Deadly Games. Steve Frech

Katie’s attention, there’s enough people for Katie to pretend like she didn’t hear her. We bartenders do it all the time to customers we don’t care for.

      “Doing okay over here?” I ask, pulling up across the bar from Emily.

      “Just fine, Mr. Showoff.”

      “Gotta give them what they want.”

      “I wasn’t complaining,” she says, giving me a seductive glance and taking the last sip of her drink.

      “Another one?”

      She ponders the wet ice in her glass. “Nah. I’ll settle up.”

      She reaches into her sleek, expensive handbag, extracts a couple of twenties, and hands them to me.

      I reach for the cash. “Listen, I’m gonna be a little late, tonight. I have to close.”

      She pulls the cash back. “I thought you were going to be cut first.”

      “I was, but I kind of owe Katie for our last time … and the time before that.”

      Emily gets a dreamy, far-away look. “I remember those times.”

      “Sorry. You know that I would do anything—”

      “It’s okay,” she sighs. “I may just get started without you.”

      “I promise I won’t keep you waiting.”

      “You’d better not.” She hands me the cash.

      “I’ll be right back,” I say with a sly smile.

      After closing out her tab at the register, I put the change and receipt into a faux-leather check presenter embossed with The Gryphon logo. Even though there’s nothing for her to sign, I slip a pen into the presenter and lay it on the bar in front of her.

      “Have a good night.”

      “I’d better,” she replies.

      We hold each other’s gaze before the surrounding requests for drinks become too much.

      I turn to the thirsty crowd and start knocking them down, taking three orders at a time, mentally triaging them to be the most effective with my time. I bury myself “in the weeds” and do what I do best, which is crank out drinks.

      Occasionally, I’ll steal a glance back towards Emily to catch her watching me, but finally, after a blitz of pouring beers and shaking cocktails, I turn to look and she’s gone.

      The countdown to last call begins …

      The evening settles into a steady hum.

      Katie takes advantage of the lull and begins clearing the bar top of empty pints and highballs. She reaches for the check presenter left by Emily on the bar.

      “No, no, no! I got that one. That’s for me!” I call out, quickly moving towards her.

      She picks up the check presenter and turns to me.

      “You two are ridiculous. You know that, right?”

      “I have no idea what you mean,” I reply as though I’m offended.

      “Cut the crap, Clay. Yes, you do.”

      Of course, I do. Others may have their suspicions, but Katie is the only one who knows for sure about Emily and I.

      “Okay. Fine. You think we’re ridiculous?” I ask.

      She nods, emphatically.

      “Two words, Katie: Nick McDermitt.”

      Her cheeks flush with anger.

      Nick McDermitt is an ex-ballplayer for the Giants. He and his wife used to occasionally stop by The Gryphon until the night Mrs. McDermitt found Katie and her husband in the parking lot being a little too flirty. In fact, they were being waaaaaay too flirty. After that, we never saw the McDermitts again.

      Our manager, Alex, who’s in the office right now, had a talk with Katie. He wasn’t going to fire her. She brings in too much business for that, but it was a bad look for the bar. Since then, there has been an informal “Please Don’t Bang the Spouses of Our Customers” policy.

      Katie presses the check presenter into my chest.

      “Just be careful, okay?”

      “If by ‘careful’, you mean ‘no nookie in the parking lot’, I think I can do that.”

      She groans and walks away, remembering to toss up a middle finger at me over her shoulder.

      I laugh and open the check presenter.

      Emily has left all the change, which comes out to about a fifty-dollar tip on a thirty-five-dollar tab. I toss the cash into the tip jar to split with Katie. The receipt is what I’m after, and I’m not disappointed.

      Written on the receipt with the pen I provided is a message: “Seaside Motel. Room 37. Don’t keep me waiting. You promised.”

      Tucking the slip of paper into my wallet, I glance up to see Katie shaking her head at me in disgust.

      I make the sign of the cross and press my hands together, as if begging for forgiveness.

      She gives me one last shake of her head and goes back to cleaning bottles.

      It’s five past midnight. I’m wiping down the bar while Katie enters her credit card tips into the register. We’ve stopped serving and the few remaining customers are finishing up their drinks. The music has been turned off and the lights are turned up, which is the universal sign for everyone to get out.

      Alex emerges from the office.

      “Okay, who is leaving first?”

      Katie raises her hand. “That would be me.”

      Alex pops open Katie’s register and runs her sales report.

      They disappear into the office to do her checkout. A few minutes later, she reappears, holding her check presenter and counting her credit card tips. She tips out Tommy, our barback, who is mopping the floor, and comes to sit at the bar.

      “You want to hand me the tip bucket?” she asks, settling onto a barstool.

      Instead of handing it to her, I extract the cash from the bucket and lay the bills on the bar in front of her.

      “Keep it. It’s yours.”

      “Seriously?”

      “Yeah. I still owe you.” I tip the bucket over in my hand. A mass of coins slides into my palm and I deposit it into my pocket. “I’ll keep the change.”

      I really do owe her and I’ll still get my credit card tips for tonight. Besides, I love taking the change. I keep it in a jar on my dresser. Every month or so, I’ll cash it in. It’s usually a couple hundred bucks and I treat it like that ten-dollar bill you find in your jacket pocket at the beginning of autumn. I’ll go out for a steak dinner or take a day trip to Napa.

      “Thanks,” she says, placing the bills in her personal check presenter, which is already stuffed with slips of paper.

      “How many numbers you stack?” I ask.

      We each have our own check presenter where we keep our change, credit card receipts, cash, order pad. A bartender never wants to leave their check presenter behind. It’s also where we keep the phone numbers customers give us. Katie and I have our own little rivalry. We call it “Stacking Numbers”. At the end of the night, we’ll see who got more phone numbers. It’s always Katie, to the point that I have a “ten-phone-number” handicap.

      “You don’t want to know,” she replies, confidently.

      “I would like to know who you’re having dirty sex time with tonight.”

      She tuts her tongue at me and takes my hand. “Oh, Clay. Are you jealous?”

      “Hey,