by P. N. Elrod
“I know, the dull-knife routine. So put some grease on the wheels, Miss Paco, and get things moving. We’ll be waiting for you.”
I hung up.
Opal squawked and for a second I thought she’d shoot, not in anger but from reflex, since she seemed to forget about her gun. I got my hands up again and backed hastily away, making calming noises.
“What’d you do that for?”
“Seemed like a good idea at the time. I can see it was rude of me. Did you still have to speak with Angela?”
“I need to know what she wants me to do.”
“Keep me covered just like this, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t shoot until after your boss and I have had our talk.”
No more than a minute went by before the phone rang again. I’d expected Angela to call back with more instructions for Opal and I was right. Opal grabbed the phone up and they talked close. I didn’t let on I could hear both sides. The upshot was no surprise: She wanted Opal to sit tight until a couple of her boys came around for us.
“What about the car?” Opal asked.
“One of them will drive it back for you.”
“Angela . . . ?”
“Yeah, what?”
“I—I sort of accidentally told him about the money at the roadhouse.”
“You what?”
“I didn’t mean to, it just came out.”
A long silence from Angela.
Opal got nervous. “I’m sorry, it was an accident, please don’t be mad at me.”
“Okay, okay, calm down, lemme think.”
Opal waited, chewing her lower lip. “It was an accident.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“He was asking a lot of questions and it just came out. Then he told me not to talk about it or I might get hurt.”
“I’ll just bet he did. Okay, don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it for you. Just don’t say anything to anyone else.”
“I won’t, I promise.”
“And make sure he keeps shut about it, too.”
Damn. Maybe I should have told Opal to completely forget she’d mentioned the money in the first place. Now Angela had a whole new reason to kill me. Again.
A few more reassurances from her boss got Opal to feeling better, then Angela asked for me. Opal backed away and once more I said hello to Angela.
“So you know about Kyler’s little nest egg?” she asked sweetly.
“Not nearly enough. Your girl shut up before she got too detailed.”
“Uh-huh, but the damage has been done.”
“What? Are you thinking I’m going to run out to chase down buried treasure? She’s got a gun on me.”
“You’re a smart operator, you could get away from her if you really wanted to.”
“But I don’t want to. We need to talk.”
“That’s what you keep saying. I want to know why. What’s so important that you want to take such a risk?”
“No risk, Miss Paco,” I hedged, trying to think of something that would hold her attention. The truth wouldn’t do here.
“Well?”
The something I needed jumped into my brain just in time. “I want to go to work for you.”
Silence, then a bark of laughter. “You what?”
“Chaven’s dead, a lot of your boys were probably arrested tonight, Deiter, Chick, and Tinny ain’t coming back—yeah, I took care of them—and Doc’s gone with the booze most of the time. With all that working against you, I’m thinking you can use all the help you can get.”
She sputtered, actually sputtered. “Like hell I—”
“Especially since Sean Sullivan’s coming into town to take over Kyler’s spot.”
That completely shut her up for a moment. “How do you know about him?”
“You said I was a smart operator. Who am I to argue with a lady?”
“I don’t believe you,” she repeated, but her tone didn’t go along with her words. She had some doubts, and plenty of them.
“Your loss.”
“Why would you want to work for me after I’ve been trying to kill you?”
“Because I figure if you’d really been trying, I’d be dead by now.” It wouldn’t hurt to throw a little flattery at her, but it had to be the right kind. Telling her she had beautiful eyes wouldn’t work in this situation.
“You’re right on that,” she said, sounding warmer.
“But maybe after your boys haul me around to see you, I can convince you of my sincerity. As a sign of my good faith I won’t mention that seven hundred grand to them on the trip over.”
“Or I can just have them kill you when they get there before you even open your mouth.”
“I’m willing to take that chance,” I said dryly, trying to imitate Escott. He would have done it better with his accent, but I wasn’t half-bad. I made her laugh.
“Okay, Fleming, Doc was right, you’ve got balls.”
“And they’re at your service.”
Another laugh. “Don’t get fresh. My boys will be there in about half an hour.”
This time she hung up. I didn’t mind, she was due a turn.
“We’ve got some waiting to do,” I told Opal, and gestured at the silent radio. “Sure you don’t want to change your mind about those fox-trot lessons?”
“Angela’s going to hire you?” She looked like she’d just bit a bad lemon.
“With any luck.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“The boss lady said about the same thing, but she’ll come around.”
“I think it stinks. Besides, if it’s so bad for me to be working for Angela, why is it okay for you to want to work for her?”
Oops. Damn good question. Not one I could answer, either. As I had Opal’s full attention, it seemed a shame to waste the opportunity. “Opal, you need to forget that. Don’t even bother to think about it. Okay?” The bad-lemon look went away as I concentrated on her.
“Okay.”
Funny thing, or maybe it wasn’t so funny, but I didn’t have the least temptation to take Opal’s blood while I was putting the eye on her. It would have been about as exciting as kissing one of my sisters. Just as well for both of us, I suppose. “Why don’t you go to the other room and freshen up? I’ll be all right here. Take your time and don’t pay attention to anything I do. Just put the gun down. It’ll be here when you get back.”
