by Ralph Dennis
“Might be.”
We got on the expressway and headed for the Tenth Street exit. Then we hit West Peachtree and pointed for Jake’s Headhunter Lounge.
CHAPTER FOUR
After we passed Pershing Point I told Hump to stop at the first pay phone he saw. I’d been thinking about making the call ever since we’d taken the job. It would give us an edge to know a couple of answers, but I’d been holding back. I wasn’t quite sure how the call would be received. And, if the word got out I’d made the call, I might end up a fox rather than a hound.
Hump spotted an outside booth next to a service station. He pulled in. “That was a nice thing back there, leaving the five hundred with Annie.”
“Not nice at all,” I said with my hand on the door handle. “It’s practical. If we have some bad luck, that boy Edwin is going to need a funeral.”
The breath went out of Hump in a low, hardly audible whistle. “Hardman, you think too much.”
He left it at that.
“Let me speak to The Man,” I said.
“Nobody by that name here,” said the man who’d answered my call.
“Then tell whoever is there Hardman wants to talk to him.”
I knew The Man was there. Hump and I had worked for him once and we’d ended up saving his hide. I don’t think he’d liked the way we did it, but that was almost a year ago and the last time I’d seen him he seemed to have buried most of the hard feelings. The Man’s the black dude who runs most of the rackets in Atlanta and being in his bad book doesn’t make running around dark streets in certain parts of town much of a pleasure.
There was almost a minute’s wait and then I heard that precise voice I knew. “Yes, Mr. Hardman, what can I do for you this time?”
“How do you know I want you to do something for me?”
“I suppose you could call it a guess on my part,” The Man said.
“I’ll say this for you . . . you’re close.” I turned and looked out at Hump. It hadn’t started yet but once we got in the chase I was going to feel shaky about being out in the open, unprotected. “I want to ask you a question and I’d like an answer and then I’d like you to forget that I asked the question or what your answer was.”
“That is rather difficult,” he said.
“At least it’s honest. I could have tried to blow smoke up your nose.”
“Ask your question,” The Man said after what was probably a thoughtful pause.
“You heard about the rip-off party last night?”
“Yes,” he said. “I understand there are some angry even right here in town or in planes headed for all points north, south, east, and west.”
“How angry?” I asked.
“Furious. I understand some phone calls were made around town very early this morning. By eight o’clock a sizable kitty had been collected. Thousands on each head.”
“You know who they’re hiring?”
“If I knew I could not tell you. But he or they’ll be the best. It’s that kind of money.” The Man paused. “There’s one condition that goes with the employment. It is written in blood. When you find them, don’t be neat, be messy, make it a message.”
“Thanks.”
“For what? You didn’t call, did you?”
“Will he keep his word?” Hump asked as we crossed the parking lot and headed for Jake’s.
“I think so. At least I hope so.” I had the feeling that I’d both asked the question and answered it. And now that I had the answer, even one that I’d given, I could feel the load easing some. I liked The Man in a strange way. I admired his brass balls. But I didn’t want some out-of-town murder squad using us as a stalking horse. The Man owed us and it was a debt that he knew money alone couldn’t pay off, so I’d trust his silence.
“This guy Jake owe you too?” Hump asked.
“Yeah. If he remembers. If he doesn’t I’ll find a subtle way to remind him.”
The debt went back a few years, to the time when I’d still been on the force. I didn’t know Jake well then, but I’d liked the way he’d handled himself in a bad situation. There was a Mayor’s race going on and the campaign people for the young challenger were going around to all the bar owners demanding, not asking, for campaign contributions. Jake hadn’t kicked in. In fact, he’d thrown a pair of the more insistent ones out of his place. And then, sure enough, the challenger won and right after he moved into the Mayor’s office the word came down: padlock the ones that didn’t contribute. It was supposed to look like a new broom doing some sweeping. The day I heard about it the vice squad had already scheduled their raids. That night they were going to do their hard-assed thing. I went out to lunch and called Jake at home. I laid it out for him. He said he knew that it was coming sooner or later, but it was nice to have the warning. That afternoon, at opening time at his place, Jake paid off his girls and gave them a small bonus, sold his bar stock to a nearby club and put his own padlock on the door. He spent the next six months out in L.A. and Frisco and when he returned to Atlanta a lawyer who was working for him had squared it with City Hall. The fix was in and he could go back to running his bar and watching the girls peddle their hides.
After we ducked around a partition, we were in the narrow part of the bar, a kind of bottleneck with small tables and chairs in lines on both sides. Straight ahead the lounge widened and there was a small bar to the right and dead-on a raised platform some five feet above the floor. The girls had to climb a sort of a diving-board ladder to get there. There were more tables around the platform and to the right after the bar ended. Directly at the rear was a staircase going down to the restrooms and Jake’s office.
