was just a short walk from the docks—but it was not just a nautical bar. There was a big boxing bell on the wall behind the bar; when they tapped a new keg, the bell was loudly clanged and the beer lovers came running, sometimes from down the street. Best German-style brew in New York City. The walls of the dusty, cavelike bar were decorated with worn-out boxing gloves, frayed ropes from rings, black-and-white photos of old-time boxers going back to John L. Sullivan. He had a bartender, an old Irish lush named Mulrooney, working down at the other end. But Gorland liked to work the bar so he could hear the talk. Good for his bookmaking action, and you never know how it might fit the next grift.
The talk at the crowded bar tonight was full of how Joe Louis, the Brown Bomber, back from the war with a pocketful of nothing and a big tax debt, was going to defend his world heavyweight title against Billy Conn. And how the retired Jack Johnson, first Negro to win the heavyweight champ title, had died two days before in a car accident. None of which was what Gorland needed to know. But there were a couple of guys here who’d have the skinny on the up-and-comer Neil Steele versus the fading boxing-circuit bum Charlie Wriggles.
Gorland had heard a rumor that Steele might be throwing the fight, and he had a theory about how that information might pay off—way past the usual payoff. Only, Gorland needed more assurance that Steele was taking the fall…
Gorland hated bartending because it was actual physical work. A great grifter should never have to do real work. But he wiped down the bar, made small talk; he served a beer, and cocked an ear.
The jukebox was finishing a rollicking Duke Ellington number, and in the brief interval before it switched over to an Ernie “Bubbles” Whitman big-band cut, Gorland zeroed in on the conversation of the two wise guys in the white ties and pinstripes whispering over their Sambocas. He wiped at an imaginary spill on the bar, edging closer. “But can we count on Steele?” said the one some called Twitchy. He twitched his pencil-thin mustache. “Thinks he’s going to challenge the Bomber next year…”
“So let him challenge; he can lose one fight. He needs the payoff, needs it big,” said the chunkier one of the two, “Snort” Bianchi—with a snort. Bianchi scowled, seeing the bartender hanging around too nearby. “Hey bartender—there’s a broad over there trying to get a drink, how’s about you fuck off and serve ’er!”
“I’m the owner here, gents,” Gorland said, smiling. “You want to come back in here, show some respect for the establishment.” Wasn’t good to let these greasers get the upper hand.
Bianchi frowned but only shrugged.
Gorland leaned closer to the wise guys, adding in a murmur, “Psst. Maybe you better take a powder if these feds are looking for you…” He nodded toward the door where an FBI flatfoot by the name of Voss stood in his gray snap-brim and overcoat, glaring about with his piggish little eyes. He looked about as “undercover” as the Statue of Liberty.
The wise guys slipped out the back way as the federal agent made his way to the bar. He was reaching into his coat when Gorland said, “Don’t bother with the badge, Voss, I remember you.” He didn’t want badges flashed anywhere near him if he could avoid it.
Voss shrugged and dropped his hand. He leaned across the bar so he could be heard over the noise. “Word on the street is, this here’s your joint now.”
“That’s right,” Gorland said evenly. “Lock, stock, and leaky barrels.”
“What you calling yourself now? Gorland still?”
“My name’s Frank Gorland, you know that.”
“That’s not the name you had when we tried to connect you to that interstate bookmaking operation.”
“You wanta see my birth certificate?”
“Our man’s already seen it. Says maybe it was forged.”
“Yeah? But he’s not sure? Not much of an expert, if he doesn’t know for sure.”
Voss snorted. “You got that right… You going to offer me a drink or not?”
Gorland shrugged. Decided not to make a smart remark about drinking on duty. “Bourbon?”
“Good guessin’.”
Gorland poured the G-man a double. “You didn’t come in here to cadge drinks.”
“You got that right too.” He took down a slug, grimaced appreciatively, and went on, “I figure you’re gonna hear stuff in a place like this. You give me something now and then—we might lay off finding out who the hell you really are.”
