Chapter Seven

We stayed in the Alamo a long time. Paul Hanwood drifted away from our table after a while and went to the bar to meet his friend. I was sorry to see it was another man—not Elena. They put on a floor show of sorts, consisting mainly of a poor man’s Gene Autry. I think he was mainly Italian in background, and if he’d ever gone farther west than Chicago with his songs he’d have been shot as an insult to the wide open spaces.

Every hour I called MacArnold, and every hour he had nothing to report.

Montgomery and I got involved in a long and serious discussion of whether the practice of natural rhythm was strictly kosher for a married Catholic. Neither of us was married nor Catholic, so I don’t know how we got on the subject. But it proved to be something we disagreed about without feeling strongly enough to fight, so it passed the time. I found out more about him; he was a Montreal boy, from N.D.G., and he’d graduated in Chemical Engineering from McGill. He hadn’t been there the same years I’d attended, so we didn’t have any mutual acquaintances. His mother and father were dead but he had two married brothers in Montreal.

Just before I was due to make the one o’clock call to MacArnold, Montgomery pulled a yawn that would have encompassed a watermelon and said, “Well, this kid’s had enough. I have to work tomorrow. Nothing’s going to happen tonight.”

“I think you’re right. I’ll call Mac and tell him he can phone me at the apartment. Then I’ll drive you home.”

It was a long, slow ride home. Morris Minors are fine in flat country, or if you can arrange to be going downhill all the time, but when you have to climb I’ll take a good strong horse in preference.

I got back home and put the Morris in the garage in my apartment block. Then I wandered wearily up to my own little cave, smothering yawns on the way. This kid was pretty beat, too. Besides, my bad leg was getting stiffer than a plaster cast and my head had started to ache again.

So I got inside my door and there was MacArnold on the phone, before I had time to turn the lights on.

“It came through!” he gloated.

“It would,” I sighed.

“Louie Two just got word they opened up for business late this evening. They’re even looking for customers. And he told me the address.”

“Where is the place?”

“Want to guess?”

“All the high-class gambling joints in the city—and most of the crummy ones—are away out of town. On the roads north or west. They’re isolated houses, with space for concealed parking. So this place is, let’s see, maybe a big house in St. Laurent?”

“You couldn’t be wronger. In the first place, it isn’t even a house. It’s just an apartment. And it’s so far in the centre of town it’s nearer me than you right now.”

“Where?”

“On Sherbrooke Street.” He named the number.

“That’s about a block west of McGill University, on the lower side of the street, isn’t it? I’ll be damned! Foxy. So close to downtown the cops wouldn’t think of suspecting it there. And a crowd of cars parked on Sherbrooke Street late at night wouldn’t attract anybody’s attention—except a traffic prowler giving out tickets.”

“Right. Well, are you coming?”

“I guess so. Wait for me on the corner of Sherbrooke and Mansfield. I’ll be there as soon as you can walk it from Louie Two’s.” I rang off, picked up the keys to the Morris, and started out the door. Then I changed my mind and slung the keys back on the hall table. To hell with trying to drive a strange and balky car at this time of the morning. I’d get a taxi.

When we met on the corner it was just two a.m. “They should be well under way about now,” MacArnold said.

“Should be. How do we get in?”

“Tell ’em Louie Two sent us. He’s one of their streeters.”

The apartment block was a big one, maybe fifteen storeys tall, yellow brick and perfectly square. It had been built a good thirty years before, but built to stay. Perhaps ten years before it had still been luxury accommodation—eight and ten room apartments with at least two bathrooms, maids’ quarters, and walls and floors thick enough to keep out noise. Now it was an old-fashioned place, and people who were wealthy but liked apartment life had moved further up the hill. The cards on the mail boxes showed who lived here now—most of the apartments were shared, sometimes with as many as six names for one number. Business girls, nurses, bachelors; one or two college fraternities. The number we wanted was sixteen; the card said simply KILLROY.

MacArnold eyed it in silence. “I’m trying to make a good gag about that,” he explained, “like ‘Killroy sure wasn’t here yesterday.’ But it just won’t come.”

There was no lock on the entry door. We went in and crawled into a minute self-service elevator that took us to the eighth floor.

There was a small, almost square corridor, and the only two apartments on the floor—fifteen and sixteen—spread off to the front and back of the building, respectively, their doors sitting on opposite sides of the corridor and glaring at each other.

We buzzed, and the door of sixteen opened—on a chain.

MacArnold faced the crack. “Louie Two sent me,” he said. “I got a pal with me.”

There was a pause, and I guess Mac was getting a once-over. Then a rough voice said, “Take yer hat off, brother. You ain’t applying for admission to a flophouse.” Mac complied.

“Where’s the other guy?”

I took the State Express out of my mouth and butted it tidily in a corner. I took off my hat, straightened my tie and smoothed back the hair. I stepped in front of the crack and said sweetly, “Will I do?”

