Tender Is LeVine: A Jack LeVine Mystery

by Andrew Bergman

  “Mmm-hmm,” she crooned, from some place in the back of her throat, or her lungs, or her toes. God only knows. She leaned over and switched off the table lamp without seeming to move at all.

  “How’d you do that?” I think I said. Her face was suddenly bare inches from mine, faintly illuminated by the dim light emanating from the fixture outside the motel room door.

  “Do what?” She arched her back and I moved into her and she closed her eyes and began moving so slowly I thought we were underwater. I was both terribly aroused and deeply fatigued, as only a forty-four-year-old man inside a twenty-one-year-old girl can be; I drifted in and out of consciousness, as if fucking this wondrous soul at a dreamlike remove. She felt like some paradisiacal blend of feathers and gravy, and as we made our way across our joined terrain of skin and nerves, I knew I would do just about anything for Barbara Stern. It felt that good, and scarier still, it felt like we’d been doing it for years and years. We fit.

  She moved a little quicker now, but remained ever in control. Barbara looked at me, then closed her eyes and tossed her hair; she ran her hands up across my chest, ducked down to kiss me, and then held out her breasts for both of us to feast on, taking increasingly fevered turns. It all moved at the speed of inevitability and when she got close, she reached back, wrapped her hand around me, and gave me a squeeze of ever so delicate force, like a plant enclosing me, and I shut my eyes as the two of us sustained our soft, sequential explosions.

  After the event had subsided and we floated back to the middle of the sea, she tumbled into sleep, still attached to me like some fabulous appendage. We slept like that for a while, until I slipped out, but still I clung to her as if to life itself, and we negotiated the night that way, two loving near-strangers in a strange Indiana motel.

  And then dawn arose in the Midwest and more hell broke loose.

  We had gotten out of bed at first light and gathered up our belongings. Barbara marched sleepily into the shower and I went next door to check on Maestro. The old man had already bathed and looked pink and healthy as an infant.

  “Today buy underclothes, Boston Blackie,” he announced with gravity. “Is disaster.”

  “I agree. My shorts are no bargain, either. Only Barbara has a full complement of scanties.”

  He smiled at me and put on a smallish pair of gold-rimmed spectacles. “Was a good night for you?”

  I returned the smile. “I slept very well.”

  Toscanini nodded. “You are gentleman. Bene. Men who tell tutto, everything”—he held up his black smoking jacket and I helped him on with it—“is disgrazia, vergogna.” He buttoned the jacket, tapped his ear. “I heard nothing. You are very quiet, sì? Like mouses.”

  “It sort of happened in a dream.”

  He shook his head back and forth and made a kind of Italianate clucking nose. “A dream. Sì. With her would be sogno umido … a dream that is damp.” He sat down and pulled on his impeccable black shoes; they looked to be made of kid, probably hand-crafted by some ninety-year-old Milanese cobbler in a shop filled with cats. The raincoat he had worn out of Vegas was laid out on a chair, along with the tweed hat.

  “You want those?” I asked the old man.

  “I take the hat. The coat is terrible. That person …”

  “LaMarca.”

  “Was his. We leave here.”

  When Toscanini felt that he was sufficiently put together to face the day, he arose and looked around the room.

  “Addio a Indiana,” he said, and walked slowly toward the door. I opened it and we eased into the cool gray early morning. It had started to drizzle and the parking lot was already slick. I knocked on the neighboring door and Barbara stepped out, carrying her valise. She was wearing a brown leather coat and black wool slacks.

  “Good morning, Maestro,” she said, and then stared at something over my shoulder. I turned around and observed two tall men wearing sunglasses and brown suits emerging quickly from a gray Chevrolet sedan. They started walking purposefully toward me. George Dobles stepped from his office with a folded newspaper tucked under his arm. He silently observed the scene, then walked back into his office.

  He had fingered me.

  “Mr, Jacob Levine?” the first pair of sunglasses said, in a surprisingly thin and reedy voice.

  “LeVine,” I told him. “Capital V.”

