by P. N. Elrod
The band was playing loud and hot as I threaded between tables, and some couples were making use of the floor. There were a number of dressed-up women sitting in groups. Some looked bored, others predatory, as they drank and smoked, thickening the atmosphere. None of them made an offer to me, so I politely assumed they were waiting on their men to finish gaming in the back. It might be a while; Nevis usually let things go on around the clock.
I discerned Nevis’s outline in the shifting murk. He was at a table away from the crowd, his back to a wall, of course. He had a phone receiver jammed against his ear and, from his gestures, was holding quite an animated conversation. In a short lull between the din of the music and other sounds I just barely picked out his voice.
“No, no, no, I’m telling you, you can’t push anyone out of a plane like that. The damn door is too small for that kind of thing. Oh, I gotta go.” He’d spotted me and hung up, flashing a big smile my way. “Fleming, long time no see. How’s that wreck of mine doing?”
“Not too many hitches.” Pretending I’d not heard anything amiss, I stuck out my free hand and we shook. He invited me to sit across from him. If anything interesting snuck up behind me, I’d see it in his eyes first. “You can’t call it a wreck anymore. I’ve put too much work into it.”
“So I’ve heard.” He was a long, lean man, with thin hair smoothed back over a skull without much meat under the skin. He seemed frail, with the hollow, wasted look of a lunger; only his assured manner and robust confidence belied the initial impression of illness. He had a square jaw and wide mouth full of good humor for himself and the world. Most of the time it was sincere. “Is this a social visit?”
“Not really. I’m opening soon and thought you could help me find people to work there. I need the usual and a general manager to run the place when I’m not around.”
“Why not ask Gordy? He knows everyone.”
“I did. He said to come to you.” This was true. Gordy and I had discussed the intricacies of hiring and firing many times.
Nevis smiled amiably, long, nimble fingers lightly touching a sweating glass in front of him. He turned it clockwise slowly, a quarter inch at a time. His drink was down to melting ice.
I wondered how much alcohol he’d had tonight. That would affect my ability to get reliable information from him. “I figured you could put the word out for me.”
“Sure, no trouble.”
“Especially for the general manager spot. I need a guy who knows how to do books and keep them straight.”
“Not asking for a lot in this town, are you? All the people who come here have an angle—their own. Maybe you should advertise for some college kid who’s never been hungry.”
I let that one pass as the joke it was. “I’ll be at my club between nine and midnight for anyone who wants to see me.”
“Why so late?”
“So I know they can work the hours.”
“What if they’re working someplace else at that time?”
“Then they don’t need a job.” I pretended to taste my whiskey. It was like bringing gasoline to my mouth, but I managed without any face-twisting to wet my lips. Next time I’d just ask for water. “Doing a good business tonight?”
“Good enough on both sides of the door.” He jerked his pointed nose toward a discreet opening that I might have seen had there been less smoke. On the other side of it were the gambling rooms. He’d taken me through once, but I’d turned out to be disappointingly immune to the offered temptations. When I wanted to gamble, it was always blackjack at the Nightcrawler, where I had a chance to win.
The horse racing bets I didn’t count as gambling. Those were a sure thing, after all.
Nevis and I talked a bit about this and that, and he offered to buy me another drink when I carelessly knocked my whiskey off the table. I told him I’d be happy with some plain water as obviously more booze would only add to my problems. He laughed at that and signaled a waiter, telling him what was wanted and added another drink on the order for himself.
“You’re all right, Fleming,” said Nevis. “Most guys would get a double just to prove they could handle it.”
A year ago I’d have done so. Not anymore. “Why give myself a worse hangover than I’m already going to get just to make a point?”
“You’re not drunk,” he stated. “Come morning you’re not going to feel a damn thing from tonight.”
Truer words and all that.
