Chapter Eleven

Mr. Quinn,

If you wish to continue our discussion of last evening, please join me downstairs. There are additional matters of mutual profitability that we might wish to consider.

Johann Klapprott

That was the note, written on thick textured stationery. Tommy from the front desk handed it to me. There was a Germanic-looking JK engraved in one corner. Boy, that was my week for fancy invitations. Get your name associated with a big stash of cash and everybody wants your company.

Tommy whispered, like it was a special secret, “This gentleman arrived in a Cadillac Phaeton.”

I could tell I’d just gone up in his estimation if somebody was calling for me in a Phaeton.

Connie was asleep, on top of the covers and under her coat. Yeah, she was still a good girl, maybe not quite as good as she’d been before, but still good, dammit. I’d had my catnap, shaved and showered, hoping that the sound of the water might wake her up and tempt her to join in, but it didn’t. I was almost dressed when Tommy knocked on the door.

“He’s in the lobby,” he said, suggesting that I was some kind of low-class dickweed to keep such a fine Phaeton owner waiting. “What do I tell him?”

I thought a bit more. “Tell him I’ll be down directly.”

By then, Connie was awake but groggy at the edges. She sat up, pulled the coat up to her neck, and said, “You’re going to have a mouse under that eye.”

She got up off the bed, gave my mouse a kiss, and took over the bathroom. I told her I’d see her that night. She didn’t answer.

I finished dressing with a fresh shirt, a deep-red silk tie, knucks, pistol, and stick. I was wearing a light gray suit, one of my best.

As I was leaving, I realized that sometime in all the commotion downstairs, I’d lost my hat. I stopped at my room on the third floor and saw that the cleaning crew was at work. The hat was on the desk, where I’d left it.

In the lobby, Klapprott was chatting with a couple of older ladies, and judging by the way they smiled and giggled, he had turned on the charm. He wore a black pinstripe three-piece, red-and-black striped tie, and spit-shined black shoes. He had a calfskin glove on his left hand and held the other along with his decorative stick. When he saw me, he made excuses to the happy ladies and extended his hand. No gent would shake hands wearing gloves.

Smiling like sunshine, he said, “Mr. Quinn, a pleasure to see you. Again, allow me to apologize for Luther’s behavior last night, though I hardly need to. Few men have handled him as efficiently as you did. Though, perhaps”—he gestured toward my bandaged face—“someone else was more successful.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m a popular fellow. Something about me just attracts attention. I wonder what the hell it could be.”

“What, indeed? Perhaps we could discuss it over coffee. I have some outside. Shall we?”

Out at the curb sat a nicely turned out Caddy with the top down. A guy held open the door to the back seat for us. He wore a simple dark suit, not the full chauffeur’s getup, and black gloves. I’d never seen him before. He got into the driver’s compartment, maneuvered the long car into traffic, and turned south. The back seat was more luxurious than my room upstairs, even before the fight. There was a wicker picnic basket on the floor.

“Do you mind if we drive while we talk?” said Klapprott. “Perhaps I am overly suspicious, but I would like to be sure that our conversation is completely private. I have reason to believe that I have been followed recently.”

“There’s a lot of that going around.”

“And we could do worse than touring the city on an autumn morning such as this, could we not?”

It was a good fall day, still cold even though the sun was up, and I remember his conversation, part of it anyway, as being genuine. The driver knew the city, and we meandered down toward Battery Park without stopping too often in the early traffic. Actually, the truth is I usually wasn’t up at that hour, so I wasn’t familiar with the traffic and I wasn’t behind the wheel in those neighborhoods very often either, so what did I know?

“Have you thought about my offer?” Klapprott asked.

“Not really,” I said. “Since you went to all this trouble, I thought you’d want to talk about the money.” He gave me a look of phony befuddlement, and I said, “Don’t say ‘What money?’ You’ll disappoint me.”

He chuckled. “You’re right, of course, but I must add that my interest in your establishment is completely genuine. This really is a matter of two birds, but my first concern is the fifty thousand dollars.”

“Fifty thousand? All right, tell me about it.”

