Lady Crymsy

by P. N. Elrod

  My first stop was at Lady Crymsyn to see to the day’s business. The private opening was coming up fast. Leon and his men would have to work through the weekend, but they probably wouldn’t mind the extra money the overtime would bring.

  I was going to park out front as usual, but two cars were already blocking the curb, neither of which I recognized. Two equally unfamiliar men hung around the door, talking and smoking and keeping an eye on the street. Reporters. I knew that bored but still hungry look, having been there myself. Careful not to glance their way, I drove past, taking a turn at the next block over to come up to the alley running behind the club.

  My headlights picked out another man sitting in the shallow alcove of the backstage service door.

  They had me covered.

  He shaded his eyes from the glare. Too late to shift to reverse, I resigned myself to inflicting another hypnosis session on some hapless schmuck. It was with no small amount of surprise I abruptly recognized the man to be Malone. What the hell?

  Obviously favoring any number of sore spots, he stood up slowly, waiting for me. I set the parking brake and got out.

  “Hello, Mr. Fleming.” His face looked worse than before. Some of the swelling had gone down, but the bruising had turned black in spots.

  “Hello, yourself.” I put my hand out, and we shook. His grip was somewhat less than firm, but I put that down to his weakened condition. “What are you doing here?”

  He made that nervous tic smile, or something close to it around the bruises. “I—ah—I’m looking for a job.”

  That explained his plain blue suit and quiet tie. Both looked like they didn’t get a lot of use except to decorate hangers. A faint scent of mothballs drifted from him. “I thought you were going to rest up first.”

  “By the time your club opens I’ll be all better.”

  I checked him up and down and agreed with his estimate. It must have been quite an act of courage for him to come by. “Inside. We’ll talk.”

  He released a soft sigh of relief, and I knew I’d been right on the courage part.

  I unlocked the service door, ushered him in, and locked it again. Once shut, we were in total darkness for him, and something close to it for me. Enough outside glow seeped through the red-tinted panes in the opposite windows so I could navigate without walking into things. For Malone’s convenience, I found the lighting box and threw a few switches. He gazed around the stage where we stood, then took in the vast audience area and looked suitably impressed.

  “Heavens,” he said. “I had no idea it would be this elaborate.”

  “I’m hoping others will think the same. This way.”

  I led off to the left, not too fast so he could keep up. He openly gaped at the portrait of Lady Crymsyn and, as before when giving Escott the tour, I tasted the sweet flavor of proprietorship mixed with pride. If it was this satisfying now, come opening night I’d be permanently addicted.

  For once, the lobby bar light was off, and no one had bothered to leave another solitary shot glass of whiskey out to annoy and mystify. Good.

  We went up to the second-floor office. Malone made no comment about its contrasting lack of décor compared to the luxury below. I found a folding chair for him and put it before the old table I used as a desk. As ever, a pile of paperwork waited for me there, including Leon’s clipboard with its ever-growing number of notes. A shipment of glassware and other equipment had arrived today. They’d stored the crates in the main room. Leon wanted to know who to contact to install some of the more specialized items like beer dispensers. That was union labor, and I had someone lined up for it, but it would require a daytime call and supervision. Leon could probably take care of it, but he knew construction, not bars and office work.

  I looked at Malone and wondered how many miracles I was entitled to in one lifetime.

  “What kind of job did you have in mind?” I asked.

  “Bartending.” His voice was muted and speech blurred because of his split lip. “I’m very good at it.”

  “I know. Nevis wouldn’t have kept you around for long if you weren’t. How’d you learn I was hiring? From him?”

  “Not directly. The manager at the Flying Ace called to find out why I’d not come in tonight.”

  “He hadn’t heard about your fight?”

  “He’d heard, but was told I’d only been pushed around a little. Just some harmless fun.” There was a touch of bitterness in his voice, but he was entitled.

  “And he got told by the guys who did the pushing?”

  “Yes, exactly that. I gave him my side of things and why I had no desire to return for more, then he said it was tough luck.”

  “But not tough enough for him to fix things for you?”

  Malone puffed one gentle laugh. “Hardly. He isn’t a bad sort, just not one to stick his neck out. Not for me, anyway.”

  “Some guys think it’s catching.”

  That got another, longer laugh. It might have been more audible if he’d been feeling better. Instead, he pressed one hand to his side. Probably had a stitch in the damaged muscle there or maybe a bruised rib. “I think he did want to help me in some way, though, and suggested I try my luck here. The boss had told him to pass the word around that you were looking to hire people.”

  So Nevis had had some memory of our conversation. I wondered if he’d fully recovered from his migraine. And what else he might have remembered—or learned—about me today. I fixed a long, concentrated stare on Malone until I was sure he was under. “Did Booth Nevis or anyone else send you to spy on me?”

  Malone’s battered face was relaxed enough to look dead. Especially around his unblinking, unfocused eyes. “No.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “I… I need a job.”

  “Did Nevis or Coker ever talk about me? Or ask you questions?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ever hear them say anything about Lena Ashley?”

  “No.”

