by Tim Bryant
Because Patrick Cavanaugh had been in the Army, there were fingerprints on file. A copy of them was laying right in front of me. They checked out. Patrick Cavanaugh was officially dead and buried in Mount Olivet.
"Well, that's that," I said.
I didn't like second guessing myself, but I was willing to admit when I was wrong. I wasn't dumb.
"Don't feel bad about it," Melvin said. "It happens."
I suspected the FBI were investigating the murder to see if there was any connection to Anthony Cavanaugh. It would obviously attract their attention if they thought he was involved in any way. It brought up all the same old questions again, and there were still no answers.
"I have one more thing for you," he said, pulling an unused book of S&H Green Stamps out. He handed it to me.
"I don't collect stamps," I said.
"There's a name and number on the back," he said. "I got it from my contact. He might be someone you should look into."
I flipped the book over. Walter P. Bismuke. 6 Gipsy Gulch.
"Gipsy Gulch," I said.
"It's back toward Dallas, by the golf course."
"And would Mr. Bismuke have any reason to be expecting my visit?" I said.
"He helped the FBI with some information in regards to Patrick," he said. "He seemed to know a whole lot. They did a background check on him. Turns out he was a patient of Anthony Cavanaugh, so he seems to have met Patrick up there."
"He moved down when Patrick did?" I said.
"Not exactly," he said. "He's from here."
I still wasn't sure what I was supposed to do. Walk up and knock on his door.
"Hey, can you tell me more about this guy I thought I knew, because it appears I really didn't know the son of a bitch at all."
"Yeah, that's pretty much it," Melvin said. "Hey, he's the only guy in town, as far as I know, who knew both Patrick and Anthony, and knew 'em before Patrick showed up at Peechie Keen's."
"He knows you," I said. "Why don't you go to Gipsy Gulch and talk to him?"
"He won't talk to me," Melvin said. "He thinks I'm looking for a story."
"And what am I looking for?"
"The truth."
Would Walter Bismuke know anything that would lead to Patrick's killer? If so, I was up for it. But there was something else that really swayed me. What Melvin Chambers didn't understand, I couldn't give two shits about asking this Bismuke guy to tell me what he knows. When you ask someone what he knows, he tells you what he wants you to know. Period, end of conversation. You sit back and let the person just be themselves, you give them the time and half a chance, they'll tell you what they don't want you to know. And that's what makes the monkey dance.
18
If we didn’t all remember Patrick working behind the bar at Peechie’s, there would have been nothing much to go on. When I walked into the 2222 Club, I had nothing but a vague description that might have fit half the men who walked in on a given night. I was counting on someone recognizing his name, and, way I figured it, my odds were doubled. I had two different names to throw at them.
The 2222 Club held a special place in my heart. A real rough and tumble place, teeming with Fort Worth mobsters. But Pappy Kirkwood ran a quality show. The food was good, and the entertainment a notch above the rest of the strip. I had been there in ‘52 on a night when Lefty Frizzell ambled in unexpectedly, a Dallas show having been cancelled. After a few drinks, he’d got up on the stage and played for three straight hours.
But if the rich and famous hung out there, often in its fancified hidden rooms, so did a lot of rich West Texas ranchers and oilmen. Lots of them were bootlegging liquor back to places like Abilene and Lubbock, which were dry as the sand they were built on.
I wasn’t hard to get along with, but those West Texas types sure as hell were. Whatever they were made of didn’t mix with my kind. I always wound up on the wrong side of the blackjack table, wrong side of the poker table, wrong side of whatever table I was drinking at that night. At worst, I had left their company minus the small toe in my left boot, shot off in a high-stakes game of Russian Roulette. At best, I left without my shirt and/or my dignity.
There was a big crowd on the night we returned, partially due to the fact that Smokey Hogg was on the bill. Smokey was a Texas musician who’d spent some time out in California and was starting to catch on in a big way. Good for him, but I wasn’t a big fan. I thought he was a cheap imitation of Bill Broonzy. Broonzy was the real thing.
