“Well, if it isn’t Mr. Mouth himself, the guy who walks into a church and never comes out,” a simpering Marko said from the front passenger seat of the Studebaker parked at the curb. “Got any more of your smart-assed comments for us today, Buddy?”
I should have ignored him, of course, but it had been a bad day, and I was in no mood to suffer fools gladly, even if they were mafia toughs. “Oh, put a lid on it, you baboon,” I fired back, turning to enter the building.
“Why, you two-bit punk, I’ll—”
“Marko,” the driver barked. “Shaddup, will ya!” Marco did shut up, and I changed directions, opting for Kilkenny’s rather than my apartment. It had been a day that called for a bracer or two.
The saloon was nosier than usual, and I soon found out why. “Snap, compadre!” the Killer boomed as I stepped across the threshold. “Diz here’s got some splendid news for us.”
The focal point of the crowd gathered at the bar, Dizzy Dean pivoted on his stool and gave me a wave and a thumbs-up. “Howdy there, Mr. Snap. Ah really don’t know what all the fuss is about.”
“Sure he does, Malek,” Morty Easterly hollered, holding his beer stein aloft. “He’s pitching tomorrow against Boston. And his arm feels great again, doesn’t it, Diz?”
“Ah’m plannin’ to mow them Bees down awright,” Dean affirmed with a broad grin, patting his right arm. “And this here steak’ll give me all the strength I need, shore ’nuff.” He pointed with his fork at the T-bone on the plate in front of him, “Mr. Snap, say hello to Augie Galan here, a fine outfielder and a durn fine hitter, too. I oughta know — he had the whammy on me when I was with the Cards. And he’s also the only guy whatever hit himself a homer both left-handed and right-handed in the same game. And now, him and me, we’re gonna play as teammates in the World Series this year. That’s a guarantee.”
I reached across Dean and shook hands with the dark-haired Galan, also seated at the bar, who’d been playing with the Cubs since the early ’30s. He smiled and turned his attention back to his own steak, content to let Dizzy do the talking — as if he could have gotten a word in edgewise anyway. Returning to the end of the bar closest to the door, I started in on a beer when a hand came down hard on my shoulder. It was Marko.
“Let’s go, punk. We’re gonna take ourselves a nice long ride. Nobody calls me a baboon and then walks away. You got yourself one heap of trouble.”
“No thanks, anyway,” I replied, pulling back and looking around the noisy room for some help.
He lowered his voice still further. “I said let’s go.” He began backing me toward the door, his hand pushing against my chest, and I was vaguely aware that the room had gotten quiet. Over Marko’s shoulder, I could see Dizzy Dean, suddenly alert, getting to his feet and gesturing silently toward the back bar. The Killer nodded and flipped him the autographed baseball, which Diz plucked effortlessly out of the air in his right hand, cocking his arm in the same fluid motion. It’s difficult to describe the next sound I heard, the closest I can come is when my mother used to take the rugs out into our little back yard in Pilsen and beat them with a broom handle. The ball hit Marko in the back of the head, making that same “whap,” and the pupils of his eyes rolled up and out of sight in the sockets before he sputtered with a wheeze and crumpled to the wooden floor.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” the Killer pronounced as the room became even more silent and Marko rolled over onto his back, his now open suit coat revealing a shoulder holster and an automatic. “Who the hell is he, Snap?”
“Marko for starters, I don’t know the last name,” I told him, picking the baseball up off the floor and tossing it back to Dean. “Thanks, Diz,” I said as I realized my hand was shaking.
“Lord above, this is terrible,” the Killer said. “This is just...” He halted in mid-sentence because of the figure who loomed in the doorway — the driver of the Studebaker.
“What the shit!” the hoodlum spat, gaping at Marko’s prone and unconscious figure and reaching inside his coat. Then came that sound again. This time, the ball fired by Dizzy Dean was a frontal shot, hitting the driver in the right temple. He went down without a murmur, and the revolver he’d already drawn skittered along the hardwood, coming to rest at Morty Easterly’s feet.
“Call the police — right now!” I ordered the Killer. “And get Dizzy outta here. If the cops want to know what happened, tell them some guy you never saw before popped both these hoods with a club and then ducked out the door. But for God’s sake, make sure that nobody mentions Dean. Now I need a car, fast.”
“I got mine parked right outside,” Augie Galan volunteered. “Where do you want to go?”
“Just a few blocks. What about Diz?”
“You okay?” Galan turned to his famous teammate. Dizzy Dean, back on his barstool and more than a tad shaken, nodded, stroking his arm. “When I got traded, the boys on the Cards said this town wouldn’t be like St. Looie, and they was right,” Dean drawled, shaking his head. “But it shore as heck is interesting.”
“Okay, where we headed?” Galan asked once we were rolling in his new Lincoln Zephyr.
“A bar over on Diversey, it’s just a few doors west of Clark. I’ll show you the way.”
“That was amazing — what happened back there in the saloon,” Galan pronounced as we drove south on Clark. “Dizzy had this reputation with the Cardinals for making a lot of noise and then always ducking out or hiding when the fight actually started. But tonight... look what happened. He must really think a lot of you.”
“We don’t really know each other all that well,” I said. “It’s the Killer’s steaks he thinks a lot of.”
Galan pulled up in front of the Centurion. “Wait here,” I told the outfielder, who seemed remarkably calm through all of this. “I should be back in fifteen minutes. If I’m not, call the police and tell them that a Tribune reporter named Steve Malek went into the Centurion and never came out.”
He nodded like this was something he did every day. I went inside. The place, decorated in red and black Moderne style, was dark and the jukebox was loud. Within seconds after I’d eased onto a chrome stool close to the door, and before I could get the bartender’s attention, a blonde in black patent spike heels, spangles, and an acre of creamy cleavage teetered over, rubbing an ample hip against me. “Hey, how ’bout buying a girl a drink?” she cooed.
“Love to, but I’m here on business. I need to see the Brother. Now.”
She jumped as if she’d been goosed with a cattle prod. “Why din’t you say so, mister? I’ll get him,” she replied, probably as earnestly as she knew how. She swivel-hipped to the other end of the bar and leaned across it, cupping her hand and saying something to the bartender. He looked toward me, nodded, and picked up the phone on the back bar, mouthing words into the instrument. He then told me that the Brother was “on his way.”
He must not have had far to come, because within three minutes he materialized next to me. It was the first time I’d gotten a look at him in the light, and I was surprised at his appearance. The dark, wavy air had liberal doses of gray mixed in and his long face, dominated by that Roman nose, was deeply lined. I mentally added ten years to his age.
“Hello, again, Mr. Malek,” the Brother said in that now-familiar high voice. “You have something for me?”
“I’m afraid it’s not what you want,” I answered somberly as he sat on the stool next to mine. “You — or the organization — have had a tail on me for weeks now, right?”
His thin mouth formed what he probably thought was a smile, and he nodded. “Perhaps.”