It wasn’t a big place to begin with, but as I said, it was the place to be if you wanted to hear Calypso music. The club vibrated with bongo rhythm and the cracking click of tropical tempo. Every table was surrounded with Paris-model evening gowns and white ties and tails. The crowd was a show in itself. Sinatra was off to the right of the stage, elbow-to-elbow with a brunette who was designed for 21-inch television screens and CinemaScope. And just two scant tables to the left, my dream girl, Kim Novak, was matching the Duke’s chanting voice with her knife and fork. She looked great in a nothing dress, and even from where I sat her matchless complexion and flapper-girl hairdo were still outstanding assets. I had to restrain a tendency to walk over and tell her I thought she was the loveliest blonde to come down the pike since Lana Turner, but the tall redhead just an elbow away from me kept me from losing my head. I had an idea Evelyn Hart didn’t want a tablehopper for a dinner companion, even if the Hollywood crowd was in town. I forgot Novak and concentrated on the Duke, where a baby spot had him pinned to the center of the floor.
He was big. Big enough to hold the floor. But the floor seemed small by comparison and with about a million people looking on, practically surging from their circular tables, he looked hemmed in. But the Duke seemed to clear a path with his long, muscular arms and his tall, imposing physique. And the lilting chant that separated his brown lips poured around the room like soothing syrup, or just plain musical molasses:
“Here I work in Calypso Room
All night long I go zoom, zoom, zoom
Me the Duke called the iron man
He be not black not blue but tan ….
Oh, playoplayoooooooo…….”
It was a neat parody on “Banana Boat” and the audience loved it, with the Duke stepping around in his long tight pants and loose silk shirt, thumping with sure, certain fingers on the instrument draped around his neck. Some instrument. It looked like a guitar, sounded like a guitar. But it wasn’t a guitar—just the famous homemade trademark of the Duke’s. He called it a quatrain, and the sounds he plucked out of it would have made even Segovia sit up and listen.
The Duke foot-tapped his way across the stage, playing to the ladies of the crowd. They loved it and they were crazy about the Duke. The gray at his temples hardly signified his close-to-fifty age. He was virile, proud, and handsome, and sang like a full-throated hummingbird. You had to admire him.
Evelyn Hart went for him too. She applauded louder than anyone else when the Duke docked his version of “Banana Boat.” The applause was thunderous, spontaneous and electrifying.
For an encore, the Duke ran through a medley of his West Indian folk songs, giving them that easy flip and smoothness that marked him for the true professional he was. He was a genuine Calypsonian, not a watered-down American product trading in on a red-hot fad. I liked his style and his music. And his sense of humor. I blistered my palms clapping.
He toe-tapped off stage in a hail of audience appreciation. Evelyn Hart turned in her chair and looked at me. She was out of breath, and the high color in her cheeks was dazzling.
“Wonderful,” she husked, the lady pose temporarily discarded. “A completely fascinating man. Is he a real duke?”
I grinned. “As royal as they make them, as far as Trinidad is concerned. The title is his own, because native Calypsonians take the names of men great in war and battle. But Duke justifies his name. He is true Trinidad even though he’s been in the States for years. But he keeps going back to the island for songs, color and refresher courses. The disk jockeys in Trinidad call him Number One.” I kept an eye peeled around the club for Coffee, though I expected him on stage with Voodoo.
“The Duke,” Evelyn Hart mused. “I’d really like to meet him.”
“No sooner said than done.” I signaled a waiter. A smooth looking one glided over on feathery heels.
“Is Miss Peg Temple around, by any chance? Tell her Ed Noon would like to see her.” The waiter smiled blankly and drifted off as silently as he had arrived.
Evelyn Hart looked at me. “My, you must know New York pretty well, Mr. Noon.”
“You’d know me well, too, if you called me Ed, Miss Hart.
“All right,” she said briskly. “Ed, it shall be. Of course, you may call me Evelyn.”
