Barbotte

by John McFetridge

  Le Caf? St. Michel was famous because of Louis Metcalfe. He'd played with Ellington and his band was about the best in Canada. They'd play all night and after closing they'd hang around and guys from the big American bands in town would come down the hill to jam. The place would still be hopping when the sun came up.

  Nat asked the bartender and a couple of waitresses if they'd seen Evelyn and then as he expected the doorman came over and smiled his gap toothed smile and asked him to step into the office.

  Booker T was behind his desk waiting. Nat came in, the doorman stepped out and it was quiet. Booker T said, "Nathaniel boy, why you snooping around my club?"

  Nat said, "I'm fine, Booker, just a bump on the head, good of you to ask. Lost some blood, but I won't be any slower than I ever was."

  "Which was pretty damned slow."

  Nat stared at him and Booker stood up. Even standing he wasn't much taller than Nat was sitting down.

  He said, "Way I hear it, you was delivering that cash, wasn't even yours."

  "Doesn't mean someone can try and kill me and take it."

  "Those jewboys lose all their cash, what's it to me?"

  "Where's Evelyn?"

  "She quit."

  "Just like that?"

  "Homesick, she's gone back to Atlanta."

  Nat stared at him, the both of them knowing that was bullshit.

  "I'm sorry," Nat said. "I know you didn't have anything to do with it."

  "Damn right, so stop snooping around my club."

  "Somebody in here must have bet on Robinson."

  "Oh, they get their money," Booker said. "Gerber going to cover the book."

  "He tell you that?"

  "Word is out."

  ***

  Word really was out. Nat asked around, going to the places that Leah said he could. Most of them were places he'd been to with his father, then places where he'd run silent phone lines. A couple of the brothels on De Bullion, the higher class bordellos up on Milton and a few other Barbotte rooms.

  Really, he just drifted around town, which was what he'd been doing since getting out of the navy. What else was there to do? Like he said to Leah, get married and move out to Lachine, a twenty-five year mortgage on one of those little red brick houses they were throwing up? After five years in the north Atlantic, every day life and death, it just left him numb.

  He felt like that guy with one arm in that movie with Myrna Loy, all those guys getting back to where they left off except it wasn't the same. Or it was the same but they weren't. He knew he wasn't.

  In Manny's place, the gambling room set up behind the garage on Rue de la Commune in Griffintown Nat watched the boys play Barbotte. They rolled the dice and picked them up so fast, dropped their money and rolled again he could hardly follow. He'd already asked around, everybody knew about Aidelbaum losing big on Robinson and then not paying up, but that's all they knew. They rolled, counted and rolled again. The house won. They rolled. The house won again.

  Nat couldn't see the point. Okay, so most of these guys were dead broke before the war and now they had a little money in their pockets, no reason to throw it away.

  But then he saw the looks on their faces when they won, trying to control themselves, not to get too excited. But they needed the adrenaline, they needed something other than going to work and going home.

  He wondered what he needed.

  Walking out of the garage he saw a brand new Cadillac parked in front. It was red, a convertible, but it had the same whitewalls he'd seen before.

  ***

  They were in the back room, Sid and Gerber. Gerber telling him how they were going to work it.

  Sid said, "I'm going to throw up."

  Gerber chewed on his fat cigar and said, "Be a man. Do the paperwork, get your cousin Alvie to do it, get something out of that expensive McGill law school education."

  Sid nodded. He was beaten.

  Nat said, "You were set up, Sid."

  Gerber took the cigar out of his mouth and said, "How the hell did you get in here?"

  Sid barely looked up, said, "What?"

  Nat stood by the door, toolbox in his hand. "You were supposed to lose. Gerber set those cockamamie odds on Robinson knowing you'd get all that action from Rockhead's boys." He never took his eyes off Gerber. "He never had any intention of paying off. He's got the money and now he's getting the theatre."

  "That's a funny story, mick. Too bad this rat hole isn't Vaudeville anymore."

  Sid said, "I told you the odds were too good."

  "Shut up, you little pisher."

  Leah Aidelbaum said, "No, you shut up."

  She walked up behind Nat, the keys to the front door still in her hand.

  "We want our money back."

  "You got a lot of nerve, girlie. It don't look good on you."

  Sid started for the door but the toolbox hit the ground with a crash.

  Nat said, "It's still in your trunk, isn't it?" He was holding a gun.

  Gerber said, "You don't want to do that."

  "Doesn't mean I won't." Nat motioned with the gun and Gerber walked out the back door to the lane where his Cadillac was parked. Nat said, "You can open it or I'll shoot a hole in the lock."

  "You kids are crazy. If it's not me it'll be someone else." He walked to the car and opened the trunk. The bag with the money was the only thing in it. "You think you can run a business like this without connections?"

  Leah picked up the money. "We can try."

  Gerber shook his head, told them they wouldn't last a week, but he got in his car and drove away.

  Sid said he was going back inside and then Leah and Nat were alone in the dark lane.

  She said, "I knew you'd find it."

  He said, "Yeah."

  They walked back into the theatre together.

  The End