Harbor Blues Read online

  “One encore’s enough,” Mike, the bearded bass player said. “That’s what keeps ‘em comin’ back for more.”

  Pete twirled his drumsticks. “Hey, you were pretty awesome tonight.”

  “And,” Mike added, “you were with us all the way.”

  “Yeah,” Melanie said, “In spite of you changing the harmony on that last number.”

  Pete raised his hands to declare his innocence. “That was Mike’s idea,” he said, “I was afraid we were going to lose you.”

  Mike inhaled his cigarette and let it out. “Hell, I knew she’d maintain.”

  Melanie grinned and kissed his cheek.

  “You sure you won’t go to Derek’s with us?” Mike asked. “He always has nothing but the finest shit.”

  It was a familiar scenario backstage after every performance. As usual, Melanie refused his invitation and said goodnight.

  ◆◆◆

  The following week, Melanie performed solo at McNeil’s before her shift at the station. She often sang in-between waiting tables. The bar bustled with activity that night. She sat on a stool at the end of the bar counter, with eyes closed, oblivious to the clientele around her. Ted watched her from the bar as Connie poured drinks, and Charlie, who sat in a booth alone, appeared mesmerized by her sexy voice. Melanie met Charlie’s gaze as she finished the song and walked up to his table.

  “Never saw you here off-duty,” she said.

  “Thought I’d like to see you in your own surroundings.”

  “Really.”

  “Actually, Ted over there, told me you were a pretty good singer, so I wanted to see for myself.”

  “So what do you think?”

  “He was wrong—You’re great.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Anybody in the business heard you?”

  Melanie sat across from him. “Not that I know of.”

  “You really should get a hold of someone.”

  “I’m trying to save enough money for a demo tape.”

  Charlie hesitated and rubbed his chin. “Ya know, I worked security for a big shot record producer’s wedding last year. Maybe I could give him a call.”

  Melanie’s face lit up. “Are you kidding? Could you?”

  “Sure.”

  “That would be so great. If I could just audition, I know I could—”

  “So why don’t you meet me later,” he said as he stroked her hand, “and we can talk about it.”

  “All ri—,” Melanie began then retracted her hand. “Uh, no thanks. That’s okay. I’ve had a couple of those offers already.”

  “You don’t think I would—”

  Before he could finish, a drunk at a neighboring table grabbed Melanie’s arm. “C’mere sweetheart.”

  Melanie turned toward him. “What else can I get for you, Stan?

  “How about a little company with our drinks?”

  Melanie yanked her arm from his grasp and pointed to a group that had just taken a table. “I see some fellows over there that look pretty thirsty.”

  But Stan was determined to detain her. “Hell, they can wait. We’ve been here longer.”

  “Just let me take their order and I’ll be right back.”

  But Stan again grabbed her arm and dragged her toward him. This time she lost her balance and she fell into his lap.

  “Now this is the kind of service I’m talking about,” he said.

  Before she could draw herself up, Ted appeared jerking her up from Stan’s lap and pushing Stan over in his chair. Melanie tugged at Ted’s arm, but he had already jumped on Stan and grabbed him by the collar. “You got your drink. That’s all she’s selling.”

  Stan bolted up and threw a punch at Ted’s head, which Ted easily blocked and then executed a blow to Stan’s gut. But before Ted could applaud himself, Stan’s friend jumped Ted from behind, and Ted struggled to throw him off his back. Charlie, who had been watching from the sidelines, finally joined in and yanked the guy off Ted and threw him to the floor.

  Within seconds there was a free-for-all in the bar. Melanie fumed as she and Connie watched glasses fly off the tables, shattering on the floor, and chairs were tossed from one end of the small room to the other. She had the phone in her hand, ready to call the station, when Ted grabbed Stan by the shoulders and shoved him into a chair. Before Stan could retaliate, Ted pulled his police badge out of his pocket, flashed it in Stan’s face and yelled, “Police! That’s enough!”

