When the Sacred Ginmill Closes (17 page)

He said, "So? This is what you do for a living, right? Do favors for friends?"

"Sure, but-"

"You're doing us a favor.Kasabian and I don't know what the hell we're doing. Am I right, John?"

"Absolutely."

"I'm notgonna give Bobby anything for coming, he wouldn't take it, and if Keegan comes along it won't be for the money. But you're a professional and a professional gets paid.Tillary's paying you, isn't he?"

"There's a difference."

"What's the difference?"

"You're a friend of mine."

"And he isn't?"

"Not in the same way. In fact I like him less and less. He's-"

"He's an asshole," Skip said. "No argument.Makes no difference." He opened a drawer in the desk, counted money, folded the bills,handed them to me. "Here," he said. "That's twenty-five there. Tell me if it's not enough."

"I don't know," I said slowly. "Twenty-five dollars doesn't seem like much, but-"

"It's twenty-five hundred, you dumb fuck." We all started laughing." 'Twenty -five dollars doesn't seem like much.' Johnny, why did we have to hire a comedian? Seriously, Matt, is it okay?"

"Seriously, it seems a little high."

"You know what the ransom comes to?"

I shook my head. "Everybody's been careful not to mention it."

"Well, you don't mention rope in the house of the hanged, do you? We're paying thosecocksuckers fifty grand."

"Jesus Christ," I said.

"His name came up already,"Kasabian said."He a friend of yours, by any chance? Bring him along tomorrow, he's got nothing else on for the evening."

I tried to make it an early night. I went home and went to bed, and somewhere around four I knew I wasn't going to be able to sleep. There was enough bourbon on hand to knock myself out, but I didn't want that, either. I didn't want to be hung over when we dealt with the blackmailers.

I got up and tried sitting around, but I couldn't sit still and there was nothing on television I was willing to watch. I got dressed and went out for a walk, and I was halfway there before I realized my feet were taking me to Morrissey's.

One of the brothers was on the downstairs door. He gave me a bright smile and let me in. Upstairs, another brother sat on a stool opposite the door. His right hand was concealed beneath his white butcher's apron, and I had been given to understand that there was a gun in it. I hadn't been to Morrissey's since Tim Pat had told me of the reward he and his brothers were offering, but I'd heard that the brothers took turns at guard duty, and that anyone who walked in the door was facing a loaded weapon. Opinions differed on the sort of weapon; I'd had various reports, ranging from revolver to automatic pistol to sawed-off shotgun. My thought was that you'd have to be crazy to plan on using a shotgun, sawed-off or otherwise, in a roomful of your own customers, but no one had ever established theMorrisseys ' sanity.

I walked in and looked around the room, and Tim Pat saw me and motioned to me, and I took a step toward him when SkipDevoe called my name from a table in the front near the blacked-out window. He was sitting with BobbyRuslander. I held up a hand, indicating I'd be with them in a minute, and Bobby put his hand to his mouth and a police whistle pierced the room, cutting off all conversation as cleanly as a gunshot. Skip and Bobby laughed, and the other drinkers realized the noise had been a joke, not an official raid, and, after a few people had assured Bobby he was an asshole, conversation resumed. I followed Tim Pat toward the rear of the room, where we stood on opposite sides of an empty table.

"We've not seen you here since we spoke," he said. "Do you bring me news?"

I told him I didn't have any news to bring him. "I just came in for a drink," I said.

"And you've heard nothing?"

"Not a thing. I went around, I talked to some people. If there were anything in the air I would have had word back by now. I think it must be some kind of Irish thing, Tim Pat."

"An Irish thing."

"Political," I said.

"Then we should have heard tell of it. Some braggart would have let a word slip." His fingertips caressed his beard. "They knew right where to go for the money," he mused. "And they even took the few dollars from theNorad jar."

"That's why I thought-"

"If it wasProddies we should have heard tell. Or if it was a faction of our own." He smiled without humor. "We have our factional disagreements, don't you know. The Cause has more than one voicespeakin ' for it."

"So I've heard."