The door opened. The watchdog was a short gorilla with almost as much hair as a sheep dog, but stiffer, and black. He was dressed faultlessly in full evening garb. He looked at MacArnold and indicated me with a scornful thumb. “Drunk, or does he think he’s funny?”

“Where’s the play?” Mac asked in a low voice.

The sheep dog gave him the cold eye. “This is a private club. Come over here and I’ll fill out your membership cards.”

MacArnold said he was John Hatch—his editor’s name—and I told Happy Harry to put down Paul Hanwood on my card. He took the names without comment, wrote us up in his social register, and waved to the next room.

The room was fixed up like a small buffet-bar, or perhaps the snack room of a sportsman’s club. At one side was a long table covered with a gleaming linen cloth and loaded with everything from cold turkey through roast beef to caviar canapés. At the other side was a small, thoroughly-stocked bar. A few people ate and chatted, or drank and wept out their losses, at small tables. The only thing missing was a cash register; clearly, this was on the house.

MacArnold headed for the bar. They were going to lose money on him.

I pressed on. Through a heavy baize-padded door was a long, low, smoke-heavy room, thick of carpet and plastered with acoustic tile to cut the noise to a quiet roar. There were two roulette wheels, and there were two craps tables, and most of the people milling about were well dressed, but in street clothes. It was a high-class place, but not as high-class as MacArnold had been led to believe.

It was a large room—maybe they’d knocked out a wall between living and dining rooms in the apartment. It had to be large to accommodate the craps tables. Each was roughly the size of a ping-pong table. But they were higher than ping-pong tables, covered with green baize painted to indicate the plays, and fenced with sides that came about eight inches above the table tops. Each table was run by three men—one in the slot at the centre, and two end-men. Between the tables, sitting high on a chair like tennis match umpires use, was an expert who carefully watched the play for switched dice or phoney rolls, first eyeing one table and then the other.

I edged in at the end of the near table. There were perhaps twenty players around it, and that didn’t crowd your elbows. I took out my wallet and threw two twenties to the slot man. “Chips!” I called.

He grabbed my money, stowed it neatly in a cash box, and shot two yellow chips back to me.

Now I knew I was in a high-class joint.

He saw my face. “You’re at the twenty end,” he called to me. “You want to hoard your money, go round to the ten end of the table.” I shook my head and stayed where I was.

It looked like an honest game—mainly because the house covered all bets, but you could bet either with or against the roller, with just enough odds against you so the house got its take by the laws of chance in the long run.

I saved my chips. I wasn’t wasting twenty bucks on any side bets. Finally the guy next to me crapped out and passed the roll. The slot man snicked in the dice with a long, thin cane, curved at the end, and stowed them in a box. He shoved the box toward me, offering me my choice of any two dice from the six in the box.

I shoved one of the expensive yellow chips out onto the WIN bracket, shook the babies until they were warm, and chucked them out so they bounced off the other wall of the table. They gave me six, the hard way.

It was a nice point, nice as you could ask for. It was a lucky first roll. I flipped another chip to the COME square, shook them out again, and they gave me snake-eyes. Crappo; there went the come money. The very next roll they naturaled, but of course they naturaled on a seven—which lost me my six point and my last chip. I shook my head very sadly. I was old enough to know better than this. I moved down the table past the centre and hit the slot man for some ten-dollar chips, and when the dice came back to me I made two passes, dragged on instinct, crapped, then made a pass on Big Dick. That gave me a hunch and I left it all out for three more passes. I dragged again and this time sevened trying to make Little Joe. I picked up and left the table, drunk with elation. I’d put seventy bucks into chips, counting the first sad twenties, and was now clacking two hundred little ivory men together in my pocket. It was good enough for one night.

I tapped the ankle of the guy on the high watch-bird chair. “Where’ll I find Irish Joe?”

He had a green eyeshade, pasty face, and the coldest eyes you ever saw this side of a fish store. “You got a complaint?”

“Naw. Want to meet him. An old buddy of his back in Chi told me to look him up.”

The watch-bird pointed. “Through that door, and state the details to the guy you’ll meet just inside. Don’t be funny with him in any way, ‘cause he might misunderstand; his business is to keep Irish from subscribing to too many charities. He’ll find out if Irish Joe wants to see you.”

I threaded my way past him and between the craps tables toward the door he’d pointed out. I went through the door and after I’d closed it I was in a hallway lit by a bulb at least five watts strong. You could hardly see a lighted cigarette in front of your face. It was a minute before my eyes tuned themselves to the dim light and showed me the corridor was short, and had one door at its end, and a man standing in front of the door.

Man, I said. Well, he was approximately a man. He was scrawny and not tall, and he held his arms nervously out from his sides as though he was paid to wait there for something to happen, and things kept happening all the time.

I walked toward him, and then I could see that his face was swathed in bandages. His eyes peeped through and there was a small hole designed for eating, drinking and smoking, but the rest of him was gauzy as an Egyptian mummy from the neck up.

“Yeah?” he said, and I didn’t like his voice.

