NOVEMBER 16, 1934
I FLOPPED DOWN INTO my usual seat at the bar. I flipped through my notebook then stuck it back in my pocket. The gorilla came around eventually.
“You’re not here to drink,” he said.
“No,” I said, “but you can hit me anyway.”
He gave me some of that clear Russian stuff, and I threw it back. I kept giving the “come hither” signal with my finger when the glass got empty.
“What do you know about Lazar?” I asked.
The gorilla shook his head.
“Come on, damn it,” I said. “You know who I’m talking about.”
“Sometimes he goes by Lazar, sometimes by Russ, sometimes by—”
“Lazarus.” I already figured that.
“Other things, too,” the gorilla said. “I don’t trust a man—even one of our kind—who can’t settle on a name. Like he’s always hiding something.”
I waited. “That’s it? That
