Thursday hit me like a runaway train.

One second I was passed out in my apartment, bone-tired and strung out on bourbon and cigarettes, dead to the world and dreaming of girls with red hair and white dresses and sad, sad stories. The next thing I knew I was behind the wheel, parked in a narrow alley between a pair of warehouses and behind a union hall down by the docks. My head was buzzing from too much coffee. My eyes felt like sandpaper. It was late and the moon was hiding its face. I wished I could do the same.

Mike had rooked me. I was sure of it. That half-assed revolutionary got me good and tight and then talked me into doing him a favor. Goddamn him and his cast-iron liver, I thought. Mine felt like it was made of ground beef. That was my fault, I know – from way back – but it felt good to blame somebody else for a change. It’s not something I usually let myself get away with.

I wasn’t getting paid for the stakeout. That was what really bugged me. In fact I hadn’t gotten paid for most of what I’d done that week. Running errands for union kingpins, overgrown leprechauns, and Boston Braves fans wasn’t generally part of my job description. A woman had hired me to find out what happened to her husband. It sounded simple enough. I talked to cops, talked to the coroner, shook down a few street hoods for gossip. I had leads. The case was progressing. Thing is, I took my eye off the ball.

Hell, I don’t know that I ever had the thing right in my head. It was supposed to be about the money. I’d made it about this woman. All I cared about was seeing her again. That was my first mistake. They followed in a parade after that, the shaky decisions and one-sided deals. There were other ways to ferret out the information I needed. They were slower, less direct, but what did that matter? Billable hours aren’t something people in my business are supposed to avoid. But there I was, barrelling along, saying yes to whatever offer was put in front of me. I wanted the goods fast. I wanted Deirdre to smile when I came back to her so soon.

So I sat there in the dark down by the waterfront, waiting for some old men to finish their card game. I’d pulled the Nash into the alley at fifteen minutes to seven. It was now rounding on eleven, and I felt like an idiot. Four hours I’d spent staring at the backside of some union clubhouse, counting the bricks in the wall and watching the local strays wage a turf war. Nobody was coming, nobody was going, and I was getting thirsty.

I was getting pretty mad, too. Like I said, I figured I’d been had. It wasn’t that I thought the kid had misled me on purpose. If anything, he was too sincere for his own good. Thing is, he was also too damn sure that everything – every problem he couldn’t explain otherwise – was tied up with all that junk he’d read about the plight of the worker. It made no difference to him if he didn’t have much evidence to prove that this person or that one was working for the exploiters instead of the exploited. He had a theory that explained everything, made him feel like he could make sense of the world. I could have told him it didn’t work like that – that people sometimes did things because they were angry, or scared, or for no good reason at all – but he’d got me too drunk. I guess maybe that was my fault.

I think I’d have gone on like that all night – blaming then kid, then myself, and then the kid again – if the back door I’d been staring at for hours hadn’t swung open real slow at about ten minutes to midnight. A fellow stuck his head out. He looked left, looked right. Then he shoved the door open further, stepped outside. Two more followed him, then a third, and then four more. They stood for a while in the light of the bulb burning over the door, talking and smoking and passing around a bottle. I’d have guessed the youngest was maybe forty-five, the oldest something like fifty-seven or fifty-eight. They wore denim, overalls, and boiler-suits. One of them cracked a joke. Eight voices laughed. Eight old men, just like the kid said.

So again, I felt like an idiot. I suppose I had a good reason this time. The people I’d agreed to tail had shown themselves. I just had to wait for the chase to start. It would, of course, any second now. They didn’t all step outside for a breath of fresh air. I leaned forward in my seat, rested my hand on the starter. My back creaked. My neck was killing me. I waited.

An old Ford pulled into the alley a minute or two later. It was a beast, with a flatbed that rattled like it was going to fly apart. It rounded the corner with a squeal and shuddered to a stop just at the mouth of the alley. A skinny kid with a cap pulled down over his eyes hopped out, said something that set the old man laughing again. They took turns slapping him on the back and then piled into the truck. Two grabbed spots in the cab. The other six hauled themselves up into the bed with a lot of cursing and banging around. For a clandestine operation, they didn’t much seem to care about waking the neighbors. But then I guess it was their neighborhood. There was no reason anyone should have paid them any notice in particular.

