Free Jack Daniels and Tea by Phyllis Smallman

JACK DANIELS AND TEA
    Do you think you can catch crazy? In Dutch’s, where I mix martinis and pull drafts, some nights a madness swirls through the air like a virus, infecting everyone. The drinking quickens, the laughter grows louder and the feeling in the bar swirls into one huge out of control mood of insanity. That’s how it was the night Dr. Yates was murdered.
    Dutch’s is a sort of falling down place nestled in between towers for the newly rich and beachside accommodation for vacationers. Once a working class hangout, the bar has kept its rough edge from the days it was full of fishermen and ranch hands. There’s still a jukebox playing country songs, and tin advertisements from the fifties cover the walls, but now the bar is the hot place for tourists who want to believe they’re experiencing the authentic Florida.
    Besides locals and tourists, we also get the occasional hooker in Dutch’s. The way to tell the working girls from the ladies is that the hookers are more polite and better tippers. It’s all entertainment for me, every night a new show with a different cast of characters.
    The night of the murder the bar was insanely busy and Mark Wilson was an hour late for his shift. I was running my tail off when he wandered in about six thirty, wasted yet again but full of charm and honey, and still the cutest thing in the whole damn county.
    â€œSorry, Babe,” he said.
    No matter how many times he screwed up and let me down, I always forgave him. I just had a thing for that man.
    Dr. Yates rattled the ice cubes in his glass and called, “Sherri.” Dr. Yates was a retired dentist down from Ohio. Square and solid, with wild and woolly caterpillars for eyebrows, he had wintered in Jacaranda for the past ten years, first with his wife but now alone. Every night, from November to May, he sat at the bar and drank a couple of Long Island Iced Teas, a mind-numbing combo of rum, gin, vodka, tequila, Cointreau, lime and cola. A mixture designed to knock you off your bar stool. That night even Doc was infected by the mood of the place and his shining eyes and crooked grin told a story.
    â€œStaying for dinner, Doc?”
    â€œYup.” He drew in his chin and belched softly.
    I picked up his empty glass. “Make this the last one.” I wasn’t too worried about over serving him because he lived within walking distance.
    â€œDon’t worry ‘bout me.” He wagged a finger in my direction. “First thing they teach you in dental school is how to hold your liquor.”
    â€œThey may have changed the curriculum in the last forty years.” A roar of laughter went up from the raucous group at the center of the room. Six women had come in after work to celebrate Kelly Forester’s birthday and several stray males and a pair of New York ladies had joined the chaos at their table.
    Kelly, on her maiden voyage to Hangover Land, was drinking a disgusting mix of vodka and coke. Thank God you only turn twenty-one once.
    I dropped off Doc’s drink and had just picked up his twenty when the man at the top of my list for gator bait slithered in. Some women might find Jordan Parrish handsome but his big aggressive attitude, and his nasty habit of standing too close when he talked to you, turned me right off. Jordan started hitting on me in my first year of high school when he was already a senior at the University of Miami and way too sure of his own perfection. The mayor’s son, he felt entitled. It was as if he was bestowing a favor by hitting on me. To him I was just poor white meat from off-island and now, ten years later, his mind-set hadn’t changed.
    â€œA beautiful flower for a beautiful girl,” he said, reaching out to tuck a red hibiscus behind my ear.
    â€œI pass them every night on my way in,” I told him, backing away from his hand.
    He scowled and tossed the hibiscus on the bar where it lay between us like a crimson stain.