No one thought Prohibition could last the year. It had already been repealed in every province west of Ontario, and the legalization of weak beer—while it pleased no one—suggested the end was beginning. A sense of gloomy foreboding hung over the room in which I now sat as surely as over the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, though not quite for the same reason.
The room in which I sat was the blind pig of Ernie and Dolores Lacombe, which occupied the loft of a disused stable in the eastern harbour industrial district. It was a neighbourhood of metal, oil, coal, cartage and construction companies, with a few lonely dwellings sprinkled in. Dolores—a sinewy woman in a checked shirt and dungarees—did the pouring, book-keeping, chatting and grumbling. Tonight as usual she did all these while jostling an infant on her left arm. Although the ceiling was collapsing, the lights flickered, there was no heat, and the whistling drafts persistently failed to dissipate the whiff of horse manure, she had no inclination in the present climate to invest in renovations. A few patrons had urged her to consider applying for a licence under the coming regime, but to that idea she scornfully replied through thin, tight lips—
“You think anyone would drink here by choice?”
“Sure, Dolores,” I said, a second ounce of smuggled but sound Seagram’s VO seeping amiably through my limbs, “you could clean the place up.”
“Tell me another! Dirt’s the only thing holding this building together.”
“Is that a proverb? Mud’s thicker than mortar?”
“Go on, Paul. Clean or dirty, it’s still the waterfront. Handy to derelicts and deadbeats—while our present clientele moves uptown to sparkly new cocktail lounges.”
“Don’t kid yourself. Your clientele, myself included, will never see the inside of anywhere sparkly. Even when drink is legal, we’ll still be riffraff. That’s why I come, to enjoy the company of my kind.”
“You come to get soused like anyone else,” said Dolores, pouring me another drink.
The baby came awake, perhaps with the smell of the rye, and started to gurgle.
“Doesn’t he, Peaches?” she cooed around her cigarette. “Soused.”
Curtis had dropped me at police headquarters close to eleven thirty p.m. Not wanting to linger there and risk encountering the inspector, I handed the Watts’ rifle to a constable for delivery in the morning to the university lab and made for Cherry Street.
“Dolores,” I said, “have you heard anything about this Watt murder?”
“Heard he was left dead with nearly a hundred dollars in his pocket. The waste of that just sickens me.”
“Gunned down in the street. That’s a little out of Toronto’s line. Is anyone bragging?”
“Not to me.”
“Who do you suspect?”
“Nobody.”
“We don’t have the gun yet, a point two-five. Any ideas, Dolores?”
“None.”
“Maybe I was wrong about the virtues of this place,” I said. “It doesn’t have the convivial atmosphere I’ve always associated with it.”
“May’s here.”
Dolores looked out hopefully across the dingy room. There was a pretty fair turnout, maybe two dozen. Most were single men, of course, but there were couples too, and one or two unattached women trying to make ends meet or looking for adventure. Not, by and large, a rough crowd, but most had been in trouble with the law at one time or another. Sometimes the Lacombe children, as many as five of them, up to twelve years old, were hanging about. Seeing them usually got me talking to Dolores about the Children’s Aid Society. But for tonight the tadpole in the pink blanket—now slumbering again—was the only representative of the younger generation, and I let it be.
There was no band or piano, just a wind-up gramophone fed one of a dozen discs in random rotation by Dolores’s husband Ernie, an obese man in red suspenders. It was said that a chunk of Krupp’s shrapnel in his head had left him simple, a perpetual seven-year-old in a body now approaching forty. Two couples were shuffling about a stretch of open floor without much dash. If the jazz age had any glamour, it was not to be found this night in the Reliable Cartage Company’s stables.
May must have been in one of the curtained-off cubicles along the far end wall.
“Maybe later,” I said. “In the meantime, I’m looking for a gun.”
“Long gun or revolver?”
“I don’t know. Maybe neither.”
“Jesus.”
Dolores spat into the sink she had had installed. It had no trap, its main purpose being the quick disposal of hooch in the event of a raid. Her hands were scarred from the cuts she had suffered while breaking bottles there. Raids were no longer frequent, but still a possibility.
“Look, Paul, I appreciate your understanding and discretion and forbearance in view of how this place isn’t strictly lawful, and you’re welcome to all the whisky you can drink, but I can’t ‘assist the police with their inquiries’, as they say, without more to go on than that.”
“Let’s say a pistol. There are lots of .45 or .38 service revolvers floating around since the war, as well as far too many people who’ve been taught how to fire them. But our killer didn’t use anything so military. Where would he go for a tidy little .25 vest-pocket automatic?”
“Beats me.”
The unaccustomed rattle of a ukelele interrupted our talk. I looked up to see three new arrivals. The two men wore casual rather than work clothes, and their haircuts looked expensive. They were well built, perhaps Varsity footballers come slumming for a thrill, and likely thought they could take care of themselves. I’d spent a few months on campus myself and more or less recognized the type. They had a coed with them in a long, loose cardigan and short tartan skirt. She really could shimmy and Charleston, as she showed with one of the cakeaters while the other went to town on his little instrument.