“It is an inheritance. A new member of the Free Society, a particular zealous young man from Chicago, wishes to donate it to the organization. His name is Justice Schilling, and he is a younger son in a large and fractious family. He was always his grandmother’s favorite, and when she died, she left him the largest portion of her estate. While his parents, uncles, and brothers received property or real estate, his bequest was cash. I assure you he has all the documentation to prove his claim. He had received the money and contacted our organization when his sister simply stole it. And for reasons about which I can make only the most insubstantial conjecture, she sent it to you, Mr. Quinn.”

“She sent me fifty thousand dollars? That’s some story.”

“I must admit that, at first, I did not believe this young man, but as I said, he has proof and he gave me this.”

Klapprott fished a folded bill from his vest pocket. It was a ten-dollar gold certificate, stained with some kind of brown wax. He said, “I see by your expression that you are familiar with this sample. Excellent. You have accepted delivery then?”

I let that pass and said, “I’ve heard a lot of stories. Why should I buy this one?”

“When you hear what this young man has to say and you see his documents, I have no doubt that you will accept the legitimacy of his claim, and, of course, you will be compensated, well compensated. If you are amenable, we could speak with him now. Would that be convenient? It won’t take long, no more than an hour, I assure you.”

I shrugged. “All right.”

He tapped the back of the driver’s compartment with his cane and coughed out a few curt words in German. Settling back in his seat, he produced a green thermos bottle and two silver cups from the picnic basket. He messed with pouring coffee as he spoke. “In your office, I noticed that you read a great many newspapers, so perhaps you know something of the changes that are going on in Europe these days. Tell me, please, what are your politics?”

“I’m a saloonkeeper. Anything that lets me do my business and make a decent living is fine with me.”

“Excellent,” he said, clapping me on the knee. “That is precisely what the party is attempting to bring to Germany.” He handed me a cup of coffee and poured another for himself.

“A toast,” he said, holding up his cup. “To our mutual good fortune. You will find this somewhat unusual. It is a special Austrian blend not often found in this country. The flavor you will notice is Prussian cinnamon.”

It was strong with a bittersweet edge not to my taste, but I sipped it to be polite.

“Tell me, what do you know of National Socialism, the Nazi party?”

“I’ve seen the little guy with the Charlie Chaplin mustache, and I’ve read a few things in the papers, but I don’t know anybody overseas, so I don’t pay much attention.”

“The newsreels make us look like crazed fanatics, but that is not the case. For years, there has been so much anti-German hysteria.”

“Yeah, the war had something to do with that.”

I thought he’d be insulted, but he wasn’t. His expression became grim.

“I know exactly how stupid that war was. I was right there in the middle of it. I know the fools who ordered us to go up out of the trenches. The politicians, the priests, the bankers, the industrialists, the newspapers, the professors, all the bosses, they lied to us. They lied to get us into it, and they lied about the conduct of the fighting. It was a horrible, wasteful war, so terrible that there can never be another. We veterans understand that. You may have read about the mutiny at Kiel that helped to end it. It was primarily an action by sailors and naval officers. I was in a position to take a small part, but by then it was too late. They forced us to accept a peace that has been more damaging than a true military defeat.”

By then, I think he’d forgotten that I was sitting next to him. And, to be honest, I’ve got to admit that I can’t really remember everything he said, but I do remember his tone and his emotion.

“Even so, we might have survived all that, but then the goddamn French occupied the Ruhr and everything went to hell. Nobody had a job. Our money was worthless. As bad as things are here, you can’t imagine what it was like in Germany. But now we’re changing that. We want stability, a return to simple values and simple truths. We want an economy that is fair to everyone, not just the ones at the top. The first slogan you see on the wall in any of our party offices reads simply, ‘Freedom and Bread.’ That’s what we’re working for. It really is that simple.

“We want to put Germany back together. Return the economy to its former strength and then become self-sufficient. We have no wish and no need to conquer anyone. We certainly don’t go around like anarchists, throwing bombs. Ours is a movement of the young people. Herr Hitler is many things—a visionary, a man who can inspire a nation and revive the middle class. He’s only forty-three years old. That may seem old to someone as young as you are, but in Germany we have a tradition of allowing senile old men to tell us what to do. Herr Hitler will be different, I promise you that. More coffee?”

He poured more. A sniff told me it hadn’t got any better. I didn’t touch it.

“No one will give us a new Germany. We must create it ourselves. We want to give the German people a new ideal. We use the language and music of the military because that is what the average German is used to hearing. It gets his attention and it works on his emotions, but those of us who are doing the real work don’t need all of the Sturm und Drang.

