Callahan's Place 07 - Callahan's Legacy (v5.0) Read Online Free PDF Page A

out and augured into a chunk of birch, falling over and bursting into flame.
    All eyes traveled back to the stranger.   I guess he’d been confident of his aim: he was already halfway through the next C-note/airplane…
     
    ***
     
    The general reaction was unanimous.   Once people were satisfied that he had torched the bill intentionally, and meant to continue doing so for awhile, they politely looked away and went back about their own business.   The noise level in the room went back up to normal.
    Oh, no doubt many of them discussed the stranger—but did so in politely hushed tones, without any unseemly gawking or pointing.   I stared at the guy closely, but I had professional obligations.   I figure if a man comes into my bar and starts setting cash on fire, I have a moral duty to assure myself that he isn’t drunk before I decide whether to sell him liquor.   I’m much better at detecting drunkenness than I am at detecting counterfeit money, and it was clear to me that while he was not cold sober, neither was he near bombed enough to call for intervention.     “Want any help with that, cousin?” I asked.
    Our combined reaction—or rather, lack of it—delighted him as much as our glass-smashing custom had.   “Why, thanks,” he said, and gestured for me to help myself.
    I signaled Tom Hauptman, my backup bartender, to take over the job of keeping everybody else’s glasses refilled.   He nodded and went to work with the industry you’d expect of a former minister.   So I busted the paper tape off another stack of hundreds and fashioned the top bill into a paper airplane.   When I had it done, I set it close to the newcomer’s hand and built another.   Soon we had sorted it into a system: I made the planes and he launched them.   The only attention anyone else paid was to make sure they didn’t wander into his line of fire.   His aim was impressive.   Before too long he had to pause and wait for the pile of crashed C-planes to burn down a bit, so that new arrivals wouldn’t spill out onto the floor.
    “This is really nice of you,” he said.   “This was going to be my last attempt before I gave up the whole idea.   The last three places I tried this, people got very upset.”
    I nodded.   “I can see how that could be.   Riots have started over less.”
    “The third time I picked a really upscale bar, a Hamptons joint where a Coke cost five bucks and a rum and Coke cost ten, on the theory that people who actually had money to burn would be the least upset to see it done.   Hah!   I thought they were going to merril-lynch me.   I had blasphemed their religion.   How many rum-and-Cokes will this buy me here?”   He offered me one of his pale green aircraft.
    “None at all,” I told him.   “I’m afraid I deal in nothing but one dollar bills.”
    “Singles?   Seriously?   How come?”
    I shrugged.   “House custom.   Call it…homage to the memory of a departed friend.   Long story.”
    He grinned.   “Do you actually mean to tell me that with a guitar-case full of hundred dollar bills, I can’t get a drink in here?   Oh, that’s marvelous!”
    “Well,” I said, “I judge you to be a special case.   How about if on a one-time basis, I change one of those into singles for you?”
    He looked thoughtful.   “How many drinks would a hundred singles buy me?   Hypothetically.”
    “That depends.”
    “Say they were all rum-and-Cokes.”
    I shook my head.   “That’s not what it depends on.   Every drink in the house, from Coke to Irish coffee to champagne, costs three dollars.   But if you turn in your empty glass or mug or whatever, you get to take a dollar back from the cigar-box over there.”   I pointed it out, down at the end of the bar closest to the door.   “So, hypothetically speaking…well, let’s see: ninety-nine singles would buy you thirty-three drinks—but if you didn’t toss any of your empties into the fireplace, you’d be entitled