I woke up late the next morning. Again, I felt like I’d agreed to something I shouldn’t have. At the time I figured it was just that I’d been working too hard. I needed some time away from the city, someplace less complicated. Maybe I was right about that. I never did get the chance to find out.

        I hit the pavement after a lukewarm shower and a breakfast of cigarettes and stale coffee. The Emerald Club seemed like the best place to start. Obvious, maybe, but it was the last place anyone had seen Walter Lance alive. I figured if I asked the right question somebody would try to swat me with an answer, or maybe a fistful of green. I’d settle for either.

        Of course that was probably just wistful thinking on my part. Like as not they’d take me out back and have me fitted for some concrete galoshes. If Carruthers was right and they’d already bumped off a vice cop, what was a nobody PI? Then again, two disappearances in the span of a month was a lot of traffic for a guy who wanted the world to think he was just a club owner with a twinkle in his eye. The more unexplained goings on that got linked to the Emerald, the harder it would be for Fitzroy to maintain the illusion. So maybe my chances weren’t so bad.

        The Emerald was on the other side of town from my apartment, in the ragged end of the theatre district. The rain from the night before had turned into a miserable gray drizzle. I swung the Nash that I was still making payments on out onto the street and thumbed the radio dial. It was early in the day, yet, but the sidewalks were still bustling. Club owners and loan sharks were on their way to the bank with the night’s immoral earnings, newsies were out hawking scandal sheets, and beat cops surveyed their corners like hawks waiting for the first chance to wet their beaks. It was all gravy for a guy in my line. People who can’t go to the police, because of who they are or what they do for a living, need a hand now and then just like everybody else. Sometimes it’s my hand they reach for. As long as theirs is lined with dollar bills, I don’t make it a point of slapping it away.

I parked the car down the block and walked to the club. It was an ugly thing in white stucco, long and low. There was a green awning out front and a matching neon sign on the wall near the door. The place was open, serving breakfast to sailors and longshoremen. I couldn’t figure why they didn’t just camp out at some dive or other on the waterfront. Maybe they did business with Fitzroy and he gave group rate as his way of saying thanks. Anyway, the place was quiet except for these roughnecks, and they didn’t seem like to cause trouble. Mostly they just sat at the bar with their heads lowered over plates of corned beef and eggs.

Once through the door I shuffled in that general direction, trying to look like no one in particular. Then I ordered a whiskey and soda. The barkeep, a real dogface with a bad side part, eyeballed me for a second before nodding and making with the hooch. I didn’t wait long after he set the glass in front of me before inhaling a mouthful. If the man was offended I didn’t stop to admire the craftsmanship, he didn’t show it. I took it as a good sign. Nothing I hate more than a bartender with pretensions.  

I threw back another slug and turned to get a look at the place. I’d been there once before, but it had been at the end of a long, long night. All I could remember was a green tablecloth seen through the bottom of a glass, and then green carpet between the legs of a chair. The bar, as it turned out, was all dark wood and brass – very classy – and ran along the wall to the left of the main entrance. There was a stage at the opposite end of the room, bordered by lights, that thrust out into a forest of tables and chairs. It took up most of the floor space. A pair of square windows was set high in the wall over the bar. They owner’s box, I figured. They looked like a pair of staring eyes, up there.

All in all, it wasn’t a bad spread. The color palette was the only thing that didn’t quite play. The whole place was decked out in shades of green – curtains, carpets, tiles, lampshades; the works. It was a fine idea, I guess, except it gave the light a real sickly quality that made the dancers and patrons look like walking corpses. I say I didn’t care for it, but of course people kept showing up. Maybe the crab cakes were just that good.                        

        I turned back to the bar to whisper some more sweet nothings to my whiskey. It turned out the fella with the bad haircut had been watching me. His eyes revolved in their sockets as he dragged a rag across the same patch of bar top. First he looked down the way at the breakfast crowd.  Then he looked at me. He wanted to know what I was doing there, plain enough. That was fine. If he was patient, he’d find out. For my part, I wasn’t to get to work just yet. So I took my time finishing that first highball, and was halfway through the second before I waved the man over.

        “How much?” I said. I didn’t feel like dragging things out.

        “What for?” he said.

        I grinned a little and put away another slug of liquid gold. “What do people who drink this early usually want?” I said.

        He gave me a look. “I dunno,” he said. “Understanding, maybe?”

        It was a funny answer. Funnier than I’d have given him credit for, even, so I nodded and smiled some more. “Sure,” I said. “Help me understand something.” I slid my empty glass across the bar.

        The man glanced down at the ten dollar bill that was balanced across the rim. Then he looked back up at me. He didn’t look surprised, exactly. I think maybe he just wasn’t sure if I was serious or not. He made up his mind quick enough, though. The money disappeared and some more whiskey took its place.

        “Ask me a question,” he said. The glass slid back across the bar.

        I leaned forward on my elbows. “What kinds of people you get in here on the regular?” I said.

        The barkeep shrugged. “All kinds,” he said.

        I smiled and drank some more.  “Right,” I said, “Friendly joint like this. Any cops?”  

        The man paused in the middle of polishing a rocks glass. He was a thinker, I could tell. It was a bad habit for a guy like him, too dumb to know a good idea from a bad one.