Whoever was driving was a softer touch than the kid. He eased the truck into first like he knew what he was doing, didn’t rattle the thing half as much. I watched it slid out of view, counted to five, and hit the starter. I could still see the taillights when I pulled out of the alley. They had maybe three car lengths on me. It was midnight on the dot.

I don’t know how long we drove for. The rest of the night, it sort of blends together when I try to remember it. I nearly lost the truck somewhere past Dash Point, I know. It was dark out there without the moon. And then a few times I had to slow to a crawl, let the gang get ahead of me. They didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry. That was fair, I guess. It was the middle of the night. The roads were damn near empty. The air was cool and fresh. I’ve been told that kind of thing makes for an attractive proposition. Personally, I don’t much see the appeal. Fresh air makes me gag.

After Dash Point came Fife Heights, Shore Acres, Swede Hill, and then Burley. They were going for a drive, these fellas. If they hadn’t turned east past Bethel I’d have figured they were making for the border. Canadian whiskey had pretty well lost its appeal after ‘33, but Canadian cigarette were plenty cheap. But that wasn’t their game, turned out. They were headed for a little place just north of Manchester called Orchard Point. You could see it from Alki on a clear day, for what that was worth. There was nothing there but sand, rocks, and a little jetty that nobody used. All the same, that’s where they led me, so that’s where I ended up.

The road skirted the edge of a bay and circled around the outside of a dark, dense wood. I crept along with my lights off. The path ahead forked left and right. The truck took the left, toward the little stretch of beach. There was light coming through the trees, golden like a sunrise. Something was going on out there. Chances were it wasn’t a party by the seashore. I pulled over, cut the engine and slid out from behind the wheel. I’d cover the rest on foot. The pines would do for cover. I just needed to see enough so that Mike wouldn’t think I wasn’t trying to welsh on our deal. He wanted information and he was going to damn well get it.

I kept low, moved from tree to tree. The needles crunched under my shoes in a way I didn’t much like at all. I tried to breathe easy. The light got brighter as I got nearer to the beach. I moved slower, kept my head on a swivel. Then I crested a little hill, saw the sand, the rocks, the jetty, and a whole lot else. The sight nearly made me choke. It sure as hell wasn’t a party, but goddamn it if there weren’t a lot of people down there.

There were maybe a half-dozen trucks on the beach. They were parked in a kind of half-circle with their beds facing the water. A beat-up Hudson was a little ways off, shining its lights on the sand. The old Ford I’d been following was there with the rest. It was empty. The old timers were standing in a knot near the end of the jetty with somebody I couldn’t make out in the dark. I could hear their voices, though, and the sound of the tide, and the wind that shook the boughs over my head.

I heard the dogs, too. There were four of them on chains being held by big, square-shouldered fellows posted between the trucks and the surf. I had a look through my binoculars, pretty quickly wished I hadn’t. These weren’t your garden variety street thugs. They looked like somebody had carved them out of wood. One of them had scars etched into his face like a bear had given him a pat on the cheek. I was pretty sure another used to be a prizefighter who got kicked off the circuit for trying to take a bite of the other guy’s nose. Three more guys who didn’t look much friendlier walked a perimeter about ten feet out. The nearest one was close enough I could count the blood vessels in his nose. All of them carried shotguns.

I should have run the hell out of there. I wanted to, bad. The kid never said anything about anybody being armed. I sure as hell wasn’t. He’d sold me on a surveillance job. This was looking more like wartime espionage, where if they catch you at it you get shot at dawn. I wasn’t about to go to the gallows for no pay and only a promise of information. I was worth more than that. Maybe not a lot more, but I’d be damned if I was going to get myself plugged for something that wasn’t any of my business..

Except I didn’t run, couldn’t. This voice in my ear kept telling me things, making promises and threats. It was a sweet voice, and dark, and sharp. If I walked away now, it said, that would be it. I’d be back to scraping for leads, might never find one again. The case would be over. I could try to explain myself, ask for more time, but why should the client trust me? What had I done to deserve her confidence? No, she’d walk, and be smart to do it. There were other agencies in town – better ones, bigger. Maybe they could help her, maybe they couldn’t, but the point was I’d never see her again. She wouldn’t let me. Girls like her, they didn’t tolerate failure.