It was still early. There weren’t many of the business-suit breed sprinkled around and most of the ones I saw looked like they were college boys from Georgia Tech. I nudged Hump and we turned and sat at the bar. The lady bartender wasn’t paying us any attention so we turned our stools and watched the girl on the platform. She was about six feet tall and slim, dusky, maybe with a bit of Indian in her. She was dancing that slow, by the numbers kind of shuffle that they all seemed to do, the dance they can do all night. The song was “Witchy Woman” and it seemed to be set at a level to drown out jet engines.
The lady bartender, with hair out of a wig shop and a face that was showing the night and morning hours, finally tore herself away from the stud at the end of the bar who was trying to get his tongue in her ear. I ordered two beers and gave her a five. When she came back with the beers my change was on one of those little trays, two ones and four quarters. When I reached for the ones she tilted the tray so I’d have trouble getting the change off it. I put out the other hand and tipped the tray so the change fell into my palm. She didn’t like that two-handed game and for a second I thought she was going to spit at me.
“Tell Jake that Jim Hardman wants to see him.”
“He’s not here.” She was mad. “He won’t be in all night.”
“You better tell him,” I said.
Hump eased around and put his elbows on the bar. He looked at her in the way he might have watched one of those Navy V.D. movies. “You do it, lady.”
It took her some time but finally she moved. As she did she ran one hand under the bar and hit the trouble buzzer. I knew what it was because I’d suggested to Jake once that he install it.
Jake came up the steps about three at a time. His eyes moved over the room, looking for the trouble. He was puzzled and a bit angry when he didn’t find it. That was when he moved for the bar and saw me. His hand moved away from his hip where he carried a blackjack and he put the hand out to me.
“Jim, how the hell are you?”
“Fine. Just wanted to talk to you but I guess this lady works for you thought I was trouble.”
The lady bartender scurried away. I introduced Hump and while they were doing their small talk I took a long look at Jake. He hadn’t changed much in the last couple of years. Still lean and flat from handball and swimming, hair a little longer now that that
was the style, a kind of brushy mustache he’d grown since I’d seen him last, the natural red streaked with gray.
Jake turned back to me. “This business? You want to go down to the office?”
I shook my head. “Just a favor I need from you. We can sit out here and watch the flesh.”
“Fine with me.” He crooked a finger at the bartender and she brought him down a Jack Daniels on the run. From the way he looked at her I knew the business of the trouble buzzer wasn’t over for the night.
There were still a lot of empties around but he moved
for one that was filled, a table at the head of the stairs where three other topless dancers were sitting. “Find another table,” he said.
They obeyed like a trained dog act. One, a red-haired girl, in knee-length white boots, touched me a bit because she looked so damned young to be in the business. Jake saw the look I gave her and grinned at me. “Sit down quick,” he said pointing at her chair, “and you can catch it while it’s still warm.”
I let that go by and made a point in sitting in another chair. “This favor has to do with a kid who might come in here.”
“Lots of kids come in here,” he said.
“Come on Jake,” I said, “I’m not law and neither is Hump.”
He nodded and relaxed his shoulders. “That’s just reflex. Ask your question.”
I gave him the name and the description of Edwin Robinson. At the end of it he just looked at me, not showing anything. “What’s your interest, Jim?”
“His grandmother’s a friend of a friend. She thinks he might be hanging out with bad company. I’m checking around on him.”
“Jesus, Jim, I expected not to get the truth, but I thought you’d do better than a grandmother story.”
“This one happens to be true.”
Jake looked at Hump. “Word is you’re honest, Evans. Is that mess true?”
Hump nodded. “Stranger and sadder than fiction.”
The music stopped and the tall, dusky girl had finished her set. After she climbed down, the red-haired girl, the one I’d noticed before, slipped off a sweater and climbed up the ladder. It was a beautiful body, young and tight, with all the skin tone still there. For a moment, watching her and feeling my groin tighten I understood the kind of fantasy life that men who hang around topless bars must have.
“Like, you want to know if he’s involved with one of my girls and might be about ready to hold up a 7-11 store?”
“Yes.”
He jerked his thumb toward the red-haired girl. “How does she grab you?”
“Looks like she doesn’t belong here,” I said.
He roared with laughter and pounded his open palm against the table top. “You too! Hardman, I thought you’d been around the mountain and seen what was on the other side.”
Hump shifted in his chair and leaned between us. I could tell from his face that he’d been taken, too. “What’s on the other side of the mountain, Jake?” he asked in that deceptively soft voice that was three steps away from trouble.
“Almost nothing.” Jake could sense it in Hump and I guess he decided that he’d better tell his story. “Hard facts. Would you believe that girl’s got ankles under those boots that look like pincushions?”
“Is that true?” Hump leaned back.
“It’s true,” Jake said. “She’s twenty and she’s been needling for three years, ever since she hit the Strip around Tenth Street as a high-school runaway.” He shook his head. “You want to make a guess what she makes a night in here from all the johns who come in and take one look at her and decide she doesn’t belong here?”
“I’d rather not guess,” I said.
“Most of the girls who wiggle their ass right make about fifty a night. Heddy makes a hundred a night and that’s without late-dating and selling her ass.”
“The kid was interested in her?” I’d tagged the name and it matched the one written in the match book cover.
