Honky-Tonk Girl

by Charles Beckman, Jr.

  Johnny sank down in a moth-eaten easy chair in a dim corner of the hotel lobby. He half-closed his eyes and sat motionless until George Swenninger came into the lobby and, glancing around, spied Johnny and came over and sat down beside him.

  “You,” Swenninger told him, “have gotten yourself into one hell of a mess.”

  “I know,” Johnny said wearily.

  “Botello has every cop in town out looking for you. This witness you have cooked up had better be good. They’re after your hide. Botello says if he can bring you in, he can get a conviction.”

  “The witness,” Johnny assured him, “is good.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Ruth Jordan.”

  Swinger leaned forward excitedly. “You mean she got her memory back?”

  “She never lost it,” Johnny said wearily. “Look, I’ll give you the details later. But if we take her along and she puts the finger on Raye Cowles as Miff’s murderer, that will sew it up, won’t it?”

  Swenninger assured him that Cowles would have a sweet time finding a loophole out of that one for his daughter.

  “Where is the Jordon girl?” Swenninger asked.

  “Upstairs in a room. I’ve been sitting here watching to see that she doesn’t leave.”

  Swenninger started to get up, but Johnny put a hand on his arm. “Look, about Tizzy...has everything been taken care of?”

  The newspaperman nodded. “The boys in the band have chipped in to give him a good sendoff. I—” Swenninger reached in a pocket. “I was at the morgue. They gave me the few things that were in his pockets when they picked him up. I thought you might want them.”

  He gave Johnny a small parcel. Nickles turned it over in his hand, staring at it blindly. “The poor guy,” he whispered. “I—don’t think it was an accident, his getting run over that way, George.”

  Swenninger shook his head. “I don’t think so, either, Johnny.”

  “I have a hunch,” the bandleader muttered, “that when we have a showdown with the Cowles bunch, we’ll find more than Miff Smith’s murderer. We’ll also find out who shot at Ruth and me over in Mexico and who ran Tizzy down and who shot Jean Nathan.”

  “You think Raye is behind all of it?”

  “I think Sam Cowles is. He’s been knocking himself out to cover-up all the loose ends that might drag his precious brat into this thing. With Ruth and Jean, the two principal witnesses, hushed up or dead, he felt comparatively safe. Then they could find a patsy like me to hang it on and wind the whole thing up to the satisfaction of the newspaper and the public.”

  “That sounds like it, all right,” Swenninger agreed. “But how about Tizzy Mole?”

  Johnny shook his head. “I’m not sure yet, unless he also stumbled on one of the loose ends and Sam wanted him shut up.”

  “By the way,” Swenninger put in, “I sent a man out on that Jean Nathan shooting the minute you called. They had just gotten her to the hospital. She’s still alive and conscious. More, it looks as if she’s going to keep on living. And she can identify the man who attacked and shot her. From the description she gave, I’d say that big blond monkey Sam Cowles keeps around as a bodyguard is the guilty party.”

  Johnny nodded. “Things are beginning to close in on Sam Cowles...from all sides. You wait here. I’ll get Ruth Jordon. Perhaps we can draw the noose even tighter around his neck.”

  He went up to Ruth’s room. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her face pale and drawn. She looked like a little girl again with a blue ribbon in her hair.

  Johnny stood near the door. They were not able to look at each other directly. He glanced around the room where he had found, then later walked out on a love, all in less than twenty-four short hours.

  He told her what they wanted her to do. “You know what it will cost you. Every newspaper will eat it up. The town will know about you and Cowles right down to the last juicy detail. You’ll probably get kicked out of school. And your father....” He stopped and shook his head.

  “It’s all right,” she answered woodenly. “Too many people have probably died because I’ve been a coward.” She lifted her chin. “You can’t protect someone you love at the cost of letting a murderer go free. “I should have known that, Johnny....”

  The light fell across the planes of her face as she lifted her chin. She looked exactly as she had looked the night Johnny first saw her, clean and young and vulnerable.

  She was, in fact, the same person. The only thing that had changed was something in Johnny’s mind. His heart raced at the same old fast tempo when he looked at her.

  He would go right on being in love with her, he knew then. Nothing, not even ghosts out of the past, could change it. It was just something he had to live with.

  He touched her hand. “Let’s go, youngster....”

