When I meet Little Jimmy Kerrigan’s son at the Adolpho Café in Franklin Park, it doesn’t really surprise me to find out that Jimmy left town one night and never came back. Gone. No hi, bye, fuck you or nothin’. He was always a rat bastard and it was just a matter of time that he would end up missing or dead in some alley.
Paul Kerrigan leans over the table and tells me that’s almost exactly what had happened two years ago. He had a bullet graze his ear as he and Tip Reynolds had bolted out the back exit of the Bullpen. They had been in there drinking at the bar one night. Some guy just walks in as he’s pulling down one of those stocking mask things with the eyes and mouth cut out. He draws his piece and starts blasting. The shooter was just some punk, though, and he missed everything with three shots inside the bar and then missed three more times in the alley.
So, Jimmy and Tip were busting ass down the alley in one direction and the shooter decided this shit wasn’t really worth getting caught, so he busts down the alley the other way.
Tip told Paulie all about it three days later on the phone. Said he didn’t know where little Jimmy went but that he was going to jump town, too.
The whole time Paulie is telling me this he’s hardly taking a breath. Wears my ass out just listening to him. He just keeps rattling on, tells me that the Bullpen is over in Melrose Park, just a block in, off North Avenue. He says for three or four decades, The Bullpen had been a place owned by a succession of retired cops and it was where Chicago’s finest went to drink away the shift they just put in.
“I’m tellin’ you, Jerzy, this bar was a money makin’ motherfucker if there ever was one.”
Paulie then explains to me that it was a shitty little dive even in its heyday but now it’s ten times worse. That’s because about five years ago, the last two cops to own the place decided to relocate to the North Side and find some better digs. They sold it for way more than it was worth.
It turned out that not only did the new bar owners not know shit about buying a business – they topped that off with not having a clue on how to run a business either. Especially a bar that was about to lose all of its regular customers. Little Jimmy Kerrigan and Speedo Mullins had, almost overnight, failed before they even started.
A couple years and a lot of debt later, Speedo was down in Florida for a little winter time getaway. On Friday of that same week, the punk comes in the bar and starts blasting at Little Jimmy.
Funny how that works, huh?
Paulie says Speedo was definitely behind it while others think it was a loan shark who was owed money - a loan out on the bar that Jimmy didn’t pay. Still others say there was something else going on. At that point, Paulie looks at me all herky jerky, leans in again and says he’s got a theory on that.
So, basically I got a little speed freak sitting here yapping away non-stop and if what he’s saying is true we got some work to do. I got one guy that I can find and the other one might be in San fuckin’ Juan for all I know.
Paulie tells me that finding Speedo won’t be hard. He tells me that the weasel fuck will be right there at the old Bullpen all day, every day. Still drunk, still playing pool and still the same shitass he’s always been. Of course, he’s older now, all gimped up and not anywhere close to the hitter he used to be.
Paulie just kept talking, so I just kept pumping the well. He’s speeding so bad I’m expecting his heart to go any minute.
I tell him about Gar dying and how I’m really sorry about his dad disappearing. I just ease right into it. I mean I could give a shit about Little Jimmy, but hey you know, it worked. We got a connection with our dads being gone and I keep at it, all sensitive and everything.
“So what does Speedo have going on? Or what did he have going on besides the shit bar?”
“Jerzy, I really don’t keep up with any of the shit that goes down anymore. I’m totally straight now, I’m trying. That ten year stint almost killed me. I lost ten years of my life for something I never even did. I never did drugs, never bought ‘em or sold ‘em. God’s truth.”
Right. Paulie Kerrigan has been selling high grade Colombian snort forever, before and now. I’ve heard his name around a million times.
“Hey, that’s cool, Paulie. I understand that. I wonder about what the hell I’m doing with my life, too, sometimes. So, like, I can see where you’re coming from on that. I don’t want to get you tangled up with anything here. I’m just askin’.
“All right, man, I appreciate that.” He smiled all jittery at me, lit another cigarette and took a long deep pull. Damn near finished the fucker in a single toke.
“I’m just trying to find out what’s going on with that little bastard. He owes a friend of mine some money but I’m trying to keep it under the radar. We never even talked today, you know?”