        “Sometimes,” he said eventually. “The girls, they don’t always know how to stay out of trouble. So a detective shows up, asks some questions. We try to be good citizens, you know.”

        “Sure,” I said. “These days, we’re all trying.”

        The barkeep shrugged and nodded. I think I believed it about as much as he did.

        “You remember any of them specifically?” I said. “Maybe one or two that came in off duty?”

        That got me another shrug. Not a yes or a no, exactly. More like he wanted me to keep talking.

        I leaned forward some more, so that I was sure the breakfast crowd couldn’t hear me. “Maybe a fellow named Lance?” I said.

        The barkeep snapped a quick glance in my direction. Then he cleared his throat and shrugged for a third time. “Sure,” he said, “I remember Walt. Didn’t know he was a cop.”

        “Never mentioned it,” I said, “Or you never asked?”

        The man wrinkled his nose, like he’d just felt an itch. “We didn’t talk much,” he said.

        I leaned back in my seat again, gave the fella an appraising sort of look. “Enough to be on a first name basis,” I said.

        “We try to make the customer feel at home,” he said. Then he reached for my glass and topped it up, like he was trying to make the point.

        I nodded my thanks, took the whiskey in hand. It was damn good stuff, like drinking liquid smoke. Put that rotgut everyone was peddling a few years back to shame. The way the rumrunners tried to pass of colored turpentine as whiskey, it was almost enough to put a man off his drink. Few greater crimes, if you ask me.

        “So,” I said, “He came in here often?”

        The barkeep held the glass in his hand to the nearest light, like he was checking for spots. “What’s often?” he said.

        I tried on a shrug myself. It was a good fit, especially in the shoulders. “Couple times a week?” I said.

        The man pulled a face again. Either he was ticking off the days of the week in his head or trying to remember what he’d been told to say.

        “Sure,” he said eventually.

        “When was the last time?” I said.

        The barkeep shook his head. “I don’t remember,” he said.

        I nodded, reached for the half pack of Luckies in my coat. “You hear what happened to him?” I said.

        I wouldn’t have guessed it was possible, but the man’s face went even blanker than it had been. “Yeah,” he said.

        I opted to let whatever was on his mind hang in the air a while, lit a cigarette to fill the time. Then I pointed in his general direction. “So maybe,” I said, “You were one of the last people to see him.”

        “Yeah,” the barkeep repeated. His eyes were starting to glaze over.

        I was starting to take pity on the guy. Conversation, like thinking, was clearly not his strong suit. “Relax,” I said as I drained my glass. “I don’t work for the city.”

        He squinted at me, looking like someone had just stepped on his toe. “You sound like them,” he said.

        I tried not to take it personal. “You said yourself,” I told him, “They’ve been known to come by now and then on business. Any of them put in an appearance since your pal Walt walked out the door?”

        The man kept squinting. “No,” he said eventually.

        I nodded. “Right,” I said. “So clearly they’re not interested. But I am.”

        That seemed to be enough for him. He nodded slowly, refilled my glass again, and picked up another one to polish. “So,” he said, “What does that make you, then?”

        I took another drink. It was getting so I couldn’t even feel it going down. The world was getting hazy around the edges. “Nobody,” I said. “A concerned citizen. Friend of the deceased.”

        The barkeep nodded again. “Sure,” he said. “Sure. So what do you want to know?”

        I shrugged and lit another cigarette from the glowing stub of the first. “The truth,” I said, “Or as near as I can get to it.”

        The man looked surprised. “You think I know anything about it?” he said.

        “I think you serve drinks,” I said, “And it’s someone else’s job to handle public inquiries.”

        Now the fellow squinted, stuck out his jaw, looked down his nose at me. I’m not sure how any of that helped him any, but a few second later he nodded.

“What’s the name?” he said.

“Parker,” I said, “With a P.”

I don’t think he thought I was funny. He squinted again, made a face. This was the third time I’d seen it. It reminded me of a Bulldog I knew once. But then he stuck the rag he’d been slinging in his back pocket and disappeared through a windowless door behind the bar.

Gone to spread the good news, I guess. In the meantime I turned to face the stage. The dancers were just filing in for morning rehearsals. Several of the breakfast patrons down the way looked real pleased about the change of scenery.

They were a sad bunch, Fitzroy’s girls, particularly this early in the morning. Some of them clearly had pretty rough nights. Tired eyes like soft-boiled eggs looked out at the world from raccoon-mask rings. A few carried bruises, still purple and green, on their arms or their cheeks. Mostly they wore leotards. One had on dark glasses, like you’d wear to the beach. Probably she was nursing a shiner. I watched them lounge around a while, smoking cigarettes, and chattering to each other in low voices. They looked like a bouquet of wilted flowers.

Looking at them, I wondered what it was that made girls like that come back to a place like Fitzroy’s day after day. Maybe they didn’t have the talent to go someplace more respectable. Or maybe they’d done something that made them too grubby for the legitimate places to want anything to do with. The city was full of girls like that. They survived as best they could, and people judged them for it. I could sympathize.

A sailor sitting near the stage said something I couldn’t make out to a bottle blond in a tattered dressing gown. Her lips twisted into a scowl and she made a rude gesture that left the old salt howling with laughter. The human drama in a nutshell, I figure.

