Robert Goldsborough
Three Strikes You’re Dead
To Bill Granger and Max Allan Collins, two superb writers who have helped me to appreciate Chicago’s rich history and traditions.
“Today we have Dizzy Dean initiated into the Loyal and Benevolent Brotherhood of Cubs.”
— Marvin McCarthy, Sports Editor,
Chicago Times April 16, 1938
Dear Readers,
Many years ago I discovered one of the greatest talents of the fiction industry. I read my first Nero Wolfe novel by Rex Stout. Time passed and each book I read drew me deeper into the web of the rotund genius of fiction fame.
Being a mystery novice, I reached the end of the line all too soon... or so I thought. Rex Stout was deceased. No more Nero Wolfe? Gasp! Then a gentle little woman in a used bookstore offered me a gift. She handed me a novel by Robert Goldsborough and I found new pleasure.
Now, years later, I can proudly say that I am the owner of copies of the ongoing series of Nero Wolfe novels written by Mr. Goldsborough. So imagine my surprise when a referral brought Robert Goldsborough and me together. I owe a huge debt of appreciation to Augie Aleksy of Centuries & Sleuths of Forest Park, IL for introducing us.
Mr. Goldsborough’s talents run as deep as Mr. Stout’s, and Echelon Press is proud to bring you the newest novel by this master of storytelling. Three Strikes You’re Dead takes readers back in time to 1938 Chicago and introduces a new kind of hero.
Echelon Press is always pleased to hear your thoughts and suggestions for how we can make our publishing house your publishing house! Please send your comments to echelonpress@gmail.com.
Happy Reading!
Karen L. Syed, President
Echelon Press
Prologue
The rain had stopped, but the cold, damp wind knifed from all directions. Traffic on Broadway had dwindled to the occasional taxi slushing along the wet pavement. The figure huddled against the brick wall of one of the buildings flanking the parking lot, beyond the faint light from a single bulb mounted on a telephone pole.
Neither the wall nor a turned-up coat collar and pulled-down hat kept out the March night. The waiting figure ached, from wet face to throbbing calves to numbed, cold feet that made squishing noises inside soaked shoes. The chimes of a nearby church tolled a single note, marking yet another quarter-turn — 11:15.
More than three hours. The blowhard’s probably babbling on about how he’s going to clean things up. Make the city safe. Right.
The dark green ’35 Lincoln Le Baron roadster with its side-mounted spare tire was one of only five machines left in the dingy parking lot wedged between two darkened buildings. The rest of the local do-gooders must have taken taxis or streetcars. Not everybody had the kind of money in these hard times to afford a car, let alone a snazzy Lincoln. Now if he only came out by himself...
As the chimes struck the half-hour, footsteps came from the direction of the restaurant. The figure drew in air and struggled to keep from shaking, then tensed when a man reached the circle of light. Slender... wearing a fedora... him? Yes! No, not tall enough. The man walked toward a black Chevrolet coupe as the waiting figure edged back into a recessed doorway of the building. The Chevy started with a cough and pulled out onto Broadway, and the figure relaxed the grip on the cold, nickeled steel nestled in a coat pocket.
Another quarter hour passed. More footsteps. This time it had to be him. Yes. The confident, self-assured stride, long arms swinging at his sides, his ego fed by the mindless adulation of the group in the restaurant. The love of being at center stage and hearing the applause. He headed for the sporty roadster. And he was alone.
The figure emerged from the alcove, slowly but with purpose. The shivers of a few minutes ago had passed, replaced by resolve, and the hand that gripped the automatic was dry and steady. Any lingering doubts were erased by memories and hatred.
The tall man stopped just short of his car and cocked his head as if he’d heard something. The waiting figure’s hand tightened on the gun. The tall man pivoted deliberately, noticed the figure, then leaned forward at the waist, raising a hand tentatively, as if in recognition.
The heavy, damp night muted the single shot.
Chapter 1
I awoke at 10:30 on New Year’s morning with a headache, which surprised me. True, I had rung in 1938 at Kilkenny’s just down the street, but I nursed only three beers in that entire stretch, from about 9:00 p.m. until past 1:30. Plus I took seconds and thirds from the big spread that the Killer had laid out, in his own words, “as a way of thanking all my regular customers, who are also my dear and cherished friends, for their enduring patronage and their tolerance of my myriad foibles.” That’s how the Killer talks.
“Oh, noblest of Gaelic publicans,” I had responded in kind, lifting high my glass, “we do indeed tolerate your varied foibles, bizarre though they may be, for we — and I speak for all in this august assemblage — have at one time or another found solace in your understanding and sympathetic ear and your hospitable nature, a nature that befits one whose roots go deep into the Old Sod.”
“Malek, sit down and shut up, or better yet, have yourself another drink,” Morty Easterly bellowed. “One gasbag in this joint is enough, and as he happens to own the place, we can’t very well tell him to button his yap.”
“Point taken, albeit reluctantly,” I said amid a chorus of jeers, waving and sitting down. I kept on eating and socializing as the old year slipped away, but I declined the champagne poured with a flourish nearing midnight, and I was home and asleep by 2:00. The moral, if one is to be found: Next time, two aspirin before bed. I rolled over and turned on the squawky little radio on the nightstand to get a weather report, but all I could find was music — Crosby and Kate Smith and Rudy Vallee — plus one station where a bass voice somberly recited the major events of 1937: FDR’s second inauguration... the crash of the Hindenburg dirigible at Lakehurst... Japan’s invasion of China... the continuing Spanish Civil War... Amelia Earhart’s plane lost in the Pacific... Joe Louis knocking out Braddock at Comiskey Park for the heavyweight title.
“Tell me something I don’t know, like the temperature, will ya?” I muttered, turning off the radio and easing out of bed, making sure my feet landed on the small island of rug where I’d parked my slippers. I padded across the wood floor to the window. The sun had punched through the clouds, and the predicted flurries never showed up.
Most of Chicago was still asleep, or at least inside likely nursing its collective hangover. Three stories below me, Clark Street was empty save for a red streetcar that lumbered by, clanging its bell at nothing in particular. A few weeks earlier, after we had spent a Saturday night in Kilkenny’s, Walt Carlin from the copy desk at the Tribune decided he didn’t want to go all the way south to his two-room flat on 67th Street, so he bunked on my sofa. He got up in the morning griping about how noisy my place is, what with all the traffic on Clark, particularly the bell-happy streetcars. But in the two years I’d lived there, the racket had never bothered me. Maybe it’s because I’m a heavy sleeper, or maybe it goes back to the three-flat in Pilsen where I grew up. It had railroad tracks right behind it that rattled the china in my mother’s kitchen cupboard at least once every half hour, day and night, or so it seemed to me. As my father liked to say, “If you can fall asleep here, you can doze off at State and Madison the Saturday after Thanksgiving with a Salvation Army band playing five feet away.”