Marta's Place

By C.M. Albrecht

Drifter Hal Morrison is a young fellow without much ambition or education. The unemployment office, sends Hal to Martas’s Place, a rundown diner.

Marta turns out to be something else Short and chubby with a penchant for diamond rings, but Marta has legs like a baby elephant, along with attitude, she has a naughty twinkle in her eye and she does all the cooking,

Hal gets quickly used to the roiugh and ready customers that come in for Marta’s cooking. Marta shows him some interest, and soon Hal comes up with a couple of ideas to improve the menu.

But when a hot blonde starts popping in and Hal’s eyes start popping out, Marta quickly lets him know she doesn’t care for much for the new customer. With the table set for murder, Hal soon finds life spinning out of control. Suddenly, detectives hound him
night and day and crime figures appear out of nowhere.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Write Words Inc.
• Release date: Jun 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781594319037

Book preview

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Marta’s Place

C.M. Albrecht

© 2010 C.M. Albrecht All Rights Reserved

First Electronic Edition, November, 2010

Published on Smashwords by Write Words, Inc.

ISBN 1 978-1-59431-903-7

Prologue

I drove down to Marta’s Place this morning, edged the Camaro into the curb and braked her under February skies that threatened hard rain. I got out, stood on the sidewalk and looked at the place—don’t know what good that did me. A rental sign had been stuck in the window. Above the door the two Coca-Cola bottles still clung to the green stucco but the sign between them read Higher Ground. Whoever painted the sign was no pro. It used to say Marta’s Place. Later Rollo’s Café and then a succession of other places. Now it wasn’t even higher ground.

I stepped across the sidewalk to the dirty windows and peered inside. The booths and counter were long gone. A few video arcade games leaned against the walls. Toward the back, the wall that separated the former dining room from the kitchen had been covered with cork. The last owner had tried to grow plastic ivy on it.

A painful yearning wrenched at my stomach and I felt a great sadness. I wished I hadn’t bothered to come by. I’d had some of the best times of my life in Marta’s Place—and some of the worst.

A couple of young black men sauntered past and one of them jostled me, shaking me out of my reverie. He turned and gave me a dirty look.

Man! he said, like I had a lot of nerve standing on his sidewalk. I watched the pair for a second as they swanked on down the street past stores that sold wigs, cheap furniture and beauty supplies.

I turned back to the window. Something—maybe a shift in the light—brought out my reflection in the glass. I saw my sorry young face. It sure looked the worse for wear. Well, no wonder. I started back to my Camaro. It looked the worse for wear, too.

I turned back to the window for one last look, and suddenly a strange thing happened. I got a brief glimpse of Marta’s Place the way I saw it that first day—but I’m getting way ahead of myself. It really started that day at the unemployment office.

Part 1

I hate unemployment offices. They’re the most depressing places in the world; big messy impersonal barns cluttered with depressed and weird people. Everybody wanders around trying to borrow pencils or find a phone book to look up the number of the last place they worked or whatever. If they’ve got a match they need a cigarette, and if they’ve got a cigarette, they need a match. Can’t smoke inside anyway.

The clerks were depressed. I saw it in their motions, and in their eyes. They sat without interest behind their counters wishing they were anywhere in the world but in that damned barn staring at a roomful of losers. I didn’t blame them. The place even smelled depressing. It looked and smelled like a welfare office. Yeah, I even tried that once, for all the good it did me.

I wouldn’t have been at the unemployment office in the first place except that I was really getting desperate. I couldn’t find anything in the papers and hadn’t worked in three weeks. I had just about enough bus fare to get to one job interview. I’d have to walk back. Louie, my only friend in the lending department, was tapped out. He never had much on his best day, anyway. He was a loser too.

I knew better than to expect any unemployment money because I hadn’t quit my last job for ‘good cause’…whatever the hell that is. As far as I’m concerned, I always quit a job for a very good cause: ’Cause I’m sick to death of it.

