was sitting at the bar at the British-American having his first meal since leaving Hamilton: a plate of chicken and frog legs with a near-beer chaser. The beer, Cincinnati Cream Lager, tasted like the punch line to a joke that no one was getting.
He needed to clear his head after the police had finished with him, so he walked the short mile back to City Garage on Erie Street, where he reclaimed the Light Six and topped up its fuel tank. His plan had been to head down to the British-American to trade information, but arriving on the scene he found everyone tongue-tied and with their fingers in their ears. Getting nowhere, he pulled up a stool at the bar and ordered breakfast.
“That sounds more like dinner,” Eddie said.
“I’m catching up.”
He was cleaning off the last of the chicken bones when a boy came in with copies of the morning edition of the Border Cities Star draped over his arm. McCloskey peeled one off the top and pressed a coin in the boy’s palm. The boy continued to work the room, alternately offering a shine with the gear slung over his shoulder, but met with little success.
McCloskey turned to the sports pages and noticed the Star was still carrying “Fanning with Farrell.”
“Wills thinks he can take Dempsey,” he said to no one in particular.
Eddie returned with clusters of empty glasses dangling from the fingers of each hand like dirty chandeliers. He set the glasses down below the bar and immediately got to rinsing and polishing them.
“That so?” he said.
He was a bear of a man with a gentle touch, just the kind of diplomat the British-American needed. McCloskey continued his digest of Farrell’s column.
“Rickard says Wills’ll fight for less than a hundred thousand. He must be figuring he can take the purse. And listen to this: ‘Every time the champion fights, thousands will go just in the hope of seeing him knocked out and their presence adds to the house and the fighters’ purse.’ How do you like that?”
“They set them up for the pleasure of watching them fall.”
“Is this you waxing philosophical, Eddie?”
“I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true.”
“I should’ve gone to see him fight Carpentier. Who knows, maybe things would’ve turned out different.” McCloskey sighed.
“Now who’s the philosopher?”
“The fight of the century. That’s what they all said.”
“You know he was here on the weekend, don’t you?”
“I know, I know.”
McCloskey turned the page. Eddie was referring to Dempsey’s exhibition fights down at the Devonshire track on Saturday. Dempsey got a grand for putting pillows on his mitts and going two rounds each with Billy Wells and Bert Snyder. It was pretty light stuff. All the same, McCloskey wouldn’t have minded the chance of meeting his hero. But he had his hands full with Sophie at the time. Every time he thought of her a little tremor went through his body. Her image played like one of those short films at the arcade, the ones in the little machines with the hand-crank. A penny for a few minutes of flickering light and magic.
It suddenly became very still and very quiet in the room. The tension that McCloskey had felt when he first sat down was quickly being replaced by something more tangible, like a chill in the air or a charge of electricity. He glanced up at the mirror behind the bar and saw a familiar face. Jigsaw was making his way towards him. He pulled up a stool, leaving one between him and McCloskey. Tilting his hat back, he exposed part of the scar that the Lieutenant said made him look like a goddamn autopsy.
“I’ve been wondering when I’d see you,” said McCloskey. “Then I thought if I just stayed still long enough you’d probably come to me.”
“Yeah. You attract trouble, don’t you, Killer?”
Jigsaw hadn’t lost his patronizing tone.
“Actually, I just got tired of talking to myself. You and your boys have this town sewn up pretty good, don’t you?”
Jigsaw’s grin looked more like a gash in his face.
“Well, you haven’t bumped me, and I know if you really wanted to you would have by now, so you must be here to —”
“I’m here to tell you to blow.”
McCloskey took a gulp of his beer before replying. “Maybe I’m not finished my business here yet.”
“Really? I understand you chased the guy that done your father and brother all the way to the border. The trail’s still hot; you should think about —”
“I’m not interested in him anymore. I don’t want the serpent’s tail; I want its head.” McCloskey paused. “C’mon, it was you who gave the order, wasn’t it?”
Jigsaw put his hands up in mock defence. “Now don’t go jumping to conclusions, Killer.”
“I didn’t buy the line the cops were selling about the gangster from Detroit. That’s the one they use whenever they need to blame the Yanks something.” McCloskey paused. “So who gave the order?”
“You know who.”
“No, I don’t. That’s why I’m asking.”
“Green.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s true. You were naïve to think that Green wasn’t all business, because he is. You and your family were costing him.”
“So he’s still running things?”
“Of course he is.”
“That’s not what I heard.”
“Is that what this is about? The Captain isn’t bothering himself with our little skirmishes. He’s busy fighting a war. The Lieutenant’s in command of this front. He’s the reason you’re not locked up or at the bottom of the river right now.”
“Yeah, feel like I owe him a debt.”
McCloskey finished his beer.
“He gave you too much credit,” said Jigsaw. “You’re a meathead and you belong back in the ring. There you’re actually worth something. In the real world you get too confused and you lose focus. You need the bell, the ropes, and somebody standing over you with a bucket of ice water.”
Eddie reappeared from the kitchen and McCloskey pointed to his glass. Eddie pulled him another pint.
“Can I get you anything, mister?”
Jigsaw turned slowly towards Eddie and bared his jagged yellow teeth. “Whisky.”
Eddie stiffened. “You know we don’t serve liquor here.”
“Would you like to?”
Eddie
