by P. N. Elrod
“They might not have bothered to look, but I’ll go along with that.”
“Do you think the two incidents are linked?”
Hands shoved into my bathrobe pockets, I shrugged. “I’m figuring that whoever killed Lena knew the club was empty and just used it as a quiet spot for his dirty work.”
“Nearly everyone in the city at that time knew it was deserted,” he pointed out.
“Yeah. Especially Booth Nevis and Shivvey Coker, but why should they shit in their own yard when there’s plenty of other places that wouldn’t lead right to them?”
Escott shrugged in turn.
“Did Blair trace the dress label?”
“He did, and Miss Smythe also wanted to let you know Mr. Joe James, though somewhat upset by their intrusion, followed your instructions in regard to being spare in the sharing of information with them.”
“That’s good. He was worried it might come back on him if he talked too much. He didn’t want to end up like Lena.”
“Quite understandable.”
“Has Blair turned up any next of kin for her?”
“Apparently she had none. At least under that name. If it was false, there will be some difficulty tracing her.”
“I’ll have to see if she left any papers behind that Rita might have kept. Or have the cops gotten as far as her yet?”
“Not that I was told. You know, despite your influence on him, Blair might take exception to your making the rounds before he’s had his chance to ply questions. You could put the wind up his suspects, making them less cooperative than they might otherwise have been.”
“I doubt that. Unless I can catch someone before they’ve tied one on for the night, he’s got a better shot at it than me to squeeze ’em. In the end, I’m doing him a favor. If I get a solid lead, I’ll turn it over to him to play with. I want this can of worms sealed and delivered so I can get back to business as usual.”
“It’s more than that to you, though.” He had his serious face on. “Granted the affair is bad enough, but trying to sort it out is hardly your concern. The police are more than capable. Why is it so essential for you to be involved?”
That question had been banging around my brain from the start. Sure, the body had been found at my club, but looking at things cold, that was my only connection to it. None of this should have been more important to me than any other mess left behind by the previous occupants. Appalling as it was, this murder was really something for others to clean up, not me.
“Jack?”
“I think it’s . . .” I hunched my shoulders. “I know it’s because I was murdered, too.” My talk with Bobbi last night had dredged up some dark memories. They’d not settled back as usual. In the quiet of my sanctuary, while waiting for unconsciousness to take me for the day, they’d pressed close enough to smother.
Escott gave a small grunt. “I see.”
“Back then, when I was . . . when they were killing me . . .”
“Jack—”
“It’s just that if I’d been a normal man, no one would have ever found my body. No one would have been punished for what they’d done to me. No one would have known. So this business eats at my gut. I think about that poor woman dying the way she did, and I wonder if those same kinds of thoughts went through her mind while she was buried there in the dark, scared out of her wits, waiting and waiting and waiting. Would anyone find her in time? Would anyone get the bastard who put her there? She had to have gone through days of it, same as me. Only she didn’t come back.”
“And it makes you angry.”
“Damn right.” There was something more, but what it might be wasn’t going to show itself just yet. Best not to force things. I’d figure it out in time.
He nodded once, understanding, then stepped into the dining room. He used the table there for household paperwork like bills and mail. Retrieving a manila envelope from that day’s stack, he handed it over.
“What’s this?”
“Blair had it sent over at my request. I understand he got the original from Miss Robillard.”
I knew what it might be. Folding back the flap, I drew out a photograph. The paper was slick and new, indicating a copy the police had made. It was a studio portrait of a woman, the kind where they pay attention to the lighting and paint out flaws in the skin, creating a flat artificiality in the image. Dark eyes, dark hair, couldn’t tell anything about her figure, since it was just a head shot.
“This is Lena Ashley?” I asked.
“Yes.”
She was young and pretty, not remarkably so, a pleasant smile with a certain blankness in the eyes, but that could have been the photography. Or me putting it in on my own. Whatever there was about her that had gotten Booth Nevis wound like a clock wasn’t evident to me. Nothing of her personality came out of the picture. I saw what she’d looked like, but had no clue as to what she’d been like. Still, she’d lived and loved and had friends, a life to call her own, until someone sadistically took it from her.
Outside, a car horn sharply sounded.
“My cab,” said Escott. He cut through the parlor to the hall and got his hat and overnight bag, then paused as he opened the front door. “Look after yourself, won’t you?”
I growled. “Get out or you’ll miss your damn train.”
Reassured, he snorted once in contempt and left.
NOT knowing exactly what sort of evening lay ahead, I put on one of my second-best suits. If the situation got complicated, I’d just as soon not ruin anything new. An overly flashy tie, fresh-polished shoes, and pale gray fedora put me in the right social neighborhood for a mob party, and not for the first time did I wish I could see the effect in a mirror.
My first stop was at Lady Crymsyn to see to the day’s business. The private opening was coming up fast. Leon and his men would have to work through the weekend, but they probably wouldn’t mind the extra money the overtime would bring.
