He'd picked up on the basics of mixology pretty quickly. Not that he'd wanted to.
God, it was tedious. Squeeze lemon juice into 12 ounce glass. Dissolve sugar into juice. Add gin and brandy. Stir. Fill glass with ice and carbonated water. Stir. Decorate with fruits of the season and serve with straw.
All those little details were beginning to tax on his sanity. He wanted out.
But of course they had to stay on at the Sera Rossa. Felt like they'd been there for weeks. Hadn't made any progress. Couldn't leave.
But oh God, it was tedious.
The pale waitress approached him. "Table three wants a Pineapple Cooler, table eight wants a couple of Cosmopolitans, and another Bourbon Rose for you-know-who."
"He wants another one?" the barkeep asked.
The waitress responded with a grimace, which immediately rose into a cheery smile as she greeted a new customer at the door.
Put powdered sugar and 2 ounces of carbonated water into a glass. Stir. Fill glass with cracked ice and add dry white wine. Fill with ginger ale. Stir. Insert spiral of orange or lemon or both. ¾ an ounce of vodka. ½ an ounce of triple sec. 1 ounce of cranberry juice. ½ an ounce of lime juice. Add these to the cocktail mixer. Shake. Strain into martini glass. Do it again. Shake an ounce and a half of bourbon, an ounce of triple sec, 4 ounces of orange juice with ice and serve in rocks or highball glass.
He couldn't take it any more. But of course they had to stay on at the Sera Rossa.
"Are they done?" the waitress asked.
"They're done," the barkeep muttered, placing the four glasses on a serving tray. The waitress lifted it and glided off.
She dropped off the cooler at table three and deposited the Cosmopolitans at table eight, but she stopped on the way to deliver the Bourbon Rose.
The man there was plainly drunk. Head slightly bobbing, nose very red, eyes distinctly off-kilter, he was singing to himself about cockles and mussels alive, alive-oh. He was rather short, and very fat. On the table before him were a handful of empty glasses. Most of them were overturned. Each of them had, at some point, contained a Bourbon Rose.
He hiccoughed loudly and looked ready to fall asleep as the waitress approached.
"Your Bourbon Rose, sir," she announced.
"Oh, shank you. Shank you," he said, grinning. His teeth were particularly nasty. "Yer a pretty gel, a very pretty gel. Whyncha come sit down. We'll have a shrink together, you'n'me. Whaddayasay?"
The waitress tried and failed to look flattered. "I'm sorry, sir. I can't."
"C'mon," he said. One of his eyes was leering at her hungrily; the other was half-closed. "Jusht one shink. I'll buy."
"No, sir, I'm not allowed to—"
"I said have a drink!" he roared, and his hands found her leg.
Shrieking softly, she dropped the serving tray with a clatter and rushed to the safety of the back room.
"Come back here!" the drunken man yelled, but he couldn't muster the coordination to go after her.
-----
Presently the barkeep came along.
"I understand you've been trying to interfere with the work of a Sera Rossa employee, sir."
"Yeah? An' who would you be? Laurel 'n' Hardy?" the man asked, and he sniggered to himself.
"Let's stick to the subject," the barkeep growled. You always had to stick to the subject with these brutes, otherwise they'd win. "You made a pass at the waitress. For that, I'm afraid, I'm going to have to remove you from the establishment."
"Whass wrong? She ya gelfren' or somethin'?" The drunken man leaned back. "Can't help it if she was makin' eyes at me, pal. I'm jusht a ladykiller. That's how it ish."
"I don't care how good you are at dealing with the opposite gender," the barkeep hissed. "As long as you are in the Sera Rossa, you will treat the workers with respect, d'you get me?"
"Now, c'mon. It wash just a little joke. Jus' a joke." The man's eyes were blurry as they tried to focus on the imposing figure standing before him. "Can't take a joke, bud? That it?"
"There's nothing funny about trying to assault a waitress."
The drunken man peered at him. "Ya know what? You look like you've had a rough day. Whaddayasay you just bring me up another Bourbon Roshe, and we'll be good shports about thish whole business, right?"
He tried to shake the barkeep's hand.
It came loose.
The man realized that the severed hand he was now holding wasn't made of flesh and blood, but of plastic.
And where it had been at the end of the barkeep's arm, there was a glistening hook.
"You're right," the barkeep agreed. "I have had a rough day. And I'd prefer not to have to make anyone's any rougher." He leaned close. "So you will leave this establishment."
"Hey, buddy, if yer gonna ashk me to leave, you better do it politely."
"I'm not asking you to leave," the barkeep growled. "What I am doing is telling you that you will leave. Now."
The drunken man looked like he was about to say something, but then he looked at the hook, made a small gulping sound, and was silent.
"That's better," the barkeep smiled. "Let me show you to the door."
He hoisted the drunken man to his feet and assisted him in walking as far as the Sera Rossa door, where the barkeep was only too happy to escort the man out and slam the door behind him.
He recovered the plastic hand. "Can you help me with this?" he asked the waitress.
"Of course," she said, slightly breathlessly. She gently reattached the hand, and in a moment the barkeep looked as inconspicuous as ever.
Just then, a tall man with one eyebrow burst out of the back room. "Lucafont! Tocuna! I give up. The orphans aren't hiding anywhere in this building. We're leaving."
"But Madame Lulu said—"
"I know what Madame Lulu said," the man snarled. "Her crystal ball must have been wrong. She hasn't heard the last of this, I tell you. Fetch some of that whiskey on the way out."
No more mixing drinks. No more three ounces of this, one and a half ounces of that.
Lucafont thought it was strange that anything Count Olaf could say would have a positive effect on him, but as the hook-handed man pinched a few bottles of whiskey from the top shelf, he had to admit that he was feeling very good indeed.