“There’s not much of that around here. Oh, our neighbors are all very nice, but everybody pretty much keeps to themselves. Sometimes, I really wish there were more people sitting out on their front steps or porches.”
“I understand, but I believe that most of those folks back in Logan Square would trade places with you in the flick of a cigarette lighter. This is pretty nice living.”
She nodded. “Oh, I know, and I’m not really complaining. It’s just that sometimes it gets so... lonesome.”
We walked for a half-block before I responded. “I mean no disrespect to him, Catherine, but I suppose your Dad really isn’t much company for you most of the time, is he?”
“No... but that’s not really his fault. I don’t mind looking after him at all.” Another half-block of silence. “I had hoped you would have called sometime,” she said tentatively.
“It’s been busy at work, and—”
“Oh, I’m sure it has.” Now her tone was apologetic. “Of all people, I should know how hectic a reporter’s life can be, shouldn’t I? Having been around Daddy all those years.”
“Yeah, sometimes it can get pretty crazy.”
“Did you ever locate that girl — except she really isn’t a girl any more of course, is she?”
“Huh? Oh, you mean the one who had lived next door to Lloyd Martindale,” I said, feigning puzzlement, then sudden realization. “Yes. Yes, I did see her, but very briefly. She didn’t want to talk to me, though, and nothing ever came of it.”
“I thought maybe you were angry with me for what I said when you were here before.”
“Angry? Why?”
“Because I suggested that you not try to find her, that you just let her be, which I had no business doing. And when I did bring it up, it seemed like you were irritated, which is understandable.”
“I wasn’t irritated — not at all,” I lied. “In fact, I’d forgotten all about it, Catherine.”
“Well, all right. That’s good,” she pronounced with finality, although I sensed just then that she would have liked it better if I had said I remembered at least something of our earlier conversation.
We had now covered perhaps a half dozen residential blocks in Oak Park and had yet to encounter another person on the sidewalks. “Well, it’s getting late,” I told her, showing my wristwatch as confirmation as we passed under a streetlight. “I’ll walk you home and then head for the El.”
“That’s not necessary, Steve,” she protested. “We’re closer to the station right now than we are to our house. That would make an unnecessary round trip for you.”
“Hey, it’s late. You shouldn’t be walking home alone,” I insisted.
We had stopped at an intersection, and I could see her puckish expression as we stood in the blue-white nimbus cast by a street lamp. “You mean those crowded and dangerous streets, with all the ruffians and brigands lurking behind every tree?” she asked.
“Okay, so maybe I won’t need a sword and a club to protect you from ruffians and brigands, after all. I still want to walk you home, though.”
“But I don’t want to be walked home,” Catherine insisted, a new resilience evident in her voice. “Good night, Steve,” she said, holding out a hand with formality and, I sensed, finality.
I grasped her hand, returning her firm grip and forcing a smile. I felt pulled in two directions, but only for a few moments, then whatever struggle I was having passed.
Catherine returned my smile, saying nothing, then pivoted gracefully and walked off in the direction of her house. I stood and watched until she blended into Oak Park’s still and gentle July darkness; then I started toward the Elevated station and the ride back into the city.
Chapter 22
Norma was over in Michigan with Martin Baer and, presumably, his mother. Peter was at camp in the North Woods of Wisconsin, and I was on probation at the Tribune. Welcome to midsummer in the Middle West.
On the positive side, the Cubs were beginning to show signs of life. Dizzy Dean went out and pitched another complete game — his second in a week — beating the Giants, who scored only one run. That gave him five victories, a long way from his glory days in St. Louis but encouraging for the Chicago boys and their new manager, Hartnett.
After staying away from Kilkenny’s for a few days following his beaning of the two hoodlums, Diz was around again, drawn back by the lure of the T-bones and filets — and maybe the camaraderie and the adulation of the regulars. The Killer himself was alert to further incursions from the mob, though, and had bought a revolver — he showed it to me very quickly and quietly one evening — that he kept on a shelf under the cash register. I found the idea of his keeping a loaded gun in the joint unsettling, but after what had happened, in part because of me, there wasn’t anything I could say.
On the evening of the Cubs’ victory against New York, Dean and Augie Galan were at the bar eating when I sauntered in, while the usual knot of regulars hovered around the players.
“Hey, Mr. Snap, how ya doin’?” Diz boomed, waving me over. (It would only be later, and in far different circumstances, that he would briefly raise the subject of the most exciting night Kilkenny’s had ever seen.)
“Just fine,” I answered, “and it sounds like you are, too, from what I’ve been hearing about the way things went out at Wrigley this afternoon.”
He made a face and shrugged. “I didn’t have much on the ball, but them Giants was patsies, real patsies.”
“Don’t let Diz fool you with that kind of talk,” Augie Galan said to me between bites of his filet. “He was plenty tough out there today. I’m glad I wasn’t batting against him.”
“Yeah, sure,” Dean said. “The way you tagged me over the years, you’da put one on Sheffield Avenue, or maybe even two.” He swiveled toward me. “My wing’s like t’drop off now, Mr. Snap,” he brayed as he flexed his right arm. “Hurts to beat all heck.”
“You should be home soaking it or something,” I told him. “That’s two good games in a row you’ve tossed, and you need to keep it up. And you’re also making a monkey out of a guy I know who works for the Tribune.”
His face went from puzzlement to a frown. “How’dya happen to know somebody from that doggone paper, Mr. Snap?”
“Uh, I’ve known him for years... from my old neighborhood,” I improvised, hoping nobody around us would give me away. They didn’t.
Dean rubbed his chin. “Hmm. And you say that ah’m makin’ a monkey outta him?”
“In spades, Diz, bless you. He’s a copyreader in the Sports Department, name of Leo Cahill, and he said in the spring that there was no way that you’d win even five games. And now...”
The Killer raised one bushy eyebrow. “Did you have occasion to speak to this Cahill individual today?” he asked as he served me a beer.
“No, why?”
“Let us now give this misguided fellow, Irish though he may be with that surname, a call forthwith and remind him of the comment he made,” the barkeep said, eyes twinkling. “Do you suppose he’s still at work?” (The Killer knew that I was keeping my employer a secret from Dean and wasn’t going to mess things up.)
I checked my watch. “Yeah, he’s there for another hour or so, if he’s on his usual shift.”
“Hey, I got an idea,” Morty Easterly piped up from his stool down the bar (he, too, knew I was keeping my job from Diz). “Go ahead and give this guy a call, Snap, and then put Diz on the line. See what kind of tune he sings then.”
I liked the idea, and so did Dean. He and I went around behind the bar, and I called the Sports Department, asking for Cahill. “Hi, Leo, it’s Malek. Got a friend who’d like to talk to you. Let me put him on.” I handed the receiver to Diz.