Howdy folks, and welcome back. If this is your first time, you might like to start with Episode 1
Episode 9
"All right Mahoney. You've made me wait half the night, now give. Who's this Kavanaugh? I never heard of a Kavanaugh in the rackets…" The paddy wagon had come for one Mr James Rourke, our late pigeon, and taken him downtown. We were still on the street, waiting for the coroner's crew, standing over the stiff I'd made. I was stiffening up, too. I'd be black and blue tomorrow after that wrestlin' match on the pavement. The corpse had it easy. He didn't have anything else to do tonight.
"That's 'cause he ain't in the rackets. Not unless you call the city government a racket."
"Which some do."
"Aye. Too true, too true."
"Who is the ///?"
"Well now, it's surprised I am that you don't be knowin', Slade."
"Spill, Pat. For two bits I'd climb in the hearse with that mook. I ain't got it to keep—"
"Alright, alright! He's Seamus Kavanaugh. He's 'Chief of the Office of Public Coordination.'"
"Never heard of it."
"It's a lucky man you are, Matthew Slade."
"That bad?"
"Oh, he's bad enough. But I was thinkin' it's lucky none o' yer payin' clients was near. Hear you go on about all the things you don't know. All the things a child in this town sucks up with his mother's milk. And you call yerself—"
"Ease off, will ya? I've been...away."
"Aye, there's that, there's that. The continental grand tour, you've had."
I knew the mick was just trying to rattle me, but he did. "Grand Tour of the Somme. Paaschendale," I growled. I kicked the stiff lying in the gutter. At least he was fresh, and had not yet begun to stink.
"Easy there, Matthew. Temper. That's evidence, that is. It's gonna get you hung, one day."
"The evidence or my temper?"
"You could call it the evidence of your temper."
"Pat Mahoney," I growled into his fat, cheerful face. "You tell me—"
"Tell ye what, lad? Who Seamus Kavanagh is?"
I was ready to scream, "Yes! By all the saints of Ireland, tell me what you know. That girl's been grabbed and—"
"Did the lass show ye a bit o' leg? Now ye thinks yer her knight in armor? Am not I after tellin' ye that it's a police matter?"
"She was with me. Under my protection, you might say."
"Aye, some protection it is, too."
"I mean to find her. I mean to see that she's not hurt. And then I mean to finish asking her questions. But if she is hurt, hurt while you stand there blowing wind, I'll—"
"Cool down, cool down. Kavanaugh's a fixer. A bag man. When a politico needs money, Kavanaugh brings it. When a money man needs something done, Kavanaugh gives, well ye might say, instructions, to the politicos. You understand why I didn't want to shout it through a bullhorn?"
"I get it," I said. Pat's own bosses. I'd poked into a few of City Hall's rat's nests, I was surprised I'd never heard of this rat. "Where can this Kavanaugh be found?"
"At this hour of the night? Probably one of the speaks on Rittenhouse."
"Thanks, Pat."
"Don't mention it, boyo."
I started to demur, but he cut me short.
"I mean it. Do not mention it. Ever."
"Right." I shook his hand, big and red as a boiled ham.
To Rittenhouse Square, then. But first I needed to find a box of .32 Smith and Wesson Longs. It was that kind of night.
Thanks for reading along with Matt Slade and his troubles. If you’re enjoying these, let me know. Also, do you like the shorter episodes, or would you rather have more to get your teeth into?
Two notes: I saw "late pigeon" mentioned; the palooka died? And I saw a /// in there, which might have slipped through editing? 🤔
I didn't realize that two of the palookas were still in the scene. I thought that there was only the one man shot.