Tinseltown Tango

by Phil Swann

  “Yeah, it was, you know? I was— It was—” I stopped stammering and let out a resigned breath. I put my hand on the Pinky’s shoulder. “It was just one of those dumb luck kinds of things, Pink. I knew a guy who knew a guy. Right place, right time, that’s all. You know how it goes.”

  “Not lately,” Pinky said, shaking his head. He eventually forced a smile. “I’m happy for you, Trip. You’re a great player. You deserve it.”

  “As are you, Pink. Like I said, I just got lucky. Your time is coming.”

  “I sure hope so,” he replied.

  There was an awkward silence, one that thankfully Pinky broke. “So, tell me, how are things back in Sin City? You still hang out at The Jam Jar?”

  “More than just hang out, I live there now. I took the apartment over the top of the place. Luther made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

  “Cool, man. And is Eighty-Eight Eddie is still laying down the righteous?”

  “The old fella knows no other way.”

  Pinky smiled and nodded. “So, what the heck are you doing in here? I didn’t know you liked country and western music.”

  “I don’t. I mean, I don’t dislike it, it’s just, you know, The Palomino is famous. I wanted to see the place for myself.”

  “Come on, Trip. Don’t kid a kidder. What’s the real reason you’re here? It’s about a girl, isn’t it?”

  “Is my reputation so tarnished?” I replied.

  Pinky laughed.

  “No, it’s not about a girl,” I said. “But you’re right, there is another reason why I’m here. In fact, you might be able to help me if you don’t mind.”

  “Sure. What do you need?”

  “Have you ever seen two old guys in here? Identical twins. Practically dead ringers for each other—and they have thick accents. I know it’s a long—”

  “Are they musicians?” Pinky interrupted.

  “As a matter of fact, they are,” I confirmed.

  “Sounds like you’re talking about the Welk brothers?”

  “The Welk brothers?”

  “Well, that’s what we call them, me and the other cats in the band. You know, Welk, as in Lawrence Welk. Couldn’t tell you their real names, but they’ve been coming in here fairly regularly the last couple of weeks. Usually late, just before last call. They always have their squeezeboxes, so we let them sit in. Sometimes they even bring their friends. They’re musicians too. There’s a—”

  “Let me guess, a couple of fiddle players, an upright bass player, perhaps even an old gentleman who plays piano.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Pinky confirmed. “But no piano player, just the fiddle players and a bass guy.”

  I nodded.

  Pinky went on, “The band gets to play whatever we want that time of night, which means we sometimes stray a little from our usual repertoire. And when those cats sit in, we stray a lot. They’re actually good players.”

  “If you like tangos,” I muttered.

  “Tangos?” Pinky responded. “We don’t play tangos. We play polkas.”

  “Polkas?”

  “Yeah, those old boys know more polkas than you can shake a bratwurst at. It’s funny because the two four oompa oompa thing isn’t too far off from the music we usually play around here. Most of the audience is so sauced by that time of night, they don’t know the difference. What’s your interest in them, anyway? They owe you money?”

  “No, I’m just doing a favor for a friend. It’s not worth going into.”

  “Well, if you want to talk to them, you should check next door?”

  “Next door?”

  “Yeah, that’s where they work.”

  “Work?”

  “In the meatpacking factory two doors down.”

  “Meatpacking? Are you sure?”

  “Well, yeah. The other night, one of the Welk brothers had something that looked like blood on his trousers. Sammy, our bass player, asked him if he’d been out hunting. That’s when the Welk brother said they worked next door at the meatpacking factory.”

  “I see,” I replied, trying my best to keep my face from telegraphing the utter confusion in my head.

  “I hope that helps,” Pinky said.

  “It does, Pink, a lot. Thank you.”

  “Don’t mention it. Now buy me a beer. You’re the one with the TV gig.”

  I laughed, bought Pinky a beer, and we chatted a while longer. He caught me up on some of the cats we both knew from Vegas who’d recently moved west, and I regaled him with all the juicy gossip from The Strip. Before I left, we exchanged phone numbers and promised to stay in touch.

