Chapter 2 - The Body at the Bottom of the Bottle

CHAPTER 2

Marlowe's during the daytime was not a new sight to me – I spent too many afternoons there with Pete, setting up for the night shift – and even though I’d been there less than twelve hours earlier, it always looks like a different place in the sunlight. From the street, it looked dingier than at night – a little shady, a little run down. But on the inside, it was a different story.

The night cleaner Hermes always made sure that before the day bartender walked in at 11am the floors were spotless, the bar was spic, the booths were span and any beer/cigarette/body odors from the long night before had disappeared without a trace. That last part might have changed, though, since there was a distinct, if pale, sewage odor in the air.

The bright June sunlight shone through the clean windows and sent shadows on the shiny floor while making the whole place look bigger by bouncing off the mirror that ran behind the bar.

I peered through a window pane but didn’t see anyone there. No customers at that hour was not very odd, but I’d expected to see Len behind the bar. I noticed the “closed” sign was hanging in the door, which was unusual – the place had usually served a few rotating regular lunch drinkers by that hour – but the ceiling lights were on.

I tested the front door and it opened easily.

The crazy artwork, usually hiding in shadows, was crisply visible and suddenly the seasonal decorations hanging from the ceiling fans jumped out at me – I hadn’t noticed them at all the night before. I now saw they were Valentine's Day hearts left over from a few months ago. A nice touch – the sort of kitschy decorating tip one wouldn’t think Len would go in for, but which I happen to know he treasured, planning them well in advance and hanging them himself plenty of time before each holiday.

He was also a hopeless romantic, and the night Pete and I broke up he told me he knew I'd find the right person – when I was least expecting it. I'd been least expecting it for two years now, and had just about resigned myself to remaining contentedly alone.

That the Valentine hearts were still hanging was not a good sign – Len usually took decorations down as soon as they were obsolete. The celebrations of romantic love were almost four months old now.

“Hello?” I called out. Usually as soon as a bartender comes on shift they hook up their iPod – some mellow playlist getting them in the glass-washing mood. But my word echoed, breaking the room's stale silence.

“Back here, Claire!” Len called out from somewhere behind the backroom door. I took a few steps and he yelled out, “Flip the lock behind you.”

I did, but then flipped it quietly back to the open position and headed to the back cautiously, squeezing through the half-open backroom door. This was all just a little too weird for me.

The backroom hosts the nightly music acts. As such, it is wood-paneled like the rest of Marlowe's, its lone window blacked out 24-7 and the room always looks the same – be it 2am or 2pm. Except when all the lights are out like they were then. I reached my arms out in front of me, feeling for the wall, planning to feel my way for a light switch – when suddenly light burst forth from the opposite corner of the room. Len swung the basement door open, illuminating half the room in dank light.

“Come on down,” he said, waving me over.

He didn’t look scary. No more than his six-foot-three, almost-fifty-year-old frame usually looked. He had the body of a bouncer and the rugged good looks of a young-ish Billy Joel. That is to say, an unknowable charm and kindness behind the eyes. Not that I could see that kindness across the dimly-lit backroom, but I kept telling myself it was there as I approached him.

Once I’d reached the basement door, I held it open as he descended into the light. I followed him down.

The basement was the one place at Marlowe's that was really VIPs only, and I myself had never been down, even though I'd been invited by Pete back in the day. I'd known he'd just wanted to fool around, but never had the urge to do it in a public place. Now I could see the many good reasons I'd never taken Pete up on his offers.

Two rooms split off from the landing. One appeared to be a storage room full of taps and kegs and boxes of liquor and beer bottles, and cases of cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon. My mind might have been playing tricks, but I swear I saw a rat run by.

The other room was also storage, but more odds and ends, broken bar stools and a workbench with power tools. That's the room under the women's bathroom. That's the room that stank. That’s the room Len led me through.

He stated the obvious, “We've been having plumbing problems. Can't afford a good plumber, just a bad one. Me.”

He walked toward the back where a jail-like floor-to-ceiling metal grate cage secured a safe, filing cabinet, and desk dwarfed by a giant open blue ledger and massive desktop computer from the 1990s. He unlocked the gate and swung it open, plopping down in his desk chair and motioning me to sit in a chair a good ten feet inside the gate. If I sat down and he was inclined to lock me in, all he’d have to do would be stand up, spin around the open gate, and it shut.

I’d never been afraid of Len. I’d always considered him a friendly acquaintance. A fatherly type. When Pete and I had started dating, he’d given me good advice, and before and during that relationship he’d played the part of bartender well, listening to my laments without taking anything to heart or letting me take anything too seriously.

My fond memories of this big teddy bear of a man led me to set aside my fears and squeeze past him. In the dim light I hadn’t realized the chair was on wheels and I slid back into the filing cabinet with a bang and an “Oh!”

Len leaned back in his chair and laughed out loud, the sound reverberating through the cave-like basement. All the tension in the air melted away and I chuckled with him. He reached under the desk, opening a mini-fridge and pulling out two cold beers.

He tipped his head at me, “Want?” I nodded as he popped the bottle open on a wall-mounted Coca Cola opener. Both caps fell neatly into the waste basket below. He also offered me a cigarette.

As I lit up, he mentioned, “I didn't use to smoke down here, but it has stunk on and off for the last few months and it helps cover the stench.”

Len took a long drink before speaking again, “Why do I feel like you’re scared of me all of a sudden?”

“Questions like that. And you calling me and mysteriously luring me down here.”

“Good point. I guess I could have been more clear on the phone. It’s just, well...” he looked pretty embarrassed. Suddenly I didn’t feel so safe around him, but not in the same way as before.

