Shamrock Alley Read Online Free PDF

know you know it—dum da dum da da dum … some shit.”
    “Have a look,” Jimmy said, jerking his head toward the back of the bar.
    Mickey turned, saw a spattering of degenerates and hookers, of drunks and underage hoods, and snickered. A young brunette in a flimsy polka-dot dress was laughing with a group of gray-haired men at a table, nodding as if in agreement with the man closest to her. The man lit her cigarette, and Mickey watched her inhale vehemently.
    “Fine,” Mickey muttered.
    “Table by the jukebox,” Jimmy said.
    “Jukebox,” Mickey parroted, turning to look … and paused. Still, that drumming slammed at the back of his head, sending bright flashes of color up through his brain. His eyes stung. “Son of a bitch.” He pushed the stool out from under him, stood crookedly against the bar. “Son of…”
    Now Jimmy turned around as well. Slipping a cigarette into his mouth, Jimmy brought one hand up—
slowly
—his forefinger pointing straight into the musty air. “Raymond,” he called. “Ray-Ray.”
    Raymond Selano looked up and froze. The color seemed to drain immediately from his face. For one brief moment, it appeared as though he were about to bolt for the door, then changed his mind at the last second. His eyes, large and brown and wide in disbelief, volleyed between the two men at the bar. Raymond Selano was a scrawny neighborhood punk with an insatiable appetite for petty bullshit—robbery, gambling, assault, anything at all. Like an infectious disease, the kid ran the length of the city, inhabiting dingy bars and clubs from the Upper West Side all the way down to Battery Park.
    “Son of a bitch!” Mickey called out again. He rolled his shoulders and sauntered over to Raymond’s table. “Where you been, Ray-Ray? You drinkin’ alone?” He slapped the palms of his hands down on the tabletop.
    “Fellas,” Raymond said. He forced a half-smile that came across as a smirk, and dragged his fingers through his greasy hair. “What the hell?”
    Jimmy approached, pulled out an empty chair beside Raymond, and dropped himself in it. Compared to Raymond Selano, Mickey thought Jimmy Kahn looked like a prizefighter in a checkered blazer. He chuckled, causing Raymond to shoot an uneasy glance in his direction.
    “Ease up, Ray-Ray,” Jimmy said. “You got a light?”
    Like someone who’d just been struck in the gut by a two-by-four, Raymond took a moment to clear his head before he could react. Absently, he patted down his coat with quaking hands and produced a silver Zippo from a hidden pocket. He flicked it, held it up to Jimmy’s smoke, his hands trembling.
    Jimmy took a long drag, exhaled a blue cloud to the ceiling. “I said ease up, fella. Don’t worry—that twelve hundred’s yesterday’s news.”
    “Haven’t seen you guys around,” Raymond said. There were dark patches beneath his eyes. His chin and the sides of his face were peppered with spider-hair beard stubble. He continuously picked at a red sore at his collarbone below the neckline of his shirt. If he shook any harder, Mickey thought the damn kid’s head might roll right off his neck.
    “Same goes here,” Jimmy said. “You been all right?”
    “You look like shit, Ray,” Mickey said.
    “I been okay.”
    Jimmy grinned, squeezed Raymond’s shoulder. Raymond’s eyes twitched, and his head went reflexively back and to one side. “You got something against us, Ray-Ray? You’re all tense. See this guy, Mickey?”
    “You tense, Ray?”
    Compulsively, Raymond began cracking his knuckles. “I want you guys to know,” he said, voice cracking, “that I got your money coming. I don’t dupe nobody. I just been backed up with some bullshit. Crazy stuff. You know what I’m sayin’? It’s just one damn thing after another and before you know it, shit’s up to your shoulder blades, you know? You’re swimmin’ in the stuff.”
    “Crazy goddamn world,” Mickey said.
    “It’s just, I need to get in touch with a few