The bartender at the 2222 had been there for several years, not counting one week when he did a few days in county for robbing a patron at gunpoint. I always figured it was one of those asshole oilmen— and I'd heard that he'd actually just robbed the guy of his tab money— I didn’t hold it against him and most other people didn’t seem to either. His job was waiting for him when he returned, and he'd never missed a day since.
On this particular night, the bar was busy. I was a good five drinks in before I got my chance. The crowd was starting to drift toward the stage, where Smokey Hogg was doing his best rendition of “Too Many Drivers."
“You know a guy that hangs out here named Patrick Cavanaugh?” I said.
I knew if he had to stop and think about it that long, he probably didn’t. He poured my drink and pushed it across the bar.
“Cavanaugh. Doesn't sound familiar.”
He picked up a glass and started cleaning it. He was about my age and had a similar build, but he had me beat when it came to mustaches. He had the kind that made me want to grow one. Looked like he would have been right at home in the Acre, back when Butch Cassidy and Wyatt Earp were men and not just names.
“I have a hunch he might have hung out at the bar some,” I said. “He was a barkeep too.”
He put his glass down.
“Ah," he said. "I think I know who you’re talking about. He showed me how to pour a Moscow Mule.”
“So you talked to him.”
“If it’s who I’m thinking of, real quiet type. Played the tables. You might ask Delmar. He oversees all that.”
I hadn't known Delmar's name, but I knew him by sight. His name fit him. He was a big, square headed guy that looked like he came from some European country. Probably far inland.
“So what exactly is a Moscow Mule?”
“Vodka cocktail,” he said. “I can pour you one, if you’d like.”
I told him I would give that some consideration.
He took somebody else’s order, and I tried to figure out what Slant Face was up to. He had his face pressed up against the side of the jukebox, which didn't appear to be plugged in. Every once in a while, he would slide down a couple of inched and then back up.
“So is everything okay with your friend?”
“Which friend would that be?” I said.
I wasn't being smart. I didn’t know if he was talking about Patrick or Slant Face.
“Cavanaugh. The bartender.”
Slant Face straightened up and looked over at us with a strange look on his face.
“He’s probably better off than most people I know,” I said, “but no, he’s not what I would call okay at all.”
He walked off and poured two drinks. I watched as he cut and squeezed a lime, working in time with the music. Smokey, across the room, was working up a head of steam and several people were hoofing it out on the floor.
“On the house,” the barkeep said and raised one of the glasses. I picked up the other one.
“I appreciate that.”
“To your friend,” he said.
The difference between jazz music and blues music comes down to this. A bad musician can wrestle some pretty good music out of a blues guitar, especially if it's electrified and turned up to rattling volume. It's common man’s music that settles down into your bones, where jazz gets up into your head. Both try to raise you up, though, and make you something more than you were.
19
We were going to pay Joe Dolly a visit, and I was pretty sure if
we didn’t leave with Cat Man’s Katy guitar, we’d get it from Pudsey Robinette. I couldn’t see anyone putting up much of a fight over a pawn shop guitar. If we were lucky, we’d shake the guilty party down and get Cat Man’s fifty dollars back as well. I wasn’t as confident of that.
Joe Dolly was a negro mechanic. I'd heard it said he was better than any white mechanic in town. He was also a music fan. I'd seen him at the Rose Room several times. I knew who Joe Dolly was. In fact, I’d taken money from Joe before, playing pool at LeRoy’s Bar and Pool Hall on Ninth Street one night after a Lester Young show. He wasn’t a bad pool player. I was having a good night.
I didn’t think he would be much in a fight, but I took Slant Face just in case. Slant claimed to be my good luck charm. I liked that he was a good luck charm who wasn’t afraid to give someone a severe beating if they needed it. He was handy with a gun too.
