'Got it. You want a backup?'
'No. This is a solo job. You know where our group is staying, right?'
'We'd had the place screened and covered before you landed there.'
'Thanks. It's good to know.' Indy gestured to the next street corner. 'Let me off just ahead.'
Henshaw eased the cab to the curb. Indy waited until no pedestrians were near the cab. Before Henshaw realized what was happening, Indy had slipped away and was just turning the corner.
The burly man wearing a heavy windbreaker, scuffed boots, and a seaman's knitted cap shuffled clumsily toward the entrance to Chicago's jazz and blues club, The Nest. Indy limped badly in a lurching motion as he approached the brightly lit awning and an entrance doorman about the size of a small grizzly bear. Mike Patterson was all show as a doorman. An exprizefighter who failed to make the big time, he was big and tough enough to handle his real job as a bouncer, and as an entrance guard to keep out the bums and riffraff like this shufflefooted geezer trying to get inside.
'Beat it, ya bum,' Patterson growled at the figure before him. 'Y'know something, Mac, y'stink. I betcha ya ain't had a bath in a year of Mondays.'
Not even Henshaw had seen the beard that appeared on Indy's face moments after he left the cab. It was a perfect fit that Gale had prepared for him, using theatrical glue to secure it to his face. Whoever saw this miserable creature would never think of Indiana Jones or anyone who looked like him.
Stooped over, wheezing, the old 'seaman' tried to push past Patterson. 'I ain't botherin' nobody,' he whined. 'Just wanna hear the music, y'know?'
A massive fist hung threateningly before the disheveled bum. 'Ya don't get outta here, y'creep, all ya gonna hear is da birdies singing, y'get me? Now beat it before I whack ya into da middle of next week!'
'Don't hurt me,' the old man pleaded, cringing.
Patterson guffawed. This was going to be a pleasure. The beefy fist closed around the windbreaker, hauling the other man from his feet until only his toes touched the sidewalk. The other fist drew back to deliver a pulverizing blow.
It never got started. The old man pushed his face close to Patterson's features. With little effort, he blew a cloud of powder from his mouth into Patterson's eyes. Fire seemed to erupt in the vision of the doorman. He howled with sudden agony, reeling backwards, tripping over an awning stanchion, and falling clumsily to the ground. 'I'm blind!'
he screamed. 'I can't see! My eyes . . . I can't see!'
Several men rushed from the jazz club. They stopped short at the sight of Patterson groveling on the sidewalk, knuckles rubbing his eyes frantically. Jack Shannon of the Shannon Brothers, club owners and managers, took swift stock of the situation. Immediately he grasped the smelly bum by the arm, as much to hold him upright as to keep him on the scene.
'What happened here, old man?' Shannon demanded an explanation. He gestured to Patterson. 'Did you do that?'
'I didn't mean no harm,' the seaman whined. 'Want to hear the music, that's all. Gotta listen to this guy, Shannon.'
'How do you know his name?' Shannon barked. The question came without thinking. Shannon was known through the nightclub life of Chicago. But this creature—Shannon stopped abruptly as the old man leaned heavily against him. There was no mistaking the muzzle of the heavy pistol pressed beneath Shannon's armpit.
The old man placed his mouth almost against Shannon's ear. The smell of fish and garlic nearly overwhelmed Shannon.
'Inside,' wheezed the old man, coughing a spray of garlicky spittle across the side of Shannon's face. The pistol nudged just a bit harder. 'We go in like we was old buddies, got it? Friend of the family. Then we walk to the back of the club, see?
We goes into your office and you close the door and you don't let nobody else come in. You got it?'
Shannon, tall and slender to the point of cadaverous, nodded. This was wildly confusing and he was sure the old man was crazy, but you don't argue with a gun barrel in your armpit. 'Okay, okay,' Shannon told him quietly. 'But take it easy with the hardware, old fellow, all right? You won't have any trouble.'
'Button it, mister.' The gun prodded again. 'Start walking and don't forget to smile.'
Another wave of fish and garlic prompted Shannon into obeying this crazy bum. Club waiters stared as Jack Shannon, the immaculate highsociety blues club owner, waltzed arminarm with some derelict along the dim recesses of the back of the club, but nobody said a word. Shannon was one of the master blues musicians, and everybody knew how many band members were down on their luck in the depression gripping the country. Shannon was a soft touch for his buddies who were down and out. So you minded your own business. They'd seen sights like this before.
Shannon stopped short of his office door. The gun jabbed against his ribs.
'Remember, nobody comes in,' came the hoarse whisper of a warning.
'No problem, oldtimer,' Shannon said gently. The trick was to keep the old guy from getting excited. A good meal and a shot of whiskey would straighten him out.
Shannon looked to a large man who eyed the scene suspiciously. 'Hey, Syd, this is an old buddy of mine,'
Shannon told him. 'Do me a favor. This is sort of personal and I don't want anyone to bother us, okay?'
'Yes, sir, I got it,' the man said. Something didn't seem right but orders were orders.
Inside the office the old man turned Shannon back to the door. 'Lock it.'
Shannon turned the lock.
'Now, sit down in that easy chair. Over there.' The stranger stepped back to place distance between himself and Shannon. Now the weapon was visible. Shannon stared down the barrel of a powerful sixshot Webley .445. That thing could take down even a moose with a single round.