I stood up and stretched and sat back down again. At last I got to the counter and the sad eyed woman barely glanced at me. She looked at the paper I’d filled out, and shook her head.

No restaurant work today.

But it turned out to be my lucky day because just then a guy at a desk behind the counter looked up at me and said something to the woman. She glanced unhappily back at me.

Go on in. We may have something for you.

I walked around through the open space that allowed access to the inner sanctum. I sat down on the chair the guy offered me. He didn’t look as sad and depressed as the rest of them. He was in his late fifties and getting bald on top, but he compensated by nurturing a neat little mustache and goatee. He had on a dark gray shirt with button-down collar and a kind of plaid tie that rested comfortably on his stomach.

I was watching you, he said. I couldn’t help noticing you. He glanced at my paper. Harold. Harold Morrison. You kind of stand out. He tapped a pencil against his teeth. You’re clean-cut. You look like you might actually even want a job. Most of the bums that come in here wouldn’t take a job if I offered them a two-week bonus in advance. But you look like you’re actually ready to go to work.

I waited politely.

He shifted in his seat. Look at them out there, he said, pointing. Bunch of losers. When I was coming up, you wouldn’t dream of looking for a job without shiny shoes and they better not be run down at the heels either. A neat shave and a haircut. Jeans were for rodeos. Nobody looked for a job wearing jeans. He smiled grimly. Not unless they’re ranch hands, and they don’t come in here. They shape up at the farm office. He waved one hand vaguely out toward the waiting area. I mean, look at them, he repeated. They don’t even put on a clean shirt, let alone get a haircut. And they expect me to find them a job. Scratch that. They don’t want a job. They just want me to give them their damned check and keep my opinion to myself.

I nodded, but didn’t say anything.

He looked at my paper. I just may have something for you, Harold. Place out on Florin. Real nice lady runs it. She’s fair and pays decent. She usually calls me personally because she knows I’m the only one around here who gives a damn. Don’t ask me why…why I give a damn, I mean. I try to find her somebody who won’t screw up the first week. He looked at me hard and then looked at my paper again. Fry cook, counter, dishwasher, bus boy—you’ve done most of it, I see.

I nodded. I tried to look pleasant and willing…even capable.

He looked me in the eye, again. You really want to go to work, Hal?

I didn’t flinch. I got to go to work, mister.

He nodded. Okay. Here’s the address. He punched the keyboard and a slip of paper popped out of the computer. It’s called Marta’s Place. She’ll probably put you to work as soon as you walk through the door. I’ll call her and tell her you’re coming out.

Thank you, mister, I said, looking as sincere as I could. I’ll try not to let you down.

Don’t worry about me. I’m used to getting let down, he said as he took my outstretched hand. Just try not to let Marta down.

***

Marta’s Place was in a neighborhood that was called ‘integrated’, which is a nice short way of saying all the white people haven’t moved away—yet.

It was just a little coffee shop place with a window on each side of the door underneath a sign that read Marta’s Place. Coca-Cola bottles flanked each end of the sign.

Just as I started in, a handsome Latino type came out. I had to step back a pace. He was tall and had thick black hair, straight black brows and square jaw that gave him a slightly wild and fierce look. He wore an expensive-looking silk suit and moved like a cat. He wore dark sunglasses and could’ve been a young Antonio Banderas. I realized immediately that a guy like that didn’t live in this neighborhood. I pegged him for a drug dealer or else a high-class pimp.

I went on inside and got a quick shot of the place. The dining room was battleship gray and had a horseshoe counter that seated twenty with four double booths on each side against the walls. That made fifty-two seats, if the place was full. Like that would ever happen.

A skinny black waitress sent me back to the kitchen at the rear. The gal with the chef’s hat that I saw through the open serving window turned out to be Marta. The waitress said something to her and in a second she came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on a white towel.

