"If he was in trouble with Paco, he"s probably blown town by now."
"I agree. He"s set a very sensible example for us."
"Yeah, too bad I ain"t got any sense."
Mailman"s was a white-tie place, after all. Escott must have noticed my lack when he went through my room last Monday, and I silently blessed him for his consideration in wearing a regular suit. Like many sw.a.n.k places in Chicago, Mailman"s was cheek-and-jowl with less savory neighborhoods. The street it faced was a high-tax area with bright lights, expensive shops, and other cla.s.sy restaurants, but cross the alley behind it and you were gambling with your skin. Sometimes it was a gang, sometimes a loan operator, but both types shared an avid interest in acquiring someone else"s money. The cops had regular beats in the area, but could hardly prevent the odd out-of-towner from getting picked off by local hunters. When Escott got out of the car this time, he made a point of locking it.
A uniformed man at the canopied entrance guarded some potted palms and a red carpet that ran out to the curb. He held the door for us and bowed slightly.
"Good to see you again, Mr. Escott."
"Thank you, Mr. Burdge. Can you recommend anything tonight?"
"Any of the veal dishes, but stay away from the fish. Our regular fish chef is off tonight and his replacement did his training in the army."
"An inland army, no doubt.""You got it."
We went in and checked our hats, telling the maitre d" we were still expecting one more and would wait by the door. It wasn"t a long wait; at eight a gleaming new black Nash drove up and stopped next to the red carpet.
"I see you have similar tastes in cars," I commented.
"Well, he did give me such a good deal on my present transport a few years ago that I couldn"t turn him down. I must say he still knows how to make an entrance, a natural talent. The stage lost a very fine actor in him."
The chauffeur was out and opening the rear door of the Nash; Burdge, the doorman, stood a little straighter and held the door to the restaurant. It was some credit to his self-control that he wilted only a little when Coldfield emerged into the light. He was postcard perfect in a custom-tailored tuxedo with a satin-lined cape and a silver-headed stick. He carried the clothes comfortably, like Fred Astaire, albeit a much larger-sized Astaire with coal black skin and a beard. He sauntered up to the doorman, who was looking a bit confused as to how to handle the situation.
Coldfield gave Burdge a look that banished any inclinations of refusing him entry, and then came in.
Escott tapped his hands together in soft applause. "Well played, sir. A pity it could not have been preserved on film."
Coldfield was pleased. "You said it, history is being made tonight." He nodded to me. "Ready to get tossed out with the best?"
"I"d like to see anyone try."
The maitre d" was well trained; his eyebrows only bounced up an eighth of an inch and back down again before he got hold of himself.
"Your usual table, Mr. Escott?" he asked. In a minute I understood why. Escott"s usual table was in a discreet alcove off to one side of the main dining area. The man was only reminding Escott he wasn"t trying to shuffle our dark companion out of sight. Whether he wanted to or not, I"d never know.
We sat and went through the business of ordering drinks and studying the menu.
Playing my part, I read through it and shook my head.
"Anything wrong, Mr. Fleming?" Escott asked. "I"m not up to eating anything yet.
I got a bad burger for lunch and the thought of more food-" I made a queasy face and shrugged.
"What a pity, perhaps a little broth to recover? No?"
"No, thanks, I just gotta let things run their course so to speak. Don"t mind me, you two go ahead and enjoy yourselves."They did. Escott had veal, Coldfield a steak, and I watched the other patrons between our bouts of conversation. The smell of food did make me feel a little sick, but it was the memory of eating that really nettled me. I"d finally made it into a fancy place with someone else paying the bill, and all I could enjoy was the decor.
We got our share of looks. One group quite obviously cut short their meal and left, their backs stiff with indignation. They wouldn"t have minded or even noticed him if Coldfield had been part of the cleanup staff, but being a fellow customer was too much for their tender sensibilities. The maitre d" would have caught their verbal wrath had he been by the door as they left, but being an alert man he"d removed himself from the area in time. This graceless show was not lost on the other diners, who had been wondering what to do themselves. Happily, they had the good taste to mind their own business, and the conversation buzz soon returned to normal levels.
"You may have pulled this off, after all, Charles," Coldfield murmured.