The barkeep returned just them. “This way, Mister,” he said from over my shoulder. I turned. He was directing down the length of the bar to a door at the far end with shiny brass fittings.

I went where he pointed me. Just when I was about to cross into the rarified air of Fitzroy’s inner sanctum, though, he waved me away. Then he led me around the edge of the room and through a set of battered doors that swung easy on their hinges. We passed the kitchen, where a sad-eyed dishwasher was playing rummy with the cook, and came to a short, dark hall. The barkeep walked to the end of it and pushed open another door. He didn’t walk through it himself, but made like he thought I should.

I stopped just short, tilted my head at whatever room it was I was about to walk into. “Not coming with?” I said.

He smiled and shrugged. “Someone’s got to mind the store,” he said.

That was fair enough, I guess. So I nodded, tipped my hat to the man, and walked on through. The door clicked shut behind me.    

It was a storeroom I was in now, or it used to be. A few crates and barrels were pushed up against the walls. The only light came from an unshaded bulb that hung from a cord off the ceiling, and a big wooden desk, like you’d see in a banker’s office, sat in the middle of the bare, concrete floor. A man was seated behind it.

He was a big fellow, square-shouldered, dark-haired. There was an angular look to him. Sharp, I guess you could say, raw-boned, cruel. He wore a dull gray suit, the color of iron. There was a clipboard in his hand. Whatever it was telling him, he didn’t look happy about it.

“Sit,” he said, without looking up. His voice was cold and hard, like stone.

So I sat. It seemed like the thing to do. The wooden chair that was parked in front of the desk was stiff and uncomfortable, but I made the best of it.

Eventually the big man set the clipboard aside and turned his cold, pitiless eyes on me. “I’m told you got questions,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said, “A couple.”

He kept up the stony stare. “Think real careful,” he said, “Ask them, and then get the hell out.”

It occurred to me just then that I might have made a mistake telling the doorman I wasn’t a cop. In this town, every desk sergeant and patrolman was somebody’s pet, so you couldn’t bounce an officer of the law without having a conversation first. Clearly that hadn’t kept Walter alive, but nine times out of ten it would have. Saying I was nobody was like saying I wouldn’t be missed if I ended up in a ditch somewhere.

So I should have treaded lightly, is what I’m saying. I didn’t, of course. I’m just saying I should have.

“Sorry,” I said, “But I was under the impression I’d be talking to the master of the house. I can come back, of course, if he’s not in just now.”

The big man did something funny with his lips. It might have been that he was smiling. It was hard to tell with him. He had a face like the side of a mountain.

“Mr. Fitzroy’s a busy man,” he said. “Too busy to jaw with every bum off the street who don’t know his own business. I’m what you’d call an intermediary. I decide what he hears and what he don’t.”

Then he leaned forward across the desk. His jacket was hanging open, and I got an eyeful of a big black Colt he had riding under his shoulder.

“You can call me Mr. Lee,” he said.              

        I nodded. He was real convincing, that one. If he’d told me he was Bing Crosby I’d have been inclined to believe him. “Fair enough, Mr. Lee,” I said. “I was just asking after a friend of mine, name of Lance.”

        “I know,” said Lee. He was leaning back again, arms crossed.

        I waited a while for him to say something more. He didn’t.  So I said, “That’s good. You can tell me if anything unusual happened the last time he was in here.”

        Lee kept it buttoned. He sat there watching me shift in my seat. It was hot in that little back room, like it was next to the boiler or something, but he didn’t look to be sweating any.

        “You said you was a friend of Lance,” he said eventually, “But I can’t figure how.”

        “Well-” was as much as I got out. Lee wasn’t interested in a conversation. Lee wanted me to listen.

        “Maybe you was on the force together,” he said. “But then you told Mushy you wasn’t a cop. You don’t smell like one either. So maybe you was in the war together. Old soldiers, you know? But you don’t look old enough.”

        “I’m what you call well-preserved,” I said. He wasn’t listening, of course, so that one was for me.

        “So maybe,” said Lee, “You come from the same neighborhood. You was like his kid brother, or something. But I don’t think that’s it either. You don’t sound right. No, you sound like Chicago.”

        He leaned forward again, elbows on the desk. It creaked under his weight like a growling dog. “You can see my confusion, here,” he said.

        “Friend of the family?” I said. It was weak, but he wasn’t listening anyway.

        “Man comes in one night,” said Lee. “He has a few drinks, leaves, ends up dead. I worry, because that’s what they pay me for. Maybe someone thinks we had something to do with it. Or they think the man knew something about Mr. Fitzroy and got a little too exited trying to get him to talk. Either way, I don’t like the headlines.”

        He stopped talking long enough to light a Pall Mall with a paper match. He had long fingers and big, square knuckles.

        “But a few weeks go by,” he continued, “And nothing happens. So I figure it was just bad luck. People keel over every day in this city, what’s it got to do with the last place they was seen? Mostly nothing, I’ll bet, so I relax a little. But then you show up. Nobody here ever heard of you, you got no badge, you got nothing. You just go questions.”

        “That’s what you call the human condition,” I said. It was one of those things, I don’t know why it came out when it did. I guess maybe I was nervous. I’d had conversations like this one before. They usually ended with a trip to the dentist.

