Rothman pointed him out through the smoke. “Come with me, I’ll introduce you if you like.”
Tilsen and a couple yeggs were yakking with each other on the far side of the room. They were positioned between a cluster of fellows in broad-brimmed hats and long coats and a group of more worldly looking men. We picked our way through, Rothman nodding to some, edging by others so as not to interrupt.
Tilsen was a big guy, late forties, with sloping shoulders and a thick neck. Rothman tugged the sleeve of his suit coat, and said something in his ear. Tilsen pulled a wad out of his pocket and counted off some bills.
Rothman motioned me over. “This is Martin McDonough,” he said. “Martin, meet Isadore Tilsen.”
His yeggs kept their hands in their pockets and their eyes on mine. He had big, hairy knuckles, reddish hair going gray at the temples, gold teeth. He didn’t offer his hand, just nodded. “You know Louie?” he said. “Louie wants to change the world.”
“Well, uh, it needs changing,” I replied lamely.
“You think?” He nodded. “Nice meeting you, Mr. McDonough.”
I was dismissed.
“He’s a man of few words,” I said on the way back to the radical caucus.
“He’s short with the goyim, doesn’t trust them,” Rothman replied. “He’s a big puppy with his fellow Jews though. When he was a kid he used to beat up the local shaygus for a favor.
He wasn’t much of a scholar, so that was how he earned respect.” He seemed in a forthcoming mood so I popped the obvious question. “What was that business between you and him, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Not at all. We usually collect ten or twelve bucks for Margaret Thornton, but we like to give her thirty. Isadore makes up the difference.”
“Why is that?”
“You’d have to ask him,” he said.
“No thanks. But I do thank you for everything.”
“My pleasure. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll rejoin the discussion. Stay awhile. Have another glass of wine.”
I did. The wine was awful, but not so awful I couldn’t drink it, and it gave me a chance to sneak a few looks at Tilsen. He and his boys were deep in some kind of conversation. With each other.
It was still raining when I left. I almost ran over a dog in downtown Minneapolis. The streets were deserted except for a few men sleeping in doorways. I nearly got lost trying to find St. Paul, but eventually made my way back to my Rice Street haunts.
Slap thought it unlikely I’d find a bride at Tin Cups, and upon reflection I had to agree. Women had started coming in unescorted after Prohibition—many a shanty-Irish lass, even a few kraut dames from St. Albert’s—but they weren’t the kind you’d bring home to Mom. There was a likely looking group of frails sitting at a table when I walked in, Maggie Quinn among them. She glanced up from a pig’s foot she was gnawing and gave me the eye, but I paid her no mind. Margaret Thornton was in my thoughts, and I was there on business.
Jimmy Brennan was at his usual spot, on the inside curve of the second horseshoe, hard by the well, where only the most determined barman could fail to spot his empty glass. Jimmy was a percentage copper, on the take from two Rondo Street pimps, and possibly some petermen as well. At least, they seemed to have great success blowing safes when Jimmy walked the beat. He had a nose full of popped veins and shrewd little eyes. The way to his heart was through his wallet, so I saved him for special occasions.
I put a twenty on the bar. “What’s your pleasure?” said the bartender.
“A nip of the Irish,” I replied. “Top shelf. And one for my friend here.”
Jimmy nodded, as if to say it was a start, but only just.
The good stuff was dear at Tin Cups. The change came to less than nineteen dollars. I tapped my finger on the notes. “Give me some information and I’ll leave these when I go, Jimmy.” He nodded again. I cut to the chase. “Slap doesn’t think Harry Ford paid to kill the Thornton kid. How about you?”
He chuckled. “Lotta people think Slap is retired, but I get the feeling he still has a job.”
“Why’s that?”
“He ain’t goin’ without.”
“They held a benefit for him, remember?”
“Yeah, I was there. Musta collected about, oh, nine hundred bucks. You could live for a year on that.”
“What are you driving at?”
“Slap carries water for Harry Ford.”
I can’t say something of that nature hadn’t crossed my mind, but blood is thicker than water, so I didn’t disguise my displeasure. “You saying Slap is bent?”