“Sure. He’d come in and blow a week’s pay in one night on her. If he’d been smart he’d have saved up three weeks’ pay or so and come in on a wet cold night when the tourists stay home. He could have had all he wanted of it then. Let her fall under fifty one night and she’d head the whole bar for a fix.”
“How do you remember the kid?”
“You mean why?” He slugged at his drink. “One night he blew all he had on her and wanted me to cash a check. Jesus, a check in a place like this?”
“You cash it?” Hump asked.
“No. Even if the check was good it was just money down the well.” He finished the drink and sucked on one of the cubes. “In fact, I tried to give him some advice. I told him to give it up, to find a girl who works at the dime store. He listened me out but he was back the next night.”
“He come in alone or with friends?”
“Alone mostly. I think I saw him one night with some other guys but I didn’t pay any attention. After a time they all look alike.” He spit the remains of the ice cube back in the glass. “That all, Jim?”
“I’d like to talk to the girl. The red-haired one.”
“Heddy,” he said. He stood up and waved a hand at both of us and went over to the dance platform. When he got there the girl, Heddy, stopped dancing and leaned over to listen to him. At the end of it her eyes flicked to our table. She nodded and went back to the shuffle.
A waitress brought us two more beers while we waited. I waited until she left. “How does all this grab you, Hump?”
“He’s your friend.”
“People change. Or maybe he’s got his monthly.”
“You wanted to see me?” she asked.
We’d been talking and hadn’t even noticed that she’d left the platform. Now she stood behind a chair, still without putting on the sweater, as if she’d forgotten it. After a few seconds she pretended that she remembered and pulled the sweater down over her head. It was calculated, but I could see how it might work with the people with good intentions. Here’s a little titty for you, she seemed to be saying, and you can still keep your good intentions as well.
“Sit down, Heddy. You want a drink?”
“Not right now, but you can pay the waitress for one and I’ll drink it later.”
“Why not?” I waved the waitress over and gave her a couple of dollars for the drink. From the way the waitress looked at me I could see she had me tagged as another of those fish. I waited until she moved away. “Heddy, how well do you know Edwin Robinson?”
“Who?”
“The young kid who’s been hanging around here. He seems taken with you.”
“Oh, that one. Ed. He’s a nice boy. Are you his father?”
Next to me, Hump put his head back and hooted. The hoot was loud enough to cut through the loud music. When it died to a chuckle, Heddy said, “I guess you aren’t then.”
“A friend of the family,” I said.
“Well, it happens, you know. Fathers come in here to save their sons from me and end up with their hand on my thigh.” Heddy looked over at Hump. “Your friend doesn’t say much, does it?”
“Only when he has something to say.”
Hump put his elbow on the table and planted his chin in the cup of the palm. He smiled at her. “Before we get social, Heddy, how well did you know the kid?”
“Just as a customer, a sucker.”
“You take him home with you often?”
“He didn’t have enough money,” Heddy said. “He’ll never have enough money.”
“You meet any of his friends?”
Hump seemed to interest her a lot more than I ever could. I turned in my chair and waved at the waitress.
“He introduced me to a couple of guys one night. He acted like I was his high-school sweetheart.”
I ordered two more beers and threw in two more dollars for another drink Heddy could have later.
“You remember their names?” Hump asked.
“I don’t think so. You hear so many names around a place like this. On
e guy was heavyset, coal-black hair, about six feet tall. The other one was an inch or so shorter, reddish-blond hair, uneven teeth.” Heddy shrugged her shoulders. “That’s all I remember.”
“It’s a beginning.” Hump gave her his lazy smile, the one that said all kinds of things to women, according to what the woman thought of herself. “They talk about any other bars they hung out at?”
“No. They might have but I didn’t listen.”
Hump looked over at me. That meant he’d run out of places to go and it was my turn.
“Did Edwin ever talk like he might come into some money soon? You know, like he’d have some money to spend on you?”
“Everybody talks like that.” Heddy moved her eyes past us to include the whole room. “It’s a big liar’s game in here every night.”
“Did he?”
“He might have.” She looked up at the dance platform where the girl with the Indian blood was adding a body wiggle to the by-the-numbers shuffle. “My set comes up next.”
I peeled off a five and dropped it on the table next to her right hand. “Where do you live? In case we need to get in touch with you?”
“Here.”
“Where do you sleep,” I said.
“Where I am when I get tired.”
I looked at Hump. He gave me back about half a shake of his head. It didn’t matter that much to him. He might have turned her on but she’d turned him off.
As the last of the Indian girl’s record tailed away, Heddy got up from the table and peeled the sweater over her head. They were good breasts and the body looked like a hundred dollars a night. This was the private show for the five dollars and the two drinks, the money she’d collect from the waitress after we left. I was thinking more about the needle tracks on her ankles, if Jake was telling the truth, and wondering how long that body would hold together. Not long, I thought, and the dirty old man in me wanted some of her before it all wasted away. Wanted to taste the milk in her before it went sour.
I drew on the can of beer. “Had enough of this? How about a Burger Shack biggie?”