Most of the bars he passed were closed, so he drove on into the center of the city and stopped at one on Market Street. He settled down in a red-leather-covered booth in the rear of the place and asked the waitress to bring him a double rye.
There was a juke box sounding the currently popular songs, and a noisy table of college kids in the booth opposite him, good-natured boys having a big time drinking beer and kidding the waitress.
Bannion looked down at his big hands, trying to ignore the songs, the festive chatter from the adjacent booth. When the waitress brought his drink he told her to bring him the bottle. It would save her trips that way.
She said okay.
Twenty minutes later Max Stone came in, accompanied by Debby, and his bodyguard, a man named Jones. Debby took a stool at the bar and Stone shook hands with the manager. Jones took a seat at the end of the bar where he could watch the boss. Stone began rolling dice with a girl who sat behind a green-felt table. He lost consistently, and he wasn’t happy about it. The money wasn’t important, it was just a quarter a throw; but losing, on principle, made him sore. He had been losing steadily at poker in his apartment for the last four hours, and had taken a walk to let the run of the cards change. Stone felt like hell; he’d eaten four hot corned-beef sandwiches on Jewish rye bread and had drunk several highballs. They weren’t doing him any good. He watched the dice bounce out of the leather cup he held, his eyes tired and narrowed. What was wrong with him? He’d felt better earlier in the evening, when Lagana had been putting it on the line to Larry. That was like old times. But when Mike had gone, Stone was swept with the familiar, anxious feeling that something was wrong, that everything was shifting under his feet.
“Don’t pick ’em up so fast,” he told the girl. “I want to look, too.”
“Sure, Mr. Stone.”
The bartender smiled at Stone, the manager smiled at him, and Debby smiled at him; they knew he was in a touchy, explosive mood. Only Jones, his bodyguard, didn’t smile; he wasn’t paid to smile, he was paid to watch, so he sat at the end of the bar, a sullen-looking balding man, and watched Stone, watched the people who walked behind him, with gray, careful eyes.
“Don’t pick ’em up so fast,” Stone said again, glaring at the girl. “I’m not talking just to make noise, baby.”
“No, of course not, Mr. Stone,” the girl said, with a quick nervous smile.
A minute or so later, Stone swore violently. “You’re cheating me, goddamnit,” he yelled, and slammed the leather dice cup against the wall. He drew his thick arm back and slapped the girl across the face. The blow caught her by surprise and almost knocked her off the stool. She scrambled to the floor, and cowered in the corner, staring at Stone with wide, terrified eyes, too stunned to say anything.
The bartender began polishing a glass industriously, and a man at the bar who recognized Stone picked up his change and moved inconspicuously toward the door.
The manager put a hand nervously on Stone’s arm. “Max, forget it, please,” he said. “I’ll pay her off tonight, chase her the hell out of here.”
“What kind of a joint are you running?” Stone said, shaking the hand from his arm.
There was a buzz and stir as customers at the bar and in the booths turned to watch the disturbance.
Stone shoved his hands into the pockets of his overcoat and stared down the room, watching one pair of eyes after another melt away from his angry, self-righteous glare. “Well, what’re you looking at?” he snapped at a thin young man in a natty suit.
“Nothing, nothing at all,” the young man said, and turned away with a weak smile.
The joint’s bouncer, a stocky man in a dark blue suit, stood behind Stone, ready to move fast if anyone bothered him. Jones slid off his stool and was watching too, his weight balanced lightly, expectantly on the balls of his feet.
The only sound was the dice-girl’s muffled sobs.
The college boys in the booth next to Bannion’s had stood up for a better view of the excitement. One of them, a husky, clean-cut lad, looked uncertainly at his friends. “Hey, that big bastard slapped a girl,” he said, with more surprise than outrage in his voice. He wet his lips, and then his face, his good humored, still unformed face, hardened. “Well, we’ll see about that,” he said, and his words sounded clearly in the silence.
He stepped from the booth and started toward Stone.
He didn’t get very far. The man named Jones moved to meet him with a fast, springy stride. He bumped squarely into the boy, put both hands against his shoulders and shoved him powerfully back toward the booth.
“Where you going, hero?” he said, coming after the boy, his hands swinging low at his sides.
Two waiters grabbed the boy’s arms and shoved him down in the booth. He struggled against them, making only a token resistance; his face was white and scared. One of the waiters said, “Jeez, kid, don’t be dumb. That’s Max Stone. Get it, Max Stone. Keep your nose out of his business.”
“He hit the girl,” the boy said in a high, shaky voice.
“Okay, okay,” the waiter said. “So he hit a girl. He can do what he wants.” The waiter looked up at Jones, smiling nervously. “They’re good kids, really. Just kind of excitable,” he said.
Jones stared down at the college boy. “Don’t be excitable, Junior,” he said. “It don’t figure.”
Bannion raised his head slowly. Jones was standing just a few feet from him and his voice had fallen like an ugly weight across his thoughts. Keep out of it, he said to himself, and his lips moved with the silent words, almost as if he were praying. He had recognized Stone, the top man in West, and had heard the hassle. He knew Jones, too, a sullen punk who was happiest when crowding scared little people into a corner. Keep out of it, he said again, muttering the words aloud. He had his lead; Larry Smith. That might lead to Stone, but it had to be proved. There was no percentage in tipping his hand, making a move that could ruin his chances. He told himself to keep out of it, almost savagely, fighting the red anger that was sweeping through him, the anger that could destroy him along with everything in its way.
Jones’ voice came down across his thoughts again, hard and contemptuous. “It don’t figure, college boy,” he said. “Don’t be excitable. Remember that, Junior.”
The glass shattered in Bannion’s tightening fist. He stood and stepped into the aisle between the two rows of booths. “Hello, punk,” he said to Jones.
Jones turned quickly, his lips drawing tight against his teeth. He looked up at Bannion and some of the bored, sullen toughness left his face. “This isn’t any business of yours, Bannion,” he said.
Bannion took the lapels of Jones’ coat in one hand and pulled the man close to him. “You tell me what my business is, punk,” he said, in a low, trembling voice. “You tell me all about it.”
Jones wet his lips and tried to meet Bannion’s eyes. “I... I got nothing to tell you, Bannion.”
Bannion held the slack of Jones’ coat in one big hand. He raised his arm slowly and lifted the man up to his toes. “You’re a smart little punk,” he said, in the same low voice. “Don’t ever tell me anything.” He turned Jones around and pushed him to the rear of the room. “Stay there and keep quiet,” he said. “You’re getting a break, remember.”
Bannion looked at him for an instant, and then turned and walked toward Stone, moving slowly, deliberately, his hands jammed deep into the pockets of his trenchcoat. Under the rain-darkened brim of his hat his face was hard and expressionless.
“You like working girls over, don’t you, Stone?” he said.
Stone glared at the big detective, seeing the brutal anger in his face, and sensing the sudden, explosive quietness in the room. He knew Debby was watching him; he couldn’t let her see him talked down, and he was in no mood to take anything from anybody tonight. “Don’t make a mistake, Bannion,” he said. “Don’t play hero with me.”