by Kane, Henry
“Now you’re talking.” I brought the highball to Miami. “Whatever I said before, Sweetheart, forget it. I got a big mouth. Too.”
“Much better,” Miami said. “Now you guys sound—uh—adult.”
“Adult,” Sweetheart said. “All right, adult. Don’t go away, adult. I’ll be right back with your drink.”
“Where’d he get Petersen from?” I asked Miami.
“Ask him, when he comes back.”
When he came back, I asked him.
“Look,” Miami said. “It ain’t that he’s inquisitive. He said it’s on that Mikvah thing. You’re supposed to co-operate.”
“All right, shamus. Remember that little joint I had up in Harlem?”
“Yes.”
“Remember that guy Nottiby I mentioned to you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, he used to be a customer up there. That’s how I first met that Pamela, up in my joint there. Well, I wasn’t making any money in that Harlem trap, and that idea got cooked up for the Courvocco with Johnny and me partners. I needed more dough. I propositioned this Nottiby; that was still in his heyday. He turned me down, because, it turns out, the old heyday was petering out. He put me up to this Petersen. He told me that Petersen was a guy with big dough, who was always looking for more. That the guy lent out money. Fact was, he’d lent this Nottiby twenty-five G’s.”
“Nottiby ever pay it back?”
“How would I know? Probably not. He never paid anybody back. Why, he’s in me for five G’s, which I already wrote off a long time ago. But that’s a different story. I propositioned this Petersen, but he wanted security. That’s how he got a piece of the gym. Instead of me borrowing, instead of me putting up security, he bought me out of a half share. That’s all, and it’s no big secret, except, you know how it is, a guy don’t like things like that getting around. As far as the boys are concerned, I own the Pantheon, all business is done with me.”
“Thanks,” I said. “What the hell were we arguing about?”
“See?” Miami said. “Adult.”
Sweetheart said, “Yeah, adult.”
Miami finished her drink. “How you doing on the case?”
“I don’t know. Not so good, so far. I’m trying, though.” I looked at her over the edge of my glass. “I’m trying real hard.”
“Keep trying,” she said.
“I’d like to use your phone.”
“Right there.”
I dialed Information, and I inquired about Information at Grand Central, and Information gave me the number of Information at Grand Central, and I buzzed off and dialed the number and the man said, “Information.”
“Trains to Nyack?” I asked.
“West Nyack.”
“How about Nyack proper?”
“We don’t go to Nyack proper. That’s Erie.”
I did the Information routine again and I got a Barclay number and the man said the next train was at five-fifteen, none before that, from Jersey City.
“How about your car?” I asked Sweetheart.
“I’m like you. No car. A guy needs a car in New York like a guy needs a hole in the head, a large one.”
Miami stood up, very tall and very beautiful. She tapped Sweetheart. “Come on, hunk of man. We’ve got business. Let’s go, kiddies. Let’s mosey.” She came near me and she kissed me on the lips, sweetly. “Keep trying, mister. Try hard.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Valhalla Tavern is a small door and a large window on Sixth Avenue near West Third Street. Nobody calls it Valhalla Tavern. Everybody, including its owner, calls it the Hall. It is an old-fashioned, quiet, cool, slightly sour-smelling saloon, with real sawdust on the floor and the day’s eating special, always pigs’ knuckles, delineated in curlicued script in a soap-wash flourish on a mirror. Amber light drizzles from three old-time chandeliers hanging by brass chains from the ceiling (one in the daytime). Clear, cold, frothy beer flows from a club-handled tap with scrupulously clean pipes. The Hall is a saloon for philosophy, finger-stabbing discussion, insulated silence, or transient camaraderie (thick-spoken and quick-forgotten). The Hall has free lunch and no juke box. The one reluctant condescension to the constant march of the many doodads is a television lonesomely rooted in the dim rear and brought into play only when the customers are especially insistent. Glass cases offer up buzzing flies on the outside, and on the inside: tempting rectangular partitions of salami, head cheese, liverwurst, Cheddar, chopped herring, pressed ham, pastrami, gefüllte fish, and anchovy paste, all on neatly trimmed segments of soggy pumpernickel. The Hall has salted chick-peas in cut-glass bowls on the counter. It has godly mottoes on its walls flanked by time-browned salacious posturings of theatrical females, framed, and affectionately endorsed. NO CREDIT placards are judiciously displayed. WE DON’T CASH CHECKS appears but once, superseding the stick-out edges of the previous IN GOD WE TRUST, in a place of honor, over the cash register. The Hall has bottled beer from Pilsen, Holland, Mexico, and Bavaria, and the finest ales from all over the world. The Hall, predominantly, is a firm, wide bar with a brass rail and brass spittoons, plus a few tables in the rear with spindly chairs. You get a two-ounce drink at the Hall, wholesome and uncut, and the beer glasses are high, thin, and spacious.