I’d got myself so twisted up inside that I actually believed all of this. Mike was the one who’d put me on the tail, but it might as well have been Deirdre. She kept me moving forward. Hell, not even her as much as the promise of her. She could hate my guts, for all I knew. Far as I was concerned, they were her guts to hate if she wanted. I was in a bad way, and knew it. But I couldn’t stop. I was bewitched.   

So I waited, watched, tried damned hard not to light a cigarette. The dark was my friend in this case. So long as I didn’t draw attention to myself they’d never know I was there. Now and then I’d swing the binoculars around, make sure nothing was going on. The old timers were still standing out by the jetty, bumping gums with whoever it was seemed to be running the show. He was a big fella, I could tell that much – square and solid. The other guys had to look up when they spoke to him.     

I damn near had a heart attack when someone down there whistled. Something was coming in on the waves. People pointed, shouted orders. I swallowed, quit hugging the tree in front of me, looked down at whatever it was had got people so excited. It was a boat, of course – a little two-man jobbie lit by lanterns and spitting diesel fumes over the water. The engine chugged and gulped. Then it settled into a putter as it got close. A man stood on the gunwale with a rope, tossed it to one of the card players. He caught it easy and tied it neat to a bollard. Then the driver stepped out behind him, hopped up onto the jetty and shook hands with the big guy in charge. They started talking. Damned if I know what they said, or even what they looked like. The light shining off the water was all I had to go by. They were black shapes, as far as I could tell.

 The old timers waited, laughed, passed around the bottle some more. They seemed in no particular hurry. Then someone whistled again. The boys turned, nodded, tossed their cigarettes, and piled into the boat. That wasn’t okay. I was about to lose them.

I wouldn’t say I panicked. My heartbeat had spiked a while back and pretty much stayed where it was. There didn’t seem to be much I could do, was the thing. I couldn’t swim any better than I could breathe underwater, and I figured there wasn’t a water taxi service operating at that time of night. All I could do was watch them float away and hope they came back. In my defense, it was a pretty safe bet. All that stuff had been assembled down there – the trucks, the dogs, the men, the guns – for more reason than to make an impression on little old me. The flatbeds were going to be loaded with something. If I stuck around long enough I’d get to see what. Maybe I wouldn’t be able to tell Mike exactly where his old men went on Thursday nights, but he’d still end up with a damn sight more than he started with.

The little boat chugged away from the jetty, drifted for a while on the waves, and then bobbed back out into the dark. I watched it go, guessing where it might have been headed. Maybe they were meeting with a ship out there that was anchored in the bay. I could imagine why somebody would play it like that. Moving goods without either Cato or the port authority finding out didn’t leave a lot of options. The trucks seemed to confirm the guess. The old timers were probably there to supervise a bigger crew. Without access to the cranes at the port, the job would come down to strong backs and bale hooks. They’d know how to organize that kind of thing. Like Mike said, they’d been around.   

Where this was all supposed to take place was still a bit hazy. They couldn’t pull the ship straight up to the beach. Somebody would have noticed, even in the dead of night. And anyway, there wasn’t room. They’d be lucky not to run aground. No, they were out there in the dark somewhere. I was sure of that, at least. Probably they weren’t trying to offload the boat on the water. That would have been too awkward to bother with. An island would have done the trick – someplace where they could break things down and repack them, maybe store what they didn’t need right away. Damned if I knew about anyplace nearby that fit the bill, though. Most of my business since coming to the area had been confined to the city. I’d need to look at a map.

The shindig down on the beach had gone quiet again. Two of the fellas walking sentry stopped for a chat and a smoke. One of them said something funny. They laughed liked barking dogs. The pilot of the little boat was still hanging around, too, still talking to the man in charge. I could see the backs of their heads through the binoculars. They were staring out into the dark. One of them – the big one with the shoulders – lit a cigar. A smoky halo flashed around him. A dog barked some ways away. I shivered. The damp was seeping into my bones.

I kept on thinking. It helped to pass the time. Whatever these guys were trying to get into the city, I figured, it must have been pretty damned hot. They didn’t want Cato to know about it, for one thing. It wasn’t clear exactly what that meant. It didn’t take much to get him to look the other way, and only slightly more would buy his partnership. But here it looked like these jokers were going to a hell of a lot of trouble – cloak and dagger, even – to keep what they were doing extremely quiet. I couldn’t begin to work out the overhead on something like that. So either they were stupid or the return on their product made it worth the trouble. That narrowed things down a little. Another couple hours and I might have had the thing sorted.

