Martha rolled up in her all-black Ford Ranger pickup right on time for her second interview. Marko met her at the door. She dressed as if she came to work, wearing soft bar shoes. She eyed the girl’s uniforms last time, and came close to mimicking their Cantina gathered skirts and Spanish, cleavage-enhanced tops.
“You look like one of the team,” Marko said.
“You said you might give me a shot at backing up Brad for an hour,” Martha said. She walked ahead of Marko this time.
He was impressed with the entire package, from her bright smile and her soft facial features, to her brilliant blue eyes and full wavy sandy blond hair. She was beautiful, but in a warm family way, not like a seductress or a bimbo. She stood 5’8” tall, but she had the shape of athletic 10. He couldn’t get enough of her, as if she was the perfect ice cream cone and he couldn’t wait to lick her. He caught himself.
“Did you say something?” she asked.
“No, no I didn’t, but let me introduce you to Brad,” Marko said. After the introduction, he gave her a tour of the galley and she met the Chinaman.
She bowed slightly and the Chinaman blushed. “Can I offer you one of our special appetizers?” the Chinaman asked.
“Of course,” she said, treating the carefully splayed, robust, grilled shrimp enhanced with a dollop of crab sauce and a parsley garnish with respect, placing it carefully on a small plate. Then she delicately lifted it by the tail and took a bite.
“It’s delicious, and Bandit will love it with your special hot sauce.”
Marko and the Chinaman looked at one another in disbelief. They immediately knew she had done her homework.
“You’re right,” the Chinaman said. “He likes his food spicy, and loves my special hot sauce.”
Martha was observant and commented on the cleanliness of the galley and the equipment. She went out of her way to help his galley hands with some platters of food. Marko observed each gesture, and her desire to help and be supportive.
She made sure to introduce herself to each waitress, and offered a compliment or two. Marko spent a good portion of an hour showing Martha around and relishing her every word and move. For the first time in a decade, a woman mesmerized him.
“Would you like to work with Brad for an hour?” Marko asked, but knew the answer.
“I was hoping for the opportunity,” Martha said, snatching an apron off the hook and stepped behind the bar. Brad immediately began to point out the location of each element of bar business, from the glasses and mugs to wine bottles and maraschino cherries. She pulled a note pad from her purse and began to take notes.
As the sun set, the Friday happy-hour crowd started to pour in. Riders from up and down the coast found their way to the Cantina, for the chow, the atmosphere on the harbor, and the music. Bandit liked the blues, and once in awhile, the Signal Hillbillies from Long Beach filled the dining room with a special twang.
Riders packed the motorcycle-only parking lot and jammed the bar. Bandit never cottoned to a no-colors policy, and the local clubs respected the establishment. They also assumed that local riders would respect clubs, but that wasn’t always the case.
Alcohol was too often a factor. Marko watched for potential problems and tried to head them off. As the bar filled up and the liquor flowed, Marko notice a particularly bright glimmer on the water in the harbor. He strolled outside to come face to face with a brilliant full moon. The brilliant orb contained an ominous air, like an evil omen. Marko tried to shake it off, but as he entered the dining room and scanned the bar area, he noticed a big outlaw-looking tattooed man trying to mingle with a group of local clubbers.
He recognized the guy as a regular patron, but not the right mix for a full moon and a Cantina packed with club guys. Marko sighed and scratched his goatee. He watched this guy come into the bar more often. He had a buzz cut and no other facial hair. He was as big as Marko and his arms were the muscled sort, like a steroid user. He was pumped, but his problems extended past the emotion–altering, muscle-building drugs.
He looked like an ex-con headed back to the joint. He didn’t seem to have a job, but had a pocket full of cash. Marko sensed diminishing returns. The cash wasn’t going to last, as the man drank too much, talked too much, and didn’t seem to be contributing to anything, not even himself. His drinking was a hollow veil for something more sinister, maybe heroin addiction.
He wasn’t the kind of patron anyone wanted around, and Marko disliked seeing Big Todd on this particular night, with Martha trying out the bar action for the first time.
Big Todd left the members of the club and made his way to the bar.