“Hey, the man has to live. You sell what you got, to whoever is buyin’. I’m puttin’ two and two together, that’s all.”
“Four.”
What?”
“Two and two is four. I learned that in the first grade.” I tapped the bills. “Information, please. If all you have is theories I’ll keep the cash, and if all you have is theories that insult my family we’ll be stepping outside.”
“Okay, okay, relax. But that sheeny torpedo would’ve squealed unless he was paid to shut up. Somebody put a bundle down, and who but Harry Ford has that kinda money?”
“Another theory.” I knocked back my shot, and picked up the bills.
“Hold it,” he said. “The name Wicky Hanson mean anything to you?”
It did indeed. Harry Ford was known for hiring ex-cons, one more feather in a cap festooned with plumage. Most of them were nobodies, but Hanson’s reputation preceded him when he came to work on the Warren assembly line. He’d been a Thompson-gunner for Capone in Chicago.
“What about him?”
“He’s another guy lives beyond his means. He’s learnin’ to crack safes, but he still works the old trade occasionally. He was in on the Thornton hit. He knows Ford, he knows Shay Tilsen. Maybe he put’em together.”
“Any chance he’d talk to me?
“He owes me a favor. You could buy it.” He glanced down at the bar. “Not for eighteen bucks though.”
A fight broke out on the other end of the bar, but we didn’t let it distract us, and soon struck a deal. I’d be ashamed to say how much it cost in view of the fee arrangements on this matter. Jimmy said he’d be in touch. I ignored Maggie Quinn again on the way out. I’d decided to pay a call on the widow Thornton soon, with an update and a dozen roses.
I phoned Slap to tell him how things were going. “Jimmy B. says he can put me together with a member of the Thornton hit squad,” I told him. “I didn’t find out much in Minneapolis. Met Lou Rothman, but he had nothing to say.”
“You didn’t see who Tilsen talks to?”
“His palookas. Nobody else. Only interesting thing, he gave Rothman some cash for the widow. Maybe he feels guilty.”
“He just handed the money over without a word, did he?”
“A few words.”
“So he talked to somebody.”
“That was nothing. Hell, he said a few words to me when Rothman introduced us.”
Slap sighed audibly. “Well, press Wicky Hanson hard, Martin. He might have something.”
“How do you know it’s Hanson I’m seeing?”
He laughed. “Jimmy B.’s helping Wicky with his schooling.”
Not much gets by Slap.
I didn’t work the next few days, just waited for Jimmy’s call, and planned my meeting with Margaret. There was a picture in my mind of her soft blue eyes, her cute freckled nose, and an expression on her face that was all yes. As it turned out, that picture was pretty accurate.
I’d decided to surprise her Sunday afternoon. I thought she and her mother would be finishing dinner around 3 p.m. That left a few hours of daylight, and I prayed for a nice afternoon. I thought we’d drive over to Como Park, maybe stop by the lake. I bought a dozen roses and kept them in the icebox Saturday night. Jimmy B. called that evening and said I could meet Hanson the next day. I told him I was indisposed.
“Christ, Martin, I thought this was important,” he s
aid.
“I’ve got something else going. What about Monday?”
“The guy works for a living.”
“Maybe Harry Ford’ll give him the day off. You know I work nights, Jimmy—anywhere he wants, Monday evening.”
Sunday dawned mild and sunny, a September morn in November. Jimmy called about the time both of us should’ve been at Mass, and said to meet Hanson at Chan’s, next evening around 7:00. I had to write it down I was in such a tizzy. This is very unlike me, I thought. I started slicking up for the occasion about noon, and looked my Sunday best when I pulled in front of the Gallagher residence a few minutes before 3:00. I was about to step out of the bucket, when the front door of the house opened and Margaret walked out arm in arm with Lou Rothman.
I processed this as quickly as possible under the circumstances. All I could think of was ducking those roses before they spotted me, but that was unnecessary. They only had eyes for each other. Hers were exactly as I’d pictured them. They walked past me in the general direction of Como Avenue. Margaret looked back when they reached the corner, probably to see if her mother was watching, then kissed him on the cheek.
