by P. N. Elrod
But…Escott or Bobbi or even Wilton could take care of that; I didn’t have to be at Crymsyn. It just felt odd being someplace else.
“Don’t you have a club to run?” Kroun asked, still watching Caine.
Damn, was he psychic or something? “Had to take a detour here. Car trouble. Strome’s driving me over later.”
A waitress came by. Kroun didn’t want anything, still focused on the show. I waved her off and lighted a cigarette for something to do. Kroun glanced over.
“You smoke?” He seemed mildly surprised.
“Yeah. That a problem?” Everybody smoked. The club’s air was thick from it. The spotlight on Caine fought through a slowly shifting blue haze.
“No. Just—”
“What?
He shook his head. “Nothing.”
Maybe he was one of those fresh-air types. I could have told him that smoking actually exercised and strengthened the lungs. I’d read it in a magazine ad someplace. Of course I couldn’t inhale, so none of that applied to me. Jewel Caine must have lungs stronger than Walter Winchell’s.
Alan Caine’s number ended on a big, heartbreaking, and beautifully clean note. I was no musician, but knew enough about how hard that was to pull off. No wonder Escott was impressed. The spot winked out, and the houselights came up. Caine had delivered; the audience wanted to let him know about it. His voice had filled the room, and in the wash of adulation for that talent he glowed. He graciously smiled and humbly bowed, and whatever magnetism he had going sent them wild. The women called his name over and over, blowing kisses, waving handkerchiefs. It was crazy. I’d seen something like it in a newsreel, but the film had been about Hitler. Just as well Caine wasn’t in politics. We didn’t need an American version of Germany’s most famous house painter.
Caine made a last bow and dashed lightly off to get behind the curtains. They didn’t quite close, and I saw him visibly shut down his performance personality the second he ducked backstage. He wouldn’t need it until the next show. He had thirty minutes for a costume change, going from a black to an all-white tuxedo for the second set. Plenty of time to swap clothes, have a belt of booze. Or gargle. I glimpsed a flash of spangles beyond the curtain: Evie Montana trotting eagerly past to catch up with him. Yeah, there was time for her, too, if she didn’t mind rushing things.
I suddenly shivered in my overcoat. Couldn’t help it.
“You cold?” Kroun asked.
“Yeah. I must be in a draft.”
“Or it’s that medicine you take. I heard some of that stuff can do weird things.”
“Or I’m catching cold.”
Kroun’s deadpan look returned. “A cold?”
I’d not been sick from an ordinary illness since my change. Didn’t know if I could get sick in the ordinary way. For all I knew this could be the Undead version of the Spanish influenza.
“Maybe you should get more sun.”
Most of the guys who worked these nightclub jobs were fish-belly pale. I fit right in. “Nah, I’m allergic to daylight.”
“Ya think? Never heard that one before.”
The band swung into dance music, and couples moved onto the floor for some fast fox-trotting. That was one way to work off the extra energy Caine had built up in them. The waitress came by again, got waved off again. After a few tune changes I checked my watch. Bobbi’s first set was over, and Teddy Parris would be stepping from the wings. I could almost see and hear it in my mind. After his set and their duet, Roland and Faustine’s red-washed dance—
Shut it down. Quick. Better to not make pictures of anything in my head. I might go fragile, which could get humiliating. Strome should have returned by now. Maybe he’d gotten sidetracked backstage. Plenty of cute girls there, and this was their break time.
Kroun’s attention wandered around the club, then he looked at his watch.
“Expecting someone?” I asked.
“Mitchell. He said he was catching up with some friends here. You?”
“Strome’s due. Maybe they’re having drinks.”
He snorted. “Not likely. Mitchell said friends. Those two are oil and water. They only mix when they have to.”
“I can have the boys find him.” I had an odd feeling about Mitchell. What if he’d decided to make a quick trip to Lady Crymsyn to see Bobbi? I stood to leave. “I’ll check on ’em both.”
