I finished my dinner and went over to Boyle’s Tavern, where Joe Harris was working.
“You hear about Sammy Weiss winning $25,000?” I asked Joe.
“I ain’t heard of him winning twenty-five cents,” Joe said, and poured. Joe always slips me my first Irish free. “Where would Weiss get the stake to win that much, or the nerve to play for it anymore?”
“Yeh,” I said.
I wondered what Weiss had really pulled, or tried to. I didn’t wonder too hard. Not then.
2
I woke up to pounding on my outside door. My watch read six-thirty. The dawn light was gray, and the temperature in my bedroom was like the arctic tundra.
I shivered out of bed and grabbed my robe. I turned on the oven and two of my gas heaters. With my income I can choose between one warm room or five cold ones. I like space, but it’s a discouraging choice. While I lighted the heaters and wished I could afford five warm rooms without rearranging my psyche to fit the needs of the corporations, the pounding on my door did not let up.
I opened the door on Detective Bert Freedman. He was a short, stocky man with shoulders like a bear. He walked in without being invited, producing a warrant, or saying hello. It was a technical point I let pass. Freedman started a tour of my rooms.
I plugged in my coffeepot. Men who live alone too long, or live in too many places where no one knows them, develop habits instead of friends. A ready pot of coffee was my welcome to a new day. It was perking when Freedman faced me.
“You can tell me where Sammy Weiss is, or you can come down to the squad room.”
“You can close the door behind you going out, or you can have some coffee.”