Honky-Tonk Girl

by Charles Beckman, Jr.

  “I—I’m trying, Johnny,” she faltered. “Honest, I—”

  He suddenly sat up and closed his fingers around her shoulders. “Well, you’re not trying hard enough,” he said, shaking her until her blonde hair fell into her eyes. “Can’t you see how important it is? Can’t you see that somebody is trying to kill off the guys in my band—and you too—and now I’m fighting this damned crooked police department and they want me dead too? Who shot Miff that night? Was it Raye Cowles? Was it Jean, the streetwalker? Or was it somebody else? Think, for God’s sake! Think!” His voice rose and he shook her until her teeth clicked.

  “Johnny!” she suddenly screamed. She wrenched away from him and stood up, covering her face with her hands, sobbing hysterically. “I don’t know. I can’t think! Stop asking me, Johnny! Please...stop asking me! Her slim body shook with great, wracking sobs. Then the skin in her face grew taut, pulling her lips back from her teeth and she began to laugh, rocking back and forth uncontrollably.

  Johnny scrambled off the bed and dragged her, fighting and scratching, into the bathroom and put her under the shower. He held her there until the hysteria had subsided. Then he sat down on the toilet seat and held her wet body in his arms.

  “I’m sorry, kid,” he said gruffly.

  She put her forehead against his bare shoulder, sniffing softly. “Please don’t ask me any more, darling. Please....” She lifted her bare arms and slipped them around his shoulders. Then she pulled herself up and crushed her wet, parted lips against his mouth.

  For the first time, he realized he didn’t have any clothes on—and she had next to none. But it was too late to do anything about it—the way she was kissing him.

  “Johnny, I love you. Whatever is going to happen to us, please...I want to belong to you....” Her voice was thick, her breathing heavy.

  “Here? Now?”

  “Here...now! Oh, darling—”

  He slid to the wet tile floor.

  “These damned handcuffs—”

  She writhed against him. “I’ll-do everything.” she whispered. “Here, slip your arms over my shoulders.”

  Her wet body was cool and soothing against his bruises.

  Her voice was hoarse and muffled against his chest. “Johnny,” she murmured. “Johnny, darling....”

  And then they didn’t talk any more.

  * * * * * * *

  Later that afternoon, Johnny sat in bed, smoking. He had sent Ruth after some clothes and some tools. They had discussed the dangers involved and decided they would have to take the chance on her going out. He would never be able to get out of this room unless they somehow got the handcuffs off.

  While he sat there, he ran through everything over and over in his mind until it was like a broken record, repeating names and facts over and over again. First Zack Turner had died.... Then Christine ran out on him...Christine, who’d been double-crossing him with Miff Smith...then Miff had been killed.... Jean Nathan had been in his room...and so had Ruth Jordon...and Raye Cowles’ pin had been found there.... George Swenninger said Miff had been blackmailing somebody...who?...maybe Norman Norman’s wife Hazel, who no doubt had also had an affair with Miff....

  And while the names spun around in his mind, in the background echoed the melodies of the Ghost Album, mocking him, laughing at him. And he had the feeling that as long as the album played, death would be stalking his band....

  There was a sudden knock at the door.

  He got up and opened it.

  Ruth Jordon stood outside with a bundle under her arm.

  Her face was white and sick-looking. There were streaks in the powder on her cheeks, from dried tears.

  “Johnny,” she whispered. Her mouth worked and she began to cry again.

  A little lump of ice formed in Johnny’s chest. He tried to say something but there weren’t any words.

  She walked past him into the room. She put the bundle down on the bed. Shakily, she pushed her fingers through her hair. She shook her head, her eyes wide and staring at him. “I don’t know how to tell you. All the way up here I tried to think how to tell you and I don’t know....” She handed him a newspaper.

  It wasn’t much of a story. He hadn’t been an important man. He hadn’t started any wars or invented any new kind of mass destruction weapons. All he had done was to play music the way he felt it in his heart, and that isn’t very important to the world.

