Blues in the Night Read Online Free Page A

tiny stage with a poodle. The poetess was rapping about the beauty of watching dogs fuck.
    Mace headed for a table at the far end of the room where a gaunt man sat grinning at him. Back in the day, Honest Abe Garfein had pushed his resemblance to the sixteenth president of the USA to the max by wearing chin whiskers, a stovepipe hat and a black suit. Having moved past Lincoln’s longevity by at least a dozen years, with the sagging flesh and wiry gray hair to prove it, Abe had evidently decided to drop the im–personation. Clean shaven and wearing a Tommy Bahama shirt that provided nearly all the color in the room, he had morphed into another familiar figure, the crazy neighbor from the old Seinfeld TV show.
    He held out a nut-brown hand that Mace assumed was for shaking. Instead Abe used it to slap Mace’s hand, a gesture that surprised and annoyed him.
    â€˜High five,’ Abe said, trying to explain the slap.
    Mace shrugged and took a seat at the table. ‘A little chilly in here, don’t you think?’ he said.
    â€˜Some like it hot,’ Abe said, ‘I like it cold. Anyway, it’s a coffeehouse, Mace. People drink more coffee when it’s cold.’
    â€˜Looks like it’s working for you.’
    â€˜I always knew being a history buff would pay off. Welcome back to the Fifties.’
    â€˜I’d heard the Strip was dead,’ Mace said.
    â€˜Not if you can give the customers something TV and movies no longer provide.’
    â€˜That would be . . . ?’
    â€˜Literary pretension,’ Abe said. ‘It’s bringing in the green. I’m thinking of expanding the brand a bit. Remember the old Brigston Studio? It’s been sitting there collecting dust and rats since Brigston shuttered it back in the Nineties.’
    Actually, Mace not only remembered the studio; he and Paulie Lacotta had crashed the party old man Brigston tossed on the lot, the night he pulled the plug. But he didn’t feel the need to mention this to Abe, who, in any case, was more interested in telling his own story.
    â€˜Well . . . this . . . guy I know just bought the studio. Laid down the hard cash with the idea of turning out pornos for the on-demand and home video markets. And, of course, the Internet. I thought I might just buy a little piece of his action and try the Cecil B. DeMented trip, produce a few myself.
    â€˜There are a couple of flies in the ointment, of course. Hi-Def and, worse, Blu-Ray. The few performers whose skin can stand that kind of scrutiny demand more money than Julia Roberts. It costs almost as much to have the warts and pimples and the goddamned tats removed by CGI. The government is starting to demand the use of condoms. Hell, disease has everybody so spooked you can’t even get a decent anal penetration shot these days.’
    His watery eyes must have registered that Mace had tuned out. ‘But you didn’t drop by to hear about pen shots. What can I do for you, old friend? I’m still serving the body as well as the mind.’ He nodded toward the bar where a young woman, dressed like a freshly scrubbed high-school student, was looking their way, expectantly. She smiled at Mace and placed her thumb between her lips, pushing it in and out.
    Mace turned to Abe. ‘What I need is information,’ he said. “I’ve been out of the loop awhile.’
    â€˜Heard you went to live in the bayous with your old man after Pel. Guess that Katrina thing was pretty rough?’
    â€˜People forget the Rita thing came first. What that didn’t wipe clean, Katrina took care of. And then came the BP oil spread.’
    â€˜Jesus. Bet you wished you’d been back high and dry inside Pel, huh?’
    â€˜Not really,’ Mace said. ‘You’d know if you’d ever been inside.’
    Abe’s face registered embarrassment. A fleeting gesture. ‘How can a humble whoremonger be of help?’ he asked.
    â€˜I’m hoping