The Gift Horse's Mouth, page 1
part #7 of Jimmy Flannery Series
Contents
Praise
Title Page
Copyright
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
Praise for Edgar Award-Winning Author Robert Campbell
“Campbell writes with wit and vigor. The comparison not unflattering is to Elmore Leonard.”
— Los Angeles Times
“Robert Campbell has his own sound; he is an awfully good writer.”
— Elmore Leonard
“Robert Campbell is one of the most stylish crime writers in the business.”
— New York Times
Praise for
Nibbled to Death by Ducks
“A pure joy. . . .Nibbled to Death by Ducks provides an entertaining look at the workings of Chicago ward politics even as it exposes the cynical greed of the health care industry. . . .Campbell is skillful enough to tickle and chill us at the same time. This is a good one.” — Cleveland Plain Dealer
“Campbell combines some memorable faces with a moody, atmospheric sense of life in a nursing home. . . .Reading a Flannery caper is always fun. . . .” — Chicago Tribune
Praise for
The Cat’s Meow
“A mystery series that. . .just keeps getting better.”
— Chicago Magazine
Praise for
Thinning The Turkey Herd
“Fast, lean, offbeat entertainment.”
— Kirkus Reviews
“Flannery is Robert Campbell’s most endearing character, a down-to-earth political small-fry who believes in the system despite its faults. . .He’s at his best in Thinning the Turkey Herd. . .a delight—a man who reason's, coaxes, makes end runs, compromises but never gives up until he’s satisfied that he’s got it right.”
— The Cincinnati Post
Praise for Edgar Award Winner
The Junkyard Dog
“Dialogue so breezy it stings your eyeballs, spirited characterizations of Jimmy’s proud ethnic neighbors, and the ward healer’s cocky defense of the old ways, the old politics . . . You can’t help liking Jimmy Flannery.”
— New York Times Book Review
“This truly innovative private-eye character moves credibly through a brawling, tough-guy atmosphere in a plot that’s both twisty and witty.”
— ALA Booklist
“Written in an appealing argot, this mystery has full characters, a satisfying ending and a nice balance of hardboiled action and romantic tenderness.”
— Publishers Weekly
The Gift Horse’s Mouth
Robert Campbell
Publisher’s Note
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1990 Robert Campbell
All rights reserved.
Ayeshire Publishing
ONE
I got friends who tell me, "Jimmy, wake up, the world's passing you by" or "Flannery, the old dog is dead, can't you smell it? Get your shovel out and bury the poor thing."
The world which they tell me is passing me by is the opportunity for a promotion to supervisor—maybe even to the top job—in the Sewer Division of the Department of Streets and Sanitation in the great city of Chicago.
The old dog what is dead is the Democratic Party machine, which, some say, took the setup jab in 1968 when Daley and the national Party leaders indulged in a cursing match on television, the knockout punch when he told the Chicago police to fire on looters and arsonists after the assassination of Martin Luther King, and got the count after Mayor Bilandic, Daley's successor, lost the fifth floor to Jane Byrne because he couldn't get the winter snows of '79 off the streets.
Even though Jane hugged the old guard after the race she'd run and won against the machine, they never really forgave her for it. They gave her lukewarm support when she ran for reelection in '83; she lost to Harold Washington and the reform ticket.
That's the first time everybody told me the old machine was rusted and busted.
If you think a political machine's an organization what can deliver the votes for a candidate no matter how bad he or she may be, then I suppose there ain't a machine left in any major city in the country. If you think, like I think, that a machine's a way for the people to get a little room at the public trough, then the machine's alive and it'll always be alive because there's always going to be somebody who can't help themselves; who ain't got a clue how to go about it; who're going to go to somebody like me for help.
I know how to pull the strings and push the buttons, cut the deals and trade favor for favor.
That's how it is, that's how it's always been and that's how it'll always be; I don't care what you call it.
I work inspecting the sewers not because I particularly like it but because I got to make a living. Even though my old Chinaman, Delvin, put me in the spot because I was ready, willing, and able to work for the Democratic Party in the Twenty-seventh Ward, I ain't one of them political appointees who just stops by the office to collect his pay.
And I ain't one of them people like Kippy Kerner, who spent twenty years supervising another guy who checked the steam valves at City Hall. He was ready to take retirement when he dropped dead of a stroke right on the job. Some of the wags down at the Hall say it was because the valve-checker called in sick and Kippy Kerner had to do the job hisself. When he bent over to read a dial, the blood rushed to his head and that was that.