Uncertain how Ernie would take the competition, I prepared if there were trouble to back him up. Though I have to say I preferred the college kids’ taste in music. Ernie favoured the yearning ballads: “The Man I Love,” “It Had to Be You,” “Someone to Watch Over Me,” and “What’ll I Do?” The newcomers went in for the songs with the liveliest rhythms combined with the silliest lyrics: “Tea for Two,” “If You Knew Susie,” “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby,” “When the Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob, Bobbin’ Along.” Ernie looked up at the furious strumming and sniffed the air. He saw that the regulars appreciated hearing a few different tunes. He didn’t yank “Always” off the turntable, but when it had run its course, he took a break and just sat watching the dancers.
I followed his gaze. That’s when I saw May, in one of those red Chinese sheaths with the high collar and the slit skirt. She was dancing with a powerfully-built man I hadn’t noticed before. He wore an oilskin jacket the colour of storm clouds and a greasy woollen toque. He was trying to kiss her, but she kept brushing him off. Then he stopped dancing, took her face in both his meaty mitts, and planted his mouth willy-nilly on hers. She must have bit his lip or maybe even his tongue, for he broke away with a cry of “Bitch!” A second later, there was an unsheathed knife in his hand. Five-inch blade, double-sided. It was no toy. May backed away, holding before her her small white beaded reticule. From it, as she backed, she drew a small black automatic pistol. She pointed it at the man’s belly and flicked off the safety with her thumb.
Other patrons had been moving in to simmer things down, but hesitated when they saw the pistol. I brushed by them and got between May and the man. I couldn’t quite put away the fear of a slug in the back if her finger were to slip on the trigger, but he scared me more.
“No knives on Tuesdays,” I said in a nice placid voice. “Put it on the floor.”
“If you’re this slut’s fancy man, you should thank me for breaking her to service.”
I would have felt more comfortable if he’d been drunk, but his deep voice was unslurred, his eye clear, his feet firmly planted. He appeared to have come for other pleasures. I intended he should look for them elsewhere.
“For now,” I said, “I’m the bouncer.”
That’s when he rushed me. Don’t let anyone tell you that when a man charges you that way you should try to grab the wrist of his knife hand. You’ll get your own wrist slit, and your throat soon after. I picked up a chair and whacked him across the face with it. He took it better than I’d have liked and with his left hand even managed to grab one of the chair rungs. As I felt him pull, I pushed, ramming the legs into his chest. That’s when he lost patience and threw the knife. He was too much on his back foot. The blade came at me high—too high for my vitals, that is, though if I hadn’t dodged I might have caught it in the eye. Well, he only had one knife, and once he’d parted with it we were even. He was still bigger than I am, but I had hurt him some, and blood from the gash my chair had opened in his forehead was getting into his eyes. Before he could wipe them, I moved in and got a fist on his jaw, then another. He tottered, throwing blind punches that didn’t bother me much. Meantime, I hit him again. He went down. While he was lying there, I made an overture—
“If you leave, we can stop this.”
“Yeah, get out!” said Ernie.
I heard nothing but assenting voices and lots of them. Even the college kids chimed in, observing what a shame it was that some folks couldn’t handle ukelele music.
I guess he saw he was licked. Of course, he tried to reclaim his knife from where it was sticking in the wall. I got to it first.
“I’ll chuck it out the window when I see you in the street,” I said.
He didn’t believe me, but I was as good as my word. I went to the window and drew back the thick curtains. When he appeared below, I threw the knife at the nearest telephone pole. The blade buried itself in the wood, ten feet above his head. He went away cursing. I let the curtains drop.
May came towards me. Her dyed blonde hair was worn in a bob as smooth as a helmet, and her short, plump body was flatteringly elongated by her floor-length oriental gown. It was as shiny red as a fire truck. As she approached, the slit skirt showed a stretch of pale, round leg above white high-heeled pumps. Her pencilled eyebrows were always thin and dark and never seemed to follow the same line from one time I saw her to the next. Sometimes they turned down at the inside edge, up at the outside; sometimes they formed asymmetrical curves. Tonight they seemed to be at their best, etched with black severity—yet in a moderate, uniform arc—just below her yellow bangs and above her dark eyes. Half way down the right side of her nose, there was a mole that she always tried and—to my relief—never succeeded in powdering over. While her ex-partner and I were fighting, she had repaired her smudged makeup. Her lips and perhaps a little more of the area around her mouth were freshly painted a deep colour that did not quite match her dress, and a third red was represented by her nail polish. Her fingers were wrapped around the white-beaded reticule. The gun was nowhere to be seen.
“Buy you a drink?” I said, as we both sat down.
Dolores was already setting before May a glass of what the establishment liked to call champagne, as well as another few ounces of rye for me.
“Your health, May,” I said. “How’s every little thing?”
“Fine and dandy. Dirt washes off.”
“Bullets don’t. I didn’t know you went armed.”
“Now you do.”
“Funny thing is, I came here tonight to ask about guns. You wouldn’t know Digby Watt?”
“ ‘B what?’ Is this a riddle?”