Marta looked Mexican, probably closer to fifty than forty, and had legs like a baby elephant. She had on designer glasses with rhinestones, way too much powder and a heavy spot of rouge on each cheek. But her smile was direct and sincere. She wasn’t so busy that she couldn’t stop and talk to me. She bought me a cup of coffee and we sat down in the booth closest to the kitchen. I was expecting Marta to have me fill out some sort of application, but she didn’t. She squeezed in opposite me with her own cup of coffee and tilted her head. She studied me through her glasses with experienced black eyes…eyes that told me she really didn’t expect much, just a guy who could halfway get through the day without screwing everything up. She had a way of looking me right in the eye, but still I felt like she had to force herself to do it.

So you do all this kind of work before, Harold? Marta’s look seemed to me just a little fearful. As if she expected me to let her down—evidently people in her life usually did. But I figure everybody got let down. I got it plenty.

I nodded. I tried to look sincere. I’ve done just about all this stuff, I said. I’ll give it my best shot, ma’am. Right away I thought that sounded lame. I should have said, Sure, I can handle it. No problem.

She studied my eyes. You honest?

Sure I told her. Like I’d tell her up front I was planning to rob her. I wondered just what she meant by honest anyway. I mean there’s honest and then there’s honest, but I plowed onward: I’m honest. I try to earn my money. She waited, so I felt like I had to add something. Everybody just calls me Hal. And I’m not afraid of work. I can work just about any hours.

Marta jerked her head toward the waitress. Latiesha’s leaving, Hal. She’s in lust. She actually thinks that bum’s going to support her. Hah! He can’t even support himself.

Oh. You know her fiancé?

Fiancé! She snorted. Yeah, he worked here for a few weeks. Wanted to make himself my partner. I had to can his ass. He gonna end up in Folsom. Just wait.

I didn’t know what to say.

All that suddenly forgotten, she smiled at me and said, Okay, Hal. You can call me Marta. Everybody calls me Marta. She gave me a coy look. How old are you? I swear I thought she was acting a little bit coquettish.

Twenty-three.

Twenty-three. You a good-looking stud, Hal. She lowered her lashes to half-mast and then shook her head. Christ, I could be your mother. If my old man hadn’t been such a louse maybe I would have a kid your age, but Luis wasn’t good for nothing. He couldn’t even screw. All he wanted to do was eat it. Oh oh, I shocked you… She tried to look concerned, but behind those glasses her dark eyes twinkled naughtily.

No, no, I lied, shaken to the core. I felt my face burning. I never had a woman her age talk like that to me before. But I struggled to handle it. Hey, just be yourself with me, I said. I drank a little coffee to cover my uneasiness. So you don’t have your husband around any more to help?

Luis? she waved a dainty hand that twinkled with diamonds. He never helped. He was worthless. My brother Hector threw his ass out a couple of years ago and I haven’t seen him since.

He doesn’t pay any support?

Hah! I’m lucky he hasn’t gone to court to make me support him.

We talked some more and Marta seemed satisfied with me. She introduced me to Latiesha and told her to break me in.

Customers drifted in and out. Most of them black or Oriental. The food was plain home cooking, but looked and smelled good. It tasted good too, and Marta wasn’t tight about me eating what I wanted. Sure beat the last place I worked: Only two meals a day, one a regular meal and the other just a sandwich—and no pie. Only one soda per meal and none in between. Marta wasn’t like that, thank God.

There were two young Japanese guys who, it turned out, owned a computer repair store nearby. They left me a two-dollar tip, but Latiesha snapped the money up before I could even get back to the table. I figured that was the price I had to pay to get broken in, so I didn’t bitch.

I thought Marta was hiring me to be a fry cook or something, I told Latiesha.

Oh, Marta she do all the cooking up in here, Latiesha said. She a good cook.

During the afternoon Latiesha taught me how to write up orders and how to use the cash register. Most of the customers were okay. A couple of times we got wise-asses but Latiesha could hold her own with the best of them.

