“Including you,” O’Farrell put in.
“Indeed including me. She’s been seated maybe ten minutes with a bourbon highball when a large, ugly specimen lumbers in, goes straight over to this doll, and starts shouting that she’d walked out on him. Using words she never learned in Sunday School back in Muncie, Indiana, the doll tells him to hit the road, and he grabs her by the arm and starts to drag her off the stool.
“With that, a slope-shouldered guy about five-seven gets up and takes a swing at the galoot, who blocks the punch like it was a slap on the wrist and proceeds to cold-cock the poor bastard with a right cross. So this would-be hero is flat on the floor hearing sparrows chirping.
“Now the big guy’s wrapped his arms around the doll’s waist and is truly dragging her out of the place, her feet not even touching the floor, and all the while she’s screaming like a banshee, got it? Okay, I know I’m giving away — what — sixty pounds? But I figure the galoot’s distracted now. So I block his way and he gives me a shove with a paw the size of Delaware while he’s holding the doll in his other arm. I pop him with a left jab, which knocks him back a little, but he counters with a right, and you can see where that landed.” I patted my cheek.
“His punch staggers me, and he relaxes for an instant — big mistake for him, good fortune for me. I drive a right into his overstuffed gut, and damned if the lummox doesn’t fold up like a pup tent when you pull out the support poles. Once he hits the floor, a couple of guys all of a sudden get brave, kick him and punch him and drag him to the door, leaving him lying out on the sidewalk groaning. He didn’t come back in.”
“That’s all very interesting, Snap,” Masters said, “but I fail to detect any bruises on your knuckles.”
“Ah, Anson, your keen powers of observation are among those things that make you stand out as a reporter. I wrapped my belt around my fist before I started swinging, like any good street fighter does, see?” I shot back without hesitation. “It’s second nature, Anson. And besides, how many bruises you likely to get from punching flab? So anyway, after this man-mountain gets dragged outside to lick his wounds, the doll sidles over and cozies up to me, cooing about how wonderful I am, which of course is true. She gets a cold, damp cloth from the barkeep and holds it on my face. And then she wants to buy me a drink — the best whiskey in the place.”
“Which of course you quickly accepted,” Eddie Metz said between slurps of coffee.
“Nah. I tell her that when I go into a bar, it’s because I’m looking for peace and quiet and maybe some stimulating conversation to boot, but not brawling, and that this place is too damn violent for me. Then I kiss her on the cheek, tell her to be more careful when she picks a companion, and walk out of the joint without so much as a backward glance.”
“Geez,” the City News kid murmured.
“God damn, Snap, you really had me following along until that last part,” O’Farrell announced, shaking his head. “You really are a master of bullshit, but here’s where your story falls apart: You just ain’t the type to turn your back on a warm honey and a cold drink. Try to deny that. Go ahead.”
The City News kid turned to me with a disillusioned expression on an unlined puss that had yet to meet a razor. “Well then, so how did you really get banged up?” he asked.
“You heard my story, son. And when you get yourself a good story, always stick with it. If these jaded old geezers don’t choose to believe me, hell, that’s their lookout.”
I didn’t get any more comments about my face from the pressroom crew after that, so my story accomplished its intent. And after all, there really were a few small nuggets of truth sprinkled through the tale.
The next morning at 8:00, when I stepped from the foyer of my building into the dazzling spring sunlight on Clark Street, I scanned the block in both directions, almost overlooking an innocuous gray Studebaker sedan at the curb several doors to the north. It was the only parked car in sight with anyone inside — a pair of heads in the front seat, much too far away to identify and both wearing fedoras that covered their brows. I wondered how many mornings they had waited there for my emergence. I also wondered if either of them had been among the trio in the Cadillac during my night rides.
Turning away quickly and striking what I hoped was a nonchalant pose, I lit up a Lucky, flipped the match aside, and strolled to the next corner south, where I waited three minutes for a southbound Clark car. I took a seat near the back of the streetcar and looked out of its open rear window at the Studie, which had pulled away from the curb and made a squealing U-turn, heading north. As they must have every day lately, the car’s occupants probably figured I was on my way to work, which meant they didn’t have anything to gain by tailing me.
They figured right.
Chapter 16
From that day forward, I was on guard. Every morning as I stepped out onto the street, I would spot a sedan, sometimes the Studebaker, occasionally a Ford, and once or twice a Hudson, parked somewhere along my block on Clark with two fedora-topped silhouettes inside. Subtle they weren’t. And each time I climbed aboard the southbound streetcar, they immediately lost interest in me.
One of these autos also parked at the curb near my building every evening, so on the way home, I took to riding the car one block farther north and slipping into Kilkenny’s for beer and sometimes dinner before heading back to my building and going in undetected — or so I thought — through the alley entrance and up the back stairway. I didn’t like the idea of outfit guys patronizing the Killer’s place, or even hanging around just outside keeping watch on me. Also because of the tail, or so I told myself, I put off visiting Nicolette Stover’s apartment for the time being, lest I alert them as to her existence. She might be a murderer, but I was damned if I was going to be the one to finger her — at least not as some self-appointed judge, jury, and executioner all rolled into one.
It was drizzling on an early June evening when I ducked into the Killer’s establishment, having ridden the usual block beyond my stop after seeing the Studie and its twin fedoras at the curb. I took a stool at the bar and nodded to the Killer. He returned the nod and slid a foamy stein of Schlitz along the mahogany. As usual, it came to a stop directly in front of me. I looked around and recognized several familiar faces, both at the bar and in the booths.
Several stools to my right were a couple of guys who looked to be in their late twenties or maybe early thirties, both husky, that I’d never seen before. The one closest to me was loud and laughing and slapping the bar top with a large palm to underscore the points he was making to those around him.
The Killer waddled down to where I was sitting and gave me a smirk. “Recognize him, Snap?” he asked, tipping is head in the direction of the talkative one down the bar.
I shrugged. “Can’t say that I do. Should I?”
“Just thought you might, you being such a big Cub fan and all. That fellow, my earnest and hard-working scrivener friend, is none other than his eminence, Dizzy Dean.”
“No shit?”
“To coin a crude phrase. He just sauntered in here after the game this afternoon, easy as you please — Cubs won, by the way — along with one of his teammates, Reynolds there.”
“Carl Reynolds, the outfielder?”
“The self same. Used to be with the White Sox. Anyway, Ol’ Diz came through the doorway, introduced himself, and said that he heard we serve some of the best steaks in town. Never one to hide my light under a bushel, as you well know, I responded by saying that we serve THE best steaks hands down, no question, no debate.”