“I get ya,” Paulie says. “I do know he’s got the money to pay up that debt to your buddy. Speedo, that rat fuck. He’s got my old man’s share of the business, what with him blowing town and all. Ain’t all he’s got either, I’m bettin’.”
“I just never figured him for much.”
He moved in close to me again and dropped his voice. His eyes were so dilated that they looked like black marbles. Paulie was really flying on something, probably some of the smack he sells.
“Hey, okay, like when I was a kid, about ten years ago? Well, maybe, I dunno, shit. Maybe I was like sixteen, seventeen or fifteen. One night, I walk in and I see something I’m not s’posed to. Him and my old man were in the back office of the Bullpen talking.”
“Whaddaya sayin’, Paulie? Like, you saw what a little guy Speedo really is downstairs or what?” I smile at him, take a drag and snuff my cigarette out in the ashtray. I’m all casual and funny.
Five minutes of hushed speed talking later, Paulie finally stops. Told me what he saw, what his dad told him later and a bunch more. I didn’t act one way or another when he told me all that. He ends by saying exactly what he had said at the beginning.
“Speedo…biggest jack wagon there ever was and I know he tried to off my old man.” Then he just shuts down, couldn’t hardly talk anymore. He was done, or the drugs were. Like a runner who just completed the Boston Marathon, it’s all he could do to hold his head up.
I buy him lunch and give him a ride home for his troubles. The poor guy has no car anymore, no driver’s license, no fuckin’ nothin. Including balls.
He should have taken Speedo out for trying to whack his dad but I swear the guy’s afraid of his own shadow. I feel kinda bad for Paulie. Kind of.
So, here I am. He is right where Paulie said and I’m on my second beer at the bar. I’m half turned around and watching Speedo gimp and limp around the table chasing stripes and solids. He is playing the stocky tree stump bartender who’d served me. The bartender has seen forty already, maybe even fifty, but he is still put together and looks like he knew his way around. He wasn’t drunk but Speedo was getting there.
The place is a fucking wreck. Evidently Speedo has always smoked cheap ass cigars because this bar will forever smell like them. The Bullpen is dirty, dark, old, and it smells like a fairground toilet.
There are two dinosaurs in here besides me. Two. Afternoon business is obviously big here at the old Bullpen. They’re too drunk to stay on their bar stools. One gave up and he’s standing, doing the slow dance, the old weave and lean. He wouldn’t know his own mother. The other guy has his head on the bar and will slip slide his way down to the floor very soon.
It’s a good time. I drain the Old Style and get up, leaving a twenty on the bar.
“You paid up there, sporty?” Speedo says, looking up at me all bleary eyed and then back at an easy eight ball bank shot to win. He sinks it and then laughs at the bartender.
“Fuck me.” The barkeep grunts, rolls his stick on the green felt and walks back to the bar. Just then, the leaner on his feet proves me wrong and he goes down first. He takes three bar stools with him.
I walk to where Speedo is leaning on the table and stop.
“Yeah, I paid. Left enough there to set a single day sales record for the fucking Bullpen. Look, Speedo, I know you’re just swamped here and everything, but I need to talk to you.”
He is probably mid-sixties and looks early seventies but still has that shitty, fuck you attitude. He doesn’t even look at me.
“Tommy, don’t just stand there like a goof, throw the fuckin’ drunk out on the sidewalk.” Speedo stares the bartender down until finally Tommy sighs and shakes his head. He walks over to the drunk and pulls him up to his feet.
Speedo turns to me. “Now, what is it? What the fuck is so important, boy?” He looks at me all bored and shit.
Behind us, there is a shout and another chair goes over. I turn to look and see the drunk has decided it isn’t time to go yet. He throws a slow half punch that misses and hits the bartender in the shoulder.
Tommy hits the guy with a quick upper cut to the jaw but the drunk is somehow still standing.
I start laughing. Can’t help it. It’s fucking hilarious. The bartender shoots me a pissed off look and shoves the bag of shit towards the front door.
“Get the fuck out, Howard.” Another shove but the drunk weaves in and gets him locked in a momentary bear hug.
“Howard, NOW, before I really hurt you.” They keep doing an awkward dance to the door.
Lots of yelling and banging around. Funny shit. I’m still grinning when I turn back to Speedo.