I was going to park out front as usual, but two cars were already blocking the curb, neither of which I recognized. Two equally unfamiliar men hung around the door, talking and smoking and keeping an eye on the street. Reporters. I knew that bored but still hungry look, having been there myself. Careful not to glance their way, I drove past, taking a turn at the next block over to come up to the alley running behind the club.
My headlights picked out another man sitting in the shallow alcove of the backstage service door.
They had me covered.
He shaded his eyes from the glare. Too late to shift to reverse, I resigned myself to inflicting another hypnosis session on some hapless schmuck. It was with no small amount of surprise I abruptly recognized the man to be Malone. What the hell?
Obviously favoring any number of sore spots, he stood up slowly, waiting for me. I set the parking brake and got out.
“Hello, Mr. Fleming.” His face looked worse than before. Some of the swelling had gone down, but the bruising had turned black in spots.
“Hello, yourself.” I put my hand out, and we shook. His grip was somewhat less than firm, but I put that down to his weakened condition. “What are you doing here?”
He made that nervous tic smile, or something close to it around the bruises. “I—ah—I’m looking for a job.”
That explained his plain blue suit and quiet tie. Both looked like they didn’t get a lot of use except to decorate hangers. A faint scent of mothballs drifted from him. “I thought you were going to rest up first.”
“By the time your club opens, I’ll be all better.”
I checked him up and down, and agreed with his estimate. It must have been quite an act of courage for him to come by. “Inside. We’ll talk.”
He released a soft sigh of relief, and I knew I’d been right on the courage part.
I unlocked the service door, ushered him in, and locked it again. Once shut, we were in total darkness for him, and something close to it for me. Enough outside glow seeped through the red-tinted panes in the opposite windows so I
could navigate without walking into things. For Malone’s convenience, I found the lighting box and threw a few switches. He gazed around the stage where we stood, then took in the vast audience area and looked suitably impressed.
“Heavens,” he said. “I had no idea it would be this elaborate.”
“I’m hoping others will think the same. This way.”
I led off to the left, not too fast so he could keep up. He openly gaped at the portrait of Lady Crymsyn, and as before when giving Escott the tour, I tasted the sweet flavor of proprietorship mixed with pride. If it was this satisfying now, come opening night I’d be permanently addicted.
For once, the lobby bar light was off, and no one had bothered to leave another solitary shot glass of whiskey out to annoy and mystify. Good.
We went up to the second-floor office. Malone made no comment about its contrasting lack of decor compared to the luxury below. I found a folding chair for him and put it before the old table I used as a desk. As ever, a pile of paperwork waited for me there, including Leon’s clipboard with its ever-growing number of notes. A shipment of glassware and other equipment had arrived today. They’d stored the crates in the main room. Leon wanted to know who to contact to install some of the more specialized items like beer dispensers. That was union labor, and I had someone lined up for it, but it would require a daytime call and supervision. Leon could probably take care of it, but he knew construction, not bars and office work.
I looked at Malone and wondered how many miracles I was entitled to in one lifetime.
“What kind of job did you have in mind?” I asked.
“Bartending.” His voice was muted and speech blurred because of his split lip. “I’m very good at it.”
“I know. Nevis wouldn’t have kept you around for long if you weren’t. How’d you learn I was hiring? From him?”
“Not directly. The manager at the Flying Ace called to find out why I’d not come in tonight.”
“He hadn’t heard about your fight?”
“He’d heard but was told I’d only been pushed around a little. Just some harmless fun.” There was a touch of bitterness in Malone’s voice, but he was entitled.
“And he got told by the guys who did the pushing?”
“Yes, exactly that. I gave him my side of things and why I had no desire to return for more, then he said it was tough luck.”
“But not tough enough for him to fix things for you?”
Malone puffed one gentle laugh. “Hardly. He isn’t a bad sort, just not one to stick his neck out. Not for me, anyway.”
“Some guys think it’s catching.”
That got another, longer laugh. It might have been more audible if he’d been feeling better. Instead, he pressed one hand to his side. Probably had a stitch in the damaged muscle there or maybe a bruised rib. “I think he did want to help me in some way, though, and suggested I try my luck here. The boss had told him to pass the word around that you were looking to hire people.”
So Nevis had had some memory of our conversation. I wondered if he’d fully recovered from his migraine. And what else he might have remembered—or learned—about me today. I fixed a long, concentrated stare on Malone until I was sure he was under. “Did Booth Nevis or anyone else send you to spy on me?”
Malone’s battered face was relaxed enough to look dead. Especially around his unblinking, unfocused eyes. “No.”
“Why are you here?”
“I . . . I need a job.”
“Did Nevis or Coker ever talk about me? Or ask you questions?”
“No.”
“Did you ever hear them say anything about Lena Ashley?”
“No.”
“What about Welsh Lennet?”
“No.”
I let go of my brief hold on him and watched normal animation creep back into his expression. He wouldn’t recall anything. “You know Nevis has a black reputation in some quarters. Why’d you work for him for so long?”