The boys, god bless them, were generous. They gave me more than a couple. It was three-thirty in the morning when the little boat came back, bobbing over the waves just the same as before. The old timers piled back out again as soon as it slowed enough to tie off at the jetty. Then they started barking orders. They guys in the trucks quit resting their eyes, started the things up and nosed them into a line. The one in front pulled up as close to the water as he could. The driver hopped out, let down the gate. But that was it. The crowd down on the sand bustled around for a few minutes and then stopped like there was something else to wait for. I blinked, looked around the place. The sentries had quit jawing, looked sharp. The dogs started to whine. It felt for a second like I’d missed something important.

I should have guessed it. The boat was too small to carry much more than passengers. They’d have loaded down something bigger. I looked out at the dark again, listened. A barge of some kind slid out of the mist, so low in the water I only caught sight of it when its shuddering engines told me where to look. I raised my binoculars.

The thing was laden down and piled high with crates. They’d had to stretch an old tarpaulin over them to keep everything from shifting. A gang of wharf-rats jumped out as it coasted to a stop behind the motor launch. They hauled in the ropes and pulled back the cover while the old timers jumped in and started manhandling boxes onto hand trucks and directing them into the nearest flatbed on the beach. The driver hopped to it, pitched in along with the barge crew. They had the first one loaded in less than fifteen minutes. The thing rattled away, disappeared down a dim, narrow road out of the woods. The next in line took its place. The process started over.

It went on like that, with me watching from behind my tree. I took note of all the details I could. It looked like a scene straight out of Prohibition. Chances were, though, whatever was in the crates was worth a hell of a lot more than bootleg rum. They looked ordinary enough, though. I couldn’t make out any stencils or shipping labels. They were heavy, I could say. The boys were working up a sweat. That could have been because of how fast they were going, of course. In forty-five minutes they had three trucks done. In forty-five more they were clear and away.

The last of them paused before swinging out onto the road for Manchester as one of the old men hopped up on the running boards to have a word with the driver. I figured I ought to take advantage, see if I could get Mike a licence plate number. There were only two goons left down on the beach. Three had gotten into one of the trucks as it rattled away. A fourth was helping the barge crew stash the tarpaulin and haul in the ropes. I thought I was safe.

So this next bit was at least partly on me, is what I’m saying.

I don’t know who fired, and I don’t know how long it took me to scramble to my feet and get a move on. I guess it doesn’t matter. They missed, is the point, and I didn’t feel like sticking around while they corrected for windage. The first shot hit a tree on my right, sent splinters flying. The second hit the one I’d been hiding behind. I was a ways away by then, thank God, but I could still feel the force of it in the air behind me. I kept my head down, ran like hell for the car.

It was a miracle I found it in the dark. Call it the last lucky break I can remember. Because then the engine coughed and sputtered a couple of times without turning over. I cursed, slapped the dash. Getting the thing rolling was only half the battle, of course. I needed a plan, a place to hide, and something to calm my nerves. All I had was fear and most of a tank of gas. I made the best of it. The Nash eventually jogged to life like corpse being raised from the dead. I threw her into gear, pulled a hard left, and made tracks.

The trees on either side of the road were like these black, ragged giants standing rank on rank, reaching out to grab me with their long, spindly arms. I drove, hands sweat-slick on the wheel, flying over ruts in the gravel that threatened to shake the car to pieces. All the while my heart pounded like it was trying to escape from my chest. I kept my eyes on the rear-view in case a pair of headlights appeared round the bend. If one showed up in front I’d have been dead. I was going too fast to turn around without flipping the car on its side. It was forward or nothing.

            Five minutes of pell-mell terror and I hit the outskirts of the town. Manchester, I guess it was. I didn’t stop to ask. It was mostly houses, with a library and a little waterfront to give it some flavor. The place was quiet, dark, deserted. Street lamps that looked like Edison had put them in himself winked and flickered like gas lights. I slowed down, pulled into a residential side street full of sweet little bungalows like something out of a picture postcard.

Most people seemed to be home for the season – car in the driveway, milk bottles on the stoop. My heart beat louder in my ears. Either someone was on vacation or I was a dead man. It’d only be a matter of time before the hoods came by that way. I didn’t want to be the only car on the street about as much as I didn’t want to drive all damn night. Thank God I managed to find a little two storey in light blue with dark windows and no car. I slid the Nash home as easy as I could manage, cut the engine, and threw myself on the floor.

