“Play it, boys!” Mamie bellowed, waving her beer glass. “Here, you sonuvabitch!” she croaked, thrusting the hat under a newcomer’s nose. “Kick in!”
In another part of the district, in a quieter bar, Johnny Nickles sat alone in a booth. He had left Swenninger and Ruth and had come down here by himself. The net was growing tighter. He knew it was just a matter of time before Botello’s bird dogs picked him up. The streets were alive with patrol cars and city detectives on the prowl for him. Botello had learned of Cowles’ death by now. He would doubtless double his efforts to get a conviction against Johnny to bolster his crumbling political power in the face of a full-fledged newspaper assault. With Cowles dead, Botello stood on his own...and George Swenninger was determined to clean out all the remnants of the Cowles machine.
The jukebox at the back of the bar was playing. Johnny looked at the names on the coin box. Three of his band’s records from the Ghost Album were on the machine. Smiling grimly, he dropped three coins in the box and punched the buttons for those numbers.
Then he sat down and tried to think. Cowles and Botello had outsmarted him on the Luger. No doubt they had planted it in his apartment today. Yet, he was puzzled about one thing—admittedly, Raye Cowles could have shot Miff with the Luger. Then she could have given the gun to her father and he and Botello could have planted it in Johnny’s flat. But why was Ruth so sure Raye Cowles had used a small, shiny automatic instead of the heavy black Luger?
Excitement? Stress of the moment? Those things played fantastic tricks on the memory.
Or had Ruth Jordon, Raye Cowles and Sam Cowles all told the truth? The business about the lab boys digging two .32 slugs out of the plaster in Miff’s room seemed to bear them out. Had Raye come in with the .32 and shot twice, missing both Ruth and Miff as she’d said, and had somebody else then come in and done the real killing moments after she’d fled, while Ruth Jordon was still cowering upstairs in the attic?
Or had Ruth Jordan come downstairs and killed Miff herself? She had done a neat job of it with Sam Cowles. The girl knew how to handle a gun.
Johnny’s heart wanted him to believe something else. And, what possible motive could Ruth have had?
The jukebox began to play the Ghost Album record, Teegerstrom Struts His Stuff.
Johnny catalogued the known facts. Jean Nathan had been in Miff’s apartment on Monday night. Raye Cowles had found them together and stormed out in a rage. Then Jean left. Then Ruth Jordon came in. And while she was there, Ruth Cowles had returned and fired two shots at them. According to Ruth, a third shot was fired while she was up in the attic, hiding.
Since Monday night there had been one more murder and two attempted murders.
The bullet aimed at Ruth in Mexico had come from Hargiss-Jones’ gun, he knew. And he also knew the blond giant had tried to kill Jean Nathan—all to protect Raye Cowles against the testimony of both women. But how about Tizzy Mole’s death. Now that Johnny thought about it, Hargiss-Jones couldn’t have run him down because he was in Mexico at about that time, taking pot shots at Ruth and Johnny. Another one of Cowles’ men, then? Perhaps. But why should they want Tizzy dead?
And there was that other business about Miff Smith’s blackmailing somebody. That was an angle that didn’t seem to fit in with any of the other things.
He lit a cigarette and took out the small bundle of belongings that had been removed from Tizzy’s pockets after he’d been brought in to the morgue. These were the items George Swenninger had passed on to Johnny back at the hotel. He spread them out on the table before him. There was Tizzy’s soiled handkerchief, pocket comb, billfold, cigarettes, some loose change, a poker chip and a crumpled scrap of music manuscript paper.
He went through the billfold and found nothing.
Behind him, the Ghost Album record played.
He thought about the Ghost Album. All the trouble had started from the time they had made that thing. It had started with Zack Turner’s heart attack at the recording studio.
He picked up the objects again, one by one. Then he stopped. The music was reaching a climax in the all-out ride chorus. Johnny held the torn piece of manuscript paper in his hand. He was staring at the date on it. At the notes. His fingers began to shake. The cigarette dropped from his lips, showering unnoticed sparks down the front of his coat.
Suddenly, he had it.