“Okay,” she said, her voice flatter than usual. She left the gun on a table and went into the bedroom, then the bath. Before the door had shut I was dialing Shoe Coldfield’s number. He caught it halfway through the first ring, must have fairly pounced on it.
“What the hell’s going on?” he wanted to know.
“I got a little sidetracked. Hasn’t Charles checked in? I thought that movie would be done by now.”
“Yeah, he called from the theater. He’ll be back soon, but you—”
“I’m still working on things. I got started hammering out a truce with Angela—”
“A truce? With her?”
“—then the cops raided the joint. . . .” I filled him in on the rest of it, and not without a lot of argument. He didn’t want to believe me either, and I couldn’t blame him for it. One of these nights I’d have to sit him down and tell him some important details about myself, then I wouldn’t have to work so hard trying to persuade him about my ability to get things done. Of course, if it all worked out the way I wanted in the next few hours, I wouldn’t have to, since Escott and I wouldn’t need his help and protection anymore. Speaking of Escott . . . “And you can tell Charles I got her to call off the hit on him.”
“You must be a miracle worker, kid.”
“I didn’t say it was easy, but we should all be back to normal pretty soon.”
“Normal? There ain’t nothing normal about this shit and don’t try to tell me otherwise.”
“Okay,” I said cheerfully, knowing he couldn’t take a slug at me over the lines. “But pass this on to him when he gets back and tell him to give my girlfr
iend a call for me so she won’t worry so much.”
“Can do. Just how were you able to get Angela to—”
“Charm and good looks go a long way with her.”
His comment to that was somewhat less than polite, and grinning, I had to hold the receiver away from my ear.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” I said when he paused for breath. “I gotta go now, sounds like Opal’s coming back.” Which wasn’t strictly true, but why take chances? I hung up and paced around, shutting and locking the entry door almost as an afterthought.
Opal came back after a minute or so, picked up the gun again, and resumed scowling at me. If she’d powdered her nose I couldn’t tell. I sketched a wave at her and turned the radio back on. I was feeling pretty damn cocky with myself and needing to work off the energy. The dance music was still playing, and I made a few turns with an invisible partner.
“You’re nuts,” said Opal, eyeing me with disdain.
“Maybe so, but I have fun. Come on and give it a try.” I turned again and tried a dip.
“Angela told me to keep you covered.”
“Hey, we’re practically business partners now, so all that’s off.”
“Not until Angela tells me so.”
The gun routine was boring me, and besides, she looked like she never had a good time in her life. I fixed her with another look. “Relax, Opal. Put the gun down and come take a dance lesson.”
She blinked, then put the revolver back on the table. As a subject for suggestion, she was a dream. Maybe what I was asking of her was very much in line with what she really wanted. She came over and I waited until the blankness in her expression cleared.
“It’s easier than it looks,” I said. “I’ll just hold this hand, then you put the other one here, and you start off counting one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four. . . .”
Her feet seemed glued to the floor and no wonder, with the galoshes still on her shoes. Good grief, we were both still in our coats and hats. I decided to ignore them and make the best of it. After a minute she relaxed and the glue came slightly loose; she actually followed my steps, albeit on very stiff legs, staring down the whole time to watch where she was going.
“There, you’re dancing, girl,” I said after a minute, thinking she could use the encouragement.
Then she raised her head just enough to look at my tie and smile—a twisting of her lips that was there and gone in an instant. The muscles of her face probably weren’t used to such acrobatics. Maybe I was wrong and it was a only twitch of concentration or maybe a wince of pain, but I hadn’t stepped on her toe or kicked her shin.
I kept counting. She got confused, so I slowed down, and told her she was doing fine, just relax and listen to the music. She couldn’t seem to do both at the same time, so we didn’t magically turn into a poor man’s Fred and Ginger, but I could tell she was really trying. I didn’t repeat the hypnosis stuff; there are some things in life that it just won’t work on and this was one of them. If Opal was going to dance, it would be on her own.
The song ended and I stepped back and made a little bow. “You ain’t half-bad, ma’am.”
“I was terrible,” she stated. “I watched the dancers at the studio. I know.”
“Ahh, give yourself a week and you’ll be dancing circles around ’em. You’re supposed to be so good at numbers, right? People good at numbers always make great dancers.”
“They do?”
Well, I didn’t know for certain, but assured her of the truth of it. “Hey, they’re playing a waltz, and that’s even easier. Hand here and here, one-two-three, one-two-three.” More clumsy steps from her, but I’d been just the same years back. My mom, God bless her, made me take lessons when I’d been in short pants. I’d hated dancing then and had gotten into fights about it with some of the rougher boys at school. Then I changed my mind when I realized it was a great way to spend time with girls. Most boys go through a girl-hating stage; mine was remarkably short-lived.
“Oh! I’m sorry!” She landed square on one of my toes.