The proprietor is a wiry Syrian of biscuit pallor who works nights as sole bartender. In the afternoon, the bartender is his son, a thick young man with a pleasantly pushed-in face, a big nose with round nostrils, and small, happy eyes beneath a broad overhanging shelf of forehead. The Hall does its business at night, after six o’clock. Afternoons, it ministers to strays, an occasional regular, or nobody.
When I came in the narrow door, the thick bartender was up front, engrossed in a horse sheet. Prairie had an elbow hooked on the bar in the rear, talking with Annie. The bartender said, “Hi, Mr. Chambers.” I said, “Prairie over there?” He said, “Sure.”
Prairie had on brown pleated pants with a cream-white open-collared sport shirt which he wore outside and over the pants. He looked like a swathed barrel. Annie was conservative in blue shoes and blue slacks and a blue protruding sweater. Prairie said, “Welcome, Transom.”
Annie said, “Hello, handsome.”
I said, “Hi.”
Prairie said, “What’ll it be?”
I said, “What do you think?”
“Scotch,” Prairie roared. “Scotch for the Transom. The best, with water.”
“Coming up,” the bartender said.
I drank my Scotch while Prairie looked nervous. He confined most of his talk to Annie, with an occasional hoarse fling at me. Over his shoulder, Annie pouted her lips at me. I fidgeted. I said, “I’ve got a train to make, Prairie.”
“Sure, sure. Will you excuse us, please, Annie?”
Annie excused us. Her fingers brushed mine as she went by. She went up-bar, distracting the bartender from the horse sheet.
Prairie kicked the rail, eased his shoulders, cracked his knuckles, smiled. He acted like a shy entertainer working up steam before going on to wow ‘em. He warmed up. He talked about wrestling. He talked about baseball. He talked about football.
I said, “I’ve got a train to make, Prairie.” (I had time to spare before train time, but I had to get Prairie in the groove.)
“I know, I know,” he said. “You told me.” But he couldn’t get over the hump.
A tall young man came in on loud leather heels. The tall young man had a lean brown face and shoulders like kegs. He said, “Hello” to the bartender and “What’ll you have?” to Annie and, quickly, he engaged her in conversation. Prairie was uneasy. His limping monologue stuttered and his face clouded and it got progressively worse, like the taste of coffee out of a cardboard container, and then his face stiffened and his eyes focused sharply. “Did you hear him?”
“Whom?”
“That guy.”
“What?”
“A proposition, that’s what. Excuse me.”
Prairie came between them. He straight-armed th
e lean young man with the keglike shoulders. Truculently, the lean young man began, “Why, you—”
Prairie clipped him.
The bartender threw him out.
Prairie took Annie’s hand. “No son of a bitch is going to talk like that to a lady.”
“My Prairie,” Annie said, and kissed him on the mouth. Then: “Maybe you ought to hit him, too.”
“Whom?”
“Handsome, over here. I like him. I like him very much.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Prairie said, “Shut up, the two of you.”
Annie said, “I’m going home now.” Her eyes went from Prairie to me, stayed there, and went back to Prairie. “Bye, now.” She went, murmuring quizzically, “No son of a bitch is going to talk like that to a lady—that’s my Prairie.” At the door, she threw back a smile, shook her head, and she was gone.