        The big man stared across the desk at me. He didn’t like me much at all, I figure. Probably he didn’t like anyone. He was one of those people. You see them sometimes in insurance offices or behind a desk in a bank – ash-colored people with eyes like chips of stone who looked at the world like they wished it would go away. This one smoked his cigarette like he just wanted to get it over with. He kept staring. I think maybe he hoped I would evaporate.

        I didn’t. So he shrugged.

“Lucky for you,” he said, “You’ll be the least important thing I deal with all day. So we can skip the part where you beg for your sorry life and I’ll let you go with a warning.”

“Appreciate it,” I said. I did, too. Not just because I’d get to keep my fingernails. Most people in his line, they liked to drag things out. It was fun for them. Mr. Lee just got to the point.

        Now he nodded, put out his cigarette on the surface of the desk, and tossed the stub over his shoulder. “So we’re clear,” he said, “I don’t care who you are and I don’t care who you work for. Mind your own fucking business. Lance was a good customer and a bad cop, and he probably got what was coming to him. It had nothing to do with us. Get me?”

        “Got you,” I said.        

        That didn’t seem to satisfy him. So he got up and walked to the far side of the room. In the dark beyond the cone of light over the desk were a set of double doors outlined in yellow. I’d have guessed the opened onto a loading bay at the back of the building. Mr. Lee banged on one of them with his big, square fist. It swung open a second later and in walked a pair of gorillas – two big slabs of humanity with bull necks and arms that dragged on the ground.

        Lee gestured to his friends the apes. “Allow my associates to show you out,” he said.

        There didn’t seem to be any point in arguing. King Kong and his pal Joe were already rolling up their sleeves and loosening their ties. Nothing I said was going to put a hold on things. They’d been promised. Still, it didn’t seem right not saying anything at all.

        So I stood up, pushed away my chair, and started to undo my collar button. “Pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr. Lee,” I said.

        Lee didn’t even stop on his way out the door. “I know,” he said, and the thing closed behind him with a dull clang. Then it was just me and the Bobbsey Twins.

        The next ten or fifteen minutes are mostly a blur. I’d like to say I’ve taken worse beatings. In fact I’m sure I have. This was a good one, though. The boys were overly vicious about it – didn’t try too hard to break anything – but they were very persistent. Workmanlike, I guess you could say – left, right, left, right, followed by an elbow, followed by a wingtip. They wanted me to feel it for a few weeks, limp around my apartment, moan whenever I bent down to tie my shoe. A trip to the hospital would have been going too far. This was just supposed to be a kind of convincer.

        So I took what they gave me, offered a word of advice now and then. They pretended not to hear me. I don’t hold it against them. Professionals can get self-conscious like that, when someone criticizes their technique. At one point they had me sandwiched between them, one holding my arms while the other worked my kidneys. It was like standing between a brick wall and a pair of sledgehammers. I tried to get them to lay off, told them they should work the face a while. The pretended not to hear that either. The ego on some people, I swear.

        They dumped me in the alley between the club and the laundry next door when they were finished. I was like a puppet with its strings cut, flopped against a couple of garbage cans. The rain, cold and indifferent, spattered across my swollen face. It felt like a giant fist had been squeezing my midsection. I was dizzy, lightheaded, my heart pounding in my ears. I lay there for what seemed like a hundred years, waiting to feel human again.

        I don’t remember getting up. One minute my chin is on my chest and I’m wheezing out what feels like my last breath and the next I’m staggering down the street in kind of stumble that never seems to land. I do remember going into the bar. It was maybe a block from the club, the kind of dark hole that was favored by professional drunks the world over. No chatter, no questions – just something to pour on your soul to make the pain go away. I couldn’t ask for better.

        The bartender didn’t look up when I toppled in, or even when I stumbled up to the bar and nearly missed the stool. He just nodded when I managed to spit out my order, dropped a glass in front of me, and filled it to the brim with sweet, brown painkiller. And there I sat for a good long while, hunched over my drink. Now and then I slid the glass forward so the man behind the counter could refill my prescription. I took it in gulps. The world started to feel like it wasn’t so heavy. I wasn’t at my sharpest, is the long and short of it. So of course I didn’t notice when the man came in, or sat down next to me, or placed an order. It didn’t even register that he’d started talking to me. Not at first, anyway. It took him saying my name a few times.    

        I didn’t recognize him, though he had a familiar look. He was squat and thick, with dark features and a broad, plain face. His hair was black, thinning on top and grey at the temples, and he wore a dark grey boiler suit under a worn leather jacket. He looked like a repairman, or a mechanic, or a truck driver – someone who worked with his hands and got by on cigarettes, coffee, and corned beef. I’d met the type before, many, many times. They were always smarter than they looked.

        “Come again?” I said, my jaw still throbbing under the whiskey fog.

        He chuckled – good-natured as hell – and set down his glass. “I say,” he said, “That was pretty raw, the way they treated you down at the Emerald. Funny way to treat a customer, you know?”

        My head was still a bit of a soup at this point, so I didn’t follow him straight away. “Made a crack about the wallpaper,” I said.

        The man laughed again and swallowed a mouthful of beer. “That’d do it,” he said. “No sense of humor, that Fitzroy. Explains a whole lot, you know?”

        We were thinking of different things just then, but that did seem to about sum up my feelings. So I nodded emphatically, careful that my head didn’t roll off my shoulders.

