Barbary Street Incident, A John Cronin Private Eye Short Story by Wolf Wootan Read Free Book Online

Barbary Street Incident
A John Cronin Private Eye Short Story
1947
     
    When you’re in my business you meet all
kinds of people. And you can’t have sympathy for all of them;
sometimes you have to be hard, and I’ve been hard with plenty of
them. But never let anyone tell you that a private detective has no
heart at all, because even old yours truly himself—the old, cold
stone of Barbary Street—got to feeling pretty bad once about the
affairs of people, especially one big guy that could have broken me
in two if he’d had a mind to do it. His name—the only one he had as
far as I knew—was Little Caesar.
    The first time I saw Little Caesar he was
bending over me slapping my face. I struggled to a sitting position
and inspected myself. I had been lying in the gutter, rather
grotesquely since I hadn’t moved since I had been dumped there. I
used one elbow and the curb to keep myself from slipping back into
my old position. Little Caesar was stooping over me, grinning. His
huge hulk blocked everything else from sight. Straining my
bloodshot eyes, I regained my perception of proportion; he was the
biggest man that had ever picked me out of the gutter. My
estimations of his size, even minimized as they were, were
astounding. He was at least seven feet tall and wide as a moving
van. Satchel-like hands hung at his sides. The grin on his
pugilistic face was frozen there. He was dressed in a red and black
checkered sport coat with Mexican silver conchos the size of
saucers for buttons. The pants were of the same material. He had a
gigantic straw panama perched on top of his head.
    I moved my left arm; sharp needles of pain
shot through it. I felt my head and face — my hand came away
bloody. My head was killing me. The big man reached down and took
hold of my coat. He lifted me to my feet as if I were a sack of
feathers.
    “Hit me again. Once ought to do it. Who are
you?” I said sourly as I tried to dust my torn suit off with my
bruised right hand.
    “I guess you was mugged. I found you laying
here in the gutter just like you are now. Roll you for much, or
just a grudge job?”
    He seemed good-natured enough. His voice
seemed to come from way down in his barrel chest. I had to look up
to see his face.
    “I remember now. I just took some guys in a
crap game. I guess they were kind of sore. They ganged up on
me.”
    I felt in my pockets and found nothing. I
was cleaned out. The big man said something about buying me a drink
so I followed him. I was in a daze and I tried hard to regain my
senses. He led me to a pub on Purg Street and overflowed a stool. I
climbed up next to him and drank the beer he ordered.
    “What’s your handle, bub? Mine’s Caesar.
Yeah, they call me Little Caesar, because I’m so dominatin’.”
    He laughed loudly and slapped me on the
back, nearly breaking it—and I don’t mean his hand. I answered him
after I got my breath back. I was in no mood for conversation, but
I felt I owed it to him, so I talked.
    “My name is Cronin. John Cronin. Nothing
fancy, just John Cronin. I’m a private detective by profession, but
when business slows down, I live off the suckers. Cards, dice, and
what have you. I hate sharpers, but I’ve got to live.”
    I looked sideways at him and asked, “You
wouldn’t stake me to a fin, would you? Just until tonight. I can
get all my dough back tonight.”
    “Sure, Johnnie. I ain’t got much use for
dough no more anyways. At least not for long. The boys will finally
catch up to me. They always finish what they start out to do. You
ain’t got a chance when you rub ’em wrong.” He sounded almost
proud. I was puzzled.
    He reached into his pant’s pocket and pulled
out a roll and peeled off two bills. They were both fifties. He
dropped them lazily on the counter and seemed to forget them. I didn’t seem to forget them. They crinkled musically as I
stuffed them into my otherwise empty pocket.
    We sat there a long time, just talking and
drinking—at his expense.