Don’t give me no trash else I be laying this pie up longside your nappy ol’ head, she said and they got to laughing and everything would be all right. I hoped I’d be able to deal with them as well when I was out there alone.

Later, I took a break in the alley with the dishwasher, Buddy. He had a little diamond set between his front teeth. Every time he opened his mouth the diamond added lots of sparkle to his smile. He had some cigarettes and we smoked and he told me he was from Alabama. Ain’t no work there, he said.

Well, this isn’t exactly El Dorado, I told him, but I guess there are worse places.

***

Somewhere in there, Latiesha went her way and I was alone. I began to get into the routine. Open six days a week when the street was alive with movement: young black men shuffling along on foot or peddling along on bicycles heading for wherever, old black women walking up the street pushing a grocery cart they borrowed from Save Mart. And the hos in short-shorts or mini-skirts swanking past. When they came in, their sweet heavy perfume made me think of rotting garbage and it clung to the air like a sickness. I wondered how many of them had the AIDS. I’d shake my head and blow out my nostrils, but that didn’t get rid of the smell. But they didn’t actually come in too often and order anything. Once in a while one of them would come to the counter and ask for a glass of water. It was a pain, but I gave them one. I always treated them like ladies. Finally, Marta said not to give out any more glasses of water except to paying customers. Ten minutes later a wiry gal with no tits and shorts three sizes too small for her fat ass came in and asked for a glass of water.

I’m sorry, I said. We aren’t allowed to give out any water.

Her eyes looked at me as if she’d been waiting all her life for me to say that. What you mean, no water? Water’s free, ain’t it? Give me a fucking glass of water! Without taking her eyes from me, her right fist closed on a glass sugar shaker.

Part of me said give her the water, but another part of me got stubborn and I just looked at her. No water unless you buy something, I said. That’s the house rule.

Without a word she came up with the sugar shaker and cocked her arm back. She took careful aim at my head. I didn’t know what to do. I thought about grabbing her, but hesitated. There were mostly black customers in the place and I actually felt their eyes trained on me. I knew that if I said or did just one wrong thing now I could be the next star of a major race riot. I swallowed hard and tried to hold down my rising panic. But Marta was suddenly at the girl’s side talking softly. Marta gently took the sugar shaker from her hand, explaining that it wasn’t my fault about the water, and on and on, so pretty soon the girl left quietly, without her water, and I never had to see her again.

Marta looked around the silent dining room. Did you see the tits on that ho? she said in a loud voice. That ho got tits the size of lemons. Well, you know what I always say about that, ‘If the Lord he give you lemons, you better stuff some toilet paper in your bra.’ That brought a big laugh from everyone. Everybody started rattling their forks and talking and laughing again and the tension was released as quickly as it had wound up. Then Marta gave me a funny look, like she was disappointed in me.

Christ, from now on you better give them a glass of water. I don’t want to see my place torn up over a fucking glass of water. She headed back to the kitchen.

***

We were closed on Sundays when the street became so quiet it was almost unsettling—like something had gone wrong. A scant few passers-by in their Sunday best, walking to church or coming from, was about all we saw. There wasn’t enough business to warrant being open on Sunday.

I tried staying open seven days a week at first, Marta told me, but it wasn’t worth it. Besides, everybodys need a day off.

By the time Latiesha was nothing more than a fading memory, I had at least a nodding acquaintance with most of the customers and they didn’t give me any trouble. I kind of felt like most of them liked me all right. Sometimes when she wasn’t busy, Marta would come out and bullshit with the customers and they liked that.

She’d show up with fresh donuts at some ungodly hour in the morning and begin making pancake batter and homemade syrup and start bringing up the lunch specials for the day. She opened at six and I got there at seven to take care of the breakfast rush. It didn’t rush very fast, but it brought in a few bucks. Mid-morning the purveyors drifted in and out. Pies, bread, meat deliveries, canned stuff and on and on. When the ice machine was broken—which was half the time—we’d have to order ice.