  “What about Welsh Lennet?”

  “No.”

  I let go my brief hold on him and watched normal animation creep back into his expression. He wouldn’t recall anything. “You know Nevis has a black reputation in some quarters. Why’d you work for him for so long?”

  “I needed a job; he gave me one.”

  “There’s always places for a good bartender in a city this big.”

  “Times are hard, Mr. Fleming, and the tips at the Flying Ace were better than I might find elsewhere.”

  “You’d make even more at one of the fancier watering holes on the north side.”

  “I liked where I was.” He made that tic again. It was almost a grimace.

  I decided against giving him a hypnotic nudge, keeping quiet and letting the silence stretch.

  He seemed to know what I was trying to do and dropped his gaze to the floor. “There was more to it,” he finally muttered.

  “Like Nevis asking you to do extra work on the side?”

  “What?”

  “Did he have you running errands like Tony Upshaw?”

  There was genuine startlement in his tone. “N-no, Certainly not. I just ran the bar, nothing more.”

  “Then what else was there?”

  Malone went red to his roots, which did not combine well with the black of the bruises. “Mr. Nevis… he—he knew I’d been in prison.”

  I snorted, unimpressed. “Oh, is that all?” He started to add more, then choked it off, surprised at my reaction. Leaning back, I put my hands behind my head. “Listen, half the mugs in this town have been on the inside at one time or another. Anyplace else in the world and it’d be considered a rite of passage. Anthropologists could write reports for National Geographic, complete with pictures.”

  “I’ve not met many people with that sort of opinion on the subject,” he said after a moment.

  “What’d they put you away for?” I was careful to phrase it just that way rather than ask “what did you do?” Hanging around in Gordy’s crowd had
given my manners in regard to the mobs a certain diplomatic polish.

  “I wrote some bad checks. Did eight months out of a year. They paroled me early for good behavior.”

  “Bad checks? Sounds pretty tame to me.”

  “Not to hear others talk. If they think you’ve been crooked with money once, they assume you will be again.”

  “What’s the whole story, then? If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “I don’t, not really. Things are so different for me now it’s as though it all happened a long time ago to some other fellow.”

  “I know what that’s like. Go on.”

  He shrugged. “It’s nothing much. I had a store once, dry goods and that sort of thing, and was partners with my brother. David liked to gamble, though, and he’d drain the profits to pay his debts when he lost. It usually wasn’t a lot, and sometimes he’d make a big win and pay it all back, so things tended to balance themselves out. Then he hit a long stretch of bad luck and he kept on betting, hoping it would change.”

  “But it didn’t.”

  “Bad to worse, and more so because he didn’t tell me what was going on. He had to make a big payoff and took nearly everything out of the bank. There were some rough types coming around to collect from him. They would have hurt him, maybe killed him.”

  “Then the boom fell.”

  Malone nodded. “The store bills had to be paid… and I paid them.”

  “But if you didn’t know the checks would be bad—”

  “Actually, I did. It was perfectly stupid of me, but my brother persuaded me to believe that his luck would change for the better. He had a sure thing at the track that he knew would come in. Only it didn’t, and so I was left with the consequences. It was my signature on the checks, not his, after all, and too late to call them back.”

  “So he left you swinging in the wind? He couldn’t have said something to a judge to help you out?”

  “He would have, but he was killed in a car accident a week before the trial. It was an unholy mess.”

  “Didn’t any of this come out in court?”

  “Yes, but I couldn’t afford a decent attorney, and it was an election year for the prosecutor’s office. He managed to get an easy and quick conviction to add to his record.”

  “Your kid know this about you?”

  “Not one word—and she never will if I can help it. She was only three and doesn’t remember anything about me being away for so long. I’m an honest man, Mr. Fleming. I made a mistake blinding myself to my brother’s weakness. It is not something I’ll ever repeat.”

  That was for damn sure. “What about the rest of your family? You get along with them all right?”

  “I haven’t any real family left except for Norrie. Her mother… had a bad heart. She died giving birth.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Your little girl—if I’m stepping over the line, lemme know—but I was wondering about that scar on her neck.”

  He made a deprecating gesture. “People ask about it, most of them aren’t as polite as you. I don’t want her growing up self-conscious about it, you see, or being teased by others.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “She was in the car with my brother. There was broken glass. Missed killing her by a fraction. I still have nightmares about what might have happened. Silly of me. She’s safe now, thank God. And thank God she doesn’t remember any of it, either. Not really. Sometimes she has nightmares, too, but I’m hoping she’ll grow out of them.”

  “Is that what you meant last night about things being complicated?”

  “I said that? I suppose so, yes.” He made a rueful face.

  Awkward silence, with me thinking along there-but-for-the-grace-of-God lines. I shook out of it and cleared my throat. “About last night…”

  Malone straightened, probably sensing and welcoming a change of subject. “Yes?”

  “I saw you had some college books on accounting. Those didn’t just come with your flat, did they?”

  He looked puzzled. Couldn’t blame him, it was quite a shift. “They’re mine. That’s what I studied for a few years.”