Suddenly I worried that Len, regardless of his long-time girlfriend Aimee, well, liked me. Of course. It all made sense. He’d always been such an attentive listener. He’d never chosen a side in the stormy days leading up to the Pete break up. He’d probably carried a torch for me the whole time I was dating Pete. Heck, maybe, ever since he first laid eyes on me. I’m a pretty good-looking woman and much more feminine than his tattooed tough-girl girlfriend Aimee.

And then, when he saw me walk through those doors last night, with Pete finally out of the picture for good, he’d realized he finally had a chance.

Maybe he thought he was the one I was least expecting.

I'd always heard rumors about Aimee being unfaithful. Hell, I'd seen her hit on more than a few hot young guys, but nothing confirmed.

I’d never felt that way about Len, but, who knows?

His next words made me glad all of the above was an internal, instead of external, monologue.

“I’m losing my hearing and I don’t like to talk on the phone.” He said it all at once like a big ugly secret was rushing out of his lungs. “There, I said it. I haven’t told anyone yet. No one knows. I mean, not even my doctor. I haven’t been to my doctor about it yet. I hate doctors.”

I blushed deeply as he went on, but I doubt he could tell. For one thing he seemed to be talking more to himself than me, staring off into the distance, contemplating his aging body betraying him. For another thing, the previously mentioned dark cavernousness of the basement office disguised my flushed cheeks.

Apparently, Len had noticed a few months ago that he had to look people in the face more often when in conversation, especially if it was bustling, and thus loud. Music drowned out all other sounds, thus today’s lack of background tunes upstairs. He knew he was coming off more gruff than usual, especially on the phone when he couldn't see who he was talking to, but he just wasn’t ready to own up to his hearing loss and go see a specialist about it.

When my beer was half done and he was still going on about himself, I made a big show of looking at my watch.

“That’s too bad, Len, and I’m glad you wanted to open up to me and all but I really do have a meeting in the city.” I stood up, ready to go.

He surprised me by touching my arm. He spoke gently. “That’s not what I needed to talk to you about.”

He reached behind his chair and opened the filing cabinet, pulling out a thin envelope he’d obviously set there for easy access. He handed it to me.

My heart sank. Scrawled across the front was “Claire Zakarian,” in Pete's handwriting. He'd drawn a crude heart around my name.

“He left me one, too. Mine didn't have the heart,” he added with a smirk. “I only just found them this morning. You heard about how suddenly he left,” he said.

He extended the envelope out to me, but well out of my grasp. I let him talk, but part of me wanted to snatch it out of his hand and rip it open.

“He closed up shop on May 3. As far as we can tell, he locked up around 4am. He kicked Rob and Jenkins out about a half hour before, well before closing – they’re still ticked off about it.”

I did the math in my head. A little over four weeks ago.

He went on. “He was supposed to work the next day, but no one has seen him since. He didn’t even call or come by to pick up his last paycheck. I’d written him off, until this morning when I finally tried to balance the books,” usually one of Pete’s responsibilities, I remembered. “I found these two envelopes in the middle of the ledger.”

He took his from his back pocket, “Mine basically just apologized and said he would be gone for good. And asked me to make sure you got this right away.”

He closed the blue ledger on the desk and locked it in the filing cabinet. He half-rose in his chair to hand me my envelope. I realized I was frozen in place.

“He’s been my and Aimee's friend for years and I wanted t o honor his last request by giving this to you. You can read it here. I'll give you some privacy.”

He stood, indicating our little tete-a-tete was over. I followed suit.

For a brief second I was afraid he was going to slam the gate shut and leave me there to rot. It was a really creepy basement.

“Thanks,” I said, as I sat back down.

As his foot hit the first step, he called out, “I don’t think you’ll like what it says.”

“Why’s that?”

“My letter told me not to try to find him. I think he’s really gone.”

With that, he left me alone in the office to read the letter.

I squirmed in the chair, rolling myself back and forth as I played with the edges of the envelope. It was thin. Pete had never been much of a writer.

I wondered what he had left to say to me after all this time.

I slid over to the desk. An old-fashioned green-glass desk lamp lit the bare space on the desk where Len had had the ledger open. I set the envelope down, looking for an opener. I didn’t want to risk chipping my new home manicure.

I leaned back, opening drawers, looking through them. I slid the pencil drawer open and it stuck half-way. As I jerked it to get it open, my foot hit the wall under the footwell. I jumped as something came loose and hit my foot, then the floor, with a loud clatter.

I recoiled as the pungent smell permeating the room became more intense. I slid the chair back, scrunching myself to lean down under the desk. I could see that part of the wood wall paneling had come free. I sighed, wondering how I was going to explain to Len how I kicked it loose. I scooted the chair back and got on my hands and knees.

I inched into the footwell and looked at the hole I'd created in the wall.

I almost threw up.

A crumpled pile of human bones, fleshless except for desiccated sinew still on them, stood propped up against the building's support system. The body looked like it had been shoved in the space and, as it decayed, the bones had fallen to the floor as the flesh fell away.

The remains were topped by a crooked skull perched on a tibia, the larger of the two calf bones. It seemed to stare back at me.

I scuttled out, breathing hard.

I was already at the grate when I remembered the letter. I grabbed it and stuck it in my back pocket before slamming the gate closed and running up the stairs in a panic.

Len was nowhere to be seen.

On the top landing, a handwritten note taped to the door read, “Went to deli. Take your time. Be back in five.” I could see Len had left the backroom's exit door propped open while he ran out.

I couldn't wait. I grabbed my cell phone as I headed for the front door, dialing 911.

It wasn’t until I was almost at the door that I remembered I’d left it unlocked. The only reason I remembered was a man slid off a bar stool by the door and extended his hand in greeting.

“You must be Claire. I’m George Braxes. I’m glad I caught you before it was too late.”