After dinner Mary Ann and her father, his arm around her, a gray-gloved hand gentle on her shoulder, went into his study. They asked me to join them, but I declined: this was a family moment, and I wasn't family yet. Besides, I had an appointment.
Dutch Reagan was waiting for me in front of the Perry Apartments, wearing a sweater over a shirt and tie. and brown slacks. His hands were in his pockets and he was leaning back against the building; with his glasses and crew cut. he didn't look like somebody who could get in a speakeasy, let alone give me a city-wide tour of 'em. I pulled up and he got in.
"Right on time," he said, with a ready smile.
"Take a look at this." I said, and handed him my notepad, folded back to the page where I'd jotted down Traynor's list of speaks. I pulled away from the curb.
"This is most of'em." Reagan said. "Where'd you get this?"
"A reporter. Anything significant left out?"
"These are all mostly right downtown here. I'd suggest hitting the roadhouses. too."
"How many of them are there?"
"Just a couple. But we better stick to drinking beer tonight, and one per place, or we're not going to make it through the list. At least I won't."
Anyway he was honest about it.
"We'll take it easy," I assured him. "Are you a regular at any of these places?"
"I've been in most of'em. once or twice."
"Just once or twice, huh?"
"I didn't say I was a drinking man. just Irish."
"Is there a difference?"
"You got red hair, you tell me."
I grinned at him. "I'm only half-Gaelic- you look like the full ticket."
"Well, my dad puts it away pretty good- too good, actually. Most of my drinking's been done on the fraternity back porch or in a parked car. Look, you may want to avoid the food in these joints. Most of 'em have to advertise they serve food, to stay open, you know."
"That's par for the course."
"Well, I just thought I should warn you. You seem to be heading toward Mary Hooch's, and I know a guy who ordered a sandwich there and when he took a bite, it bit him back."
We hit the speaks downtown first, starting with the one on West Second Street run by the heavyset old lady known as Marry Hooch, a friendly old gal who looked like she could go a couple rounds with Barney. Her place, like most we went to, was a narrow hole in the wall with no sign out front, but otherwise running wide open. Legal sale of beer hadn't hurt her business any- the dozen or so workingmen at the bar were putting away the specialty of the house: near beer spiked with alcohol, exceeding the legal 3.2 limit and then some.
"I know Jimmy." Mary Hooch said. She had a puffy face with two beady eyes hiding in it and hair as frizzy as Joe Zangara's. "Good kid. But I hear he took off for Chicago, long time ago."
"Do you know any of his friends? Did anybody he hung out with hang out here?"
"Not to speak of."
"If you know Jimmy, you ought to know his friends."
"Everybody was his friend. All the fellas and gals."
"Anybody here tonight, for instance?"
She looked around the room. "Not really. These guys are working stiffs, or out-of-work stiffs. Jimmy hung around with a different type."
"If I offered you a fin would you get more specific?"
"I don't think so. You're a friendly fella, but you're from out of town, right? I think I told you all I'm going to."
It went like that everyplace: a joint on East Fourth, where the shrimp and oysters looked edible, and Reagan forgot his advice to me and had a basket of the former; another over a garage at West River Drive and Ripley, where sandwiches apparently more legitimate than Mary Hooch's were being served; a place up on Washington Street that actually had a small sign out front (Yellow Dog) and sold German food. Bartenders remembered Jimmy, knew he hung around with some "locals." but wouldn't set specific about who. With one exception: Jack Wall, the manager of that place over the garage, a smooth, well-dressed guy with a Nitti-style pencil mustache and a shovel-jaw. The impression I got was that he was up high enough in the Tri-Cities liquor ring to talk more freely than the others, if he felt like it. which he did, when I explained I was a private op from Chicago working a missing persons case.
"Jimmy hung around with some of Nick Coin's boys," Wall said, "in particular Vince Loga."
"Know where I could find Loga?"
"A speak. Not this one."
"Oh?"
"He ain't here. Trust me."
It seemed prudent to do so. I had left Reagan at the bar, where he sat nursing a beer, studying some of the sad faces around him. In the car, he said, "Lot of those guys are out of work. Mighty sad situation."
"They found dough for a drink, though, didn't they?"
"You're awful cynical. Mr. Heller. Doesn't it make you feel a little sick inside, when you see out-of-work men on street corners?"
"On street corners, yes. In bars, no."
"Well, somebody's got to do something about it."
"Oh yeah? Like what? Like who?"
"I can tell you what / do. Every day when I walk up the hill to the station. I give ten cents to the first guy who asks for it."
"If it's the same guy every day. you're getting taken."
"Very funny. I vox plenty of guys to choose from, believe me. Well, the president'll straighten this out."
"Voted for him, did you, Dutch?"
"I'll say I did. And so did my father. He's even working for the government."
"Your father? Doing what?"
"Giving out scrip to the unemployed to exchange for food."
We hit a couple of roadhouses on the outskirts of Davenport, both of them on the rough side: chicken-wire ceilings and sawdust on the floor and factory and foundry workers who liked to fight when they got drunk; I was glad I was with a husky former football player, even if he was wearing glasses and a sweater. Then we headed for a place Reagan had heard of but never been in, on highway 6, a route that took us along the Mississippi and through several little towns. The night was clear, the full moon reflecting off the smooth surface of the river, turning it an eerie gray.
Reagan asked me about Jimmy, and I filled him in. He said he could sympathize with the frustration Jimmy mustVe felt, going from newspaper to newspaper looking for work.
"I had swollen feet from pounding the Chicago sidewalks," he said. "And I got all the reception-room fast shuffles you'd expect. It was a woman at NBC in Chicago who told me to head for the sticks. Even then, I was damn lucky, landing that WOC spot."
"How'd you manage it?"
"The station had been advertising for an announcer, but I showed up the day after they filled the slot. It was Mr. Beame who gave me this news, after I'd driven seventy-five miles in my father's car. Instead of staying cool, I kind of lost my temper, and asked him how the hell a guy can get to be a sportscaster if he can't get inside a station? And mentioning sports did it- they needed somebody to help announce some Iowa games, and that's how I started. Five bucks per. And that's where I met Jack Hoffmann, who was Jimmy Beame's drinking buddy."
"And you ended up taking Hoffmann's place at the station."
"More or less. Oh, he was a capable man. and he could ad-lib and all that, but he didn't know football. Still. I learned a lot from him. and he went off to find something in radio that wasn't sports."
"You like your work?"
"Sure. I wouldn't mind being the next Quin Ryan or Pat Flangan. Of course, my dream's to get into acting, not that this job isn't acting 'A chill wind is blowing through the stadium and the long blue shadows are settling over the field.'"
"Not bad," I admitted.
The roadhouse was up ahead, a white two-story building on the right, with a gravel lot full of cars and a small blue neon out front that said FIVE O'CLOCK CLUB. I pulled in.