Cinderella

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Otto knew he was being followed.

Thirty years in investigation, he’d never had anybody following him. Such a thing never happened to him. He guessed he was getting too old for this business, fifty-eight and closing fast, smoked too much and ate too much junk food, but those were occupational hazards. Didn’t carry a gun, never had, private detectives carrying guns were for the movies. Even if he’d had a gun with him tonight, he wouldn’t have known how to use it. Guns scared the hell out of him.

Anyway, nice Jewish guys didn’t carry guns unless they were Louis Lepke or Legs Diamond — he could remember the newspapers full of them when he was a kid. His mother would shake her head and mutter "Jewish gangsters, wot a ting!" and then would spit twice on her extended forefinger and middle finger, ptui, ptui! Nice Jewish guys weren’t supposed to drink, either. There’d been tests made and Indians came out highest and Irishmen next highest on the scale of heavy drinkers and Jews came out lowest, which showed there was some truth to the clichés. He personally drank a lot, though, which meant it was a bunch of bullshit.

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