The Strangler

3

Joe Daley

Joe Daley filled the door of the Chantilly Lounge. He paused to let his eyes adjust to the gloom inside. Joe had an enormous block of a head, like a slightly oversized statue, and all that squinting and blinking caused his mouth to turn up in a bullyboy smirk, which he did not intend but did not mind, either.

The bar was nearly empty. It was three o’clock on a Wednesday afternoon. In a booth a dingy man sat with a few newspapers in front of him. Joe greeted this man as he passed the booth, “Hey, Fish.”

Fish ignored him.

The bartender ignored Joe, too. He busied himself with stocking a beer cooler from a case of Narragansett.

“Hey, I’ll have one of those,” Joe said.

The bartender opened a bottle from the case, not the cooler, and put it in front of Joe. He slid an envelope onto the bar beside it.

The envelope disappeared into Joe’s black leather jacket. “Thanks, neighbor,” he said with a tip of his bottle, echoing a line from the Narragansett ads.

The bartender did not acknowledge the little joke, but went right back to filling the beer cooler.

Joe gave up on him. He tossed a dime on the bar as a tip, then moved over to the booth. “What’s going on, Fish?”

No one knew why this man was called Fish. His real name was not Fish or anything like it, nor had he ever been involved with fishes or fishing, at least not that anyone knew of. But Fish he was, a small-time bookie who, after paying out the rent he owed to the North End mobsters and to the Chantilly and to the cops, barely had anything to show for his bookmaking efforts. It had been easier before Capobianco took over, before the dagos decided to consolidate all the bookmaking in the city. Then, you paid the cops and that was that. Now you paid everybody. You couldn’t live off the crumbs they left you. Not like the old days.

Joe slid onto the bench opposite Fish. “Let me see the Army,” he said. This was Armstrong’s, a daily racing form that covered the East Coast tracks. “What looks good today, Fish, anything?”

“I don’t get involved, Officer.”

“Hey, what’s with the ‘officer’? I ain’t working, not till five.”

“Before five, after five, I don’t get involved. Just make your own picks. I don’t give a shit.”

Joe opened the paper and studied the handicapping information closely. He muttered as he read, “Feeling good today, Fish, fee-lin’ good.”

Fish shared a glance with the bartender.

“How about this one,” Joe said. “Sixth race at Suffolk, Lord Jim. I like that name. Can I get one down for three oh five? Time is it?”

Fish took the Army with a little frown and found the listing. “Lord Jim,” he mumbled, “ten to one. Ten to one.”

“No guts, no glory.”

“What do you know about him?”

“I know I like him. What, you gonna talk me out of it now?”

“How much?”

“A fin. Make it interesting.”

“To win, you mean?”

“Yeah, to win. Of course to win. What do I look like?”

“Let me see the cash.”

Joe dug in his pocket but came up with just two crumpled singles. He felt the envelope, hesitated. The bartender was watching. Ah, what the fuck, right? It was Joe’s money, some of it anyway. He peeked inside the envelope. Nothing smaller than a ten.

“That ain’t all for you,” the bartender said.

“I’ll put it back.”

“It’s not yours in the first place.”

“I said I’ll put it back.”

Fish shook his head. He produced a battered black notebook from his coat and he noted the bet, encoding Joe’s name in a cipher of his own invention. He folded the Armstrong’s and put it aside, went back to reading the Observer.

The bartender returned to his work, avoiding Joe’s eyes. His movements were sulky, miffed.

“I told you, I’m good for it.”

“Yeah, alright, Joe, you’re good for it. Whatever you say.”

“Good.”

“I just don’t want to hear the envelope was light. Some sergeant comes down here-”

“I’m good for it, I said.”

In the sixth race at Suffolk Downs, Lord Jim finished sixth in a field of six.