He wasn’t showing it, just a sheen on his face, but I figured he’d already had too much of his own stock for me to be able to make a hypnotic dent in his mind. There were other ways to get a man to talk, though. A waiter brought his order and mine. We listened to the band, watched the dancers, and with a little prompting I got a couple of funny stories out of him about his business. The phone rang twice. His conversations were no more than a minute each, with words of one syllable. No names were spoken.
He’d worked his drink down to the halfway point when the band took a break. He regarded them with a benign smile as they filed out. When he turned it on me, it beamed with happy goodwill. “So. Why haven’t you asked me about that body you found?”
“Because you’d want to talk about it yourself when you were ready.”
His eyes warmed up. “Not bad, kid.”
No need to correct him on my real age. “What do you know about it?”
Nevis shook his head. “I read the papers. That’s all. Welsh Lennet could probably tell you more. But he’s not around.”
“So I heard.” As the previous owner of the building, the thoroughly deceased Lennet would have to be mentioned sooner or later. I had just enough apprehension banging around inside to know Nevis was giving me a mild warning to back off. And maybe I was also being tested for a reaction. I tried not to give one. “I heard he kept rough company. Who’s still around I could talk to about him?”
“What’s it to you?” Nevis smiled, very steadily.
“My place isn’t open yet and already has a black mark against it. I want to wipe it away.”
He chuckled. “You shouldn’t try to play clean in this town. Most of the time it won’t let you.”
“I heard that, also. This is something I have to do, though.” I waited him out as pieces of other conversations floated around us like the stale smoke. A drunken woman laughed, loud and high, across the room. No one paid her much attention.
Nevis sipped from his glass, put it on the table, and began making those quarter-inch turns again. “You wouldn’t come here unless you knew more than you’re saying. You’re thick with Gordy, and he’d have given you an earful about me and Lennet.”
“I just heard rumors, is all. No skin off my nose if you bumped him. My only concern is about the dead woman.”
His smile dimmed. “Well, I don’t know anything about her.”
In the middle of his level, brimming-with-honesty gaze, I said, “They found out she was Lena Ashley.”
His smile faltered, then faded completely. His open face shut down and went blank, and not from my influence. “What?”
I repeated the name, giving him a long look of my own. A hypnotic prompt might not work, so I had to wait him out. It took him a while. He seemed genuinely surprised. I couldn’t tell if it was real or overacting.
Finally: “You sure?”
“Yeah. You knew her pretty well, too.”
“No, I didn’t.”
I didn’t believe him. No one would.
He went back to fiddling with his glass. Now he made turns of a full inch. “Lena, huh? Poor kid. Who would have figured it?”
“Exactly. Who had it in for her?”
“How the hell should I know?”
“Because you paid her bills.”
He stopped a moment with the glass. “So I did. My problem is I’m too much of a soft touch when it comes to dames. She’d hit me up for a loan whenever things got tight, and I’d give her dough. I really didn’t know her that well.”
He was nervous. With that
last sentence he said just exactly too much. “Oh, yeah?” I made sure he heard doubt in my tone.
No change to his blank expression, but his face flushed, his hand drawing away from the glass to form a white-knuckled fist. I’d hit one hell of a nerve.
He was a thinking man, though, and restrained himself from actually trying to slug me. The flush faded, and he put on a smile that almost looked right. “I don’t need to explain the birds and bees to you. She hit a lot of guys up for what she called loans. She was a great gal, good company, so no one minded too much when she didn’t pay back. She spent it fast and would call guys for more. She was like a little kid, always wheedling, forgetting what she owed. Maybe she hit the wrong guy, and he got sore and—”
“Walled her up alive for a bum debt?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Because she could find more money and pay him off. You have to come up with a better excuse than that.”
Nevis flushed again and went still. When he finally spoke, he kept his voice level but cold enough to raise the hackles on a marble statue. “I know what you’re doing, and it won’t work with me. I don’t have to come up with a damn thing. Who the hell do you think you are coming into my place with that kind of shit? You’re no cop.”
“Right. Meaning you can talk to me and it won’t come back on you. Why’d you bump her?”