“The talk of racial purity is exaggerated and, besides, much of it comes from America. Have you read Grant’s The Passing of the Great Race? No? I’ll loan you my copy. I’m sure you will find it illuminating. I know that some Jews put loyalty to their fellow Jews above Germany, but any Jew who is a good German has nothing to fear from us. If you listen to Father Coughlin on the radio, you understand what I’m saying.

“The Communists, anarchists, and Reds—they’re another story. I’ve seen what they can do to an organization, the way they can destroy from within and the cowardly tactics they use with their bombs. There will be no place for them in a new Germany. If we’re going to go to war with anybody, it will be those bastards.”

By then, I couldn’t understand him. The car stopped. Klapprott got out and another guy, somebody I’d never seen, got in. Klapprott said something to him, tipped his hat to me, and walked away. I tried to say something but couldn’t make my mouth move. Like the greenest clodhopper that ever fell off the turnip truck and stumbled into a clip joint, I’d let him slip me a Mickey.

If I’d drunk much more of that goddamned Prussian cinnamon, it would’ve knocked me out. That’s what a Mickey is supposed to do. As it was, I was so dizzy I could hardly sit up. My hands and arms got tingly and flapped around like flippers. When I tried to speak, the sound that came out was a kind of groan, not words. I didn’t black out completely, but I couldn’t focus my eyes or my attention. Everything became kind of liquid. So did I.

I don’t know how long we were in the car. I do know they stopped and put the top up. When they did that, I knew I should try to get out. I managed to get halfway off the seat and slid to the floor. They left me there. One of them went through my pockets and took the .38. He missed the knucks. I heard them talking more German, and I tried not to go under. Bad things happened to guys who got taken for a ride. How bad was this one going to be?

The car stopped again, and some time later, the driver got out. Feeling was coming back to my arms and hands, and I thought I might even be able to get to my knees. I waited and thought that I smelled saltwater and creosote and understood that I was probably back at the warehouse. Made sense to go back to a familiar spot to do the dirty work. My guts turned to water.

The driver came back and started the engine. A moment later, I heard a rumble and felt it through the floorboard. When the rumble ended, the car rolled forward a few yards into darkness. More rumbling ended with the crunch of heavy doors rolling shut against each other. There was more talk I couldn’t understand, and as the jungle juice wore off, I realized things had gotten quiet. If the cops had finished their work and let the warehouse open for business, Klapprott had probably sent everybody home.

When they dragged me out of the car, I didn’t resist or even look at them. It was easy to stay limp. Too easy. They left me lying on an oil-stained concrete floor and snapped on a light. I saw a wooden table and a wheeled office chair. Most of the loading dock was dark.

It was quiet for what seemed like a long time, and finally I heard more men speaking German, and a few lights came on. Rough hands hauled me into the office chair, and a couple of beefy-looking guys in worn-out, fraying suits used a roll of friction tape to strap my forearms to the arms of the chair. When I looked at them, I let my head wobble and my eyes roll. They argued in German about what to do with my feet and wound up taping my left ankle to one of the chair’s little wheels and my right to the table leg. One of them noticed my brace then. They talked about it, and from their tone, I think they decided that I wasn’t going to be running anywhere, so they didn’t need to worry about me.

They left me alone, and my eyes grew accustomed to the dark. I could make out the hallway that led to the office and part of the warehouse floor with shelves and pallets. I was street-level. Most of the storage area was behind me. Over the next twenty minutes or so, six more guys wandered in. Like the first two, they were big, thick-necked, and thick-shouldered, blond and balding, wearing clothes that were a long way from new. Four of them brought grinders of beer. Two drank from flasks. They polished off the beer fast enough and a couple of them went out for more.

They lazed around, smoking cigars and cigarettes. Once in a while, one of them would walk over and give me a thump on the head, and the others would laugh. I had no doubt they were looking forward to working me over. I didn’t look directly at them. I let my head loll and tried to act like the knockout drops were still working. I was also twisting my arms and legs to test the tightness of the tape. They hadn’t stripped off any of my clothes, so I had some play in my arms. I could push them forward several inches. Given a minute or so to twist and tug, I might have been able to pull my arms free from the coat sleeves, but I didn’t think any of these guys were going to give me a minute. Since they hadn’t been as careful with my legs, I thought I might be able to get the left one loose from the chair wheel. With a little leverage, I might move the table with my right. It wasn’t that heavy. But it wasn’t going to do much good against six Kraut bruisers.

