“Seriously,” he said, “why don’t you find some other business? I could probably use you on my staff—”
“Christ, you and Sally! Nobody likes my trade, everybody wants to put me to work as their fuckin’ maid or something.”
Barney put an arm around me. “I hate it when half-Jews say ‘Christ.’ It confuses me. But you can say ‘fuck’ all you want. That don’t confuse me in the least.”
“Is that what I am, half a Jew?”
“Yeah, and half a Mick, and full of shit. That’s Nate Heller. Now, get outa here while I try to catch up with these guys.”
“Before you blow your next shot, let me tell you why I looked you up this morning.”
“Tell.”
“I’m going to be out of town awhile, and you’re going to have to cover for me, where my night watchman duty’s concerned. Okay?”
“Sure,” he nodded. “How long you be gone?”
“Not sure,” I said.
“What’s up, exactly?”
“Looking for a girl,” I said.
One of the sparring partners said, “Who ain’t?”
Barney said, “Don’t get killed or anything, okay, shmuck?”
“Okay, pal. Don’t you have a fight in a few weeks?”
“More like a month,” he said, bending to shoot.
“That’s a unique way of training you got there,” I said, and he missed his shot.
“The game laws ought…to let you shoot…the bird that hands you…a substitute! Haw haw!” Ma Barker grinned at me. “Burma Shave!”
There wasn’t much to say to that; I just kept driving. We were well into the afternoon, now, and Wisconsin. Taking Highway 89, which had just turned from nice spanking-new pavement into gravel. I kept the Auburn at forty-five. Somehow, even though this wasn’t my car (except for a hundred bucks’ worth of it, anyway), I hated to think of those shapely blue fenders getting nicked by those wicked little rocks.
I hadn’t done much cross-country driving, and, on these two-lane highways, each oncoming car we encountered made for a nerve-racking experience. The Auburn was wide enough, and the roads narrow enough, to make meeting the occasional road hog border on meeting your Maker. This was heightened by Kate Barker’s humming hymns, something she did whenever she couldn’t find hillbilly music on the radio or a Burma Shave sign to read.
“On a hill far away,” she bellowed suddenly, “stood an old rugged cross…”
“Burma Shave,” I said.
She glared at me; we weren’t getting along as well today as yesterday. “That’s disreligious,” she said.
“I suppose it is.”
“What church do you go to?”
“None to speak of, Ma.”
She tsk-tsked. “That’s very sad. Very sad.”
“I suppose it is, Ma.”
“You’re sure to fry in eternal hell, you know.”
“I’ll have company.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing. Look up ahead.”
“Oooooh!” she squealed. “The bearded lady…tried a jar…she’s now a famous…movie star! Burma Shave! Haw haw!”
Sally hadn’t been crazy about my leaving on this little jaunt. In fact, she’d been downright angry.
“You really disappoint me, Nate. Really disappoint me!”
We were sitting at her breakfast table having coffee.
“Why is that, Helen?”
“I just thought you were smarter than—than to behave in such a
“Suicidal.”
“Going out among those…crazy maniacs!”
“Most maniacs are a little crazy.”
“Right—like you!”
I’d made a big mistake: with the exception of Frank Nitti’s role and the Jimmy Lawrence cover, I’d told Sally the
