Win, Place, and Die!

by Lawrence Lariar

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m positive,” she nodded. “I guess that would mean he was calling long distance, or something.”

  “You’ve been a great help,” I said. I told her husband to fill my gas tank. I gave him a ten dollar bill. When he went inside to make change I started the motor and drove out of there. It would have been difficult to explain the gift to him. It would have been impossible to make him understand that he had given me hope, that I had a destination now. As I hit the road, I saw him in the rear-view mirror. He was standing back there scratching his head and gaping at me.

  A half mile down the road, I swung the car to the right and slid into the broad artery that would carry me into New York City.

  CHAPTER 13

  I pushed the convertible faster. The highway was a gray ribbon winding among the low hills of Long Island. The road glistened and glimmered in the rain. The dashboard clock stood at 8:15. I would be in New York in an hour or so. The sound of the tires was a dull and endless murmur, a monotone of hissing; a reminder that the sleek car was making good time, sixty-five and heavy on the road. It could do better than this. I stepped on the gas and the convertible leaped ahead. Traffic was light and I wove in and out of the advance guard of cars easily. Anxiety pressed me forward. It would be my first step in the right direction, this quick ride into New York. I was experiencing the initial thrill of the chase, a gambit I had written about often. The detective moves with a sure step once he has found a workable lead.

  I entered the polished maw of the Midtown Tunnel and arrived in New York as a distant clock chimed nine. I crossed the almost deserted avenues to Fifth and sailed downtown to Greenwich Village. It was a quiet street that housed The Famous Cellar. It was a dark and dirty street, behind the mien wall of Bohemia, on the West Side of the district, an area of old and fading tenements and dismal warehouses and the smell of bad food and ancient garbage.

  I detoured from the night club because of the hour. I had much time to kill. A few blocks away, I recalled an Italian bistro where I had eaten before. I bought a few evening papers and gave myself up to a dinner of minestrone, spaghetti, demitasse, and a perusal of all the stories on the Jake West case.

  The report on Nickles Shuba was featured by all the newspapers. It was glamorized, of course, by the tabloids, which built a giant fantasy out of the case, decorating their pages with intimate shots of Buffo, the Blackburns, Lisa Varick, Larry Seff, and a host of others. A sob sister cried prosy tears over the fate of Nickles Shuba, who was built in her imagination as a handsome young man with great ambitions for a career in harness racing, cut down in the green years of his youth, and probably destined to remain a permanent mystery in the puzzling case that has the police baffled. There were the usual statements by MacGruder (optimistic and yet cautious, with an eye toward saying everything and yet nothing, propagandizing the law and its faithful henchmen, and promising to close in for an arrest soon); plus a further statement from the Commissioner’s desk (artfully praising MacGruder and his men, wrapping the entire police department in a garb of holy efficiency, and backing up his faith in all police in a windup of stereotyped clichés); plus a further statement by the District Attorney of Nassau County (clichés of a higher type, legal and containing more syllables)—and an additional word from an expert who pandered to any newspaper editor who would pay a penny a word and include a byline: This case is reminiscent of another similar affair—the Gordon killings of a decade or so ago—in which the elements of crooked racing and the influence of gangland czars on the sport of kings combined to baffle the police for years—including the latest killing not too far from Buffo’s—a place where the socially elite meet to mingle with the czars of crime as equals around the gaming tables—and to discuss all kinds of projects, including fixed races and fixed drivers—a hangout for the touts and shills who operate among the highbrows—

  I folded the paper and paid my check and got out of there. I walked the dark streets of the Village, working the anger out of my brain. The insinuations and innuendoes would gather force and credibility as the case wore on. The entire stew would be flavored with the smell of the stables. From this, the eager-beaver newsmen could concoct a thousand and one plots of the Hollywood crime land variety. People are prone to typecast a locale. People are anxious to build imaginative yarns about such things as race tracks, sports arenas and theatrical enterprises. Romance and crime, to the man in the street, can only exist in the unfamiliar backgrounds. John Q. Public will accuse and suspect any unfortunate soul operating in a glamorous business. He will theorize about faraway crime and take the headlines for granted, but will never suspect his neighbor of anything worse than cheating at bridge.