        The fellow in the coverall nodded back. Then he reached into his front pocket and pulled out the last half of a two-bit cigar. He lit it with a paper match, took a long pull, and turned his attention to me again. In my pickled and pulverized state of mind, the smoke pouring out of the side of his mouth made him look like a steam engine.

        “Shame about Walt,” he said. “I remember we talked once about drowning with a couple of guys who made the Cape run back in the day. They kept saying how it was the worst way to go. Painful, you know? Shame he had to find out for himself.”

        That did it. I blinked a few times while staring at a cigarette burn on the bar top. The fog receded a little. The sun came out from behind a cloud.

        “Friend of the deceased?” I said.

        The man maneuvered his cigar between square, hairy knuckles and picked up his glass. “Sure,” he said. “Me and Walt, we got along famously. Only guy I ever knew who could stare down a straight flush with a pair of twos.” He finished his beer with another gulp and waved down the barkeep for a refill.

        I blinked a little more, took a deep breath, tried to push my way back into the light. Then I look over at my friend. He wasn’t as far away as I’d thought.

        “You know what happened to him?” I said.

        He chuckled again. He was a real congenial type. “Sure, kid,” he said, “I read the papers. What you want to ask me is if I know how it happened.”

        I closed my eyes for a second, massaged my left temple, and took another breath. There were too many thoughts clanging around in my head, banging off each other and making it hard to concentrate. I lit a cigarette and tried to focus. My battered brain didn’t like that much, but it owned me a favor. I hadn’t drowned it yet.  

        “All right,” I said eventually. “How did it happen?”

        The man took another puff on his cheroot. “Hell if I know,” he said with a shrug. “That’s your job, isn’t it?”

        I could have clocked him right there if I wasn’t sure I’d fall over trying. He’d been sent by Mr. Lee to needle me – as a kind of epilogue to the beating – or I’d died in that alleyway and Hell was a lot more tedious than I’d been led to believe. I was too played out to put up with either.

        “Look, friend,” I said, “You got a point to all this?”

          He just smiled. “Me?” he said. “No. But the fella I work for was what you’d call insistent.”

        “Fine,” I said. “Sure. Glad someone knows what they’re doing.” My mood was getting worse. I don’t know if it was the conversation or because the feeling had started to come back to my face. The nerves in my jaw felt like they were vibrating. I tossed back the last of the scotch in my glass and signalled for another.

        The man at my elbow shook his head and kept on smiling. “Just hold cool off a minute more,” he said. “We’ll go for a ride, I promise.” He waved his half-empty glass back and forth to help make the point.    

        “Fine,” I said again. “Thanks. Whatever.” And then I slumped back over my drink. It hurt to sit up straight. I put a hand to each of my sides and almost teared up at the pain. There didn’t seem to be anything broken, but one of the ribs on my right was almost certainly bruised. Touching it sent a white-hot lance up my spine and made the muscles in my neck twitch like a spasmodic.

        My new friend, meanwhile, puffed on his cigar some more and tipped back the last of his beer. Then he tossed a handful of crumpled bills on the bar and motioned that I should follow. I fumbled with my wallet as he sauntered out the door. I couldn’t remember how many I’d had, or if the barkeep had mentioned what I owed, so I just laid down whatever I had on hand.

        It was early evening when I stumbled out side. A good number of hours had slipped by since I walked through the door of the Emerald, though I could probably only account for one or two. Wasn’t the first time something like that had happened, wouldn’t be the last. Coverall, when I spotted him, was just down the street, climbing into the cab of a shabby blue AA. I hauled myself up after him, even though I’d have preferred at that moment to stretch out on the bed. Then the man maneuvered his cigar from one side of his mouth to the other and wrenched the truck into gear. A second later we pulled away from the curb and rattled on down the street.

My already battered kidney’s got a further tenderizing as I sat there trying to keep from pitching forward onto the dash. The pain helped – leaning forward too far was agony. Of course my back was killing me, too. I must have pulled something getting out of bed. I swear I was about ready to fold up like a deck chair. The only thing keeping me going was the promise of getting to lie down somewhere and die once my chauffeur’s boss – whoever he was – had had his say. Small mercies, they say.

It became clear soon enough we were headed for the waterfront. Family-owned businesses gave way to flophouses, gave way to the kinds of drinking establishments I tended to avoid – too much blood in the sawdust. Then we rounded a corner that nearly planted my face on the passenger-side window and the docks spilled out in front of us like a whole city of its own.

There were three piers on our end of things, roofed like giant airship hangers, and flanked on both sides by steamers and cranes that were all smokestacks and rusting steel. There were men out there, too, stevedores and sailors running all over the place with hooks and ropes, loading and unloading. Crates and boxes and barrels flowed from ship to land and back again like a tide. I figured the fellow who wanted a word had something to do with all that, maybe wanted me to get a good look before we sat down. I couldn’t say how well it worked. Watching other people sweat never impressed me much.

Pretty soon we pulled up in front of a tall, narrow building that faced the bay. It advertised itself as the local union hall. Coveralls hustled out of the cab and I shambled after him. The inside of the place was dim and smoky, and the low sun cast long rays on table after table of men hunched over poker games or reading newspapers. No one looked up when we came in. I’m never sure if that’s a good sign or a bad one. My host lead me past a gang of gray-hairs crowded around a chess game and through an unmarked door at the back of the room. A narrow flight of stairs led to a dingy outer office with a few nautical prints on the walls. We paused there a minute while Coverall knocked on a big oak door and stuck his head in. A second later he waved me through.