"So it would seem. I should like to live to see the day-"
"Yeah, I know, I know. Well, you at least got me in here-"
"No, you got yourself."
"I"m h.e.l.l on doormen," he agreed. "But you"re just lucky."
"How so?"
"He had a pretty good idea I wasn"t Jewish."
Halfway through the meal a waiter came up with a telephone. "An important call for you, Mr. Escott."
Escott said h.e.l.lo into the mouthpiece and scowled a lot. I couldn"t quite hear what was being said on the other end, even if I had any business in doing so.
He shook his head. "No, I couldn"t possibly, this is a very bad time... What? All right, then, but hurry." He hung up and the phone was taken away.
"What"s the problem?" I asked.
"I shall have to absent myself for a few minutes. One of my sources of information wants to talk and will only do so face-to-face. He"s coming by to pick me up."
"Can"t he come in?"
"Not this one. He likes to keep on the move, so we have to go through this little comedy now and then. We drive around the block a few times, then he drops me off.
Strange fellow, but often useful. If you gentlemen will excuse me, I should be back in time for dessert." He stood up with a quaint little bow that only the English can get away with, and left. Coldfield watched his departing back with an indulgent smile.
"How long have you known him?""Off "n on, about fourteen years. Haven"t seen much of him since he took up this private-agent stuff, but then I"ve been busy, too."
"Do you mind his kind of work?"
"Why should I? He doesn"t seem to mind mine."
"What do you do?"
He gave me a look of mock surprise. "Why, I run a nightclub."
"At a considerable profit?"
"No point being in business if you don"t make a profit."
"" How long has he been a private agent?""
"Awhile."
"You play it close to the chest."
"That"s how you survive in this town."
He never gave a direct answer to any questions that were too probing, and I asked quite a few before catching on. It must have been the reporter in me. After I figured things out, we stuck to neutral subjects and watched the place slowly empty.
Then we watched the staff cleaning up. Our waiter hovered just within sight, broadcasting polite but clear signals that he thought it was time we left.
"Think he stiffed us for the check?" I said jokingly, looking at the clock on the wall. He"d been gone nearly forty minutes.
"No, they"ll just put it on his account. He"s been coming here for years."
I worried anyway. The phone call could have been a trick to get him outside.
Coldfield read my face and told me to relax.
"Charles can take care of himself."
"I hope so."
We waited. A lone busboy in thick gla.s.ses shuffled around cleaning the tables. His walk and movements bothered me for some reason, and when I caught a glimpse of his blank face I knew why. His was the careful heavy-heeled, loose-limbed walk of the mentally r.e.t.a.r.ded. He moved from table to table, cleaning up and wiping down, then looked at us and wondered why we hadn"t left yet. He was about fifty, with overlong gray hair, a thrusting box-shaped forehead, and thick gray brows that grew across the bridge of his nose. His mouth was open slightly as he stared at us and then at the waiter, undecided on what to do.
"Maybe we should wait outside," Coldfield said.The waiter came up and said something to the man, pointing to the kitchen. He nodded and went away.
"Yeah, we can do that."
We got up, much to the staff"s relief, and went out into the warm, muggy air. The potted palms were inside by now and the doorman locked up behind us.
"Have you any idea who called him?"
He shook his head. "Come on, let"s get my car."
Coldfield told his chauffeur to wait by the restaurant door in case Escott turned up, and got into the driver"s seat and turned the key. He opened the other door for me and I barely shut it before we were moving. He swung sharply around the block, his lips tight. He was worried, too.
We made a futile figure-eight circuit of the two facing blocks, so he pulled up and parked next to the canopy and cut the engine. Tension was coming off of him like heat, but he kept it controlled. His door wasn"t slammed shut in frustration as he got out, and I tried to follow his example.
We hung around awhile longer. There was an alley between the restaurant and another building and I heard noise coming from it, but it was only the staff leaving for the night. They filtered out the side door one by one and the manager locked up. I spotted the doorman and went after him. He"d seen Escott get into an old car with someone and they drove off, but I couldn"t get him to be more specific. He hurried off to his ride home and I went back to Coldfield with the negative news.
His eyes were scanning up and down the street, his hands clenched tight on the silver k.n.o.b of his stick. "d.a.m.n him and his work," he growled.
