Sugar Shannon
Lawrence Lariar
CHAPTER 1
8:30 P.M. Friday
Gwen Moody was with me when the trouble began.
The bar in The Grotto was packed with the usual horde of beatnik wolves, a potpourri of anxious males who dedicated themselves to the wooing and winning of any unescorted girl in the bistro.
Gwen nudged my elbow and said: “Brace yourself, Sugar. Here comes the sly puss again.”
The sly puss was a gangling youth with a decorative beard. He slid along the bar and rubbed my shoulder. He ordered a drink and when it came he turned the glass in his lean hand and spoke to the bubbles.
“Sister,” he said. “You are the most.”
“Fade, brother,” I told him.
“I mean fantastic. Beautiful.”
“Skid off, brother. You bother me.”
“And those eyes. Mad eyes.”
“Take your hand off my knee, brother.”
“My pad is up the block. You’re for me, baby.”
“Your hand,” I said again. “I’ll cut it off with my little Girl Scout knife.”
“And you’re tough, too. I like my women tough.”
“Dandy,” I said, and let him have my scotch and soda right in his mangy face. “That should cool you off a bit, brother dear.”
“Tourist,” he mumbled, moving away from me to dry his frazzled beard.
Nobody noticed our little scene. In The Grotto, each customer waged his own private little war. It was a typically Bohemian bistro, artfully located in the basement of a converted stable on one of the back alley lanes of Greenwich Village. Serena Armitage had wisely preserved the original barnish background. The walls were brick, the ceilings raftered. Occasional hanging lanterns threw a vague, uneasy glow over the small tables. Against the whitewashed brick walls hung paintings of all types; original oils of the modern Village school, abstractions and Dadaistic dreams and imitative renderings of the Picasso type of artistic endeavor. The bar was crude and simple, a thick pine board on a base of the same, with stools to match.
And on the stools, and at the tables, a horde of patrons drank and buzzed and beat time to the recorded strains of a Shelley Mann jazz opera, thumping and droning out of a hidden speaker.
The woman behind the bar was Serena Armitage, a pert blonde on the debit side of forty but holding her own in the fight against age by sly corsets and cosmetics.
“Sugar Shannon,” she said.
“You have a good memory,” I said.
“And Gwen Moody?”
“Two bull’s eyes,” Gwen said. “How do you know us, Serena?”
“I know you because I read the newspapers,” Serena said blandly. “You both work for The Star, right? I read your last series on the Puerto Rican problem. Good job. Intelligently done. You have a way with words, Sugar.”
“Thank you.”
“And you, Gwen, do a nice job of sketching the background in pen and ink. Real talent, both of you gals.”
“Thanks again,” I said. She chatted amiably, but behind the dialogue, her keen brain was trying for a fix on us. She was probably recalling the series Gwen and I did on the beatniks only a few months ago. We had visited her den and sat for hours watching the mad artists and writers sip their coffee and yammer Zen philosophy at each other. Gwen and I had played the job for corn. We dressed ourselves in the approved beatnik manner, blowsy sweaters and long black stockings plus a Charles Addams try at the zombie make-up the denizens of the Village coffee houses favored. We moved freely among the bearded boys, taking notes and plumbing the souls of as many willing males as we could collar. Gwen, of course, went whole hog after her research, grabbing herself an avant-garde amour who wooed her and wowed her in his attic on West Fourth Street. We emerged from the adventure with the hottest memoranda on the beatniks ever gathered in Greenwich Village. The articles earned us a bonus and established me as an expert on the mores of the madniks.
“What will you have, girls?” Serena asked.
“Peace and quiet,” I said.
“You came to the wrong place for peace and quiet, Sugar.”
“How long does the din continue?”
“Ad infinitum.”
“A long time,” I said, “even in Latin.”
“I thought you liked it,” Serena said archly. “You wrote about my place with some kindness, as I recall.”
“I understand their yammer, Serena. But that doesn’t mean I can’t live without it.”
“I wish I could offer you earmuffs.”
“Maybe a double scotch will do the job.”
“I’ll have the same,” Gwen said.
We drank and discussed art with Serena. She had a good knowledge of the contemporary painters and a sincere interest in all things artistic.
We were running through the list of Village artists when a short, bouncy man approached the bar.
“Wow-oooooo!” said Gwen, responding to the touch of his inquisitive little hand on her buttocks.
“Ah, it is my little friend from the woods,” said the man, encircling her with a sudden lunge. “Is it that you remember me, ma chérie?”
“Is it that you would like a stiff right to the gut, Jacques Lambert?”
“Then you do remember me, alors?”
“I’d know your touch anywhere, alors. Remove the fingers before I slam you.”
“A thousand apologies,” said Jacques, bowing in his best European manner. “It is just that you are such a delectable morsel, ma petite. And who is your charming friend?”
“Her name is Sugar Shannon and she’ll break your skull if you make a pass at her.”
“I am enchanted,” said Jacques, proving to me that he could bow lower than his navel. He directed Serena to serve us drinks and sat on the stool beside Gwen. He was as nervous as a small bird, his pudgy hands in perpetual motion, his erratic eyes blinking and winking whenever he spoke. He had a cherub’s face, round and smooth and forever smiling. But behind his little black eyes lay depths of cunning and sagacity.
