Page 24 of Joker's Ghost
Halloween Party
JOKER
The Gold Mine is rockin’ when we get there with wall-to-wall bodies in every kind of costume imaginable. Aliens, Disney villains, movie star knockoffs, Elvis and Rat Pack impersonators, and, of course, the Serpents as their favorite outlaws. According to Boa, our treasurer, the profits, along with the charity donations, are off the charts.
Daisy jets off toward the women, who all compare their outfits in shrieking excitement, while I make my way to thebar. If I am to get through this night, booze is needed. Lots and lots of booze.
“Hey, grumpy-ass, where’s your party face?” Rattler smirks on the other side of the bar as he sets a shot glass in front of me, filling it with Jack.
I give him the once-over. “Nice costume. When do you pull your next bank job?”
Ratter steps back from the bar and squares his shoulders in his 1930s three-piece suit, complete with slicked-back hair. “I think I look pretty damn good.”
“You always think you look damn good.” Rattler’s huge attitude is legend, but Serafina, his TV star wife, manages to keep him in his place.
“Hey, it’s authentic. Serafina got our costumes from the wardrobe department of an upcoming HBO series,Crime Doesn’t Pay/Criminals of Yesteryear.”
Rattler reaches under the bar and produces a very realistic-looking machine gun straight out of the old-time gangster movies.
“I gotta admit you can pull off the slick gangster.” I down the shot, and Rattler refills my glass.
“Remember that scam we pulled off on Digger, your deadbeat prez, back in New York? I had him totally believing I was a Hollywood talent agent.” He puffs his chest out. “Serafina says I got natural talent.”
“You sure she’s talking about acting?” Python slides onto the stool next to me with a shitty grin, all decked out in cowboy hat, chaps and boots to match.
“I have a wide range of talents, wiseass.” Rattler pushes a shot to Python.
I motion to Python’s costume. “When’s the stagecoach coming in?”
“I’m Jesse James, man. One of the most feared gunslingers of the West.”
I nod to the holster hanging off his hip with his .45 tucked inside. “Only I don’t think that qualifies for a six-shooter.”
We both down our shots, and Rattler refills them. “You look like you need this and about four more.”
“You don’t look any better than you did yesterday.” Cobra slides into the stool on the other side of me in a pin-striped suit, with a fake machine gun strapped over his shoulder. He eyeballs my costume. “Gotta tell you, I’m loving the fedora.”
“Bite me. I see you didn’t have any more luck than I did with convincing our women we’d wear our cuts and patches.”
“Waste of fuckin’ time arguing with Sheena. She wanted John Dillinger, so that’s what I gave her. I don’t even fight her anymore.” Cobra taps the bar for a shot and smiles. “But seriously, man, you gotta lighten up. We not only handled our business yesterday, but we got paid and paid well.”
“Easy for you to say. You didn’t almost get slammed by a two-ton car.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“At the garage today, Gus was showing me a job, and the damn lift gave way.”
“Fuck!”
“No shit. Damn thing slammed to the floor two seconds after I was under it.”
“Did you talk to Gus about it?”
I look over my shoulder ‘cause I’ve become paranoid as fuck. “It wasn’t an accident.”
Cobra shoots the Jack. “What?”
“The goddamn hydraulic was leaking fluid.”
