To make a long one short, by the time she gets a really good look at Binderman's beak, she knows what a tiger he is in the sack and passes him on to a cousin of hers, ugly but sweet, who goes ga-ga over Binderman the first time he introduces her to carnal pleasures.

  Now they are married and got four kids, and Binderman never forgets how I start him on his way to a successful family life.

  Delvin, Dunleavy, Hackman, and practically nobody else knows about this close association I got with Binderman. Sealed file or no sealed file, Binderman will tell me almost anything about almost anything I want to know, though he, like Fergusen, always squirms a little first.

  "You got a package on a man by the name of Aguilar," I say.

  "Have I got such a package?"

  "How's the wife and children?"

  "Do you know what's in the package?"

  "The usual. Stomach contents, blood samples, brain tissue, fingernail scrapings. . ."

  "Forget the stomach. There wasn't any stomach."

  "I forgot. So, what can you tell me that Hackman ain't already told me?"

  "Oh, did he tell you things? I get the word that anything I find out is to go into the sealed file, and I should forget about it."

  "Why do you think that should be?"

  "Because people like you, and people like newspaper reporters, are forever nosing around."

  "I'm not nosing around. I'm looking around because a friend of mine, who is a Colombian, has a missing husband, also a Colombian like this Aguilar. This missing husband is very good with crocodiles, and Aguilar was a meal for such a beast."

  "Well, then, you do know something."

  "Like I say, Hackman talks to me. But he talks to me before the file is sealed. By the way, Hackman says it was an alligator, but I know it was a crocodile."

  "Who told you?"

  "Professor Luger over to the zoo."

  "You've done a lot of work."

  "But I still ain't got a clue why this Aguilar was thrown to the croc the way he was."

  "Think about it."

  "I have been thinking about it."

  "Think about it some more."

  "The only thing I've been able to figure is that somebody's trading illegally in crocodile skins, though why they should want them alive is beyond me."

  "Well, now, they wouldn't, would they? Think again."

  "I also think about that other valuable stuff that comes from Colombia."

  "Bonnng!" Binderman says.

  "I can't believe that," I say, thinking about my old Chinaman.

  "Why can't you believe it?"

  I shake my head, telling him that it's not important he should know, and to tell me more.

  "Aguilar was using cocaine," he says.

  "Well, that's not much. A lot of people in every neighborhood and ward are using cocaine."

  "He was using pasta, which is a . . ."

  "Pasta?"

  ". . .very early stage in the manufacturing process."

  "What is this pasta? Are we talking about spaghetti?"

  "We're talking about cocaine sulfate, extracted from coca leaves by soaking them in water and adding lime to release the alkaloids, then stirring in a solvent like gasoline to dissolve the alkaloids while remaining separate from the water. The water is then drained out of the bottom, the gasoline poured off the top, sulfuric acid is added to form precipitate, which is then put out in the sun to dry. Making pasta."

  "How can you tell from traces found in the body that he was using pasta?"

  "Because when pasta is refined to make base, cinnamyl cocaine and the hygrines are eliminated. Now, you're an expert."

  "I want to thank you for the instruction."

  Binderman can read my dismay on my face. "What's the matter, Jimmy?"

  "You're telling me that Aguilar was using cocaine that hadn't even been refined or cut for street sale yet. He was getting it practically from the source."

  "Not from the leaf, but from the paste they make in the next step."

  "I always thought the stuff came in more refined than that."

  "It's like any other business, Jimmy. The more competition, the more you got to find an angle to keep your customers. You can cut prices or you can advertise the purity of your product. A dealer brings in the pasta and does the rest of the lab work right here with the best chemicals money can buy, it's a marketing advantage."

  "I still can't believe it."

  It's only when Binderman says, "Has this got to do with whoever asked for the seal to be put on the file?" that I realize that I was talking out loud.

