backroom poker game, three tables' worth, stirred up some profitable dust. Today McFarlin had hauled in better than six hundred bucks from the various payoffs from other bars, and handbooks, along the unsavory circuit he'd been working.
He was not worried about being jackrolled. He had a shiv in his pocket, and a. 38 in his car, in the glove box where he stashed the money after each pickup. He kept the car locked up, parked in front of each collection spot. Nobody bothered it, or him. He was known on the streets he worked. Known as muscle for the sheriff and the mob.
He looked sleepy-eyed and doughy-faced and beer-bellied, but he had killed men with his hands, and people around here knew it.
It wouldn't have been such a bad dodge if the money were his to keep. But he was just the lousy goddamn bagman. He sipped his beer. He was glad this was the last stop. Late afternoon, and if he didn't shake a leg, he'd be tripping over the fake cripples and real perverts who swarmed around this smelly barrelhouse come evening.
'One more, Bob?'
McFarlin shook his head no to bullet-headed, cigar-smoking Steve, back of the bar, and was about to step away from the rail when a guy in shirtsleeves and a bow tie came in.
Tall, rangy, with curly, dark-blond hair peeking out from under a straw fedora, the guy looked familiar to McFarlin. He had a sharp-featured, sarcastic face, his mouth sneering around the cigarette dangling there, jacket slung over his arm.
He did not belong here. He looked clean and wore a seersucker suit. Guys who worked in steel mills did not wear seersucker suits, McFarlin knew-shrewd detective that he was.
Even if he didn't belong here, the guy moved with an easy confidence. He ambled down toward McFarlin's end of the bar and filled the space between the deputy and a bored-looking, stubbly-faced, out-of-work working stiff who'd been nursing the same beer for half an hour.
Now McFarlin looked closer and saw that the tall man had a notebook and pencil in one hand.
McFarlin said, 'Another,' and Steve nodded, looking with narrow eyes at the stranger in seersucker.
When Steve brought the beer to McFarlin, the stranger spun a silver dollar on the bar. Everybody standing at the bar looked at it hungrily. When it stopped spinning and clattered to a standstill, the guy said, 'Just a beer. Keep the change.'
Steve took the silver dollar, eyes narrowing even more. 'Keep the change' was not something heard much in a joint like this.
'My name is Sam Wild,' the guy said when Steve brought the beer, and McFarlin recognized the name, or anyway, the byline. This guy was a reporter, with the Plain Dealer.
'I'm a reporter,' he said. 'With the Plain Dealer.'
Steve looked at him blankly; his mouth was slack-it seemed a trick that the cigar didn't tumble out.
'I wonder if you'd mind a few questions.'
Steve shrugged. He leaned back against the counter behind him. Found a dirty rag with which to polish a glass.
'I understand Florence Polillo used to come in here.'
'That's right,' Steve said. His voice was husky, but a little high-pitched.
'What can you tell me about her?'
'She don't come in here no more.'
The reporter grinned, drew on his cigarette. 'I guess not. Getting hacked to pieces cuts down on a girl's social life.'
Steve polished the glass, getting it dirtier.
'Was she hooking?'
Steve said, 'This is a reputable place mister.'
The reporter glanced around, smirking, taking in the sawdust and smoke. 'What could I have been thinking of?' He dug for something in a pocket of the jacket folded over his arm.
It was a mug shot, side and front photographs of a pleasant if vacant-looking, jug-eared young man.
'Ever see this guy before?'
Steve, without moving closer to have a good look, glanced at the photo the reporter was thrusting forward. He said, 'No.'
'You sure?'
'No.'
'No? You mean you aren't sure?'
'I mean no I ain't ever seen him. You spent your dollar, mister.'
'I'll spend more, if you got the right answers.' He spoke up, working his voice above the sound of the exhaust fan in the ceiling. 'That's a standing offer, if any of you gents would care to take a look at the photo.'
'Fuck you,' the stubbly-faced guy next to the reporter said.
But the guy on the other side of him reached for the photo and it was passed down the bar. The half dozen men present all had a look, but passed it back, without a word.
'His name,' the reporter said, slipping the mug shot back in the jacket pocket, 'is Eddie Andrassy. If that names familiar to you, it might be because you saw it in the papers.'
McFarlin, who was pretending to be paying no attention, damn near laughed out loud at that. Most of these guys couldn't read, and those that could wouldn't be wasting a nickel on a newspaper.
'He was one of the Butchers victims,' the reporter said, his smirk gone. 'He was one of the first ones found. He had his dick cut off, gents. Balls, too. Cheers.' He lifted his beer to them and slurped at it.
Nobody said a word. Steve seemed to be getting irritated, his face settling into a nasty mask.
'It would behoove you gents,' said the smart-ass reporter, 'to help me out if you can. Not only is there a standing reward of some five grand in it for you, it's folks on these very streets of yours that are getting hunted by this monster.'
Nobody said a word. The ceiling fan churned.
'Florence Polillo used to hang around this joint,' the reporter continued, 'and I think Eddie Andrassy did, too, whether this apron here remembers him or not.' He smiled without sincerity at the bartender and said, 'Maybe you weren't working here back then. It's been over a year.'
Steve said nothing; he had stopped polishing the glass, which was shining and filthy.
'Flo used to hang out with a guy named 'One-Armed Willie,'' the reporter said, mostly to Steve. 'Does Willie ever come in here anymore?'
'No,' Steve said.
'Is he around?'
'I hear he hopped a freight,' somebody down the bar offered.
The reporter looked at Steve for confirmation, and Steve, with some reluctance, nodded.
'I'm interested,' the reporter said loudly, above the fan, stepping away from the bar, 'in hearing about anybody who used to do business with Flo, or was friendly with Flo-man or woman.'
A guy down the bar a ways laughed. 'You think the Butcher is a woman?'
'Could be. Over in London, they figured Jack the Ripper was a midwife, you know. Why, take old Flo herself. She looked sort of like a fullback I know, only the fullback is cuter. Any of you gents want to earn a few bucks, I'm paying for info-and unlike that standing reward, I pay up whether the info leads to an arrest or conviction or not.'
The reporter smiled pleasantly at the bartender and his patrons, downed the remainder of his beer, and swaggered out, swinging his coat over his shoulder.
'Cocky son of a bitch,' the stubbly-faced guy said, still nursing that same goddamn beer.
'The fucker,' Steve said, looking at the door where Wild had disappeared.
'He should mind his own goddamn business,' the stubbly-faced guy said.
McFarlin gave the man a more careful look. Something was stirring in the recesses of his brain.
'Did she really used to come in here,' the stubbly-faced guy was saying, 'that butchered broad?'
'Yeah,' Steve said. 'She sure did. She was a sweet ol' hag.'
'Pity she got hacked up.'