  There was plenty of light left in the evening sky, so I decided to leave my car parked at The Palomino and see if I could find the meatpacking factory in question on foot. I chose not to speculate on why the guys in the tango band claimed they worked at such a place, deciding any story I came up with would be just that, a story. One of the first things Clegg had taught me about doing this job was that sometimes it was best not to make anything out of what you learned. Just learn it, and let it be.

  I didn’t know which way down the street Pinky was referring to, so on a flier, I chose to go right, which turned out to be correct because several hundred feet down the block I came upon a building with a hand-painted sign hanging above its door. It read: NOHO MEATPACKING COMPANY.

  I was raised on a farm, and though Pop only grew and never grazed, we did have friends and neighbors who raised livestock, mostly pigs, but some cattle. Even so, that was enough for me to know that the meatpacking business was one of the hardest, most dangerous jobs a man could have. I couldn’t count the number of times Pop was at the hospital visiting a friend who had gotten burned in a tallow fire, lost a finger to a sausage extruder, an arm to a meat tenderizer, an eye to a hanging hook, or suffered lacerations from a flying blade. Heck, the number of men taken out by a simple ammonia spill were too many to count. Then, there were those who were killed on the job by stun guns, gut-cooker machines, or like one particular friend of Pop’s, who got his head crushed in a hide fleshing machine. I say all this not to be shocking, but to point out that the kind of men who worked at meatpacking factories were some seriously hardy gents. As far as I was concerned, the old geezers I knew from Gabriella’s tango band didn’t fit that archetype in any way, shape, or form.

  I was staring at the sign and considering all this when a white panel truck came flying down the alley next to the building. There was nothing special about the truck, and it never would have caught my eye, except for one thing. The name and logo on its door were of a hokey pastoral scene with the word EVERFRESH stenciled below it—the same name and logo I’d seen on the shipping container at the docks.

  Chapter 8

  Regardless of Clegg’s edict about not drawing conclusions from the things I learned while in the act of investigating, as I drove back to Hollywood, I couldn’t help but do just that. The gears in my noggin were grinding harder than a stripper on a Tuesday night, and I began to formulate a theory about what Cabaneri and Goetz were up to. My problem was there were too many missing pieces, which forced me to speculate on facts I was ignorant about. Luckily, I knew people who could enlighten me.

  As the sun said adios to another perfect Southern Cal day, I turned on the Falcon’s low beams and began looking for a pay phone. Of course, I could have gone back to my apartment to make the calls I needed to make, but Clegg might still be there, and I wanted to be armed and ready to impress when I saw the G-man. It was important to me that I have all my little ducklings in a row before I started spouting my wild theory on what I was now calling “the Cabaneri-Goetz crime-scapade.” Though, in truth, crime-scapade might have been giving the duo more credit than they deserved. ’Cause if I was right, what Cabaneri and Goetz were in cahoots on was perhaps the most utterly absurd criminal enterprise I’d ever heard—or at least had ever been called upon to investigate for Clegg.

  Then I remembered it wasn’t Clegg I was doing the investigating for. It
was for D.A. Colson. That realization brought me immeasurable joy bordering on uncontrollable giddiness. For if what I thought was going on was indeed what was going on, then yes, Colson would finally be able to nab Anthony Cabaneri for a crime. Unfortunately, for Colson that is, it would not be the Cary Grant on the French Riviera kind of crime I was certain he was counting on, meaning not the kind of criminal litigation that would instantly catapult a young, opportunistic district attorney into the governor’s mansion in Sacramento. I couldn’t help but giggle out loud.

  I located a phone booth outside a small diner off Cahuenga Boulevard and pulled over. I dropped a dime and dialed zero for the operator. I made my request and checked my watch as I waited for the call to be connected.

  “Helwo,” the voice answered.

  “I have a collect call from…Trip,” the operator said. “Will you accept the charges?”

  “Wha da hell he wan?” the gruff voice mumbled back.

  “Will you accept the charges, sir?”

  “Sam, put down the sandwich and accept the charges,” I interjected.