The inner office was cleaner, but still worn. There were some book cases, a desk, a big chest like something out of an Errol Flynn picture, and a man who I figured had to be Cato. He was slighter than I’d have guess – not frail, but lean. He had a dense, black beard and cool gray eyes the color of lead. His suit was a similar shade, neat and pressed but hardly new. I had a sudden sense of déjà vu just then. I’d been in a meeting like that before, sometime or other. It took me a second to remember it had only been earlier that day. It felt a hell of a lot longer.

Cato watched me cross from the door to his desk with an expression I’m tempted to call curiosity. It was like he saw me as some kind of creature he’d only ever heard about, the way he kept looking me up and down. He took my hand easy enough, and offered me a seat like I was anybody else, but that look in his eyes didn’t go anywhere. I decided about then that I didn’t much like him. Nothing that’s happened since has changed my mind any.

We sat for a while in silence, on either side of a desk buried in manifests and schedules and ratty volumes of highbrow literature. The man seemed to be taking his time sizing me up. I glanced over my shoulder. Coverall had taken a seat by the door and lit a fresh cheroot. He looked terribly pleased with himself. That is to say, pleased in a way that I found to be terrible. I turned back to face the master of the house. The bay of windows behind him looked out over the waterfront, and it was hard to look at the man without squinting against the glare. I wonder if maybe that was his intention.

Eventually he smiled, folded his arms. “Thank you for joining us, Mr. Parker,” he said, “Particularly in light of what you’ve been through.”

I twisted in my chair so as to take some pressure off the part of my midsection that throbbed when I spoke. “Today,” I said, “Or just in general?”

Cato smiled. I think he was trying to put me at ease. Mostly, though, it just made me anxious. In my experience, people who smile like that are usually about to ask for something.

“You seem in good spirits,” he said, “All things considered. I take it as a good sign.” He had a thin voice – reedy, you might say – and spoke with an East Coast clip.

I shrugged, painfully. “You can take it however you like,” I said, “But my time isn’t free.” It wasn’t a very gracious thing to say, I’ll admit, but the events of that morning had but me a little on edge.

Cato nodded, in a way that was both good-natured and patronizing. “Is that what you told Mr. Lee?” he said.

I shrugged again. It was getting to be a distinctly lopsided gesture. “No cause to,” I said. “I called on him, see? And he collected.”

The man smiled again. His eyes narrowed a little. Then he bowed his head. “Very well,” he said. “To business.”

“Cheers,” I said. Then I went for a cigarette – my last – and settled in for what I figured to be a fairly uninteresting conversation.

Cato leaned back in his chair, hands splayed out on the desk. The fingers of his right hand tapped out a steady rhythm as he eyed me for a while without speaking. Then he cocked his head.

“You’re investigating the death of Det. Walter Lance,” he said.

I took a slow drag and held the smoke for a beat before answering. “So they tell me,” I said.

“And I suppose,” Cato continued, “Mr. Fitzroy conveyed his displeasure at this via his erstwhile emissary Mr. Lee.”

I nodded. “Something like that,” I said.

“Do you know why?” Cato said. “Why they tried to warn you off, I mean?”

I shrugged again. “I figure Lee is a generally disagreeable sort of person,” I said, “And doesn’t need much excuse to lay a beating on someone. As for what he told Fitzroy, I wager he said he thought I’d been hired out by the police so they could keep their distance.”

Cato shook his head. “Of course you’re not working for the police,” he said.

“Not even if they paid me,” I said. I don’t know why I thought that was funny.

“No,” Cato said. “You’re working for a private citizen – someone with a connection to the deceased. A friend or a business partner, I think. A person of means, it would have to be. And they’d be unable to go to the police, of course. Am I near the mark, or have I entirely misread the situation?”      

I took another slow drag and had my turn looking the man sitting opposite up and down. He was smart. An academic type, I figured, or he wanted me to think so. A bit of a boho – smoked a pipe, spoke French, that sort of thing. Of course the whole union angle was a wrinkle. I assumed that made him some kind of agitator. The papers were full of that sort of thing. Unions were going to take over the country. Maybe Cato had read the same headlines, fresh out of some high-class college back East, and decided he wanted his piece.

“You know,” I said, “Lee didn’t even bother asking. He said he didn’t care. I guess that’s why you’re smarter than he is.”

Cato grinned. He looked a little sheepish, like I’d caught him at something. “You understand,” he said, “I’d have felt foolish later if I didn’t try.”

“Sure,” I said. “I won’t ask you how you feel right now.”

I don’t think he liked that. His grin pretty well evaporated and he made a sound in his throat like something was caught there. “Mr. Parker,” he said, “Let me be blunt.”

I managed another painful shrug. It was a hard habit to break, it turned out. “Knock yourself out, kid,” I said. “I’ve been having that kind of day.”

The man got on with it. “You are,” he said, “On the whole, a reasonably successful investigator. Your business is consistent, if not spectacular, and you have a particular talent for discretion. I know this because scarcely anyone I’ve spoken to since your name first came to my attention has any idea you exist. They can, of course, hardly be faulted for lacking access to the kind of information that seems so readily to flow into this office.”