I silently agreed. A car cruised past but didn"t stop. Each new set of headlights put our necks to swiveling, but in vain.
Another sound came from the alley-footsteps-but it was only the middle-aged busboy. He carried a box, which I remembered seeing him fiddling with in the alley while the other workers left. He walked past us, staring at Coldfield either in recognition or because of his color, and went on to the parking lot, disappearing around the corner. Almost immediately after, we heard a brief cutoff noise coming from a surprised human throat. Coldfield, the chauffeur, and I exchanged looks and hurried to investigate.
The busboy had his back to the brick wall of the restaurant, protectively clutching his box. In a semicircle around him were three young men still in their teens.
Cl.u.s.tered by Escott"s Nash were four more of the same type: hard-faced and hard- muscled street kids with all the social conscience of wharf rats. It didn"t take a genius to figure they"d been trying to steal the last car in the lot, and the poor busboy had interrupted them.For a few seconds we were all frozen and staring in a sort of tableau, each side summing up the other, then the chauffeur smoothly pulled out a .38 and held it at ready. He started to say something, but a long, thin shape arced out and smashed down on his thick arm. He swallowed his scream as his knees buckled and fell on top of his dropped gun. One more kid lurched out from his hiding place behind us, swinging an iron pipe down on the man"s bowed head.
The time it took to raise the pipe up and down must have been brief, but to me he looked like he was moving through cold mola.s.ses. Without really thinking, I stepped in, plucked the pipe away from the kid, and hit him in the stomach with my free hand. I remembered in time to pull my punch, though. I didn"t want to rupture his internal organs.
The other boys took this as a signal to attack, three of them going straight for Coldfield, who defended himself with his stick, giving as good an example of dirty street righting as I"d ever seen. He was big and holding out well enough, but we were still badly outnumbered. Two kids rushed in on me with knives, which I simply took away from them since they seemed so slow to me. I shoved them away and sent them staggering into a third kid, and the whole group went down. I used the breathing s.p.a.ce to lift the chauffeur to one side, and grabbed his gun.
The three shots I fired at the sky did the trick. The punks disappeared like water into dry ground before the last echoes faded.
Coldfield was a little winded but none the worse for wear, except his tux would need some repair work. He came over and knelt by the chauffeur.
"Is it broken?"
The man felt the arm carefully and shook his head. "Nan, he caught me too high.
Cracked maybe, be a h.e.l.l of a bruise."
"We"ll get the doc to look at it. I"ll finish driving tonight. You okay?" he asked me.
I pretended to be breathless and nodded. "No problems."
"G.o.dd.a.m.n punks. The streets just ain"t safe anymore."
I was about to ask him if the streets in this town had ever been safe when I noticed the busboy cowering against the wall. "Hey! You all right?"
He hunched over his box, too shaken to move, the eyes behind his thick gla.s.ses were bugged halfway out of their sockets. I walked over slowly, trying to say rea.s.suring things so as not to frighten him more. He let himself be led out into the glow from the street lights. His teeth were chattering. I asked him where he lived.
He moved his head vaguely around. "Bad boys... hurt."
"Did they hurt you?"
"No." He stared at the chauffeur"s arm. "Hurt?""Where do you live?"
"Number five." He held up five fingers and counted them off.
"That"s very good. Where is number five?"
He counted again, this time going to ten in one rush and waited for my approval.
Coldfield sighed. "I hate to say it, but maybe we should just look for a cop who knows where he belongs."
"He might have an address on him. Have you got any papers?"
He looked blank.
"Wallet?" I tried. Another blank look. I pulled my own wallet out and showed him.
"You got one, too?"
He fumbled in his pockets after putting his box down and found one. I opened mine and showed him the papers inside, but instead of following suit, he just stared at it. Impatiently, Coldfield took it from him, and the man instantly burst into tears of protest.
"Mine," he said feebly, and looked at me for help, his face streaming. "Mine-"
Coldfield had backed away so he could get a better light on the wallet, then he folded it, stalked over, and punched the bus-boy in the face, knocking him flat. His eyes were blazing. "You G.o.dd.a.m.n son of a b.i.t.c.h!"