I cursed the Sunday closing laws, and headed for the back door of a blind pig where a colored man sold me a bottle of something like whiskey. I made good enough use of it that I had a terrible hangover when Monday came. I also had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that had nothing to do with imbibing. Worse yet, although our pitifully one-sided romance was kaput, my business with Margaret was far from finished. She still wanted to know who was behind her husband’s murder. The best I could do was suck it up and come out of this with my reputation intact.
Sorry as I felt for myself Monday evening, I still had some pity to spare for Walter Thornton. He’d stepped out of his flivver anticipating his wife’s lovely face and welcoming arms. Instead, the pockmarked mug of the man across the booth from me ushered him into the next world.
“I could use a drink,” said Wicky Hanson.
“So buy one,” I replied.
“Jeez, I thought you wanted info.”
“I do, and I already paid for it,” I said, but what he told me almost made me sorry I’d been so short.
Hanson cautioned that Tilsen didn’t confide in the non-Jews he occasionally hired, so all he knew was what he overheard. But he had sharp ears and a good memory. He explained that the mood among the five torpedoes on the hit was about what you’d figure—tense and silent on the way, relieved and talkative afterward. Tilsen was the wheel-man.
“There was this one mockie in the front seat next to him,” he said. “Wasn’t no dropper, even though he looked like one—hard guy with a fag in his mouth—but there strictly to finger Thornton. So we’re waiting, car pulls up, guy opens the door, finger-man says, ‘That’s him,’ jumps out, and motions us to follow. We step out and I overhear the mark say to the finger-man, ‘Meyer, what’re you doing?’ And he says, ‘Sorry, Walter, I’m an agent of history.’ Then we start blastin’ and his wife runs out screamin’. That’s about it.”
“You’re sure his name was Meyer, and that’s exactly what he said?”
Hanson nodded.
“Anything else?”
“Yeah. When we’re drivin’ away, we’re all laughing and crackin’ wise, even Tilsen. He turns around and says, ‘May not look that way, but we changed the world today, boys.’ Then he nods to this Meyer character. ‘Make sure you tell him we said that,’ he says.”
I put my head in my hands and thought hard. “That it?”
“Well, Jimmy B. says you want facts, not theories.”
“From Jimmy. If you’ve got a theory, go ahead.”
“It’s just that the finger-man probably wasn’t the guy ordered the hit. Tilsen told him to tell someone about this changin’-the-world joke he made. That’s who was behind it.”
I nodded. “I think you’re right.” I motioned to the waitress. “Give this man a drink,” I said, and handed her two bucks.
Next day, two or three times, I was on the verge of calling Margaret and telling her what I’d deduced. It could change your whole life, I told myself. But I couldn’t. Not yet. I wanted to nail it down.
That night I went to the synagogue. They were all there—the radicals, the scholars, Tilsen, the finger-man, the old gent with the skull cap. I took a wine and got right to the point with Rothman.
“You’d have liked to see Lloyd B. Jensen become president, wouldn’t you?”
He knew something was up. He didn’t take off the specs, just gave me a flat stare and nodded yes.
“Was he what the times called for? Was he historically necessary?”
“That’s a complicated question, McDonough. What makes you ask? Thinking of joining the Party?”
“No.” I stepped in closer to make sure he heard. “I’m thinking of telling Margaret Thornton who was behind her husband’s murder.”
He rubbed his beard and took that in. “Let me show you something,” he said.
He took me by the arm and guided me into the thick of things. The air was blue with eye-stinging smoke, and there were so many people talking at once—gesturing, shouting, laughing, cursing—that nothing they said was intelligible. The word that came to mind was babble, but Rothman had another term, which he imparted by shouting in my ear.
“These are the masses,” he said. “Every kind of person with every experience you can imagine is here. Hard workers, lazy bastards, money grubbers, thinkers, doers, devout men, unbelievers, gentlemen, killers. Somebody says something, somebody else hears, passes it on inadvertently or on purpose, pure or changed to suit his own self-interest, and sooner or later, who knows why, somebody does something that matters. Somebody acts.”
