by P. N. Elrod
“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.”
“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 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 truckload 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.”
“Jack—”
“Do you really think anyone needs some kind of notarized statement saying ‘Dear Saint Peter, here’s another stiff, pass him through the gates, signed, Father McGonnigill.’”
“Jack—”
“‘PS: He once had a hot dog on a Friday, but don’t hold that against him.’”
I didn’t get much sense out of her then, but that was okay, a little profane release is always good for the soul. “Feel better?” I asked after a few moments of holding the receiver away from my ear.
“How is it you always know what I need most?” she demanded, sounding more relaxed.
“Native talent, my dear. Now what else can I do to you?”
“I can think of something, but you’ll have to save it for later; I’ve still got grim reaper business.”
“Shoot away.”
She told me how much the services would cost, which included the graveside stuff and price of the coffin and headstone.
“Doesn’t seem like a lot,” I said. “Not that I’m complaining.”
“The guy who runs the home knew me as being one of Gordy’s friends, so he cut a good deal.”
Fair enough. Over the years he may have gotten a lot of business thrown his way because of Gordy. I kept such grisly speculations to myself, though, since Malone was still in front of me. He already looked like he’d work out fine for the club; I didn’t want to scare him off.
Bobbi told me the where of the service and when: tomorrow evening at eight.
“Isn’t it unusual to have it at night?” I asked, scribbling it all down.
“Not for a memorial. Anyway, I figured you’d want to be there.”
“I don’t want to, but I will to see who turns up and why—and to keep you company,” I quickly added.
“Smart man,” she purred in a dangerously sweet tone.
“I don’t need to be the undertaker’s next customer. What about your job? Is there any trouble about you taking time off for this?”
“The boss won’t short my check as long as I do my two sets that night. I’m swapping my schedule around with one of the other acts. As long as I’m back by ten, everything’s jake. Now, it’s too late to put an announcement in the papers, so I’ll call Gordy to spread the word and you do the same at that going-away party.”
“Yeah. Maybe they can break off their boozing long enough to put in an appearance.”
“What if no one comes to this?” she fretted.
“You’ll get a good turnout, angel; the place will be jammed with reporters.”
“No, it won’t.” She sounded smug.
“How’d you manage that?”
“Not me, Lieutenant Blair.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“I had a nice talk with him about all this, and he promised to have plenty of uniforms around to keep things in hand.”
“And keep track of who comes and goes.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll just omit that little detail from the invitations, though the smarter mugs will figure it out on their own.”
“Which is why I don’t expect a crowd.”
“No need to worry about it. I’m sure the guest of honor won’t notice a damn thing.”
“Jack!” Exasperation. “I’m trying to be serious here.”
“Don’t mind me, sweetheart. I have to be an ass about it now so I can handle it later.”
Pause. Then, “This is digging into you, too, isn’t it?”
“Enough so Charles had to comment.”
“Oh. I didn’t know. You going to be all right?”
“Yeah.” I put in a note of reassurance. Some of it was genuine.
“Will Charles attend?”
“Hard to say. Right now he’s on a train to New York, so I wouldn’t count on it.” I explained about the dognapping errand. Bobbi was disappointed, but because of her own precarious career understood the odd demands of Escott’s irregular business.
When I hung up, Malone stopped pretending to work and put down his pencil. “I don’t wish to pry, but . . .”
“It’s okay. My girlfriend’s making arrangements for the body they found in the cellar. There doesn’t seem to be any family coming forward, the cops haven’t traced them, either, so it’s sort of left up to us.”
“But I thought the city took care of things like that.”
No need for me to repeat all the points Gordy had cited on why I should take up the task. “Yeah, well, if I can borrow a phrase, it’s complicated. I don’t want people finding out we’re doing this, either, so if some reporters ask, you don’t know who’s behind it.”
“Reporters?”
“When you arrived, didn’t you see a couple guys hanging around the front?”
“Yes, I’d forgotten about them. I thought they also might be here applying for work.”
“Why didn’t you wait with them?”
“I didn’t like their looks. Rather scruffy and desperate.”
“You’re a good judge of character. I’ve shooed most of the others away, so you shouldn’t have problems, but you might still have to fend off some phone calls until this sideshow settles down.”
He didn’t look too thrilled at the prospect, and I took it as a sign that he’d be suitably discouraging to members of my former profession.
