Yesterday's News

you think?”
    “What, you think I was born yesterday? The fuck does ‘off the record’ mean to me?”
    “Okay. How about what you saw that night.”
    “The night Charlie got it?”
    “Right.”
    “I didn’t see much. Charlie was a real asshole. Bunny told you true there. He used to drink in here a lot, but couldn’t hold the shit, even just Bud.”
    “What’s a beer go for when you’re not buying it for somebody?”
    “Four bucks a bottle. Used to have some on tap for three, but nobody was stupid enough to buy it. Figured it was watered or stale.”
    “Four bucks. I thought Coyne didn’t have two nickels.”
    “Meaning you don’t see him drinking in here a lot.”
    “That’s right.”
    Teevens gestured toward the empty stage. “Maybe he liked the show.”
    “A guy who played around as much as you say he did would pay that kind of money to watch strippers on a regular basis?”
    “Charlie wasn’t no brain trust. Like we told you.”
    “Gotbaum comped him to the drinks, right?” Duckie smiled and drank some Scotch. “Yeah, we comped him.”
    “Why?”
    “Bunny, he’s a compassionate, generous man.”
    “No, Duckie.”
    “Bunny, he grew up with Coyne’s old man. That generation down here, religion was no big thing. They were tight with each other, looked after the families. That kind of town, you know?”
    “How did you hook up with Gotbaum?”
    “Same way. My father and him knew each other. Mine croaked off this stuff,” Duckie indicating the liquor on the shelves, “so Bunny give me a job at fifteen. Been with him ever since.”
    “And you tell him to take his medicine.”
    Teevens straightened, and for just a second I felt the instinct to fight rise inside him. Then he relaxed and half laughed. “I promised his wife. Before she died.” I let it drop. “You have any idea how Jane Rust got involved with Coyne?”
    “Yeah. It was from that raid there. She was after him for some kind of story, and Charlie, he could sense when a broad wanted something he could trade for. Fuck, underneath it all she probably just wanted him to ball her. He sure got caught with his hand in the nookie jar often enough, anyway.”
    “Jealous husbands?”
    “Yeah. Or fathers or boy—” Duckie stopped. “What’s the matter?”
    “Shit, man, that was good. That was better than your routine out by Connie there.”
    “What?”
    “Cut the shit. You were getting me to tell you what I thought happened to old Charlie. Indirect.”
    I downed some beer. “You’re a lot brighter than you show, Duckie. Why is that?”
    He shrugged. “Don’t get you.”
    “Sure you do. Take your knowing about The Shape of Things to Come being a book. H. G. Wells, right?”
    “You say so.”
    “ ‘Generous,’ ‘compassionate,’ ‘indirect’...”
    “Okay, okay.” He took a bigger bite of the booze. “I didn’t exactly finish high school, right? But some of the stuff" they told us to read was okay. So, I kept after it on my own. Like I’d go over to the community college there, and I’d pick up a book list making out I was some student, and I’d go buy some of the books. All kinds of shit, plays, poetry, whatever. One thing I learned. You ever heard of Maxwell Anderson?”
    “Barely. He wrote plays, I think.”
    “Yeah. There’s Sherwood and Maxwell, both Andersons , but I’m talking Maxwell here.”
    “Go on.”
    “Well, this guy writes a play called Barefoot in Athens . All about how they’re gonna kill Socrates. Now the Greek king in the play, he comes across as kind of a clown, okay? So at this one part, Socrates says to the king, ‘Hey, you’re a lot smarter than you give off. How come?’ And the king says, ‘You know, when you come on stupid to people, they don’t bother you so much. Lets you live okay without them figuring they got to get rid of you. Which gives you time to get rid of them first.’ Well, that made a lot of sense to me.”
    “Be smart, don’t look smart?”
    “Right, right. I’m learning this business from Bunny real well, but it’s gonna be a while yet. And he was good to take me in, you know? So I say, ‘yes, boss,’ and ‘no, boss,’ ‘cause he likes that kind of shit. And I get after him about the heart pills, ‘cause I don’t want him thinking I’m pushing my chances any. But to everybody else, I come across as Bunny’s gofer who’s got this mind’s in the gutter and can’t say a sentence without ‘fuck’ in it somewheres. Nobody’s gonna be