He started to surge forward. “I didn’t—” He caught himself and eased down. In slow stages the smile gradually returned, but his eyes were hard. “You’re good, Fleming.”
“And I thought I was being subtle. Why’d you bump her?”
Nevis took a drink, watching me over the rim of the glass. “First, I didn’t bump her, and second, I couldn’t say who did. She just stopped turning up. Except for the people she owed money to, no one was all that much bothered. Nobody knew what happened to her. That’s the truth.”
“Who’d she owe?”
“Uh-uh. I’m not making trouble for others.”
I regretted not being able to really question him. He was past the point of me getting him mad enough to talk. For the moment, he’d say nothing or only shoot out lies, but those could be just as useful in their own right. Now I knew he had something interesting to hide. “Come on. You read the papers.”
“Yeah. But it’s nothing to me.”
“You know what was done to her.”
He started turning his glass again, watching me with everything behind his face shut down and locked for the night.
“Nobody deserves that kind of death,” I said quietly.
A shrug. “You’d be surprised.”
“Who are you protecting?” I could hear the beginnings of futility in my own voice and didn’t like it.
“No one. I’ve got nothing to tell you.”
“Look, some bastard’s walking around having a good laugh on her—”
“Oh, stop or I’m going to cry.”
The power of my own sudden anger and frustration took me by surprise. I’d been holding things in, trying to match Nevis for steadiness. It didn’t work. Something shifted and broke free inside; the heat of it rushed through me, spilling out.
I made no effort to stop it.
Though his mind was well insulated by alcohol, Nevis rocked back, big bony hands grasping the table edge at the last second to keep his balance. His eyes went wide.
I pressed him. “Who could have killed her, Nevis?”
His jaw sagged, but he made no sound.
“You hear me? Who?”
His mouth flapped; he couldn’t speak, only made a small gasping sound like pain.
Too much. I broke eye contact. When I looked again, he was still holding on to the table, dazed and trembling. Damn. I wondered if I’d done him permanent harm. It didn’t seem likely, but I’d been careless with my temper once before with disastrous results.
“Nevis?”
He blinked, shook his head like a boxer with one too many punches. His fish-white skin shone with new sweat.
“Nevis. Who killed Lena Ashley?”
He would only shake his head, refusing to meet my gaze. I said his name a couple times, fighting off a stab of real worry. To my relief he finally responded with an inarticulate growl. He sounded more confused than annoyed. “You’re okay,” I told him with more reassurance than I actually felt.
“Wh—wh—at?”
I gave him my water, helping him slop down a few gulps. He didn’t look good, and people were staring. I waved through the smoke at the barely visible waiter. He saw and came over with a fresh drink and a concerned expression. “Something wrong?” he asked.
“Your boss ain’t feeling so well. I think he should lie down for a minute.”
“The office has a couch.”
“That’ll do.”
He stayed to help, though I could have managed on my own. A lot more stares came our way as we each took an arm and helped Nevis along. He walked under his own power but needed guidance like a blind man. We went through the door leading to the gambling area. There was a bare, dim hall on the other side and more doors, some open to the gaming within. The sounds of risk, triumph, and failure floated from them.
I’d been in the club’s big office before to close the deal for Crymsyn and went straight to it. The waiter and I eased Nevis onto a battered leather couch and put his feet up.
“He just got a little dizzy,” I explained, straightening.
The waiter looked dubious. “Should I get a doctor?”
“That’s okay. Let him rest. I’ll keep an eye on him.”
Still dubious, he left. Probably to pass on the news. I dropped to one knee and slapped Nevis’s face hard enough to sting. “Come on. Wake up. It’s not that bad.”
I hoped it wasn’t that bad. The change in me could be dangerous for others. On one occasion my uncontrolled rage drove a man stark staring mad, which had taught me one hell of a lesson about self-restraint. But then I’d had him under my complete hypnotic influence, and that contact made him more vulnerable to mental damage.
