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Gimlet of Fire
A soft rain fell. The sun had not yet come
out, nor would it until the rain stopped and sunlight appeared. I stopped in
front of an oak door and slid into the dark inside of Harry's Bar. Hard men with
woman problems and four letter names drank there: Nick, Jake, Hank, and the
three Torelli brothers, Vini, Vidi, and Vici. I wasn't looking to fight; just
drink.
I looked at
the bartender. I knew his face well from book jackets that took Mary Grandpré
from picture book unknown to the Hamptons. An Arsenal cap covered the scar. He
looked at me. We looked at each other. I wanted the looking to end and the
drinking to begin. I needed an anis del toro, aguardiente, or something from the
Sunday menu at Les Deux Magots.
"I'll
have a flaming gimlet?"
"You
mean a gimlet on fire."
"On the
rocks."
"A
forbidden word in my place."
"I get
it. My career's on the rocks, too. What about you? Why don't you get another job
and go to work?"
"I
don't have time to work. I'm a wizard who tends bar. This is my bar. Up there on
the wall is a stuffed bull I bought in Pamplona. You are sitting on my stool.
Those are my peanuts. That's my blender."
Harry looked
very English in spite of not having eaten Marmite since his fifth birthday. He
had the slim build of someone made for bar running and drink serving. He poured
the drink and used a short stick to flame it hot and smoky and warm.
"You're
handy with that wand. It looks like the one I bought at the World's Fair in '86.
You could go on Survivor™ or the Raid Gauloises™."
"Why do
you use trademarks when you speak?"
"Threats
from intellectual property lawyers."
"It
picked me one day at Ollivandersä. Scene's in the first book."
"You're
pretty good with trademarks yourself."
"I must
be. Warner Brothers' fasciti, you know. They go out at night to find unlicensed
graffiti. They're still looking for me. I am safe here unless she writes book
eight. Nobody can have an idea what it's like to be the hero of seven books and
movies."
The gimlet
was a fine mix. I turned around and saw a lovely four-foot piece approach the
zinc bar. She was as short as a fresh-staked acacia. As she passed, she brushed
a casual thigh against my calf and it scalded through the flax cotton weave of
my summer weight Dockers. Very short, but with a sweet youngness of youth and
her hair was trim so that she looked a little like a boy or a guava squash if
you were truly soused. I looked again.
Mon vieux, I
thought, what a fine squash. One flaming gimlet and I was soused as no
Cuban-born, Anabaptist heretic who summers in Ravenna, could be.
She stopped
at the bar, tripped on her hem, and turned. I spoke to tell her she was mine.
"Want
to go watch some videos of old corridas at my place?"
She nodded
with a smile that told me she and the gimlets were the house specials.
I tipped
Harry a fistful of Euros. We left the world of magic as the sun came out. A
lovely tart on my arm and the best gimlet I had ever downed. Harry sure could
turn a swell mix. I truly hoped JK didn't have another planned.
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