  “You’re under arrest for the murders of Kim West and Fred Brancati.”

  “It’s not true,” Barbara shouted.

  “Che cosa?” Toscanini asked. “Who are you?”

  “Indiana State Police, pop,” the second pair of sunglasses said. He didn’t sound much like a cop, nor, for that matter, like someone who lived in Indiana.

  “Could I see some identification?” I asked.

  The second pair of sunglasses took offense. “Hey, dickhead, you deaf? You’re under arrest.”

  I didn’t budge. “I have a right to know who’s arresting me.”

  The first pair of sunglasses nodded at his partner. “He’s correct,” he said. “He’s got every right.” He took a step toward me and reached into his pocket for the badge I knew wasn’t there and as he did so, I clutched at my heart.

  “Shit,” I mumbled, and sank to the pavement.

  “Jack!” Barbara screamed like a Greek widow.

  “Is heart attack!” Toscanini shouted.

  “I have to get his medication,” Barbara said, and started for the car.

  “Wait a minute!” the second gunsel yelled, but she didn’t listen and hurried toward the Mercury.

  Toscanini began to pray in Italian. Very convincingly.

  The second gunsel leaned over me. I was holding my breath and turning a deep red. When the gunsel got close enough, I grabbed a handful of his hair, pivoted, and smashed his head hard against the pavement. The gun fell out of his pocket. I picked it up and held it on his partner.

  Barbara started the car.

  “Mister,” the first gunsel started to say. “We’re Indiana State—”

  “Cut the horseshit, for all our sakes, okay, genius?” I turned to Toscanini. “Maestro, get into the car.”

  “Bene.” The old man started for the Mercury. The gunsel watched him go with the hollow-eyed anxiety of someone who knows he has screwed up royally and is going to pay for it. His partner was starting to come to, so I whacked him on the back of the head with his gun.

  “You,” I told the first gunsel. “Drop your weaponry on the ground, please, and kick it over toward me.” He reached into his pocket, pulled a .22 from his pocket, let it fall to the wet asphalt, and kicked it in my direction. I took it, turned, and shot out the windows and tires of the gunsels’ Chevy, then I arose and started walking backwards toward the Mercury. Barbara pulled the car closer to me. Dobles emerged from his office; for good measure, I shot out the windshield and tires of the blue Hudson I assumed to be his, then hustled into our rent-a-car.

  “Go!” I told Barbara, and she floored the gas pedal flat. We went screaming out of the Starlight Motor Hotel and back onto Route 36. I looked into the side mirror—the gunsel whose head I had bounced on the asphalt was still lying on the ground, and his weak-minded compadre was leaning over him. It was a tableau that moved me not at all.

  “Che cosa? Che cosa?” the old man said. “Fascisti?”

  “They weren’t cops, that’s for goddamn sure,” I told him. “I knew Dobles was a creep.”

  “You think it was him?” Barbara asked.

  “Absolutely. I figure he saw my picture in the paper and called the state cops. The cops passed it right over onto Lucky and Meyers plate. This is all their deal. The stories in the paper, the phony name of the deceased …” I turned to Toscanini. “See how important you are?”

  “Too much with the guns,” he said. His hair was tousled again and he was breathing hard.

  “I couldn’t agree more. We have to get the hell out of here.”

  Barbara looked at me. She was doing about sixty-five on a highway still empty at ten
past seven. “Get the hell out of here meaning what specifically?” she asked.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out my wad of cash. I still had over five thousand dollars.

  “Meaning we charter a plane and fly straight to New York. Screw all this driving. Sooner or later they’re gonna catch up to me.” I grabbed the road map out of the glove apartment and began to unfold it.

  “You’re talking about one of those little planes, right?” Barbara asked.

  “I’ll take whatever I can get—the Enola Gay or the Spirit of St. Louis will do fine.”

  “We fly, Boston Blackie?” the old man leaned forward and put his hands on the front seat, like a kid on the road with his folks.

  “Yes. This way you won’t have to worry about your underwear anymore. We can get there in four, five hours.”

