When the Sacred Ginmill Closes by Lawrence Block

'I was going to call my joint Horseshoes & Hand Grenades,' Skip said. 'The lost chord,' somebody said, and somebody else said, 'Listen to this, it's poetry.'

Grenade's completely different, it's like a chord.' Dynamite's like one loud note, and a flatter sound than a cherry bomb. They're all different, different kinds of a bang. He said, 'All I said was it sounded like dynamite to me.' He had one arm around his girl and picked up his drink with his free hand. 'I wanna serve my country.' 'īobby laughed. 'Dear Uncle Sam, Please excuse Bobby's absence, bullets make him crazy.' ' ' 'Hark I hear the cannon's roar.' When'd you ever hear a shot fired in anger? Last time they had a war,' he said, 'Bobby brought a note from his shrink. ' 'Hark I hear the cannon's roar.' You know that joke?' 'Fucking actor,' Skip said, reaching to rumple Bobby's hair. 'You mean bottle-scarred,' somebody said. Bobby Ruslander, battle-scarred veteran of a thousand campaigns.' 'Don't you love this guy? Fighting it out in the trenches, storming the windswept hills, slogging through the mud. 'Get the actor,' Skip said affectionately. Sounded like fucking World War Three, if you want to know.' 'Like dynamite or a grenade or something. 'Sounded like more than a firecracker,' Bobby insisted. You light one of those little mothers and forget to let go of it, you're gonna have to learn to do a lot of basic things left-handed.' Same charge had a metal casing instead of a paper wrapper, you'd have a weapon instead of a toy. At our table, Bobby Ruslander reached for a cigarette and said, 'Sounded like a bomb.'

Someone said, 'Jesus Christ,' and a lot of people let out the breath they'd been holding. The great round noise died out like dust settling, and for a long moment afterward the room remained hushed, as if with respect. It chopped off conversation in midsyllable, froze a waiter in midstride, making of him a statue with a tray of drinks on his shoulder and one foot in the air. The blast was loud enough and close enough to rattle them. The windows at Morrissey's were painted black. Of poetry and poses And each man knows he'll be alone When the sacred ginmill closes.

When the Sacred Ginmill Closes by Lawrence Block