Nevis’s reaction puzzled me. Maybe he was just highly susceptible to suggestion. Being drunk and having to deal with my anger banging around in his head was apparently not a good combination for him. When I’d had need in the past to try questioning others in a similar alcoholic state, they always seemed able to shrug off my influence. I didn’t know what had gone wrong this time.
Or maybe I didn’t want to admit to myself that I’d been extremely stupid.
Nevis mumbled something. His eyes were partly open but not focused on anything.
“What’s that? Talk to me.” I leaned close.
“Ask,” he slurred out.
“Ask what? Ask who?”
His hand brushed against my coat as he struggled with the words. His face went red from the effort to speak. “Ask. Rita.”
Rita Robillard. On my list of people to see. “What about Rita? You think she killed Lena?”
“Nuh. Knew her. Friend.”
“Where do I find her?”
“Nuh . . .” A headshake, then his eyes shut as he dropped back. “I. Hurt.”
“Headache? Is that it?”
“Mi—graine. Goddamned migraines. Oh, damn . . .” Moaning, he writhed over on his side, bringing his arms up to cradle his skull. There was pain all over his face and in every line of his long body. I knew exactly what it was like to feel that bad.
“You want anything? What do you want?”
“Light. Off.”
I stood, feeling more than a little helpless, and cut the overhead light. A small desk lamp remained on, but he seemed not to object to its vague glow. He relaxed a little and went very still. His tight breathing gradually steadied, but I didn’t know whether to take that as a good sign or not. I took a whiff of air, concentrating, and in between the normal smells of booze, the day’s sweat, and tobacco, I caught an odd, flat sourness floating up from him. It was the stink of illness. Sometimes I could pick it off a person. Not one of my favorite abilities.
Someone made a commotion in the hall and pushed in. The light crashing through the door from the outside overhead fell across Nevis, but he was too out of things to notice.
“What’s the problem? Tom said the boss got sick.” The newcomer was Shivvey Coker, a solidly built man of medium height who seemed to take up more space than he should. He also knew me by sight, nodded a perfunctory greeting, and muscled past for a better look at Nevis. “Musta had too much again,” he pronounced with mild disgust.
If Coker was unaware of Nevis having a problem with migraines, then it wasn’t my place to enlighten him. “He didn’t seem drunk.”
“He never does. He packs the stuff away without showing it, then—wham—he’s out cold. It’s kinda early for him, though.”
“Maybe he started early. Let’s let him sleep it off.”
He hesitated, and I couldn’t blame him since Nevis was in charge of his daily wage. From the flashy clothes and the thick gold watch on its gold chain, the pay looked to be pretty good.
“C’mon, I’ll buy you one,” I said, wanting distance from the sickroom. With every breath I seemed to take in more of that sour scent.
Coker let me herd him out, and I left the desk light on. I’d known a few people plagued by migraines, and there wasn’t much you could do for them but leave them alone to sweat it out.
“Don’t look so worried, kid,” said Coker, as we emerged into the club. “He’ll bounce back. He always does.”
“Sure.” With a small twinge of guilt, I hoped Nevis would be all right, seeing how I was most likely the cause of his attack. No way to fix it, either. Better to forget him for the time being. I now had someone else from my private inquisitional list requiring my full concentration.
Coker found a couple openings at the bar, and we eased in. He had a beer. I asked for water again.
“You could do with something stronger,” he observed.
“I don’t want to end up like Nevis.”
He snorted. With a nickname like Shivvey you expected someone good with knives or an ex-prizefighter. But there was a gun under his coat, and his face and knuckles were unmarked by much of anything. He was ordinary enough to vanish into wallpaper, but if you knew what to look for, you could see he was down-deep tough. It was in the way he moved and the hard cast to his colorless eyes; you went by those, not the milk-bland, amiable expression. “You’re Fleming, ain’t you? The guy what bought Welsh’s old place? I’m Shivvey Coker; I used to work for him.”
