9

Jim knocked on the door of the suite so he would frighten Mags. She opened the door with a very friendly look and gently took his hand. Mags started to guide him to the bedroom, when there was another knock on the door, this one louder and frantic.

“Who could that be?” Mags said without thinking.

“No!” Jim barked but it was too late.

The door swung open with force, and the big man’s girth covered the opening.

“So, the mouse hides at the Drake. You must be a dandy, is that right?” Officer Dunleavy said with sarcasm.

Jim’s image of the Irish cop was formed from a lifetime of churlish stories about the family tradition of Chicago finest. Mags walked up to him and said-

“You asked for it, Dun-leavy.”

Mags had a few too many to drink on their excursion, and it came out in the hyphenated name.

“Well, how’s that lovely?”

Jim’s fists tightened into two tight balls as he calculated how far his arm would have to reach to tag his jaw again. Since the element of surprise would be absent this time around, he figured he would have to mix up his pattern. Maybe a punch to the stomach, then while he doubled over(hopefully) and then hit his big dumb jaw again.

“I’m taking you in, sorry sport. You just can’t go around punching the law in Chicago, or maybe you are high and mighty and can do anything you want-right?”

Jim wanted to answer in the affirmative, but that would be like kicking a beehive, not at all productive.

“Do you know who we are?”

Mags went there and he regretted it immediately.

“No little lady, please fill in the details for the slow oof that I am.”

Jim noticed that Dunleavy might be self-actualized after all.

“Wait, my wife has had too much to drink. How about we square it up with a little money?”

The slippery slope to bribing a cop was now in motion, and Jim didn’t bother to see how this was going over as he marched over to his jacket to grab his wallet. Going back to the scene of the new crime (influence peddling), Dunleavy was looking professorial at the proceeding. If Jim wasn’t mistaken, his poker face showed nothing. Mad, glad, happy or sad, Jim didn’t have a clue.

“You are a dandy, aren’t you. Sucker punching me and then running, I would say you were a coward too,” the cop said challengingly.

Jim knew he could probably get a few shots in, but beyond that, Dunleavy would mop the floor with him.

“Okay, let’s do it.”

Jim put his jacket down on the table with the wallet still pocketed. He unbuttoned his shirt sleeves and rolled them above his elbows. Jim stood looking at the officer in the eye without blinking, a strong example of psychological warfare. They stood standing about three feet apart, and about thirty seconds elapsed (Jim would have guessed an hour). Then the cop broke.

“Hell. I am tired, let’s settle like you said we would.”

Mags watched with fascination as Jim methodically picked up the jacket and pulled the wallet out of the front pocket, without a tremble. He emptied the bills from the leather fold and handed it all to Dunleavy without counting. He laid it in his oven mitt hands, and the cop followed suit and stuffed it into his pants pocket without counting either. Dunleavy turned and walked out of the room. Jim slowly walked over to the door and closed it, then turned the dead bolt.

“You can never be too sure.”

Mags looked at him with disbelief. Not once, but twice he had behaved with decisive action that Mags didn’t know who this man was. Like Dunleavy, Mags couldn’t articulate how she felt, because it was the first time in a long while she was dumbfounded. She watched as Jim went into the living room and sat on the couch as if nothing was out of the ordinary. Now the Jim she knew was coming back into view, quiet and without explaining what happened. Mags had to reevaluate her idea of what made Jim Nelson tick, because now she was clueless.

“Jim, do you fell okay?” she asked like a emergency room nurse.

“Mags, cut it out. It was just a business transaction, it happens all the time,” he replied without effort.

She went over and sat next to him and threw her arm around his neck.

“I just don’t get you Nelson. You were about to commit suicide, and yet you act as if nothing happened. Why is that?”

“Mags, Dunleavy is a man of rules. Even cops must follow basic human decency, it’s me that shook me up. I never punched anyone in my life, and why?”

Mags looked into his eyes and knew this was the moment she had waited for since they married. Jim was going to explain something about his feelings, and that was monumental to Mags. She waited and didn’t want to spook him out by prodding him on, so she waited. Jim met her eyes, and she could see they were tearing up. Mags felt her stomach turn, and her tear ducts followed his lead.

“You know why. I am turning in, I’m exhausted.”

He disappeared into the dark bedroom while she bit her lip in frustration and reached into her bag and grabbed her cigarettes. Then there was another knock on the door, this time even and paced. Mags opened the door to see a man in a dark suit and hat. He nodded over his shoulder, and Officer Dunleavy appeared. Without promptly, he put the money on the lamp stand.

“Put it in her hand.”

He obeyed.

“Apologize officer.”

He did. So did the man in the dark suit. The man tipped his hat and they were gone. Mags shut the door and turned the dead bolt. “You never know.”