“Lay off,” Prairie said.
“Forget it.”
Prairie was past his nervousness. “Look, I know where you got that information about Merrill and the fight at the Courvocco. Merrill knows too.”
“He didn’t mention it.”
“I’m mentioning it. Merrill never would. Merrill is a gentleman. I’m not. Neither are you.”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“I’ve been looking to get that guy. So, because I’m no gentleman, and neither are you, you and me can talk about him.”
“Whom?”
“Who do you think? Petersen.”
I made circles with the bottom of my glass.
“I’d have mashed him up a little, the phony bastard, but Mr. Merrill is a gentleman, and Petersen is a friend of his, so what do I do? I don’t do nothing.”
I made more circles.
“That phony don’t miss a trick. I mean Annie.”
“I thought you meant Petersen.”
“I do mean Petersen. Look, Annie’s a pushover. She’s one of those things, those nymphs—whatever you call them. Look, I don’t mind a straight play. But this bastard—he’s got a town apartment, on Lex by Sixty-ninth, one of those penthouses with a view, and right now Annie’s got a key to the joint.”
“You just said—”
“Not the way that guy works, promising her a model’s job and never coming through. Why, she don’t even like the guy, and there she is with a key to the joint, dropping in chummy like. There’s one guy that’s strictly no good.”
Gravely I said, “I see what you mean.”
“Annie don’t need no key. She’s got a nice little spot of her own, right around the corner here, on Fourth, you know the old white house. Basement apartment, and neat as a pin. But she goes calling on this bastard, with a key of her own, and him promising her a model’s job, and never delivering, the phony, never—”
“What’s all this got to do with me, Prairie?”
“This it’s got to do. The only one that could’ve given you that steer about Merrill putting the blast—verbal—the verbal blast on that Pamela Reeves is Petersen. You know why? I’ll tell you why. Because he knows something’s playing between Nancy and Merrill, and if he can throw the monkey into that, he does it. That’s why he gives you the steer. To plant the motive on Merrill, and maybe you can push it around to make it look like Merrill did it, I don’t mean purposely, I mean sometimes it can work out that way, once you get an idea about somebody with a motive. I mean—well, just in case you’re right, and the cops have it cockeyed, in case somebody else, not Johnny the Mick, put that slug into that doxy.”
“Doxy?”
“Yeah, doxy. Everybody’s doxy.”
“But wait a minute, Prairie—”
“I’m not waiting no minutes. You said you got a train to make. So I’m giving you some information. I know who gives you that steer. So does Merrill.”
“Then why didn’t he say so?”
“Because he’s a gentleman, that’s why. Because he’s got ethics. You know what ethics is?”
“No.’
“Sure you don’t.” He grinned. “You ain’t telling me. Neither do I. You want another drink?”
“No.”
“All right. So now I stick it right back to him.”
“Whom?”
“Petersen.”
“What?”
“Motive. He give you motive for Merrill. So now I give you motive for him.”
“Whom?”
“Petersen. I give you motive for his knocking off the dame. I shove it right back at him. Don’t ask me whom. Petersen, that’s whom. That Pamela Reeves was putting the grunt to him for maybe ten G’s a year.”
“For what?”
“Blackmail.”
“How do you know?”
“Nancy told us. Because Pamela told her, boasted to her.”
“About Petersen?”
“Who else? This Petersen and this Pamela were boy-and-girl. You know, boy-and-girl. And she did it the smart way. No letters, none of that old stuff. Seven different times he took her to seven different hotels, when they made trips all over the country. Boy-and-girl. Okay. Then he goes over for Nancy.”
(I remembered Nancy telling me, “She claimed I stole one of her men once.”)
“Yes,” I said. “So?”
“That Pamela was probably glad to get rid of the guy, but when he starts up with Nancy—she’s supposed to get sore. She puts the bite on him. She says she’ll blow it open, the business between her and him. She says she’ll sue him for something—who the hell knows what—and she’ll bring in the hotel registers from those seven hotels all over the country, where they registered each time under different names—and she’ll show it’s his handwriting, each time, Mr. and Mrs. Plus she’ll produce people who can tie them up as staying over as Mr. and Mrs. The guy’s a married man with a wife and kids up in the country, so he starts getting brown around the gills, and he puts up and she shuts up.”
