The Guilty Are Afraid

About eight or nine men were propping themselves up against the bar, drinking beer and dipping into the dill pickle bowl.

Beyond open double doors at the far end of the room I could see a railed verandah, shaded from the evening sun by a green awning. There were tables out there, and that’s where the crowd was. As I was hoping to do some serious talking with Fulton, I decided I’d stay inside and away from the crowd. I went over to the doors and looked the crowd over to make sure he hadn’t already arrived, then, not seeing him, I picked a corner table in the bar room by a big open window and sat down.

A waiter came over, wiped the table and nodded at me. I told him to bring me a bottle of Black Label, some ice and two glasses.

A few minutes after six o’clock Tim Fulton came in. He was wearing a pair of baggy grey flannel trousers and an open-neck, blue shirt. He carried his jacket over his shoulder. He looked around, saw me and grinned. Then he came over, his eyes on the bottle of Black Label.

“Hey, there, buster,” he said. “So you’ve got the flag waving already? Couldn’t you wait for me?”

“The bottle’s not open yet,” I said. “Sit down. How’s it feel to be a free man?”

He blew out his cheeks.

“You don’t know anything until you’ve been through what I’ve been through. I should have my head examined for staying so long with him.” He flicked the bottle with his fingernail. “You reckoning to uncork this or do we just sit and admire it? “

I poured him a drink, dropped a chunk of ice into his glass, then made myself one. We touched glasses as boxers will touch gloves and nodded to each other. We drank.

After my interview with Creedy and then with Katchen, the ice-cold whisky certainly hit a spot. We lit cigarettes, sank further down in the basket chairs and grinned at each other.

“Pretty nice, huh?” Fulton said. “If there’s one thing I like better than anything else it’s to sit where I can listen to the sea and drink good whisky. I don’t reckon a man could wish for anything nicer. Okay, there are times when a woman can take the place of pretty well anything, but when a guy wants to relax he doesn’t want a woman. I’ll tell you why: women talk: whisky doesn’t. This is a bright idea of yours, buster.”

I said I was full of bright ideas.

“I’ve another bright idea,” I went on. “After we’ve had a few drinks, it might be an idea to try some of that chicken cooking there.”

“Yeah. Those birds are the best on this stretch of coast,” Fulton said. “Make no mistake about that. Okay, you can go to Alfredo’s, the Carlton, the Blue Room, or if you can get in, even the Musketeer Club. They serve chicken too. They give it to you with five waiters, silver forks and orchids. The bill will knock your right eye out. Here, they just throw it at you, but, brother, is it good. And it’s cheap.” He finished his drink, put down his glass and sighed. “I come here twice a week. Sometimes I bring my girl; sometimes I come alone. It makes me laugh to think of all the rich suckers going to the shakedown joints and paying five times what I pay and getting something not so good. The joke is none of them would dare be seen here because their rich pals would imagine they were economizing, and in this town, to economize is a deadly sin.”

I made him another drink and freshened mine to give him the illusion that I was drinking level with him.

“But, and there’s always a but,” he said, shaking his head, “this place is beginning to slip. A year ago we got guys and dolls in here who were friendly, nice and homely. Now the tough boys have discovered it. They are as fond of stuffing their bellies as I am, so they come. We’ve got this gambling ship anchored out in the bay: that attracts them the way rotten meat attracts flies. Sam’s worried. I was talking to him only the other week. He tells me the people who made his business are fading away and these tough boys are taking their place. There’s nothing he can do about it. Last month there was a fight here and a knife was flashed. Sam got it under control quick, but that’s the kind of thing that’ll scare people away. He reckons if there’s another knife fight in here, he’ll be owning just another racketeer’s restaurant.”

I said it was bad and looked over at the group of men standing at the bar. They were big and flashily dressed, with the hard watchful eyes of men who don’t care how they make their money so long as they make it.

“Bookies,” Fulton said, following my gaze. “They’re okay so long as they stay sober. The boys who cause the trouble don’t show until it’s dark.” He lit another cigarette and pushed the pack over to me. “Well, how did you get on with the old man: lovely character, isn’t he?”

“Yeah. That long room of his and his searchlight eyes. I’d hate to have to work for him.”