“Hardly,” I said.

“You also have no love of law enforcement in this city,” Cato went on, “And possess, by my estimation, a keen sense of what is and isn’t your business.”

“Go on,” I said, “You’re making me blush.”

The man ignored me. I suppose I would have, in his position. “I say these things,” he continued, “Not to stroke your ego, but to impress on you that I have not chosen lightly to tell you what I am about to tell you.”

I leaned forward, only partly to crush out my cigarette in the glass tray on Cato’s desk. People didn’t usually volunteer information to someone in my line, so he had my attention. Still, I tried to keep my reaction small. The more he felt the need to impress, the more he was likely to say.

“Okay,” I said, “So tell.”

My host looked disappointed that I wasn’t playing along. He rallied beautifully, though. He stroked his chin a while, made like he was gathering his thoughts – like what he had to say was so goddamned important it would take something out of him to say it. I waited.

“For the last three years,” Cato said eventually, “The late Det. Walter Lance was engaged in a highly lucrative partnership with our organization. In what exchange for what I would describe as a healthy percentage, he ensured that certain illicit substances were permitted to travel through the Port unmolested by either customs authorities or other members of the metropolitan police force.”

“Jesus,” I said.” “How did he manage that?” I didn’t need to ask, of course. Hell, I shouldn’t have. Cato wanted to tell me, and it was better if he thought I didn’t care. I guess I couldn’t help myself. It was the sort of scoop I’d have killed for, back in the PA’s office.

Cato seemed pleased at first. Then he looked to be considering the question and his expression changed. “We felt it best,” he said, “For all parties concerned, to keep details such as these on a strict need-to-know basis.” He towed the line, but he wasn’t happy about it. Things had been kept from him, and now I was making him admit it.

“Nevertheless,” he said, “I would surmise that the good detective made use of the resources uniquely at his disposal to ensure that certain manifests were altered or misplaced and that certain individuals were reminded of the favors they owed. This is, of course, not mention the need to ward off unwanted attention, to which I’m sure he attended as well.”

        Cato’s assessment made it sound like Walt had a hell of a lot more connections than anything I’d been told about. That was fine, if it was true, but it also meant that the man whose ghost I was chasing probably had more friends and more enemies than any one person was in a position to name. It opened up the possibility of casting a wider net, to be sure, but it also meant I had best be more careful who I asked about the dearly departed.

“Fair enough,” I said. “Go on.”

“Notwithstanding my people’s ability,” the man went on, “To procure, offload, store, and transport, distribution and sale of the product in question remained regrettably beyond our capacity. I’ll grant that it now appears to have been a mistake, but we were accordingly inclined to seek out…outside assistance.”

He didn’t have to say any more than that. Nobody moved a gram of “product” in the city without one man taking his piece.

“Fitzroy,” I said.

Cato frowned. His mouth formed a grim line across his face. “Regrettably, yes,” he said. “It would have raised undue attention for dockworkers to be seen entering the retail market, and there are no willing go-betweens in this city that don’t either fear or work for the gentlemen in question. It was actually Det. Lance that offered a solution. We had the supply, he said, and Mr. Fitzroy the experience and the means. A partnership was therefore entirely logical, doubly so once the Detective offered to arrange matters on our behalf.”

I raised an eyebrow at the second hint of Walt’s far-reaching contacts. “Well-connected, was he?” I said.

The man shrugged and made an expansive gesture with his hands. “He worked vice for many years,” he said. “I took it as no surprise that he had become acquainted with prominent members of a certain element of this city’s business community.”

“And it didn’t bother you,” I said, “That he had everything on both your operations and you had nothing on him? Or that he was the only point of contact between you and your distributer?”

Cato shot me a funny look. I think he was disappointed. “Of course it did, Mr. Parker,” he said. “But it seemed as though the good Detective had far more to lose then either myself or Mr. Fitzroy. And after all, this is a dockworker’s union. My men know how to ‘dummy up,’ as they say. The days of the Volstead Act are not so very far behind us.”

“Right,” I said, and he was. “So if I’ve got this, you and yours buy the stuff through your foreign contacts. I won’t ask after that part of things – I don’t want to know and you don’t want to tell me. Then Fitzroy buys the stuff from you in bulk, stores it, and sells it. Walter greases the right palms, to keep the whole thing running smoothly, and makes sure his brother officers don’t get a whiff. Is that about the size of it?”

Cato nodded. He was smiling a little. I think he liked the way I made it sound. “Exactly so,” he said.

“Exactly so,” I said back. “So what the hell happened?”

The man went sour on me. He made a face like he’d got a snootful of something rotten. “Walter Lance met his sudden and untimely demise,” he said. “I must say, I’d have been comforted if it at least looked like an accident.”  

“Yeah?” I said. “How do you mean?” I didn’t think it looked like an accident either, but I wasn’t in a position to say much more than that. I figured Cato would, though, if I gave him the chance.

“I mean,” Cato said, “That If he had tumbled off a ladder, say, while cleaning the eaves, or fallen asleep with cigarette in hand and immolated himself, I might nearly have chalked it up to bad luck. We’d have investigated, of course, but with the understanding that sometimes accidents do happen. But a man doesn’t find himself in the trunk of a car at the bottom of a bay through a series of unfortunate mishaps. This was meant to be a message. I can’t say that I understand the need for it, but I suppose that’s just how these people operate.”