Trying to make myself part of the scenery seemed about the smartest thing I could do. If the goons from down on the beach really did swing by that way, they’d see nothing out of the ordinary. So they’d keep going, thinking I must have pulled way out ahead somehow. That was the idea, anyway. It was also possible that they knew the town better than I did, could pick out a car that didn’t belong. They’d have me cold in that case. There was no way I could get out of there in one piece with them and their guns right on top of me. All the same, I figured it still beat trying to sprint all the way home.

So I lay there, staring up at the underside of the glovebox. It was three or four hours until dawn. I closed my eyes, tried to relax. The bay was close enough that I could hear the waves licking at the shore. Listening to that near put me to sleep. Exhaustion did the rest. They could kill me for all I cared as long as they let me sleep.

I dreamt of a marble statue of a goddess. She came down off her pedestal, beckoned me close. Her touch was cold but her breath was hot in my ear. She whispered something. I can’t remember what it was. Then the world dropped out from under me. The goddess laughed.

It was the postman that woke me, tapping on my window glass. I think he wanted a word. I didn’t. The car started without any fuss. I backed her out, aimed for the city. It felt like I’d slept on a pile of wrenches. I needed coffee, bourbon, a shower, and a cigarette. I’d trade the rest for the bourbon if it came down to it. Then I’d have to see a man about a card game. Whether he’d want to see me was up to him.

In the merciless light of day the whole deal looked pretty rotten. If Mike really was in town to help tighten up Cato’s operation, sending me off to get clipped was pretty far from the dumbest thing he might have done. Cato had taken me on to keep me finding out something he didn’t want found. It was a smart move, but not a clean one. I work for money. You pay me more than the last guy and now I work for you. That makes me a risk. So Mike gets wind, points me in the direction of something he thinks I’m not likely to survive. They like closed shops, these union hacks. I guess I see their point.

I didn’t want that to be true, of course. I liked the kid. He talked like he believed the things he was saying. That’s a damn rare quality in my experience. I’d rather it wasn’t a put-on. Of course I’d rather he hadn’t sent me to my death, too, but I wasn’t prepared to hold that against him. Maybe he really hadn’t known what it was he was asking me to do. He had a problem that he couldn’t deal with on his own, some guy comes along who seems like he’s got the chops to take care of it, and so he puts two and two together. There was nothing unreasonable about that, or suspicious. I was just being paranoid.

Anyhow, Mike and I were due for a chin wag just as soon as I got myself squared away. Either he’d be happy to see me or he’d pretend to be. I was pretty good at spotting the difference when I knew to look for it. I couldn’t say what would happen next, but in the moment I was pretty sure I’d know what to do. Strategy isn’t my strong suit, you see, but I can be pretty damn decisive when I’m backed into a corner. It’s one of my better qualities.

I didn’t bother checking around corners for any talking gorillas when I finally got to my building. I didn’t expect to find a pretty girl waiting outside my door, either. They could all go to hell as far as I was concerned. I was too goddamn tired and it was too goddamn early. Once I was safe in my apartment – and by that I guess I mean within arm’s-length of decent hooch – I shrugged off my coat, drained the nearest bottle, and fell over in a heap. It was a lucky break nobody had broken in and shifted the mattress. Sleeping on the floor plays merry hell with my back.

It was still early when I rolled out of bed and managed to miss the rug. All the same, I’d got most of what I needed. That shower I’d promised myself did the rest, along with two cups of black coffee and a Lucky that I smoked like someone was going to take it away from me. I lit a second, tried to savor it a little, and walked to the table where I kept the phone.

I found the number Mike had given me at the bottom of my jacket pocket, under a matchbook and the cap from a bottle of drug store bourbon. I figured I had no reason not to try it. If it was a phony, that’d tell me something. I wouldn’t be happy about it, but that’s how that goes. The operator sounded like she’d rather I hadn’t bothered her. I think she was trying not to fall for me. That happens to me with operators. They all end up crazy about me and act like they’re not. I try to take it in stride.

The girl rang the number I gave her. I lit a third cigarette while I waited. Nothing happened. Eventually my lady friend came back on the line, said there didn’t appear to be anyone home. I told her I wouldn’t take it personal and asked her to ring up another one.

