Read Online Black Hats by Patrick Culhane - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Patrick Culhane
Tags: Fiction, Historical fiction, General, Suspense, Historical, Mystery & Detective, Crime, Private Investigators, Detective and Mystery Stories, Mystery Fiction, New York (N.Y.), Los Angeles (Calif.), organized crime, Adventure fiction, Gangsters - New York (State) - New York, Mafia - New York (State) - New York, Private Investigators - New York (State) - New York, Earp; Wyatt, Capone; Al
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shoved him, just a tad…. Are you listening?”
“I can listen with my eyes closed.”
“Oh. I thought maybe you dropped off for a nap there, elderly gentleman that you are.”
Wyatt opened his eyes. “No, I was just trying to picture this fascinating tale. Maybe with Bill Hart in the lead.”
Bat grinned and the cigarette almost fell from his mouth as he said, “You know, he’d be good as me. That would make a hell of a movie, Bill Hart playing me. Where was I?”
“Shoving some codger around in the Waldorf lobby.”
“Right. Well, the young pipsqueak from Texas, the editor, name of Dinklesheets…Dinklesheets! What the hell kind of name is Dinklesheets, anyway?”
“A stupid one.”
“This Dinklesheets hauls off and pastes me one.”
“Do tell.”
“So I pasted him back, knocked him down. Promptly, he was hearing birdies tweet and bleeding out his mouth. But old Plunkett still had that gun on him, so I shoved my hand in my jacket pocket and indicated I had the drop on him, and the old boy just put up his hands and didn’t even bend to dab the blood off from the corners of his companion’s damaged mouth.”
Wyatt said, “You still carry a gun?”
“Time to time,” Bat said, then lifted the deck of cigarettes from his breast pocket again, “but I was just pointing a pack of these at ’im. That’s about the whole story. Hotel detective came up and requested I leave.”
“And of course you’re not one to stay where you’re not wanted.”
“Not me!” He tapped cigarette ash onto the filthy wooden floor. “Listen, your timing is good as ever. I just put the finishing touches on my Sunday column. The evening stretches out ahead of us in possibility like an endless prairie.”
“I don’t mind you being a writer,” Wyatt said with a frown. “But please God don’t talk like one.”
Bat ignored that, slapping his thighs, getting to his feet. “You’ll stay with Emma and me at our apartment, of course.”
“I’m not one to impose…”
“Of course you are, but you won’t be. Emma has a fondness for you resulting from never ever having spent much time with you. And I’ve misled her, because I speak so highly of you since, of course, it only enhances my standing.”
“Of course.”
“Let me just arrange for an office boy to walk your bag over to the apartment—just a few blocks from here, but we’re not headed that way.”
“Where are we headed?”
But Bat didn’t answer, stepping out of the glassed-in office with Wyatt’s alligator bag and returning in two minutes empty-handed, having sent a harried-looking lad off with it.
“Hope you didn’t eat on the train,” Bat said.
“Not since lunch. After four days, even Fred Harvey’s cooking gets tiresome.”
“Well, we’ll have a wonderful meal, take in a fight, and along the way I’ll fill you in about this kid of Doc’s. Chip off the old block.”
“A mean drunken lunger with a nasty sense of humor?”
Bat shook his head. “Not a chunk, a chip—grab your hat…. Couldn’t you have worn a Stetson?”
“This is a Stetson.”
“No, I mean a Stetson , with a nice wide brim. I’m going to be introducing you around as Wyatt Earp and in that goddamned homburg, you just don’t look the part.”
With this, Bat snugged his tie and donned his trademark derby; he seemed to have abandoned the other trademark, his gold-topped cane, but Wyatt noted the limp from the King gunfight was still present.
“When did you ever wear a Stetson?” Wyatt asked his friend, who was holding the office door open for him.
“Never. I always had more dash than you, Wyatt—but you have to give people what they expect. Reality isn’t the point—it’s the perception of reality.” He shrugged. “That’s show business.”
They took a taxi and the noise of traffic—the blat of automobile horns, the clang of trolley cars, the wheeze of double-decker buses, the harness rattle and wheel-clank of horse-drawn wagons—made
“I can listen with my eyes closed.”
“Oh. I thought maybe you dropped off for a nap there, elderly gentleman that you are.”
Wyatt opened his eyes. “No, I was just trying to picture this fascinating tale. Maybe with Bill Hart in the lead.”
Bat grinned and the cigarette almost fell from his mouth as he said, “You know, he’d be good as me. That would make a hell of a movie, Bill Hart playing me. Where was I?”
“Shoving some codger around in the Waldorf lobby.”
“Right. Well, the young pipsqueak from Texas, the editor, name of Dinklesheets…Dinklesheets! What the hell kind of name is Dinklesheets, anyway?”
“A stupid one.”
“This Dinklesheets hauls off and pastes me one.”
“Do tell.”
“So I pasted him back, knocked him down. Promptly, he was hearing birdies tweet and bleeding out his mouth. But old Plunkett still had that gun on him, so I shoved my hand in my jacket pocket and indicated I had the drop on him, and the old boy just put up his hands and didn’t even bend to dab the blood off from the corners of his companion’s damaged mouth.”
Wyatt said, “You still carry a gun?”
“Time to time,” Bat said, then lifted the deck of cigarettes from his breast pocket again, “but I was just pointing a pack of these at ’im. That’s about the whole story. Hotel detective came up and requested I leave.”
“And of course you’re not one to stay where you’re not wanted.”
“Not me!” He tapped cigarette ash onto the filthy wooden floor. “Listen, your timing is good as ever. I just put the finishing touches on my Sunday column. The evening stretches out ahead of us in possibility like an endless prairie.”
“I don’t mind you being a writer,” Wyatt said with a frown. “But please God don’t talk like one.”
Bat ignored that, slapping his thighs, getting to his feet. “You’ll stay with Emma and me at our apartment, of course.”
“I’m not one to impose…”
“Of course you are, but you won’t be. Emma has a fondness for you resulting from never ever having spent much time with you. And I’ve misled her, because I speak so highly of you since, of course, it only enhances my standing.”
“Of course.”
“Let me just arrange for an office boy to walk your bag over to the apartment—just a few blocks from here, but we’re not headed that way.”
“Where are we headed?”
But Bat didn’t answer, stepping out of the glassed-in office with Wyatt’s alligator bag and returning in two minutes empty-handed, having sent a harried-looking lad off with it.
“Hope you didn’t eat on the train,” Bat said.
“Not since lunch. After four days, even Fred Harvey’s cooking gets tiresome.”
“Well, we’ll have a wonderful meal, take in a fight, and along the way I’ll fill you in about this kid of Doc’s. Chip off the old block.”
“A mean drunken lunger with a nasty sense of humor?”
Bat shook his head. “Not a chunk, a chip—grab your hat…. Couldn’t you have worn a Stetson?”
“This is a Stetson.”
“No, I mean a Stetson , with a nice wide brim. I’m going to be introducing you around as Wyatt Earp and in that goddamned homburg, you just don’t look the part.”
With this, Bat snugged his tie and donned his trademark derby; he seemed to have abandoned the other trademark, his gold-topped cane, but Wyatt noted the limp from the King gunfight was still present.
“When did you ever wear a Stetson?” Wyatt asked his friend, who was holding the office door open for him.
“Never. I always had more dash than you, Wyatt—but you have to give people what they expect. Reality isn’t the point—it’s the perception of reality.” He shrugged. “That’s show business.”
They took a taxi and the noise of traffic—the blat of automobile horns, the clang of trolley cars, the wheeze of double-decker buses, the harness rattle and wheel-clank of horse-drawn wagons—made
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