“The watcher told me I’d find Irish Joe in here.”

“Who wants him?”

“Tell him Iggy the Spick sent me.”

I used a name that was likely to get results. It was a name on a lot of lips in Chi, not too long ago. It was a name a lot of lips whispered before they stiffened for keeps, and it commanded a good bit of respect. Even the bandage-puss knew what it meant, and didn’t bother to argue.

He opened the door behind him, snaking a hand back to do it and still watching me carefully. As the door swung, a stronger light fell on my face.

The guy froze. He dropped his hand off the doorknob, not even bothering to pull it shut again. He didn’t waste time on words, either. He just gathered himself in, grabbed for something in his breast pocket, and sprung at me.

I didn’t know whether the walls were thick enough so they could use guns in here, but I didn’t wait to find out. I didn’t have one myself, and I was never a guy who would enjoy a duel with a wet washcloth against a Tommy gun at five paces. I cut and ran, and he was hard after me but not hard enough to keep me from opening the door to the game-room.

I was back in the smoky, crowded bright lights again, and the craps tables were between me and the door to outside.

I looked back briefly, and he was still coming. He didn’t seem to give a damn if he made a scene in a semi-public place or not.

And he was the guy I thought he was, too.

I bore on at a harried lope between the dice tables, and the watch-bird on the high-chair was square in my way. And the boy with the mummy-face almost had me by the coat collar. I grabbed the high-chair and pulled hard, ducking at the same time.

The high-chair went right over my back, and as it angled out into space the watcher half jumped, half fell, sideways onto the middle of the left craps table. The tabletop must have been cheap plywood because I heard him crash through. I bet he broke up the game at that table.

The chair itself was pretty solid carpentry and when it landed on the bandage-puss he went over on his back underneath it. I scrambled to my feet and walked at a comfortable pace to the outer door. Either they didn’t have extra guards in here, or they were poorly spotted. Sometime after things calmed down I’d come back and tell Irish Joe about it, and charge him the usual consulting fee.

By the time I got to the green baize-padded door, a lot of the well-dressed women around were proving they could scream as loud as their coarser sisters. But the men were all frozen in their spots, not making a false move. They knew trouble when they saw it, and none of them wanted any.

I opened the door and stepped through, and when it shut behind me I was in the calmest, quietest room in the city. The boys who designed that place knew their acoustics. There were still a few people in the little buffet-bar, and of course there was still one Allan MacArnold sitting at the bar, lapping.

I tapped his shoulder. With one finger, yet, I almost knocked him off the stool. “Nunghg?” he mouthed.

“Time we went, Junior.”

“Whaddya fin’ out?”

“That I wasn’t welcome here.”

The green baize door shot open. In front of MacArnold was a large, heavy glass half-full of drink. I picked it up and heaved, and it was a good pitching night. I got bandage-puss right in the middle of the bandage, and he staggered back through the door. It slammed again in front of him.

I grabbed MacArnold’s hand and yanked him off the stool and out of the room, like kids playing snap-the-whip.

“Y’ didn’ have to take my drink away,” he grumbled. “’M not that drunk.”

“I needed it,” I said briefly, “more than you did.”

I slowed us down to a walk going through the entry in case the little watchdog was around, but we didn’t even see him. I snapped the safety chain off the door, pulled it open and we were out.

I thought of stairs right away—we couldn’t afford to wait for any elevators. But the little self-service job was sitting right there and all we had to do was get in—and get out of the building.

By the time we were on the street, MacArnold’s last swallow had infiltrated his bloodstream and I had to half-carry him to the nearest all-night coffee stand. Three cups of black coffee later, he had one eye open and about half his brain roused, and it was possible to begin explaining things to him.

“Things are beginning to fit in,” I said.

“Sure. Was a nice plashe,” he told me. “Free drinksh.”

“Only because they don’t cater to newsmen usually. Come on, wake up,” I said, and kicked him hard on the shinbone.

“Ouch! Okay, okay.”

“You know who I saw in there?”

“Who wants to play riddle-games this time of morning?”

“The guy,” I said, “who tried to sap me in my own apartment. Old mahogany face. And one gets you five that means Irish Joe was the other lug who busted in my place—the muscle man with the anthracite jaw.”

“So, good. You wanted a tie-in between you and the body on the mountain, didn’t you. Now you happy? Will you work on the case?”

“I sure will.”

“Fine. Let’s work on it tomorrow afternoon, then.”

Purely out of pity for him I loaded him in a taxi and dumped him off at his Shuter Street apartment on my way home. When I got back to my place, it wasn’t even five a.m. yet. I yawned and began undressing.

It looked as if things were stacking up, even if I didn’t have a client yet. The evening was an unqualified success.

Oh-oh. Except for one thing. When I emptied my pockets I realized something horrible had happened. In my pants pocket was two hundred dollars in little red chips, that I’d never redeemed.

They weren’t worth two hundred bucks anywhere outside Irish Joe’s. And I wasn’t going there any more.