One night I was searching Chicago for someone—yeah, a girl called Lotte—something—and I was under the impression that Lotte was having an affair with a bootlegger called—think of it in a minute—anyhow, this liquor dealer had a number of hoods on his payroll, one of whom was a little Irishman called Pony Roach. Sometimes I shot pool with this same killer. He fascinated me—like the silken, slow-gliding snakes behind glass—hard to believe that anything as languid, elegant and mindless could deal instant death. I’d watch Pony fit a cigarette into a gold and ivory holder, stoop to plot the deflection of a pool ball and I’d imagine the thuds and muffled shrieks on some vacant lot as his big automatic hurled lead into an enemy of Jay Vasari. That’s the guy, Vasari, that Lotte was linked with—Vasari, who ended up himself shot to pieces on a street corner. Now Roach was the only lead I had on Vasari and so I went found to his place. This was about three in the morning.