  The rest of the fighters turned toward Ted and stared in disbelief. Charlie then climbed onto a chair and lifted his badge above his head.

  “Now get the hell out of here before we book your drunken asses,” Ted said.

  “Since when’s this place a hangout for fuckin’ pigs?” Stan wiped his bloody mouth on his sleeve and made his way out the door with his buddies in tow.

  Charlie offered his hand to Ted, “Good job, Swain.”

  “Thanks for the assist.”

  “Hell, I enjoyed it. Haven’t been in a bar fight in months.”

  Melanie overheard them, and fueled by her rage, started to straighten up the mess at once. Some of the regulars stayed to help clean up and guzzle a few more drinks to help numb their wounds. Ted and Charlie seemed unaware of them.

  “I don’t think they’ll be back,” Ted boasted.

  “Shit, no. Did you see the look on that guy’s face when—”

  “I could’ve handled that myself,” Melanie said with disgust, “and without trashing the room.”

  Ted said. “I’m sorry, but that guy was all over you.”

  “It didn’t call for the militia, for crying out loud.”

  “I guess I shouldn’t have pulled my badge, but he was an asshole.”

  “That asshole’s money is as good as anybody’s. What the hell are you trying to do, put us out of business?”

  Ted kicked a cigarette butt around on the floor as she spoke.

  “When my father invited you to live here, he wasn’t looking for a resident bouncer.”

  Melanie took a breath and continued. “And I don’t need you for a bodyguard.”

  Then, as Charlie edged toward the door, Melanie yelled toward him, “And you. What are you doing here? Why don’t you go home to your wife?”

  ◆◆◆

  Melanie had walked into another busy shift at the station, right after the fiasco at the bar. At the end of watch, all she wanted to do was go home and crawl into bed when she got off that morning. But she looked at her gas gauge dial, pointing to empty.

  “Dammit,” she said.

  The OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Companies) crisis had made gas rationing necessary. She had remembered that her license plate ended in 3: an odd number. Today was an “odd” day at the gas station, and if she didn’t fill up now, she’d have to wait two days. She sighed and pulled up to the back of a line flowing out into the street.

  Nearly an hour later, she arrived home, and her father had breakfast waiting for her.

  “This is great, Dad. Thanks,” Melanie said, as she poured syrup on her pancakes. “All I had to eat during the night was a dried-out burrito from the vending machine.”

  “You’re very welcome. By the way, I saw Connie before he closed up last night. He told me about the donnybrook.”

  “Yeah. Sorry about that. It shouldn’t have gone that far. Ted and Charlie overreacted to Stan’s advances, and before I knew it, they came out swinging.”

  Benny smiled and took a swig of coffee. “There’ve been plenty of times I’d have liked to take a poke at Stan myself.”

  “Dad, if you had beat up everybody who made a pass at me since I reached puberty, we wouldn’t have any customers.”

  Benny nodded. “You know why it happened, though, don’t ya?”

  “Yeah. If I’ve learned anything in my time at the PD, it’s that coppers are issued egos with their badges.”

  “That may be true, but Ted has it bad for you, ya know.”

  She nibbled a piece of bacon
. “He’s made that pretty clear. And it hasn’t helped that you invited him to stay here.”

  “I did that for you.”

  “For me?”

  “He’s a good guy. Better than the drunken sailors you meet here. And I know he’d take care of you after I’m gone.”

  Melanie plunked her napkin in her plate. “First of all, you’re not going anywhere for a long time; second, I don’t want to marry a cop, and most importantly, I’m not attracted to him that way.”

  CHAPTER 3

  1997

  Scott spent Saturday morning doing his laundry, and he didn’t mind it at all. He enjoyed having his own washer/dryer in the two bedroom bungalow he rented in San Pedro. His former apartment complex, had him running back and forth to the community laundry. Now he could throw a load in and sprawl out on his sofa to watch a game on TV until the buzzer called him.

  He loved the weather, too. Living only a few blocks from the ocean, he found the moderate temperature had it all over the extreme heat and cold of the Valley. Though it was June, the seventy-degree temp and mild ocean breeze energized him. In fact, he would have liked to have taken a bike ride.