“Take me to the back office, you old fuck.” I say it low but he can tell that I mean it.
He just looks at me, shifts his cigar to the other side of his mouth and keeps chewing.
He says, “Look, asswipe, you don’t talk - .”
I decide to quit fucking around and cut him off, shoving him backwards. It’s a good time to move him with Tommy and the drunk going out the front door together.
Speedo tries to take a step toward the bar but I grab his collar and yank him towards the back hallway.
“Move, Speedo.”
“Look, kid. What’s this about? What’s your name?”
“Sawyer. Name’s Sawyer. That ring a bell?”
His red baggy eyes finally show some spark and his mouth tightens into a thin line. “Whaddya need, kid?”
Another hard shove and we’re at a door marked Private. I try the door and it opens right up. “What I need is for you to get in there.”
I push him all the way to the front of his shit covered desk and shut the office door behind me. I throw the bolt on the door and then lean on it, staring at him. I can still hear shit banging around up front.
“Jesus. You’re Mick, ain’t you?”
“That’s perfect for a dumbass. You couldn’t hit a beach ball with a tennis racket, you know that? You had a fifty percent chance of being right and you’re still wrong.”
“What the fuck is this about? Hell, kid, me and your old man were partners. It’s Jerzy, right? Jerzy, look, I heard about Gar. Bad fucking deal. What can I do here? Whatcha need, kid? Anything, you got it.”
The office is exactly what I would expect. A musty ass old room full of clutter. A collection of shit lying everywhere, papers, ledger books, food, dirty plates. Just like one of them sorry ass hoarders or whatever you call them. The thought crosses my mind that he might also have a gun in here somewhere and I watch his eyes. I don’t really need to but I flip on the over head light switch.
“Listen up.”
He interrupts me right there, though. “Jerzy, look. I’m an old man here. I mean, what the hell? Whaddya want from me?”
“Listen the fuck up, like I said. You got one chance to save your old rotten ass. One chance.” I hold up a finger. “And I promise you that I’m only asking once. Understood?”
He nods at me and he’s probably gonna lie because that’s just who he is, but hey. I do have him spooked, though.
From the other side of the door there are two loud knocks and then two more, louder this time. “Hey, Speedo! You in there?” Tommy yells it, but he don’t sound too concerned.
I nod yes at Speedo and then he watches me reach inside my leather jacket. I pull the Berretta out but hold it straight down along my leg.
He stares at it and then at me.
I cock my head at him, raise my eyebrows up like a smartass and shrug. A silent, ‘hey, it’s your fucking call, old man.’
“Tommy, sweet Jesus!” he yells “I got a meeting going on in here! What the fuck is it? Get that other drunk out of the bar and then we’ll get started on our inventory when I get done in here.”
“All right, sorry. Just checking. So you want the other guy out too, then, right?”
“What the fuck did I just say, you
fucking
moron? Do it, we’ll be done here in less than ten minutes if some jag-off bartender will just stop interrupting us.”
“All right, okay. Fuck me. All right, already.” I could hear Tommy mumbling as he walked away.
The old man crossed his arms and leaned back on his desk. “Okay, badass, here we are. Let’s talk.”
“I don’t need talk out of you. I need an answer.”
“I’ll do my very best.”
“Where’s the necklace, old man? And you’d best think hard about what I just said before you answer me. One chance, one time.”
He was staring at me from about five feet away. I could see him thinking but he’s too old, too slow and he knows it.
“Where’s the diamond necklace, the one you fucked everybody on?”
He just looks at me and chews on his cigar.
Silence. He’s thinking about what might happen if he rolls over. Would it save his sorry ass?
“What necklace?” he finally says.
“I guess that I just wanted to see what you’d say, you old asshole.” I raise the gun.
“Wait a minute now, boy.”
It had a suppressor on it and that must have gotten his attention, because he started talking.
When he was done, I tell him to walk me out and sure as shit we come out of the office like old buddies. I leave out the front door but then I duck back in real quick.
“Hey, Tommy, just a heads up. The parking lot out here is filling up with the afternoon rush. Make sure the ice chest is full, all right?”
I just can’t help it sometimes.
Tommy looked at me all confused and shit while Speedo just stares at me, shifts his cigar around and is not amused.