The fifth book in the Victor Carl series, 2005

Unlike the rest of you, I cheerfully admit to my own utter selfishness. I am self-made, self-absorbed, self-serving, self-referential, even self-deprecating, in a charming sort of way. In short, I am all the selfs except selfless. Yet every so often I run across a force of nature that shakes my sublime self-centeredness to its very roots. Something that tears through the landscape like a tornado, leaving nothing but ruin and reexamination in its wake. Something like Bob.

Take, for example, the strange happenings one night when I brought Bob to a bar called Chaucer’s.

Chaucer’s was strictly a neighborhood joint, prosaic as they come, except for the name. The narrow corner bar had rock posters glued to the walls, Rolling Rock on tap, a jukebox stocked with Jim Morrison and Ella Fitzgerald. It was the kind of bar where you drank when you weren’t in the mood to put on a nicer pair of shoes.

“My, what a colorful establishment,” said Bob as we stepped inside.

“It’s just a bar,” I said.

“Oh, it’s more than that, Victor. A bar is never just a bar. It is like a watering hole on some great African plain, where all creatures great and small sit by clean blue waters to relax and refresh themselves.”

“Don’t get out much, do you?”

“Look around. Can’t you see the cycle of nature revolving before your very eyes?”

I looked, but there wasn’t much cycling to see. A quartet of college kids were laughing in a booth. A mismatched couple was arguing at the bar. An old man was nursing a beer and complaining to another old man, who showed little interest in anything but his Scotch. The usual weeknight crowd at Chaucer’s.

We took a table by the window. I flagged the waitress, ordered a Sea Breeze for me, and looked at Bob for his order.

“J &B on ice,” said Bob, “with a twist.”

About right, I figured, the last part anyway. At first glance, Bob didn’t appear to be worth a second. He was short, soft and pudgy, with heavy black glasses that slipped down his nose and made him look like a fumbling schoolboy. Even with a five o’clock shadow worthy of Fred Flintstone, there was something sexless about him. Women scanning the watering hole for men scanned right past Bob. Their gaze would catch on leering hyenas from South Jersey, on lummoxes from South Philly, on old lemurs with expensive haircuts, on empty chairs, but not on Bob. He was of less interest to them than the furniture. They knew the type right off: the guy who works to fit in, who doesn’t make waves, who accepts the world as it is, the guy who watches television on Saturday nights because he has nothing better to do, the guy with a hobby. And they would be right, sort of. I mean, it turned out he did have a hobby.

“I used to fish as a boy,” said Bob, after I asked what he did with himself after work. “Yellow perch, caught with fathead minnows. But with the condition of the Schuylkill, that’s impossible here. So nowadays I simply try to help.”

“You say that a lot,” I said. “What exactly do you mean? Do you volunteer?”

“In a way.”

“Community service? Outreach for the homeless? Crisis hotline?”

“It varies. I lend a hand where I’m needed.”

“Freelance do-gooder?”

“Yes, I suppose. Something like that. Do you do much good in the world, Victor?”

“Not intentionally.”

“Unintentionally, then?”

“I’m a lawyer, I represent clients, and I do that to the best of my ability. If any good comes out of what I do, so be it.”

“Like the murder case you’re trying now.”

My ears pricked up. “That’s right.”

“A bit bloody, isn’t it, representing murderers?”

“That would make it right up your alley, no?”

He clapped his hands and laughed. Bob laughed like a car alarm; when first it goes off, you don’t mind so much, but after a while you want to choke someone.

“You’re right,” he said when the siren calmed. “I’m not one to squeal at a little spill of blood. And sometimes, as you well know, it’s more than a little. But do you think any good will come from you putting your client back on the street?”

“Honestly? No. I don’t like him much and trust him less.”

“And still you represent him.”

“He paid me a retainer.”

“A rather mercenary approach.”

“Is there any other?”

“Sure there is. A far better one. Maybe I’ll show you. Pay attention now. Did you see that couple at the bar?”

“The one that is fighting?”

“Very good, Victor. I’m impressed. Well, the fight has escalated and he has stormed off toward the restroom. They’ve been together for a while but are now going through a rocky patch. You know the point that a couple gets to, where they must decide to either break up or get married? That’s the point they’ve reached.”

“How do you know that?”

“I’ve been watching, listening. People, I’ve found, are so transparent. She is upset, and she’s almost finished her beer.” He snatched up his drink, downed it, slammed the glass back on the bar. “You stay here. I think I’ll buy her another.”

I was about to say something about how it didn’t seem the most opportune time to hit on her, but he was already out of his seat, on his way to the bar. While his back was turned, I used a napkin to lift his small glass, dump the ice and lemon rind into my now empty Sea Breeze, and deposit the glass into a plastic bag I had brought just for the occasion. Surreptitiously, I placed the bag in my jacket pocket.

Bob leaned on the bar, a few stools away from the woman, turned his head toward her once, twice, and then called the bartender over and placed an order. The bartender came back with a J &B on the rocks and a fresh Corona, which the bartender took to the woman.

She looked up, surprised, and then turned her head to Bob and nodded. He smiled back. He slid over until he was standing next to her, and he began to speak.

I couldn’t hear what he was saying, he kept his voice low, but it was having an effect. She was listening, and nodding, and at one point she even smiled. The woman was small, with brown hair and a pinched face, she didn’t seem the type who was often bought drinks by strange men in bars, and she was flattered and wary both, as Bob leaned toward her. His eyes, behind his glasses, were the eyes of a mesmerist. And slowly, visibly, you could see a connection develop. Her posture eased, her smile grew, she even laughed at one point, for a moment placing her hand on Bob’s arm.

Son of a gun, I thought. That bastard was going to get lucky. Bob was going to get lucky. At my local bar. Bob. I wanted to choke him, yes I did, I wanted to strangle him until his eyes bulged. And that was before she said something and he started in again with his laugh.

He was still laughing when the boyfriend returned.

I had said before that the couple was mismatched, and what I had meant was the almost comical size disparity. She was small, slight, mousy; he was big, broad, bullish. And from the look of him, coming back from the bathroom, angry already from the argument, now staring at the little guy in glasses hitting on his girl, he was seeing red.

“Who the hell are you?” said the boyfriend.

Bob looked up at him without an ounce of fear or worry on his face. He smiled unctuously and reached out a hand. “The name’s Bob,” he said.

“Get lost.”

“Calm down, Donnie,” said the woman, her voice dismissive. “We were just talking.”