Page 16 of Shadow Ticket
“Try inside your hatband, toward the back, new bill, folded twice, you want the serial number?”
“Forgot that was there,” trying to blink away some temporary brain fog, handing over the sawbuck. “That’s amazing, Thessalie, could revolutionize the whole field of daylight robbery, how do you—wait, second thought, don’t tell me.”
“All right, but listen—whatever it was, apports or whatever, you were lucky once. Just don’t count on luck every time. If you’re going to be carrying a weapon, it’d also help to have some insurance.”
“Like what?”
“Talk to Lew Basnight.” Get him to teach you the Curly Bill Spin. Something every gunslinger should know.”
“Somehow I took you for more of a nonviolent type.”
“A couple of times it saved my life. Talk to Lew.”
6
Approaching the critical hour when many a private op would prefer, after more than enough little homeopathic snorts of gunsmoke, to head indoors to a safe desk in some upstairs office, Lew Basnight on the other hand continues to think of office work as early retirement, and intends to die on the job, out in the field. “Is where they’ll find me, weeks later, years, maybe never, someplace unknown, middle of chasin down one more no-hope lead everybody’s long forgotten. Gumshoe’s Grave. There’s a tattoo parlor in Chicago up North Clark could do you somethin along those lines if you’re interested.”
Lew can usually be found decorating the mahogany at Otto’s Oasis, the only place in town willing to assemble for him a Doc Holliday—Old Overholt, Doc’s preferred brand, plus Nehi peach soda, in recognition of his native Georgia, plus maybe a half jigger of absinthe if available, to put an edge on it, over ice. In public a kindly old geezer but in fact an unreconstructed veteran of the Old West at its least merciful, another of those hard cases who didn’t settle for law-abiding when it did, returning as the nights go deepening to memories of his outlaw youth.
“See, at the time you had a number of corrals in Tombstone, there was the Mighty Fantastic Corral, deluxe indoor stalls, gourmet nosebags, what they call ‘oat cuisine,’ and right around the corner in the same price range the Just as Stupendous Corral, but then if you didn’t want to spend that much money, why there was always…”
Lew is happy to show Hicks the famous gunhand maneuver namedafter and taught to him in person by Curly Bill Brocius, one of the Clanton gang.
“Pretty straightforward, just pretend you’re handing over your heater butt first, but remember to keep your finger in the trigger guard so when least expected you can spin the sucker around and shoot whoever’s trying to take it away from you. There you go. Just like that. Keep practicin with different weapons till you can do it without thinking, which around Chicago is usually the case.”
“Thought you’d be back in California by now, Lew.”
There is rumored to be an ex–Mrs. Lew Basnight, living on the Near North Side, remarried back in early Prohibition to an Outfit subcontractor whom Lew still considers himself under obligation to protect her from. Given Lew’s history of conflict resolution, this has her feeling like some kind of widow in waiting, and refusing to talk to or even have much at all to do with him. Lew understands this and doesn’t understand exactly. But it could be what’s keeping him back East.
“You think if I had a choice I’d stay here any longer than I have to?” Gazing out the window where some snow has begun to fall.
“This? only Lake effect, too early for anything more.”
“Gets earlier every year. After you put some time in you’ll start to notice. Normally with the corporate circuit ride they’ve got me doin, by the time this kinda stuff starts in I’m already on board the ol’ Chief and rollin on into the sunset. Don’t think I’m homsesick or nothin just because you find me now and then with my head down the Victrola horn listenin to Al Jolson sing ‘Home in Pasadena.’ Didn’t even get out there till late in life, after years of dancin the Pinkertonian around what only a couple of old-timers were still callin the Wild West anymore. Hell, I’m ready to go back, the minute this damn blizzard lets up I’m on my way, train station’s just down the street, pack a bag, get my hat steamed, step aboard, no effort at all, a man could do it in his sleep,” which in fact sometimes Lew does, lucid dreaming that he’s flown in from strange suburban distances, past radio antennas and skyscrapers, down the gloomy city canyons, skimming echo to echo, banking into the Dearborn station, flown invisible, ticketless, right onto the Santa Fe Chief. And away. Away, so easy…
“Thanks for showing me the move, Lew. Thessalie thinks it’ll keep me safe like it does for her.”
“That one? she’d’ve been fine without it, hell if it was her against Curly Bill, I wouldn’t take the bet. Just don’t oversell yourself on safety, kid. No damn such thing.”
“Now you tell me.”
“Just so long as you ain’t another one of these metaphysical detectives, out looking for Revelation. Get to reading too much crime fiction in the magazines, start thinking it’s all about who done it. What really happened. Hidden history. Oh, yeah. Seeing all the cards at the end of a hand. For some, that kinda thing gets religious mighty quick.”
“I have enough to worry about with real life.”
“Well good luck, sonny. Hate to tell you but the only time ‘real’ comes into it is when they’re shooting at you. In practice, ‘real’ means dead—anything else, there’s always room for some conversation.”
7
The Hollywood talkieDraculaopened last year in Chicago on Valentine’s Day, which happened to fall on a Saturday. April’s idea of a romantic date.
“I was thinking more like a candlelight dinner at the Villa Venice,” said Hicks. “You sure you want to go all the way into Chicago, considering what tends to happen there on Valentine’s Day—”
“Ha! I knew it, superstitious is one thing, Lunchmeat, but that kind of talk is just howling at the moon.”
“Come on, Cuban band, gondola ride out on the river, it’s the classiest rendezvous between Chicago and Milwaukee.”
“It’s a ritzed-up speak with a two-dollar cover.”