  I walked a broad circle of the Village, taking my time in my meanderings, drifting idly before store windows. The rain had stopped and a clean new moon hung among airy clouds. The smell of the river sweetened the air. The quiet streets were cooled by a fitful breeze. On Seventh Avenue the crowds were heavier, gathered before a movie house. I stood off to one side, studying the people. Would any in this group know my uncle? Had he visited The Famous Cellar often enough in the past to be recognized in the neighborhood? A good detective would check this idea thoroughly. A good detective would survey the area and try for a random lead among the residents, the shopkeepers, the restaurants and the hotels. I had moved many a fictional hero along such a path. It was time to move myself.

  At ten fifteen I stood before the entrance to The Famous Cellar, talking to the costumed doorman under the canopy. He fingered my small picture of Jake West, running a dirty thumb over his chin.

  “Know him?” I asked.

  “I’m new here, mister.”

  “When did you get the job?”

  “This morning,” he said.

  “Who had the job before you?”

  A cab drove up and disgorged a boisterous party of college youths. One of the girls fell into the doorman’s arms. He helped her to the sidewalk and opened the door for the group. They ran inside with a burst of alcoholic hilarity. When the door opened, a quick wave of rumba beat around us. It died as suddenly as it began. The doorman removed his hat and revealed an almost bald head. He was young enough to be doing important work. He had the vague and vacant face of a pug, well slugged and unable to regiment simple ideas. He had a chin of square and belligerent proportions.

  He rubbed the chin again. “What did you say, mister?”

  “I was asking about the man who used to have your job.”

  “Oh, him. I don’t know a thing. You better ask inside.”

  “Ask who?”

  “Anybody but me.” He shrugged wearily “All I know is I don’t go home till four in the morning.”

  “What I mean,” I said, “is this. Who hired you?”

  “Manager. Name of Ruvulo.”

  I tossed him a dollar and he grinned and opened the door for me, into a wave of muffled music, another rumba, this one heavy with drumbeats. In the split second of crossing the threshold, my memory played tricks with me. It was as if I moved into the past. Sometimes a smell can stimulate an ancient incident, sometimes the visual impact of a familiar out line; a sound, a color, a tongue-touch of a long forgotten taste. The small room ahead of me was bathed in gloom, an aura of murkiness that stirred my mental gears; everything the same as it had been the night I came here with Jake West: the bar on the right, rimmed with bluish bulbs; the phone booth hidden in the shadows in the corner; the smell of an odorous and cloying disinfectant in the air. And the girl on the left side of the bar, was she my memory’s blonde? She stared hard at me, another girl, to be sure, but alive with the same purpose as the last one, so long ago.

  I stood there caught in the magic of the moment.

  Then reality rose up to break the spell. Out of the bedlam in the main room, walking with a stiff and professional stride, his head aimed at me and alive with a businesslike simper, the headwaiter a
pproached.

  “How many?” he asked politely.

  “I’m not sitting down,” I said. “I’m here to see Ruvulo.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Somebody had painted the fixed and meaningless smile on the headwaiter in his childhood. He would smile while killing his mother.

  “Mr. Ruvulo,” he beamed, “isn’t here. Anything I can do?’

  “You can tell me when he’ll arrive.”

  “I wish I could. He’s the manager. He comes whenever be likes. Later, usually. Near midnight. You want to wait at a table? I have one in the corner, a single.”

  “I’ll wait at the bar.”

  The mechanics of fictional exploration in a situation like this would move me to automatic writing. In the routine plot, the detective seeks the menials when on the move for research. The keen investigator plumbs the simple minds, the staff; the core of the establishment. The hero of the saga approaches the bartender first, aware that this congenial superintendent of alcoholics is a man with an open eye and a conversational friendliness. I stood off in the corner of the lobby. I studied the bartender. He leaned over the bar, knee-deep in conversation with the sad-eyed blonde. He was a youngish man, ruddy-headed and freckled around the upper jaw. He had a boyish sparkle, enough crisp humor in his eyes to make the customers feel that he liked them. He was practicing on the blonde at this moment. He had her sold. All the way.