  “Ever get to use any of it?”

  “When I ran the store, but not lately.”

  “You know how things work in a club bar, is it much different from your store?”

  “Not very.”

  “How’d you get from dry goods to mixing drinks?”

  “It was the only place that would hire me once I was released. Mr. Nevis asked if I knew how to draw beer from a tap—which I did—and I picked up the rest watching the other bartenders.”

  I nodded. “Okay, Malone, it’s like this: I need a general manager for this place, and right now you’re the only one I’ve talked to who looks good for the spot.”

  Tic. Quite a big one, nearly a full twitch that used up his whole battered face. “G-general manager?”

  “It’d mean keeping the books, hiring and firing, and making sure the help doesn’t guzzle the inventory or sneak from the till. You’d meet and greet special customers when necessary. For some nights you’ll need a tuxedo, but the club can pay for that if you don’t have one.”

  He couldn’t seem to shut his mouth.

  “It’s going to use up time and require a man who’s reliable and responsible enough to stay at it. I’m only available in the evenings. I need someone to see to the day work, so you’d have to make plenty of decisions on your own. Think you’re up to it?” I sat back and let him mull it over. It didn’t take him too long.

  “What—what sort of hours would be required?” he asked, his face pinched from furious internal calculation.

  “As many as it takes to get the job done. A lot at first until the place is opened and a routine is set, then maybe not so much. Is that going to be a problem?”

  “I was just thinking about Norrie. I shouldn’t like her to be alone too much. Well, not alone, Mrs. Tanenbaum looks after her, but that’s not the same as having her daddy around.”

  “The first month will be the busiest, but after that—” I lifted my hand, palm up. “Look, soon she’ll be in school most of the day, right? You can come in while she’s there, do what needs doing, take a couple hours off home with her, then come back until I get here in the evenings. You don’t live that far away.”

  “It might work,” he admitted.

  “You’d open the place for the waiters and set up the cash registers for them, nothing you haven’t done before. And you wouldn’t have to stay late since I’ll be here to close. What d’ya say?”

  He made no reply, still looking overwhelmed by the possibilities.

  “Malone?”

  He blinked, swallowed a few times. “I don’t know. You’re giving me quite a lot of trust, and you hardly know me.”

  “If you were dishonest or dumb, Nevis wouldn’t have bothered with you. Guys who sneak from his till only do it once—or so I’ve heard. The same rule applies here, if that’s any comfort.”

  That raised half a smile on him. “I’ve no argument with it.”

  “So. You want this job?”

  “Y-yes. But what if things don’t work out?”

  “Then I find someone else, you go ahead and do regular bartending here, and no hard feelings for either of us.”

  His smile might have been full on except for the lip damage, but most of it still shone out his one good eye. “Yes, yes, absolutely.”

  He reached across to shake my outstretched hand on the deal. I froze him in place with one of my looks. My conscience tried to give me a twinge about doing this sort of thing to the guy, but I successfully ignored it. I liked him, and my instincts said he’d work out, but business was business, after all.

  “You’re not going to steal from me, are you, Malone?”

  “N-no, sir.”

  “Or spy on me for anyone?”

  “No.”

  “And you’ll let me know if anyone asks you to?”

  “Yes.”
r />   “Then we’ll get along great.” By the time I released his grip, he was back to normal and asking where to start.

  8

  At five minutes after nine, I broke off trying to explain my half-assed attempts at bookkeeping to a very patient and bemused Malone and phoned the Red Deuces for Bobbi. She answered herself.

  “That was fast,” I said after saying hello. “Were you sitting on it?”

  “Almost. I’ve been hanging around the office during my break.”

  “What’s going on? Charles mentioned something about the funeral.”

  “I’ve got it all arranged, but it’s not going to be a real funeral, because the police haven’t released that poor woman’s remains yet, which is really stupid of them.” She sounded huffy about the situation and gave me a thumbnail of her day’s trials and tribulations. She’d juggled a truck-load of them. “In the end I had to settle for just a memorial service for Lena at the funeral home.”

  “Not a church?”

  “I tried, but they were all strangely busy with other things.”

  “They must be allergic to the notoriety. What happens when the cops do release the body?”

  Malone, who couldn’t help hearing my end of the conversation, looked up from his work, wide of eye for a moment, then wisely bent back over the account books again.

  “They’ll do some kind of short service at the cemetery,” she answered. “But that won’t be for a while. I need your help right away.”

  “Name it.”

  “You’re going to talk to Rita tonight?”

  “I hope to.”

  “Find out from her whether I need a priest, minister, or rabbi to speak tomorrow. If she and Lena were best friends, then she might know.”

  “Yeah, sure, I guess.” I’d picked up an edge to her voice, which meant she was working too hard.

  “It’s really important, Jack. The guy at the funeral home told me how people are very particular about that sort of thing. I don’t want to muddle any of this up.”

  “Yeah, we wouldn’t want her going to the wrong heaven after all this time.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Yes, it is, when you think about it. It’s not as though you have to wait to be buried first before you take off.”