  Unfortunately, he had promised his mother he would meet her and Connie at McNeil’s Pub. He knew she needed moral support since she hadn’t spoken to Connie in years, and didn’t know what his reaction would be to her new plan. He had seen Connie at Benny’s funeral, and Connie hadn’t changed. Though long dry-docked, he was always the salty sailor at heart, traveling light and ready to leave at four bells’ notice if bitten by wanderlust. But he always came back to McNeil’s and had been there as long as Scott could remember.

  Scott had many fond memories of those times as a child when his father would take him to visit Benny. But in spite of the fact he had been almost as close to Connie as he had been to his grandfather, he wasn’t sure whether Connie would take Melanie up on her offer. Regardless, he was happy she had decided not to sell his grandfather’s bar.

  ◆◆◆

  Melanie had driven over an hour from her Valley home. Now, within minutes from McNeil’s Pub, her heart raced at the thought of seeing Connie again. She knew he had been disappointed she hadn’t attended her father’s funeral, but she had never been able to tell him why. She only hoped he wouldn’t use that as a reason for turning down the job.

  As she neared the San Pedro exit, she caught a glimpse of the new Harbor Station to her left, along with rows of container ships lining the harbor. The sight prompted her to lower her window, open her sunroof, and welcome the cool breeze as it washed over her face. She flipped off the air conditioner, turned the music up on her seventies CD, and took a deep whiff of the ocean air. She hadn’t realized how much she had missed the harbor area.

  She smiled when she saw Scott’s car as she pulled around the back of the bar. Thank goodness he agreed to be here today. He would help smooth over her rough spots with Connie, and she always enjoyed spending time with her son.

  She found Scott in front of the locked building. They embraced, and he wasted no time telling her what Charlie Moore had said about her.

  “I remember Charlie very well,” Melanie said with a smile.

  “Well, he sure had the hots for you. In fact, so did some of the other old-timers I’ve talked to.”

  She pretended to be insulted. “Don’t sound so surprised.”

  “All I know is, I expected Dad’s reputation to follow me to South Bureau, and instead you’re all they talk about.”

  “Knowing cops, their stories are probably as inflated as their egos,” she said as she fumbled in her purse for the keys.

  “Sure, sure.”

  Melanie laughed. “Those old guys are just happy to remember what it was like to have horns—and hair.”

  She finally found the key and turned it in the lock. When they entered the dimly-lit bar, they both stopped laughing, as if on cue. The familiar scent of mildew and stale beer still lingered in the air, and the old fishing paraphernalia hung among the beer signs on the wall as they had last seen them. Melanie found her way to the light switch and turned on the overhead lights.

  She eased over to the bar counter and stepped behind it. On-the-rocks glasses, coated in dust, sat in the sink. She hit the no sale button on the circa 1960’s cash register, and the empty drawer flew out causing her to jump back in surprise. When she reached for the tap of a beer keg, it came off in her hand. She turned her attention to an old fishing hat hanging on a hook, and she leaned over to stroke it. The sight of the rundown space broke her heart, because she knew it hadn’t become that way in the few short months since Benny had been gone.

  Scott saw her blink back tears and tried to break the mood. “This is a great old place.” He hopped up on a bar stool and said with a grin, “How many sailors do you figure have occupied this seat over the years?”

  “Lots.” Melanie lowered her eyes and came out from behind the bar as Scott moved to one of the tables carved with several names.

  “Remember any of these people?” Scott asked.

  Melanie went to the table and ran her fingers over the names, stopping at one that read, “Stan.”

  Scott waited for her to answer him, but the look on her face told him he wasn’t going to hear about Stan, or anyone else on her mind. So he hung back as he watched her wander from the bar toward her father’s apartment, situated down the hall.