“The businessman who was shot down in the street last night.”
“Oh, him. He had no business with me.”
“We can’t find the gun, maybe a gun like the one you’ve got in your handbag there.”
“You’re not serious, Paul.” She clutched the bag more tightly.
“He was a widower with a weakness for very young women.”
“Thanks. I guess. But you know where I was last night.”
“For part of it. I can’t say I noticed which part.”
“Banana oil.”
She was right about that. May hadn’t killed Watt, and I’d no thought of pretending she had. But a gun like hers was another matter. Vest-pocket pistols might be common as fleas in foreign parts. Not here. Apart from anything else, I wanted to scare her a bit about keeping a thing like that around.
“Could I see it?” I asked.
“It? Oh, the gun. As long as you don’t really suspect me.” She looked around, unlatched the bag and tipped it onto the table. The black semi-automatic slipped out like a rotten tooth. “It’s only for self-protection, cross my heart.”
It was just over four inches long with a grip too short for me to get even two of my fingers around. The metal was soft and poorly finished. A medallion containing a jut-jawed man’s crowned head adorned each grip. The inscription on the left side read Prince, Cal. 6.35 .25″ Eibar. Spain exported some first-rate guns—but this was not one of them. It was, rather, one of the innumerable Spanish cheapies, sloppily assembled from non-standardized parts that made for weapons that were liable to jam and a nightmare to trace.
“I’ll need to see your permit too.”
“Poor you.” She patted my knee consolingly, her hand spilling over onto my inner thigh. “It’s not even mine. I’m just borrowing it.”
“Makes no difference.” I had dropped any hint of a bantering tone. I didn’t feel nearly as happy winking at illegal firearms as at illegal drinks. Turning the gun over, I pushed back a catch at the rear of the butt and popped out the magazine. It was charged with three of a possible six rounds of Automatic Colt Pistol ammunition. To see if there were a round in the chamber, I gripped the top rear of the pistol and drew back the slide. Another round there, which I removed. So the number of missing bullets equalled the number that had perforated Watt’s waistcoat. “How long have you had this?”
“You sound like the juvenile judge when I was first caught kissing boys’ cocks.”
“How long?”
“Couple of inches—just little boys. Oh, you mean how long have I had the . . . ? A week, I guess, maybe less.”
“Has it been out of your possession at all during that time?”
“What good’s it to me out of my possession? No.”
“When was it last fired?” I sniffed the mechanism, but could smell nothing but oil.
“Not since I’ve had it.”
“There are only four of a possible seven bullets here.”
“I don’t expect to need as many as four.”
“May, it’s dangerous for you to have this. Where did you get it?”
“Go fish.”
“Look, if you’ve never used this gun, you don’t know how it fires. Even if the thing were decently made, it could go off by accident and kill you. You could die in a shootout. Or you could kill someone, the way you almost did tonight—and, whether the law punished you or not, you’d have to live with blood on your hands. Not everyone’s cut out to be a killer, May. Any loony bin could show you vets who found that out the hard way. Those would be the risks of your carrying the Rolls-Royce of pistols. But you’re not dealing with a fine instrument here. These Eibar guns are junk, thrown together for quick sale. You’ll be lucky if it doesn’t blow up in your hand.”
May shrugged. As if to say life’s always a gamble. As if to say I embarrassed her when I sounded too much as if I cared.
“And besides,” I added, “carrying this gun without a permit could land you in jail for three months.”
“If it does, you’re no gentleman. We have a deal.”
“Whatever deal we have doesn’t cover guns. Where did you get it?”
“From a date.”
“Who?”
“Think I know their names? You, for instance. I know your name isn’t really Paul. But I don’t know what it is, whether it’s Fool, Moron, Idiot or Jerk.”
“It’s Paul. Describe this man of mystery.”
“Let’s see: two eyes, two feet, and somewhere in between . . .”
While talking she kept her hand in my lap and was nudging my leg under the table with her own. Her toilet water was strong in my nostrils, stronger than the taste of the whisky. I pushed my glass away.
“I’m seizing this gun,” I said in a last attempt at being policemanly. Truly, I hoped I wouldn’t have to trace it: it could have been brought a great distance by any of the sailors, truck drivers or railwaymen that drifted through the port and through May’s bed. I tucked pistol and magazine into separate pockets.
“Anything you say . . . Paul.” She moved closer. “You know, I was watching your expression when you opened up that slob’s face with the chair. You enjoyed doing it, didn’t you?”
It had been a long day, and the most taxing part of it physically had been sitting wedged against Edith in the back seat of the small swaying car for 120 minutes. I wanted to efface the memory, and neither the fight nor the whisky had done it. I was still wondering if Edith had squeezed my arm when I got out in front of HQ or whether that had been my imagination.
“I bet,” May persisted, “that’s the most fun you’ve had since you got out of bed this morning.”
I ran my hand down the tight red bodice of her dress.
“Maybe it was,” I said, “but I’m willing to try for a new record. Let’s go somewhere less public.”
“Just remember: I don’t let anyone kiss me on the mouth.”
She did, though. It was nice.