More Good Old Stuff

Even Up the Odds (Detective Story Magazine, January 1948)

Old Angelo Manini has fired me maybe twenty times and each time all it amounts to is I get a night off from working behind the bar at the Spot Tavern on River Street, which is the joint Angelo has owned for years.

Always it is the same old reason he fires me and the same old reason he hires me back. You see, he gets to reading these magazines on how to run a bar and the first thing I know he is around measuring what is left in bottles and glaring at me and then I am fired and he goes behind the bar. Sure, he can make the drinks, but the Spot Tavern is always loaded with characters spoiling with an urge for fisticuffs and desirous of not paying for drinks.

Angelo is a little old guy with a gray mustache and a nose that twitches and a way of talking very large. Anyway, always he fires me and the neighborhood hears that he is behind the bar and all the characters come around and talk rough to him and he gives away two free drinks for every one paid for, as he is usually nervous of anybody who acts like they want to hit him. Then he begins to think how he would rather be in the back room drinking that red wine and playing some screwy card game with some old guys who come in just to play that game with him. The next day he comes to see me and at twelve noon sharp I am wrapping on the apron and once again Johnny Pepper, which is me, is at the old stand, with that junior baseball bat handy to reach, prepared to handle the business.

It is a Tuesday, about two o’clock in the afternoon, and there is one customer only, and he is asleep with his head on a table, basking in the sunshine which comes in the front window, not so strong maybe, because, as Angelo frequently tells me, the window could be cleaner. But, then, I always say that I am a bartender. I don’t do windows.

Angelo comes in from the back, where he lives in a small room with a cot, a gallon of red and a deck of cards, and says to me, “Today, Johnny, you will please to carry down all the crates of liquor from upstairs and put them in the cellar.”

“I am weary, Angelo,” I say, “but for the consideration of ten dollars, I will do as you ask.”

He jumps up and down while I put my elbow on the bar, my chin on my fist, and stare at him. He yells, “You are to call me Mr. Manini and I order you to do it!”

After he has said that about eight times, I start to take off the apron. He remembers that if I quit he will have to miss out on his game and where can he get another bartender as large and as ugly as Johnny Pepper to scare the customers?

He counts out the ten dollars and I say, “Thank you, Angelo, but why does this have to be done?”

In a tired but proud way he says, “Because the upstairs is rented. This morning only, I rented it to a lady and her husband. They will live up there.”

“Live up there!” I exclaim. “With only a sink, and with holes in the walls and rats like jackrabbits?”

“This afternoon more plumbing goes in and my cousin comes to put boards over the holes and the lady says she will buy rat traps.”

I shrug and he goes back into his back room. I ponder on the housing situation in our town and wonder when Manini will rent his own room and sleep on top of the bar.

They move in the next day, and as it is four o’clock, with business beginning to thicken, I only have time to give one or two looks at the couple. She is a slim type with good clothes, and she stands out in the wind giving orders to the bums who carry up her furniture. The wind plasters her skirt against her and I see that when the customers are drinking, she better stay upstairs with the door locked, as she is built like what my customers dream about on winter nights.

A guy I figure is the husband, a frail type, leans against the side of the truck and smokes cigarettes and does a medium amount of sneering at the bustle which goes on. He looks like the guys in the movies I see, those guys that take the part of the no-good fellow with bad habits, and I wonder if this new guy is running true to form.

I had a quick chance to forget the two of them along about nine o’clock when Buster Pasternak comes in. Always I hate to see that guy come in. He is even mean when he is sober, which is seldom. He doesn’t work at anything, except fighting once in a while when he needs a few bucks. He is maybe thirty-five, blond, half bald, with a beefy face, mean little eyes and a build like Gargantua. But he isn’t slow. He moves like a hungry cat.

Often I have wished to work him over with the ball bat, but seeing as how his brother Dave is deputy chief of police, and his brother Harry is alderman, and his brother Francis is behind all the rackets in town, one swing with the bat and Angelo Manini has to fold his tent and sneak. Buster meets nobody but yes men and strangers. He loves to turn the strangers into yes men.

You come down three steps to get into the Spot Tavern, and when I see Buster Pasternak come through the door, I give the crowd a quick look to see if I got any strangers. I get an empty feeling in the middle when I see a big guy at the end of my bar, nursing a beer. He is unfamiliar and about seven feet tall, with shoulders like beer kegs.

Of course, Buster sees the stranger, waves at his friends and stands up to the bar right next to the big guy. Buster always wears a smile and maybe some people say it makes friends for you, but Buster’s smile, along with his little pale blue eyes, always makes me think of a guy I once saw trying to beat a horse to death.

The room gets very quiet and some of the quieter characters slip out the door and go home, the characters who don’t like the sight of blood.

Buster edges up to the stranger and jiggles the guy’s arm, spilling a little of the beer. The big man glares, but says nothing. Buster says to me, “Johnny, my friend here is buying me a rye and water.” Still, the big guy says nothing.

I wish I was a million miles away. I pour the drink and set it in front of Buster. I hesitate a little and Buster says softly, “You heard me, Johnny. This guy is buying.”