“Certainly, sir,” she said when I spelled out the second number. “One moment, please.” Like I said, she found me irresistible.

Someone picked up after one ring. It was Cato’s man Marcus. He sounded pretty relaxed.

“Yeah?” he said.

“You said I should call this number if I needed anything,” I said. “So this is me, calling.”

I heard someone snap a lighter. A chair squealed. “Right,” said Marcus. “The private op. How’s tricks?”

“Tricks is fine,” I said. “She sends her love. You in a position to do me a favor?”

“Probably,” the man said. “What’s up?”

I hesitated a second before deciding what to tell him. It was possible that if Mike was against me Marcus was, too. They were both supposed to be looking out for the organization’s best interests. It wouldn’t have come as a shock if they both saw me as a threat. Marcus came off like a friendly sort of guy, but what the hell did that mean? Shakespeare said something about men’s smiles being sharp. He was usually pretty smart about stuff like that.

But Marcus was pretty smart, too. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy to let himself get sweet-talked into going behind the boss’s back by some moony-eyed kid. He knew why I was there, why Cato thought to bring me in. Maybe I didn’t know him well enough to say that, but I felt like I knew his type. Guys like Marcus are about the job. They’ll move illegal smokes, narcotics, pinball machines, dirty books. They’re in it for a buck, or because the straight life doesn’t interest them. Fellow like that knows paranoia is bad for business.

            “You know a guy named Farragut?” I said. I’d decided to trust him as much as he’d trust me. That meant I’d tell him as much as he needed to know so he could help me and keep the rest of it to myself.

            Marcus sniffed. Then I heard him inhale, draw on a smoke. He held it a while. I guess he was thinking.

            “Mike,” he said eventually. “Sure. The kid from out east.”

            “The same,” I said. “Know where I can find him?”

            The man chuckled. “Aww, hey,” he said. “You make a new friend?”

            I shrugged. “The kid asked me for a favor,” I said. “Being as I’m the agreeable type, I told him I’d help him out. Now I’m just looking to collect, is all.”

            “Sure,” said Marcus, “I follow. You know he’s just going to take credit for whatever it is he talked you into doing for him, yeah?” He didn’t sound much bothered. He never did.

            “So long as he coughs up what he promised, he can have it,” I said. “I just need help tracking him down.”

            Marcus laughed again. “Fair enough,” he said. “Gimme a second.”

            I heard a drawer open, pages turn. Marcus muttered to himself. I waited, finished my cigarette, reminded myself again that I needed to buy more.

            The line crackled. Marcus was juggling the receiver. “Right,” he said. “We got him staying in a little apartment above a machine shop. Cato’s idea, you know. Lease agreement on the place is in the name of Freddy Engels. How’s that for a laugh? Anyway, it’s 928 First Ave, South. You got that?”

            I scribbled down the address on a pad I kept next to the phone. “Yeah,” I said. “I got it.”

            A book shut, then a drawer, then Marcus got up close on the mouthpiece again. “Go up the back way, yeah? Someone will stop you, or they damn well better. Tell them I sent you to check on the kid, make sure he’s washing behind his ears. That work for you?”

            “It should,” I said. “Thanks.”

            “No trouble,” said Marcus. “Send Tricks my love back, huh?”

            He hung up. I thanked the operator, told her it just wouldn’t work between us. She took it standing up.

I was out the door after a third cup of coffee. It was raining still. It felt like it’d never stop. I could almost imagine that this was what we could expect from now until the end of time. Everything looked slick, and wilted, and rotten. The guy making change at the newsstand where I buy my smokes made a remark about it, asked what we’d done to deserve such crummy weather. I didn’t answer. It would have taken too long.

The building Marcus sent me was this big, square pile of bricks out by the docks. The walls were the color of fresh mud. A sign painted on the side facing the corner named the current tenants as Craign & Co. Tools. Couldn’t say how they figured into Cato’s business. Maybe they didn’t. If Mr. Craigin was like every other captain of industry in this town, he’d as soon see the unions hanged as give them the time of day. The boys in the shop were more likely the connection. They could’ve let Cato know there was a place above them for rent on real short notice, even promised to act as security when the rooms were occupied. These working types are all in it together, they say.