Joe Dolly lived in Quality Grove. It wasn’t the worst place to live, by any means, but it played pretty loose with the whole quality thing. Joe’s house was small and white with a matching fence, not much different than the houses on either side of him. He was sitting on his front porch with a drink in his hand.
“Joe Dolly.”
“Afternoon, gentlemen.”
Seemed to be in a swell mood. I walked through the gate and up the path. Everything reminded me of the place Noreen and I had rented. That put me on edge.
“I’m here for a friend of ours named Cat Man Simms,” I said. “Maybe you’ve heard of him?”
“I don’t have no business with Cat,” he said.
He stood up and reminded me that he was a good foot taller than I was. I reconsidered that he might be a little more trouble than I’d bargained for, if it came to fisticuffs. I looked back to make sure Slant was still with me.
“Mr. Simms lost a guitar just a couple nights ago,” Slant said. “Somebody said you might have seen what happened to it.”
“Well, you're not from these parts, are you?” Joe Dolly said.
Most people, when they heard Slant talk, took an active interest and wanted to hear more. There were others, though, who clammed up and didn’t want to say another word. I think they were afraid he would say something they didn't understand. Dolly appeared to be one of those.
“I’m from Richardson,” Slant said.
For once, it sounded more like a placation than a joke.
“I got nothing to help you, sir,” Dolly said. “I’d say you two best move on down the road.”
It seemed like a threat. I don’t like threats.
“Well, let me ask you this,” I said. “You have any knowledge or suspicions that Pudsey Robinette might have took Cat Man’s guitar?”
Dolly seemed even more disturbed that I implicated Pudsey. He was a man who was running out of patience. I wanted to test him, push him a little, maybe find out why.
“What would Pudsey Robinette want with that motherfucker’s guitar?”
“That’s what I’m being paid to find out,” I said.
Dolly had picked up a broom that was propped up against the side of the porch. I figured he had it in mind to sweep us on out of there, but I held firm.
“You shit asses are welcome to come up in my house and take a look for yourself,” he said. “But I can promise you this. You won’t be walking out on two feet.”
You wrestled with decisions in my line of work all the time. Only some of the time did you get to sit and figure. Lots of times, you had to make them on the fly and hope for the best. It was at this very point that I came as close to cracking Joe Dolly’s skull as I ever got. Maybe I should have done it while I had the chance. But I let him slide. It wasn’t about the damn guitar. It wasn’t even about the fifty bones. It was just about attitude. And that's mostly why I let him slide.
“You should have walloped him one,” Slant said. “I was up for it.”
We were in route to Pudsey’s house with all our faculties, but minus one guitar. We’d left Dolly standing on his front porch and talking big, but it was mostly for show. I knew that. We weren’t even his intended audience.
“He didn’t have no guitar,” I said. "That's where my interest in the matter begins and ends. I'm not getting paid to have at it with Joe Dolly."
Joe Dolly had been itching for a fight. He was sitting at home wishing he had that damn guitar.
20
Pudsey Robinette came with history. He’d been thrown in county at a young age, still school age although he wasn’t in school, for obtaining sorghum by false pretense. Who’d ever heard such a thing? It was the start of a colorful career doing all manner of things by false pretense. Nobody knew what to do with Pudsey, including Pudsey. He lived rough, as Slant put it, and from time to time, he’d rob some little store or other and just wait to be picked up and taken back in. It was a roof over his head and a few square meals. A fair trade off to his way of seeing things.
It was no great surprise that we found him at the Sheriff’s Department. They weren’t keeping him, much to his chagrin. They were processing him, taking down information in connection with a series of robberies. They had nothing on him, because Pudsey had nothing on him, but they were going to shake him down good and send him on his way.
“He’s fencing stolen merchandise in Dallas,” Wiley King said. “We didn’t grab him until he’d gotten rid of it. We’ll get half of it back if we’re lucky.”
