"Hey, watch it," I say. "Next thing you know you'll be calling me a junkyard dog again."

  "—some shine. But should something go wrong, Dunleavy and Delvin are the men what'll get hit In the face with the fertilizer. Also the mayor is sowing dissension. When Jim tells Delvin about it. Delvin might believe Jim is only taking the mayor's direct orders because he's got no other choice, but chances are he'll believe Jim's been sucking up to the mayor behind Delvin's back, into which Jim is ready to slip the knife. There is ramifications here."

  "Well, it all sounds very clandestine and complicated and. . ."

  "Tricky. It's politics," Mike says.

  "Whatever, if I were you James, I'd just go down to Delvin 's office and say everything Mike just said."

  "Christ, Mary, that's the worst thing he could do," Mike says. "He'd be giving it away that he follows the mayor's line of thinking, which allows for the possibility that an innocent request like this could give Delvin reason to believe that Jim might betray him."

  "You'll have to run that train by me one more time," Mary says.

  "It's as plain as the nose on my face. We don't want Delvin thinking that Jim brought the whole thing up because he really was thinking about betraying him and wanted to put down any suspicion of that right off the bat."

  "I must say I can't follow this kind of thinking."

  "Like I say, it's politics, which is a very exacting science, not to say a mysterious art."

  "I got to tell him about the request no matter what else I tell him," I say, cutting through to the pit in the peach. "If he hears it from somebody else, then he really has got reason to think I'm out to stand on his head."

  "Well there you are," Mike says as though that's what he's been advising all along.

  I wipe my mouth on my napkin and even remember to fold it twice.

  "I just got time to see Delvin at his house before I see about a place to keep Baby."

  "Where's that?" Mike says.

  "I thought a bathhouse should do nicely."

  Mike nods as though pleased at the thought of the gorilla having a steam.

  "You going to the cemetery tomorrow?" I ask him.

  "Where are they going to plant old man Bilina?"

  "Over to Saint Ignatius in the Meadow. I guess."

  "I'd like to, but I don't think so. My knee joints ache like hell in this damp weather with all the snow. If it's all the same to everybody, I'll just stop by Saint Pat's and light a candle."

  "Saint Pat's is Roman Catholic and the Bilinas is Orthodox."

  "Don't you think I know that? What's the difference Roman or Orthodox? A candle's a candle and a prayer's a prayer."

  "How long do you think you'll be at Delvin's?" Mary says. "I've got a friend coming over who wants to meet you."

  "Christ, everybody's making me a busy night."

  "It's the way you like it," Mary says.

  "Who's the friend?"

  "Wait and see."

  I don't like people, not even Mary, putting me off like that, but I ain't got time to argue if I'm going to see Delvin, pick a bathhouse, and talk the proprietors into letting us use it for an animal farm before ten o'clock the latest.

  Delvin's house is one of the old ones over to Bridgeport, which was Hizzoner's neighborhood from which he never moved. In fact, Delvin's house is just half a block away and around the corner from the Daley house on South Lowe. It's got a long flight of wooden stairs leading up to a stoop, and an oak front door with a pane of beveled glass in the middle of it. His housekeeper, Mrs. Banjo, opens the door. There's a long hall that looks and smells like the entrance to an old bookstore.

  "What is it, then?" she says as though she hasn't let me in the house five hundred times before.

  "It's Jimmy Flannery, Mrs. Banjo, and I've come to see the boss."

  "You're not wearing galoshes," she says.

  "No, I'm not."

  "That's the way to catch your death."

  "Well, I just ran out of the house because of this thing I got to talk to Mr. Delvin about, and forgot all about them."

  "Stand there and drip on the rug," she says. "I'll see will he see you. He's taking a nap."

  I stood there looking at the old pictures of dead people glaring out at me from under derbies and big flowered hats like I was intruding on a private outing.

  Mrs. Banjo comes back and waves me in, touching me on the back as I walk past her into the living room.

  "You'll have a coffee?"

  "I already had three cups with my supper."

