When I arrived, McGoo was waiting for me on his regular stool, already well on the way to finishing his first beer. He must have had a rough day, too—as usual. I glanced at my watch—only 7:10. He saw me, raised his mug. “I got a head start, Shamble.”
“I can see that, but I’ll catch up.” I worked my way onto the stool next to his, but something wasn’t right. I sniffed, realized that someone had cleaned the bar surface and stools with lemon wax. Francine never did that. When I raised my hand to call out for the usual, I stopped myself, remembering that our favorite bartender was no longer there. Instead, I saw a portly man in a tweed business suit, so cheery that his demeanor practically screamed, “My doctor upped the dosage of my antidepressants, and I’m fine now!” He came over, exuding friendliness.
“Welcome, welcome to the new Goblin Tavern! I hope your day is a sunny one.” He had a ready handshake, whether I wanted one or not. I just wanted a beer. “My name is Stu—I’m the new manager here. Still reviewing applications for a new bartender.”
Five seats down the bar, three gaunt and decaying zombies sat hunched with their elbows on the bar, their heads sunk down into their chests. One of them said in a gurgling voice, “Are you a human, Stu?” When the new manager happily nodded, the zombie continued, “Mmm, I like human stew.” The bartender kept the smile fixed on his face, so as not to offend the customers.
“Could I get a beer, please?” I said.
“Certainly, sir.” Stu stood at the tap and rattled off the selections, which had increased, mostly light and foreign beers. Francine had never asked what type of beer I liked. I picked one. Stu delivered the mug and said, “If there’s any way I can make your visit more enjoyable, please let me know.”
I held the beer in my stiff hands and felt a sadness come over me. “You could hire Francine back. That would be a good start.”
I meant it as a quick snide comment, but McGoo piped up. “For once, I agree one hundred percent with Shamble.” Several of the other monster patrons also called out their support for my suggestion.
Stu was flustered, and I think we hurt his feelings; he was trying so hard. “I’ll, uh, forward your feedback, but that decision was made by Smile Syndicate management, high above my pay grade. Until we get a genuine monster replacement, you’ll just have to satisfy yourselves with me.”
Down the bar, the decrepit zombies raked sharp fingernails along the wooden surface and gnashed their jaws together. “We’ll take what’s offered,” one said. Stu scuttled over to the cash register and kept himself busy as far from the zombies as possible.
McGoo glanced at them, leaned closer to me. “What do you call a zombie with no brains?” He didn’t wait for me to guess. “Hungry!”
Remembering my promise to him the previous night, I laughed politely.
He and I talked about our days, traded ideas and information about various cases. “I bumped into Maximilian Grubb yesterday,” I told McGoo. “Did you know he’s managing a storage unit complex now?”
McGoo finished his beer and ordered another one. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he was selling encyclopedias door-to-door.”
“Encyclopedias? Nobody uses physical encyclopedias anymore.”
He shrugged. “Maximus Max doesn’t seem to be ahead of the curve.”
I heard a chorus of cheers and catcalls from the other side of the room, where a group of vampires was playing darts. Ilgar, the previous owner of the Goblin Tavern, once had two pool tables there, but after an unfortunate accident involving a broken wooden cue stick and a vampire’s chest, he had removed the pool tables out of consideration for his customers. Now the vampires were throwing darts with great enthusiasm, if little accuracy, at a new board onto which they had pasted a photo of Senator Rupert Balfour’s dour face. Some of the darts struck in the general vicinity of the bull’s-eye, while others fell far short, several feet below the senator’s head. Since that would have been the approximate location of his crotch, the vampires considered it a score nevertheless.
I realized I hadn’t been listening to what McGoo was saying, then realized that he wasn’t interested in the conversation either. Both of us kept looking around the tavern, saw how it had been cleaned and redecorated, but not improved in any way. The real cobwebs had been cleared, to be replaced by kitschy strings and plastic spiders—as if real unnaturals, or anyone with eyes and a brain for that matter, couldn’t tell the difference. Framed photos of Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Vincent Price, Lon Chaney (both Senior and Junior), and the great Tor Johnson had been mounted on the walls next to Peter Cushing as Van Helsing (someone had already drawn a mustache on his face) and Christopher Lee as Dracula, in addition to the Toxic Avenger (as himself). People were supposed to believe that the autographs were real.
As the night wore on, the clientele increased, mostly unnaturals coming into the Tavern out of habit, as well as a group of wide-eyed tourists. I finished two beers, but didn’t taste either one. McGoo ordered a third, not because my conversation was so scintillating, but because he didn’t have any incentive to move. He was off duty and had to go home, which was neither convenient nor appealing since he lived outside the Quarter.
Even though he spent most of his day here, McGoo kept a small apartment where “normal people” lived, and clung to it as a matter of pride, although he wasted a lot of time commuting. I’d once asked him, “Why don’t you just find an apartment here?”
“No nice places.”
“My flat upstairs from our office is nice.”
“No, it’s not. When’s the last time you actually saw your place?”
“Well, the flat itself is nice—I’m just a bad housekeeper.”
“No, the bad housekeeping just hides the fact that the place is a dump. Besides, you moved into the Quarter and look what happened to you.”
“My address didn’t have anything to do with some creep shooting me in the back of the head.”
“Everything’s a factor.”
He had a long ride home, and I didn’t want to stay in the Tavern any longer, thanks to some unofficial, and more than slightly illegal, business of my own that I had to take care of.
He and I swung off our stools at the same time. “Better get going.” McGoo glanced at his watch. “Nine o’clock, and I’ve got a delightful evening ahead of me at home, doing nothing in particular. What about you, Shamble?”
“Oh, nothing much,” I said; McGoo didn’t need to know that I planned to break into Timeworn Treasures. We both sighed.
“I hate to say this, Shamble, but we might need to find another watering hole. The Tavern just doesn’t have the right ambience anymore.”
As we went to the door, Stu the bartender waved and called out a cheery “Thanks, come again—and I hope your day is a sunny one!”
We hit the street, and McGoo and I went our separate ways.
Chapter 22