I crossed my arms and waited, figuring he was just warming up to some big reveal. Clearly the man thought he had one over on me, thought he had to explain things to the poor PI who’d got himself dragged into something ugly. So I was surprised when he let the conversation hang. He wanted me to ask, I guess; prove that I knew less than he did. So I asked.

“You going to tell me who ‘these people’ are,” I said, “Or do you want I should guess?”

Cato shook his head. His expression reminded me of some of the teachers I’d had as a kid. “I should have thought it was obvious,” he said. “Of course Fitzroy killed him. Short-sighted as ever, he doubtless decided that his share stood to increase if he contracted a supplier himself and took over the middleman’s contacts. Having accomplished the latter, Det. Lance naturally had to be disposed of. The method of execution was surely meant to signal the termination of our partnership, though I once again question the impulse behind it. The man knows I’m not a hoodlum, and so less moved by such gestures.”

It was a theory, certainly. I’d have dismissed it out of hand, but he was right about people like Fitzroy. They didn’t play nice with others and they had a thing about leaving bodies where people could find them.

“What does the big man have to say for himself?” I said.

“Mr. Fitzroy protests his innocence,” said Cato. He was sneering. “In the interim, product has stopped moving.”

“Oh yes?” I said. The way he played at being wounded made me want to laugh. I stifled it. I wasn’t ready to get thrown out of his office.

Cato looked at me through narrowed eyes. “Oh yes, Mr. Parker,” he said. “Our former liaison is dead, my buyer has cut off communications – ‘until we figure out what the hell is going on,’ he says – and yet somehow the pushers on the street remain flush with product. Meanwhile our suppliers, whom we have helped to make very wealthy indeed, refuse to sell us another gram. Now I ask you, Mr. Parker, if you were in my position, what conclusion would you draw?”

I nodded a while, made like I was thinking. Maybe he had something, but the man was getting on my nerves.

“Sounds like,” I said, “At the rate you’re going, you won’t be able to afford my conclusion much longer.”

The muscles in Cato’s jaw started to twitch. I don’t think he thought I was funny. “Mr. Parker…” he started to say.

I stopped him. “Just tell me what you think I can do for you,” I said.

His face quivered a little longer before settling down. Then he let out a short sigh. “Your job,” he said, “With a minor addendum.”

I shrugged. “Shoot,” I said.

Cato nodded. “You have a client,” he said, “Whose identity is, and shall remain, mysterious to me. I gather, however, that they have tasked you with investigating the demise of the late Walter Lance. I tell you I desire nothing less. All that I ask in addition is that once you have discovered the guilty party and delivered the information into the hands of your employer you then pass it along to the proper legal authorities.”

“You’ll have to point them out to me,” I said. “The only legal authorities I know are highly improper.”

The man made a noise in his throat. It was about as close as he got to laughing. “Yes,” he said, “Considering their reaction – or lack thereof – to the good detective’s untimely expiration, I find myself in agreement. No, I mean to refer to you a young man of my acquaintance; the newly-christened prosecutor for King County. He is, as they say, ‘on the make.’ I have no doubt he would look favorably on the chance to bring a police detective’s killer to justice while also dismantling a narcotics distribution ring.”

That figured. “And what do I get for helping make the lad’s career?” I said.

Cato shrugged. It didn’t look natural on him. His neck was too stiff.

“He’s a smart fellow,” he said, “And not one to forget his friends. When, in time, he has risen to the position to which his ambition and abilities compel him, I’m sure he’ll be amenable to repaying certain favors. However you may appraise the value of such a thing, you will doubtless agree it’s worth far more than fifty dollars a day.”

“Fair enough,” I said, “But what about in the meantime?”

Cato smiled and waved his hand expansively. “But of course,” he said, “I’d be eager to express my gratitude as well. Reliable investigators are so very hard to come by. And I’m sure you’ll agree that possessing connections in the underground economy hardly represents a burden for someone in your line of work.”

I’ll admit it was a pretty square deal. The man wasn’t asking me to go much out of my way, and he wasn’t asking me to become godfather to his youngest. It was a business proposition. Nobody was going to get hurt who didn’t deserve it, and nobody wanted me to do anything personally that I couldn’t live with. Apart from the fact that I’d be adding my stamp to drug trafficking, smuggling, bribery, and who all knows what else, it was downright ideal.    

“How do I get a hold of you?” I said. Cato could take that however he liked. In my book it wasn’t a yes and it wasn’t a no.              

        The man seemed satisfied, in any case. He gestured over my shoulder to our mutual acquaintance. “Marcus will give you a number where he can be reached,” he said. “Try not to call unless it’s important.”

        The fellow who’d brought me to see Cato in the first place was still sitting at the back of the room, cigar stub clenched in yellow teeth. I’d forgotten all about him. He got to his feet and held out a small white card.

        “I’m a real light sleeper,” he said with a wink.

        I smiled without meaning it, made for the door, took the card. I looked back over my shoulder as Marcus closed the thing behind me. Cato was sitting back, looking satisfied, eyes fixed on me like they had been when I came in. I still can’t figure what it was he found so damned interesting.

Next Chapter: Working Stiffs