Also we got Billy Swinarski, who sits in front of the city treasurer's office telling people where is the city treasurer's office. Hizzoner, the late Richard J. Daley, put Billy there for good reason. Billy had got hisself injured on Daley's behalf in an election dispute, and him sitting there, gainfully employed, let everybody who ever walked into the Hall know that with Hizzoner loyalty was a two-way street.
Nobody's ever got around to showing Billy the door after Daley died. By now it'd be like knocking down the Water Tower. Billy's a public treasure.
So, anyway, whether the machine is dead or not—no matter who wins the election what's coming up with Mayor Washington dead and gone, God rest his soul—the party, old or new, has got to have people knocking on doors and precinct captains telling them how to do it. Also somebody like me what can get a tree trimmed if it's blocking the sun coming in an old person's kitchen window in the morning or get the water turned on if a mother of four can't even flush because her man walked out on her and she can't pay the bills or work the welfare system fast enough.
My old man, Mike Flannery, who was a precinct captain for years while he was in the fire department, tells me that if I want to hang on to the idea that the machine is still operating or might even be coming back, then it's about time that I say yes to old Delvin, who wants to retire and turn the ward over to me.
Which means he'd be handing over an empty sock at this minute because I turned down the chance to run for alderman once, and to be committeeman without being alderman don't count for a hell of a lot anymore. When I took a pass a while back, they ran somebody else and a lipstick lesbian by the name of Janet Canarias put together a coalition what won the seat against the party candidate.
She's still in it, doing a great job. Also she's a very good friend.
But I think that maybe it's about time I say okay and take the title for the honor of it or to please my friends and family—my father, my wife, my mother-in-law, my aunt by marriage, my dog, and the kid who lives across the hall—if for no other reason.
Also it's time for me to get a step up in the job and an increase in pay. Mary tells me a couple of months ago that we're going to have a baby and that's the best reason I know for a man to get some ambition.
Which lands me on Delvin's doorstep on a bright, windy day in November.
For a minute there, when his housekeeper, Mrs. Thimble, opens the door, I get a sharp little pain. For years it was Mrs. Banjo—God keep her—was his housekeeper who opened the door and always had something to scold me about.
When she passed away she left me a city lot to build a house on for Mary and me, but we had to sell it to save the old block of flats we live in. But that's another story. The point is I'm standing there with the leaves blowing right up the steps to the porch and past me into the vestibule when Mrs. Thimble says, "Well, come in if you're coming in, Mr. Flannery. You're letting half the dirt in the city blow into my clean house."
Which makes me feel better.
"The master's in the parlor counting his toes," she says with this bitter way she's got of talking.
"Can I go right on in?"
"Well, if you expect me to announce you, you've got another think coming. I did that for old Father Mulrooney and look what it got me."
I don't want to point out that her announcing visitors in the priest's house didn't cause his death o
Delvin's dozing in his chair. He's got a belly as big as a wheelbarrow but he's lost a lot of weight around the neck and chest the way some old people do. There's hardly any color in his face. It hits me that he ain't got long to live. I thought that before and he fooled me and everybody else, including his doctors, but this time I think I got it right.
I sit down in the chair opposite him in the gloomy room. Every shade's been pulled down almost to the sills and half the drapes are closed.
I sit there for a long time just looking at him, rolling back the years in my head. That's making me blue so I clear my throat enough times that he finally starts and opens his eyes, looking right at me.
"Did Mrs. Thimble offer you a little refreshment?"
"I don't want anything."
"That may be, but she should've asked. That woman's going to ruin the reputation of my house."
If he means the reputation that Delvin's hospitality is thinner than the seat of beggars' drawers, there's not much danger. The only reason he sees to it that I get served a little something is because I don't drink hard liquor and he gets to have his and mine as well. But seeing the way he looks, I decide I'll drink the damned toddy this time just to keep him from swigging it.
"Cold out, is it?" he goes on.
"Not too bad."
"Blowing a wind though?"
"Well, it is that."
"So you must feel a bit nippy. Mrs. Thimble!" He gives out a yell fit to wake the dead. Then does it twice more.
She takes her good old time coming and then just stands there waiting for him to say what's on his mind. "My friend, Jim here, needs something to warm him up."
"Cocoa?" she says.
"Nothing you got to cook. You'd only burn it. Bring us two whiskeys and branch water without the ice."
She blinks her watery eyes three or four times like she's working up a protest but never delivers it. She just walks out with a sharp nod of her head.
"So while we're waiting, what have you got to tell me?" Delvin says.
"I've come to tell you I accept," I say.
A little smile turns up the corners of his mouth a bit. It's a look a cat would get when it saw a bottle of cream on the stoop, except they don't hardly deliver milk any more.
"Accept what?" he says when waiting me out don't look like it's going to work.