That time in the warehouse stretched out in an acid combination of boredom and fear. It ended when another guy came in from the hallway and the six bohunks sat up straight. It was Luther, Klapprott’s number one thug, the big shit that I’d gone a round with in the cellar of my speak. He looked nasty and happy to see me, tied down as I was. The moment I saw him, I realized it was likely that I’d die in that warehouse. That sobered me. I tried not to let them see it, though if they’d looked, they would have seen sweat on my forehead. Luther had small bandages on his nose and hand, and he held his left shoulder stiffly. He barked some kind of order, and the other six stood up. He was carrying a red leather case with a leather handle. It sounded heavy when he set it on the table beside me. I glanced at him through half-closed eyes like I was still goofy.

Luther said something to the youngest of the thugs and pointed at me. The kid looked confused and worried. Luther backhanded me across the chops. I moaned and drooled blood.

The kid stood in front of me and haltingly said, “You will say to us what is the money.”

I stayed stupid and moaned again. Another guy came around from somewhere behind me and threw a bucket of water right in my face, half of it going down my throat. My eyes sprang open and I coughed, and they knew I was back among the living.

The kid said again, “You will say to us what is the money.”

There was some more back and forth in German, and finally one of the older guys challenged Luther. Seemed to me there was some question as to who was really in charge. It ended when the older guy said to me, “Where is the money? Tell us and this will be over.” It came out something like “Ver ist duh moony?” He went on, “If you do not tell us what you know, Luther will cause you great pain.”

As he was asking it, I was thinking that if I told them where I thought the money was and I was right, then they’d get it, then come back and kill me. If I was wrong, they’d come back and pound me some more.

Something about what he’d said in English caused a lot more talk in German with most of them chiming in. While they were yakking away, I caught some movement behind them and saw someone peek out of the hallway, someone with a soup strainer mustache. Arch Malloy, maybe. Whoever it was, he ducked back so quickly I couldn’t tell anything more about him. I tried like hell to convince myself it was Malloy.

I knew I couldn’t play dopey anymore, but I didn’t have to say anything. I spat blood on the floor and stared at the older guy. He didn’t like it.

Luther shoved him aside, gave me an open-handed smack, ripped my tie off, and tore open my shirt. He took off his coat, revealing a big shoulder holster with a broom-handle Mauser under his arm. He clapped a clammy hand across my throat to hold me still and hit me hard in the stomach. It knocked the wind out of me, and I sprayed his face with blood. He cursed and smacked me again, then he went for his red case. He barked more orders.

The older guy said, “He has a device, a—” He stopped, searching for a word. “A machine that explodes dynamite. It is an electrical.”

Luther was screwing two long wire leads to terminals on a box that was just bigger than his fists. It had a T-shaped handle on top. Luther said something more, something the older guy didn’t like, and held out the wires. The older guy took them unhappily. Luther kept talking and indicated that he should hold them to my chest. As the older guy took a hesitant step toward me, Luther gave the handle a sharp twist. The guy froze with a grimace on his face, yelled, and threw up his hands. That jerked one of the wires off the detonator—if that’s what it was. Luther laughed like hell. So did some of the others.

The older guy was steamed and ripped into Luther with a rush of German. I couldn’t understand a word, but I knew “Go fuck yourself” was part of it. The two of them stood chest-to-chest for a short moment until the older guy broke it off and went up the steps to the hallway and out. Luther said something nasty to his back and looked to the others for support. Most of them nodded in agreement. Whatever they were saying, I didn’t like it.

I liked it less when Luther turned back to me. He took off his coat, loosened his tie, and rolled up his sleeves. He reconnected the wire to the detonator and tried to get one of the others to take the wires. They laughed and backed off.

Luther called the first kid over again, and he went back to his broken English. “You will say to us what is the money.”

I shifted my feet a little to get them underneath me and sat up. Luther was glad, I think, that I didn’t answer. He rushed right up into my face, trying to make me flinch back. When he got close, I jerked forward. I couldn’t stand, but my hands had enough play under the friction tape to stretch to his belt. I grabbed it and pulled. He lurched into me. Recalling what Connie did, I went for the closest vulnerable spot and bit down as hard as I could on his nose.

