Callahan's Secret Read Online Free PDF Page B

and happy and grateful. Callahan’s Place had done me proud, serving up some magic for mejust as I brought Mary in the door to meet it. After the inevitable storm of glasses bad shattered in the fireplace, I joined the throng of people who wanted to buy Noah and Long-Drink a drink. We were all disappointed, as Callahan had caught the act and announced that the boys’ tab was covered for the night-but I was mildly annoyed to notice that -Mary too bad offered the pair a drink…from a flask. She had insisted on coming down here, putting off our getting to know each other (other than in the biblical sense, I mean), because she wanted a drink-which she’d had with her. We could have sat up there on the roof and killed the flask, talked for hours before coming downstairs…
    Hush, I told myself sensibly. Sexual intercourse vests no property rights. And how could I resent any combination of crcumstances which had allowed me to witness the triumph of Noah and the McGonnigle? All around the room, people whose attention had been elsewhere were getting the tale secondhand and kicking themselves. Let it go, Jake- “That was special,” Mary told me, grinning and taking my hand.
    “Yes, indeed. Noah claims he’s working up a routine with live čhainsaws, and now I think I believe him. What’ll you have?”
    She sniffed the air. “Do I smell coffee?”
    “Jamaican Blue Mountain. Mike has Mends in Tokyo. And, anticipating your next question, he also has Old Bushmill’s, distilled in Ireland, and fresh whipped cream, and he knows how. Come on.”
    Callahan was working up a sweat behind the bar when we got there, but he stopped short as he came past us with twelve drafts in his big hands and said to Mary, gesturing in my direction, “Mary, if your tastes are as simple as this, you might be interested in dating me sometime.”
    “What can I do?” she said. “He’s got the negatives. But thanks.”
    Callahan wrinkled his big broken nose and grimaced.
    “Damn. Jake, what’ll you charge me for a print?”
    “Sorry. The rights are tied up. Mike, you sure picked a good staircase-putter-inner. You do know where that thing came from?”
    “Sure do,” Callahan said. “I made a point of asking Sally for it when I heard she was closing. Yeah, Mary does good work. What’ll you folks have?’
    “God’s Blessing on us both, Mike,” I told him. He nodded and went off with his dozen overdue beers.
    Mary was smiling broadly. “I like this place, Jake.”
    “I already knew you had good taste. Pun intended.”
    “Ouch. You did warn me.”
    “Around here we don’t even wait for straightlines.”
    “Well,” she said, absolutely pokerfaced, “the shortest distance between two puns is a straightline,” and helped herself to some peanuts from the free lunch.
    I felt like I had the time I was coming on just a little to a stranger about what a hot guitarist I was, and discovered too late that I was talking to Mr. Amos Garrett. (Remember the demonic guitar break in Maria Muldaur’s “Midnight At the Oasis”? That Amos Garrett.. -) “And the success of any pun,” I tried to riposte, “is in-“
    “-the oy of the beholder,” she finished for me.
    Hmmm…
    Mike returned wth a pair of Irish coffees. “Two God’s Blessings,” he announced. “I could swear I still hear rain-but you two are bone-dry, and I don’t see a brolly.”
    “Finn’s doing,” I explained, and he nodded. “Say, Mike, where do you know Mary from? And how come you never invited her around before?’
    “Long story. Excuse me, will you? It’s time to get the evening started.”
    He emptied a glass that Shorty Steinitz had foolishly left unattended and banged it on the bartop. “All right, folks-Tall Tales Night is now in session. Who’s first?’
    Ralph Von Wau Wau was pushed forward by the crowd. “I do have a mildly interesting story for you all,” he said, and! glanced at Mary to see how she would take it. I mean, I suppose it’s a subjective