Twin Cities Noir

The rest of the equation is pretty simple. I’m second-generation Irish, I know most of the cops in town, and I can find out what I need to by dropping into Tin Cups and buying a few shots for the right gumshoe. If there’s any skill involved, it’s knowing who to ask what. My first stop wasn’t Tin Cups, however. I dropped into Kuby’s Place on Front Avenue the next morning. Kuby’s served as a living room for many a retired St. Andrew’s parish fellow, and sure enough, there were about ten of them there, a few alone at the bar, the rest gathered around the wood stove, warming their ale on the firebricks.

When in Kuby’s, do as the Kubans do. I pulled up a stool, ordered coffee and brandy, and put my nose to the crossword puzzle. It wasn’t long before I felt a hearty whack on the back. They don’t call him Slap for nothing. He was freshly shaved and nattily attired, the picture of contented leisure. I don’t know how he does it, I thought, for the umpteenth time. By rights he should be in a bread line.

“Top of the morning,” he said.

I nodded. “I need a four-letter name from Shakespeare that epitomizes cunning.”

“I don’t read that limey bastard, Martin. How did it go with the widow Thornton? And isn’t she a fine example of lace-curtain womanhood?”

“She is, and a welcome respite from the molls I generally consort with. But why did she come to you, Slap?”

“Ah, give me a moment…Yes, a fifteen-letter name that epitomizes cunning. Martin McDonough.”

We both knew why she’d been steered to Slap. Eight years ago Slap was an investigator on the St. Paul force. A bootlegging operation he was looking into with little or no enthusiasm led him straight to the late Lloyd B. Jensen. That piqued his interest, and when Slap got interested he found things out. He’s always clammed up on this, but he must have known plenty. That was why the chief summoned him one day and told him an early retirement was called for. No scandal, he assured him, just a health matter (Slap will outlive me), a Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association benefit, and he was a civilian again at age fifty. A lesser man would have been devastated. Not Slap. He lived with his wife and youngest son in a frame house on Oxford, just two doors from the tracks but he claimed that the sound of the Great Northern put him to sleep at night. I think it’s a nip of the Irish that does it, but be that as it may, retirement agreed with him. I don’t know how he maintained their lifestyle, but it was no mystery why Margaret Thornton was sent his way. He was an authority on Lloyd B. Jensen’s affairs.

“What do you think,” I asked, “was Ford behind it?”

“Nah. That husband of hers was preaching to the converted. All that Commie crap. It would’ve helpedget Jensen elected.”

He looked as serious as any guy with a nose like a potato and eternally twinkling eyes can, but he was shoveling a load of malarkey. “C’mon, Slap, he was also repeating rumors that you’re familiar with, that you maybe could verify.”

“Nobody cares about that old bootlegger stuff.”

“A guy who was in bed with gangsters can get elected president?”

“Anybody who can end this Depression can get elected, Martin. FDR has my vote.” He shook his finger under my nose. “What about yours?”

A few of the old gentlemen pricked up their ears at that, but I didn’t take the bait. “Never mind politics. I’ve got other things on my mind. Who hired that mockie to drop Walter Thornton? And another thing. What kind of Jew is named Shay?”

Slap smiled. “I can tell you how to find out. Drop into a place of worship named Adath Jeshurin Synagogue, in Minneapolis. Tuesday night. It’s their social evening. The scholars get together and discuss some Hebrew hocus-pocus, the businessmen talk business, and a bunch of radicals argue with each other so loud it drives everyone else nuts. I hear Shay Tilsen comes around. I wonder who he consorts with. So should you, Martin.”

Slap never disappoints me, but I still have to crack wise. “Should I ask him why he dropped Thornton?”

“Nah. I was you, I’d talk to one of the Reds. Lou Rothman.”

According to Slap, this Rothman and his buddies had Margaret Thornton’s interests at heart. They took up a collection every week and sent it her way, in honor of her dead husband. “Maybe you can find out a thing or two from them,” he said.

I agreed and stood to leave.

“When was the last time you talked to your mother, Martin?” he asked. I told him a week ago Sunday. “Well, I have a message from her,” he said.

I should’ve seen that coming. I was halfway out the door before you could say home and hearth, but he shouted after me: “GET MARRIED, MARTIN—IN THE CHURCH!”