The music stopped, and suddenly there was the staccato of a drum somewhere. It was a savage, tropical, almost terrifying beat. The small murmur of voices that had seeped around the tables when the Duke made his exit from the stage hushed altogether. An almost funereal silence spread around the room, like a fog rolling in from the ocean. Evelyn Hart shushed me and focused her eyes straight ahead. I hadn’t forgotten anything, like her stunt with the firehouse-red convertible and all the death messages I’d gotten in one day. But here maybe was the answer.
Here was Voodoo, in the flesh.
And Coffee.
They went into their act.
You couldn’t tell then—nobody could, I guess—that it would wind up in death. A real Voodoo kill, if there ever was one.
SEVEN
It was some dance. I’ve been to Minsky’s in Union City, I’ve sat and watched the naked bodies go into their act along Strip Row in Manhattan, I’ve seen some skin shows in a Kansas circus—but I’ve never seen anybody throw her body around the way Voodoo did. She didn’t have to take anything off. Most of it was off already—not enough to be considered indecent, of course—but what she did with what she had was the last word in female motion.
And it was all dressed up in Calypso tempo, with a gigantic six-foot-six Negro behind her thumping out hollow, fascinating rhythms on brightly colored bongos. Coffee’s fingers were no less skilled than Voodoo’s body, but you only heard the music. You saw Voodoo.
She was the show. And some show, she was.
Every dame in the club gasped with excitement. The men just hung off their chairs and tried to keep their eyeballs from rolling. I forgot even Kim Novak, and Sinatra had lost interest in the statuesque brunette sharing a table with him.
The Trinidad jungle had taken over the main floor of the Calypso Club. It was dusk in the tropics, with the night birds singing and the odd, fluted cries of life and death. And somewhere in the center of that green paradise, a tall, fantastically proportioned female was the queen of the world.
She was black, ink-black, and smooth as a fresh chocolate bar. And glistening and shining with rhythm and enchantment. Her long, lithe body was more snake than woman, more myth than reality. Voodoo. The dark lady of the islands. Every eye in the club was focused on her like radar. And the blips registered on the heart and mind of every soul present.
Voodoo slithered and rippled across the floor, arms extended in curved wonder. She withdrew, and her superb hips prodded her slitted orange skirt apart. Her bare feet padded and tapped, arched and fell. Thumpa-thumpa-thumpa-da, thumpa-thumpa-thumpa-da went Coffee’s bongos. And Voodoo responded with electrifying jerks and pushes. And the melody lingered on. It says here.
Just the same old bumps and grinds, made classic by production, professionalism and performance. The Calypso music lifted it all out of the Minsky category. Voodoo’s body and pinpoint movement control made it all seem like an undying art. She flamed, flashed and skyrocketed.
I shot a glance at Evelyn Hart. The lady was a ghost now. The ghost would return when the house lights went up. But right now, the rich redhead was a wide-eyed, spellbound teenager watching the world of womanhood unfold in five minutes. I had a flying second to wonder if her visit to the Calypso Room had everything to do with Voodoo, and nothing to do with underground motives.
Coffee pounded on and Voodoo roved off the floor, threading her sinuous journey through the packed tables. Sinuous was right—she was loaded with sin. But the hush that held the tables was reverential. It was screwy. A St. Patrick’s atmosphere in a nightclub. But you had to hand it to her. And you wanted to hand it to her. She was terrific. A dark sensation.
Coffee’s nimble fingers lightly faded on the bongos
in a dying, far-off, going-away beat. And Voodoo drew her turn to a heart-stopping close. She assumed an attitude of wild revelry and whipped it up to a frenzy. And Coffee’s fingers halted on a sudden fast rumble. And Voodoo went into a crucifixion position with violent abruptness. And held it.
The lights went up. Oceans of sound cascaded around the Calypso Room, washing the performers on the floor. My own applause was spontaneous and combustible. My palms reddened. And hoarse shouts of bravo! thundered all around. It sounds funny for a nightclub but so help me, you would have thought Lily Pons had just raised the roof with “Un Bel Di” from Butterfly.
A voice broke through the yells and shouts. A bright, now slightly sarcastic voice.
“You wanted to see me, Noon? You should have called for the Marines. Coffee knows you’re here.”
