They Don't Play Stickball in Milwaukee Read Free Page B

City to a room above the bookstore. Sound Hill needed an insurance investigator about as much as it needed a greenskeeper, but I moved here anway. Business was bad in Brooklyn, I hated high ranches, and I wasn’t much of an investigator. If I had a company motto, it would have read: If you want mediocrity, you want me. I think I’m maybe one of the eight people in history who actually believed he’d make more money as a writer. Luckily, I convinced a few editors.
    Jeffrey, on the other hand, was Jeffrey. Operating according to some master plan the rest of us mere mortals were not privy to, Jeffrey acted like an escapee from the cast of Götterdämmerung. I have never been one to subscribe to the axiom that you can’t argue with success, but my brother’s list of achievements did make argument a difficult proposition. Summa cum laude at NYU, editor of the law review at Columbia, top litigator at Marx, O’Shea and Dassault, a seven-figure income, a beautiful wife, two healthy kids, and five acres overlooking the Hudson River, Jeffrey had reached about as high as most men dare to dream. If only he could have managed to tone down his imperious manner, I might have been able to share the same room with him for more than ten minutes. Don’t misunderstand, Jeff was my big brother and I loved him. I admired him in ways I could not express. I only wished I liked him a little more and loved him a little less.
    MacClough was true to his word without trying. During the summer, when Sound Hill enjoyed a modest seasonal boom and benefited from the Hamptons’ overflow, the line at the Scupper’s bar would have been three deep at 9:30. Such was not the case during the last week of February. The locals were all done with their Budweisers by 8:00. The college crowd was all dart-and-eight-balled out by 9:00.
    Johnny and I had earlier agreed that we would not waste our energies speculating about Zak. We were both sure that Jeffrey’s news would be taxing enough without us helping it along any. A few minutes before my brother’s scheduled arrival, MacClough put Patsy Cline on the juke and began rumbling around under the bar out of my sight. He only ever played Patsy when he was thinking about lost loves or absent friends. That was the thing about her voice, it just ached. And she always sounded as if she knew the next hurt was never more than a breath away.
    Johnny reappeared. He put two glasses on the bar next to as fine a crystal bottle as I had every seen. It was nearly empty. Still, he poured two amber fingers full in each glass and waited for Patsy to finish her lament.
    â€œAmen, Patsy. Amen.” He bowed his head. “Klein! Get your flat Jewish ass over to this bar.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œDo you know what this is?” MacClough pointed at the decanter as I came his way.
    â€œHoly shit!” I could be so articulate. “That’s the Napoleon brandy your father—”
    â€œâ€”pinched from the dead bootlegger. That’s right, Klein. You remember. But I bet you a fin you don’t remember the bootlegger’s name.”
    â€œIzzy Three Legs Weinstein,” I said without missing a beat.
    Raising his glass: “Screw ya, ya Christ-killer. To your dad!”
    â€œI hate brandy.”
    â€œIt’s the only proper way to send a man to meet his god.”
    â€œYou say the same thing when they polish the plaque on the lighthouse: ‘It’s the only proper way to celebrate the cleaning of the plaque’.”
    â€œKlein!”
    â€œJohn, I just can’t,” I was serious now. “There’s hardly another drink left in that bottle. You shouldn’t waste it on me. It’s part of your family.”
    â€œSo are you, you idiot. Drink.”
    â€œTo Harry Klein!” I knocked it back. “Feh.”
    â€œFeh?”
    â€œAll due respect to family heirlooms, French emperors, and deceased bootleggers, but I