Read Jitterbug for Free Online Page A

alcohol. There were women, plenty of them now that they had their own money from working in the plants and no place to go but empty houses and apartments with most of the male population in foreign stations. They were there to drink with their friends and cast hungry glances at the men in the place; some in uniform, others wearing discharge pins, still more with double hernias and flat feet: 4-Fers, and a troublesome lot when they got a couple of drinks under their belts and uncorked their opinions about how MacArthur should have handled the Philippines. There was heavy chatter, people trying hard to have a good time despite the combination of bad news and no news at all from the war theaters, and a little music from the jukebox, a red-and-green Rock-Ola trimmed in ivory Bakelite, overstocked, as usual, with Glenn Miller. While McReary was watching through the glass porthole in the front door, a reedy youth of twenty—no Detroit bartender had asked to see ID since Repeal—in peg tops and saddle shoes slid a nickel into the slot and selected “St. James Infirmary.” McReary strolled back down the street to where the black Oldsmobile was parked and planted a wing tip on the running board.
    “Getting ripe,” he announced. “Give me ten minutes.”
    “Somebody mouthing off?” Zagreb lit a Chesterfield off the dashboard lighter.
    “Not yet, but a kid just got gutbucket going on the juke.”
    “No shit. Shine? No shit.” Burke leaned forward from the backseat and folded his hairy forearms across the top of Canal’s seat.
    “Not in there. You kidding? You know these kids and their nigger jazz. Those hillbilly production workers won’t sit still for much of that.”
    “Any servicemen?” Zagreb asked.
    “No, the army and the navy both posted this place O.L. after the last fracas.”
    “Good. I hate working with those fucking M.P.s.” Canal pushed his cigar to the other corner of his mouth. It had gone out for good.
    Zagreb checked his Wittnauer. “We’ll give you fifteen. It’s early.”
    “What are you going to use?” Canal asked.
    McReary looked glum; he was enjoying himself. “Old Reliable.”
    Burke grinned for him, a wolfish snarl against his chronic five o’clock shadow. “Better make it five, Zag.”
    Zagreb said nothing, ending that line of argument. When McReary left to enter Rumrunner’s, the lieutenant looked at Canal. “Got your call key?”
    The big sergeant patted his pockets and looked sheepish.
    “For Pete’s sake. You keep losing them we’re going to have every hophead in town calling his connection from a police box. Open the glove compartment.”
    There was a collection of identical hollow-shafted keys inside. Canal put one in his vest pocket. “I don’t know why we just don’t use the radio.”
    “Because every beergarden this side of the river has one,” Zagreb said. Burke sat back. “If we keep giving Baldy more time, he’s going to walk out of one of these places with his head turned backwards. Those Four-effers fight dirty.”
    “So does Baldy.” Zagreb flicked his Chesterfield out the window and lit another.
    There were two empty stools at the bar, but McReary didn’t like either location. He hung inside the door, pretending to be waiting for the caller in the telephone booth to finish, while a slope-shouldered Pole in a threadbare denim jacket with a block-plant tan at the base of his neck settled his bill and slid off his stool to use the men’s room; then he moved in to claim the vacancy. The drinker to his right was a skinny towhead in a leather vest, work pants, and scuffed cowboy boots, with a Confederate flag tattooed on the back of his left hand. His other neighbor was less obvious, but McReary had heard a twang when he’d ordered another round.
    The bartender was a squat Corktown Irishman, built along the lines of a fire hydrant, with humorous blue eyes in a face that was otherwise as friendly as a skillet. When he asked McReary what he’d have, the officer