Then came the lunch rush. It didn’t rush very fast either, but it kept me busy. I had to take the orders, turn them in, pick them up, and, when people left, I had to run to the register that stood at the bow of the horseshoe and collect the money. We closed at seven. That meant a twelve-hour day for me, but I had plenty of slack time in between and besides, I didn’t have anything better to do. And Marta was paying me time and a half for the extra four hours. It helped a lot.

A blond came in and had a Coke. She was about my age with a body that would make the Pope think sinful thoughts. She was so stunning, I really couldn’t even see her clearly. Her whole being exuded the hot ripeness of her sexuality. Even today, I have a hard time visualizing her. All I sense now and remember is her soft blond hair, her hot sexual fragrance, the sweet warm scent of her armpit and her soft voice murmuring tiny cries of pleasure. I wish I had a photo, but I never did get one. It was as if she walked in on a cloud of mist. Or like there was a haze around her, or like I was looking at her through those fuzzy lenses they use in the movies, sometimes, to make old gals look younger. She was just so beautiful that my eyes couldn’t focus properly. I just couldn’t really get a fix on her. At first, after she’d paid her check and gone, I couldn’t have told you what color her eyes were or what she was wearing or even what she had ordered, or whether or not she had lipstick on. I couldn’t even find words to flirt with her a little, so I just kept it formal and businesslike and wandered around the place in a daze that lasted for a long time after she’d paid her check and had risen back up into heaven.

When she finished her Coke and floated out of the café, Marta came out of the kitchen. I bet that bitch slit all the way up to her belly button, she said. Every guy over here within a radius of twenty miles has poked her, so if you don’t want chancres on your little weenie, don’t go near it.

Burned and defensive, I said something foolish and got busy cleaning tables. The blond sure didn’t look like a ho to me—at least not like the hos I was used to seeing on the streets. Besides, I didn’t think she had exactly the sort of attitude hos have, whatever that might be. But hell, I thought, I’m wrong so much of the time. Maybe Marta was right. I wasn’t seeing very clearly, that was sure.

After that I tried not to act interested in the blond when she came in. I could tell that Marta didn’t like her coming in and didn’t like me waiting on her. I did finally learn that her name was Ara, which I thought was cute and different. Even though I was so dazzled by Ara’s presence, something about her gave me a gut feeling that she kind of liked me and I could make it with her if I ever got the chance. She didn’t act cheap or anything. She certainly wasn’t a ho. At least that’s what I kept telling myself. And that was when I realized that Marta had her jealous side. I actually sensed she was jealous of me. Like they say, little did I know.

But then I thought maybe Marta’s jealousy had nothing to do with the blond, and me as a man. Maybe it was just because I was used to being able to make it with girls when I wanted to. Maybe Marta saw that and she was afraid I’d disappear with one of them. Good countermen are hard to find. At least that’s what I told myself.

Now that I’d started eating regular again and building myself up, I was looking and feeling pretty damned good. And something did tell me this blond vision kind of liked me. Of course, I had to admit, maybe it was just wishful thinking. Anyway, I didn’t want Marta mad at me so I thought I’d better play things cool and not push it.

Every evening we closed at seven and I cleaned up the dining room. I wiped down the tables and straightened everything up and cleaned the fountain. I didn’t have to sweep and mop—Buddy did that. Marta finished cleaning up in the kitchen. She always did her share of cleanup. Then she’d come out and sit at the counter and count the day’s receipts. She put a hundred dollars start-up money into a bag and I took it into the back and buried it in the rice bin. The rest Marta put into a bank bag and had me ride along with her in the Plymouth to the bank. She let me deposit the bag and dropped me off wherever I wanted. The second week I found a room not too far from the café so I didn’t have