“I needed a job; he gave me one.”
“There’s always places for a good bartender in a city this big.”
“Times are hard, Mr. Fleming, and the tips at the Flying Ace were better than I might find elsewhere.”
“You’d make even more at one of the fancier watering holes on the north side.”
“I liked where I was.” He made that tic again. It was almost a grimace.
I decided against giving him a hypnotic nudge, keeping quiet and letting the silence stretch.
He seemed to know what I was trying to do and dropped his gaze to the floor. “There was more to it,” he finally muttered.
“Like Nevis asking you to do extra work on the side?”
“What?”
“Did he have you running errands like Tony Upshaw?”
There was genuine startlement in his tone. “N-no, certainly not. I just ran the bar, nothing more.”
“Then what else was there?”
Malone went red to his roots, which did not combine well with the black of the bruises. “Mr. Nevis . . . he—he knew I’d been in prison.”
I snorted, unimpressed. “Oh, is that all?” He started to add more, then choked it off, surprised at my reaction. Leaning back, I put my hands behind my head. “Listen, half the mugs in this town have been on the inside at one time or another. Anyplace else in the world and it’d be considered a rite of passage. Anthropologists could write reports for National Geographic, complete with pictures.”
“I’ve not met many people with that sort of opinion on the subject,” he said after a moment.
“What’d they put you away for?” I was careful to phrase it just that way rather than ask “what did you do?” Hanging around in Gordy’s crowd had given my manners in regard to the mobs a certain diplomatic polish.
“I wrote some bad checks. Did eight months out of a year. They paroled me early for good behavior.”
“Bad checks? Sounds pretty tame to me.”
“Not to hear others talk. If they think you’ve been crooked with money once, they assume you will be again.”
“What’s the whole story, then? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“I don’t, not really. Things are so different for me now it’s as though it all happened a long time ago to some other fellow.”
“I know what that’s like. Go on.”
He shrugged. “It’s nothing much. I had a store once, dry goods and that sort of thing, and was partners with my brother. David liked to gamble, though, and he’d drain the profits to pay his debts when he lost. It usually wasn’t a lot, and sometimes he’d make a big win and pay it all back, so things tended to balance themselves out. Then he hit a long stretch of bad luck, and he kept on betting, hoping it would change.”
“But it didn’t.”
“Bad to worse, and more so because he didn’t tell me what was going on. He had to make a big payoff and took nearly everything out of the bank. There were some rough types coming around to collect from him. They would have hurt him, maybe killed him.”
“Then the boom fell.”
Malone nodded. “The store bills had to be paid . . . and I paid them.”
“But if you didn’t know the checks would be bad—”
“Actually, I did. It was perfectly stupid of me, but my brother persuaded me to believe that his luck would change for the better. He had a sure thing at the track that he knew would come in. Only it didn’t, and so I was left with the consequences. It was my signature on the checks, not his, after all, and too late to call them back.”
“So he left you swinging in the wind? He couldn’t have said something to a judge to help you out?”
“He would have, but he was killed in a car accident a week before the trial. It was an unholy mess.”
“Didn’t any of this come out in court?”
“Yes, but I couldn’t afford a decent attorney, and it was an election year for the prosecutor’s office. He managed to get an easy and quick conviction to add to his record.”
; “Your kid know this about you?”
“Not one word—and she never will if I can help it. She was only three and doesn’t remember anything about me being away for so long. I’m an honest man, Mr. Fleming. I made a mistake blinding myself to my brother’s weakness. It is not something I’ll ever repeat.”
That was for damn sure. “What about the rest of your family? You get along with them all right?”
“I haven’t any family left except for Norrie. Her mother . . . had a bad heart. She died giving birth.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“Your little girl—if I’m stepping over the line, lemme know—but I was wondering about that scar on her neck.”
He made a deprecating gesture. “People ask about it; most of them aren’t as polite as you. I don’t want her growing up self-conscious about it, you see, or being teased by others.”
“Uh-huh.”
“She was in the car with my brother. There was broken glass. Missed killing her by a fraction. I still have nightmares about what might have happened. Silly of me. She’s safe now, thank God. And thank God she doesn’t remember any of it, either. Not really. Sometimes she has nightmares, too, but I’m hoping she’ll grow out of them.”
“Is that what you meant last night about things being complicated?”
“I said that? I suppose so, yes.” He made a rueful face.
Awkward silence, with me thinking along there-but-for-the-grace-of-God lines. I shook out of it and cleared my throat. “About last night . . .”
Malone straightened, probably sensing and welcoming a change of subject. “Yes?”
“I saw you had some college books on accounting. Those didn’t just come with your flat, did they?”
He looked puzzled. Couldn’t blame him; it was quite a shift. “They’re mine. That’s what I studied for a few years.”
“Ever get to use any of it?”
“When I ran the store, but not lately.”
“You know how things work in a club bar. Is it much different from your store?”