I looked up and saw green eyes again, and blonde hair. The Miss America shape of Peg Temple was neatly encased in a two-piece tailored-in-heaven outfit. Something blue. In blue or anything else, she was something.
Coffee and Voodoo were readying an encore as I got up and pushed a chair out for her. Evelyn Hart regarded Peg Temple with that look that a lady redhead can have for a bombastic blonde. I could see in a flash that Miss Temple approved of my taste in lady redheads.
“Sit down, Peg,” I said. “You ladies haven’t met, Peg Temple—Evelyn Hart.”
“Pleased, I’m sure,” Evelyn Hart said, not meaning it.
“Hello, Evelyn,” Peg Temple snapped. “Noon, why don’t you clear out before he mops up the place with you?”
“Ssshhh,” I shushed her. “Please. You’re interrupting the show.”
She shut up. She had to. The room had hushed again to the music of the bongos and the mastery of Voodoo. An amber baby spot had her imprisoned on the floor. And her fantastic body was moving again. Same body, but differently than before. No suggestive sex this time. No subtle, overpowering body play. Just light, whirling, gay Calypso caper that was all heart and good clean fun. But it was no less terrific than before. She might have had roller skates on her brown feet, the way she whirled and twirled.
In the darkness of the room, I watched Peg Temple. The green eyes were still mad at me and the luscious lower lip was pouting. I grinned at her and moved my lips in a silent kiss. She snorted and turned away to look at the show. Evelyn Hart stared at her long, red-tipped fingers with showy unconcern. The party was just beginning.
Somebody screamed. Long, loud and terribly.
The bongo drums thumped to an electrifying halt. Voodoo held her last position and went immobile, like a black goddess immortalized in marble. All eyes roved, looking for the scream. For a full turn of the wheel, the Calypso Room was a small, quiet corner of the jungle.
Coffee emerged from the gloom behind Voodoo’s baby spot and staggered past her unmoving body. The oval, gayly colored bongo in his fingers fell to the polished dancefloor and bounced hollowly. It rolled away from him with a noisy, empty clicking rhythm that was almost music.
He pawed feverishly after it, like a man running after a child who has suddenly jumped out of his arms. But he wasn’t looking for the drum. He was looking for a place to lie down.
The whites of his eyes came up in their sockets like moons over an oasis lined with palm trees. His tall body shuddered in its Calypsan costume of long trousers and silken shirt. Then he lay down as suddenly as he had screamed, his six-foot-six tower of bones and flesh falling across the floor like a long, dark two-by-four.
The scream was obvious now.
With his face down to the smooth flooring, the handle of the knife jutting from his lean back stood out like a flagpole.
And then Voodoo screamed.
Every dame in the joint screamed.
They were still screaming when somebody behind me hit me with something like a ten-ton truck.
I crashed over my chair, going out the hard way, hearing the screams and wondering which end was up. After that, there was only darkness and the savage banging of bongo drums.
EIGHT
Dayohdayohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. My head hurt. It was going to hurt for the rest of my life. At least, that’s how it felt.
I came to about ten years later. The first thing I saw was a ceiling—an underground ceiling, like in a basement. Cobbled bricks jutted down at me, and a long pipe ran across my line of sight. Then I saw a lone bulb, shining like a sun. It hurt my eyes. I blinked a couple of times and groaned. My nostrils were full of antiseptic and iodine smell, and then greasepaint. I half rose to a sitting position. What was under me was soft and leathery. It hisssed when I moved. A couch.
“He’s okay,” a gruff voice said. “Little Eddie’s gonna be all right. The hardness of that head of his continues to amaze me.”
I’d know that voice anywhere. It belonged to a policeman. The policeman. Captain Michael Monks of Homicide. I looked for him. His broad, familiar bulk moved into focus, filled out. He was on the other side of the room worrying a cigar, with his sausage thumbs hooked at his waist. But his eyes were kind.
“Michael,” I winced. “It’s always you when I come out of these things.” I put my feet on the floor, and the effort cost me. I held back a groan, and looked around. Monks and I were alone in some dressing room someplace. I saw the mirrored table, the costume trunks with gaudy dresses spilling out of them. A cluster of maracas dangling from a hook on the closet door and a neat stack of three bongo drums by the dressing table filled my thoughts out some. Calypso, Voodoo. And then Coffee—dead Coffee.