  He clapped his hands. “Bene!”

  “Those little planes don’t bother you, Maestro?” Barbara asked him.

  “No, cara mia. What bother me is to wear underwears for two day.” He laughed. “Maybe I should borrow from you!”

  “Right now?” Barbara smiled at the old man.

  “Not while you drive, bella mia!”

  “Okay.” I had found what I was looking for on the map. “We’re twenty-five miles from the Indianapolis airport. Stay on this road, there’ll be signs.”

  “Which airport we go in New York?” the old man asked.

  “We’ll go to Idlewild if possible. It’ll be very dramatic. Sarnoff will be there.”

  “Sarnoff?” the old man exclaimed. “At airport?”

  “Yeah.” I smiled at the thought. “Could be a hell of a payoff to this. Two Maestros, no waiting.”

  * * *

  We made it to the Indianapolis airport in about forty-five minutes.

  “What do we do with this car, Jack?” asked practical Barbara.

  The answer was forthcoming; a billboard indicated that Prairie Rent-A-Car maintained an office half a mile from the airport. A couple of minutes later, we were pulling into a lot filled with cars being washed for the day’s business. I dropped off the Mercury and did the paperwork as quickly as possible, paying out twenty-eight dollars in cash. The Prairie agent, a motherly soul of close to sixty wearing a University of Indiana team jacket and a kerchief over her hair, informed us that “a courtesy car” would take us to the airport in fifteen minutes. I thanked her profusely and went for a cab instead.

  Within five minutes the three of us were getting out at an outfit called Hoosier Aviation, which the cabby had informed us was the hub of all private plane rental in Indianapolis. Hoosier Aviation was basically a massive hangar with some drab offices attached to the front. The double glass doors were unlocked and a sign indicated that we had arrived at the reception area.

  We didn’t get much of a reception, however. A bell chimed as we entered the fluorescent-lit, linoleum-floored facility, but the joint was empty. A threadbare banner hung over an unmanned oak counter at the far end of the room; it said HOOSIER AVIATION in block letters and featured a little silver plane cutting through some puffy pink clouds. I sat Barbara and Toscanini down on a pair of lumpy red chairs with chrome arms.

  “Some setup, Jack.” Barbara said. “Very reassuring.”

  “You rather be playing cowboys and Indians at motels?”

  “No, but this gives me the willies.” At that moment a broad-shouldered man of about thirty-five, sporting a blond crew cut and sideburns, sauntered out to the counter, wiping his hands on a paper towel. He was wearing a green jumpsuit with HOOSIER AVIATION sewn in red thread at the breast pocket.

  “Morning,” he said pleasantly. He smiled at me and looked over at Barbara and the Maestro. His mouth started to drop open, but then he remembered his manners and managed to close it. But he couldn’t stop staring.

  I approached the counter with my friendliest smile.

  “Morning,” I said. “We need a plane.”

  “Okeydoke.” He kept staring past me, then lowered his voice. “Mister?” he whispered, “The gentleman back there, that by any chance be Arturo Toscanini?” In all our travels, this was the first person to recognize the Maestro, this jumpsuited flyboy at Hoosier Aviation. Go figure.

  “Can you keep a secret?” I whispered back.

  “Kept them all my life. That’s what private aviations all about—flying folks who got themselves all kinds of reasons for not flying commercial. Name’s Vern Padgett. Who are you?”

  “Jack LeVine, with a capital V.”

  He nodded abstractly. “And that’s really him?”

  “That’s really him, and he has to get to Idlewild by four o’clock at the latest. Is that a possibility?”

  “Sure, long as the weather holds up back East. Supposed to be pretty good today. Long ride, New York.”

  “How long?”

  Vern popped open a box of Chiclets. “About seven hundred and forty miles. I’d recommend taking the new Piper, which is a Pacer PA-20. Has a cruising speed of about a hundred and twenty-five miles per hour. So if you do the math—”

  “I flunked math.”

  “Be about six hours flying time, plus a stop to refuel. Figure we do that in Pittsburgh.”

