Nothing so awful happened at this Ho Jo’s though. Nothing except the martinis.

To enter Sweet Daddy’s, you would either travel the sidewalk that ran from the check-in desk in the lobby toward the restaurant, choosing to enter the bar through the restaurant entrance or take the slight fork to the left where there was a small awning-covered, unmarked door guarded by two sentry shrubs. Mostly, the door was either too sketchy it was avoided or too dark it was ignored, so almost everyone just searched for the bar when they got into the restaurant.

Once inside, they would ask where the lounge was and they would be pointed toward the back of the restaurant and would wander, tentatively, through the large-windowed, brightly lit dining room to the last tables, a trio of duos, half banquette/half chair, the corner of which made of large windows and a restaurant wall. Against the wall was a grooved (not groovy), windowless door painted bordello red. The grooves were painted dull gold, as were the four hearts that ran vertically up the right side of the door. A small gold nameplate above the door, the kind that looked like it was picked up at some Ace hardware store, read SWEET DADDY’S.

It always took people a good ten seconds or so standing there for their eyes to adjust, coming from the bright clean citrus-colored restaurant, now plunged into near total darkness. When their eyes finally accustomed themselves to the dark, they would see the small bar on the right, booths lining the walls, and a softly glowing jukebox to the left inside of the entrance. Painted heartbreak red and named Sweet Daddy’s, you half-expected to spy a plumed chapeau, sitting in the corner shaking down Cinnamon and Diamond for the nightly take. But you’d be disappointed. Instead, you’d see a jittery kid looking like he should be the one having his ID checked, not the guy asking you for yours. I was only the bartender by default. I was barely 22.

Hui-Te was the real bartender. She was a mildly attractive 40-year old, but she exuded a tropical sensuality, dressing like a high class call girl which came across as exotic. To the regulars, she was this enigmatic maker of elixers and keeper of secrets, listening to their stories with devotion. She laughed easily and had an aura that maybe you could get her number but was ultimately always unattainable. The men were oblivious to it but I’d watch her sometimes, how she’d laugh at odd places during the conversation or at pauses the customer would generously leave, the silence queuing to her that a reaction was called for, which made me wonder how much she really understood.

She remained somewhat of a cipher to even the regulars, but to the hotel guests, she was an imperious mystery, her unpronounceable nametag throwing them off axis immediately. And if it didn’t, her heavy Vietnamese accent certainly did. You pronounced her name hyoo-tee but nobody ever got it right. Even the manager had it wrong, calling her “Hooty,” to which she would never correct him, just laugh at him. But none of us corrected Joe. He looked like a prized left tackle who’d just left the NFL about an hour ago because he was…too angry. His arms, with biceps stretching the limits of his brown short-sleeved shirts were bigger than my thighs. He had one gold front tooth, a high-pitched voice, a lisp like Mike Tyson, and 95% of the time he was a pussycat but that other 5 he was terrifying. I saw him ream out Shelly, one of the waitresses, one night and his hands were curling up into fists and the veins on his neck bulged, as visible as extension cords under cheap carpet. Shelly stood there and took it all and none of us could believe he unleashed such fury on her. Shelly! Of all people. Shelly looked like a Nebraska farm girl just in the city, all freckles, honeyed hair, and doe eyes. Shelly and I grew close and she would ultimately confide in me that she and Joe were actually lovers, which didn’t make any sense but perfect sense all at the same time. We all cowered when Joe came out of his office, but he was powerless around Hui-Te. She could get away with murder. For example: if the bar wasn’t busy enough to her liking, she’d just close the place down.

“I solly, dis iss lass caw, hee yaw check. I take kay yoo. Tank yoo bewy much,” she’d tell the sole couple in the lounge. (NOTE: I am not being racist. This is phonetically how she talked. It was adorable.)

“But it’s not even midnight,” they’d say.

“I know. Dat too bad. Chahge to yaw woom?”

I swear she almost gave them a geisha bow. But she never had to. They’d always gulp down the last of their drink, pay, and leave, dropping a tip so generous it was like they were paying her to like them. I’d counted my tips with her some nights after she closed the bar and Hui-Te made a fucking fortune, even nights when I counted less than ten people going inside the place, (although there could have been a hundred using the outside entrance I never knew about). 

One day, about an hour into happy hour, Hui-Te failed to show up for work. I found this out when I went into the bar to order drinks for one of my tables and saw Joe behind the bar freaking the fuck out. Before I could tell him what I needed, he held up the soda gun.

“You know what these letters stand for?”

I looked down at the glowing buttons and took my best guess.

“C’s Coke, L is Sprite…upside down seven…, D diet, S soda, and W’s water?”

A few pulls on each trigger and a sip sampling proved I had it right, which meant I went on to the bonus round: being bartender. Hui-Te never called, never showed up again, and there behind the bar I stayed.

Luckily it was almost an entirely gin & tonic, bourbon & coke crowd. Or a call liquor on the rocks. Easy peasy. Occasionally some tourist would order a piña colada, which I made with the aid of the bartender’s bible, the Mr. Boston Delux Official Bartender’s Guide, with Howard Johnson’s vanilla ice cream. Besides having to constantly tell people that no, I didn’t know what happened to Hui-Te or where she went or how to get hold of her, I had this bartending gig down pat.

Until Martin came in. His name was a harbinger to the trouble I would soon be in.