  I wooed him away from her by taking a stool at the opposite corner. He made the obvious remarks about the weather, the size of the crowd, the temper of the Yankees, the inabilities of the Giants, and who would pitch the opener in the World Series. I brought him several miles my way when he discovered that we shared a mutual admiration for Chuck Dressen and the bums from Brooklyn. He warmed to me after that. He worked steadily during our dialogue, preparing a concoction I had chosen to prolong our intimacy; a drink called The Cellar Flip, the specialty of the house. He finished mixing my drink and slid it across to me at last, dull brown in color and sporting a canopy of fruits and leaves upon a hill of cracked ice. I sipped the icy brew and showed him my love of it.

  “Nice drink,” I said. “Something new, isn’t it?’

  “My own invention,” he said proudly.

  “I’ll bet a pair of these would be murder.”

  “Mister, two of those things and you’d be walking on your knees.” He played the line to the blonde, who laughed it up for him and tried desperately to include me in her open glance. The bartender turned his back to her and gave me a significant wink. “You all alone, bud?”

  “I like it this way,” I said. “I’m waiting for Ruvulo.”

  “You got a long wait on your hands.”

  “Maybe I won’t have to hang around that long,” I said. He took my five dollar bill, rang up the deficit, and returned the change. I pushed it along the bar. I placed the small bowl of peanuts on it, allowing the bills to hang over his end. He busied himself with a peanut, pretending to be unaware of my subterfuge. “Last time I came here was about four years ago,” I said. “Nothing’s changed much about the old place.”

  “No need to change it. Customers like it the way it is.”

  “I’ll bet you get the same crowd, week in and week out.”

  “We have our share of regulars.”

  “I’m trying to locate one of them,” I said casually, laying my uncle’s picture on the bar. The bartender picked it up and showed me a face full of inquiry, but nothing resembling recognition. “Ever see him?” I asked. “He’s supposed to hang out here.”

  “Regular?”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  The bartender shook his head at the idea. “I don’t know him. Listen, maybe he comes in once in a while, but don’t let anybody tell you he’s a regular.” He tapped his head suggestively. “I got me a head for the regulars. You know why? Because it pays off in the old wallet, mister.”

  I tucked the picture away. “You’ve been working here a long time?”

  “About two years:

  “You’re practically a newcomer,” I laughed. “The place must be at least fifteen years old.”

  “Eighteen.”

  “A hell of a run for a night club.”

  “People like what we give them here.”

  “Eighteen years,” I mused. “I’ll bet there’ve been some real hot times in a place like this. Full of stories. Ruvulo must have a million of them.”

  “Ruvulo?” The bartender leaned in confidentially, after a conspiratorial squint around him in the gloom. “Listen, bud—Ruvulo is new here. Maybe on the job two, three years. From what I hear, this place really used to jump. You recall the stuff about the old Village? Artist stuff? That was when they had the parties. They really lived it up in those days.”

  “Tell me about it,” I said.

  “Me?” He laughed a long and subdued belly-laugh. “Mister, I was in diapers then.”

  “Who was around here? Who’s the oldest employee?”

  “He’s gone now. George, the doorman.”

  “Too bad.” I jerked the bowl of peanuts my way. The bills fluttered to the floor on his side of the bar. He didn’t stoop to pick them up. “I’m a newspaper man,” I said. “It’d be worth something for me to locate some of the old staff.” Now he reached down behind the bar. He came up with the bills and placed them playfully near the bowl. “Where could I reach George?” I asked.

  “That’s one you’ll have to ask Ruvulo.”

  “Suppose I can’t wait for Ruvulo?”

  “Come back later.”

  “And if I can’t?” I added another five to the bills under the bowl. The bartender seemed completely concerned with the hooker he was polishing. He held it up to examine the sparkle. He would rub a hole in it if he continued to massage it any longer.

