Chapter 3

WELL, YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN MOLLY GILLIGAN, like the Pied Piper, leading the mice of Clodville to the Melon Patch.

And you should have seen Charlie's eyes when that gang came in behind me. It was a mark of the times, I guess, because there were as many women as men. They were jostling and babbling and shouting and flooded in the joint like the Mississippi River when it's on a rampage.

There I was, shotguns still in the crooks of my arms, and my thirty-eight on my hip, marching down the length of the room, rounding the end of the bar, and coming back.

I slapped the shotguns on the bar and looked at Charlie. "Hope you've got plenty of booze. Set 'em up. It's on the house."

Charlie's eyes really bugged now. He came over and whispered, "Do you realize what this is going to cost you?"

"I don't give a goddamn," I said, pulling my billfold from my hip pocket and slapping a wad of bills on the bar in the best western tradition. "Set'em up."

"But Millie and Connie have quit," Charlie protested.

"So what?" I retorted. "I'll be barmaid." I rounded the bar and started at the booth at the far end of the room. There were two couples in it. "What'll you have?" I asked.

They told me and I turned my head and yelled, hash house manner, "Two old fashioneds and a stinger and a pink lady for the first booth."

I moved on to the second booth, yelled that order, and in no time at all I had worked my way up to the front.

Then I went to the head of the bar and looked down it. "Charlie can work your orders. I'll be busy serving. But if there's any hang-ups, let me know."

You should have seen old Charlie. Dad always said that, years ago, Charlie burned out his transmission and had only one gear left-slow. He must've been pushing fifty. He was flat-footed, built like a barrage balloon with a paunch, and had a beefy face that looked like an old boxing glove dyed red. He had cauliflower ears, a smashed nose and a scar over his right eye so that eyebrow angled up.

He was an ex-pug, AA. AA had called Dad one day years earlier. They'd dug old Charlie out of the tank at the jail and had dried him out and brainwashed him. Charlie was all alone in the world and with no home or job, so they asked Dad to take him in. That night old Charlie slept on the couch in Dad's apartment. And, like a big puppy, Charlie had been devoted to Dad ever since.

So old Charlie was now behind the bar, busier than a tomcat when the moon is full.

He finally began setting drinks on the bar. I rounded the bar once more and hit the cash register and cleaned it out of quarters and headed for the juke box at the rear of the room.

Hell, what had Dad been running, a tea house? Who wanted concertos and string quartets.

Way over at the end was country music-"Red River Valley."

"Tennessee Waltz," and all the rest. I punched all twelve buttons and fed quarters in the machine until it choked. Then I went over to the bar and grabbed a tray and stacked the first four drinks on it as Red Ryder twanged his guitar and broke into "You Can't Be True, Dear."

Well, the joint was jumping from then on. The front door was open. So the whole damn town heard it. Even the good ladies of the Ladies' Aid came to the door and looked in and clucked disgustedly. Mike Gilligan now lay down at Art Trumbull's funeral parlor, and here was Molly Gilligan pouring free booze down everyone in town and with the juke box blaring and everyone whooping it up. What would old Mike think of such goings-on?

Well, I knew what old Mike would think-go to it, kid. You're a Gilligan. A Gilligan is dead, long live the Gilligans.

Before long other men and women began jamming through the front door, to stand there looking around and wondering when they could get in on a piece of the action. With all the racket in there it sounded like Mickey Finn's, but everyone seemed to be enjoying it, laughing and chattering and yelling back and forth.

I soon realized those who had booths and bar stools weren't about to give them up. Something had to give.

So I went over to the juke box, yanked it away from the wall, and turned down the volume. I wheeled around.

"Okay, gang, you got a shot at it. Now let someone else."

They gulped their drinks and got the hell out of there, but they weren't sore. They all came over and told me how sorry they were about Dad and what could they do to help? I told them just to stand by, that I'd need them soon.

Then the next shift came in. And after that a third.

Well, by six o'clock nearly everyone in town was swacked, even Father McGee. By the time he wobbled out of there he collar had busted open and he had his black hat at a rakish angle down over one eye and hit the door casing on either side of the opening before he finally waddled through it and out of sight

But it wasn't all fun and games. I told Charlie to go to dinner first. I'd hold down the fort. Sure, I was rusty. But I had worked along with Dad so many years, when he had Jed Chandler's building next door and rented it out for private parties, that I knew I could get along. Besides, I had a Bar Master's Guide, back behind the bar.

Charlie took off about seven o'clock. The crowd had cleared out and only Clem Bartlett and John Mayer were in there, nursing beers at the bar, and arguing about how the Cubs were going to make out that year.