Gorland chuckled. But he felt a chill. He didn’t want his past poked into. “If I tip you, it’ll be because I’m a good citizen. No other reason. Anything special going on?”
Voss crooked a finger, leaned even farther across the bar. Gorland hesitated—then he leaned close. Voss spoke right in his ear. “You hear anything about some kind of big, secret project happening down at the docks? Maybe bankrolled by Andrew Ryan? North Atlantic project? Millions of bucks flowing out to sea…?”
“Nah,” Gorland said. He hadn’t heard about it—but the millions of bucks and the name Andrew Ryan got his attention. “I hear anything, Voss, I’ll tell you. What kinda deal’s he up to?”
“That’s something we don’t… something you don’t need to know.”
Gorland straightened up. “You’re killing my back, here, with this. Listen, I gotta make it look like… you know.” He’d been seen talking to the fed a little too chummily.
Voss nodded, just slightly. He understood.
“Listen, flatfoot!” Gorland shouted, as the jukebox changed records. “You won’t find out anything from me! Now charge me with something or buzz outta my place!”
Some of the customers laughed; some grinned and nodded. Voss shrugged. “You better watch your step, Gorland!” He turned and walked out. Playing his part.
Only he was going to find out, one of these days, that “Frank Gorland” wasn’t going to play along with anything the feds wanted. He’d feed them some hooey—and find out for himself what Andrew Ryan was up to. That kind of money—must be some way to tap into it…
Especially as this was Frank Gorland’s territory. He was owed.
He didn’t hear anything about Ryan for a couple of days, but one day he heard a drunk blond chippie muttering about “Mr. Fatcat Ryan… goddamn him…” as she frantically waved her empty glass at him.
“Hey wherezmuh drinkie?” demanded the blonde.
“What’ll you have, darlin’?”
“What’ll I have, he sez!” the frowsy blonde slurred, flipping a big, mussed curl out of her eyes. Her eye shadow had run from crying. She was a snub-nosed little thing but might be worth a roll in the hay. Only the last time he’d banged a drunk she’d thrown up all over him. “I’ll have a Scotch if I can’t have my man back,” she sobbed, “that’s what I’ll have! Dead, dead, dead, and no one from that Ryan crew is saying why.”
Gorland tried out his best look of sympathy. “Lost your man, didja? That’ll get you a big one on the house, sweet cakes.” He poured her a double Scotch.
“Hey, spritz some goddamn soda in there, whatya think, I’m a lush ’cause I take a free drink?”
“Soda it is, darlin’, there you go.” He waited as she drank down half of it in one gulp. The sequins were coming off the shoulder straps of her secondhand silver-blue gown, and one of her bosoms was in danger of flopping out of the decolletage. He could see a little tissue sticking up.
“I just want my Irving back,” she said, her head sagging down over the drink. Lucky the song coming on the juke was a Dorsey and Sinatra crooner, soft enough he could make her out. “Jus’ wannim back.” He absentmindedly poured a couple more drinks for the sailors at her side, their white caps cocked rakishly as they argued over bar dice and tossed money at him.
“What became of the unfortunate soul?” Gorland asked, pocketing the money and wiping the bar. “Lost at sea was he?”
She gawped at him. “How’d you know that, you a mind reader?”
Gorland winked. “A little fishy told me.”
She put a finger to one side of her nose and gave him an elaborate wink back. “So you heard about Ryan’s little fun show! My Irving shipped out with hardly a g’bye, said he had to do some kinda diving for them Ryan people. That was where he got his lettuce, see, what they call deep-sea diving. Learned it in the navy salvage. They said it’d be pennies from heaven, just a month at sea doing some kinda underwater buildin’, and—”
“Underwater building? You mean like pylons for a dock?”
“I dunno. But I tell ya, he came back the first time real spooked, wouldn’t talk about it. Said it was much as his life was worth to talk, see? But he tol’ me