Kroun flapped one nonchalant hand, apparently content to watch the dancers. The waitress, either determined to earn her keep or responding to his particular magnetism, came back with a glass of ice water for him. He smiled warmly up at her. She smiled back. He wouldn’t be short of female attention tonight if I read her look correctly. Alan Caine had nothing on Kroun when it came to acquiring company.
There was a phone at the Nightcrawler’s bar—the kind Bobbi wanted me to put in—and I used it to call Crymsyn’s lobby booth. Several rings went by until a drunk guy answered. I’d expected Wilton, but he was probably busy.
The drunk guy was remarkably unentertaining, parroting my questions back at me and giggling. A woman’s voice cut in, there were sounds of a wrestling match, a slap and a yelp from the guy, followed by more giggling. I wondered if I’d been that boring in the days when I’d been able to get properly drunk. One of them hung up the phone.
Hm. Bobbi’s idea was looking better by the minute. Crymsyn was a swank place. Busy. No reason why I couldn’t have two phones in it. I waited a minute, watching Kroun use his charm effectively on the waitress, then dialed again. This time Wilton answered. He sounded harried and said he’d get Escott.
Clunk, as he dropped the receiver onto the booth’s small writing ledge. From the sounds filtering through there was a large, noisy crowd in the lobby. That was reassuring. I should be there to greet the customers as usual. A smile, a firm handshake, the suggestion they’d have a great time, hit home with a little eye whammy…well, maybe not that. Until the axe-blade migraines stopped I’d have to stay on the wagon from artificially winning friends and influencing people.
The waitress was now sitting with Kroun; but that was okay, everyone knew who he was, and none would nag her to get back to her job. In passing I noticed she was slim and dark-haired, very like Adelle Taylor but shorter. He must have liked that type. The waitress sure seemed to like him.
“Hallo?” Escott. Finally.
“It’s Jack.”
“You all right?”
“I’m dandy. Just checking on things. Remember Mitchell from last night? The mug who wasn’t Strome and didn’t have a streak of silver in his hair?”
“The ill-favored Casca of the trio?”
I recognized the theatrical tone and perfect inflection. Escott must have had a good dollop of brandy. It brought out the Shakespeare in him. I’d had to read some of the plays just to get his references at times. Looks like I’d have to put another one on the list. “I guess. He’s not shown up there, has he?”
“Not that I’ve noticed. Is there a problem?”
“So long as he stays away. I sent some extra bouncers over. They doing their job?”
“Of looking formidable and threatening? Yes, they’re covering that most excellently well. One of them said they were there to keep Hoyle and his cronies out.”
“Yeah. It’s probably nothing, but I don’t wanna take chances. Tell them I said to add Mitchell to the list. I don’t want him bothering Bobbi.”
“Why would he do that?”
“He knows her from when she was with Morelli.”
A pause. “Indeed. I take it you’d prefer she not be subjected to unpleasant reminders of that chapter of her life.”
“Bull’s-eye. If Mitchell shows, tell him his boss Kroun wants him back at the Nightcrawler, toot-sweet.”
“I shall be pleased to do so.”
“You seem to be in a good mood.”
“Ah. Yes, well, I am, as it happens. Vivian was delighted at the idea of a party. Bobbi’s setting it up for Saturday. My appreciation is boundless, old man.”
“Take your time, all’s well.”
I hung up. Next he’d be skipping in a meadow throwing flower petals around.
No he wouldn’t. But still.
Kroun looked like he might not care to be disturbed. I left him to proceed with his conquest and went on to pass the word for the help to be looking for Mitchell. Let him interrupt his boss’s canoodling.
Another shiver. Damn.
Since Strome was likely to come in by the alley door, I made my way to the rear of the club. The kitchen would be warmer than the rest of the place. I’d wait by a fired up stove and hope to thaw out. If that couldn’t shake the chill, then I didn’t know what else to do. Maybe retreat to my office and turn up the radiator and sit on it all night with a hot-water bottle. Come the daytime, and the cold wouldn’t matter.