I reach for the change in front of the stranger, but he knocks my hand aside and asks, “What the hell are you doing?”

“You’re buying me a drink,” Buster said with a smile.

Then the big guy made the mistake of shoving Buster away. It was a shove that would have sent me back six feet and would have sent Angelo into the bar across the street. It moved Buster back a half step. Buster swung a hook into the big man’s middle. It doubled him over. Buster hooked a right up into his mouth. It sounded like somebody whaling a concrete post with a bag of wet sand. The guy flipped over onto his back. But he was game. He rolled over onto his knees and turned around, so he could come up at Buster. He waited too long. Buster kicked him flush in the mouth. It wasn’t pretty. Somebody near the door gagged. The big guy fumbled his way over to the wall, and Buster stood waiting for him. The big guy got smart. He felt his way along the wall and then broke for the door in a stumbling run. Buster laughed and a few dutiful souls joined in. I poured out what was left of the big boy’s drink, and Buster scooped up his change and shoved it in his pocket. I didn’t ask who was going to pay for the rye and water.

In ten minutes the big boy was back with Ray Haggerty, the cop on the beat. They came through the door with the big boy holding on to Ray’s arm. He pointed a shaking finger at Pasternak and said through bleeding lips and broken teeth, “That’s the guy! That’s the one beat me up!”

When Ray saw who he was pointing at, he spun the big boy around and shoved him toward the door, saying, “Get along with you, you stew bum. If Mr. Pasternak beat you up, he had a good reason.”

The big guy looked stupidly around the room, and then the door slammed behind him. Ray said, “Hey, Buster, take it easy on those guys. I kind of thought it was you.”

Buster laughed again and bought Ray a drink out of the change he had picked off the bar.

On Thursday, the next day, at about three, the slim guy from upstairs comes in. I give him a big smile and say, “I guess you’re the fellow who moved in upstairs. I’m Johnny Pepper.”

“Yeah,” the guy says without a smile. “Straight rye. Water chaser.”

I set it down in front of him. His hand was shaking a little when he grabbed it, and he put his mouth down close to it so he wouldn’t spill it. He knocked it off with one gulp and I give him another. The second one went the same way as the first. He let the third one sit for a while. He relaxed and his hand stopped shaking. He got a little color in his pale face and said, “The pause that refreshes. I’m Bob Simmonds.”

I had him cased. There’s only one kind of drinker that drinks like that. I began right then to feel sorry for the wife.

At three-thirty, Simmonds is reciting poetry to me. He talks like a very educated guy and he tells me he is writing a book of poetry. He also tells me that his wife is secretary for a guy who runs a big laundry and that she is working until he can get his book finished, at which time they will be rich.

At four o’clock, he is talking more than ever, telling me all about life and art and culture, only it is getting hard to understand him and he has gone right through a whole bottle. He is beginning to get noisy and having himself a time clinging to the bar when in comes Buster.

I have hopes that Buster will leave the kid alone, and maybe he would have, because you got to say for Buster, he only picks on the littler guys when he’s pretty well loaded. But the kid tears it. There is half a dozen guys in the bar, and when the kid sees Buster, he yells, “And here comes an example of the Neanderthal man. The primitive type.”

Buster swaggers over, smiling, and says, “You talking to me, kid?”

“Take it easy, please,” I say.

“Shut up, you,” Buster tells me. “I think junior here needs a little workout.”

The kid doubles up a thin fist and slams Buster in the jaw. To Buster it is like a kiss from a mosquito. The kid’s eyes bug a little and he tries again. Same answer. Buster doesn’t lose his smile. Buster grabs the kid’s clothes in the front in his left hand so he can hold the kid up and maybe have the fun of hitting him more than once.

Just then, the door busts open and in comes Mrs. Simmonds. She shoves in between the two of them, her big eyes flashing. I can see little red glints in her hair. She says, very low and deadly, “Keep your paws off him, ape man.”

There is a clatter behind her as junior passes out. She turns to me and gives me one of those smiles you wish for and said, “Could you please get him upstairs for me?”

She turns and walks out, her hips moving nicely under her skirt. Buster looks a bit dazed. He whistles softly and says, “That’s for me. Boy! That’s for me.”

“That’s her husband on the floor,” I mention. But he doesn’t seem to hear me. Which is bad. Buster Pasternak has some very violent and elemental ideas about womenfolk. The worst rap his brothers had to fix for him was the time he put the college girl in the hospital for three weeks. They even kept it out of the papers. Somehow, I didn’t want to see him on the trail of Mrs. Simmonds.

Anyway, I got Angelo out from in back and he took care of the bar while I carried the kid upstairs.

She let me in and I dumped him on the sofa. She looked tense and worried. “I’m sorry about this,” she said. “You see, Bob doesn’t seem to—”

I held up my hand. “Don’t say another word. I saw a movie about a guy like him. Only, that guy you stopped would have killed him.”

“It would have been better than watching him drink himself to death,” she snapped.

“You don’t want to think like that, lady. Maybe he’ll snap out of it.”

