The Procane Chronicle by Ross Thomas Page A

same thing, but perhaps from a slightly different approach.”
    “I don’t mind,” I said. “In fact, I wouldn’t mind at all if they were hanging around outside the men’s room at the West Side Terminal Tuesday morning. If I don’t come out after twenty or twenty-five minutes, Mr. Wiedstein might even come in to make sure that I’m not lying dead on the floor of the first stall.”
    “Yes, I was going to suggest something like that,” Procane said.
    “Perhaps you should also mention the time element, Mr. Procane,” Janet Whistler said.
    He looked at her and then at Wiedstein who nodded his agreement. Procane cleared his throat the way some people do when they think they have something weighty to announce. “It’s imperative, Mr. St. Ives, that the journals be returned to me by no later than Wednesday morning.”
    “I can’t guarantee that,” I said.
    “Yes, I know. But should the person who called here today want to postpone the transaction, I must insist that you press for the time that we’ve agreed on.”
    “What if he stalls anyhow and I can’t get them back by Wednesday morning?”
    The three of them exchanged looks that left me completely out of whatever it was that they had to say to each other. “If that happens, Mr. St. Ives,” Procane said, “then we’ll have to take certain steps that may or may not involve you.”
    “I don’t think I quite understand that,” I said.
    Procane smiled and I could see nothing but reassurance and confidence in the way he did it. “Let’s hope that you won’t have to,” he said.
    There’s a bar on Forty-second Street just west of Ninth Avenue that’s called The Nitty Gritty. A few years ago it was called The Case Ace and before that, The Gung Ho. Back during World War II, somebody told me, it had been called The Hubba-Hubba, but I didn’t believe it. Although the name of the place changed every few years, the owner and the clientele stayed the same. The owner was Frank Swell and the clientele was composed of the losers who hang around that neighborhood. For the most part they were pimps and whores, thieves and shylocks, checkwriters and fences, and a varied assortment of down-and-outers who were always trying to borrow five till Friday. I’d never seen anyone lend them a dime.
    Frank Swell didn’t like his customers and he kept changing the name of his place in hopes that they would go away. Sometimes when I felt depressed I would drop into Frank’s and after I left I invariably felt better because I knew that there was no real reason that I had to go back there unless I wanted to feel better again after I left. It had that kind of atmosphere.
    At six o’clock that Sunday evening I was sitting at the bar listening to Frank Swell read off a new list of prospective names that he hoped might drive his customers away.
    “Listen to these, Phil,” he said.
    “I’ll take another Scotch and water first.”
    “Sure.” He served me the drink and then started to read from his list. “The Chez When, The Third George, The Aquarius—that’s sort of timely.”
    “Sort of,” I said.
    “The Blue Apple, Greenbeard’s, The Triple Eagle, and here’s one I like, The Blue Blazer.”
    “That’s class,” I said.
    “Yeah, that’s what I need. Something real classy, then these creeps maybe wouldn’t come around no more.”
    “I’ve got one for you,” I said.
    Frank Swell whipped out his ballpoint pen. “Okay.”
    “Swell’s,” I said. “Just that”
    He didn’t even write it down. Instead he shook his head, folded his list of names, and stuck them away in his shirt pocket. “Nah,” he said. “That’d just help em remember. I want one that they don’t like, one that’s too classy for em so they’ll feel uncomfortable, you know what I mean?”
    I nodded and he looked around sourly. He was about sixty and he had owned the place for nearly thirty years. “Look at em,” he said, twisting his thick, gray lips into a sneer that was almost a