He howled. I bit down harder and ground my teeth and twisted my neck. Somebody started shooting.

I wish I could tell you I remember details like the savage taste of his blood, but I don’t. I remember how great it felt to hear the gunshots. If the other Nazi thugs had guns, they’d show them off, and these guys didn’t. That meant whoever was shooting was on my side. And when Luther rolled off me, there they were—Arch Malloy and Mercer Weeks.

Malloy fired twice at the ceiling, and most of the Kraut thugs, led by Luther, ran to the back of the warehouse. Mercer Weeks came down the steps to where I was. Four of the biggest guys fanned out in front of him, ignoring Malloy.

I’ve never seen anybody do what Mercer Weeks did then. Too experienced to hit a guy with a bare fist, he worked with knucks on one hand and a length of pipe in the other and those heavy brogans on his feet. He was long and rangy, but somehow he made himself compact. I watched him cut down three guys, sliding through the brawl like smoke. I never saw the pipe raised. I never saw the fist cocked. Three of those big beefy guys went down in less time than I can say it. The fourth ran.

Weeks pulled out a folding knife, sliced through the tape, and said, “You sure find your way into a hell of a lot of trouble, Quinn.”

Weeks said he’d been following me in his car since I left Jacob’s apartment early that morning. By then, we were upstairs from the speak in the kitchen of the Cruzon Grill. Vittorio did a good lunch business and didn’t want us to take up a prime table. Besides, the way I’d been beat up and drenched and had my shirt torn, I’d scare the paying customers. So they made room for us in a corner of the busy kitchen. I had a ham sandwich and coffee. Weeks and Malloy had rib steaks, fries, and beer. A good lunch was the least I could do for a couple of guys who’d saved my ass.

As Weeks made his way through the meal, he told me the guy in the brown suit and glasses had been waiting for me when I got in the cab outside. Actually, Weeks spotted the guy and his partner behind us when we went up to the East Side from the speak. On the way back downtown, Weeks followed them following me to the diner in Times Square. After that, when I got on the el, he guessed that I was heading home and beat me back to the Chelsea. He was there to see the two of them sneak up to the wrought-iron balcony and break in through the window. Weeks didn’t know anything about the other guys who picked the lock and came in from the hall, but he did see the brown suit come hustling back out of the window a minute or so later. He waited in his car through the ambulance and Ellis and the cops and finally, a couple of hours later, the arrival of Klapprott in his Caddy Phaeton. Then he was behind us on our little drive down toward Battery Park and, it shames me to admit, he was witness to my humiliating Mickey Finn.

Here’s where it started to get interesting. Weeks saw them drop me at the warehouse, and he watched the guys who were working there clear out. When the first of the Kraut thugs showed up, Weeks decided to call the speak to find out if they knew what I was up to. Frenchy answered and said he’d just got off the line with an unnamed party who told them he was holding me and would trade me for the fifty thousand dollars that was hidden in the cellar. Frenchy had two hours to deliver the money. Frenchy and Weeks talked it over and came to the conclusion that the whole thing could be a trick to get them out of the speak. Remember, neither Frenchy nor Weeks knew who Klapprott was. Not then. They’d seen him, but Frenchy hadn’t heard his voice and Weeks didn’t know his name. Weeks told Frenchy where I was, and Malloy volunteered to help while Frenchy and Fat Joe stayed at the speak.

After Weeks had gone through that for me, Malloy piped in, “Describe this Klapprott character.”

“About forty,” I said, “natty dresser, blond, pale eyes, carries a Malacca cane. Both times I’ve seen him, he was wearing calfskin gloves.”

Malloy nodded. “He’s a partner, a ‘silent’ partner they said, in the group of Germans that own the warehouses. He’s been around now and again.”

“Ever see him with a big lug, name of Luther? He’s a lush, and he doesn’t have a nose. Well, he did until about an hour ago.”

“Most of the guys who worked there were big, and they were all Krauts—not that I hold that against a man. And as I told you, it was not completely out of the ordinary for the management to tell every man jack of us to vacate the premises for an hour, and I mean that day or night. You see, those three warehouses are about as busy at night as they are during the day. It’s true that I’ve not worked at any other warehouses, and I didn’t work at that one for very long, but it struck me as odd. And something else that struck me was that there seems to be an unusually large number of small items. You think of a warehouse as a place that holds vast numbers of this, that, and whatever, but Number 115 isn’t nearly as large as Number 117 and Number 120, and I seldom saw items that couldn’t be handled by one man or two at most.

