Patton Lee Beaugus | December 5, 2010 12:45pm
Hello D'Oliya
The woman at the door acknowledged Louie's wave with slight nod. She slinked toward us. She was tall, in her early thirties with black hair and cafe au lait skin. And to say she was built would be equivalent to saying I drank a little upon occasion.

She was wearing a short, skin-tight dark-green dress with slits cut almost to her armpits. When she walked, those legs most definitely announced their presence.

The killer babe was carrying something in a three foot long rectangular black case. Based on recent experience, I wondered if it was a Tommygun or a portable Patriot missile. In that dress I figured she couldn't have any other weapons other than the ones nature had endowed her with. But I was wrong, as I learned later. Those slits were for more than to show off her hot legs.

The regulars at the bar followed her progress like they'd just put another four quarters in the peep-show meter, and wanted to get their money's worth. She gave them a look back. It was a hard look. A show me what you've got look.

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Vinnie started singing softly to himself, "Hello D'Oliya. Oh, Hello D'Oliya. Looks like you're gonna start some shit again. "

Oh, merde! She'd attracted the attention of the wrong people. The wrong people being Kennedy and his ex-Westie cronies. The word was Kennedy used be a hitman. I don't know about that. But he was definitely an enforcer and collector. And he carried heat, like my new bar buddies. Back in the day, bartenders would pay Kennedy out of their tips just to take his custom to some other joint.

She saw Kennedy staring. She shook her head like saying a small 'no'.

Kennedy ignored the signal and stepped out in front of the hottie. "Hello, beautiful."

The woman gave him a look that would have had me bowing and scraping, and apologizing for bothering her... while I tried to look down her dress.

Not Kennedy. He used to date actresses, if those are the correct euphemisms, and the boyo fancied himself a ladies man, which might have been true a dozen years ago. "Let me buy you a drink, and I'll tell you stories that..."

She pushed past him, pushing hard, real hard, knocking him back onto his barstool. She turned and stood over him, with her legs spread wide like a linebacker standing over a wide receiver she'd just ground into the turf, daring him to get up.

Jeez, Kennedy is not someone you want to piss off. But he just smiled a really big smile like he enjoyed her pushing him around. "Maybe later."

She smiled back. Like now they understood each other.

I felt like she'd dodged a bullet. Or a hail of bullets because HiTone and Vinnie were reaching under their coats.

She sashayed up to the table. Now, being a well-read bloke, here and there I’ve read about people who sashay, but I’d never witnessed it up close and personal in real life before. Let me tell you that a sashay done in the right way can be very impressive and uplifting, if Molly hadn’t uplifted me already.

Vinnie offered her his seat next to Molly, “I grabbed a brandy for you, just in case.”

“What a sweetie,” she said as she bent to kiss the little guy on the cheek.

Vinnie turned a light purple and grabbed a stool from the bar and sat across from me further blocking my escape. “I like looking down on you guys.”

Even HiTone smiled at that.

Louie made the intro. “Paddy. D’Oliya.”

At first D’Oliya’s look was cold and dismissing like I was a pizza delivery boy who was not only late, but who had left off the mushrooms and replaced them with really hairy anchovies. "This place lacks class. Even second class."

Molly said, “This is the place. Paddy’s got the hookup.”

That didn't warm her up either. "There's no magic here at all, anywhere. Flat ass reality. Legends, but nothing else."

"I keep telling you, this is the wrong place. And Homer Simpson here ain't the guy."

Molly contradicted HiTone. "He is the Guy."

Hitone added, "Maybe."

"If he isn't, we're all going to die," said Vinnie. "A horrible death, pulled apart by 16 dimensions, and left without a coffin to rest in."

Molly touched my arm whispered in my ear, "Vinnie collects coffins like some HiTone collect comic books."

Then D’Oliya seemed to notice how Molly was pressing up against me. She turned on a smile — to judge by her movements, it is a smile that must have been powered by wiggle and jiggle.

Molly eyeballed her and gives my elbow an extra thrill.

“Hello Dolly,” said Molly.

“D’Oliya, Molly,” said D’Oliya.

“Good Golly,” I said in a small little voice only God and I could hear, assuming that God was so un-busy He eavesdropped on dive bar conversations on Christmas Eve.

"Does your old geek friend know who we are?" D'Oliya asked.

"Not exactly," she replied.

"We're the BuddaBings," said D'Oliya, as if that would mean something to me.

"Alias, the Christmas PartyMob," said Vinnie.

Molly jumped in. "Remember what I said. They don't know us in this dimen... uh, neighborhood."

"You're like gangsta rappers," I volunteered.

"Something like that," said Vinnie.

Louie turned to me. “You know what I want for Christmas, Paddy?”

I sorta leaned my head at an angle, adding to my bobblehead repertoire.

“Christmas.”

Everybody looked at me expectantly. WTF? “Uh, do you have a song about it?”

“Smart kid,” said the guy that must’ve been three quarters my age, but he clearly would’ve been the senior to me at most bar room boardrooms.

D’Oliya opened her case and I saw that while it may have been semi-automatic, it was a semi-automatic keyboard. I was almost disappointed.

Yolanda, the cute bartender, saw her setting it up. “You can’t play that in here.”

Louie gave her a cold look.

"Well, you can't."

Kennedy and his posse leaned forward like they were going to join in the argument. Nobody messes with the barmaids at Rudy's.

Louie reached inside his coat, and grabbed for a silver weapon in his shoulder holster.

Kennedy got up, holding his winter coat, with his hand in the pocket.

Aw, shit! A shootout in Hell's Kitchen on Christmas Eve. Just what I wanted in my stocking.

I looked around. The backdoor was locked. The BuddaBings blocked my path to the filthy restroom. There was no escape for me.

At least I was trapped with a beer in front of me. I took a gulp. Hopefully not my last gulp, or this blog won't make all the way to Christmas.

Next: What Louie Wants