  They drove to No. 439 Cambridge in George Swenninger’s car. Swenninger and Johnny rode up front. Ruth sat huddled silently in the back seat. As they neared the house, Johnny had the publisher stop the car and wait.

  “I have a little score to settle first,” Johnny muttered. “If I don’t come out in a few minutes, you’d better come in after me.” He walked off, went up the front porch steps and touched the doorbell. In a moment the front door opened and Gene Hargiss-Jones stared at him through the screen door.

  “Well,” remarked the blond giant. “I will be damned!”

  Johnny asked if he might come in.

  Hargiss-Jones grinned. “Really, old chap, you certainly don’t imagine I would allow you to depart now!” He pushed the door open with his free hand. The other was occupied at the moment with a small snub-nosed nickel-plated 38 automatic. Johnny stared at it with interest.

  “And to what,” inquired Hargiss-Jones politely, “do we owe this unexpected pleasure?”

  Johnny grinned tightly. “I thought it might be getting lonesome for you two girls out here alone.” He added, “I thought you might like someone of the opposite sex.”

  Hargiss-Jones’ face remained serene but his eyes looked like two rattlesnakes about to strike. He was dressed in heavy tan shoes with inch-thick crepe soles, Cashmere woolen slacks and a cotton T-shirt under which his muscles did a smooth, flowing rhumba when he moved.

  Johnny glanced around the interior of the house. It was a small bungalow. The living room walls were paneled in oak. Some low-priced prints were hung around the walls. It all had a dusty, unlived-in appearance.

  Raye Cowles came out of a back room. Her brown hair was awry, several strands hung down over her face and her make-up was on crooked. She was dressed in a loose negligee which she made a halfhearted attempt to hold together in front. Her other hand clasped a partially filled glass of whiskey and a cigarette. She was drunk. She blew at the strands of hair that had fallen over her face and squinted around them at Johnny.

  “Well, damn, if it isn’t lo’ Johnny,” she hiccoughed gaily. “BSN’ musi-musi-trumpet player’n town. Boyoboy ’m I glad t’ see somebody human. Getting’ the creeps sittinere alla time with this damn pansy.” She indicated Hargiss-Jones with a nod and a lurch. “Nothin to do but lissena damn radio’n watch this Yogi fruit take ’is sittenup exercises.” She hiccoughed again and giggled. “Wanna drink, Johnny?” She lurched over to him.

  “Go back to the kitchen and be quiet,” Hargiss-Jones snapped.

  “Oh, b’quiet yourself,” she retorted pettishly. Then she smiled loosely at Johnny and lost her grip on the dressing-gown. “Li’l Raye was getting lonesome, Johnny boy. You gonna keep me cop’ny?”

  Sure,” Johnny said. “In fact, I’m going to take you for a little ride.”

  “Wheee! Lemme get shome clothes on. Tireda sittin’ roun’ here with thish ol’ fruit.” She put out her tongue at Hargiss-Jones. Then she placed her drink in Johnny’s hand, turned and weaved toward the bedroom. Halfway there, she suddenly wriggled out of her negligee. She turned and grinned at Johnny and tossed it to him. She winked, put her fingers to her lips and set her course for the bedroom again.
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  Johnny stood with her silk negligee in one hand, the drink in his other.

  Hargiss-Jones picked up the telephone. “I’ll say you’re going for a ride, old boy,” he muttered. He spun the dial. Then he spoke into the instrument. “Sam? You’d better get over here right away. Yeah, there’s—”

  Johnny weighed the objects in his two hands. Then he braced himself and threw the whiskey at Hargiss-Jones’ face. The telephone clattered out of the tall blond man’s hand and he clawed at his eyes, cursing. Johnny followed up with the silk robe, slinging it around Hargiss-Jones’ head like a scarf. Then he splintered the edge of the whisky glass against a chair and threw all his weight at the blinded giant. They crashed over the telephone table.

  Hargiss-Jones emitted a muffled cry through the silk as he fell across the table, Johnny on top of him. He clawed at the silk with one hand while he blindly swung the gun up with the other. Johnny caught his hand and raked the jagged edge of the whiskey glass across his wrist. A hoarse scream came through the silk. A warm fountain of blood squirted over the two struggling men. Johnny brought the glass down again, this time severing ligaments. Hargiss-Jones bellowed and the gun tumbled to the floor. Johnny kicked it away, freed himself from the tangle of Hargiss-Jones’ arms and grabbed up a chair. The big man came to his feet like a cat, dragging the robe from his head, still bellowing. Then Johnny splintered the chair over blond hair. Hargiss-Jones went down to stay.