“Has he been in yet?” he asked Serena. “Mon ami, George DeBeers?”
“In,” said Serena, “and out.”
“So? And where might I find him?”
“In bed.”
“At his studio, alors?”
“I doubt it.”
“Oh?” The Frenchman’s eyes lit with a bedroom glow and he blinked his understanding. He had a trim, pointed beard and a hairline moustache that gave him a Gallic air. He was perpetually working to show his twitchy personality, his mouth open in speech and open while listening. He frowned. “Perhaps George will be here again, later?”
“Possible,” said Serena. “He sure was tanked. And when George hits the bottle, he usually hits it hard. He may run out of supplies and come back here for a nightcap. It’s happened before.”
“So? Then I, too, shall perhaps return.”
“Ow-ooo!” said Gwen, brushing away his restless fingers. “Don’t you ever give up?”
“You are a cute pigeon, ma chérie. Perhaps you will someday visit my gallery?”
“And see your mezzotints?” Gwen said. “Not on your life.”
“I shall, nevertheless, keep dreaming of that happy circumstance, ma petite.”
“Pleasant dreams,” said Gwen.
The place buzzed and hummed with the idiot sounds of the drinking customers, full up and ripening now, loaded with local folk. In the far corner a few of the younger beatniks were draped around a lad with a guitar who strummed folk tunes and sang the lyrics with eyes closed. The place was lit with a funereal
light, just enough glow to give the diners a clue to their food. The décor was simple, black on black. Around and about the tables odd groups of Greenwich Village characters draped themselves in odder attitudes, some lost in esoteric discussions, others leaning into each other in postures of lovemaking. The entire effect sang with lunacy. Who would ever bother to look at the rows of paintings on the walls? Serena’s place had a prime reputation in the art world. She had discovered and promoted many an unknown artist in The Village.
Even now, through the gray blanket of smoke, I could make out some of the more celebrated names; a murky Chester Stacy landscape, a Horgan portrait, and a wild abstraction by George DeBeers.
“Over there,” I nudged Gwen. “Some of George’s work.”
“Over where?” Gwen asked, squinting through the gloom. “Point it out to me, Sugar.”
“On the wall above the cute little man with the guitar.”
“He is cute, isn’t he?” Gwen giggled, licking her lips over him and nibbling at him with her eager eyes. She was always avid over folk-song-strummers and this one had her throbbing with delight.
“Concentrate on George’s picture,” I said. “I want your critical opinion.”
Gwen walked to the wall and studied the George DeBeers painting in the way that all artists appraise their compatriots in the field. She stood back, squinted and sucked her thumb. She advanced two steps and retreated three. When she was finished, she hesitated for a brief pause while regarding the little guitar player. But he was lost to his lyrics and gave her no mind.
“How did you like him?” I asked.
“A doll,” said Gwen. “He has green eyes.”
“The painting, idiot. How did you like it?”
“Oh, the painting. Just great. George DeBeers is a terrific artist, Sugar. Fantastically good, really. But why does he hang in a dump like this?”
“He doesn’t. George is a Fifty-Seventh Street artist now. He shows in the Jacques Lambert Gallery and sells at staggering prices. But George is a soft and mushy character, deep down. He’ll never forget Serena Armitage because she gave him a break when he started.”
“Perfectly true, Sugar,” said Serena, easing herself into our conversation smoothly. She had a keen ear for muffled dialogue. She was listening to our small talk from a dozen feet away and had heard every word. “George DeBeers is a prince among painters. Listen, I’ve helped them all and gotten nothing but bad checks from most of them. But not George. When he made the big time, he didn’t rush uptown like some of the other stiffs I could mention. George still lives down here in the Village among his friends.”
“Still on Farnum Street?” I asked.
“That’s right.” Serena eyed me quizzically, her dark eyes bright with curiosity. “You know him, Sugar?”
“We’re old friends.”
“Interesting. Know him well?”
“Well enough.” Her sharp questions were annoying me. She had a probing, biting way of talking and there was deep intelligence behind her commercial smile.
“It figures,” Serena said. “George is a sucker for the cute chicks.”
“Thanks, for nothing.”
“No offence intended, Sugar. It’s just that I’m very fond of George DeBeers. He’s a little soft upstairs, in the female department. Pretty unsteady, if you know what I mean.”
“Break it down for me.”
“Some of the women he has a yen for.”
“For instance?”
“His latest one,” Serena rolled her tired eyes at the ceiling and held them there, as though estimating the cost of a new plaster job. When she finally beamed them at me there was a long pause while she weighed me on her personal scales. She put down the glass she was polishing and leaned on the bar. “I talk too much sometimes, Sugar. Can I get you another scotch?”
“Make it two,” Gwen said.
“Have you seen George lately?” I asked.
“He rolled in about an hour ago.”
“Rolled?”
“He was tanked.”
“Poor George,” I said.