Since I had nothing better to do, I picked up one of the shotguns from under the bar and broke it and squinted down the barrel toward a distant light Gus had certainly kept the gun clean and well-oiled over the years. I broke the other one and it was the same way. I loaded them, thankful each was double-barreled. One of those shells would tear a man apart.

As I was putting the second shotgun back under the bar, Tom Potterfield walked in again and climbed on a stool. He ordered a martini. I grabbed a shaker and went to work.

As I strained the martini in a glass and shoved it across the bar to Tom, I said, "I think I should warn you fellows that it isn't too healthy in here."

They frowned and stared at me.

"What do you mean?" Tom asked.

"You know what was behind that play last night. Dad wouldn't sell out so he caught lead."

They nodded and Tom picked up his drink and sipped it.

"Well," I went on, "I expect them to do the same with me. I don't know whether they'll send someone in and offer to buy me out or if they'll just come in and start blasting."

I expected them to wilt, but they didn't.

"If any trouble starts," Clem said, "I'll do what I can."

"Me, too," John nodded.

"And I'll be right there," Tom said grimly.

"But you're not armed." I slapped my revolver. "I am. I'm trained in this, you're not. So if any lead starts flying, hit the deck. Don't try to play hero."

They nodded, but I could see they didn't agree with it.

"I mean it," I told them. "Don't try to play hero. You'll wind up dead. I've been a Chicago cop for five years. I know how to handle them."

"You were directing traffic most of the time, weren't you?" Tom asked.

"Hell no. I worked the West Side mostly. The South Side until dark. I've broken up razor fights and every other thing. Sure, regulations say for me to duck and phone in. But if I did, the men would think I was chicken. No, I didn't walk down any dark stairs into a dark basement, or anything like that. If a woman cop breaks up a bar fight, the two drunks don't dare try slugging her, because all the other men in there would beat them through the floor, and they know it. It's safer for a woman cop to break up a fight like that than for a man."

Then Clem and John went back to arguing about the Cubs. Tom sat there, moodily staring into his drink.

"What's with you?" I asked Tom. "Your wife away?"

He shook his head. "Nell left me six months ago. Took the kids, too."

"What were you doing, stepping out on her?"

He hesitated for a moment, still staring into his glass. Then he slowly nodded. "I was a damn fool. A little bundle of fluff by the name of Marge Paxton blew in town and was staying over at The Harper House. I heard about her before she came in to bump me for a job. I knew she was trouble as soon as she sat down beside my desk and got her skirt aloft as she crossed her legs and accepted my light for her cigarette. But, hell, Nell and I had been married for nearly five years. I married her, I guess, just after you left town. It went okay until her father died and her mother moved into town to be near Nell. The old bag tried to run everything, and Nell let her. Nell and I started fighting. That was going on for the last year. Then about six months ago Nell and her mother took off with the kids while I was in Chicago at a convention. I got back to find the house stripped and the bank account cleaned out and them gone. I haven't even heard from them. I don't know where Nell is."

I glanced at Clem and John. They nodded.

"Tom got a rough go, all right," John said. "Glad you came to town. Mebbe you can pull him out of it. He's drinkin' too damn much."

I looked back at Tom. "Why don't you wise up, Tom? Forget Nell. She wasn't worth it. Sure, you want your kids, but you don't want your kids unless you can have them right. So snap out of it."

"That's easier said than done," he said.

"I've got some coffee on the burner back there," I told him. "Why don't you let me dump that martini and you go on coffee for a while?"

He looked up from his drink and his eyes bored into mine. "Why should I? What am I supposed to do every night, go down to the river and hear the fish sing? Hell, there's nothing to do in this town, and you know it."

"Okay, I'll make you a deal," I said. "You start hitting the coffee for the next hour or two and stay right here. By eight or nine o'clock, if we're not jammed, you and I can take off."

"What'll we do?"

I shrugged. "Who knows? Ten years ago we didn't have any trouble finding something to do, did we?"

He grinned. "Those were the days."

"Yeah. We can have them again if you want them. I'm just as lonesome as you. And I'm not throwing myself at you, either, goddamn it. I'm no tramp. I don't have round heels, so don't get ideas."

"Slow down and simmer down," Tom said. "Nobody's thinking that."

"Well, I want to get off on the right foot with you. I don't want you thinking I'm a fast lay."

"Stop it, will you?" Tom said. "Ladies don't talk like that."

"They do in Chicago. If they didn't, the wolves would grab them as soon as they got out the door and were alone."

"Well, this is Clodville, not Chicago. You're Mike Gilligan's daughter. That's good enough for me. It was ten years ago and it is today."

The other two men nodded solemnly and glanced over at Tom and back at me.

Clem said to Tom, "Molly here is a good girl. She may be just what you need." He looked back at me.