  Johnny amused himself by breaking a few of Hargiss-Jones’ ribs with the toe of his shoe. After a few minutes of that, he pocketed the fallen automatic and went into the bedroom.

  Raye Cowles was sitting in front of a mirror, trying to hit her lips with a lipstick. She wasn’t having much luck. She had succeeded in getting her panties, one stocking, a shoe, and her hat on. “You boys playin’ gamesh?” she asked, making a face in the mirror.

  Johnny hunted in a closet for another robe. “Here, put this on and let’s go.” He threw it at her. She just looked at it in a drunken stupor.

  “No,” she pouted with sudden obstinacy.

  “Put it on,” he swore, losing patience.

  “Don’ wanna. Daddy tol’ me t’ stay here.” She got up. The hat slipped over one eye. She hiccoughed and limped over to Johnny on one high heel. “I gotta better idea,” she grinned, twisting her finger in the buttonhole of Johnny’s jacket lapel. She jiggled warmly against the front of his shirt.

  “I’ll bet you do,” Johnny grunted. He yanked a sheet off the bed, threw it over her and tossed her over one shoulder. She set up a howl, kicking and pounding at his back with her fists. Her one shoe flew across the room. Johnny carried her into the living room and dumped her on the sofa.

  He found George Swenninger and Ruth Jordon already in the house. Swenninger was propping Hargiss-Jones into a sitting position against a wall. The blond man was coming around, groaning softly. Ruth stood near the door.

  Johnny showed the gun to Ruth. “Is this the one Raye used on Miff?”

  She looked at it. “Well, it was one just like that. A small shiny pistol. The kind that would fit into a woman’s purse. I was too scared to remember exactly what it looked like.”

  Ray Cowles was sobering up fast. She was beginning to look scared. “What the hell is this?” she demanded, looking at Ruth Jordon.

  “It’s the end of the lane for you, honey,” George Swenninger told her. “Miss Jordon here is an eyewitness to the murder of Miff Smith. And she’s ready to testify that you killed him and shot at her.” He turned to the moaning Hargiss-Jones “And you might be interested to know that Jean Nathan didn’t die. She’s in the hospital now and she’s given a complete description of the man who attacked and shot her, and it fits you very well, my friend.”

  Hargiss-Jones began to look as frightened as Raye Cowles.

  Johnny knelt beside the blond man and grabbed a handful of his T-shirt. “That pistol shot in Mexico. You were trying to kill Ruth Jordon, weren’t you? Cowles was afraid she might talk in spite of the dirty pictures and records he was blackmailing her with. So he had to trail her after she left the hospital, find a convenient spot and put a bullet in her.”

  “Yeah,” Hargiss-Jones spat at him, “but you’ll have a hell of a time proving it.”

  “And Tizzy Mole,” Johnny swore through grinding teeth. “He must have been getting close to the truth, too. So you ran him down.” He shook the big man. “Didn’t you?”

  “Wait a minute,” Hargiss-Jones protested. “You can’t pin that job on me. I never touched the man. I didn’t even know him.”

  Johnny smashed his fist across Hargiss-Jones’ mouth, splitting his lips like ripe tomatoes. “Tell the truth, dammit!”

  Hargiss-Jones held his bleeding face in his hands. “You can’t pin that on me...,” he mumbled over and over through his broken lips.

  George Swenninger had picked up the telephone and dialed his newspaper. The gun Johnny had taken away from Hargiss-Jones was in his hand. He spoke rapidly into the instrument. “Yeah, a .32 automatic. What?” He looked incredulous. “Are you certain? Check on it again. Oh, you did?” A mixture of emotions crossed his face. “Okay...thanks.” He hung up and stared at Johnny.

  “This isn’t the gun that killed Miff Smith,” he announced in a strange voice. “I just talked with the reporter who’s been working on the story. He’s been down at the police ballistics lab. The slug they dug out of Miff was from a Luger, a big heavy German pistol!” He turned toward Ruth. “Are you sure it was a small shiny gun she shot at you with?”

  Ruth put her fingers against her temples. Her eyes were wide. “I—I remember the light reflecting off it...and it looked small....”