  So he hadn’t rated much of a story. It read:

  MUSICIAN VICTIM OF HIT-AND-RUN DRIVER

  The body of a man found early this morning at the corner of Maple and Travis Streets was identified later today as Tizzy Mole, a musician playing with the Johnny Nickles Jazz Band at the Sho-Tune Bar. He was apparently run down and killed early last night, but was not found in that deserted part of town until nearly dawn today.

  Mole had gained international fame as a musician with the Nickles group. This band attracted wide interest with their recording of a memory album of jazz records called “The Ghost Album,” which recalls the styles of famous jazz artists since the turn of the century.

  Mole was born in New Orleans but his present home address is given as New York City. No clue to the driver of the vehicle that struck him has been found.

  He is survived by his mother, Mrs. Henry Mole, a sister....

  Ruth Jordon moved a step closer to Johnny, then stopped.

  He didn’t see her. He stared straight ahead. He was looking at a guy with a crew haircut and batwing ears who, somehow, had never been able to keep his shirttail in when he got drunk.

  “Johnny, don’t look like that,” Ruth whispered. “Your face—it’s awful....”

  He turned away from her and walked around the room, stumbling over things. Then he sat down on the edge of the bed and dug his fingers into his scalp. He cried a little, sitting there that way.

  And somewhere in the back of his mind, the Ghost Album went on playing, mocking him....

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  HOUSE OF HATE

  Friday Evening, 8:00 P.M.

  “Johnny, please, let’s go away. Stop fighting this thing. We could get to Mexico. It’s only a little over an hour’s drive away. Then you’d be safe. We could go away together, South America, anywhere—”

  Ruth had pleaded with him that way back in the hotel room less than an hour ago.

  It would be nice. His tired body wanted to relax and just drift. It would be nice to be hidden away somewhere with Ruth and her wonderful young, golden body and her voice singing softly his kind of music. But his mind knew there was no such place for them. Death had followed them to Mexico once before, and it would follow them wherever they went unless the shadow of the Ghost Album were destroyed. And if he were to go away now, he would have to leave his music behind him. Trumped-up though it was, there was still an official murder charge against him. Unless the real killer of Miff Smith were found, if he ever came back to the States again, or played anywhere else, for that matter, his trumpet would broadcast his name and he would be taken back to face a murder charge, one that the Cowles’ political power might make stick.

  There was no hiding anywhere for a guy like Johnny Nickles.

  There was only one way for him to go now, and that was straight ahead, even if it meant his walking straight into the waiting hands of Death.

  First Zack Turner, then Miff Smith. Now Tizzy Mole. One by one, the guys who had recorded the Ghost Album were joining the ranks of the dead musicians they had copied in the Album. The last of the great jazz musicians had made one last record and were now bowing out, one by one. Only Eddie Howard, J. W. Richey, Link Rayl and Johnny were left. And there was nothing Johnny could do but to keep on trying blindly, hoping to find the killer, while the sands of time trickled out for all of them.

  So he and the blonde girl had hacked and sawed and chiseled until they were able to pry the chain on the handcuffs apart. The ends were still locked to his wrists, but his arms were free, and he kept the cuffs pushed up under his sleeve, out of sigh
t. Now he was walking along a dark street in search of a telephone booth. Inside, he dialed Dr. Ed Nathan’s number.

  Jean Nathan answered.

  “Can you talk?” he asked.

  She drew in a long breath. “Hello, Johnny. Yeah, I’m here alone. Listen, I’ve found that Raye Cowles girl. I called the drugstore about her prescription and they told me they sent a fresh supply out to her a day or two ago. Her old man’s got her hidden away in one of his rent houses. The address is number four-three-nine Cambridge.”

  Johnny banged his fist against the side of the telephone. “Good!”

  “Wait a minute. I’ve found out something else too—it might be important.” She laughed low in her throat. “I’ve been snooping around in my dear hubby’s files.”

  “What is it?”

  She hesitated. “Maybe I’d better wait and tell you when you come over.”

