A full stein slid down the bar at him and stopped right in his palm.
“Why do you always have to show off?”
“Because you’re the only one who appreciates it.”
“Hell, nobody does that anymore.”
“I do, buddy. A guy just got to exploit his talents, small as they are. By the way, is it true your front name is Mako?” He smiled. “Billy was on the horn before. You know how they pass info around this place. So?”
“Yeah, that’s my front name. Damn, you’re as much native as they are.”
“Ten years here, man. Beats being a New York fireman. Pension check every month, most of it in the bank.”
“How about the rest?”
“Man, you don’t catch the scam around here, do you?”
“Buddy, I’m not interested.”
“Baloney. All that sweet money is going into the project on Corin Island. You know what I got?”
“Tell me.”
“A down payment on a dockside saloon,” he said. “Not a lounge, but a good old-fashioned pirate-style saloon the tourists expect to see in the Caribbean.”
“You sure there’s going to be tourists there at all?”
“Man, don’t you ever read nothin’? That Midnight Cruise company’s already got eleven shore points working for ‘em. They’re even putting down golf courses for the people who get tired of shuffleboard. They’re playing it smart, too, keeping ‘em small and cozy. A guy like me with just one operation can get soaking rich in no time.”
“What about liquor laws?”
“You kiddin’? Midnight Cruise own those island stops and if they’re on the mainland you can bet they own the local constabulary too. Hell, you ought to know about those things.”
“How would I know that?”
“I got a boat, broads and a clientele who likes to rent both items. Good money, I pay my taxes and when I feel like it I can partake of my own damn good fortune, like a boat ride with a beautiful blonde.”
“What a way to live.”
“Don’t con me, old shark man. You got that pension check coming in too.”
“Who says, pal?”
“It figures,” Alley told him. “You busted loose from the big town, you got a spot and you damn well grin all the time. Now... if you’re still doing that next year this time, I know I got you tagged. Am I right?”
“My friend, you are absolutely right,” Hooker told him. “Now get me another beer and bring it to me like it was New York.”
This time Alley came down with an iced stein in his hand. He set it down and flipped the foam from his fingers and leaned on the bar. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“I saw you with your shirt off. How’d you get the scars?”
“We had some wars, remember?”
“Yeah, buddy, I remember, I was just wondering what you were gonna tell me.”
“Why?”
“Because I was in the interrogation room on the Gorman deal when those terrorists collapsed the Arby-Bennet building. I was on the arson squad then and they brought in a specialist who had just squandered a half dozen unfriendlies and was pretty shot up himself. I had a quick look at the big heavy before they hustled us out and he sure as hell looked a lot like you.”
“The Gorman deal was a long time ago.”
“I didn’t think you’d forget. It was you, wasn’t it?”
“Hey, I read about it in the papers.”
“Horse manure.” Alley gave him a big grin and said, “Man, you can tell me anything. I’m just a lousy bartender on pension in a crazy island in the Caribbean. We’re both has-beens anyway. Maybe I’ll even think you’re lying.”
Hooker let out a grunt and put down half the stein. It was cold, the way he liked it, and he wiped the froth off his mouth. “It was me,” he said.
“You was a cop?”
“Not New York.”
“Oh boy,” Alley said. “Should I go further?”
“I wouldn’t advise it.”
“Good, pal, we keep it that way. You know Berger, like how he always wants to be the Sydney Greenstreet type? Well, figure me like Hoagy Carmichael, off in a corner playing a piano or waiting on a bar. You be Bogart if you want to.”
“Come off it, Alley.”
“Hooker, I got to ask it. I just got to.”
“So ask.”
“Federal?”
“Of a sort.”
“Oh hell, I did have to ask, didn’t I?”
“Don’t matter, pal. Like you said, we’re all retired.”
“In the pig’s tail you’re retired.” For a long moment Alley studied him and his face was troubled. “You’re here to kill somebody, ain’t you?”
Hooker put his stein down and looked at the bartender. Alley was tall and skinny, a guy in his late fifties who had never had a home except a hook-and-ladder station in lower Manhattan. Somehow, life had passed him by, but now he was in his own dream world and was trying to sop up all the details of a world he had left behind.
“I don’t want to kill anybody,” Hooker said.
“You came at a funny time.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Twenty-four years with the fire department. Head of the arson squad. Lots of time in bars and scenes with the cops. All one big family so you get to know how to tell our people from the civilians.” He glanced up at the door. “Suddenly the feds are crawling up on us.”
“What the hell are you talking about, Alley?”
The bartender pulled another beer, set it in front of Hooker and said, “Look what Berger just brought in.”
Hooker didn’t turn around. He simply let his eyes slide up to the dirty old back bar mirror and he saw Chana at the same time she saw him and their eyes met and for a second he wished he had been packing his .45 and the piece was in his hand with the hammer back so he could turn and shoot her guts right out of her beautiful belly and it would finally be all over with for all time.
She came up to him and said, “Hello, Mako.”
He put the beer down and stood up. He knew how she hated to have to look up at him, but now it was his turn to lay it on. “Hello, doll,” he said. “This is a real surprise.”
“Like hell it is.” She was smiling at him and said it quietly. “I didn’t think the Company was that sharp.”
Hooker put his hand under her chin and tilted her head up. “They’re not, kid. No way. They ever put you with me after the last time, I would stretch your hide out from here to there. Even when you’re on my side, you only shoot me once and get away with it.”
“I wasn’t briefed,” she said.
“You didn’t think, you stupid broad,” he said.
She felt the muscles tighten in her back and she was almost ready to move before she remembered there was no way she could take him the way she could almost anybody else. “I’d sure like to do it again,” she told him.
“I’d sure like to see you try,” he said.
“The next time I won’t try. I’ll do it.”
“Kid, you’re a loser. Don’t go after the men that way or your tail will burn. Right now I’d love to rap you right in the chops, but that wouldn’t be the American way, would it?” He gave her a small grin, his teeth flashing in the light. “How about a beer?”
“Drop dead.”
“After the beer.” He held his hand up and signaled Alley over. When the steins were there in front of them Hooker said, “The next time you talk to me like that I’m going to knock you right on your beautiful tukhes.” He grinned again, bigger than the last time. “Understand?”
She picked up the stein, wondering if she could swing it fast enough to lay his head open, then decided she couldn’t and sipped the foam off it. “Sure,” she said.
“Just like old times now,” he told her.
“Not quite,” Chana reminded him. “I heard you were retired.”
Hooker hoisted his stein and drained most of it before he put it down. “You heard right.”