“And then it’s history.”
“That’s right,” he agreed. “History is its own imperative. Anything can happen until something does. Then nothing else was ever possible. What are you going to tell Margaret?”
“I don’t know,” I replied, and I turned and walked out. I had goose bumps all the way to the bucket, wondering if someone was going to shoot me in the back.
I mulled it over for a while the next day, and then called Margaret on the phone. I didn’t want to behold her disillusionment, which she made no attempt to disguise. “I don’t know who was behind the killing of your husband,” I told her, “but it wasn’t Ford.”
“There’ll be no charge,” I added, to break the silence.
She didn’t thank me. “I thought you were infallible, Mr. McDonough,” she said, in reference to my lost reputation.
To this day I wonder why I acted as I did. It had little to do with Rothman’s denial, if indeed it was a denial. Maybe the look on her face when they were together did it, the way she kissed him on the cheek. When I told Slap, he couldn’t believe it. “That was your last best chance for a decent marriage,” he said.
It wasn’t Margaret’s, though. She and Rothman married. They have children now, three last I heard. Maggie Quinn moved in with me for a bit, but that didn’t work. We brought out the worst in each other. I actually hit her once, which so mortified me that I decided it was time to end it, and she agreed.
I can’t say that Margaret’s face haunts my dreams. Hoochers don’t dream, but we do have fantasies. Catholic school girls are mine. I’ve shortened their skirts and dirtied up their knee socks a bit over the years. They’re still walking away, but now one of them is looking back over her shoulder, at me.
NOIR NEIGE
BY K.J. ERICKSON
Near North (Minneapolis)
You could spend a lot of time trying to figure out how three guys as different as Tom Leigh, Earl Dethaug, and Jorge Mendez ended up working together at the Minneapolis Impound Lot. What it came down to was that each of them, in his own male-impaired way, loved the other. But it took a lot of time and bad luck for them to figure that out. And like a lot of love stories, it ends as a tale of revenge.
The only snow Tom Leigh had seen before moving to Minnesota was snow
that melted as it hit the ground. So he wasn’t prepared when he woke on an early November morning at his girlfriend’s apartment. Hung over. No idea that seventeen inches of snow had fallen since his last conscious moment. Or that the city of Minneapolis had something called Snow Emergency Rules. Rules so complicated they took three pages of closely printed type to explain.
His girlfriend got up first, took one look out the window, and said, “Shit.”
Tom rose on one elbow, eyes clenched shut to avoid light.
“Where’d you park last night?” Carla said.
Tom leaned forward slowly. A faster motion would have been disastrous for his gastrointestinal tract. Not to mention Carla’s bedding.
“Where’d I park?”
“There’s serious snow out there, and the tow trucks just hit my block. If you parked on the street…”
“Tow trucks?” Tom said, still not hearing anything that warranted opening his eyes.
“It’s a snow emergency, numb nuts. You park on the wrong side of the street, wrong day, wrong time—during a snow emergency—and your car gets towed. And from where I stand, it looks like my side of the street just hit the snow emergency trifecta. They’ve already loaded a bunch of cars…”
A surge of bile hit the back of Tom’s throat. He dropped back on the pillow. He was pretty sure he’d parked directly in front of Carla’s apartment, but he was also pretty sure he didn’t much care.
“So they tow my car. They’ve got to bring it back after they plow, right?”
Carla was still at the window when she said, “There it goes. That is definitely your car. A pile of snow fell off when they loaded it on the flatbed. And no. They don’t bring it back. You have to go get it. Which is going to be a problem. Buses probably aren’t running and there’s no way you’re going to get a taxi in this weather. With tow fees and fines, it’s going to cost you, like, two hundred dollars to get your car back. And impound fees, if you don’t get down to the impound lot to pick it up…”
Tom was out of the bed, naked and farting, running toward the door. He grabbed his jacket off the couch and made it down to the front door in seconds.
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