  "You'll have a coffee with a little toddy in it"

  I don't say nothing more. It's very hard to say no to Mrs. Banjo.

  Delvin's sitting in a big overstuffed mohair chair with doilies on the arms and headrest. There's a Majestic radio in the corner. I always wonder does it work and where you'd get the tubes to replace the ones what burnt out. There's yellow paper shades on the lamps and lace curtains at the windows. Everything's very clean and very gloomy. The room smells of soft coal.

  Delvin sits there in his gray pants and baggy sweater like an elephant waiting to do a circus trick.

  He takes no time on hellos.

  "Are you sharpening a knife for me, Jimbo?" Delvin says, giving me the old pig eye.

  "No, sir, I wouldn't do that, and you know it."

  "There's them what wants me out. Sit down."

  "I know that," I say, sitting down like he tells me.

  "Not all of them from the opposition, either. There's some of my best friends tell me I'm too old for the wars. They tell me I should lay down the sword. You think I should lay down the sword?"

  I want to tell him that they retire circus elephants younger than him because that's what he looks like, an old elephant. It makes a person feel tender toward him,

  "I think you should play until your legs give out," I say.

  He wipes his eyes with a white hankie. His eyes are always weeping. That's just like an old elephant, too. "You wouldn't try to break my kneecaps would you?"

  "I just said I wouldn't stab you, why would I want to break your legs?"

  "Ambition, Jimmy. You got ambition, ain't you?"

  "Mary Ellen Dunne and my father says not a hell of a lot."

  "Maybe they haven't got ears for the sounds of a hungry man."

  "My stomach's not growling, Mr. Delvin. If I ever wanted to sit down at your place at the supper table, I'd tell you."

  "I think you would, Jimbo. Who can you trust anymore if not the man with the feet to fill your shoes? And maybe your worst enemy—"

  Mrs. Banjo comes in with two heavy tumblers with maybe three fingers in the bottom of each glass. She hands one to Delvin and one to me.

  "No more coffee in the pot," she says, and leaves the room.

  Delvin has a long sip, poking his lips out like he's afraid to tilt the glass back in case a drop slips away along the channels at the corners of his mouth. I'm not a drinker, so I just wet my lips and put the glass down on the table beside my chair.

  "—which in my case is the mayor, who's giving us a gorilla with no place to lay her pretty head," he goes on like we was never interrupted. "When you told them bathhouse, which one you have in mind?"

  "There's the Paradise over by the Essex House Hotel."

  "Why do you like that one?"

  "I been there. It's clean and they put eucalyptus oil on the hot rocks in the dry room."

  "That's pretty good is it?"

  "Well, it smells better than sweat socks."

  "Baby'll like it, will she?"

  "She'll love it."

  "You want to know how come I know everything there is to know about this thing you come to tell me about? How come I know is that the mayor's man, Barker Jefferson, calls and tells me. What do you think they were hoping you'd do?"

  "Not touch base with you."

  "They play a very dirty, tricky brand of ball.

  It's almost like old times with Hizzoner."

  "Happy days," I say.

  "So, go make the arrangements with my blessing."

  I get up and go to the door.

  "Hey, Jimbo," Delvin says.

  I turn around to see him making sharp eyes at me, though there's a smile on his fat face.

  "If ever you want to sit in my place at the supper table, you'll ask me."

  FOUR

  Shimmy Dugan and Princess Grace own and run the Paradise Baths. Dugan is white and Grace is black. Dugan has dark hair and dresses very butch, if that's what they call a gay what plays the man's part and dresses in jeans, boots, and work shirts. Grace wears a blond wig and likes to dress like a Loop hooker: purple satin hot pants, frilly blouses, and floating scarves. The electric-blue and yellow running shoes he also wears spoils the picture, but he says his life stops at his crotch, and legs and feet is only for running.

  They are happy to see me, because I do some favors for them on more than one occasion when somebody decides that homosexuals shouldn't have public baths to gather in. One time I get fifty straight jocks to sign a petition claiming they got to have a place to shower after they work out on the streets.

