Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 57, No. 1 & 1, January/February 2012

Last Call Wayne J. Gardiner

It’s one forty-five in the morning.

The bar is located just off the lobby of the hotel, ceiling to floor windows displaying the magnificent Chicago skyline, the massive Merchandise Mart off to the east, Sears Tower to the south, city lights twinkling, the Chicago River branching north and south twelve stories below.

At this hour the hotel lobby is deserted and things aren’t much livelier in the bar — just one patron and Jerry, the bartender.

Jerry debating whether to tell the man about the shooting, finally deciding against it. The guy’s been pretty distant all night.

The last group in the bar, a big, noisy gathering of ten, celebrating a job promotion, had stumbled out fifteen minutes earlier, Jerry telling Delores to go home, he could take care of things until closing. The bar calmed down considerably after the departure of the office group, the noise level ratcheting way down; they were an enthusiastic bunch.

At this point, there is just the one guy left, a quiet guy who’s kept to himself despite the revelry around him, and he’s looking now as if he’s about ready to call it a night. Jerry glancing at his watch as he washes the last of the glasses, setting them in the rack to dry. He’s straightening the bottles on the back shelf when the tall guy comes in, good-looking man, nice suit, settling himself on a barstool.

“Grey Goose,” he says. “Straight up.”

“Coming up,” Jerry says, with more enthusiasm than he feels. He’d hoped to get out early tonight.

“Got any of the blue cheese stuffed olives?” the man asks.

“Sure do.”

“Put in a couple, if you will.”

“You got it.”

Jerry puts the drink together, shakes it, strains it, skewers two of the olives and sets it on the bar. “Grey Goose,” he says.

The man at the bar takes a sip. “As good as ever,” he says.

Jerry rings up the ticket and puts it face down at the edge of the bar.

The other patron is motioning for his check.

Jerry totals the tab and closes it out, not surprised when the guy stiffs him on the tip.

“Quiet tonight,” the tall man observes.

“Well...” Jerry says. “It is almost two o’clock... on a Tuesday night.”

“Wednesday morning, actually,” the tall man says. Pleasantly. Not said in a smart-ass manner.

“So it is,” Jerry agrees. “Wednesday morning it is,” Jerry, the consummate bartender, making certain his tone is convivial, wanting this man to know he’s a valued customer, he’s welcome here, even if it is almost two in the morning and Jerry would rather be home in bed.

“I suppose that’s got something to do with it,” the tall man says.

He seems like a nice enough guy. With a pang of conscience, Jerry forgets about the idea of getting home early. Make the guy feel welcome. That’s why they pay him the big bucks.

“Jerry,” he says, extending a hand over the bar, big smile.

They shake hands.

“Mick,” the tall man says.

Like most good bartenders, Jerry’s a chatty guy by nature. Now that he’s resigned himself to staying late, it doesn’t take much to get him started. He’s told this story a dozen times tonight already. Probably a hundred times in the past week, but he’s still excited about it, anxious to let Mick in on it.

“It wasn’t this quiet in here last week,” Jerry says.

Mick, taking another sip of his Grey Goose, raises his eyebrows.

“What happened last week?”

“Guy got shot,” Jerry says, then waits to see how Mick will react.

“Come on!” Mick says. “Shot? Here in the bar?”

“Sitting on that very barstool,” Jerry says, pointing to the stool directly to the tall man’s left.

Mick looks at the stool as if searching for some tangible sign that this could actually have happened.

“It’s been cleaned up,” Jerry explains, “but that’s the very same barstool. Guy draped over it... he tried to get up, got about halfway and slumped over the back of it face down.”

“You were here at the time?” Mick says. “When this shooting took place?”

“Oh, yeah!” Jerry says. “Standing right here.”

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

“The strangest thing... the guy didn’t fall off the stool. Five shots and he doesn’t even hit the floor.”

“Five shots?” Amazed to hear it.

“They’re pretty sturdy stools,” Jerry explains.

“I guess so,” says Mick.

“He was a big man too. When the detectives were looking it over they kept saying how surprised they were that the dead guy was still on the stool. Not that it really made any difference.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“Just unusual, is all.”

“Where was the shooter?”

The question doesn’t raise a red flag in Jerry’s mind, but there’s something unusual about it, the term “shooter” implying more familiarity with this kind of situation than you might expect. This strobelike impression so fleeting that it doesn’t really register with Jerry.

“Right where you’re sitting,” Jerry says.

“Come on!”

“The exact stool,” Jerry says, nodding, enjoying it. He’s got the man’s attention now.

Mick apparently accepting this, unusual though it may be.

“I thought maybe you might have heard about it. A lot of people have stopped in since then to ask questions, or just to get a look at the place.”

“Like people stopping to gawk at a traffic accident.”