King was happier to see me that usual because he thought I was there to take Pudsey off his hands. He was walking toward the back door, out into the back lot. A place I couldn’t follow. My time was limited.
“You know if a Kay guitar was part of the loot?”
"What loot?" he said. "There wasn't any loot."
"The goods from the robberies," I said.
“They’ve got a list up front,” King said. “I have no idea.”
I checked the front office, where an old lady named Birdie kept records. Birdie was one of a handful who was working back when I was on the force. She always acted happy to see me.
“Mr. Curridge, what are you doing here?”
Birdie had been a bridge partner with my mama years before. When I left the Sheriff’s Department, she assured mama that I was destined for at least a noble hand-to-mouth existence as a private investigator. My mother quit playing bridge with her.
“I need to take a look at that list y’all have for Mr. Robinette,” I said.
“List?”
“Wiley said you had a list of stolen merchandise.”
She rummaged around and found nothing, then asked the deputy who processed Pudsey in. They huddled together in a corner for a minute, then the deputy split. Birdie was holding the files.
“Mr. Curridge,” Birdie said. “I can let you borrow Mr. Robinette’s file if you’ll help us out.”
I had no need for the damn file. I just wanted to know if the Kay guitar had been picked up or seen or at least mentioned by someone or anyone during all of their rounding up and shaking down.
“What can I do for you, Birdie?”
I still found it hard to deny her. She was as much of a connection to family as I had. Birdie moved closer, cupped her mouth with her hand and whispered.
Ten minutes later, I left the Sheriff’s Department by the front door, with a file I didn’t need and company I didn’t want. Pudsey wasn't any happier with the arrangement.
"Why did they give me to you?" he said.
"You think you don't like it," I said "Think how I feel."
I told myself I could drop him off on any corner. I told myself at the corner of Lamar and Fifth, at Cherry and Seventh, at Lancaster and Taylor.
Then something happened. Lefty Frizzell came on the radio.
“Mom and Dad's Waltz.”
“What was that?” I said.
“That’s Lefty Frizzell,” Pudsey said. “Mom and Dad's Waltz.”
He reached down and turned the volume up. I wondered what kind of parents Pudsey had. Probably no worse than my own. I didn't really
want to think about that.
“I saw him at the Crystal Springs a couple years ago,” he said. “He signed my guitar that night after the show.”
“I was there,” I said. “Great night.”
It was a Friday afternoon, which meant the Crystal Springs would be bustling that night. I didn’t know who was playing, but it didn’t matter. I decided a visit was in order.
“I plunk around a little on the guitar,” I said. “What kind you got?”
“It's a 1948 Gibson. LG-2 Sunburst,” he said. "I don't have it anymore. Sure wish I did."
Just what I needed. Another missing guitar. I could see why an LG-2 Sunburst with Lefty Frizzell's autograph on it might get stolen though. That made a little sense.
"You don't know who got it," I said.
"No idea," he said. "If I did, I'd try to buy it back."
The song faded away into silence.
"You sold it?" I said.
“I had to pawn it a couple months back.”
Now that was a guitar I wouldn't mind hunting down. I almost offered to do it too, but I thought better of it. Pawning was pawning, fair and square. If I did look it up, if I could find that one and get it back, it might be something worth holding onto. I figured it might be smart to hold onto Pudsey for a little while too.
21
Slant Face insisted on riding along to Gipsy Gulch even if I did have Pudsey with me. It was a good neighborhood compared to Battercake, but that meant the bad guys could afford better weapons. Neither one of us trusted any neighborhood from Stop Six to The Gold Coast. We knew better.
I was pretty sure we didn't have anything to fear in Walter Bismuke. I couldn't see Melvin Chambers sending me into a lion's den with nothing but an empty book of green stamps.
"Unless he's trying to get rid of you," said Slant Face.
It was foolish to contemplate such a thing, even if I was wary of being taken in. If he was working for Sheriff King, pretty much anything was possible.
“Wiley King might be the one setting us up,” I said.
