Free Everybody Goes to Jimmy's by Michael Mayo

their eyes on the crowd and would take care of things if any of the customers got so overexcited that they started fighting or put the wrong moves on another guy’s woman. Marie Therese and Connie were still conspiring with each other. I opened my hand and looked at the thing the guy had put on the table. It appeared to be a lumpy brown marble. I put it in my pocket, gathered up the late papers, and took them back to my office. I needed quiet, not happy babble, to chew over the day’s events.
    Upstairs, I poured another brandy. As I sat, I felt the note in my pocket. I took it out and read it again. Meet me tonight.
    To hell with everything else. Was Anna there right now? Stretched out waiting for me in that huge tub? They didn’t need me for the rest of the night. I could leave. I could catch a cab and be at the Chatham in fifteen minutes. Or I could call and ask to speak to the Taft Suite. Or I could talk to Mr. Stebbins, but no, he’d retired and I didn’t know the new bell captain.
    If she was back, I wanted to see her, not talk to her on the telephone.
    And should I have been thinking about her at all?
    What was with Klapprott and the Free Society of Teutonia, whatever the hell that was? If all the other crazy stuff hadn’t been going on, I might have taken him up on his offer right on the spot.
    Somehow, the whole idea of owning and running a legitimate completely legal enterprise just didn’t appeal to me. I’d never done anything like that. I’d always operated on the other side of the law, but I’d never been that far on the other side. Except for all the cars I’d stolen and the guys I’d shot, most of the laws I’d broken weren’t that serious, and I didn’t have much trouble sleeping. Early on, I learned that there were a lot of places where cops were being asked to do things they didn’t want to do, to enforce laws that made no sense to them. If you approached them in the right way and gave them a little something extra to turn their heads while you were doing something that seemed OK to them, they were happy to go along with it. Ellis understood that. That’s why he had invited me to the Cloud Club, to ease me over the line the other way—to make me a law-abiding citizen, but not too law-abiding.
    Still, given the state of the country and the economy, maybe the smart move was to take the money and walk away.
    I dug around in my pocket and found the thing that the guy had passed to me. At first, I couldn’t tell what it was and thought it might be a nut of some kind. Then I saw the number and realized it was a crumpled banknote, a ten-dollar gold spot, maybe the dirtiest ten-dollar gold spot I’d ever handled—and, believe me, I’ve handled some dirty money. This one was wadded into a tight little ball that seemed almost stuck to itself like it had been dipped in glue. It crackled as I carefully pulled it open with my fingertips, and something fell out onto my desk.
    It was a small key with a round brass tag attached to it. The tag had the number 43 stamped in the middle. So did the body of the key. It might have opened a steamer trunk or a lock box.
    The bill was more interesting. As I pulled at it, I saw that it was stained red and brown. The red might have been blood. The brown was thicker, like layers of paint. I had to scrape it off with my thumbnail. When I finally got the thing flattened out, it looked like a piece of used butcher paper. After thinking about it for a minute, I put both the gold spot and the little key in my safe and got the .38 Detective Special. It was clean and loaded. Probably a good idea to carry it until this business was straightened out.
    Back in the bar, I was thinking that I’d turn things over to Frenchy and Fat Joe and wander up to the Chatham just to see what I could see when Mercer Weeks put a hand on my shoulder.
    â€œGot a minute, Quinn? I need a word with you.” He was sitting