Simply and suddenly. Just like that.
He couldn’t believe it, yet it couldn’t be any other way. It had been right there under his nose all along, tying in perfectly with the blackmail, the rest of the whole setup too!
He stuffed Tizzy’s things back into his pocket and walked out of the bar in a daze.
A few block down the street there was a Rent-A-Car company that stayed open twenty-four hours a day. Johnny headed straight for it He went in and talked to the sleepy night clerk.
He kept his hands in his coat pockets so the handcuffs wouldn’t slip down and show.
“There’s a person who rents cars from you regularly. I want to see if they got a car this past Wednesday night.”
The clerk was dubious. “Our records are confidential....”
“This is important. I could go get a cop and a warrant to search your files—but you wouldn’t want me to bring in the law, eh?”
The night clerk didn’t see any need to bring the law into it. He fished out a card index file.
“Wednesday night. Here you are. These are all the cars we rented out that night. It was a slow night.” He spread out half a dozen cards, fan wise. They contained the names, addresses, descriptions and driver’s license serial numbers of all persons who had rented cars.
One of the cards held Johnny’s gaze. His tongue felt sticky. “That—that ’51 Chevy, plate number 2-446-88. Is it in your lot now?”
The clerk nodded.
“Get your flashlight. I want to have a look at it.”
They went out together. Johnny took the flash and ran the beam of light over the car. He got down on one knee and examined the front of it carefully. He found a dent in one fender. Then he studied the bumper. Behind one of the bumper bolts, he discovered several strands of hair. The car had been washed but there were traces of dried blood under the rim of the bumper and around the bolts.
He stood up. “Don’t let this car get out of the yard. It killed a man Wednesday night.”
There was only one thing for Johnny to do then. He walked to a hockshop that the Honky-Tonk Street musicians patronized regularly. He pounded at the plate glass front door until the proprietor came downstairs in his underwear and opened up.
“Uncle Ben,” Johnny told him, “I want to buy a trumpet.”
The wizened little old man scratched himself, looking at Johnny with sleep-laden eyes. “That’s-a matter, you drunk? At this time of night you want to play a trumpet”
“Yeah. Sort of like Gabriel on Judgment Day.”
“Crazy musicians!” Uncle Ben swore under his breath, shaking his head. “Crazy musicians....” He led the way into the back of the shop, muttering to himself. It was a dust-shrouded cubicle lined with glass showcases containing everything from a child’s silver spoon to a set of false teeth. He snapped on a light over the musical instrument showcase. Everything from a mouth harp to a tuba, I got. Please, take your pick.”
Johnny picked out a brass trumpet, green with age. He tried a few runs on it and satisfied himself that it had a clean, true tone and that the mouthpiece was cupped about right for his lip.
He put his hand in his pocket, then remembered that he had spent his last dollar. He slipped off his diamond ring, breathed on it and rubbed it on his lapel. “You want to keep this for security until I bring the trumpet back?”
For an answer, Uncle Ben had a magnifying glass already screwed in his left eye. He scrutinized the ring under the light and whistled. “For this you can have every instrument in the showcase,” he said. Then he thought for a moment and added, “I might even throw in the showcase.”
Johnn
y put the horn in its mildewed case and walked out into the night.
The last of Johnny Nickles’ flash was gone now. There was nothing reminiscent of the expensively-dressed cocky bandleader with the diamonds and the gold horn that had been his trademark. In his wrinkled suit covered with dust and dried blood spots and with the shabby trumpet case under his arm, he looked like any of the bums that haunted Honky-Tonk Street looking for a handout.
Johnny walked slowly down Honky-Tonk Street, mingling with the crowds, drifting into one bar, then another. He listened to the music for a moment in each place, searching the faces of the people inside, then he moved on. He knew the person he was looking for would be in one of the bars.
He walked with a slow tired shuffle, his eyes hollow with fatigue. At last he came to a place halfway down the street. It was loud and noisy, the busiest place on Honky-Tonk Street that night. Johnny stopped there because he had reached the end of his long journey. He stopped at Mamie’s Place....
