Night and the City

It wasn't the cops or beatnik junkies who dropped the dime and set me on the run. No, it was that dish of a dame from the Palace Cafe who betrayed me. She’d sized me up for the reckless gambler I was and played me like a deck of marked cards. Her perfumed neck wreaked of double-cross and deception when she leaned in to light my cigarette with dark, slippery fingers. And yet, the madness of love. 

Now, the body of Boss Alioto grew cold on the sawdust floor of the North Point Pool Hall and the Tupelo boys were hot on my heels. My lungs burned as I sprinted up splintered stairs two at a time to my skid row hotel room. The pay phone down the hallway was ringing like a brassy burglar alarm, but nothing good waited at the other end of that line. My blood-stained hands shook; I badly needed a drink. The weight of the pistol in my pocket felt reassuring and inevitable.