I didn’t get as far as the kitchen. Strome was in the wide hall of the backstage area with Derner, and their heads were close together. Even at a distance I could see something off in their posture. They weren’t the sort to broadcast much in the way of emotion, but I did pick up there was trouble of some kind going.
They spotted my approach at the same time, and each gave his own suppressed version of a guilty start.
“What is it?” I asked, my voice low. The lights were necessarily doused here to keep from showing on the stage area in front. Only thin threads seeped from under the dressing room doors. All but one: Alan Caine’s.
“Got a problem, Boss,” said Derner.
“We can take care of it,” said Strome.
“What is it?” I suspected that Caine and Evie Montana were locked in, most likely involved in some very advanced canoodling. Not unheard of in a dressing room. Hell, Bobbi and I had…
The grim mugs in front of me said I was on the wrong track. I waited them out, just looking and frowning.
Derner broke first. “There’s been an accident.”
Strome winced at the word. That he reacted so strongly was more than enough to put my back hairs up. “Accident, my ass,” he muttered.
He was upset. “Spit it out,” I said.
Derner rubbed a hand over his face, a show of weariness and frustration in the gesture. Next he checked the wide hall, which was empty, which was not normal. There should have been chorus girls wandering about, the stage manager, stray waiters. All I saw were a couple of the muscle boys at the other end, waiting and watching…me. Derner opened Caine’s dressing-room door. It creaked inward to silence.
No sounds of an interrupted tryst, no squawk of outrage, no movement at all.
Dark inside. The dim spill from the hall didn’t penetrate far, even for me.
“What happened?” I asked. “He leave?”
“Caine’s still here, Boss,” said Strome.
And without going any farther, without any visible facts, I knew what was wrong.
8
OF course I’d have to look. I was the boss. It was my job to deal with this kind of disaster.
Disaster it was. An almighty ugly one.
With me on the threshold and using his body to block the view of anyone passing, Derner reached in and flicked the light switch.
Alan Caine had his back to me, slumped awkwardly over his dressing table. There was a big mirror above it, and I couldn’t chance Derner noticing my lack of reflection.
“Gimme a minute,” I said from the side of my mouth, then stepped in and shut the door on him before he saw. If only I could hypnotize without hurting myself, then I wouldn’t have to be alone in a room with a fresh corpse.
I chanced to take in a whiff and got what I expected: talcum powder, grease paint, and sweat mixed with the stink of urine and crap. Death had been brutal to Caine, and once relaxed, his body had given way with everything. No sweet peace here.
Fists in my pockets, I kept my distance. Had to bend low to check his face. What I expected: bloated and purple, broken blood vessels in his bulging eyes, tongue sticking out as though to offer a final opinion to the world. Something that looked like a blue necktie but wasn’t was wound tight around his throat, the middle part almost lost in the folds of violated skin. Whoever had done it hadn’t wanted noise and was strong enough to make it quick. No signs of a struggle anywhere else; the only evidence of the violence was the body itself.
“Damn.”
The guy had been abusive, obnoxious, and alive not too many minutes ago. I hadn’t liked him, but to take the life out of another this swiftly and easily was just wrong. Having killed as well as been killed, I understood how little effort was needed to do that which should be unthinkable. We unite to build towers to the sky, make music and art to feed our souls, can sacrifice selflessly to help others, yet cling with a lover’s greedy passion to the lowest and darkest of our emotions. Most of us don’t act upon that hate-driven force. We resist.
But for someone…not this time.
That blue thing on Caine’s neck. Jewel had worn a blue dress. I didn’t want her to be involved. A quick check of the closet turned up nothing of similar color.
Ah. Coatrack by the door. There was a blue satin smoking jacket hanging from a peg. Same color as the tie. Empty loops on the garment. Same material. Good. But Jewel wasn’t off the hook entirely.