“So it’s good that I’m done with the place, assuming, that is, I am once again employed.”

Having just pulled my ass out of the wringer, he chose a good time to bring up the subject. I said, “Come in around four thirty. Frenchy will show you the ropes. And you’d best bring the Luger.”

I turned to Weeks and said, “Mercer, let’s talk in my office.”

Downstairs, I found a note from Marie Therese on my desk. It said, Anna wants you to know she is at the Lombardy, Suite 512. I could tell she had been pissed off when she wrote it. I sat down and worried that I was walking around in a torn shirt and blood-stained suit. The idea of changing clothes again—for the second time that early in the day—really pissed me off. The ruin of a good suit by a couple of Kraut asswipes pissed me off even more.

Mercer Weeks spread out on the divan, pulled his works out of his pocket, and rolled a smoke. “Curious, isn’t it,” he said, “that this fellow Klapprott thinks you’ve got his money.”

“His story is that it’s an inheritance that was stolen from some kid who wants to donate it to this outfit Klapprott runs, the Free Society of Teutonia. They’ve got something to do with the Nazis over in Germany.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“The guys that were working me over—the guys that you and Malloy took care of—they were Krauts. All I know is they think I’ve got their money, and Jacob thinks I’ve got his money. That’s one part of all this, right? But there’s something else you’re interested in and for that, I’m the man you want to talk to.”

Weeks looked baffled. I turned around to the safe behind the desk and dialed the combination. The package was on top. I took it out and put it on the edge of my desk close to him. “I think this is yours.”

He shot me a suspicious look through the smoke and touched the open flap of the cardboard box like it might explode.

I said, “You can see that the wrong address is on the label. I don’t know how long it was at the post office before Mr. Smiles brought it in. That was day before yesterday.”

He took out one of the ledgers, and when he saw what it was, all the color drained out of his face.

“Sweet Jesus, Benny’s books.” He put down the ledger and took out everything else in the box. It was nothing but books. He riffled through the pages and the loose sheets of paper inside. When he looked up at me again, his voice was hoarse and hard. “What do you know about these, Quinn?”

“Nothing. Until last night, when Jacob told me the story about Benny being snatched, I didn’t even know he kept books like these. I didn’t know what the hell they were when I opened the box, much less that they had anything to do with you. The Chicago address, the stuff about paper napkins, I don’t know what it is. Do you?”

Weeks sagged back on the divan, and his face softened but only for a second. Then he said, “OK, this means there is a chance that Benny is still alive. After all these months, I don’t know how the hell that could be, but maybe he is. And that’s what’s important to me and Jacob. We need Benny more than we need the money.”

That much I’d figured out already. It didn’t take a genius. “Maybe I’ve got a line on the money, too, I can’t say. Hell, I really can’t say anything. None of this makes a damn bit of sense. Can you and Jacob trust me?”

He smoked and thought for a long time before he said anything else. “I guess we’ve got to. You’ve been straight with us so far. You insulted Jacob, but maybe he had it coming, and that’s not important, anyway. Benny is important, you got that? Our operation is nothing without him, and you’re going to see that he comes back.”

“Weeks, I can’t …”

Ignoring me, he gathered up the books and the box and went to the door. He stopped and turned around before he left. “Jacob needs to know about these right away, but we’ll be keeping an eye on you. Don’t fuck this up.”

His seriousness was not lost on me. But the first thing I needed to do was to find out if the money was where I thought it was. After that, well, we’d see.

And let me take one second here to say something else. In the years that have passed, the things that happened in the warehouse that morning have become famous. All right, a little bit famous among the low-life thugs in a few disreputable neighborhoods, and I need to set things straight.

According to some versions of the story, I bit Luther’s nose completely off and spit it out. That could be true. In all the excitement, I honestly don’t remember. But other people, a lot of other people, say that I bit Luther’s nose off and swallowed it. That’s not true. Not at all. I’d remember if I ate it. Yes, my face and mouth were bloody, but that was because they’d been slapping me around. So, for the record, I did not eat his nose.

Having something like that in your reputation isn’t flattering, but it does cause some guys to be careful when they’re around you, and that can be useful.