The only good Lawyer

haven’t seen Mantle now for a solid week.”
    “About right.”
    “You said he had money a month ago. Could he have gone on a trip?”
    Dufresne’s honking laugh. “No way. The Mick wasn’t a traveling kind of guy. And besides, he’d paid up in advance. Who’s he to waste that kind of money by not living here, eh?”
    It was a good question, I thought.

    * * *

    After telling Vincennes Dufresne that I’d still make it worth his while to let me know if he saw Michael Mantle, I decided to visit the bars within walking distance of the Chateau.
    Just off Broadway near Flanagan’s Market, the closest was a tavern in the same sense that a mud hut is a house. If the air at the threshold made you gag, the atmosphere inside urged you to follow through. I managed ten minutes of putting questions to the night bartender (who didn’t know who the real “Mickey Mantle” was) and two patrons (each of whom was contributing his own special something to the environment).
    The next place was called “O’B’s,” a little farther west on Broadway, and evidently part of the area’s recent renaissance. The air was clean, the bar top cleaner. The keep behind the taps nodded to me in a “take-any-stool” way as he drew two pints of Harp. The pints were destined for a couple in their fifties at the end of the bar who couldn’t have looked more married to each other if they’d been yoked at the necks. I sat down, and after the keep finished with the newlyweds he came over to me.
    “Haven’t seen you before, have I?”
    A thick brogue that matched the red, curly hair and the muzzy freckles across his thirtyish cheeks.
    I said, “First time. How’s the Harp?”
    “Fresh as a morning’s dew.”
    “One, please.”
    He drew the pint, poured off, and topped it with a quarter-inch of head. Setting the glass on a shamrock coaster, he said, “You’ve the sound of the neighborhood in your voice.”
    “Grew up within blocks of here.”
    A hammy hand was extended across the bar. “Paul O’Brien.”
    I shook with him. “Paul, John Cuddy. You the proprietor?”
    “I am. Tended bar till I had the hang of it and enough money to open a pub of my own. ‘O’B’s’ for ‘O’Brien’s.’ ” He rested both palms on the bat, gave me a measured look. “You’d be police, then?”
    “Not for a long time.” I took out my ID. “I’m in business for myself now. Like you.”
    O’Brien read the holder’s laminated card and nodded in an “I’ve-seen-enough” way. Expressive nodded Mr. O’Brien.
    He said, “Which means you’re here for something more than a pint from the auld sod.”
    “I’m looking for a man named Michael Mantle.”
    “The Mick, you say?” O’Brien turned toward the couple. “Leo, this fella’s after the Mick.”
    “Good,” said Leo. “You find the little weasel, remind him he owes me a round from last Monday.” I looked over at the husband as his wife said, “Tuesday, Leo. It was Tuesday last.”
    The man didn’t have the brogue, but the woman did. I said, “You haven’t seen him since?”
    Leo closed his eyes briefly. “Moira?”
    She said, “Not since, no. Maybe he’s gone down.” I looked from one to the other. “Down?”
    O’Brien interpreted. “As in ‘down the line,’ John. To one of the less... pricey establishments on the avenue.”
    “Mantle drink here often?”
    “Never,” said Leo, “at least not until maybe a month ago. Then he’d be in here with a bunch of other guys, buying them rounds.”
    Moira put in, “Or them buying him.”
    O’Brien waved his hand at the taps. “Guinness, mainly. A black-and-tan upon occasion.”
    I went back to the couple. “Any idea where he might be now?”
    Moira said, “Drinking or sleeping, that one.”
    “He’s not at his rooming house, and probably hasn’t been there for a full week.”
    “Since last Monday?” said Leo.
    Moira cleared her throat. “Tuesday last. Have you gone deaf on me as well as senile?”
    “Tuesday,” Leo agreed.
    O’Brien shook his head. “The Mick, he went through money like a hot knife. Could fool the drop-ins with his birth-certificate routine, but the regulars wised up to his tricks pretty quick.”
    “All except my Leo,” said Moira.
    Her husband didn’t look at his wife. “An act of charity, and she’ll never let me forget it.”
    I tried to take in all three of them at once. “So, no sign of him here since Tuesday of last week.”
    Consensus, but consistency is not always a