I angled the Nash onto the avenue that ran behind the building and parked her a few blocks down. The neighborhood was full of warehouses and loading docks. Box trucks and flatbeds filled most of the curb-side real estate. I walked back up the block in the rain. The cigarette between my lips kept me warm as best it could.

The jagged line of an iron fire escape ran up the back of the building. Below that, on the ground floor, were three rollup doors with the company name painted on them. A smaller door was set between the first and second. The lamp that burned above it buzzed and flickered in the rain. A man was standing there smoking a cigar, just in the shade of a narrow ledge over the door. My eyes started to water the closer I got. The cheroot smelled like a fire in a carpet factory.

It suited him, at least. He had on a stained yellow shirt and a pair of grey canvas overalls covered in grease. His hair was greasy, too, and parted in the middle like a schoolboy’s. He glared up me as I came up the street with eyes like a couple of fried eggs.

 “Evening,” I said when I mounted the curb. “Beautiful weather, ain’t it?”

The man puffed out his cheeks and blew a cloud of smoke in my direction. Then he snorted, spat on the pavement, and jammed the cigar in the corner of his mouth.

“Beat it, shitbird,” he said.

I decided not to take it personally. From the look of him he had reason to be antisocial. I couldn’t picture someone who’d want to count him as a friend. The smell was nearly enough to put a fellow off his drink.

“Sorry, pal,” I said, “Can’t do it. Marcus sent me to look in on the kid. He’s still here, ain’t he?”

The fellow scowled, spat again. It left a streak on the pavement the color of old leather. Then he nodded and wrinkled his nose some.

“Yeah,” he said, “He’s here. Been since last night and hasn’t left yet today.”

I nodded, twitched my shoulders. I was still standing in the rain. The man with the cheroot was blocking the door. I shifted from foot to foot, looked up at him. He kept glaring.

“Bent the elbow once too many, did he?” I said. Not my best material, Lord knows, but it seemed like one of us had to say something.

The doorman wasn’t impressed. He stared down at me and puffed out more smoke. “Sure as shit don’t know,” he said. “Sure as shit don’t care. Kid ain’t been nothing but a pain in the ass.”

I smiled a little – couldn’t help myself. “Yeah,” I said, nodding some more, “He is that. But all the same, you know, we’re hosting him. Can’t let it get out we ain’t kind to people.”

The man shook his big, square head. “Yeah?” he said. “I don’t guess I care what gets out. You just tell him to mind what the fuck he says to me.”

I flicked away the last of my cigarette. The ashes made a bright little spiral as the thing pin-wheeled into the gutter. “Sure, I’ll tell him,” I said. “I’ll tell him right now.”

A cough followed another snort. The man shook his head, looked at me bitterly. Then he turned, jerked a bandaged thumb at the door over his shoulder.

“Top of the stairs,” he said. “Last door on the left.”

            I tipped my hat to the man, stepped up to his level and pulled open the door. “Thanks, chum,” I said. “Stay safe out there.”

            The man’s back was to me. He raised a finger. I took it for an appropriate send-off.

            The door led to a stairwell, led to a hallway, led to another door. The walls up there were bare plaster, split by cracks and worn down to the lath. Two bulbs hung from wires in the ceiling and the floor creaked under my feet when I walked. The damp air stank of grease and burning tin.

I knocked on the door I’d been told to. Nothing happened. Not too surprising, I figured, if the kid was on the beam end the night before. So I knocked again, listened. I could hear the shop sounds from downstairs – squealing and grinding and pounding, like – but that was it. I made a fist, gave the door a good wack this time. The boy was starting to worry me.

“C’mon, kid, open up,” I said. “The neighbors are going to start talking.”

Still, Mike didn’t answer. My guts started to clench. I reached for the knob, gave it a twist. It wasn’t locked. I looked over my shoulder a moment – up the hall, down the hall – and gave a little push. The door swung upon on hinges that screeched like alley cats. I took a breath, stepped inside.

It was even darker in the apartment than out in the hall. The faint light painted a square on the wood floor from the bottom of the doorframe to the corner of a ratty rug and one arm of an overstuffed sofa. I fumbled for a light switch on the wall and couldn’t find one. The air smelled stale, almost cooked, but with a slight metallic tang to it. My nose twitched.