  I heard a long sigh, followed by an even longer belch.

  Las Vegas Police Detective Sam Barnard was many things: honest, loyal, brave, and a top-notch law enforcement officer. He also happened to be abrasive, uncouth, a lousy dresser, and due to possessing the table manners of a silverback gorilla—and that might be insulting to the gorilla—could possibly be the worst dinner guest since the invention of the knife and fork. With that said, Sam and I had formed an unlikely friendship over the previous year, and like it or not, now had history, a history that Federal Agent Peter Clegg played no small role in fostering. As such, Sam was someone I could go to for help when Clegg was not an option. The big galoot had saved my potatoes on more than one occasion, and I trusted him completely. I’d like to think he would report the same about me, but with Sam you never knew.

  Sam finally accepted my call, and the operator connected us.

  “Sorry to interrupt your dinner,” I said.

  “No you’re not. Otherwise you wouldn’t be interrupting. Why do people always say that? ‘Sorry to bother you.’ Then don’t bother me. Besides, it’s not dinner, it’s breakfast.”

  “Breakfast? The sun just went down.”

  “And I’ve been on a twenty-four-hour stakeout all week. I didn’t hit the sack until ten this morning.”

  “A stakeout?” I cooed. “Cool. Anything interesting?”

  “No. What do you want, Callaway? This call’s costing me money, and my grits are getting cold.”

  “What do you know about Anthony Cabaneri?”

  I swear I could see Sam roll his eyes through the telephone line.

  “So, he who shall not be named has you on another caper,” he said. “I thought you were in L.A. to play your horn on some movie or something.”

  Sam was one of the few people who knew about me working for Clegg. Luther and Betsy were the only others. But Sam and I never talked about it. I suspected that was because Sam was on the G-man’s payroll like me. But because it was something neither of us were particularly proud of, we opted to pretend that Clegg was just a figment of our collective imaginations. Clegg’s assignments were top-secret, and regardless of how much Clegg swore we were doing the Lord’s work, his assignments often blurred the line between what was legal and what was most assuredly not. That was one of the many reasons why when it came to Clegg, Sam and I generally avoided the subject.

  “Movie’s finished. Now I’m on a TV show,” I stated.

  “Groovy. Which one?”

  “It’s new. You don’t know it. So, Anthony Cabaneri. You got anything?”

  Sam sighed. “Not much. He’s a hood, for sure. Probably has his paws in a little bit of everything, but you’d never get anyone down at City Hall to admit that. He stays under the radar, unlike the other lowlifes in this town who strut around the casinos like they own the joint, which I suppose they do, come to think of it. Cabaneri prefers a lower profile. At least he does here in Vegas.”

  “Meaning he’s never anywhere near where the bodies are buried.”

  Sam chortled, “That’s one way to put it. Why do you ask? Or do I not want to know?”

  “You don’t want to know,” I replied.

  Then Sam added, “There was one strange thing.”

  “What?” I responded.

  “It was a case we had two or three years back. The department was investigating some hanky-panky going on inside the Teamsters and suspected Cabaneri might be involved. During the course of the investigation, we learned Anthony kept a woman here in town.”

  “A mobster keeping a tootsie on The Strip? What’s strange about that?”

  “That’s just it. She wasn’t a tootsie. At least, not in the typical sense.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning, she had to be at least twenty years older than Cabaneri, if not more. What hood sets up a woman that’s twenty plus years his senior?

  I mulled it over for a second. “His mother?”

  “That’s what we thought. But everything we dug up said that Cabaneri’s mother died something like twenty years ago. I wasn’t running lead on the investigation, so I don’t remember if we ever learned who she was or not. Given we ultimately couldn’t pin anything on Cabaneri with the Teamsters thing, we probably just let the matter go. But I’m not sure. I’ll ask around and let you know what I find out.”

  “Thanks, Sam. I owe you.”

  “And I’ll collect.”

  “I’m sure you will.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah. Have you ever heard of a guy named Ricardo Goetz?”

  “Nope,” Sam replied.