"And after all this excitement's over, you're going to have a letdown. You'll need Tom then."

I nodded and looked back at Tom. We locked stares for a moment. Then he slowly shoved the martini toward me. I grabbed it and dumped it and put the glass in the sterilizer. I turned and went back and got the pot and poured a mug of steaming coffee.

"Want cream and sugar?"

He shook his head.

It was quiet in there for a minute. I glanced out the door. I was jumpy. Hell, they wouldn't dare send anyone in against me that night.

I went down the bar and looked at the shotguns again. I wondered if I'd have a chance to use them. Perhaps they'd drive by and open up with a machine gun and riddle the place.

Jim Hendrick's boy had brought that night's issue of the Chicago Express but I was too busy to look at it.

I went over and picked it up and laid it on the bar, toward the front from Tom, Clem and John. I began scanning the front page.

Our bombers had hit near Hanoi. The senators, as usual, were viewing with alarm and pointing with pride, while yelling for economy and trying to get a boondoggle project for their states.

I glanced up. A tall dark character who looked like he had been dredged up out of a grave was coming in the doorway. His gray hat was pulled down low over his eyes. He was dressed in a gray suit with blue shirt and dark red tie. Although swarthy, he had a pasty complexion. A hophead, probably. I'd know, when I got a look at his eyes. N

I swiveled my head and whispered. "Don't look toward the door. Act natural but get ready to hit the deck. Hophead coming in."

All three men continued staring at the bar, but I could see that their bodies had tensed.

I glanced back toward the door. He was ambling in as casually as any customer. He slid on a stool. He didn't know it, but my shotguns were right under the bar in front of him.

I folded my paper and put it on the back bar. I turned and went over to him.

"What's for you?"

"I want to talk to you."

"Okay, talk." .

He glanced at the other three men. "Not here."

"I'm on all alone. I can't leave." His hand went to his jacket pocket. "You'll close up now and leave."

"And go where?"

"I don't care where. Just so we can be alone and talk."

"Who are you?"

"That doesn't matter. Who are you."

"Mike Gilligan's daughter."

He looked directly at me for a moment. I got a look at his eyes. Pinpoints. Higher than Mount Everest and as dangerous as a jaguar on LSD.

"You the one that's the cop?"

I nodded. He glanced down at my thirty-eight.

"Why are you wearing that?"

"That's a silly goddamn question if I ever heard one," I told him.

His jaw muscles tightened and I could see the bulge in his pocket suddenly enlarge as he gripped the gun. As he stared at me he began scratching his jaw.

After you've been a cop for a while, every little movement has a meaning all its own. That could have been a signal, but I knew nobody would open up with him sitting there on that stool.

Although staring at the guy on the stool, I was watching the door with the tail of my eye.

Suddenly another tall lanky cadaver with a droopy hat pulled low came through the doorway. He was pigeon-toed. He came up to his partner and glanced at me and then back again.

"She givin' you a bad time, Jack?"

"Yeah," Jack said, not taking his eyes off me. "She don' wanna play."

I got a look at the other guy's eyes then as he turned to me and the light hit him full in the face. His pupils were pinpoints, too. A pair of hopheads. How nice.

The second guy pulled a switchblade. He continued staring at me as his thumb crept up the long bone handle. There was an ominous click. A gleaming wicked blade popped out. He then glanced at his hands and began paring his fingernails. So I was now facing a gun in a pocket and a switchblade.

I only hoped that the other three men wouldn't get spooked. One fast move by any of them and these other two hopheads would cut loose.

"You goin' with me?" the first guy asked me.

"I told you I'm on alone. I'm not locking up."

It happened so fast I hardly knew what was happening. The shiv artist's hand shot out, clamped on my left arm and started dragging me across the bar.

I looked at the other three men. "Hit the deck," I yelled.

Shiv's left hand snaked out to grab my gun. My hand got there a split instant ahead of his. His clamped on mine like a hydraulic press. I was pinned.

The character on the stool lashed out with his left hand and damn near took my jaw off. A bloody haze flooded in before my eyes, rocking my head to my left. I saw the three men, belly-down on the floor. Tom was crawling forward ready to grab the lanky one who was standing up.

"This is my party," I yelled. "Don't tackle him."

Highpockets stopped staring at me and glanced down at Tom. His foot shot out and he kicked Tom in the head.

That gave me my opening. I suddenly yanked and broke free. As I did, the first hophead's hand came roaring up with a flash and a roar, and I took a slug in my shoulder.

My gun bucked and reared and the hophead on the stool took a slug up his nose that tore the top of his head off before he toppled over backward.