"If it were an 'Irish thing,' " hesaid, pronouncing the phrase deliberately, "there would be other incidents. But there's been only the one."

"That you know of," I said.

"Aye," he said. "That I know of."

I went over and joined Skip and Bobby. Bobby was wearing a gray sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off. Around his neck was a blue plastic whistle on one of those lanyards of plastic braid that boys make at summer camp.

"The actor is feeling his way into the role," Skip said, aiming a thumb at Bobby.

"Oh?"

"I got a call-back on a commercial," Bobby said. "I'm a basketballreferee, I'm with these kids at a playground. They all tower over me,that's part of the point of it."

"Everybody towers over you," Skip said. "What are they supposed to be selling?Because if it's deodorant, you want to wear a different sweatshirt."

"It's brotherhood," Bobby said.

"Brotherhood?"

"Black kids, white kids, Spanish kids, all united in brotherhood as they drive for thefuckin ' hoop.It's some public-servicething, show it during slow spots on the Joe Franklin show."

"You get paid for this?" Skip demanded.

"Oh, shit, yes. I think the agencies donate their time, and the TV stations run it free, but the talent gets paid."

"The talent," Skip said.

"Le talent,c'estmoi," Bobby said.

I ordered a drink. Skip and Bobby stayed with what they had. Skip lit a cigarette and the smoke hung in the air. My drink came and I sipped it.

"I thought you were going to make it an early night," Skip said. I said I'd been unable to sleep."Because of tomorrow?"

I shook my head."Just not tired yet.Restless."

"I get that way. Hey, actor," he said. "What time's your audition?"

"Supposed to be two o'clock."

"Supposed to be?"

"You can get there and sit around a lot. I'm supposed to be there at two."

"Yoube done in time to give us a hand?"

"Oh, no problem," he said. "These agency cats, they got to catch the five forty-eight toScarsdale. Couple of pops in the bar car, then find out how Jason and Tracy did in school today."

"Jason and Tracyare on summer break, dumbbell."

"So he's got to see the postcard they sent home from camp. They go to this fancy camp inMaine, the postcards are already written by the staff, all theygotta do is sign them."

My boys would be going to camp in a couple of weeks. One of them had woven me a lanyard like the one Bobby wore. I had it somewhere, packed away in a drawer or something. Or was it still in Syosset? If I were a proper father, I thought, I'd wear the damned thing, whistle and all.

Skip was telling Bobby that he needed his beauty sleep.

"I'm supposed to look like a jock," Bobby said.

"We don't get yououtta here, you'regonna look more like a truss." He looked at his cigarette, dropped it in what was left of his drink. "I never want to see you do that," he told me. "I never want to see either of you do that.Disgusting habit."

THE sky was lightening up outside. We walked slowly, not saying much. Bobby bobbed and weaved a ways ahead of us, dribbling an imaginary basketball, faking out an invisible opponent and driving for the hoop. Skip looked at me and shrugged. "What can I tell you?" he said. "The man is my friend. What else is there to say?"

"You're just jealous," Bobby said. "You got the height but you haven't got the moves. A good little man can fake you out of your socks."

"I wept because I had no shoes," Skip said solemnly, "and then I met a man who had no socks. What the hell was that?"

An explosion echoed half a mile or so to the north of us.

"Kasabian'smortar," Bobby said.

"Fucking draft-dodger," Skip said. "You wouldn't know a mortar from apessary. I don't mean apessary. What is it a pharmacist uses?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

"A pestle," Skip said. "You wouldn't know a mortar from a pestle. That's not what a mortar sounds like."

"Whatever you say."

"It sounded like blasting for a foundation," he said. "But it's too early, the neighbors would kill anybody started blasting at this hour. I'll tell you, I'm glad it's done raining."

"Yeah, we had enough of it, didn't we?"

"I suppose we needed it," he said. "That's always what they say, isn't it? Every time it rains its ass off, somebody says how we needed it. Because the reservoirs are drying up, or else the farmers need it or something."