“The foreman here, Leon, will help out if anyone gets pushy. Which reminds me, I need to let him know about hiring you on.”
While Malone wen
t back to making order of my chaos, I scribbled a note to Leon, explaining things. The phone rang; it was someone wanting a bartending job. Word was getting around, then. I told him what he needed to know and said he could come in tomorrow to talk to the general manager, then caught myself and put a hand over the mouthpiece.
“Can you be here on a Saturday?” I asked Malone.
“When?”
I gauged how battered he looked against the necessity of getting the club ready for its private, invitation-only opening by next Friday night. He had no problem coming in at noon and staying until six. He said he could be earlier, but I shook my head, confirmed the time to the guy on the phone, and hung up. While I was thinking of it, I fished out the keys to the joint and handed them over.
“You can use these until Leon gets your own set made. The one with the red tag is for the front door, the blue is for the back.”
“But how will you get in?”
“I’ve got another set at home,” I lied.
Malone held the keys in his hand a moment, looking at them.
“Something wrong?”
Tic. “It’s just, well, it’s a lot to take in. I didn’t expect anything like this when I decided to come over tonight. Are you sure about me? You don’t seem to mind about—about certain things.”
“Your private life is none of my business. You being able to do the job right is. If it works out, fine. You won’t have to worry about the bouncers here, either. For one thing, you’ll be the one hiring them. And if anyone gives you trouble, you let me know so I can deal with it. I’m going to run a nice, smooth operation, and back-alley brawls are not in my plans.”
“You’re very confident, aren’t you?”
“I guess I am.” It wasn’t a word I’d have instantly used to describe myself. “Stubborn smart-ass” struck me as being more appropriate, but I’d readily accept his definition as a more genteel alternative.
“That’s a rare quality these days,” he said. “So many people have none left because of the hard times, you know.”
“Can’t blame ’em, but I figure you’d have met mugs with plenty of moxie working at Nevis’s place.”
“Not really. Most of their bravado was from a bottle or a big win at the tables. Once they’re sober and the money’s spent, they go right back to old habits and fears—until the next time.”
I recalled he had some psychology books on his shelves. He’d either read them through or was a part-time barroom philosopher. “Check me again a week after we open. If this place is a bust, you may have to alter your opinion.”
“I hope not,” he said with half a smile, and gently rapped his knuckles twice against the wooden tabletop before going back to the accounts.
Taking Leon’s clipboard, I left to make a quick inspection of the day’s progress.
The main floor was done except for unpacking glassware and installing the bar equipment. The backstage area was finished and waiting for future performers to break it in. The basement was shaping up, but far too slowly, and we’d come to a major hitch. A portable cement mixer wouldn’t be available until next Friday, meaning the crew couldn’t complete the floor as planned, much less fill in the eyesore trench under the far wall. Times might be tough, but Roosevelt’s NRA was doing a lot of public works stuff this summer, which was why we couldn’t get a mixer right away. I made a note to Leon to call every company in the whole damned county if he had to to find one and to hell with the cost.
In the meantime, he and the crew had improvised, mixing cement one bag at a time in wheelbarrows. They’d started on the near wall and were working their way toward the back entry. It was a good job, smooth and level, but taking too long for my schedule. At this rate we’d have to string curtains to mark off the dressing rooms, and the only plumbing would be upstairs.
Not the grand beginning I wanted. I had to remind myself that the private opening next week was just a special party for a select group, like a dress rehearsal. If things went to hell and gone, it wouldn’t matter all that much. Really.
I trudged upstairs again. Malone would have to pick some other word than con fident to describe me right now.
In the lobby, I rather resignedly noticed that the damned bar light had turned itself on again. I wrote for Leon to take the plate off and check the wiring, then went behind the bar to shut it off. The toggle was up. I flipped it a few times, thinking the mechanism had some kind of fault that made it snap on by itself, but it seemed to work fine. I gave up and left it on.
The stained floor tile had been replaced. With another equally stained tile. Irked, I scrawled more instructions on the subject.
That done, I went to unlock the front door, checking to see if the reporters were still there. They were. We had an intense little talk that gave me the usual dull twinge behind the eyes, but both men departed for greener pastures without fuss and without a story. Neither would remember why or be back.
My inspection finished, I went up to tell Malone it was time to pack it in.