"You've made me offers in the past."
"I recall."
"Are they still good?"
"What do you think? The alderman's job is in that woman's pocket. The leader's job in the ward don't mean a hell of a lot without you're also the alderman, but even so, it might not be mine to offer at the moment."
"How's that?"
"There's an election coming up, haven't you heard? People are choosing up sides. Ray Carrigan, as head of the Party, is gathering his cards for the showdown hand."
"What's the Twenty-seventh to him?"
"It's sitting cheek to cheek with the First and The Loop."
"The last movie house closed in the Loop just a couple of weeks ago. That could be the beginning of the end for the First."
"Use your head. The Loop's going banking and commercial and that's got more clout than movie houses, nightclubs, and sin any day of the week. So if banking and financial spreads, where's it going to spread? Into the Twenty-seventh along Washington and Randolph is where."
"You telling me I got to go to Carrigan and bend the knee?"
"You bend the knee when Mary gets you to go to church, and you ain't believed in that for years. You bend the knee when you go to see the cardinal and kiss his ring."
"That's tradition. That's ceremony," I say.
"That's all I'm saying," he snaps back.
Delvin stirs himself as Mrs. Thimble comes back into the room with a tumbler in each hand.
"My God, woman, don't you know enough to serve guests on a tray? Especially when you're offering a drink to your benefactor, the man who got you the position you enjoy in this house?"
She snorts through her nose like a cat and hands a glass to each of us, letting Delvin know she ain't going to wipe a tray for two drinks, and letting me know she don't appreciate the job I got for her all that much.
"Where was we?" Delvin asks after he takes a pretty good belt out of his glass.
"I was on my knees in Carrigan's office."
"I know there's no love lost. I know there's old business between you, favors refused, monkey wrenches tossed in the machinery. But he ain't put you in the freezer yet. You understand what I'm saying?"
I take a sip of my drink and Delvin's eyebrows twitch. "You saying he wants me on his books?"
"That's right. He's helped you now and then because I asked him to do the favor for me. But he wants you to ask a favor."
"So you're saying his door's open waiting for me to walk in?"
"That's what I'm saying could be the case."
"All right, then, if I got to do it, I'll do it."
"The sooner, the better," Delvin says. "Why don't you trot right on over to his office now?"
He's finished his toddy and has his eye on mine. I take another short swallow.
"Which office?" I ask.
"Tuesdays, Ray's at his main office on State. As long as you catch him before noon."
"Shouldn't I make a call first?"
"Take my word, it's all right. He asks you, tell him you come unannounced because I told you it'd be okay to come unannounced."
That way Delvin will know how he stands in Carrigan's esteem without having to ask. He sees me without an appointment, on Delvin's say-so, it means Delvin's still wearing power suspenders. He don't and it could mean they've already wrote Delvin off and are just letting him hang around until he keels over.
It could also mean that Carrigan's busy or wants me to do it by the numbers, but Delvin already knows that. Half of politics is testing the water when it don't cost you nothing.
I stand up, ready to go.
"If you say so, I'll go right on over."
"Then you won't be needing your toddy, will you?" Delvin says, and snatches the glass right out of my hand.
TWO
Nobody knows how many offices Ray Carrigan keeps around the city, county, and state. He's been into real estate, commodity options, magazine distribution, publishing, printing, politics, and other assorted enterprises for forty years, and it seems like he wants to keep every interest separate from every other one. Like he don't want his left hand to know what his right hand is doing. Johnny McAfee, who knows Carrigan better than maybe anybody else—they've been friends or friendly enemies since they was kids in kindergarten—says it's Carrigan's way of writing off the expenses of his girlfriends.
I been in maybe three of Carrigan's offices at one time or another. None of them are anything lavish. He's not trying to impress. But in every one of them he's got a good-looking receptionist sitting behind the desk. Mostly all they're doing is their nails, but they all got great legs so that's all right, too.
Only one of them ever seemed to do much of anything. Goldie Hanrahan.
For thirty of those forty years you had to get past Goldie if you wanted to see Carrigan.
The first five years he was easy to get to. He was just starting out building his empire and you could just knock on the door and walk in. Then he got Goldie out front and she made it very difficult for anybody and everybody, even the mayors, except for Hizzoner, Dick Daley. The last five years Goldie's been retired and he's got nobody at the front desk in the main office sorting people out. Just some doll with great legs doing her nails and maybe picking up the phone to tell him who's waiting.
In the old days, if you got in to see Carrigan, he looked at you surprised, like he forgot he told Goldie to let you in, like she hadn't stopped you outside and listened to your spiel, then told you no soap.
Nowadays, you can tell he misses her a lot.