  Inside the comfortable space, she took a deep breath as she gazed around the room from picture to picture of herself at various ages. Her eyes stopped at a pose of her and her father on the pier in front of their small sloop, and she smiled. Forcing herself to look away, she noticed a windbreaker on the back of the couch. She walked over to it and ran her fingers over the worn and wrinkled material.

  Her chest tightened and her chin trembled as she shuffled into the kitchen where she spotted a coffee cup with a spoon in it, next to the coffee maker. Benny had always left it there each night, waiting for the next morning’s brew. Above the cup hung a pair of dingy curtains framing a dusty window, and Melanie peeked through it at the stairway leading to the upstairs apartment that had been her home before marrying Ted.

  A few minutes later, Melanie stepped out the front door behind Scott, in time to see Oscar “Connie” Conroy climb out of his gold Buick Skylark. His silhouette, complete with sailor’s cap, and cigar protruding from his mouth, seemed so familiar to her. Yet she could see how the years had left their mark. He moved slower, favoring his right leg, and his face, always tanned and somewhat weathered, was now leathery and deeply lined. When their eyes met, she saw the broad smile she remembered so well, and as he opened his arms to her she suddenly had a sense of well-being she hadn’t felt for quite some time.

  “Connie, it’s so good to see you,” she said pressing into his shoulder.

  He pulled back, now holding her at arm’s length. “Still the looker,” he said with admiration. “I knew you would be.”

  “Thanks. You look terrific, too.”

  He turned toward her son. “Hey, Scott,”

  “How you doing, Connie?”

  Connie pinched Scott’s cheek, then said to Melanie, “Your father thought the world of this boy.” His voice softened. “But he never understood why you wouldn’t come down with him and Ted.”

  Melanie shrugged and changed the subject. “Thanks for handling all the funeral arrangements. I really couldn’t be there after all this time.”

  “I’d do anything for Benny, and I always told him I’d keep an eye on you if he wasn’t around, so here I am.”

  “I’m glad, because I have something to ask you. Come on inside.”

  After hearing her idea, Connie sat back in the booth and rubbed his chin. “I don’t know. This place ain’t the moneymaker it used to be.”

  “That’s okay. I’m not doing it for the money,” Melanie said.

  Connie sighed and took a long look around the room, “Old Ben must be turning over in his grave.” He turned to Melanie. “Oh, what the hell. I’ve k
inda missed standing behind that bar. I’ll do it.”

  ◆◆◆

  The place required some fixing up before she could welcome customers, but Ted refused to help, because he wanted to distance himself from the bar while awaiting the city council’s choice for chief. Melanie planned to hire a building contractor she and Ted had used in the past. But Scott, Connie and Sandra insisted on helping her do the work, which involved a lot of cleaning, some light carpentry, and painting.

  Three weeks into the job, as Connie stood in the storage room inventorying the liquor, and Scott finished up some last minute chores, a dark haired young woman walked through the opened back door. She walked down the hallway and stopped at the entrance to the bar, where Scott stood on a ladder changing a light bulb.

  She cleared her throat and waited.

  Scott found himself peering into her low-cut tank top, which he followed up to the biggest brown eyes he’d ever seen. “Oh, I didn’t hear you come in.” He stepped down off the ladder.

  “Sorry if I startled you. I saw the back door open and came in. I guess I should not have—”

  She spoke with a pretty thick accent, which he guessed to be western European. “No. It’s all right,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

  “I saw the ad in the paper for a bartender and thought I could help you.”

  “I’m sure you could,” he said under his breath.

  “Pardone?”

  “Oh, uh, nothing.”

  “Is the job still available?”

  “Yes, uh, yes it is. It sure is—” He trailed off deep in thought.

  She waited a few awkward seconds. “Well, is there a form I should fill out, or something?”

  Finally returning to earth, Scott called toward the back-room, “Connie, someone is here to apply for the bartender job.”

  Connie came out of the storage room, introduced himself, then said, “What’s your name, young lady?”

  “Adriana Dimakos.”

  “Dimakos, huh? Where have you worked?”

  “Mostly in Greece, but I was at a place like this in Monterey before coming here.”