The Fugitive Pigeon by Donald E. Westlake (Random House 1965)

 

It was a slow night, like any Tuesday. The late late show was High Sierra and there’s always a couple of Bogart fans around, in fact I’m a Bogart fan myself, so I figured to stay open till the movie was over and then lock up and go upstairs and get some sleep. After one-thirty I only had two customers, both regulars, both sitting at the bar, both watching the TV, both beer drinkers. I stood down to the far end of the bar, with my arms folded and my white apron on, and I watched the TV myself. Commercials, one or both customers had refills. I don’t drink on duty, so it was none for me.

My name is Charles Robert Poole, everybody calls me Charlie. Charlie Poole. Just so you know.

High Sierra ended with the cop shooting Bogart in the back and Ida Lupino glad society couldn’t treat Bogart bad any more, and I said, “Okay, gents, time to drink up. I need my beauty sleep.” It’s a neighborhood bar, regular customers, I like to keep an informal atmosphere.

These two were both good about it, not like some which come in mostly on weekends and want the night to go on forever. But not these two, they drank up and said, “Night, Charlie,” and out they went, waving to me.

I waved back and told them good night and rinsed their glasses and set them on the drainboard, and the door opened again and two guys came in with suits and topcoats, the topcoats all unbuttoned so you could see they were wearing white shirts and ties. Not what you mostly get in a bar in Canarsie two-thirty on a Tuesday night.

I said, “Sorry, gents, just closing up.”

“Yeah, that’s okay, nephew,” said one of them, and they came over and sat down on stools at the bar.

I looked at them then, and they were both grinning at me. Tough-guy types. I recognized them both, associates of my Uncle Al, they’d both been in before to drop off a package or a message or to pick one up. I said, “Oh..I didn’t recognize you at first.”

The one that talked said, “You know us, though, don’t you, nephew? I mean you know us to see, am I right?”