Lawrence Block
When the Sacred Ginmill Closes
Mathew Scudder 06
For Kenneth Reichel
And so we've had another night
Of poetry and poses
And each man knows he'll be alone
When the sacred ginmill closes.
– DAVE VAN RONK
Chapter 1
The windows at Morrissey's were painted black. Theblast was loud enough and close enough to rattle them. It chopped off conversation inmidsyllable, froze a waiter inmidstride, making of him a statue with a tray of drinks on his shoulder and one foot in the air. The great round noise died out like dust settling, and for a long moment afterward the room remained hushed, as if with respect.
Someone said, "Jesus Christ," and a lot of people let out the breath they'd been holding. At our table, BobbyRuslander reached for a cigarette and said, "Sounded like a bomb."
SkipDevoe said, "Cherry bomb."
"Is that all?"
"It's enough," Skip said."Cherry bomb's major ordnance. Same charge had a metal casing instead of a paperwrapper, you'd have a weapon instead of a toy. You light one of those little mothers and forget to let go of it, you'regonna have to learn to do a lot of basic things left-handed."
"Sounded like more than a firecracker," Bobby insisted. "Like dynamite or a grenade or something. Sounded like fucking World War Three, if you want to know."
"Get the actor," Skip said affectionately. "Don't you love this guy?Fighting it out in the trenches, storming the windswept hills, slogging through the mud. BobbyRuslander, battle-scarred veteran of a thousand campaigns."
"You mean bottle-scarred," somebody said.