Free Live by Night by Dennis Lehane Page B

into the locker, closed the door.
    â€œHey, you! Hey!”
    Joe turned the key, locked the door, and pocketed the key.
    â€œHey!”
    Joe turned, picturing the cop waiting for him, service revolver drawn, probably young, probably jumpy. . . .
    A wino sat on the floor by a trash barrel. Bone thin, nothing to him but red eyes, red cheeks, and sinew. His jaw jutted in Joe’s direction.
    â€œThe fuck you looking at?” he asked.
    The laugh left Joe’s mouth like a bark. He reached in his pocket, came back with a ten spot. He stooped and handed it to the old wino.
    â€œLooking at you, Pops. Looking at you.”
    The guy belched at that, but Joe was already moving away, lost in the crowd.
    Outside, he walked east on St. James toward the two klieg lights crossing back and forth in the low clouds above the new hotel. It calmed him for a moment to imagine his money sitting safe and sound in the locker until he chose to return for it. A decision, he thought as he turned onto Essex Street, that was a bit unorthodox when a fella was planning a lifetime on the run.
    If you’re leaving the country, why leave the money here?
    So I can come back for it.
    Why would you need to come back for it?
    In case I don’t make it out tonight.
    There’s your answer .
    There’s no answer. What answer?
    You didn’t want them to find the money on you .
    Exactly.
    Because you know you’re going to get caught.

Chapter Five
    Rough Work
    H e entered the Hotel Statler through the employee entrance. When a porter and then a dishwasher gave him curious glances, he lifted his hat and shot them confident smiles and two-finger salutes, a bon vivant avoiding the crowds out front, and they gave him nods and smiles in return.
    Going through the kitchen, he could hear a piano, a peppy clarinet, and a steady bass coming from the lobby. He climbed a dark concrete staircase. He opened the door up top and came out by a marble staircase into a kingdom of light and smoke and music.
    Joe had been in a few swank hotel lobbies in his time, but he’d never seen anything like this. The clarinetist and the cellist stood near brass entrance doors so unblemished the light bouncing off them turned the dust motes in the air gold. Corinthian columns rose from marble floors to wrought iron balconies. The molding was creamy alabaster, and every ten yards a heavy chandelier descended, the same pendant shape as the candelabras in their six-foot stands. Blood-dark couches perched on Oriental rugs. Two grand pianos, submerged in white flowers, sat on either side of the lobby. The pianists lightly tinkled the keys and carried on repartee with the crowd and each other.
    In front of the center staircase, WBZ had placed three radiophones in their black stands. A large woman in a light blue dress stood by one of them, consulting with a man in a beige suit and yellow bow tie. The woman patted the buns of her hair repeatedly and sipped from a glass of pale, foggy liquid.
    Most men in the crowd wore tuxedos or dinner jackets. There were a few in suits, so Joe wasn’t the only sore thumb in the gathering, but he was the only one still wearing a hat. He thought of removing it, but that would put the face on the front page of everyone’s evening edition in clear view. He glanced up at the mezzanine; there were plenty of hats up there because that’s where all the reporters and photographers mingled with the swells.
    He dipped his chin and headed for the nearest staircase. It was slow going, the crowd pushing together, now that they’d seen the radiophones and the round woman in the blue dress. Even with his head down, he noticed Chappie Geygan and Boob Fowler talking with Red Ruffing. Joe, a Red Sox fanatic as long as he could remember, had to remind himself that it might not be a good idea for a wanted man to walk up to three baseball players and chat about their batting averages. He squeezed his way around the back of them,