"This is a wonderful conversation," Bobby said. "You'd never get a conversation like this in a less sophisticated city."

"Fuck you," Skip said. He lit a cigarette and started coughing, got control of the cough and took another puff on the cigarette, this time without a cough. It was like a drink in the morning, I thought. Once you got one to stay down you were all right.

"The air's nice after a storm," Skip said. "I think it cleans it."

"Washes it," Bobby said.

"Maybe."He looked around. "I almost hate to say this," he said, "but it ought to be a beautiful day."

At six minutes past eight, the phone on Skip's desk rang. Billie Keegan had been talking about a girl he'd met the previous year on a three-week holiday in the west ofIreland. He stopped his story inmidsentence. Skip put his hand on the phone and looked at me, and I reached for the phone that sat on top of the file cabinet. He nodded once, a quick bob of the head, and we lifted the two receivers in unison.

He said, "Yeah."

A male voice said, "Devoe?"

"Yeah."

"You have the money?"

"All set."

"Then get a pencil and write this down. You want to get in your car and drive to-"

"Hold on," Skip said. "First you got to prove you got what you say you got."

"What do you mean?"

"Read the entries for the first week of June. That's this June, June of '75."

There was a pause. Then the voice, taut now, said, "You don't give us orders, man. We're the ones say frog, you're the ones jump." Skip straightened up a little in his chair, leaned forward. I held up a hand to stop whatever he was about to say.

I said, "We want to confirm we're dealing with the right people. We want to buy it as long as we know you've got it to sell. Establish that much and we'll play out the hand."

"You're notDevoe speaking. Who the hell are you?"

"I'm a friend of Mr.Devoe's."

"You got a name, friend?"

"Scudder."

"Scudder.You want us to read something?"

Skip told him again what to read.

"Get back to you," the man said, and broke the connection.

Skip looked over at me, the receiver in his hand. I hung up the one I was holding. He passed his own from hand to hand like a hot potato. I had to tell him to hang up.

"Why'd they do that?" he wanted to know.

"Maybe they had to have a conference," I suggested. "Or get the books so they can read you what you want to hear."

"And maybe they never had them in the first place."

"I don't think so. They'd have tried to stall."

"Hanging up on somebody's a pretty good way to stall." He lit a cigarette, shoved the pack back into his shirt pocket. He was wearing a short-sleeved forest-green work shirt withAlvin 's Texaco Service embroidered in yellow over the breast pocket. "Why hang up?" he said petulantly.

"Maybe he thought we could trace the call."

"Could we do that?"

"It's hard even when you've got the cops and the telephone company cooperating on it," I said. "It'd be out of the question for us. But they don't necessarily know that."

"Catch us tracing calls," JohnKasabian put in. "We had our hands full installing the second phone this afternoon."

They had done that a few hours earlier, running wires from the terminal on the wall and hooking an extension phone borrowed fromKasabian's girl's apartment into the line so that Skip and I could be on the line at the same time. While Skip and John were doing that, Bobby had been auditioning for the role of referee in the brotherhood commercial and Billie Keegan had been finding someone to fill in for him behind the stick at Armstrong's. I'd used that time to stuff two hundred and fifty dollars into a parish fund box, light a couple of candles, and phone in another meaningless report to Drew Kaplan inBrooklyn. And now we were all five in Miss Kitty's back office, waiting for the phone to ring again.

"Sort of a southern accent," Skip said. "You happen to notice?"

"It sounded phony."

"Think so?"

"When he got angry," I said. "Or pretended to get angry, whatever it was. That bit about jump when he says frog."

"He wasn't the only one got angry just about then."

"I noticed. But when he first got angry the accent wasn't there, and when he started with the frog shit he was putting it on thicker than before, trying to sound country."

He frowned, summoning up the memory. "You're right," he said shortly.

"Was it the same guy you talked to before?"

"I don't know. His voice sounded phony before, but it wasn't the same as I was hearing tonight. Maybe he's a man of a thousand voices, all of them unconvincing."

"Guy could do voiceovers," Bobby suggested, "in fucking brotherhood commercials."