calls.”
ED DODGE drove with the windows down, the police radio on low, running past the Columbia coffee shop and then turning onto Twenty-second, heading north to Columbus and the Boston Bar, with a detective trainee named Al Wainright riding shotgun, upright in his seat and watching the night faces scattering on the sidewalks. About all Wainright had learned so far was not to make a damned traffic stop in an unmarked unit. The first time Dodge had let him drive, he’d tried to pull over a guy for blowing through a stop sign, and Dodge had had to ream him out for not realizing he was now a detective.
Wainright was a lithe, movie-star-handsome kind of man who liked to wear tropical suits and silk shirts and was known to flash his badge down at the Sapphire Room or the Tampa Terrace bar on a Saturday night and talk about being a real detective to crowds of admiring women. But whatever ego he had was always kept in check by the cops who knew his secret.
As a kid, Wainright had been some kind of child star and used to travel around the Southeast in a vaudevillian act where he danced and sang. He apparently hated the precocious child he’d been, and his face would grow red with shame anytime the older cops would ask him if he’d perform a little soft-shoe or sing some Hit Parade for the boys in the police locker room.
As Dodge swung off the main drag and into a shell parking lot, Wainright was checking out his profile in the side mirror and straightening out a new tie.
A tin light hung by the front door of the Boston Bar, and a circular window blazed with beer signs. As the detectives climbed out of the car, they heard Sinatra sing from a jukebox, reminding Dodge of the last time he’d been here and all that broken glass and blood.
Wainright checked out the selections on the jukebox, while Dodge wandered over the smooth concrete floor past the eyes of all the derelicts and hucksters to see Johnny Rivera’s broad back turned to him as he arranged clean glasses and smoked a cigarette.
Dodge didn’t say anything; Rivera knew he was here.
Most of the bar was empty; it was early for a place like this. He noticed a bottle blonde with big blue eyes and nice muscular calves sitting alone in a side booth. There was a fat black man in a red suit eating popcorn by the toilets and two women playing pool in a back corner. Dodge looked back to the front door, and remembered how in ’53 Joe Antinori had just come inside to deliver a plate-glass window to Johnny Rivera and got shot three times.
Rivera said he’d gone in the back when some man—Rivera made the point of the man’s ordering rye because no one from Tampa would order rye—pulled out a gun and shot old Joe right through the glass he was holding and into his heart. Dodge knew Rivera had either sat right there and watched it or pulled the damned trigger himself. But Rivera never even spent a night in jail, and a witness Dodge had found later skipped town after changing his mind on what he saw. Dodge remembered Inspector Beynon asking him about that unnamed witness and his not saying a thing. The last thing he wanted to do was let the goddamned police department know where to find this guy. The man would’ve been dead within an hour.
“What the fuck do you want?” Rivera said.
“Hi-ya, Johnny.”
“I’ll call Captain Franks right now,” he said. “Don’t come in here and be hassling me.”
“For what?”
“Save your mind-fuck, Dodge,” Rivera said, smiling with his eyes and patting down the skinny black tie he wore with a white shirt.
“Just want to talk.”
“I got nothin’ to say.”
“How ’bout a beer?”
“You drinkin’ on duty?” Rivera said. “I get tired of you guys comin’ in here and wantin’ information or to bullshit and then walkin’ out on your tab.”
Dodge smiled at him and took a deep breath. When Dodge worked a guy, he always talked in a deep, low voice, and tried to show the guy, even a shit bag like Johnny Rivera,
ED DODGE drove with the windows down, the police radio on low, running past the Columbia coffee shop and then turning onto Twenty-second, heading north to Columbus and the Boston Bar, with a detective trainee named Al Wainright riding shotgun, upright in his seat and watching the night faces scattering on the sidewalks. About all Wainright had learned so far was not to make a damned traffic stop in an unmarked unit. The first time Dodge had let him drive, he’d tried to pull over a guy for blowing through a stop sign, and Dodge had had to ream him out for not realizing he was now a detective.
Wainright was a lithe, movie-star-handsome kind of man who liked to wear tropical suits and silk shirts and was known to flash his badge down at the Sapphire Room or the Tampa Terrace bar on a Saturday night and talk about being a real detective to crowds of admiring women. But whatever ego he had was always kept in check by the cops who knew his secret.
As a kid, Wainright had been some kind of child star and used to travel around the Southeast in a vaudevillian act where he danced and sang. He apparently hated the precocious child he’d been, and his face would grow red with shame anytime the older cops would ask him if he’d perform a little soft-shoe or sing some Hit Parade for the boys in the police locker room.
As Dodge swung off the main drag and into a shell parking lot, Wainright was checking out his profile in the side mirror and straightening out a new tie.
A tin light hung by the front door of the Boston Bar, and a circular window blazed with beer signs. As the detectives climbed out of the car, they heard Sinatra sing from a jukebox, reminding Dodge of the last time he’d been here and all that broken glass and blood.
Wainright checked out the selections on the jukebox, while Dodge wandered over the smooth concrete floor past the eyes of all the derelicts and hucksters to see Johnny Rivera’s broad back turned to him as he arranged clean glasses and smoked a cigarette.
Dodge didn’t say anything; Rivera knew he was here.
Most of the bar was empty; it was early for a place like this. He noticed a bottle blonde with big blue eyes and nice muscular calves sitting alone in a side booth. There was a fat black man in a red suit eating popcorn by the toilets and two women playing pool in a back corner. Dodge looked back to the front door, and remembered how in ’53 Joe Antinori had just come inside to deliver a plate-glass window to Johnny Rivera and got shot three times.
Rivera said he’d gone in the back when some man—Rivera made the point of the man’s ordering rye because no one from Tampa would order rye—pulled out a gun and shot old Joe right through the glass he was holding and into his heart. Dodge knew Rivera had either sat right there and watched it or pulled the damned trigger himself. But Rivera never even spent a night in jail, and a witness Dodge had found later skipped town after changing his mind on what he saw. Dodge remembered Inspector Beynon asking him about that unnamed witness and his not saying a thing. The last thing he wanted to do was let the goddamned police department know where to find this guy. The man would’ve been dead within an hour.
“What the fuck do you want?” Rivera said.
“Hi-ya, Johnny.”
“I’ll call Captain Franks right now,” he said. “Don’t come in here and be hassling me.”
“For what?”
“Save your mind-fuck, Dodge,” Rivera said, smiling with his eyes and patting down the skinny black tie he wore with a white shirt.
“Just want to talk.”
“I got nothin’ to say.”
“How ’bout a beer?”
“You drinkin’ on duty?” Rivera said. “I get tired of you guys comin’ in here and wantin’ information or to bullshit and then walkin’ out on your tab.”
Dodge smiled at him and took a deep breath. When Dodge worked a guy, he always talked in a deep, low voice, and tried to show the guy, even a shit bag like Johnny Rivera,
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