True Detective

the street, where the snow had stopped and the city had got quiet, for a change. There was a door between the blind pig and the pawnshop next door. Barney searched for keys, found some, and unlocked the door. I followed him up a flight of narrow stairs to a landing, and then did that two more times, and we were on the fourth floor of his building, which ran mostly to small businesses, import/ export, a few low-rent doctors and lawyers and one dentist. Nothing fancy, certainly. Wood floors, glass-and-wood office walls, pebbled glass doors.

At the end of the hall the floor dead-ended in an office that bore no name. Barney fished for keys again and opened the door.

I followed him in.

It was a good-size office, cream-color plaster walls with some wood trim, sparsely furnished: a scarred oak desk with its back to the wall that had windows, a brown leather couch with some tears repaired by brown tape, a few straight-back chairs, one in front of the desk, a slightly more comfortable, partially padded one behind it. The El was right outside the windows. It was a Chicago view, all right.

I ran a finger idly across the desk top. Dusty.

'You can find a dustcloth. can't you?'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, it's your office. Leave it filthy if you want.'

'My office?'

'Yeah.'

'Don't go meshugge on me. Barney.'

'Don't go Yiddish on me. Nate. You can't pass.'

'Then don't go Jewish on me when you tell me the rent.'

'For you, nothing.'

'Nothing.'

'Almost nothing. You gotta live here. I can use a night watchman. If you ain't gonna be here some night, just phone in and I'll cover for you somehow.'

'Live here.'

'I'll put a Murphy bed in.'

He opened a door that I thought was a closet. It wasn't. The office had its own washroom: a sink, a stool.

'Not all the offices have their own can,' he said, 'but this was a lawyer's office, and lawyers got a lot to wash their hands over.'

I walked around the room, looking at it; it was kind of dingy-looking. Beautiful-looking, is what it was.

'I don't know what to say, Barney.'

'Say you'll do it. Now, in the morning, you want a shower, you walk over to the Morrison.' The Morrison Hotel was where Barney lived. They had a traveler's lounge for regular patrons who were in town for the day and needed a place to freshen up or relax- sitting rooms, shower stalls, exercise rooms- one of which had been converted into a sort of mini-gym by Barney, with the hotel's blessing.

'I'll be working out there most mornings,' Barney continued, 'and at the Trafton gym most afternoons. You're welcome both places. I'm training, you know.'

'Yeah, somebody's got to pay for all this.'

Barney was known for being a soft touch: a lot of the guys from the old neighborhood had taken advantage of him, hitting him for loans of fifty- and a hundred like asking for a nickel for coffee. I didn't want to be a leech; I told him so.

'You're makin' me mad, Nate,' he said expressionlessly. 'You really think it's smart to make the next champ mad?' He struck a half-assed boxing pose and got a laugh out of me. 'So what do you say? When do you move in?'

I shrugged. 'Soon as I break it to Janey, I guess. Soon as I see if I can get an op's license. Jesus. You're Santa Claus.'

'I don't believe in Santa Claus. Unlike some people I know, I'm a real Jew.'

'Yeah, well drop your drawers and prove it.'

Barney was looking for a fast answer when the El rumbled by like a herd of elephants on roller skates and provided him with one.

'No cover charge for the local color,' he said, speaking up.

'Don't you know music when you hear it?' I said. 'I wouldn't take this dump without it.'

Barney rocked on his heels, smiling like a kid getting away with something.

'Let's get out of here.' I said, trying not to smile back at him, 'before I start dusting.'

'Nightcap?' Barney asked.

'Nightcap,' I agreed.

I was having one last beer, and Barney, staying in training, was just watching, when a figure moved up to the booth like a truck parking.

It was Miller; the eyes behind the Coke-bottle glasses looked bored, half-asleep.