  “Okay. You stay put. I’ll be over in a few minutes. Then we’ll go to see George Swenninger together. He’s one guy I can trust. Maybe, between us, we can find the answer to this thing. The only thing I hate,” Johnny swore, “is what this is going to do to Ed Nathan. When it’s all over, the whole town will know his wife’s a whore.”

  Her voice came back over the wire with a low chuckle. “Good. That’s just what I want! Look, don’t lose any sleep over it, Johnny. I know you think Ed’s a swell guy and that I’m the lowest thing that ever walked in skirts. But you don’t know the whole story. Once, a long time ago, I thought he was swell too. I thought so as completely as a young girl in love for the first time can. I worshipped him. We were married and I became pregnant with his child. Then one day I came home a day early from a trip and found him at the house with one of his women patients. I don’t think I have to tell you how I found them....” Her voice cracked. “Do you know what something like that can do to a young, faithful wife, Johnny? Have you any idea?” Her voice took on a hard, metallic ring. “The shock made me lose the child and then I had to have an operation and couldn’t ever have another. I’ve hated him, Johnny, for five years. Hated him in a way you can’t begin to understand—”

  Her voice suddenly broke off and there was a moment’s silence. Then she spoke again in a hushed whisper. “Johnny, hurry over here!”

  “Why—what’s happened?”

  “Never mind. Just for God’s sake hurry—”

  There was a click and the line went dead.

  Johnny stared at the instrument briefly, a blank look on his face. Then he hurried out to the street and hailed a taxi.

  * * * * * * *

  It took the better part of fifteen minutes to get to her house. Johnny paid the driver and ran up the walk. The house was dark and silent. He rapped softly at the front door. There was no answer. When he tried the knob, he found it locked. He walked around to the back of the house. There he found the kitchen door open. He walked through the kitchen softly, feeling his way.

  In the next room, he heard a rustle and a low moan. He groped along a wall until he found a switch. Then he took a deep breath and snapped it on.

  He found himself in the dining room. It was empty. And it had been recently wrecked. The table was overturned, chairs were strewn around, dishes and vases were lying in fragments on the carpet. There was a dark red stain in the carpet and streaks of the same color stain leading toward a hall. The moan that Johnny heard was coming from the hall. Standing there, he heard it again.

  Cautiously, he stepped over the debris out into the hallway. There in the light spilled through the open doorway of the dining room, he saw Jean. She was dressed in her Honky-Tonk costume, the shiny black satin dress, ankle strap shoes, black mesh stockings and red patent leather purse. But the clothes had been torn to shreds. The dress had been ripped al the way down the front. The stockings hung in shreds from her legs. Her underthings had been torn almost completely away.

  Johnny knelt beside her.

  “No,” she whispered through set teeth. “Don’t touch me. Please don’t touch me.”

  She had both her hands over her breasts, but they couldn’t hold all the blood back. It trickled through her fingers and spilled down the front of her skirt. She was sitting on the floor, slumped against the wall. Her pinched white face was staring at Johnny, her black eyes large and unbelieving. She tried to open her mouth to say something, but it grew all red and twisted and some of the red trickled down her chin.

  He said, “I’m—I’m sorry, Jean. I got here as fast as I could.”

  She made a soft wheezing sound when she breathed. “Doesn’t...really matter.” She made a little grimace of pain. “Cigarette?”

  A car came into the driveway, flashing its lights through a window. A car door slammed, then footsteps scraped on the back stoop and the kitchen screen door twanged.

  Johnny lit a cigarette and put it between the girl’s lips. He saw that they were turning blue. He wiped the sweat off his face.

  He heard a hoarse cry from the next room.

  Ed Nathan came through the hallway. He stopped and looked down at her. His face suddenly went all to pieces like a jigsaw puzzle that had dropped to the floor.

  He fell to his knees beside her. But she took one of her bloodstained bands from her breast and pushed it at him as if to ward him off. Her eyes went to Johnny again, pleading. She tried to say something to him.

  He knelt beside her and she fell against him, smearing his coat with blood. Her mouth worked. “Purse...Johnny...purse—” She made a gurgling sound.

  He held her against the wall with one hand, groped on the floor for her purse. He had to hold her upright. If they were to lay her down, she’d drown in her own blood.