“I don’t have a job yet,” Martha said, and moved quickly to the edge of the counter where the whiskey bottles were inventoried.
“It’s just as well,” Todd said, leaning over the long wooden bar. “You don’t want to work here. Bandit fucked my ol’ lady, but that’s a long story for another time.”
Todd followed Martha down the bar.
“See those club guys? If it wasn’t for me, they’d all be doing time for murder.”
Marko wasn’t the only rider watching Todd. A member of the club, a tall skinny sort with murder in his eyes, leaned over and whispered something to his president. Blade was a nasty sort with a short fuse, since he was part Cherokee and whiskey set him off. He loved to stab anyone when his alcohol saturation reached an I-don’t-give-a-shit level.
He was tall, slick and cunning, and at that point of no return, nothing would stop him. He slipped past his president and the other members sitting around the table and headed towards Todd. Just 20 minutes prior, Todd told the same old story at the table of club guys.
A member of ill repute was kicked out of the club, but he didn’t go peacefully. He broke into a member’s home and stole everything he could get his hands on, including jewelry, drugs, and cash. He brought his stash to Todd and wanted to party. Once he was stoned and crashed out, Todd dropped a dime on him to the club.
The club came to grab their shit and take care of business, but Todd, in a fit of saneness talked them out of killing the bastard. But he played his “you owe me” card almost weekly, until the owe side of the card was rubbed clean. Blade heard the story from the drug addict one too many times and headed toward his own tequila-soaked redemption.
The long bar was crowded when Blade stood at one end and stared down the counter. He slugged his final shot of Cuervo Gold and slammed the thick glass shot glass on the counter, then reached to his leather waistband and unsnapped the woven leather tie holding his 8-inch straight blade in its leather-tooled scabbard.
The rider sitting next to him stood up and backed away from the counter. Blade knocked over his barstool and took another step closer to Todd who drank his whiskey, oblivious to the impending attack. Another rider recognized the evil glare in the half-breed’s gaze and stepped away from the counter with his beer in hand.
The third rider didn’t turn in time and Blade grabbed his collar and yanked him away from the bar spilling the rider, his pitcher of beer and barstool on the peanut shell-scattered deck.
Marko stood across the saloon area in his security position almost 15 yards away. The room was crowded and the commotion was beginning to spread.
The whiskey fed Todd’s lack of any sense of reality and he reached across the bar to grab the hem of Martha’s top and take a gander at those tanned tits.
“I should just take this place from that punk Bandit, and take you with it,” he said with a smirk.
Blade scared off the last customer between him and Todd, and as he watched Todd reach across the bar, his sense of manliness added to his tequila-induced, euphoric state and he reached back and drew his blade.
Todd had a solid grasp of Martha’s top and started to yank it forward exposing her pink nipples, when a new sound interrupted the mayhem. A precision metal noise caught Todd and Blade by surprise. It was the sound of the steel hammers being cocked on a double-barrel, coach shotgun.
Todd immediately let go as he felt the cold steel of the 18-inch barrels smack the underside of his forearm. He fell backwards onto a table, knocking it over, and then stumbled to the shell scattered deck.
“I hope it’s loaded,” Martha said, lifting the shotgun into full view and staring down the cold blue barrels.”
Blade woke up from his alcohol-induced violent dream and returned his knife to his scabbard and then backed away. Bandit reached around Martha.
“I’ll take this,” he said and lifted the shotgun from her grasp, and returned the hammers to their uncocked position. “Looks like you have a job.”
Martha stared at her empty hands, straightened her top, reached for her purse, and ran a comb through her mussed hair. Then she turned to meet Bandit formally, but he was gone. The engraved coach shotgun was back in its rightful security location under the bar, and when she looked for Todd, on the deck he was also gone.
Martha looked around in sort of a daze. The club brothers were back at their tables chewing the fat, and the patrons returned to their rightful locales at the bar. Clay ordered another Corona, and Jeremiah and his brothers talked performance Harleys.
Martha tapped Marko on the back. “Do Bandit’s Cantina interviews always work out like this?”
Marko laughed. “It’s just never a dull moment around here. You did a helluva job.”