“I see.”
Prairie squinted in displeasure. “Why do you always say that? ‘I see. I see.’ Christ, you sound like one of them two-bit shysters on a big case in the Magistrate’s Court.”
“Habit,” I said. “You know, habit.”
“Yeah, habit. So, anyway, this guy who is now working on making a habit out of Annie, he was forking over maybe ten G’s a year, year after year. It adds up to a lot of loot. See?”
“Yes.”
“So there’s a guy that would like to see Pamela Reeves shove off the mortal coil, or whatever they calls it. Because if she shoves off this coil—well, there’s a lot of other good purposes in which to place all this cabbage, year after year. You with me?”
“Yes.”
“So here’s this Pamela dead, and here’s you trying to give it a shake and not letting it sit, so I give you Petersen. Can you feature him? He give you Merrill, so I give you him—right back at you.”
“Thanks, Prairie.”
“Can you use it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I hope it helps, because that’s one guy I’d like, personally, to spread out a little, only there’s Mr. Merrill, and I wouldn’t do nothing never which would embarrass Mr. Merrill, even a simple matter of laying a guy out that’s supposed to be a friend of his.”
“Prairie, listen. I had a talk with Nancy Reeves. Part of that talk had to do with Pamela Reeves’ income. You say she told Merrill about this blackmail business. How come she never mentioned it to me—at least, about the income?”
He waved to the bartender. “One more for me. Nothing for him. He’s got a train to make.” He tapped me on the cheek. “By any perchance, Transom, haven’t you ever run up against ladies and gentlemen? You and me, we’re different. But those ladies and gentlemen—like Nancy and Merrill—they draw what they call the line at certain things. There’s certain things you don’t never mention. Cricket, you know, whatever the hell that is. You and me, we’re different. We pull anything once we get peeved enough.”
“Peeved?”
“Peeved. That’s one
son of a bitch I’m peeved at, a guy using sin—synthetic—a guy using dynamite to blast a pea pod. An operator, a phony, a strudel. Strictly a strudel.”
“Strictly?”
“A strudel.”
2
My visit to Fourth Street was all hunch and no play despite the glowing attractions of the good Annie. In the jargon of my business, it was follow-through on Petersen. Follow-through on Petersen developed a basement apartment with barred windows and a musical finger-button that chimed sonorously, and then Annie in short shorts, a narrow halter, a wide smile, and mules. She held the door open and gave me the up-and-down, twice, and took my hand. “Come on in.”
The apartment was one large room with five scatter rugs and a hardwood floor and a throbbing refrigerator beside an electric stove (partly curtained off). There was a knick-knack table with knick-knacks and a fireplace without fire and a radio and a round glass coffee table and pictures on the walls and two nudes of Annie, one back-view, and two square divans, in diagonal corners, with tiger-stripe covers. Annie took my hat and coat, and hoisted herself on my lapels, most of her touching me. “I win my bet,” she said. Her hands moved up and around me and the tip of her tongue wet my ear.
If this was follow-through on Petersen in the jargon of the private richard, somebody had better substitute a pidgin version of chopped Esperanto.
I pointed my elbows and I broke out of it.
“Bet? What kind of bet? With whom?”
“With me. I knew you’d show up. Drink?”
“Anything.”
“What?”
“Yes. A drink.”
The remnants of Noilly Prat just about covered the glass cone inside the bottle. “There isn’t much,” Annie said.
“You have it.”
She sipped vermouth on the tiger-striped couch, while I endured crisscrossed pangs on a wicker chair. We chatted, amiably enough, but the subject, somehow, stayed on love. Love. Every time I tried to get by love, Annie was more obstructive than a fat man in an aisle seat. Love. Then she was in my lap, and the pangs of crisscross bit deeper. Diplomacy became part of follow-through on Petersen. “Lovely,” the man said. “You’re lovely.”