The killer must have stood here, watching Caine, maybe listening, but looking for something to use against him. Something quiet. A .22 being fired might not be heard, or the sound misinterpreted. Knock a wooden chair over the right way and it makes more noise. But the killer might not have known that or possessed so small a gun. Most of the guys in this outfit never went with anything less that a .38.
Why not a knife, then? Plenty of them in the club’s kitchen and simple enough to boost one and walk out. Or bring your own.
They can take time to do the job, though. You have to know what you’re doing. Human skin is tougher than one would think, and dragging even a razor-sharp blade through a couple of inches of muscle and cartilage of a throat takes effort. The victim doesn’t die instantly. There can be messy thrashing around; the killer can get splashed with telltale blood.
But strangulation, it’s very intimate. That’s one way to feel the whole progression of things shutting down as the life goes out of the body. There’s no doubt about death. If you have the strength and speed and cut off the blood to the brain quick, a few moment’s effort will do it. After that, then only forty pounds of pressure to crush what needs to be crushed, and it’s over and done, make a quiet exit.
Freeing up one of my hands, I lifted one of Caine’s by the shirt cuff and checked his manicured fingernails. Small dark crescents were under those nails, but not dirt—bloodsmell. He’d managed to dig in deep in his last struggle and left marks someplace on his killer’s body. The wrists…
Looked the rest of the small room over. No cover, no place to hide. Just me and what Caine had left behind of himself.
Bobbi had also used this as a dressing room at one time. And Adelle Taylor. And lots of others I knew by name or in person. Their ghosts seemed to shift uneasily around me, disliking what had happened in their sanctuary. I stood and was dizzy from the shift, staggering a step. Waited, expecting another fit to sneak up from within, but it didn’t happen. It was the air here. The presence of death. I didn’t have to breathe to be overwhelmed.
I got on the other side of the door, met Derner’s and Strome’s gazes.
“Yeah,” said Derner, apparently agreeing with whatever he saw on my face.
“Any ideas?” I asked.
“’Bout what?”
“Who did it.”
He shrugged. “Try a phone book.”
“Not good enough. Show me your hands, both of you. Push your sleeves up.”
They were mystified. Good.
“We don’t shoot dope, Boss,” said Strome, misinterpreting.
Derner was clean. Strome’s knuckles were banged
up and raw, but that was from the fight last night with Hoyle. His arms were free of nail gouging and scratches. I needed these two to be in the clear. On the other hand, they might have ordered someone else to strangle Caine, though the why of it was a mystery. I could settle such questions easy enough, but at the cost of collapsing in agony at their feet. Bosses weren’t supposed to do that in front of the hired help.
Until I knew better, I’d just have to keep shut. “Who knows about this? Who found him?”
“Stage manager, just a few minutes ago,” said Strome.
“Did he see anyone else in or out?”
“Nope. I asked him special. He knocked on the door, it opened, and he saw, then locked up and went for me and Derner. He won’t say nothing.”
“We gotta get Caine out of here,” Derner advised, casting a glance up and down the hall. “The next show starts soon, there’s no backup act—”
“Where’s Jewel Caine?” I asked.
“What? His ex? She’s here?”
“She was when we opened. Came back here to talk with friends. See if she’s in with the dancers.”
He did so, banging once on their dressing room door and barging in. No one screamed a protest, and I heard their negative replies to his question.
“She left just a little bit ago,” someone within volunteered. “What’s the idea locking us up? Hey—”
He returned. “You think she did it?”
Strome nodded. “She was plenty burned with him last night.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “We’ll figure that later. Where’s the stage manager?”
Derner got him, explained that Alan Caine had come over sick and had to leave. The manager nodded slowly, rightly taking this to be the blanket explanation he would pass to others. After that, we did some fast shuffling to fill out the second show for the evening. An apologetic announcement was to be given to the house. One of the dancers also sang, so she’d have to change to a gown and do some solo numbers to keep things going. The other dancers had a hoofing routine already worked up that would pad the bill. The manager went off to fix things.
