Jimmy and Fay by Michael Mayo Page B

clean towel before I loaded them back into the dumbwaiter and down to the bar.
    Back in the basement, Arch and I stacked the night’s empties, and he took boxes of cigars and the special ten-cigarette packs of Camels we sold upstairs.
    It was sometime after four when we kicked out the last of the happy Democrats and started cleaning up. I took the night’s cash up to my office. I made a quick count and was glad to see that it had been a very good night. Connie would do the real count for the books, but she usually didn’t get to that until the next morning, so I locked up the cash in the safe with the dirty picture book. I considered taking the book with me to the Chelsea because I might want to show it to Daphne, if I could see Daphne tomorrow. But, no, too many people wanted to get their hands on that book. Better to keep it locked up. I went back downstairs and we finished cleaning up.
    It must have been around five when Connie and I put on our coats and hats. She turned toward the front door, where we usually went out when we closed, but I locked it from the inside and said, “Let’s use the back tonight. And, here, take this.” I handed her the little Spanish .25 automatic I’d just borrowed from Marie Therese.
    Looking surprised and concerned, she put it in her bag and asked what was going on.
    We went to the back stairs and I said, “I don’t know what’s going on. Nothing about this business feels kosher to me. I mean, for openers, any fool can see that it’s not Miss Wray in the pictures, so why would anybody threaten her with them? And why is she worried about them? She says her husband will be pissed off anyway, and that doesn’t make any sense either.”
    â€œSure it does,” Connie snapped back at me. “Some guys will use any excuse to get a girl under their thumb. Blame her for things that aren’t her fault, tell her she doesn’t look like he wants her to, you know what I mean.”
    â€œYeah, I guess you’re right.” We saw it often enough with our customers, swells and mugs, it didn’t matter.
    We went out the back door. I locked it and unlocked the back gate that opened on the alley behind the place. I made sure it was locked tight before we walked down to Broadway. I wanted to take her arm, but I wasn’t going to let go of the Banker’s Special in my topcoat pocket.
    â€œAnd then there’s the two idiots who braced me outside Lansky’s place. They don’t know what the fuck they’re doing, pardon my French. But if Fat Joe’s right and the old guy used to be a vice cop, then we’ve got to be careful.”
    She nodded. “Yes, I’ve heard about them.”
    â€œI don’t know that they’ll try anything, but they followed Miss Wray to our place and then they got in, so they know who you are. I told Fat Joe not to let ’em in again, but it looks to me like they’re so damn stupid you can’t tell what they’re going to do. Makes them dangerous. So maybe I’m nuts to give you Marie Therese’s piece, but maybe I’m not.”
    Connie forgot she was mad at me and put her arm through mine as we walked down Broadway and then turned toward the Chelsea. There was no sign of the Olds or the idiots.
    â€œWhat are you going to do now?” she asked.
    I explained that when I’d told her earlier that I was going to Polly’s, I was trying to find Charlie Luciano to see if his guys had anything to do with the book and the shakedown. Nobody he knew had anything to do with it, but he knew the girl in the book. She used to work for Polly. Hearing that, Connie perked right up and asked why I hadn’t told her.
    â€œThings are happening too fast. Seemed more important to pay attention to Saxon Dunbar and the guys who are asking for the money the last time we talked.” Then I explained to her that I met Pearl, now known as Polly, back when I was a kid. I