  “How about a trucking outfit called Everfresh?”

  “Negatory.”

  “What about a company called NoHo Meatpacking?”

  “What the hell are you into, Callaway?”

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Go eat your grits, Sam.”

  “They’re cold.”

  “Order some more. They’re on me.”

  “That doesn’t make us even.”

  “Later, Sam.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  Sam hung up, and I dialed zero for the operator again. This time the person on the other end of the line accepted the charges without protest.

  “Hey, Bets,” I said. “Miss me?”

  “Like a toothache,” Betsy replied.

  “And before you say it, I’ll pay you back for this call.”

  “How about the dollar-fifty you owe me for picking up your dry cleaning?”

  “Just put it on my tab.”

  “Your tab is becoming a dang novel, Trip.”

  Betsy Beaurepaire was a sassy creole beauty about my age and the daughter of Luther Beaurepaire, a gentle giant man of color, who owned and operated The Jam Jar, a cool, little jazz bistro on the west side of Las Vegas.

  Five years ago, I stepped off a bus from Indiana and walked into The Jam Jar looking for a gig. Since then, the Beaurepaires had become more than friends; they had become family, with Bets being the sister I never had. And with Pop gone, Luther had taken on the role of mentor, cheerleader, and all-around go-to-guy when I needed wisdom on anything life related, but in truth, Luther’s true sagacity lay in two specific domains: music and food.

  As a native of New Orleans, Luther’s mastery of Creole cuisine was legendary in Sin City, and his finely-honed ear to spot musical talent was regarded as second to none. This made The Jam Jar not only a fine place to expand your waistband, but also a rite of passage for any musician trying to break into the Las Vegas music scene. If you could play at The Jam Jar, it was said, you could play anywhere in town. It was widely assumed that it was Betsy who ran The Jam Jar’s day-to-day, leaving Luther to focus on all things culinary and chromatic. But since moving into the apartment above the place, I can report that was not strictly true. Luther did run the business, but there was no doubt that without Betsy’s ability to stretch a buck, he
r organizational know-how, and her obsessive attention to detail, The Jam Jar wouldn’t be anything close to what it was, and Luther would be in the tall grass.

  “But,” Betsy continued, her voice going up and her tone distinctively softening. “I know how you can clear that tab.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said. “How?”

  “By doing me a little favor?”

  “What kind of favor?” I replied hesitantly.

  “Nothing much. Just ask your friend Mr. Clegg if he’d check out Rodney.”

  “Who’s Rodney?”

  “You met Rodney. He’s that boy I introduced you to in the club a few weeks ago. The one stationed out at Nellis.”

  “The jet jockey?” I responded, louder than I had intended.

  “He’s a captain in the United States Air Force, Trip. That is, he’s going to be as soon as he finishes his training.”

  “Oh Lord, Bets, don’t tell me you’ve gone and fallen for a pilot.”

  “I’m crazy about him, Trip, but Daddy won’t even give him a chance.”

  “Yeah, well, your father is just—”

  “So, I thought if your Mr. Clegg could you know, do a little investigating and put something together like a report saying what a fine American boy Rodney was, and then you and Mr. Clegg could tell Daddy, then Daddy might change his mind about Rodney. He’ll listen to you, Trip. And Mr. Clegg.”

  “It’s Agent Clegg, and I don’t think your father even likes him. For that matter, neither do you.”

  “I don’t dislike Agent Clegg, I just don’t trust him. But he could change my mind real fast if he did this little thing for me. What do you say, Trip? Will you help me? Will you ask Agent Clegg to check out Rodney?”

  I pulled the phone from my ear and ran my hand down my face. After several seconds of debate, I surrendered a sigh. “You really like this guy?”

  “I think I might love him, Trip.”

  Oh, Bets, I thought but didn’t say out loud.

  Everything inside me screamed this was a bad idea, but it was Betsy. And there weren’t too many things on this earth I wouldn’t do for that girl.

  “Okay, Bets. I’ll ask Clegg if he’ll check out your pilot. And I’m still paying you back the money I owe you.”