  I go over to the Back of the Yards and into the building where Mrs. Mineiros lives. The door's open the way it was before. I go in and I don't even ring the bell. I walk down the long, dark hallway thinking how hard it is for some people to live decent. How scared they must be all the time.

  When I knock on the door, it's some time before somebody comes to the peephole. Mrs. Mineiros opens the door with that frightened look on her face.

  "It's not bad news about your husband, Mrs. Mineiros. I just come to ask you a few more questions."

  "It's all right. You have been very kind, but you shouldn't trouble yourself anymore."

  "Can I come in?"

  "No, please," she says, and backs off as if she's afraid I'm going to push my way through. "I am making our almuerzo. For Dulcinia and me. It's cooking on the stove."

  "Well, it won't take but a minute. All I want to know is. . .I got the idea you didn't tell me certain things about Aguilar and your husband, though, of course, I didn't ask—so could you tell me if your husband and Sugar was in business together?"

  "Business?"

  "Like were they partners in that truck, maybe?"

  She shakes her head, her eyes darting around, trying to think of a way to get me out of there. "I got our almuerzo on the stove," is all she can come up with.

  I hear the sound of a little kid running on the linoleum.

  "Is that Dulcinia I hear running around, Mrs. Mineiros?"

  "Oh, yes."

  "If you say you got your lunch cooking on the stove, what's she doing running around the kitchen with nobody to watch her?"

  "You see, I got to go," she says, and closes the door in my face, a polite woman who don't know what else to do.

  I back off from the pebbled glass. There's no light in the hallway to cast my shadow, but even so I don't take the chance. I stand there without moving for maybe a minute, knowing that they can't see me leave by the front because they got the last flat down the hall. I hear Dulcinia say something in her high-pitched little kid's voice, and then Consuelo says something in her light woman's voice, and then I hear something said in a deeper voice.

  I walk very softly down the hall and out the building. I go down to the corner and cross the street, then walk up the other side until I find an alley with some bushes growing so anybody on the other side can't see me unless they're looking very hard.

  In a couple of minutes I see a big, black, bullet headed guy come out of the six-family where Mrs. Mineiros lives. He's wearing dark glasses and carries himself like he's a fighter, or used to be. He turns his head this way and that way, and I see a ring glittering in his ear.

  Even though he looks over his shoulder every thirty seconds like a clock, he doesn't keep it turned long enough for him to see what he's looking for, which is me. Once I get his rhythm fixed, it's nothing for me to move from one concealed place to another in little fits and starts, keeping him in sight all the time, and him never seeing me.

  I follow him all the way across the South Damen Avenue Viaduct, then north toward McKinley Park. I stop on Forty-third as he goes on across a long blank stretch to where I can see the back of a half-ton truck parked in among some weeds and rubbish.

  There's a hot wind blowing, kicking dust and crap up off the fields and blowing it around. He crawls around the truck for maybe fifteen minutes. When he finally gives it up and starts walking back, I turn around and find a place to sit until he's past me and on his way home.

  Then I go down to look the truck over, though I ain't got an idea in the world about what I expect to find.

  You leave a vehicle out in an empty space like that, it's natural for people to think it's been abandoned. They'll start picking at its bones. Some neighborhoods, they'll pick at its bones even if it don't look abandoned.

  This truck ain't got any plates. It's been jacked up and the wheels removed. There's just junk under the hood. Amateur mechanics has stripped everything off the engine and left just the block. The engine number plate has been chiseled off, leaving a patch of bright metal. The floorboards in the cab has been pulled up and the door panels ripped out so they could get to the wiring.

  I open the glove compartment. There's two empty beer cans, a crumpled-up cigarette pack, also empty, a pair of leather work gloves, practically wore out, and half a dozen rusty nails.

  The bed of the truck has been built up with iron plates so it's about two foot deep, and the seams has been welded all around to make it watertight. You could transport a crocodile in it. There's nothing in it except a little piece of rubber caught on a cleat. I put it in my pocket.