Monks puffed on his cigar. “You okay for questions?”
I felt my head. Instead of a lump, I felt a nice thick wad of bandage. “What’s the score, anyway?” My voice was edgy with pain and irritation.
He ignored my injured feelings.
“Concussion. Mild. Had you patched up when I got here. The M.E. says to stay off your feet a couple days. But you won’t, will you?”
I ignored his fatherly advice and stood up. I felt great. Nothing wrong with me that a year’s vacation in Nassau wouldn’t fix.
“Mike, please bring me up to date. I vaguely remember somebody being murdered.”
Monks grunted and sat on one corner of the dressing table. His gimlet eyes were sarcastic.
“It is March, Mr. Noon. March fourteenth to be precise. You are in the star’s dressing room of the Calypso Club. The joint is now closed, due to circumstances beyond the management’s control. A drummer named Coffee Le Guion was killed about an hour ago. The dancer who was billed with him, Voodoo, is missing. Gone up in smoke. Somebody stuck a knife in Coffee’s back and everybody started yelling. Then all the lights went out. When they came on again, you were out cold on the floor and Voodoo was gone. I have the testimony of dozens of witnesses—even a movie star or two. My squad’s been busy for an hour collecting customer’s autographs and addresses. The management is no help. Nobody’s any help. But if you were working on something, you might be a help. My men are outside now working up a good sweat. Come on, Ed, give.”
I went over to a small sink in the corner and washed my face gingerly. Every step made my head jog with shooting pains. Monk’s recount of the ball game hadn’t made me feel any better.
“Got a cigarette?”
He lit one for me. He was a sometimes cigar smoker who always carried coffin nails. I took a deep breath. My stomach was all right now. No more butterflies. But now my head hurt and the butterflies had moved up and turned into bats.
I told him everything I knew, from the crazy telegram to the bean treatment. He waited until I finished and ground out his cigar on the floor under a disgusted heel.
“Always cute,” he growled. “Never simple. Okay, that’s your story. But when we got here, there was no redheaded beauty for miles around. Not one redhead at all. Sure she didn’t visit you in your dreams?”
“I can prove it,” I said. “Where’s Peg Temple?”
Monks blinked. “Who?”
“The blonde. She’s publicity agent for this club. Get her. She wa
s sitting with me and the redhead. Maybe she’s the one who conked me. I insulted her once.”
Monk’s expression worried me. Because he looked worried.
“You’d better sit down, Ed. You’re not making sense.”
I looked at him. “What does that mean?”
He squinted. “There’s nobody by that name working at this club.”
“That’s crazy, Mike. I asked a waiter to bring her to me and—”
“Ed—” he sighed wearily—“I quizzed the whole staff. The publicity agent is a blonde all right—a blond man. Try again.”
“I need a drink,” I said.
Monks shook his head. “Not in your condition.”
I winced. “Answer me some questions, as long as you’re not satisfied with my answers.”
“Shoot.”
“Was the knife stuck into Coffee’s back or thrown?”
He thought that one over. “Had to be stuck in. Nobody could bury that deep with just tossing it. Went all the way up to the hilt.”
“And you haven’t got one suspicious character or suspect? No bad blood in the club?”
“Lots of that, all right,” he admitted. “This Coffee turned green any time somebody looked sideways at Voodoo. He’s roughed up a couple of waiters and one drunken Texan millionaire in the three weeks they worked here. But right now you’re the best suspect there is. There was some connection between you and Coffee and Voodoo. That telegram—and I understand he paid you a visit this evening at your office.”
“Who told you?”
Monks shrugged. “We question a lot of people. Things leak out. Right now you’re it.”
“You don’t really believe that, do you?”
“No, I don’t really believe that.”
I put out my cigarette. “No idea where Voodoo is, Mike?”
He spread his hands. “Not a wrinkle. And all this devil-doll stuff you been handing me means she was scared. Dead scared. Scared enough to run. Any idea at all why she wanted to see you?”
The Voodoo Murders Page 4
