Border City Blues 3-Book Bundle. Michael Januska
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“They set them up for the pleasure of watching them fall.”
“Is this you waxing philosophical, Eddie?”
“I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true.”
“I should’ve gone to see him fight Carpentier. Who knows, maybe things would’ve turned out different.” McCloskey sighed.
“Now who’s the philosopher?”
“The fight of the century. That’s what they all said.”
“You know he was here on the weekend, don’t you?”
“I know, I know.”
McCloskey turned the page. Eddie was referring to Dempsey’s exhibition fights down at the Devonshire track on Saturday. Dempsey got a grand for putting pillows on his mitts and going two rounds each with Billy Wells and Bert Snyder. It was pretty light stuff. All the same, McCloskey wouldn’t have minded the chance of meeting his hero. But he had his hands full with Sophie at the time. Every time he thought of her a little tremor went through his body. Her image played like one of those short films at the arcade, the ones in the little machines with the hand-crank. A penny for a few minutes of flickering light and magic.
It suddenly became very still and very quiet in the room. The tension that McCloskey had felt when he first sat down was quickly being replaced by something more tangible, like a chill in the air or a charge of electricity. He glanced up at the mirror behind the bar and saw a familiar face. Jigsaw was making his way towards him. He pulled up a stool, leaving one between him and McCloskey. Tilting his hat back, he exposed part of the scar that the Lieutenant said made him look like a goddamn autopsy.
“I’ve been wondering when I’d see you,” said McCloskey. “Then I thought if I just stayed still long enough you’d probably come to me.”
“Yeah. You attract trouble, don’t you, Killer?”
Jigsaw hadn’t lost his patronizing tone.
“Actually, I just got tired of talking to myself. You and your boys have this town sewn up pretty good, don’t you?”
Jigsaw’s grin looked more like a gash in his face.
“Well, you haven’t bumped me, and I know if you really wanted to you would have by now, so you must be here to —”
“I’m here to tell you to blow.”
McCloskey took a gulp of his beer before replying. “Maybe I’m not finished my business here yet.”
“Really? I understand you chased the guy that done your father and brother all the way to the border. The trail’s still hot; you should think about —”
“I’m not interested in him anymore. I don’t want the serpent’s tail; I want its head.” McCloskey paused. “C’mon, it was you who gave the order, wasn’t it?”
Jigsaw put his hands up in mock defence. “Now don’t go jumping to conclusions, Killer.”
“I didn’t buy the line the cops were selling about the gangster from Detroit. That’s the one they use whenever they need to blame the Yanks something.” McCloskey paused. “So who gave the order?”
“You know who.”
“No, I don’t. That’s why I’m asking.”
“Green.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true. You were naïve to think that Green wasn’t all business, because he is. You and your family were costing him.”
“So he’s still running things?”
“Of course he is.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
“Is that what this is about? The Captain isn’t bothering himself with our little skirmishes. He’s busy fighting a war. The Lieutenant’s in command of this front. He’s the reason you’re not locked up or at the bottom of the river right now.”
“Yeah, feel like I owe him a debt.”
McCloskey finished his beer.
“He gave you too much credit,” said Jigsaw. “You’re a meathead and you belong back in the ring. There you’re actually worth something. In the real world you get too confused and you lose focus. You need the bell, the ropes, and somebody standing over you with a bucket of ice water.”
Eddie reappeared from the kitchen and McCloskey pointed to his glass. Eddie pulled him another pint.
“Can I get you anything, mister?”
Jigsaw turned slowly towards Eddie and bared his jagged yellow teeth. “Whisky.”
Eddie stiffened. “You know we don’t serve liquor here.”
“Would you like to?”
Eddie just walked away. Jigsaw laughed and turned and fixed his gaze back on McCloskey. His eyes were dull, black, and bottomless.
“If I find you in the Border Cities tomorrow, you’re fair game.”
“You know you’re the second person to sit in that stool and tell me that.”
“Maybe you should try sitting somewhere else.”
Jigsaw slid back off the barstool and adjusted his hat. His eyes swept the room and everyone looked away. He moved slowly across the floor, through the swinging doors, and into the lobby of the hotel. Conversation didn’t resume in the bar until he was seen to make the street where, despite the heat and the sun, he still appeared as dark and cold as the river in February.
McCloskey looked down at the greasy chicken and frog leg bones on his plate. The last meal he had was at one of Lieutenant Brown’s clubs in Hamilton. New York steak. Whisky. Cigars. What was he doing here? A girl came out of the kitchen and picked up his plate, exposing another section of the sports pages. McCloskey looked down and saw the listings for Kenilworth. He noticed the name of Green’s foal, Contender.
“Welcome back, Jack.”
“Thanks, Annie.”
“Checking the want ads?”
“Picking a horse. Heard anything?”
She rounded the bar and paused behind him. “Yeah — all bets are off.”
“Thanks.”
McCloskey left some silver on the bar, tucked the rolled up newspaper under his arm, and headed out. He had parked the Light Six over on Goyeau Street, away from the pool hall. He had no idea what he’d do if he ran into the Lieutenant, or for that matter what the Lieutenant might do if he ran into him, so he thought he’d steer clear for the time being. He opened the car door and climbed in. The Light Six was reassuring and familiar. Everything fit just right.
Heading up Goyeau he considered the homes that lined the street. They looked safe, quiet, and predictable, nothing like his home growing up. Maybe they were more like his home on the inside. Somehow he doubted it. He couldn’t imagine the police stopping by to settle a domestic dispute or drop off children that were picked up for stealing from the general store.
Had he not seen their bodies with his own eyes he probably wouldn’t have believed it. His pa and Billy had lived through so much, it seemed as though they’d be alive forever. It had been a family of men, much like his pa’s. His mother, however, came from a family of women — a pious, Irish Catholic family that she escaped by marrying a city boy. Frank McCloskey was the youngest son of a Scottish merchant. He was rebellious and out to make a name for himself as a contraband smuggler. Mary Callaghan loved the idea of Frank McCloskey but not the man. She gave him sons, did the chores, and attended church alone on Sundays. Her dying wish was for her husband to let a priest into the house. The moment she died, Frank McCloskey threw the priest, his manual, and his holy water across the front porch.