“Soon Schultz was serving watered-down beer and bad whiskey. Soon the numbers players had no chance at all.”

Source: Mobster Times Magazine (August, 75 cents)

Soon Schultz was serving watered-down beer and bad whiskey. Soon the numbers players had no chance at all.

The Tuesday band was lousy and the bass player had no respect for Enzo. Schultz would have done something back in the day. Now he sits there all slumped over and snores through the set. Once Dottie even came in with Schultz’s dinner, oven-hot, mitt still on, and shoved it right under his nose. He said something in his sleep that nobody understood and drooled some. Must have been that Schultz hadn’t been home in days because Dottie snatched the plate back and left it in the stairwell where the bums tend to sit and watch the shiny shoes go by. You might have thought the bums had struck gold except that Dottie was a terrible cook. If you could get close enough to her to smell her perfume, though, you might find other reasons to go home.

“Listen, Enzo, En…zo: I’m going to get right to the bottom of this thing.” A finger goes down hard on the table.

“Sure. Don’t be surprised if what you find’s no different from the stuff you scrape off the bottom of your shoe. It’s got to do with Faraway Farm, ManO’War, all the stuff I don’t wanna talk about. ‘Nother splash here, Matt.”

Tap-tap. The bartender advances like a table football player and empties the rest of the bottle into Enzo’s glass, then loads contempt into one eyebrow and slinks off like tomcat.

“Got his wife driving around in a real jalopy these days.” Clyde reaches for his Chesterfields and swipes a couple of times before he realizes they’re not on him.

“Pathetic.”

“Pathetic.”

“No, Clyde. You. You’re in rot shape. And you’re going to be in worse shape if you keep running your mouth. Like some kinda broken dumb hose. Like a leak.”

“I better take one of those…”

“I’ll bet.”

Clyde slides off of his chair, his feet far from the ground. In an effort not to feel like a kid at the adult table, he’s got a lean practiced, but that never helps with this part. Got to keep it together to make the book later. Right now, Enzo’s face is bleeding into mahogany. The drums are glittering and together with the bass, look almost like a Christmas tree. Christmas. That’s a nice clean thought; clean sheet in the breeze. Hang on, hang on…

As Clyde gets past the band and pulls at the back curtain, the drummer clashes the cymbals together in his direction. Laughs go up into thick gray air like bad-weather fireworks. Anger finally wakes Schultz up. It’s about time someone put a stop to the lousy music. Not worth the risk. And that’s all it ever is, thinks Clyde, passing a guy who’s full-on weeping in the back room. All it ever is is running the numbers. He hiccups, drawing a few more sneers from the Backroom Boys as he approaches the men’s. If Schultz knew how to run a business he’d get the girls back. He’d pull his investment at the China Diner. He’d keep his paws out of Faraway Farm.

Clyde decides that this will be his last Tuesday at the pig when he steps into the men’s. Time to focus on the books and putting down a letter to his brother. He wouldn’t mention anything about the poor guy’s shoulder. The poor guy…wouldn’t mention anything about the Red’s season. He’d stick to girls. Time to focus on getting Fran’s married name. Time to make a phone a call. But first, time to figure out what happened to his Chesterfields…

- @ubree

Advertisement