The memo had come “From the Desk of Colonel Robert R. McCormick, Publisher, Chicago Tribune, World’s Greatest Newspaper.” It read, Stolen Limousines Human Interest.
Parlow twisted it into a spill, lit it, and applied the burning memo to his pipe.
“. . . won’t draw,” he said.
“It won’t draw,” he repeated, “the stem’s broken.” He leaned toward Mike Hodge.
Mike was seated across from him in their preferred side booth at the Sally Port.
“The limousines aren’t news,” Parlow said. “The pipe is news. The limousines aren’t even human interest—are you listening to me?”
“I am a sick sonofabitch,” Mike said.
“Yes?” Parlow said.
“The one thing. In which I could lose myself—”
“Oh, shut the fuck up,” Parlow said.
“—in my life—”
“Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear,” Parlow said.
“—was the Irish girl.”
“Yeah. Well, she’s dead. So find something else, as it ain’t funny anymore. You bore me,” Parlow said. “And I am sure you also, as you put it, ‘lost yourself’ in the joys of aviation. Up above the ‘clouds,’ and so on. Taking the lives of those who, but for a geographical accident, might have been your brothers.”
Two fellows from the American came by, and started to slide into the booth. “‘Fireman, save my child,’ the broad yells, fourth floor, tosses the baby to the fireman, he catches it, how? In his turn-out coat, held with his comrade. Kid bounces: into the arms of, who’s standing by . . . ?”
“His uncle,” Parlow said. “His father. Marie of Rumania and her pet dog Fluff.”
“HIS FUCKEN MOTHER,” the man said. “His mother.”
“His mother? Threw the kid, ran down, and caught it?” Parlow said.
“It wasn’t his mother threw it, it was—”
“His aunt?”
“They said it was his aunt. It was the cooze his father was fucking. The father? Brought the kid along, ‘Lay on the sofa, don’t move for half an hour.’”
“It had been his mother,” Parlow said, “she tossed him down, you’re right, ran down to catch him, she would have been better off, lug the kid down with her.”
“They told me, it’s his aunt, so there it is,” the man said.
“Who set the fire?” Mike asked.
“Ah,” Parlow said, “there’s the interesting thing . . .”
Later they sat alone at Hop Li’s. “The problem with the Chinks,” Parlow said, “is that you cannot close the joint.
“Nighthawks,” Parlow said, “cops, nurses, newsghouls, compositors, ink on their hands.” He inclined his head at the men coming off the night shift. They were generally large and gray, Slavic looking. Many wore coveralls beneath their street jackets. Many still wore the square-folded newsprint hat the making of which was the first skill any of them learned, as youths, their first day on the job.
“Ink on their fingers, ink in their blood,” Parlow said. Mike had been silent for the last hour. Parlow drank hooch from the small porcelain cups and smoked his pipe.
Mike looked at him. “I taught her ‘The Sheik of Araby,’” he said. “The real version.”
“The real version?” Parlow said. Mike nodded. “That’s an honor,” Parlow said, “to’ve been the first to have taught her the song. Yeaaah, you can’t close the joint.”
“You want to go home, go home,” Mike said.
“This is my home,” Parlow said.
“Yeah, I taught her,” Mike said, “‘The Sheik of Araby.’”
“I’m sure you did,” Parlow said.
“Sing it with me,” Mike said.
Parlow sat silent.
“Fucken Clem . . . ?” Mike said. “Valentino? Did he, for the love of Christ, die in vain? Broads, threw themselves off the second-story window, slit their wrists, the blood ran—n’you won’t sing ‘The Sheik of Araby’ . . . ?”
“Mike,” Parlow said, “you want to jump off into your nut bag, imitate a drunk, and so on, your own business. It, however, is a load of bullshit. What are you now, ‘abashed’?”
Mike waved his hand for one more round. The waiter nodded and started toward the bar.
“Or, I tell you what,” Parlow said, “how about you write ‘How many have to die, weep weep.’ You want to do that one?”
Mike looked at him. “How many have to die of what?” he said.
“The fuck do I care,” Parlow said. “I have no sympathy for you in the first place.”
“The fuck you don’t,” Mike said.
“The fuck I do,” Parlow said. “Any girl so sheltered that she never heard ‘The Sheik of Araby,’ with the filthy lyrics, what business have you to deflower her at all? Now you tell me, ‘They all have to start someplace.’ What?”
Mike shook his head.
“This is called grief,” Parlow said. “It is, by custom, you remember, suffered in, and only expressed by, silence. So, this bullshit about ‘The Sheik’ is not your pure D grief, but funny voices. Hiding what-could-it-be?”
“What?”
“You tell me.”
“What?”
“You tell me.”
“Shame.”
“That’s right,” Parlow said. “Shame that you can’t shut up. Jesus Christ. Shut up or do something about it. Or blow your brains out. I no longer care.”
The new drinks arrived. Parlow and Mike both watched the waiter as he served them. Both admired his absence of falsity in the presence of guilt. Parlow nodded at Mike, to say, You see? Mike nodded back.
“Well then,” Parlow said.
“Shame because I got her killed,” Mike said.
Parlow shrugged.
“Did I get her killed?”
“How the fuck do I know?” Parlow said. “We don’t know: who he was, whom he was gunning for, or what price glory?”
Mike downed his drink, took Parlow’s, and drank that, too. Parlow raised the teapot to refill the cups, and found it empty. “Would somebody, for the love of Christ, just bring the bottle?” Parlow said. “. . . Fucken Chinks.”
Poochy walked in, reading a newspaper. He put his camera case down on the bar, and waved his finger for a drink. He saw Parlow and Mike and came to their table, pointing at the paper.
“Did you hear about the broad caught the kid?” he said. “Mike?”
“Poochy,” Mike said. “Poochy. The story you have read is bullshit. The broad, first of all, threw the kid, was not his aunt, but the father’s doxy; second of all, no infant’s going to survive a four-story fall, however firemen stretch out their overcoat. Third of all, whyn’t they use the net? And, and, the true story, given the above, the wife came, her husband is fucking some girl upstairs, why is she there, if not to set the fire? And finally, it never happened.”
“How do you know it never happened?” Poochy asked.
“Because,” Mike said, “Fitzgerald and Ross, from the American, came in all ‘reporting’ it and so on, didn’t smell like smoke.”
“You’ve just broken my heart,” Parlow said.
Poochy shook his head in sadness. “Show me one thing that’s on the level,” he said.
Mike took the paper. “Page eight,” Poochy said.
“Page eight? You’re reading something’s on page eight?”
“I turned to it by accident,” Poochy said.
Mike opened the paper and read. “‘Ex Africa Semper Aliquid Novi.’ Who wrote this shit . . . ?”
Parlow leaned over to read the byline. “Fitzgerald,” he said.
“‘Out of Africa Always Something New, as Tacitus said. And as we, now, say of our own Africa of the South Side—State Street, Thirty-Third Street, our sepia Broadway known as “The Stroll.” Early this morning, firemen responded to . . .’”
“It wasn’t Tacitus,” Parlow said.
“Who was it?” Mike said.
“How the fuck would I know?” Parlow said.
“‘Yea, south of that equator which is Madison Street, life, at its fullest . . .’” Mike continued reading. “Nothing about the aunt,” he said, “or whoever it was on the fourth floor.”
“Maybe they just did it to sell papers,” Parlow said.
Mike put the paper down and stared.
“Yeah, that’s a life, ain’t it?” he said.
Parlow said, “Something on your mind?”
“I need to talk to somebody,” Mike said.
“And who would that be?” Parlow said.
Mike said, “I need to talk to the Italians.”