“Kansas City,” Mick says.
“Well, I guess it probably wouldn’t make the news in Kansas City. I suppose you have your own shootings there.”
“Every now and then,” Mick says.
Jerry nods at this unfortunate truth. “So... Kansas City. Great town. Great steaks in K.C.,” he says. “What brings you to Chicago?”
“Business,” Mick says. “I’m here on business.”
Jerry nods.
“Must have been quite a mess,” Mick says. “Five shots with a magnum.”
Jerry doesn’t remember telling Mick it was a magnum, but... “Oh, yeah: Unbelievable mess. We cleaned up the bar and the stools but they had to put down a new carpet.”
They both look at the carpet as if to affirm that it indeed had been replaced.
“I thought there was kind of a new carpet smell about the place,” Mick allows.
“Stuff splattered all over,” Jerry says, warming up to it. He lowers his voice even though there’s no one else in the bar. “The next night, when I’m wiping down the bottles—” He looks around to assure himself no one else is listening, bringing Mick in on this little secret. “—there was a—” Jerry searching for the correct word. “—glob of something on my Jim Beam.”
“A glob?”
“Some kind of tissue or something.” Jerry shivering in disgust at the recollection.
“Wow.”
“All that way over there,” Jerry says, pointing. “Must be a good twenty feet.”
“At least,” says Mick.
Jerry shudders again.
“And you were right here during this whole thing?”
“Just as close as you and I are now.”
“You said the guy who got shot was dead. What happened to the shooter?”
There... he said it again. And it registers with Jerry this time. A term like a cop might use.
“What kind of work are you in, Mick?” Jerry says.
“Ad sales,” says Mick, and moves right on. “So what happened to the other guy... the one who pulled the trigger?”
“Put the gun down right here on the counter and walked out!”
“You can’t be serious!”
“Right in front of where you’re sitting.” Jerry raising his right hand to affirm it.
“Did they get the guy?”
“Not yet.”
“Why would the man leave the gun?”
“The cops think it was a mob thing. The guy who got shot was a smalltime numbers guy. The gun handle was taped up. No fingerprints, serial numbers filed off.” Jerry shrugs. “That’s the way they do it. Just leave the gun and walk out.”
“That’s the way they do it, huh?”
“That way, somebody stops them later, they have no weapon on them.” Jerry explaining it to Mick.
“I guess,” Mick says.
“Like in The Godfather, you know, when Michael shoots the police captain and the other guy?”
“Michael who?”
Jerry blinks dumbly. “Corleone,” he says. Doesn’t everybody know that? “In the movie... The Godfather.”
“Oh, yeah, the movie.” But sounding as if he has no idea what Jerry is talking about.
“Well, that’s what he did. He left the gun there in the restaurant.”
“Who was this guy, the one doing the shooting?”
“Michael Corleone?”
“No, no, the guy here... here in the bar.”
“They’re not sure, but they’re pretty confident they’re narrowing it down.”
“But the guy’s gone... got away... no prints on the weapon. How about his glass — he leave any prints on the glass?”
Jerry’s a little embarrassed to make this revelation. “You know, when I called the cops to report this... I’m waiting for them to get here — it was a good fifteen minutes — I’m a little upset by what I’ve just seen.”
Mick nodding, he can understand this.
“And out of habit, I took the glass off the bar and washed it.”
Mick smiling, despite himself. Jerry a little defensive. “I was just doing my job,” Jerry says.
“By all means,” Mick says. “Second nature to you... dirty glass there on the counter, you pick it up and wash it.”
“Second nature,” Jerry agrees.
“So they got no prints... How they ever gonna get this guy?”
“Well,” Jerry says modestly. “There’s a witness,” then waiting for Mick to pick up on it, Jerry spreading his arms and nodding shyly.
“You... of course!”
Jerry nods again. Reluctant, yet willing to shoulder this responsibility.
“What in the world happened that night, I mean, to lead up to the shooting?”
Jerry noticing that the man’s drink is empty, automatically making another, forget that it’s past two o’clock, they’re both caught up in the story.
Jerry sets the new drink on the bar and Mick nods gratefully.
“Did you hear the conversation? Did you have any idea what was unfolding?”
Mick, wide-eyed, fully involved, Jerry soaking up the attention.
“Just snatches of it. I thought there might be something happening... I had an eye on them.” Jerry exaggerating, he’d been the most surprised guy in the place when the bullets started flying, but he’s told this version of the story often enough that he’s beginning to believe it himself.
“You had an eye on them...?”
“Well... the bartender’s in charge of the place, you know. I mean, when I’m here—” Jerry gestures about the room. “—It’s my responsibility. I take it seriously.”
“I can see that you do. Kind of like the captain of a ship.”
Jerry shrugs modestly.
“Were there other witnesses?”
“There were a half dozen people at the bar. What do you think they did when the heard the first shot?”
“Headed for the door? Dove for cover?”
Jerry nods. “Exactly.”
In fact, that’s just what Jerry had done. His ears were still ringing when he crawled to the back of the oval bar and peeked up over the other side to find the gunman gone, the weapon lying right there on the bar, the other guy draped on the barstool like he’d said before.
But why bother Mick with small details like that.
“So nobody else really saw the guy?”
“They either didn’t see him, or were too scared to admit it to the cops.”
“So it’s just you,” Mick says.
Jerry pulls an expression that says, it’s a burden, but he’s up to it.
“Do you worry about that?” Mick says. “Being the only witness?”
Jerry a little cavalier about it. “Hey, what can I do? I saw the guy... They bring him in, I’ll put the finger on him.”
“What if they don’t bring him in?” Mick says.
Jerry’s expression indicates he’s not certain what Mick means by the question.
“What I mean,” Mick says, “what if the guy walks in here on his own, wants to make sure there are no witnesses that could identify him?”
Jerry has considered this, the police eventually convincing him it was highly unlikely. “Well,” he says, “I can’t imagine the guy coming back in here.”
“Probably not,” Mick says, thinking about it. “Of course, he could go to your home.”
“How would he know where my home was?”
“These guys have ways of finding out stuff like that.”
“The police put extra patrols in my neighborhood... hooked up a direct line in my house... push a button and it rings at the duty sergeant’s desk.”
“Well then, I guess that’s not a worry.”
“No,” Jerry says, regaining his swagger. “And if the guy were to be dumb enough to walk back in here,” he says, lowering his voice, taking Mick into his confidence, “I’ve got a little equalizer.”
Jerry slides open a drawer below the bar, just a little, Mick leaning over, catching a glimpse of the grip of a pistol, looks like a .38 revolver to him. “Just in case,” Jerry says.