  He found the purse, got it open and held it out in front of her. She groped with one hand. Then she took out a small book, with blood smeared fingers, and shoved it at Nathan. It was a little bank book, the kind that goes with a savings account.

  Her head was beginning to roll drunkenly. But she held on somehow. She whispered something.

  His eyes streaming, Ed Nathan bent close to her. “Nearly...thousan’ dollars...at ten dollars a man.” She gagged. “Understand—you dirty bastard—”

  She was looking at Nathan and Johnny had never seen so much raw, naked hate in a human being’s eyes as was in her eyes those last moments before she lost consciousness. Her mouth twisted again and Nickles thought she was trying to say something. But she only laughed. She laughed in her husband’s frightened, stricken face.

  “No, Jean,” Nathan whispered. “No, please, baby, no—”

  She slumped against Johnny. “Found something about Ruth Jordon...Ed’s files...she’s been patient of his before. Make her take all her clothes off...make her, Johnny...she’s lying ’bout—” Her voice faded. Then she talked again, but her mind was rambling. “Hated you, hated you, Ed....” She laughed. “Went on living with you...but just so I could figure out a way to pay you back.... Now whole town will know...you’re married to a whore.” Her voice rambled away into incomprehensible whispering.

  Nathan’s face was corpse gray. “I didn’t know. All these years and I didn’t really know how you felt—” He put his hands over his face.

  Now Johnny knew why she had gone down to Honky-Tonk Street every night, selling herself to any man who wanted her. It was a strange, twisted plan conceived by a sick mind in a woman’s beautiful body. A masochistic form of revenge. She had picked up the worst men she could find, dirty wharf rats, stinking drunks....

  It would give Ed Nathan something to think about for as long as he lived.

  Johnny stood up slowly. He could do no more for them at that moment, he thought, except to leave them alone.

  He walked outdoors. Jean had been shot in a way that might seem, to the casual eye, that she’d been the victim of a prowler, a rapist. But Johnny knew the real reason—because she had gotten too close to the answer of Miff Smith’s death.

  Her last rational words stayed with him. “Found something about Ruth Jordon.... She’s been patient of his before...
make her take all her clothes off...make her, Johnny.... She’s lying ’bout—”

  Johnny walked down the street until he found a cruising taxi. Then he hailed it, climbed in and headed back to town.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  LOVE FROM A SADIST

  Friday Evening, 10:00 P.M.

  Johnny was sitting in a small café across the street from the Greyhound Bus station. Flies walked flittingly before him, across the sticky counter. It occurred to him that he hadn’t eaten a bite since he and Ruth had had a sandwich in the hotel room early that afternoon. His stomach had begun to complain with a dull, insistent cramping. So now he ordered two greasy hamburgers and a glass of beer and it sat on the counter in front of him. He shooed the flies away with one hand and picked up one of the hamburgers. It didn’t look particularly appetizing. But he was going to have to eat something. He put it down and took a swallow of the beer, then picked up the hamburger, closed his eyes and resolutely took a bite of it. Once he got started, it wasn’t so bad.

  He was going to the hotel room after he finished the hamburgers.

  He finished one, and wiped his fingers on a paper napkin. He felt for the loose change in his pocket. Thoughtfully, he took it out and laid in on the counter. There were three crumpled one dollar bills, a quarter, two nickels and a penny. That was it, the sum total of his remaining worldly wealth.

  He put the money back in his pocket and ate the other hamburger.

  After paying for the food, he walked out to the sidewalk. He crossed the street to the brightly lighted bus terminal and made his way to a telephone booth on the street floor lobby where he called George Swenninger. He told the publisher everything about Jean Nathan.

  As he was about to ring off, he noticed a policeman passing the corner of the booth. The cop was walking slowly, gazing out over the crowd. He paused now and then to swing his gaze up across the mezzanine, down the wide stairway and across the main floor. He walked a few feet, then stopped in front of the booth in which Johnny sat. The wide blue expanse of his back was only a few inches from Johnny’s eyes.