I stepped forward, squinting into the dark. I could make out another doorframe in front of me – the bedroom, I figured – and a recess in the wall to the right where the kitchen must have been. My feet scraped on floorboards as I turned, arms out like a blind man. There was the rest of the sofa I’d seen coming in, maybe a radio next to it, and table at the other end with a lamp. I made for that, praying I wouldn’t trip on the phone cord.

            “Seriously, kid,” I said, “You in here, or what? I’m not in the mood to play hide and seek.”

            It took me a minute to cross the room. The table was farther away than I thought. My foot found it first, then my knee, and then my hands. I felt around for the base of the lamp. There was an ashtray here, some empty bottles there, and a telephone that someone had left off the hook. I fumbled some more, tried not to knock anything over. Eventually I found the thing. My fingers danced up the neck and snapped on the switch. Light blasted my eyes before I knew to look away.

            I blinked away the glare, rubbed my eyes, and looked back over my shoulder at the open door. Then I blinked again, tried to swallow past the tightness in my throat. I’d found Mike.

            He was sitting in a green club chair against the wall, legs wide and arms in his lap. His head was thrown back, showing an Adam’s apple like a knot in the limb of tree. I might have convinced myself he’d fallen asleep like that if his eyes weren’t wide open. The screwdriver sticking out of his chest was the next thing that clued me in. The kid wasn’t dreaming. The kid was dead.

            I stepped towards him real slow and careful, like there was still some chance I might wake him. The thing – the murder weapon, they’d say in court – was sunk between his ribs up to the handle. Blood had soaked through the front of his shirt in a patch the size of a dinner plate. A bit more of the stuff had pooled in the corner of his mouth and dripped down his chin. I’ll say he looked fine, otherwise. Sure, he was a pit paler than I’d seen him last, but there weren’t any bruises on him I could see, no cuts or scrapes like a person would get while defending themselves. He’d been caught unexpected.

            I stood over the kid a while, just staring down into those lifeless eyes. My chest felt like it was in a vice. I’d seen death before. I don’t suppose you can grow up in Cook County and expect to avoid it. But this felt different. Mike was dead because of me. It was silly of me to think that, I know. He was in a dangerous line of work. There were probably a hundred people between Boston and San Francisco who’d have liked to button that lip of his for keeps. But for some reason I just knew this was my doing. He talked to me for the first and only time in his life and ended up dead within twenty-four hours. So I was only less toxic than cyanide or arsenic.

            My line of thinking got worse from there. I remembered everybody else I’d talked to that week. Some, if I’m being honest, I figured I could take or leave. Captain Stone and the Medical Examiner, Carruthers, were nothing to me. Calder was okay, but I wouldn’t have said we were close. I might have put Mr. Lee on the list if I was sure he wasn’t the one responsible. I didn’t know that he was, for that matter, but it seemed like the kind of job he’d pull.

            And then I came to Deirdre. I always did when I got to thinking. I’d talked to her three times so far, publically or semi-publically. Anybody watching my office or my apartment would know she’d been there. Anybody watching her house would know I’d returned the favor. For all I knew that meant she was as good as dead. My chest felt squeezed again. My breath came out in a rush. I had to call her. I looked back at the phone on the side table. The receiver was still nestled between an empty Canadian Club bottle and a crumpled pack of Chesterfields.

            Thank God I remembered where the hell I was before I did something stupid. The kid was dead and I was standing in his living room. If it was supposed to be a setup, the cops would have been on the way before I even got there. I had to get the hell out, make like I’d never seen or heard of Mike Farragut.

            Thing is, that was easier said than done. Looking down at the kid a last time before bolting, I remembered why it was I’d agreed to help him out in the first place. He was loud and obnoxious. He thought he was the smartest person in whatever room he was in. Hell, he pulled for the Braves. But damn it if he didn’t care about things. I forget sometimes I used to be like that. Maybe seeing the kid cut down was a good reminder of why I’d given it up. All the same, I’d have preferred to be wrong this once.

I wiped everything down before making my exit. Mostly that amounted to just the lamp, the doorknob, and the wall by the door. Then I sealed the place up and made for the stairs. The hall was still as empty, and dark, and quiet as I’d left it, but the smell was different. It didn’t reek of hot metal anymore. It stank of blood. It was my imagination, I’m sure, but I’ll be damned if I could shake it. It followed me out the door past where the doorman had been standing, down the street to my car, and all the way home. 

Next Chapter: Lies and Common Knowledge