  The front door slammed. Sam Cowles strode in from the hallway. There was a businesslike automatic in his freckled fingers and he pointed it efficiently at them. “Drop that thing, George. That’s right.” His voice was like the crack of a whip. “I hurried right on over when I got your call, Gene.” His eyes flicked toward Nickles. “I was standing out on the front porch for a minute, listening before I came in. Of course that isn’t the gun that killed Smith.” He nodded at the nickel-plated automatic that Swenninger had dropped at his command. “Raye never even came close to hitting him that night. She was drunk. And sober, she couldn’t hit the floor with a bucket of sand. But it was a bad situation. I wanted her kept out of it.” He snapped his head toward his daughter. “Get your clothes on, Raye. I’m taking you up to my place.”

  He faced Swenninger. “You can print this in your lousy sheet. Make it tomorrow morning’s headlines. Raye went up to Smith’s apartment Monday night, we’ll admit that. She had a gun, all right—that one on the floor. But she missed both Ruth Jordon and Miff Smith. Then she got scared and ran out of the place. Just after she left, while Ruth Jordon was hiding up in the attic, somebody else came in and shot Miff Smith.

  Cowles waved off Swenninger’s attempt to interrupt him and went on. “The police laboratory dug two .32 bullets out of the plaster in Smith’s room. They were from Raye’s gun. But the bullet they got out of Smith came from a Luger. “The killer,” he said, “Is in this room, all right!” He pointed at Johnny. “And there he is! I got a telephone call from Sheriff Botello less than half an hour ago. This afternoon they searched Johnny Nickles’ apartment. And they found a Luger of the same caliber that killed Smith. They just got a report from the lab. It was the same gun that killed Miff Smith!”

  For a moment stunned silence hung in the air.

  Then Cowles took a long-legged stride toward Johnny Nickles. His lips skinned back from his teeth. “I’m taking you to Botello myself. The only way you’ll get out of this is by way of the electric chair!”

  At that moment Ruth Jordon called out in a choked voice.

  Cowles half-turned in her direction.

  She had taken out the small pistol she carried in her purse, and it was in her right fist, pointed at Sam Cowles. Her face was dead white.

  Cowles swore and snapped a shot at her. It tugged at the
sleeve of her dress. She stumbled back a half-step. Then carefully and deliberately, she shot Sam Cowles through the heart.

  “That’s for a lot of things, Sam,” she whispered.

  He stared at her with his mouth open. He looked down at the gun in his hand, then glanced at Johnny and Swenninger, and died as he stood there, falling heavily at last in a limp heap.

  Ruth Jordon’s face looked green. “Run, Johnny,” she gasped. “Run. I—I think I’m going to be awfully sick.”

  He took the gun out of her icy, clenched fingers.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  IN THE GROOVE

  Saturday Morning, 1:30 A.M.

  Elsewhere, the city was going to sleep. But in the Honky-Tonk Street district, musicians were still sweating it out, playing music that grew hotter with the passing hours. The smoke was thick and the crowds were noisy and the music was loud in this part of town that never slept.

  In one of the joints, Mamie’s Place, an open jam session was going full blast. Musicians had been drifting in during the night as they got through working at other bars. They were taking turns up on the cramped little bandstand.

  Mamie herself was circulating through the crowd, a large-bosomed woman with yellow, flabby arms generously coated with talcum powder. She was dressed in a glittering rhinestone-sprinkled black evening dress. Her hennaed barn-red hair was awry. She was waving a hat with one hand, yelling above the music in her foghorn contralto, and gesticulating with a half-empty beer glass in the other hand, sloshing beer suds out on the heads of customers seated at tables.

  Mamie was taking up a collection. She had been taking it up all evening, carrying the hat back to her office periodically and dumping its jingling content into her safe whenever it was filled.

  The purpose of the collection was emblazoned on a large banner stretched across the bandstand. It read: “Benefit Jam Session, Collection Being Taken for Tizzy Mole Funeral.”

  Some of the boys from Johnny’s band were up on the stand—Eddie Howard, J. W. Richey, and Link Rayl. Mack Dyer, a good man from the Golden Peacock down the street, was on drums. And they had a kid on bass who was just off the Dorsey band. A colored boy was blowing some fine tenor in the style of Eddie Miller.