Mohawk

“That’s not Billy. That’s some goddamn kid!”

25
    On the corner of Sixth and Broad in Mohawk stood Greenie’s Tavern, which had the sole distinction of being the gin mill closest to the largest of the Mohawk tanneries. A low-ceilinged building, long ago a hand-laundry, it now reeked of stale beer and provided a bathroom whose door could never be induced to close properly. The obligatory bowling machine stood against one wall, its lights dancing seductively even when the machine wasn’t in use. Once a quarter was slipped into its slot, the plastic pins clattered down from above and quivered nervously in anticipation of the sliding puck, which only appeared to strike them.
    The man who owned Greenie’s was not Greenie. Neither were any of the several most recent owners, though there was probably a Greenie somewhere in the establishment’s eccentric past. No doubt he had drawn five hundred or a thousand kegs of draft, then died or escaped to spend the money he’d made, fading completely from the collective memory, leaving behind only the neon script that subsequent owners never felt sufficiently motivated to replace.
    Greenie’s seldom did any real business, except for roughly one hour a day. During that hour it did the best business in town. At a few minutes before five,men from the tannery and surrounding glove shops began to drop in for a quick schooner on the way home to dinner. Between five and six, the bartender didn’t bother to turn off the tap, and just ran his tapered glasses beneath the wide open spigot.
    The second busiest man in Greenie’s was Untemeyer, the bookie, who went through three tablets of paper slips, one hundred sheets each, looking up from his task only long enough to see whose name to write down next. Not that the slips were necessary. Untemeyer was acknowledged to have one of the finest memories in the county, and those who owed him money either steered clear or paid up, slips or no slips. He hadn’t forgotten a wager in forty years, and sooner or later he got his money, because Mohawk was a small place and within its confines he was well traveled. Untemeyer was a workingman’s bookie who took no heavy action, but no wager was too small and for this reason he was a favorite among men who often lacked the traditional two-dollar bet. Yet, these small wagers added up and had been doing so for a long time. A mugger, had there been one in Mohawk, could have done far worse than to find Untemeyer when he left Greenie’s at six-thirty. Of course only a stranger could’ve robbed him, because he knew everyone else. But a stranger wouldn’t have known enough to, for only a mind reader could’ve guessed Untemeyer had anything worth taking. He always wore the same shabby black alpaca suit, liberally dusted with cigar ash. Despite his being a public figure, only a very few men knew where he lived. Several women had known, once upon a time, but they were all married now, or dead or both. With a bookie, all you had to know was where to find him, and Untemeyer’s movements were precise. If ever he happenednot to be at the end of Greenie’s bar at five, you could find him at the morgue.
    The only visible sign of wealth Untemeyer allowed himself was a large diamond ring set in gold. It hadn’t been off his thumblike ring finger in thirty years. Dallas Younger, one of Untemeyer’s better customers, liked to tease him about it. “Don’t you worry about that ring, Bill,” Dallas would whisper. “When you die, I’ll be right there with a hacksaw.” Then he’d hold up his own ring finger to illustrate. “Right here at the joint.” The otherwise unflappable Untemeyer—no doubt visualizing Dallas, saw in hand, grinning down at his corpse—always came unglued at this comic threat. “If I could get it off, I’d give it to you right now, you son-of-a-bitch. Get away from me,” he’d growl. “I’ll piss on your grave, anyway. See if I don’t.”
    He straddled his corner stool and wrote out his slips, tearing them off one after the other until he had accumulated an impressive pile of coins and bills. In the bulging jacket pockets of his black alpaca suit, he carried coin wrappers.
    Two weeks before Christmas there was a warm spell, and perhaps it was the unseasonable weather that produced at Greenie’s an unusual customer. At five forty-five most of the men in the bar were finishing their third quick one and fishing around in their trouser pockets to see if they had money to pay