Mamie was the first to see him. She was plowing through the crowd with her hat and she moved past the door and bumped into him. “Hey, dig down, brother—” Then the loose yellow folds of flesh around her neck sagged as her mouth dropped open. The hat fell out of her hand, spilling coins all over the floor. “My gawd!” she croaked. Her plump white fingers danced over the rows of beads strung around her neck. Fearfully, she rolled her eyes around, then she shoved Johnny into a corner.
“What’n hell are you doing here?” she panted. “Every cop from here to San Francisco is looking for you!” She suddenly shoved her face close to his, thrusting out her chin. “Listen, you cocky bastard, they’re saying you killed Miff Smith. Is that the truth? So help me Gawd, I’ll turn you in myself if it is. I’ll—”
“Take it easy, Duchess,” he placated her. “That’s some baloney Sam Cowles and his bunch dreamed up. You know I loved that guy like a brother.”
She frowned at him, not entirely convinced. “Well, you’d better have a pretty damned good reason for coming into my place. You’ll bring the whole stinking police force down around my neck.”
“I’ve got a good reason,” Johnny said wearily. “Let me up on that stand for one minute and I’ll show you.”
Her jaw wagged again. “The hell I will! These cats will tear you apart. They think you killed Smith. And the place will be swarming with cops before you blow a note, Johnny!”
Her soft fat fingers clawed at him. But he eluded her and shoved his way through the half-drunken crowd, up onto the stand.
Up on the small dais, they were just winding up a torrid session of That’s-A-Plenty.
Johnny slid his trumpet case up on the stand first and then climbed up after it.
They took their horns away from their lips and stared at him. They couldn’t have been more surprised if the ghost of Miff Smith himself had come crawling up on the stand.
Eddie Howard half-rose from the piano stool, his eyes bulging like turnips behind the thick lenses of his glasses. “What th’—what th’!” he stuttered.
Silence descended over the crowd like a blanket. Johnny took the mouthpiece out of the case, breathed on it to warm it. Then he put it in the horn and slapped at it to tighten it. “Mind if I sit in?”
“Well, here’s a cat with nerve to spare,” the drummer swore. He picked up a beer bottle by the neck.
Johnny’s hands perspired against the horn. He tried a long one. “Haven’t you heard?” he bluffed. “The cops admitted they were all wet about me. They’ve called off the search. You don’t think I’d be up here if they were still looking for me, do you?”
The other musicians looked at each other questioningly. They were undecided, disconcerted about the whole thing.
“Come on,” Johnny said gruffly, “you’re holding up the session. Let’s play a good one for Tizzy. Let’s play Teegerstrom Struts His Stuff from the Ghost Album. Make it good—for Tizzy.”
He kicked off the beat. Confused, the drummer picked it up. Hearing him, Eddie Howard joined in at the piano. The others followed suit, although they continued to stare at Johnny from the corners of their eyes. The air of tension remained suspended over the small room. Mamie stood at one end, wringing her hands and swearing she was going to sell the place in the morning and buy a chicken ranch.
Johnny settled back and blew the notes big and round with his bruised lips. He was playing better tonight. A cloud that had been hanging over him for six months was gone now. He was going to lick the curse of the Ghost Album. For the first time in months, the tension left him. He played in his old relaxed way and he was sure of the notes he reached for. His horn wasn’t double-crossing him tonight. It spilled out warm golden butter, cut through by flashes of lightning. He was too tired and winded to do anything spectacular. But what he played was sure and affirmative. There was no fumbling around, no cracking tones, no uncertainty. He caught the rest of them up in the power of his driving horn and marshaled them into the groove.
“Listen to the sonuvabitch blow!” somebody said in awe.
Some of the tension left the room. It began to rock now to the solid music of Johnny’s great horn. The old Johnny Nickles, come back again.
For Johnny, the nightmare was over. He could look forward to music again, and a woman’s young, golden arms....
Then J. W. Richey took his chorus, playing it the way he did on the record, like Big Gate himself.
