A Pure Double Cross by John Knoerle

I stop or go?”
    â€œStop,” I said, sure that our tail was unmade.
    We braked just as the Packard’s V-12 roared to life. I sat up in the passenger’s seat to watch The Schooler tear across the intersection just ahead of the cross traffic and disappear down the road.
    -----
    Wally was looking woeful again as he pulled the Hudson up to Mrs. Brennan’s rooming house. “What do I tell ‘em? Downtown.”
    â€œNot a thing, I’ll be in on Monday to file a report.” I opened my door, clapped Wally on the shoulder and said, “We’ll get ‘em next time.”
    Wally nodded and drove off. I felt bad for him. It wasn’t his fault he was paired with a numbskull. I also felt hungry enough to eat a horse. Thank God for small favors, horsemeat wouldn’t be hard to find around here.
    I let gravity take me down the hill. I kept my balance by flanging out my feet like a circus clown, crunching through the corn snow, skidding on ice. I managed to remain upright fortwo blocks. To Elm Street, to a blue and white sign with a mermaid on it.
The Harbor Inn.
    Valhalla.

Chapter Twenty
    The Harbor Inn had a bar about a mile long. There were a million different beers lined up on a shelf above it, arranged alphabetically. By the time I reached the end of the bar I had devised a plan. I would start with a cold bottle of Anchor Steam and work my way down the line, concluding my evening with a frosty Zipfer Bier. An ambitious undertaking, no question, but I had a hog wallow of self pity to dive into.
    The ruddy deckhands throwing darts and the sooty steelworkers wide-elbowed at the bar shot me sideways looks as I ambled by. The vicuna topcoat was inappropriate attire maybe. So I took a stool at the far end, dug out a Ulysses S. Grant and said those stirring words every barfly longs to say. “Drinks all around, on me.”
    What the hell, I was flush.
    The barmaid palmed the fifty like this happened every day and started taking orders. The tugmen and steel smelters to my left had surprisingly refined tastes. The barmaid had to climb a stepstool to retrieve dusty bottles of Johnny Walker Black and Remy Martin VSOP. I got some
skol’
s and
prosit’
s, and one freckled rascal raised his glass with “May the best of your past be the worst of your future.”
    I smiled, nodded, and ordered an Anchor Steam. A waitress crossed behind me carrying something that smelled like heaven on a plate. I snagged her on the way back and ordered the same. She returned to the kitchen. I cleaned the bar with a drink napkin, it came up red. Ore dust.
    You ever have one of those days when you’re the butt of the joke and you don’t know why? You’ve got a big piece of spinach in your grille maybe, or someone’s pinned a ‘kick me’sign to the back of your coat. That’s the way it had been since I arrived in Cleveland. Everyone in on the joke but me.
    Did The Schooler make us in the ’39 Hudson or was he just performing standard evasive maneuvers? I didn’t know.
    Did Jimmy somehow stage manage my rescue outside the Theatrical or just catch a mystery call for help at the last second? I didn’t know.
    Did Special Agent in Charge Chester Halladay recruit me to infiltrate the Fulton Road Mob only to have his chain yanked by the Director because I was getting too close to Mr. Big, a.k.a. Louis Seltzer? I didn’t know, didn’t have a blessed clue.
    I did know that the steaming platter of cabbage rolls and browned to perfection walleye perch that the waitress slung down on the bar in front of me was a thing of beauty. I admired it for half a second.
    I was barely into the C’s - Carling Red Cap Ale - when the barmaid asked me if I was Hal Schroeder.
    â€œWho wants to know?”
    â€œSome guy,” she said, indicating the wall phone, its earpiece dangling.
    I went over and picked it up. “Who’s