“Yeah, like that. I thought you might have heard about it.” This close personal encounter with violent death has impacted Jerry so profoundly he doesn’t realize that not everyone else has been affected to the same degree, or perhaps (and this is clearly beyond his perception) may not even be aware the incident has occurred.

“I’m not from here.”

“It was all over the news... Where you from?”

“Kansas City,” Mick says.

“Well, I guess it probably wouldn’t make the news in Kansas City. I suppose you have your own shootings there.”

“Every now and then,” Mick says.

Jerry nods at this unfortunate truth. “So... Kansas City. Great town. Great steaks in K.C.,” he says. “What brings you to Chicago?”

“Business,” Mick says. “I’m here on business.”

Jerry nods.

“Must have been quite a mess,” Mick says. “Five shots with a magnum.”

Jerry doesn’t remember telling Mick it was a magnum, but... “Oh, yeah: Unbelievable mess. We cleaned up the bar and the stools but they had to put down a new carpet.”

They both look at the carpet as if to affirm that it indeed had been replaced.

“I thought there was kind of a new carpet smell about the place,” Mick allows.

“Stuff splattered all over,” Jerry says, warming up to it. He lowers his voice even though there’s no one else in the bar. “The next night, when I’m wiping down the bottles—” He looks around to assure himself no one else is listening, bringing Mick in on this little secret. “—there was a—” Jerry searching for the correct word. “—glob of something on my Jim Beam.”

“A glob?”

“Some kind of tissue or something.” Jerry shivering in disgust at the recollection.

“Wow.”

“All that way over there,” Jerry says, pointing. “Must be a good twenty feet.”

“At least,” says Mick.

Jerry shudders again.

“And you were right here during this whole thing?”

“Just as close as you and I are now.”

“You said the guy who got shot was dead. What happened to the shooter?”

There... he said it again. And it registers with Jerry this time. A term like a cop might use.

“What kind of work are you in, Mick?” Jerry says.

“Ad sales,” says Mick, and moves right on. “So what happened to the other guy... the one who pulled the trigger?”

“Put the gun down right here on the counter and walked out!”

“You can’t be serious!”

“Right in front of where you’re sitting.” Jerry raising his right hand to affirm it.

“Did they get the guy?”

“Not yet.”

“Why would the man leave the gun?”

“The cops think it was a mob thing. The guy who got shot was a smalltime numbers guy. The gun handle was taped up. No fingerprints, serial numbers filed off.” Jerry shrugs. “That’s the way they do it. Just leave the gun and walk out.”

“That’s the way they do it, huh?”

“That way, somebody stops them later, they have no weapon on them.” Jerry explaining it to Mick.

“I guess,” Mick says.

“Like in The Godfather, you know, when Michael shoots the police captain and the other guy?”

“Michael who?”

Jerry blinks dumbly. “Corleone,” he says. Doesn’t everybody know that? “In the movie... The Godfather.”

“Oh, yeah, the movie.” But sounding as if he has no idea what Jerry is talking about.

“Well, that’s what he did. He left the gun there in the restaurant.”

“Who was this guy, the one doing the shooting?”

“Michael Corleone?”

“No, no, the guy here... here in the bar.”

“They’re not sure, but they’re pretty confident they’re narrowing it down.”

“But the guy’s gone... got away... no prints on the weapon. How about his glass — he leave any prints on the glass?”

Jerry’s a little embarrassed to make this revelation. “You know, when I called the cops to report this... I’m waiting for them to get here — it was a good fifteen minutes — I’m a little upset by what I’ve just seen.”

Mick nodding, he can understand this.

“And out of habit, I took the glass off the bar and washed it.”

Mick smiling, despite himself. Jerry a little defensive. “I was just doing my job,” Jerry says.

“By all means,” Mick says. “Second nature to you... dirty glass there on the counter, you pick it up and wash it.”

“Second nature,” Jerry agrees.

“So they got no prints... How they ever gonna get this guy?”

“Well,” Jerry says modestly. “There’s a witness,” then waiting for Mick to pick up on it, Jerry spreading his arms and nodding shyly.

“You... of course!”

Jerry nods again. Reluctant, yet willing to shoulder this responsibility.

“What in the world happened that night, I mean, to lead up to the shooting?”

Jerry noticing that the man’s drink is empty, automatically making another, forget that it’s past two o’clock, they’re both caught up in the story.

Jerry sets the new drink on the bar and Mick nods gratefully.

“Did you hear the conversation? Did you have any idea what was unfolding?”

Mick, wide-eyed, fully involved, Jerry soaking up the attention.

“Just snatches of it. I thought there might be something happening... I had an eye on them.” Jerry exaggerating, he’d been the most surprised guy in the place when the bullets started flying, but he’s told this version of the story often enough that he’s beginning to believe it himself.

“You had an eye on them...?”