  Dugan and Grace are less happy when I tell them why I'm there.

  "Oh, good Jesus, dear," Grace screams, doing things with the chiffon scarf he's got tucked in a bracelet on his wrist. "You want to kill us? You want to destroy us? You want to close us down?"

  "All I said was there's this beautiful gorilla, which everybody in the city loves, what ain't got a place to keep warm in during what could be a very bad blizzard with freezing weather to come."

  "Would you want the wet or the dry room?" Dugan asks, and I can see he's counting up the advantages.

  "The dry would be best. We could make a little bed for her on one of benches."

  "Is she housebroken?" Grace asks.

  "Well, that I can't honestly say."

  "There you have it. Gorilla shit in the dry room. I'm sure it stinks to high heaven. It's a plot to ruin us."

  "I don't see how you make a conspiracy out of the mayor's asking you to offer shelter and comfort to the city's mascot."

  Grace lets out a screech like a castrated parrot. "There you go. Oh, you're so clever, Jimmy Flannery. Do you know what you are? You're an escalator."

  "I don't take your meaning. You mean like a moving staircase?"

  "I mean like you start out talking about a monkey in the zoo, and the next thing she's the city's mascot, and the next thing you know you'll have her the patron saint of Chicago. It's what you do, Jimmy Flannery. You might fool the rest of the suckers, but I'm on to you. You escalate. It's your talent. It's your gift. You should be kiting checks for a living."

  "I'm trying to give you a perspective on this little problem the mayor has put in our hands."

  "Gorilla shit is not a little problem."

  "We could put down plenty of sawdust and straw," Dugan says.

  "I'll see you get all you can use," I say.

  "We could put a sign on the dry-room door."

  "Which the media would not be loathe to photograph," I say, giving him a little nudge toward saying what I want him to say.

  "'Baby's holiday accommodations through the courtesy of the Paradise Baths.' The public will think Baby's practically at the beach in Florida."

  Princess Grace starts to throw his arms around me, shouting, "You sweet thing, you've made our reputation."

  But I put a hand on his falsies and say, "I got a girlfriend living with me. I don't want she should see lipstick on my collar."

  "Tell her I'm happily married woman, you fool," Grace lisps and sashays off, saying that he's going to start turning the dry room into a bedroom for Baby.

  FIVE

  The guest we're having that night is this woman, Janet Canarias, what's running in the Democratic primary for alderman in the Twenty seventh. When I come into the parlor, all three of them—Canarias, Mike, and Mary—are laughing over something, and they stop when I step through the door from the hall.

  Mary gets up and comes over to kiss me, which is not a thing she does every time I walk into a room, but which she is doing to show Canarias what affection between a man and woman can be like. And to show me she's sorry for playing games about telling me who was coming.

  She makes the introduction while Mike sits there grinning like an idiot.

  Canarias waits a minute, looking up at me from her chair, her head back, black hair like smoke loose around her shoulders, eyes black and snappy, one elbow on the arm of the chair so her hand is up in the air like a flag. She's wearing a frilly blouse and a skirt. Her legs are crossed. They could stop traffic anytime she wanted to walk around the Loop. The smile she gives me would melt steel. She stands up on her high heels and sticks out her hand, looking at me eye to eye. Her hand is dry and soft on top, with hardness underneath.

  "I hope I'm not an unwelcome guest, Mr. Flannery."

  "Any friend of Mary's is welcome in this house. I see you have coffee."

  "Would you like some, too, James?" Mary asks.

  "I would."

  "Sit down and get acquainted. I'll go heat the pot."

  "Where do you know Mary from?" I ask.

  "Passavant Hospital. I had reason to go there concerning a client of mine."

  "You're an attorney?"

  "That's right The administration at Passavant wanted to break my arms and legs. Put me through the maze. Wear me down."

  "You don't look to me like that would make you give up."

  She smiles again, and this time she means to look a little like a shark. "It just makes me mean."