  All I get out of following the man with the bullet head is a long walk on a hot day with a bag full of overalls and waders dragging on my arm, and a piece of what could be a toy balloon.

  I go to Cornell Square and down a manhole. On the service ledge I change into my work duds. I walk the tunnels for maybe three hours, but I don't find a thing.

  TWENTY-THREE

  On the El going home people give me so much room I got three seats to myself for the first time in all the years I've been riding the trains. I don't even know what a stink I'm making. My mind is on some things I don't want to think about. But no matter how I try to duck it, I got to say to myself that my old Chinaman, "Chips" Delvin, a hard man some ways and a petty man others, has somehow got himself mixed up with some drug dealers, and that is very hard for me to swallow. Walking up the street toward my building, I go past the Homewood Tavern, which is a place where the working men go to get a beer on a Friday night, and where they take the wife and kids into the back room for a feed and orange sodas on Saturdays. Me and Mike have been going in there for years, ever since I was knee-high and they used to draw root beer out of a wooden keg. Somebody calls my name and I look over at the doorway, and Captain Beeston's standing there with his pipe stuck in his mouth.

  "Good evening, Flannery," he says like we're old friends. "Won't you come in and have a beer with me?"

  "Well, I'm on my way home for a bath and some supper. Besides, I don't drink but maybe three or four beers a year, and I already had mine for this month."

  "I can tell you need the bath, but come in for a minute anyhow. Have a sarsaparilla. I don't care. I just want to chew the fat with you for a minute."

  I go through the doorway. The air-conditioning is pumping away. The smell of ammonia and ice is stronger than the smell on me.

  "Sit over there in the corner near the cooler vent and I'll get the drinks."

  "Make it root beer if they got it."

  He comes back in a minute with a short whiskey and a ginger back for hisself, and a bottle of root beer and a glass for me. I look at the label and the stuff ain't even bottled in Chicago, but way the hell back in New York.

  "I expect you've been down in the tunnels today."

  "Well, I work for the Sewer Department. I've been down in the sewers for some time."

  "I thought you were made an inspector who just went into the pump houses and looked at the flow meters."

  "Well, lately—"

  "Oh, I heard about how you were sent down for a little refresher course, but I also heard your bosses gave you a pardon."

  "Well, a reprieve."

  "Whatever. At least you don't have to go down there anymore. You can dress up in a shirt and tie and read meters. Also you can do little favors for your constituents, they shouldn't forget your candidate on Election Day."

  "That's right."

  "Then, how come you're down in the sewers again today? Do you like it down in the sewers?"

  "Do you like being a cat, Beeston?"

  "Capitan. . ."

  "I'm not a cop. I don't got to call you captain."

  He makes a motion with his hand, waiving the title he thinks he deserves from everybody, not only cops. It's like he's blessing my ignorance.

  "You like being the cat, but I don't like being the mouse. You didn't come way over to my ward to try the beer here at the Homewood. What can I do you for?"

  "You can stop walking the sewers, like you've been told to stop walking the sewers."

  "Well, I don't know. . ."

  "If you like walking the sewers, you can walk them somewhere else, but I want you to stay out of the system between the meadows and Jackson Park."

  "Why?"

  "You check with Sewers, you'll see all your maintenance personnel has been given that order. I don't know how come you didn't get it, so I'm giving it to you personally. I mean it, Flannery. You're walking where you shouldn't be walking, and we don't want you doing it anymore."

  "We?"

  He makes a noise like he's blowing steam through the pipe and gets up. "Wise up, Flannery, and stop being such a hard nose. Go get your bath and your supper."

  He walks away a few steps, then turns back and says, "And by the way, forget about this Mrs. Mineiros and her missing husband, and this dead man Sugar Aguilar. Also this character Mrs. Mineiros mentioned named Cheetch. He's a very bad person and we don't want you getting in his way."

  Then he goes out, leaving me with a bottled root beer from New York and a couple of questions. Why does he make a special trip to warn me off the tunnels and this Cheetch again? Looking at it the other way around, why does he want me to keep on doing it?

