”
“What time is it?” Mary asked.
“About twenty after six. Everything’s okay upstairs. So really, if you want to sleep go ahead. If you want to get up, I have black beauties.”
“I’m getting up,” Mary said. “What you got for me besides black beauties?”
“What do you want?”
“I want you to tell me.”
“Let’s go to The Upper Room.“
“Why would I go there with you?”
“Only you can answer that. You don’t have to go. It’s easy. Just say yes or no and I’ll call Robert and see when we can get it.”
“Do you love me?” Mary asked.
“Change into your uniform,” said Bill. “Meet me in the meat room.”
Bill left Mary in the hall, walked around the corner and into the meat room. There, first thing he went into the walk-in and carted out the steamship round. One was already cut so he did not have to do anything other than bring it upstairs.
The round set on the meat tray on the counter, he went back into the walk-in and took out a prime rib. He set the rib on one of the cutting blocks and took a boning knife from his knife drawer. He used the boning knife to slit open the Cryovac then carried the rib in the Cryovac over to the sink where he turned it so the blood drained out. With the rib there in the sink, he ripped away the Cryovac then set the rib into a steam table pan.
The rib in the pan and the round on the tray, he lit a cigarette and walked over to the bourbon drawer. He had taken this bottle from the party room bar last night since Mary had killed the bottle he and Henry Lee were drinking, how she got drunk in the first place. Bill had swiped the fresh bottle before Henry Lee went home.
Not too long ago Mr. Bowman realized that he was not going to stop Bill and Henry Lee from drinking bourbon from his bar without losing them, two of his best employees. Mr. Bowman, Mr. Steakhouse, could well afford the whiskey, but he was unhappy with anyone stealing from him. So they privately agreed that Bill and Henry Lee could take a bottle whenever they wanted. The only conditions were that they not abuse the privilege and they didn’t tell anybody.
In his young hippie-like way, Bill was happy to make it a communal-type arrangement, a barter deal. So he offered Mr. Bowman weed. Mr. Bowman would never take it himself of course but he had Bill pass it to Alfreda or Alvin, whichever one happened to be picking up the meat delivery on the day that he wanted it.
Both Alfreda and Alvin were willing participants since they helped themselves to some on the way back from the East to the West. If it was Alfreda, she never missed an opportunity to steal a kiss and cop a feel on the sly from Bill.
Bill was taking a drink of the bourbon when Mary came into the meat room. He could see she was still a mess. She had not buttoned her dress all the way, her hair was mussed and she was bleary-eyed. He offered her the bottle. “Hair of the dog,” he said to her.
Mary took a swig. “Give me a black beauty,” she said. She swallowed the capsule with another drink of scotch.
By Peter Weiss