After that, Link Rayl took up his clarinet and blew the chorus that was so much like the style of the late Charlie Teegerstrom that jazz critics had said the Teeg’s ghost came back into Link’s horn that night and fingered the keys.
And Johnny watched him play the chorus and he said, “That’s good, Charlie Teegerstrom. That’s as good as I ever heard you play it in Chicago, ten years ago.”
The clarinet player didn’t get lost. His fingers slipped over a couple of notes, but he caught himself and kept right on. But now his eyes were open and there were thin rivulets of perspiration trickling down his face. The fog of smoke swirled around them. The fast, excited beat of the hot jazz tune hammered at them.
Johnny again, “Why did you kill Tizzy Mole, Charlie? I can figure about Miff Smith. I guess he found out who you really were and blackmailed you. But why Tizzy? Did he find out, too?”
The clarinet player ended his chorus. He lowered the horn, sweat pouring from his face. He kept looking straight ahead. No one heard him speak but Johnny.
“So you know,” he said, the breath slipping between his teeth. “And I thought I was safe at last!” His hands gripped the clarinet, the long sensitive fingers white with pressure. “Yeah, I had to kill Tizzy, too. When he went through Miff’s things, he found old original manuscript paper with the idea for Teegerstrom Struts His Stuff that I wrote back in Chicago fifteen years ago. It was in ink and it had some of my finger prints on it. Miff Smith was playing on a band with me then. I guess that was how he got it.
“I followed Tizzy up there Wednesday night. He tore off part of that manuscript and left. I went into Miff’s room after he’d gone and found the part he’d left on the floor. I knew then that I had to stop him. So I went to the place where I always rent cars....”
“Then,” Johnny said, “it wasn’t Zack Turner’s idea for that tune on the Ghost Album record?”
Teegerstrom shook his head. “I whistled the riff idea for him. I’d forgotten about that damned sheet of manuscript paper. I thought it was just an idea that had been kicking around in my mind for fifteen years.”
“Zack,” Johnny said, “must have been the first one to guess who you were.” He stopped tensely, waiting for the clarinetist’s answer.
Link nodded. “I had my face changed by a plastic surgeon, but he couldn’t change the way I played. It was like a trademark. The night we recorded the Ghost Album in Chicago, Zack put two and two together and came up with the right answer. Teegerstrom hadn’t ever died. He was still alive and playing in this band.”
Johnny remembered the scandal over Charlie Teegerstr
om’s supposed “death” ten years ago. The great Chicago clarinet player had been “killed” in an automobile accident after a shooting over another guy’s wife—or so everybody, including the police, believed. Teegerstrom had shot the girl’s husband and sped away in a car. The car was found later, wrecked and burned, in another part of town. They’d pulled a roasted corpse out of the wreck, too far gone to recognize, but they’d identified it by jewelry belonging to the great clarinet player. There had never been much question raised, since it had been his car.
“What did you do that night in Chicago, ten years ago, Charlie? Pick up a bum from Skid Row, plant him in the car, knock him unconscious, put your jewelry on him and then wreck and burn the car?” Johnny asked.
Teegerstrom nodded. “If I could only have stayed out of the music business! Every guy has his own certain style of playing, just like the way he talks or wears his clothes. I had my face changed by a plastic surgeon and I tried to get out of the music business. But I couldn’t. It was in my blood. I was always afraid sooner or later that my style would give me away.”
“That was what finally gave me my answer,” Johnny told him. “I found part of that manuscript paper. I was listening to the Ghost Album record. I couldn’t see how anybody could play so much like Teegerstrom. Then it finally hit me—it was Teegerstrom!”
“Miff figured it out soon after we left Chicago. He was bleeding me white, blackmailing me. Finally, I couldn’t scrape up any more money. He was threatening to turn me in to the cops. I was desperate....”
“How did you kill Zack? We all thought it was heart failure.”
“I knew he had a bum ticker that might stop any minute. I had a handful of benzedrine pills. I slipped them into a drink of his when he wasn’t looking. The jolt was more than his heart could take and he keeled over.”
Charlie Teegerstrom laid down his clarinet.
Honky-Tonk Girl Page 16