“Poor he isn’t,” said Serena. “George has begun to nibble at the big time in art. He seems to have plenty of money. And he certainly spends it.” She was in a soft mood now, her face losing some of its cosmetic varnish as some hidden emotion ate at her. “George is on his way to hell with the alcohol. He’s too great a talent to let himself burn out that way.”
“Who’s the gal lighting the fuse for him?”
“Tonight he came in with Marianne Fry.”
“His lady love?”
“Marianne?” Serena’s laugh was a husky gurgle. “Marianne’s one of the local beatnik babes. She does a bit of posing around town—especially in the nude and on her pretty backside.”
“Is George painting nudes now?”
“George doesn’t use her for painting.”
Gwen said: “I know the doll, Sugar.”
“How is that possible?” Serena asked testily. “Are you a local? Marianne has a strictly Village reputation.”
“Gwen gets around,” I said. “She knows everybody.”
It was true. Gwen Moody was a wonderful character, a young New Yorker who loved her town. She was about two years older than me, probably twenty-six, but wise and clever in the cerebral department. She had hit the big town out of a girlhood spend in New Brunswick, New Jersey, but her rustic ways soon changed after a few years in a Manhattan art school. She found a berth on The Star and began to specialize in artistic layouts for the Sunday pages. Her assignments took her into all the odd corners of the great city. She loved her work with a burning fire. Her temperament suited her job. She had a lively interest in anybody and everybody who crossed her path and challenged her sketching hand, especially the males. Her pert little face lit up whenever a fresh masculine character appealed to her. She believed strongly in clutching at the immediate and to hell with what tomorrow might bring. This state of mind fortified her from day to day, despite the casual immorality of her many conquests. Gwen Moody enjoyed the boys. Sex, for her, was something you relished as often as the bedroom imp challenged you. And she had the face and figure to snare a mattress mate whenever the mood ate at her.
“Marianne Fry?” Gwen laughed. “She used to pose for an uptown sketch class. Marianne’s got a figure like something out of a Playboy spread. She’s as big-busted us a fertility goddess, but has very weak legs. She could be poison for your friend George DeBeers.”
“Poor George,” I said again. I had seen George a year ago. We said goodbye in a friendly way, simply because we reached a dead-end in the romantic department. He was a strange man, the perennial youth, the man with the little boy’s libido. We met at a Village party and George pursued me for a few frantic months. He was madly in love with me and I didn’t mind it too much. He was a sweet and gentle type, full of soft words and softer sentiments. We spend many a wonderful evening in his studio, just talking and dreaming before his giant fireplace. But in the end, I said goodbye to George DeBeers because of his sudden, frightening moods, his fits of depression followed by the inevitable bouts with the bottle. He would call me in his sober moments, telling me of his progress in painting. They were pleasant conversations. Until his last phone call. “I’ve got to see you again, Sugar,” he said. “Something important. Something vital. Don’t turn me down. Be at The Grotto on Friday night, about nine.” But it was already almost ten.
“He drinks,” Serena said with a sigh. “He drinks a lot, Sugar.”
“And what about his latest love?” I asked.
“You’ve got a stubborn memory, haven’t you?”
“I’m a reporter, Serena. I never forget a word of dialogue. You were talking about another girl, remember? His true love?”
“To hell with her. None of my business.” Her eyes hardened under the impact of some deep and disturbing emoti
on. In this pose, she was a formidable figure, a woman with stubborn resolve. Her mouth tightened in a cruel red line and she pretended to busy herself with a dirty glass.
“Listen, Serena,” I said. “I had a date to meet George here and he’s late. I’m worried about him. It could be that he’s with this amour you mentioned. I could phone her and check—”
“Magda Trent,” she snapped. “I hate her icy guts.”
“Not Magda Trent the sculptress?” Gwen asked.
“The same. A talented bitch. But a bitch.”
“What makes her so bitchy?”
“Ask me an easy one,” Serena sighed. “I probably hate her because of her routine. She started a big brawl in here the other night. A real fight between George and Jeff Keck. She was playing them one against the other, a real femme fatale type, if you get what I mean. And Keck outweighs George by maybe a hundred pounds. He would have slaughtered George if I hadn’t managed to bounce the big gorilla out of here. You see, Magda Trent isn’t satisfied with one man. She builds herself a tournament every time she falls in love. She likes her wooers in duplicate and let the corpses fall where they may. She’s poison for George DeBeers—real poison.”
“Does she live in the Village?”
“Not Magda. She has a studio uptown.”
“A rich lady sculptress,” laughed Gwen. “Sounds like a character in a television opera.”
“She may be rich, but she’s no lady,” Serena said with a face full of sour pickles. She signaled to her barman and he came over on the run. “I’m going back for a bit of sleep, Sam. Take over for a while.”
Sam took over. He was a middle-aged character out of the old school of bartending. He had served drinks in the Village for over thirty years and was proud to tell us some of his conventional bar-type stories about the residents. I prodded him with my womanly needle and he began to talk about George DeBeers. Was George happy these days? George was not. Something bothered George, some mental worm that ate at his talent. A woman? It certainly could be a woman, the bartender agreed. It might be Magda, “a teasing type of wench,” and the top love in George’s current love life. And how about George’s painting?
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