DL Willette

Nothing Like a Good Single Malt

DL Willette

Issue 56, Spring 2019

Ryan was glad Fred had died. His boss’s heart attack couldn’t have been timed any better.

The Blue Lizard Bar and Grill thrummed with the steady buzz of good-natured story-telling and an occasional guffaw from the mourners remembering Fred.

Tie loosened, Ryan leaned forward in his chair and watched a few small groups gathered near the scuffed bar. In the back of the room, cliques of office workers stood by the cheap pool tables.

The celebration of Fred’s life had begun at Wilson’s Funeral Home with somber organ music and family pictures plastered all over the dismal viewing parlor. The dearly departed's two sisters stood in front of the coffin. Armani-clad sentries in four inch heels.

The wake had spilled over to The Lizard—a dive where Ryan couldn't even get a decent glass of scotch—and he’d followed the crowd, his presence expected. Required, even.

He took a sip and grimaced. Someone clapped him on the shoulder. “Sorry for your loss, there, Ryan. I know you two were close.”

Ryan turned toward … Ed? Evan? He managed a “Thanks” and took another swallow of the lighter fluid the cute barmaid had given him.

They’d been best pals, Ryan and Fred, but since Fred’s tirade Tuesday afternoon about what he’d discovered and what he wanted Ryan to do about it, all friendship bets were off. His boss had keeled over at his desk Tuesday night.

Ryan nodded at the attractive barmaid’s questioning look. He really couldn’t stomach another drink, but he wanted her to walk toward him again in that low-cut blouse.

Watching her walk away was nice too.

She placed his new drink on the table and surprised him by scooting into the empty chair alongside.

The bar was noisy, and she leaned in as if to tell him a secret. “Are you part of the funeral crowd?”

“Yeah. The man who died was my boss. Our CFO.”

Ten years earlier, Fred—Chief Financial Officer of his family’s successful firm—had recruited him out of graduate school, and Ryan was awed by the elegant office building and opulent surroundings he got to work in every day. In addition to a fulfilling job in the finance department, he’d gained a friend. He and Fred had gotten along well, right from the start.

It hadn’t taken long to get used to the lavish salary. Ryan’s wife latched onto the new lifestyle even faster than he had. Which was why she’d taken him to the cleaners last year, leaving him with a broken putter and their wedding-gift blender. She’d always hated that blender.

What had Fred expected him to do? “Bastard,” he mumbled.

The barmaid leaned in again. Her minty breath brushed at his earlobe. “Did you say something?”

“Uh, no. Do you have to close up the bar tonight?”

She grinned. “I do. Will you still be here?”

He nodded. “Probably.”

She went back to work, tossing him an inviting backward glance.

Ryan shoved his tie into a pocket and straightened the collar of his pricey dress shirt—purchased before the apocalypse that had been his divorce. He spent time talking to a few coworkers and even shot a game of pool. Thwacking at balls and watching them fall into the pockets felt good. Downright manly.

The bartender announced last call, and most of the remaining patrons cleared out into the chilly night air. Ryan ordered a beer, unable to face another Blue Lizard scotch. He thought about his puny soon-to-be-vacated apartment with the second-hand couch and the scratched dinette and hoped the barmaid would invite him to her place. Hell, he didn’t even know her name.

She brought his beer and he stuck out his hand. “I never introduced myself. I’m Ryan.”

“Hi, Ryan. I’m Stacey.” The dimples were charming.

Her hand was smooth and warm, and her smile made it all the way to her smoldering brown eyes. Bedroom eyes.

This bar really wasn’t so bad.

Stacey openly surveyed his pecs and flat abs. “When I clock out you want to come to my place for a drink?”

His stomach did a little flip. “Sure.”

A few minutes later, Stacey came out from behind the bar, purse slung over her shoulder. She beamed at him, and the hair on the back of his neck quivered with alarm.

How had he not noticed the way her mouth gaped showing black stubs where earlier, her teeth had appeared so white and even? And purply-dark patches under those brown eyes he’d thought of as smoldering bedroom eyes? They smoldered all right; burning holes with red centers aimed right at him.

At the end of her outstretched hand, gnarled, elongated fingers beckoned with a skeletal come to me motion worthy of Halloween.

He recoiled and snatched his gaze away only to see Fred—dead Fred—leaning against the bar holding up a cut crystal glass containing two fingers of amber liquid. Most likely the costly single malt they both favored. Goosebumps launched across Ryan’s back. He’d given his boss those glasses last Christmas. A congenial smile accompanied Fred’s cordial toast. A shriek rose to Ryan’s throat.

Gulping back the scream, he hightailed it out of the bar.

Once home, he tossed and turned and finally dozed off. He woke at noon and decided the week’s taxing events, along with last night’s bad liquor, had caused his small loss of reality. It would be all right. He’d go to his niece’s barbeque that afternoon, admire the new baby, and de-stress. Babies were awesome.