The shiv artist was as fast as a coiled snake. He suddenly swept down and slid forward and bobbed up again and threw his switchblade at me. I ducked. And by the time I came up he had a gun out. We shot at the same instant. His slug fanned my left ear and smashed into the ruined back bar mirror. My slug didn't miss. It caught him in the shoulder, but didn't spin him around.

He let out a long high scream and his gun came up again. My finger clamped once more, but I might as well have clamped down on the trigger guard. The goddamn thing was jammed.

I ducked just as he fired and the slug damn near parted my hair on the top of my head. I dumped my thirty-eight and grabbed a shotgun.

I came up in time to take one point-blank. But when a hophead's excited he couldn't hit a hippo in the butt with a bowl of rice.

I slammed the shotgun down against the bar at an angle, with the snout up. My finger clamped.

He stood there for a moment, teetering. He was the damnedest sight. He had no face, just crimson glistening pulp, oozing blood. As if in slow motion, his knees buckled and he stretched out on his back on the floor, as if for a nap. I knew it would be a long one.

Tom and the other two men grabbed at the nearest bar stool and pulled themselves up. They were as white as the bar towel and were shaking like dogs being wormed.

I whirled and grabbed a fifth of bourbon and slapped it down on the bar. I grabbed up three glasses and set them in front of the men and dumped booze in each glass.

"Take it neat, and take it quick," I ordered. "You'll be okay in a minute. And don't look at the floor."

They did as ordered and tossed off their drinks. I refilled for them.

"See what I mean about not being experienced with this sort of thing? You were damn lucky you didn't get something."

I glanced down. My shirt was bloody and some of it was turning brown.

"As soon as one of you get your sea legs under you, run upstairs and see if Doc is in."

Tom nodded and got off his stool and ran for the door. When he hit the walk out front, he skidded right and disappeared.

I heard a siren wail, far off. It closed in rapidly, and before I could get a drink poured for myself a black cruiser stood on its nose out front, red light whirling and siren growling as two deputy sheriffs piled out and charged in through the door.

They skidded to a stop and stared at me.

"Who are you?" one of them asked.

"Mike Gilligan's daughter."

They looked at the mess on the floor and then back at me.

"You do all this?" the second deputy asked. I nodded.

"Some shooting," the first one said. "You a cop."

"Was," I told them. "Chicago police." The second one frowned. "Yeah, Mike told me about you. What are you doing here."

"Taking over."

"And who are these hoods?"

"They were hopped to their eyebrows. They walked in and demanded I close up and go with them somewhere where-we could talk alone. One thing led to another."

"Yeah," the first one said. "Looks like it. We'd better get Doc down here to look at your shoulder."

I rotated my arm around, gritting my teeth and trying not to show pain on my face. "It's nothing. Doc can put a band aid over it and it'll be okay."

Tom came running in. Just behind him was old Doc Masters, trudging as slowly as ever, and carrying his old battered bag.

"Well," Doc growled, "I see where I won't be gettin' much sleep from now on. Molly Gilligan's back in town. I wonder how many times I'll have to sew your breast back on this time."

I grinned at him. "Don't worry about it, Doc. I'll probably never have any need for them, so don't bother."

"You sound like old Mike," Doc growled. "Go over there in one of those booths and open up your shirt. I doubt if I can do anything here, but I'll try."

Just then Charlie came lumbering in. He took one look and turned whiter than his shirt and I thought he was going to either heave or keel over.

"You'd better take care of Charlie, Doc," I said. "He's a blanket case right now."

Tom ran over and grabbed Charlie and got him over to a booth and set him down. Doc went over to him and plopped his bag down on the table and opened it. He uncorked a bottle and waved it under Charlie's nose. "Take a good whiff. You must've never seen blood before."

I went over and slid into the booth behind Charlie. I began unbuttoning my shirt. Doc picked up his bag and slammed it down on my table. He pulled a pen-light and shot it at my shoulder. "Can't see nothin' much, yet."

He got out some cotton and alcohol and began swabbing. I bit my lower lip and grabbed at the table and hung on.

The flash beam again probed. Doc frowned and then dug out his glasses and put them on. He began squinting at my shoulder once more. "How many slugs did you take?"

"One that I know of. Another fanned my left ear."

"Yeah. You'll have a nick in the lobe for the rest of your life."

"So what? I don't use it much anyway."

Well, after the deputies had gotten those hopheads out of there, we locked the front door and pulled down the shades. Charlie went out in the back room and got the mop and bucket. He told me to take off and he'd clean up. Tom and I had shoved off and gone out to The Hideway, on the edge of town. It had once been a dive, but they had cleaned it up just before I left town and it was under new management. And Tom and I had sat around out there for about an hour, knocking over a martini or two, before heading for Dad's apartment.