“In three years he’s had a thousand chances to snap out. He’s getting worse instead of better. Don’t serve him anymore.”

“That doesn’t make sense. If he hasn’t any dough, I won’t trust him. If he has the dough, I’ll sell him drinks. If I don’t, there’s nine gin mills in the block that will.”

She sagged into a chair. “I suppose you’re right. I wish I had the money to take him away where he couldn’t buy a drink.”

“Look,” I say to her, “there’s something else. I want you should buy a chain for your door and let me put it on. You know, those kind that let you open it a little to see who wants in.”

She stared at me. “Why, for goodness’ sake?”

I had to tell her all about Buster. I really laid it on. When she asked me where the law was, I told her that in this town the Pasternaks are the law. I finally got it through her head that she was in actual, physical danger. She was crying when I left, not from fear, but just from having too many problems all at once.

Angelo glared at me for taking so long, and hurried back to his game in the back room.

The next evening I put the chain on the door for her. Simmonds was sitting on the couch. He glanced up at me, but he didn’t speak.

I didn’t see any of them for nearly a week, except once in a while a glimpse of her on her way home from work.

On a rainy Wednesday, shortly after one o’clock, Simmonds comes in, shaking the rain off his collar. I wait until I see him take a ten out of his pocket before I pour the rye. The performance is the same as before, with him relaxing a little as soon as he downs two shots.

“What’d you hock to get the dough, golden boy?” I ask him.

He leers at me. “From in back of the sugar bowl in the cupboard, if it’s any of your business, Johnny.” It wasn’t any of my business, but I was having the jitters worrying about whether or not Buster would show. I knew that this time she wouldn’t arrive like the horses do in the Westerns. He was just medium noisy when a little kid clomped down the steps and peered through the window.

I said to Simmonds, “Bud, you better finish your drink and blow. And put that chain on the door. That kid is off to tip Buster, and this time your wife won’t be around to save you. You remember Buster?”

“What I don’t remember, Alice told me. And I’m staying. That monkey won’t touch me.”

“No,” I said, “he won’t touch you. He’ll just put you in the hospital for two weeks while he makes a play for your wife. Buster’ll be real gentle, he will.”

Simmonds grins at me and shows me the butt of a small automatic. He drops it back in his pocket and says, “I loaded little sweetie pie last night. She’s only a twenty-two, but I can put all seven shots into your eye from across the room. I’m ignoring the monkey, but he lays a hand on me and he gets it.”

“Look, Simmonds,” I say, “you’re not the type.”

“Maybe I’m just starting to be the type.”

I guess it was my fault. As predicted, Buster shows up in five more minutes, blowing hard from hurrying. Two old guys are sitting at a table near the window. The five of us is all there is.

Buster isn’t smiling. He stops about six feet from Simmonds and says, “Turn around and look at me, punk. I’m going to rough you up a little.”

That was my cue. I should have said, “He’s got a gun, Buster.” That’s what I should have said. But I was too busy remembering the look in Mrs. Simmonds’ eyes and too busy remembering the jobs that Buster had done on numerous clients and customers. I had my mouth open, but nothing came out.

I saw the kid’s hand dart down into his coat pocket, and he whirled, yanking the gun out as Buster rushed him. There was a small snapping noise. The kid was yanking at the trigger and nothing more was happening when Buster hit him. I expected Buster to pull the punch, but he was like a wild man.

You ever see anybody killed with one smack? It makes a sight and a sound that’s right out of this world. You don’t want to see it twice. The kid flew back against the bar and crumpled to the floor. Somehow, I knew he was dead.

Buster gave me a weak ghost of his usual smile, pawed at his throat, mumbled, “What the hell?” and folded slowly down across Simmonds’ body. One of the old guys tried to get out by way of the plate-glass window.

I was alone and the room was beginning to smell of death by the time the cops got there. I was the only witness they needed.

Buster got one hell of a big funeral. I didn’t go. I stayed right behind my bar and got tight. There was a couple of things I wanted to forget.

One thing was the way Alice Simmonds acted. You see, I went upstairs right after the two of them were pronounced dead. I expected her to be working, but she wasn’t. She was home. She opened the door and held her hands up to her mouth, her eyes wide, and said, “Is he—?”

I gave it to her quick and caught her as she fell.

I carried her over to the sofa, and as I laid her down, some little brass things spilled out of the pocket of her skirt. Six of them. Six little .22 shells.

She opened her eyes dreamily and stared up at me and murmured, “I gave him a sporting chance, which is more than he ever gave me.” Then she acted like she wanted to bite off her tongue, and looked sick when I handed her the shells.

Another thing I want to forget is Ray saying, “Damn if I can understand why a guy would expect to knock off Buster Pasternak with one dinky little bullet. That’s all he had in the gun, you know. Nicked the heart.”

They made a routine check for fingerprints, and when they found hers as well as his, it didn’t mean a thing to them.

She’s gone now. Moved out.

Sometimes on sunny afternoons when I see a slender woman walking on the other side of the street, I think it’s her and I run to the window, but it never is. It just never is.

Maybe one of these days, when Angelo fires me again, I’ll see if I can locate her.