A fine day out—blue sky, cool breeze—and Ryan enjoyed the mouth-watering aromas of sizzling bratwurst and chicken on the grill. His niece looked happy, really happy, cradling her four-week-old son, and he was thrilled for her.

“Uncle Ryan! I’m so glad you made it.” She kissed his cheek and nudged down the baby blanket so he could admire his great-nephew. “You want to hold him?”

She put the warm bundle in his arms and scampered off to help her husband at the grill. As Ryan marveled at the tiny adorable features, the baby’s eyes flew open and burned with the same red glow Stacey had flaunted. His little mouth morphed into a grotesque black smile, and the forked tongue slithered in and out of his mouth like a menacing snake ready to strike.

Ryan’s “Help!” came out as barely a whisper, and he cast around looking for someone, anyone, to come to his rescue. He spotted Fred relaxing in a chaise longue by the pool, holding his signature drink aloft, crystal glass shimmering in the sun. Perched on the CFO’s head was an old fashioned accountant’s green eyeshade, as if Ryan needed a reminder about Fred’s conservative financial views.

Ryan handed off the freak-show baby to the nearest person, squelching the urge to fling Satan’s offspring as far as he could throw it. He bounded over the boxwood hedge and raced to his car.

Later, cowering on his sofa, he ignored the ringing phone—probably his niece—and he tried not to think about the baby’s darting tongue, Stacey’s cadaverous beckoning fingers, or that last meeting in Fred’s office. Fred was quite obviously trying to make a point about Ryan’s betrayal. But come on, that gruesome baby thing?

Monday morning, still wearing his barbeque attire, he hurried into the office building, laptop clutched under one arm.

His assistant eyed Ryan’s facial scruff and blinked. “You’re wanted in the CEO’s conference room for an unscheduled meeting.”

“Oh. Yes, okay. I was headed up there anyway.” He jogged to the elevator and stabbed at the button to the seventeenth floor. He would tell Fred’s sisters everything, although they probably already knew. That’s why they wanted him upstairs, right? He’d show them he was giving back the money. This ghostly madness had to be stopped. The elevator doors slid open, and he stumbled into the executive suite without knocking.

On the small conference table, one ornate silver tray held a gleaming coffee service, and delicate pastries were arranged on another. The oldest sister—the CEO—sat beside her younger sister—the COO. The company lawyer sat opposite.

Ryan tumbled into a chair beside the lawyer and opened his laptop. The three executives stared at him.

Panicked, he glanced at each of them. “I know I’m late to work. I overslept. You see, your brother keeps sending these nightmares. Fred’s there with the dreadful barmaid and the baby, and the baby has a snake tongue …”

The CEO’s eyes widened. The COO’s hand shook, and coffee slopped over the top of her exquisite china cup onto a document.

A brown puddle settled on the words “Employment Contract.”

Through the conference room window, Ryan saw Fred—wearing that damned bean counter’s eyeshade—sitting in the oldest sister’s office, pouring himself a drink from one of her heavy decanters. Ryan wondered if the stigma of drinking so early in the day no longer applied once you were dead.

Fred tugged the visor from his head, placed it on his sister’s desk, and tipped a finger against his forehead in a salute to Ryan.

Ryan tore his focus from the window to peer at the CEO. “He’s watching us from your office to make sure I do this right.”

Lips parted as if breathing through her mouth, her intense scrutiny was glued to Ryan.

“I’m giving it all back. See? Just like Fred told me to.” He punched at his keyboard, put in a password, brought up a banking site. Sounds of tapping keys echoed in the otherwise silent room. Ryan slid the laptop around to show them.

Three sets of eyes moved as one from his face to the screen.

“Here, look.” He bent toward the attorney to reach his keyboard. The lawyer swept his gaze over Ryan’s scraggly unwashed hair and scrunched up his nose.

Ryan poked the enter key. “There. Money’s back in the company account.”

The younger sister gasped. “Did I just see you move twenty million dollars?”

“No. It was thirty.” Frantic fingers danced over the keyboard again, bringing up another account. “And the rest is here, that is, most of the rest. I can pay back what I’ve spent, I swear.” His right hand swung up for the oath.

“The one-way ticket to Tahiti, well, I don’t know if they’ll refund the money for that, but I’ll reimburse you for it, I promise.” His attention flashed back to the conference room window. Although the green eyeshade sat on the CEO’s desk, Fred had vanished. “Fred will believe me, won’t he? He has to, he just has to.” And Ryan dropped his head to his hands and began sobbing.

Once the police escorted Ryan from the building, the attorney took several slinking steps toward the door before the CEO stopped him. “What on Earth possessed you to recommend Ryan to replace Fred as Chief Financial Officer?”

The COO nodded her agreement. “Why, that crook would have been a disaster. The man’s as crazy as a loon.”