“Never mind, keep going.” I got her to the end of it without either of us crashing to the floor. A coal commercial came on, interrupting the music. “There, we’re not exactly Vernon and Irene Castle, but we could do okay at the Stardust Ballroom.”
“We could?” She sounded doubtful.
“Well . . . maybe with a little more practice.”
She nodded. Honesty was the best policy with her. Then her face twitched again. No, it was a definite smile. Gone in a flash, but real. It did nice things for her, but I chose not to comment about it. She’d smiled to herself, after all, and it seemed better to wait until she was ready to share before I intruded any opinions on her.
“Did you like it?” I asked.
“I guess so.”
She was usually much more decisive when expressing opinions. “Only guess?”
“I . . . my . . . ”
“What?”
Her face screwed up until she finally managed to blurt it out. “My—my aunt told me if I danced with boys I’d have a baby.”
I was very careful not to laugh. She’d flushed deep red at this confession. “Well, one thing can lead to another and maybe it could happen, but if all you do is dance, then you don’t have to worry about having babies. What other bright things did your aunt tell you?”
She shrugged, eyes down.
“Your aunt raise you?”
“Yes. She didn’t like me much.”
“I’m sorry to hear that. You have a tough time with your family?”
“I don’t want to talk about them.”
Answer enough. “Okay. Then how about telling me about the last book you read?”
“Why?”
“To fill the time until Angela’s boys get here. I know I’m fascinating, but it’s your turn to talk.”
A suspicious look. “Is that another joke?”
“A half-assed one, but yes.” I dropped into the chair by the radio, throwing one leg over the thinly cushioned arm. “Okay, about that book . . . ”
I lived to regret it. Instead of a popular novel, she’d last pored over some thousand-page cure for insomnia that had to do with mathematics. For ten minutes she nearly quoted chapter and verse to me of the whole damned volume while I tried to make sense of it and look interested. I wanted to keep up the encouragement with her, figuring she didn’t get much, but every man has his limit.
“Whoa,” I said, finally raising a hand. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at some college teaching this stuff?”
I got a blank look for my question, and she wasn’t under my influence. “Because I couldn’t pass the entry exams.”
“They’re not that hard. I mean, if you can get this math down so solid—”
“That’s all I can do. English, foreign languages, history, I don’t know that stuff. Just numbers.”
“Pretty one-sided.”
“It stinks.”
“Yeah, but it’s fixable. Learning stuff just takes practice, like dancing or playing the piano. Ever learn piano?”
“No.”
“Maybe you should try. I bet you’d be good at it, it’s all numbers, y’know.”
“It is?”
“My girlfriend could find you a teacher to get you started. In a few months you could be the life of the party with your playing.”
She shook her head. “That’s not for me.”
“How do you know until you’ve tried?”
I could tell from the way she scowled at the floor she was about to come up with another negative kind of answer, but someone banging on the door interrupted her. She went alert and scrabbled for her gun.
“Who is it?” I bawled out. It was too early yet for Angela’s goons to have turned up. I put my hand in my coat pocket to assure myself the .38 was still there.
“The manager,” a man called back. I recognized his reedy voice.
“What’s the problem? Don’t tell me we were making too much noise.
”
“I have a message for you from Angela.”
I glanced at Opal, who was equally puzzled. “This is fishy,” I whispered. “Go back to the bedroom for a minute.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“Yes, you can, but I need you to cover me in case there’s trouble. Angela doesn’t want either of us turning up dead if we can help it. Is there a fire escape at the window? Good. Get it open nice and quiet and be ready to run.”
“To where?”
“You know the all-night theater across from the dance studio? If we get separated I’ll meet you there.”
“What about Angela?”
“Call her later. Now get behind that bedroom door. If you hear me say the word kosher, get the hell out and don’t look back. Promise?”
She nodded, chewing her lower lip.
The manager knocked again. “Open up or I’ll use my key.”
“Awright, awright, keep your shirt on.” I took my time to give Opal a chance to take care of the window. She came back and nodded from her shelter behind the bedroom door. I slipped the bolt, pulled the entry door two inches toward me, stopping it with my foot, and peered through, trying to put on a disgruntled face. It wasn’t hard. “What’s the problem?”
In the slice of hallway within view I could see the manager was ghost white and sweating. The smell of his obvious fear put me instantly on edge, but I didn’t let any of it show. Behind him stood several men in blue uniforms. What the hell? Another raid? Or had some alert member of the Chicago police force tracked us all the way here from the studio?
“Let us in, Mack,” said one of the cops.
There were three of them and another guy in plainclothes. “What’s this about, Officer?”
“You’ll see,” answered the plainclothes man. His voice was sharply familiar, then I got a look at his face, knew him: Lieutenant Calloway, one of the cops who had been square in the late Vaughn Kyler’s pocket.
“What’s going on here?” I said loudly, drawing inside a bit and putting a hand up as if to rub my eyes. “You got a warrant to come in? It ain’t kosher unless you got a warrant.”
“I’ll give you kosher,” the first cop said, and started to shove his way past the door.
“Son of a bitch,” said Calloway, grabbing his friend’s shoulder and staring at me. “It’s you!”
