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evade-and-distract game pretty well. But she couldn’t hide a key tell. She couldn’t keep her eyes fromthat hidden door. I’d play the odds and bet my money that Hanaday was holed up in that snug little office.
    I made for a pay phone. If Bertie was at his desk I might persuade him to stake out Limited Imports. He wasn’t. The person who answered might have been the same sergeant as before, and he didn’t exactly light up at my name. “He ain’t in” was the most I could squeeze from him. I hung onto the receiver a moment. An idea formed.
Why not
?
    I pushed down the handle on the pay phone till I got a dial tone. I pressed “zero,” then asked the operator to connect me with the District 2 police station. Another sunny desk sergeant promised, with sugar on top, to connect me with Officer Hamilton. Actually, he said, “Hang on,” then let the receiver fall to his desktop with a bang. For ten minutes I listened to not only the music playing for the enjoyment of inmate visitors, but heard an irate woman demanding to see someone named Natty, typewriter keys inexpertly and haltingly tapped, phones ringing and ignored. Finally, I heard a voice say, “Where?” Then, the clunk of the receiver as it was lifted off the desk jarred me back to the reason for my call .
    â€œYeah, Darvis, what is it?”
    Officer Hamilton was annoyed when I related where I had been, but he sounded interested when I mentioned the hidden door. From his hesitation, he also sounded like he was pitching between warning me away, and wanting to know what I had learned. I gave him the whole scoop. And like a good reporter, he ate it up and licked the bowl. With forced reluctance in his voice, he said he would cruise by Limited Imports. I hung up and figured he’d be there in ten minutes to check things out. Too bad he’d be too late to check out the scintillating Miss Brennan. But at least I was keeping the investigation moving.
    The stakeout taken care of, I decided to head to Broad Jimmy’s downtown. It was nearly 6:00 o’clock, and my body protested its lack of nourishment—of the liquid variety.
    Even though I live in the West End, I liked Broad Jimmy’s better than the hoity-toity, three-dollar martini watering holes four blocks south of my apartment. And I sure as hell wouldn’t fit in at the north-side bars. White guys like me would be made for a cop or a P.I. right away. Plus, at Broad Jimmy’s every now and again I’d stay past happy hour and get to see my Uncle Charles. Since his heart attack two years ago, he earned a desk job at National Freightways. Logically, he says, he’s putting less strain on his heart pushing a pencil, rather than toting boxes. One thing, though, alcoholic that he is, his heart attack hasn’t slowed down his drinking and smoking. But then, here I was at Broad Jimmy’s earlier than he was. By the time I arrived on Locust Street, my tongue was practically sticking to the roof of my mouth.
    I opened the tavern’s heavy oak door, its white paint peeling, and stepped in. Even in the dim light, I could see that Broad Jimmy was nowhere around, and he’d be hard to miss. He must be in his mid-fifties by now, but he’s barrel-chested and thick-armed. He served in the Pacific jungle mess as a Marine, at Okinawa. He still refers to the Japanese as Japs, usually preceded by other endearing terms such as slant-eyed, fuckin’, and goddamn. Jimmy reminds me of this story about a guy who trained lions for circuses. One day this lion, who’d been raised from a cub, looks edgy when the guy gets in the cage. As he approaches the lion as usual, suddenly the son-of-a-bitch rears back on his legs and clamps the trainer’s head right in his jaws. Enough pressure to be meaningful. Just when the guy thinks this is the end, the lion lets go and backs off a few steps. The poor bastard eases out of the cage and locks the