Lawrence Block - When the Sacred Ginmill Closes

"You figure the box was that heavy? What do you figure it held?"

Skip shrugged."Twenty grand."

"Seriously?"

"Twenty grand, fifty grand, pick a number."

"IRA money, you were saying earlier."

"Well, what else do you figure they spend it on, Bill? I don't know what they take in but they do a nice business seven days a week and where's the overhead? They probably got the building for back taxes, and they live in half of it, so they got no rent to pay and no real payroll to come up with. I'm sure they don't report any income or pay any taxes, unless they pretend that playhouse on the ground floor shows a profit and pay a token tax on that. They have to be dragging ten or twenty grand a week out of that place and what do you think they spend it on?"

"They have to pay off to stay open," I put in.

"Payoffs and political contributions, of course, but not ten or twenty K aweek's worth. And they don't drive big cars, and they never go out and spend a dollar in somebody else's joint. I don't see Tim Pat buying emeralds for some sweet young thing, or his brothers putting grams of coke up their Irish noses."

"Up your Irish nose," Billie Keegan said.

"I liked Tim Pat's little speech, and then buying a round. Far as I know, that's the first time theMorrisseys ever set 'emup for the house."

"Fucking Irish," Billie said.

"Jesus, Keegan, you're drunk again."

"Praisebe to God, you're right."

"What do you think, Matt? Did Tim Pat recognize Frank and Jesse?"

I thought about it. "I don't know. What he was saying added up to 'Keep out of this and we'll settle it ourselves.' Maybe it was political."

"Fucking-A right," Billie said. "The Reform Democrats were behind it."

"Maybe Protestants," Skip said.

"Funny," Billie said. "They didn't look Protestant."

"Or some other IRA faction.There's different factions, aren't there?"

"Of course you rarely see Protestants with handkerchiefs over their faces," Billie said. "They usually tuck them in the breast pocks, the breast pockets-"

"Jesus, Keegan."

"Fucking Protestants," Billie said.

"Fucking Billie Keegan," Skip said. "Matt, we better walk this asshole home."

"Fucking guns," Billie said, back on that track suddenly. "Go out for a nightcap and you're surrounded by fucking guns. You carry a gun, Matt?"

"Not me, Billie."

"Really?"He put a hand on my shoulder for support. "But you're a cop."

"Used to be."

"Private cop now.Even the rent-a-cop, security guard in a bookstore, guy tells you to check your briefcase on the way in, he's got a gun."

"They're generally just for show."

"You mean I won't get shot if I walk off with the Modern Library edition of The Scarlet Letter? You shouldof told me before I went and paid for it. You really don't carry a gun?"

"Another illusion shattered," Skip said.

"What about your buddy the actor?" Billie demanded of him. "Is little Bobby a gunslinger?"

"Who,Ruslander?"

"He'd shoot you in the back," Billie said.

"IfRuslander carried a gun," Skip said, "it'd be a stage prop. It'd shoot blanks."

"Shoot you in the back," Billie insisted. "Likewhatsisname, Bobby the Kid."

"You mean Billy the Kid."

"Who are you to tell me what I mean? Does he?"

"Does he what?"

"Pack a piece, for Christ's sake. Isn't that what we've been talking about?"

"Jesus, Keegan, don't ask me what we've been talking about."

"You mean you weren't paying attention either?Jeezus."

BILLIE Keegan lived in a high-rise on Fifty-sixth near Eighth. He straightened up as we approached his building and appeared sober enough when he greeted the doorman. "Matt, Skip," he said. "See you guys."

"Keegan's all right," Skip told me.

"He's a good man."

"Not as drunk as he pretended, either. He was just riding it, enjoying himself."

"Sure."

"We keep a gun behind the bar at Miss Kitty's, you know. We got held up, the place I used to work before John and I opened up together. I was behind the stick in this place onSecond Avenue in theEighties, guy walked in, white guy, stuck a gun in my face and got the money from the register.Held up the customers, too. Only have five, six people in the joint at the time, but he took wallets off of them. I think he took their watches too, if I remember it right.Class operation."

"Sounds it."

"All the time I was being a hero inNam, fucking Special Forces, I never had to stand and look at the wrong end of a gun. I didn't feel anything while it was going on, but later I felt angry, you know what I mean? I was in a rage. Went out, bought a gun, ever since then it's been with me whenI been working. At thatjoint, and now in Miss Kitty's. I still think we should have called it Horseshoes and Hand Grenades."

"You got a permit for it?"

"The gun?"He shook his head. "It's not registered. You worksaloons, you don't have too much trouble knowing where to go to buy a gun. I spent two days asking around and on the third day I was a hundred dollars poorer. We got robbed once since we opened the place. John wasworking, he left the gun right where it was and handed over whatever was in the till. He didn't rob the customers. John figured he was a junkie, said he didn't even think of the gun until the guy was out the door. Maybe, or maybe he thought of it and decided against it. I probably would have done the same thing, or maybe not. You don't really know until it happens, do you?"

"No."

"You really haven't had a piece since you quit the cops? They say after a guy gets in the habit he feels naked without it."

"Not me. I felt like I laid down a burden."

"Oh,lawdie,I'segwine lay my burden down. Like you lightened up some, huh?"

"Somethinglike that."

"Yeah.He didn't mean anything, incidentally.Talking about ricochets."

"Huh?Oh, Tommy."

"Tough TommyTillary.Something of an asshole, but not a bad guy. Tough Tommy, it's like calling a big guy Tiny. I'm sure he didn't mean anything."

"I'm sure you're right."

"Tough Tommy.There's something else they call him."

"Telephone Tommy."

"Or Tommy Telephone, right.He sells shit over the phone. I didn't think grown men did that. I thought it was for housewives and they wind up making thirty-five cents an hour."

"I gather it can be lucrative."

"Evidently.You saw the car. We all saw the car. We didn't get to see her open the door for him, but we got to see the car. Matt, you want to come up and have one more before we call it a day? I got scotch andbourbon, I probably got some food in the fridge."

"I think I'll just get on home, Skip. But thanks."

"I don't blame you." He drew on his cigarette. He lived at theParc Vendome, across the street and a few doors west of my hotel. He threw his cigarette away and we shook hands, and five or six shots sounded a block or so from us.

"Jesus," he said. "Was that gunfire or half a dozen little firecrackers? Could you say for sure?"

"No."

"Neither could I. Probably firecrackers, considering what day it is. Or theMorrisseys caught up with Frank and Jesse, or I don't know what. This is the second, right? July second?"

"I guess so."

"Gonnabe some summer," he said.

All of this happened a long time ago.

It was the summer of '75, and in a larger context it seems in memory to have been a season in which nothing very important happened. Nixon's resignation had been a year earlier, and the coming year would bring the convention and the campaigns, the Olympics, the Bicentennial.

Meanwhile Ford was in the White House, his presence oddly comforting if not terribly convincing. A fellow named AbeBeame was inGracieMansion, although I never had the feeling he really believed he was mayor ofNew York, any more than Gerry Ford believed he was president of theUnited States of America.