“Well... the bartender’s in charge of the place, you know. I mean, when I’m here—” Jerry gestures about the room. “—It’s my responsibility. I take it seriously.”

“I can see that you do. Kind of like the captain of a ship.”

Jerry shrugs modestly.

“Were there other witnesses?”

“There were a half dozen people at the bar. What do you think they did when the heard the first shot?”

“Headed for the door? Dove for cover?”

Jerry nods. “Exactly.”

In fact, that’s just what Jerry had done. His ears were still ringing when he crawled to the back of the oval bar and peeked up over the other side to find the gunman gone, the weapon lying right there on the bar, the other guy draped on the barstool like he’d said before.

But why bother Mick with small details like that.

“So nobody else really saw the guy?”

“They either didn’t see him, or were too scared to admit it to the cops.”

“So it’s just you,” Mick says.

Jerry pulls an expression that says, it’s a burden, but he’s up to it.

“Do you worry about that?” Mick says. “Being the only witness?”

Jerry a little cavalier about it. “Hey, what can I do? I saw the guy... They bring him in, I’ll put the finger on him.”

“What if they don’t bring him in?” Mick says.

Jerry’s expression indicates he’s not certain what Mick means by the question.

“What I mean,” Mick says, “what if the guy walks in here on his own, wants to make sure there are no witnesses that could identify him?”

Jerry has considered this, the police eventually convincing him it was highly unlikely. “Well,” he says, “I can’t imagine the guy coming back in here.”

“Probably not,” Mick says, thinking about it. “Of course, he could go to your home.”

“How would he know where my home was?”

“These guys have ways of finding out stuff like that.”

“The police put extra patrols in my neighborhood... hooked up a direct line in my house... push a button and it rings at the duty sergeant’s desk.”

“Well then, I guess that’s not a worry.”

“No,” Jerry says, regaining his swagger. “And if the guy were to be dumb enough to walk back in here,” he says, lowering his voice, taking Mick into his confidence, “I’ve got a little equalizer.”

Jerry slides open a drawer below the bar, just a little, Mick leaning over, catching a glimpse of the grip of a pistol, looks like a .38 revolver to him. “Just in case,” Jerry says.

“And if he came in, you’d pull that out... be willing to use it?”

“Hey,” Jerry says, blustering a little now. “I’ll do what I have to do, you know.” Then, as an afterthought, “I was in the Army.” Clerk typist at Fort Sheridan for two years, but why go into that?

“I guess you’ve got it covered,” Mick says, taking another sip. “You make a good martini.”

Jerry nods.

They sit there for a moment.

“Unless—” Mick says.

“Unless what?” Jerry asks.

“Well, what if he doesn’t come in. But somebody else comes in... for him?”

“For him?”

“In his behalf.”

“You mean, some other guy could come in and...?”

Mick nods. “You mentioned the mob earlier. What if they sent somebody in to tie up the loose ends?”

Jerry considers it a moment, then shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not saying another guy couldn’t come in here, for the very reason you’re saying. But he wouldn’t have any way of knowing I was the only witness. I mean, there were a half dozen people nearby when it happened.”

“But none of them saw him.”

“Well, no. But he wouldn’t know that. The police didn’t release that fact to the press. So essentially, no one knows I’m the only witness.”

“Except for me,” Mick says.

Mick laughs, and Jerry relaxes. He’d felt a little twinge there.

Mick’s finishing his drink. Jerry hopes he doesn’t want another.

“Quite an experience,” Mick says.

“I’ll never forget it,” Jerry says. “Afterwards... looking at that gun, right there on the bar.”

“A .44 magnum.”

Jerry nods. “That’s what they told me,” then knitting his brow in thought. “How would you know that?”

There’s that twinge again. Some earlier pieces of their conversation are replaying in Jerry’s mind.

“I guess you wouldn’t forget that, seeing a .44 magnum lying on the counter, hearing a .44 magnum. Must have sounded like a cannon in here.”

For reasons he doesn’t fully understand, Jerry is feeling anxious, but he maintains a cordial tone as he looks at his watch and says, “Look at the time. I appreciate your stopping by, but I’m afraid it’s closing time. City ordinance and all.”

“I won’t keep you any longer,” Mick says. “Thanks for your service.”

“My pleasure.”

Mick reaches inside his jacket. But instead of a wallet, he pulls out a silenced.22 automatic.

Despite the subtle vibes he has been picking up about something being not quite right, Jerry isn’t expecting it. Neither would he have expected, had he had time to consider it beforehand, that he would have reached for the drawer beneath the bar... and much more quickly than either he or Mick could have imagined.

But not nearly quickly enough.

Two in the head.

Mick reaches over the bar and picks a bar towel off the sink.

He carefully wipes down his glass and the metal arms of the barstool.

He leaves the.22 right there on the bar. Pistol grip taped. Serial numbers filed off.

No witnesses this time.