  When I get home, Mary says, "Where in heaven's name have you been? This is as bad as you ever looked coming home from the sewers, and worse than you ever smelled."

  "Well, that's just where I was."

  "Don't tell me one of those old devils dropped you back in the muck."

  "I went down on my own. In fact, if Delvin knew it, he wouldn't be very happy."

  "You'll just have to tell me later because right now you have to take a bath and put on your good sweater."

  "I'll be happy to take a bath, but why the sweater?"

  "I called up my mother and Aunt Sada to have them over for dinner so we can make the announcement. They've got a social calendar like the mayor's. The only night they could give us this month is tonight, so I took it. I've got a brisket of beef and a cabbage cooking. I'm making an Irish soda bread and a pumpernickel. Your father's coming over with his old ice-cream freezer. He's going to make some fresh ice cream, and he'll be here any minute."

  "Is this making you nervous?" I say.

  "I can't tell you how nervous."

  "It's not making me nervous. Your mother likes me. Aunt Sada likes me."

  "You're just the Irishman who's living with me. Telling her you're going to be my husband is another matter altogether."

  "Times certainly have changed."

  "Also Aunt Sada hasn't met your father yet."

  "I'll tell him to watch his table manners."

  "He doesn't need telling. It's just they're both pretty forceful characters. If they get on politics, there's sure to be a fight."

  "So, we'll talk about crocodilians," I say with a wave of my hand, and I go in to take a bath.

  I pour some of Mary's bath salts in the water so I should smell good. I take time shaving and I comb my hair very carefully.

  I hear my father come in. There's a lot of clanking and clunking as he starts making the ice cream.

  I get dressed in my best summer slacks, a white shirt, and a short-sleeved sweater, though it's hot enough I could do without it.

  I say hello to Mike.

  "You remember the ice cream I used to make when you was a kid?" he says.

  "It was the best."

  "Well, get your tonsils ready because here it comes again."

  He's as happy as a clam. Being around a family does him a lot of good.

  I go to sit down in the parlor and Mary says, "Not in there, I've got the slipcovers all straightened out and I vacuumed the rug."

  I don't say anything, but drag a chair from the kitchen table and go sit down in the corner.

  I look up at the wall clock. "How much time have we got?"

  "Oh, my God, it's six o'clock, and I'll never be ready by seven."

  "You go take your bath. . ."

  "Did you rinse out the tub?"

  ". . .and I'll keep an eye on the brisket," I say.

  "No, no. Just find a place to sit where you won't be in the way."

  "Well, then, I guess I'll go downstairs."

  "Don't start washing the car or something and get all dirty," she says.

  I walk down the stairs thinking about what she said. In the months we been living together she never chased me out of the living room or the kitchen. She never told me not to wash the car or get dirty. I think when women start thinking about becoming wives some strange changes take place.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  I'm downstairs playing stickball with Stanley Recore and some other neighborhood kids when Mary Ellen's mother and her Aunt Sada come walking up the street from the El station.

  I give them both a kiss on the cheek. Aunt Sada wipes her face with a little handkerchief.

  "Phoof! Phoof! You're all sweaty."

  "Don't tell Mary I was playing stickball."

  The first thing she says when we get into the house is, "Your boyfriend's been playing stickball with the kids."

  Mary's standing there looking calm, cool, and collected in a summer dress. The ice-cream freezer is in the fridge. The kitchen is spotless and it even looks like somebody mopped the floor. The dining room is set.

  On the other hand, I look like I could use another bath.

  Mike is staring at Sada. I got to admit that, as good-looking as Mary's mother is in a motherly sort of way, Sada is something else.

  She's maybe fifty and looks forty, with auburn hair combed every which way like she just came off the deck of a yacht or a windswept eighteenth hole on some golf course. She ain't fat and she ain't skinny. She's what Goldilocks in that fairy tale would say was "Jussst right." And don't my old man appreciate it.

 

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