  “Maybe somebody on the staff knows where old George lives?”

  “That could be.” He slid the bills over the edge of the bar. He added the change, dropping the coins into a tall glass behind him. He retreated to the end of the bar, lifted the trick exit leaf and emerged on the other side. “Don’t go away,” he said quietly. “I’ll see what I can dig up.”

  He crossed the lobby and went to the niche where the check girl sat. I saw them exchange a few words. The redhead in the booth eyed me skittishly. She had an active mouth. She indicated clearly through gestures and expressions that the bartender was asking her an unanswerable question. He remained behind long enough to tweak her cheek. Then he disappeared through a door at the end of the small square hall. He was gone for only a few minutes. He came out whistling a tuneless melody between his teeth, eased himself behind the bar and shook his head at me dumbly.

  “No dice,” he said. “I went into the kitchen and asked the cook. The cook knows from nothing, except George always walked home after work. Lives right near here, I guess.”

  “His last name,” I said. “What’s George’s last name?”

  The bartender stared at the ceiling. He put down his rag, He scowled. “I’ll be damned,” he said. “I’ll be double damned if I can remember.” He bounced away again, on springs this time, back across the hall to the checkroom. He went through the motions of another conference with the redhead. She, too, registered a high pitch of befuddlement. The bartender left her and took the route he had followed before, beyond the door at the end of the hall. When he returned, he was grinning broadly. “Funny thing about a doorman,” he commented. “It’s always Gus or Joe or Harry or Louie. But never the last name. You get to think of a man like that without him owning a real name. But the cook knew it. That damned cook knows everything. George’s name is Bannerman. George Bannerman.”

  George Bannerman!

  The name stabbed at me, churning up a confusion of fretful reactions. I stared at the bartender over the rim of my glass. He would fade soon. All reality would vanish for me as I turned my mind inward
. The bartender left me. He returned to the blonde, and I heard the low murmur of his voice and hers—an almost nasal response, half muffled by the greater din from the main room beyond. The background of noise faded. My inner mind pulled away from reality, fought to leave the room around me, to force itself back into the limbo of long-forgotten places and things. My tongue tasted the name over and over again: Bannerman—George Bannerman!

  Flashbacks are born out of active stimuli. A man thinks of his past only when moved by an event that shocks and disturbs. You walk the street and see a familiar face, a pretty face, the profile of an old flame, out of the wilderness of youth. Your mind gropes and grapples to identify it, to catalogue it, to set it right in your handbook of memories. You pass the profile and wonder. But unless you pause and hold fast to the problem at hand, the face will fade and die, never to be reborn again, a lost face, a dead face, a face chained to the iron door of the never-never land of the unconscious. I closed my eyes on the name and pushed back into the web of my youth. George Bannerman would be there, somewhere. I had dropped beyond my life in the army automatically, wishfully thinking that I knew no soldier with the moniker. Now I stood on the great open plain of my camaraderie with Jake West. I walked again with him. I talked with him.

  But Jake West had never spoken of Bannerman. Yet, the name burned with a teasing flame. Who had mentioned it recently?

  And then I remembered MacGruder.

  And then I was gulping the dregs of my drink and moving to the bartender and tapping his arm to pull him away from the blonde.

  “This George Bannerman,” I said. “Why was poor old George fired?”

  “Ask Ruvulo.”

  “Maybe I’d be a lot smarter asking the cook.”

  “Mister, you just said a mouthful.”

  “Lead me to him,” I said, sliding another bill under the salted nuts.

  He escorted me back through the hall and into the kitchen. He introduced me to the chef, a thin and bloodless little man named Ferdinand, who sucked a toothpick and studied the racing page of a newspaper. He clasped my hand with an uncommonly firm grip, glad to meet me and anxious to talk. He put down a small white pad to free his hand for the handshake. In a quick glimpse at his pad, I saw that he belonged to that exclusive sect of horse lovers called “chalk players.” His scheming brain would ride the handicap sheets every morning, making theoretical bets, totaling wins and losses and concocting weird formulae to bind down Dame Chance and make her work for him exclusively.