“I’m almost done sorting this out, another hour—” he began.
“I have to beat it for someplace else. Take it home if you want, but get some rest. You’re still brittle, and tomorrow’s going to hurt more than you think.”
“But we haven’t covered nearly enough details for me to start,” he protested.
“You’ve got my list of things to do, what positions to fill, all the phone numbers, and a budget to work with. You know the bar business better than I; you’ve been at it longer. You’ll do fine. I said I needed someone who can fend for himself; here’s a chance to show your stuff without having a boss breathing down your neck all day.”
He made a small, deprecating gesture. “I just don’t want to botch things. It’s possible I could—”
“Jeez, I go out on a limb, take a chance, and it’s complaints already. I’m writing to Roosevelt on this.”
He froze for a second before comprehending the joke, then relaxed into a brief, relieved chuckle. With a tic.
Given time, he’d get used to me.
As it was on the way, I dropped Malone off at his house, saving him some bus fare, then drove on to the address I had for Tony Upshaw’s studio. It was well after ten by the time I found it, too late for any easy, predrink hypnotic interrogations. That had only been a fond and faint hope, anyway. The sort of crowd that was likely to be there would have begun their celebrations hours ago. What the hell, instead of the acquired hypnosis, I could always fall back on my own inborn charm. It could stand some exercising.
There wasn’t much fancy about the outside of the building: a couple of stories of red brick, lots of windows, none of them too clean, but no broken panes. They were all open, spilling out a confused mix of light, music, and voices. A sign attached to the front sported an oversize photo of Upshaw in a tuxedo bending some woman in a white ball gown back in a gracefully executed dip. His name appeared below along with an invitation for new students to ascend to the second floor for their lessons.
The main door was open to a dim hall serving the street-level businesses and a stairway going up. Both were clogged with people sitting or standing at their ease with drinks and cigarettes in hand. Their conversation was loud, in direct competition with the music blaring from above. No one was immediately familiar to me, nor did I cause much stir except while threading my way upstairs, which was inconvenient to those sprawling on the steps.
I’d harbored a small worry about having to crash the party for lack of an invitation. By the look of things it didn’t seem to be anything close to that formal.
The hall above was also crowded, the music more intense, the people more active, a few of them already drunk and verging on disorderly, much to the roaring amusement of their slightly less tipsy friends. It was an interesting crew who had shown up to wish Royce Muldan a good trip. Mugs with bad-road faces and hundred-dollar suits bumped elbows with what looked to be artistic types wearing threadbare cuffs, untrimmed hair, and berets.
The
women were just as mixed, wearing everything from shimmering evening gowns to country trousers. One of them had on what seemed to be a gold satin bathing costume with a matching top hat. The white tap shoes with big gold buckles she clicked about in declared her to be a dancer. I wanted to know what show so I could find out if there were more like her at home.
I pushed a path through a set of open double doors into the studio itself: a long, wide room with a bank of windows on one wall, the other covered with a continuous line of mirrors. Any other time I’d have never crossed the threshold since my lack of a reflection would have been instantly noticed, but it was safe enough with the crowd in the way. There was so much booze flowing that if anyone did see—or rather not see—something odd about me, they might put it down to one too many drinks. Or so I hoped.
Folding tables and chairs were set up all over except for a clear spot in the middle reserved for dancing. I moved closer on the window side of the space, searching dozens of bright, flushed faces in the haze of cigarette smoke, hoping to spot Rita Robillard among them.
The band was good; I recognized the piano man and the drummer as being regular performers at the Nightcrawler. They were busy pounding out something fast and hot for Tony Upshaw, who was twirling a redhead across the floor with expert ease. She wore a loose-fitting white dress, strings of multicolored beads, and her waist-long hair flew as she swung around and around. They were the only ones presently within the reserved space. Smiling her enjoyment, the trim woman matched Upshaw move for move, like Rogers to Astaire.
The number surged to a frenetic finish. Upshaw and his limber partner did some kind of complicated in-out, over-under spinning maneuver they’d obviously practiced to the point of making it seem easy, ending it exactly on a last high note from the horn section. He might have had the look of an ambitious lounge lizard, but he did have talent. They were both rewarded with cheers and applause as they made their bows. As soon as the audience noise died down, the music swelled again but for a slower number this time. Couples trickled onto the floor, soon filling it.
