The jazz band was taking their break. The Chinese restaurant was half-full.
Callaghan was an ex–safe and vault man. He was current with both the gossip of the allied trades, and the side world of the opium market, which indulgence had, as all knew it would, necessitated his setting aside his beloved nitroglycerine before, as one cohort had put it, “it did the same for him.” He swept his hand around, taking in the restaurant.
“Hop Li, I want a tell you what,” said Callaghan, “is one super-canny Chink. Somebody told me? His grandfather laid track on the Canadian Pacific, I happen to know, a fact, he has a degree from McGill University, Montreal.”
“In what?” Mike said.
“Horticulture, some damn thing,” Callaghan said. “I dunno. They have plants up there? They must. Although it’s got to be one short growing season.”
“They have ‘wheat,’” Mike said.
“Wheat, of course,” Callaghan said. “‘The Breadbasket of the World.’ Or maybe that’s the Great Plains. I got to get out more.”
“He’s got a degree in horticulture,” Mike said, “fuck’s he doin’ here?”
“I’ll tell you,” Callaghan said, “and the answer is ‘look around.’ Forty-five cents for a plate of what essentially is a half cent worth of rice, and not too much of that, a slice of carrot, and maybe this gristle is dog meat. Who the fuck knows what the fuck is in these dishes?”
“Health inspector,” Mike said.
“Make me laugh,” said Callaghan. “’Nother story is? His grandfather? Coolie on the CP, washt up on Dawson, for the Gold Rush.”
“Uh-huh,” Mike said, “lookit . . .”
“’Nother story. Fucken guy, gets rich running a whorehouse. Coolie rail gangs, round-eyed pussy. One white woman. Hundred thousand Chinks.”
“How’d he get the white woman?” Mike said.
“. . . I know? He won her in a fan-tan game. The fuck I know.”
“All these stories,” Mike said, “militate toward the possession of some perverted nature.”
“Not at all, and tell you that one too,” Callaghan said. “Because I’ve thought about it. How the Chinks got rich? Came in with nothing, all a sudden, everybody’s eating the swill they rejected on the railroad. Track boss brought them this shit? They? They would of torn up twenty miles of track.” He looked down at his plate and shook his head.
“That’s not their way,” Mike said. “Also, they would have shot ’em.”
“Who?” Callaghan said.
“Pinkertons,” Mike said. “Also, the Chinese . . . ? Are too smart. Their thing? Keep your head down. Micks, now?” He nodded toward Callaghan. “Your thing is the fire department, the cops, park district, and so on. Politics? What you’ve got, the Titanic iceberg. Most of it is underground; a bit of it, however’s, on the surface. ’Nough to let you know the vast amount that’s hidden. Your problem? You can’t hide it all.
“Irish? Every cop on the beat? Red potato nose and a brogue? You can’t hide it. The Chinese? Who knows what they do?”
“We know a few things,” Callaghan said. He motioned for another drink. The band came back onto the bandstand. The level of conversation in the restaurant rose. The two men in the booth sighed and looked at the band.
“‘Bye Bye fucken Blackbird,’ for a sawbuck,” Callaghan said.
“No bet,” Mike said.
“Three to five?”
“Forget it,” Mike said. “It’s traditional. And P.S., I like it.”
“Everybody likes it,” Callaghan said, “that’s why it’s traditional.” The band struck up “Remember.”
“See, you just lost fifteen bucks,” Callaghan said. “Fucken songs. In France? They sing it the other way?”
“‘You took me to find a lonely spot, and after I’d cared to come a lot.’”
“That’s right,” Callaghan said. “As men deprived of feminine companionship, they turned to buggery, obscenity, or sloth.”
“That what the Chinks did?” Mike said.
“On the railroad? Yeah, okay, Irish? On the other hand, and one point of contention I do not have with the Catholic Church, we go with ‘Marry early, marry young, go screw her every night and keep her breeding.’ One: it keeps us from insanity or sodomy, two: it makes more Irish. Handy, come election time.
“Now, what the Heathen Chinee, they put their energy in? Building the Transcontinental Railroad; gambling; save their money; and one Australian whore somebody dragged out to the end-o-steel.”
“And opium,” Mike said.
The young Chinese waitress brought the drink. Callaghan knocked it back and gestured for another.
“And opium,” Mike said.
“I heard you,” Callaghan said.
“Somebody said I should talk to you.”
“Well, yeah, you’re talking to me,” Callaghan said. “Whaddaya want?”
“I want a tip on a couple of guys,” Mike said.
“Who are they?” Callaghan said.
“You tell me,” Mike said.
He took the photo of the two men in overcoats from his lapel pocket, and passed it to Callaghan.
“I can’t make it out,” Callaghan said. “Two silhouettes in the background.”
“. . . Best you can.”
“Gimme a hint.”
Mike spread his hands.
“I mean, do I know? What team do they play for?”
“I think I know, but I don’t know,” Mike said.
“Who sent you to me?”
“Fella said, ‘See Callaghan.’”
Callaghan looked hard at the photograph. “Because?” he said.
“I think because you’re Irish,” Mike said.
“Well, yeah, there’s something about these guys,” Callaghan said. “They been there, and they might be Irish, or Squareheads, or Krauts, for all that.” He paused. “Talk to Danny Doyle.”
Callaghan stood. The band began to play “Has Anybody Here Seen Kelly?” “Yeah yeah,” Callaghan said. He raised his hat to the band in acknowledgment. He turned back to Mike. “Go see Danny Doyle.”