  Mary comes back with my coffee.

  "Did you get mean with the administration at Passavant?" I say.

  "I didn't have to Mary gave me what I needed." I glance up at Mary, but she don't flinch. "You don't have to feel any concern, Mr. Flannery," Canarias says. "Mary didn't break any rules or regulations. The access she gave me was mine by public right."

  "I wasn't thinking about rules and regulations."

  "I understand. It's just got to do with certain duties and obligations."

  I nod my head.

  "And loyalties?" Canarias adds.

  "Sure, if you want."

  "But certainly that depends on who lays claim to it?"

  "It can be more the heart than the head, yes." I say, holding her look as steady as she holds mine.

  "That's what makes you special. Mr. Flannery. Most people put profit and personal ambition before everything else so long as they can rationalize what they have to do to make it happen."

  "If you're going to put wings on me, you better call me Jim or Jimmy," I say, giving her a big smile. It's like if hers and mine crashed in the middle of the room we'd all be blind. "I think you can tell me why you asked Mary to invite you over to meet me now."

  "I want your support in the coming primary." I like her style. She don't mind saying something outrageous like that to a man she knows has been a Party man all his life.

  "You're talking to a Party man."

  "And a Machine man. I know. But the Machine's broken. I'm a Party man, too. I'm a Democrat."

  "You're running against my Chinaman."

  "Delvin's old. His time ran out with the passing of his old friend, Mayor Daley. There's no step up for him anymore, only a long step down. He deserves to quit a winner."

  I notice my old man ain't grinning anymore and his neck above his collar has turned red.

  "Maybe if you told Delvin the facts of life," Canarias says.

  Now even Mary figures Canarias has gone too far.

  I turn my head away and don't say anything.

  "Barker Jefferson is going to run," Canarias says. "He's the man we have to beat."

  "Anthony Calcazone, Manny Rosenquist, and Steve Trebova are running, too."

  "I've talked to them."

  "You saying they're ready to step aside and let you run as a coalition candidate?"

  "I'm saying it's like raising money for any risky venture. The first money is the hard money. Everybody wants to see if anybody else is going to kick in."

  "Everybody jumps in the pool or nobody jumps in the pool?"

  She nods and looks at me for a long minute. "Is it my sexual preference that makes you hesitate, Jim?"

  I keep my voice soft, though she's made me mad. "You call me a bigot, you better call me Mr. Flannery," I say.

  "I had to know," she says, nervous and unsure of herself for the first time.

  "Why did you have to know? Did I ask you if you didn't like men when you sit there drinking my coffee?"

  She gets herself together, popping one eyebrow the way some people do when they get haughty on you. "Your coffee, Mr. Flannery?"

  "You're damned right. When we ran out at breakfast this morning, I went down to the grocery store on the corner and bought it with my own money. My coffee."

  She puts her face in her hands and starts to laugh. Then I start to laugh and Mary laughs and even my old man joins in, though I'm not sure he sees what's funny.

  "Do these silly things we say make us enemies or friends?" Canarias says.

  SIX

  The night ain't over for me after Janet Canarias leaves. I go over to the zoo. All the activity moving animals one place or another has got the lions roaring, the elephants trumpeting, the monkeys screaming and the hippos belching.

  Baby, a two-year-old female with the sad, wise face of everybody's dear old grandmother, is sitting on a pile of tires in her house watching them wheel up the traveling cage. Her keeper, No-Nose Riley, who looks something like a white ape hisself, is standing alongside, wringing his hands and giving orders what nobody is listening to. When he spots me, he hurries over and grabs my arm.

  "It's you. Flannery."

  "Yes, it is."

  "You found my Baby suitable accommodations?"

  "A vacation spot."

  "Where?"

  "The Paradise Bathhouse over to my precinct."

  "You've looked them over?"

  "I inspected them."

  "You inspect sewers. What sort of standards have you got? I wouldn't want Baby should get athlete's foot."

  "There ain't that kind of athletes at the Paradise."

 

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