  “So we’re looking at about seven hours in all.”

  “Something like that.” He shook out a pair of Chiclets and cracked them open in his mouth. I stared at the wall clock behind the counter, which had miniature Piper Cub wings as hands. The clock read ten past eight, which meant that we’d have to hustle to get into New York by four.

  “We better get moving, then, Vern. Who’s gonna fly us?”

  “There’s three real good pilots here, but I’m the best, and it would be my high honor to fly you good folks myself.”

  “Guess you’re a music lover.”

  “Yes sir. Listen to that great man every weekend, listen to the opera Saturday afternoons.” He smiled. “If I wasn’t married to a former Miss Terre Haute, people ’round here would probably think I’m some kind of pansy.” He looked toward Barbara. “Speaking of beauty contests, that young woman with the Maestro is quite a feast for the eyes.”

  “My fiancée.”

  “Okay,” he said, without missing a beat. “So you must be a regular show dog yourself.”

  “A Hebrew terrier,” I told him. “Born and bred. What will it cost me to fly to New York?”

  Vern contemplatively chewed his gum. “You got some precious cargo there. This Pacer gives you a pretty comfortable ride. Four-seater. Virtually brand-new aircraft, just on the market this year.” He nodded, as if to himself. “That’d be the one I’d like to take you all up in, and that would run four hundred and fifty dollars.”

  The amount was less than I’d feared and more than I’d wished for, but I had neither the time nor appetite to bargain.

  “It’s a deal,” I told him.

  “I get half now, and half when we land.”

  “What if we don’t land?”

  Vern cracked his gum and smiled. “Then you get a full refund.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Kind of a superstition, actually, the half up front.” Vern looked over at Maestro and Barbara and waved at them. “Been doing it since I started flying. I ask for the second half the second the wheels touch the ground, that’s the way I do it.”

  “What if I’m sleeping?”

  “Way I fly, you won’t be sleeping.” Vern laughed. “That’s pilot’s humor.”

  “Hilarious.” I leaned forward on the counter. “Realistically, how soon can we get out of here?”

  “You’re in a rush, I take it.”

  I decided that if I was going to trust him with my safety, I better trust him with the truth. “All of our lives are at risk, Vern. That’s the way it is. The old man was kidnapped and at least two really good people have died because of that fact, and a couple of not-so-hot people as well. I’ve been hired to bring the Maestro back.”

  He stopped chewing his gum. “For real.”

  “F
or real. I also just had a phony murder rap hung on me in Utah, that’s how rough this game is being played.”

  “So you’re a private eye or something?”

  “I’m a private eye and something, I’m that good. I also believe in leveling with decent people. You should know what you’re getting into.”

  Vern nodded, ran a grimy hand through his hair.

  “Flew over eighty missions in Germany, Mr. LeVine. Believe me, I know what rough is.” He pushed himself away from the counter. “Give me twenty minutes.”

  Vern started walking away.

  “One other thing,” I called out to him. “Exactly where do we land?”

  “You mean like what terminal?”

  “Yeah.”

  “All private aircraft going to Idlewild have to use the General Aviation Terminal.”

  “All of them?”

  “Yes sir. Now let me get to work.”

  Vern turned and pushed open a door that led out to the hangar. I strolled back to my fellow voyagers and informed them of the plan of action. Barbara was openly nervous, but the Maestro seemed to get younger with every eastward mile we traveled.

  “Will be adventure,” he said cheerily.

  “Four seats,” Barbara said. “That’s tiny.”

  Toscanini took her hand and started to sing very softly and very badly. “Che gelida manina,” he croaked. “Means ‘what a cold hand.’”

  “La Bohème,” Barbara said. “I know it well. But Mimi dies in the last act, Maestro.”

  “Of tuber colosi, not plane crash, cara mia. You are safe with me!”

  While the old man attempted to reassure Barbara, I went over to a wall phone and rang up Toots. He answered on the fifth ring, and sounded like a man curled into a fetal position.