They rarely get much of a crowd at Grogan’s, and this night was no exception. Burke was behind the bar, watching an old movie on one of the cable channels. I ordered a Coke and he brought it to me. I asked if Mick had been in and he shook his head. “Later,” he said.
This was a long speech for him. The bartenders at Gro-gan’s are a closemouthed lot. It’s part of the job description.
I sipped my Coke and scanned the room. There were a few familiar faces but no one I knew well enough to say hello to, and that was fine with me. I watched the movie. I could have been watching the same picture at home but there I’d been unable to watch anything, or even sit still. Here, wrapped in the smell of tobacco smoke and spilled beer, I felt curiously at ease.
On the screen, Bette Davis sighed and tossed her head, looking younger than springtime.
I managed to get lost in the movie, and then I got lost in thought, caught up in some sort of reverie. I came out of it when I heard my name mentioned. I turned, and there was Glenn Holtzmann. He was wearing a tan windbreaker over a checked sport shirt. It was the first time I’d seen him in any-thing other than a business suit.
“Couldn’t sleep,” he said. “I went to Armstrong’s but it was too crowded. So I came here. What’s that you’re drink-ing, Guinness? Wait a minute, you’ve got ice in your glass. Is that how they serve it here?”
“It’s Coca-Cola,” I said, “but they’ve got Guinness on draft, and I suppose they’ll give it to you with ice if that’s how you want it.”
“I don’t want it at all,” he said, “with or without ice. What do I want?” Burke was right in front of us. He hadn’t said a word, and didn’t say anything now. “What kind of beer do you have? Never mind, I don’t feel like a beer. How about Johnny Walker Red? Rocks, a little water.”
Burke brought the drink with the water on the side in a small glass pitcher. Holtzmann added water to his glass, held the drink to the light, then took a sip. I got a rush of sense-memory. The last thing I wanted was a drink, but for a second there I could damn well taste it.
“I like this place,” he said, “but I hardly ever come here. How about yourself?”
“I like it well enough.”
“Do you get here often?”
“Not too often. I know the owner.”
“You do? Isn’t he the guy they call ‘the Butcher’?”
“I don’t know that anybody actually calls him that,” I said. “I think some newspaperman came up with the name, possi-bly the same one who started calling the local hoodlums ‘the Westies.’ ”
“They don’t call themselves that?”
“They do now,” I said. “They never used to. As far as Mick Ballou is concerned, I can tell you this much. Nobody calls him ‘Butcher’ in his own joint.”
“If I spoke out of turn—”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’ve been in here, I don’t know, a handful of times. I’ve yet to run into him. I think I’d recognize him from his pic-tures. He’s a big man, isn’t he?”
“Yes.”
“How did you come to know him, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Oh, I’ve known him for years,” I said. “Our paths crossed a long time ago.”
He drank some of his scotch. “I bet you could tell some stories,” he said.
“I’m not much of a storyteller.”
“I wonder.” He got a business card from his wallet, handed it to me. “Are you ever free for lunch, Matt? Give me a call one of these days. Will you do that?”
“One of these days.”
“I hope you will,” he said, “because I’d love to really kick back and have a real conversation, and who knows? It might lead to something.”
“Oh?”
“Like a book, for instance. The experiences you’ve had, the characters you’ve known, I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a book there waiting to be written.”
“I’m no writer.”
“If the material’s there it’s no big deal to hook you up with a writer. And I’ve got a feeling the material’s there. But we can talk about all that at lunch.”
He left a few minutes later, and I decided to pack it in myself when the movie ended, but before that happened Mick showed up and we wound up making a night of it. I had told Holtzmann I wasn’t much of a storyteller but I told my share that night, and Mick told a few himself. He drank Irish whiskey and I drank coffee and we didn’t quit when Burke put the chairs up on the tables and closed for the night.
The sky was light by the time we got out of there. “And now we’ll get something to eat,” Mick said, “and then ’twill be time for the butchers’ mass at St. Bernard’s.”
“Not for me it won’t,” I said. “I’m tired. I’m going home.”
“Ah, ye’re no fun at all,” he said, and gave me a ride home. “ ’Twas a good old night,” he said when we reached my hotel, “for all that it’s ending too early.”
“The last thing I want to do,” I told Elaine, “is write a book about my fascinating experiences. But even if I were open to the idea he’s the person least likely to get me to do it. All he has to do is ask me a question and I automatically look for a way not to answer it.”
“I wonder why that is.”
“I don’t know. Why would he want to talk to me about writing a book? His company publishes large-print editions. And he’s not an editor, he’s a lawyer.”
“He could know people at other houses,” she suggested. “And couldn’t he have a book-packaging operation going on the side?”
“He’s got something going.”
“What do you mean?”
“Just that he’s got a hidden agenda. He wants something, and he doesn’t let you know what it is. I’ll tell you some-thing, I don’t believe he wants me to write a book. Because if that was what he really wanted he would have proposed something else.”
“So what do you figure he wants?”