The Hot Kid

by Elmore Leonard

  Jack picked up the pace now, grinning at her, saying, “I told you there’s nothing to it. What can they do? We’re holding guns on ’em.”

  As he said it she thought of the guard’s gun, the big horse pistol still on the counter.

  “What did you say to him?”

  “The manager?”

  “The old coot.”

  “I said, ‘Papa, you ought to find some other work.’”

  “You know what you did?” Heidi said. “You left his gun in there, by the teller’s window.”

  It caused Jack to stop and look back toward the bank, then at Heidi before they started walking again. “I thought you picked it up.” They were coming past Kroger’s now. “I was busy with the manager.”

  “Showing him what a cool customer you are.”

  “You’re saying it’s my fault?”

  “You took it off the old coot, didn’t you?”

  “You picked up your purse, it was right there.”

  “Nothing’s ever your fault, is it?”

  Jack stopped to look around again, kept staring to make sure and said, “Jesus Christ.”

  Heidi looked around and saw the old guy coming toward them on the sidewalk, trying to hurry, almost to Kroger’s when he started shooting, holding that big .44 straight out in front of him as he came cocking and firing the revolver, an old Peacemaker. Heidi turned and ran.

  Jack stepped behind a parked car, got out his .38 and shot the coot, stopped him inside of thirty feet.

  By the time they reached the car Heidi had decided she was through with Jack Belmont, leave him or become a nervous wreck.

  Something Heidi was curious about, if Teddy Ritz wasn’t Italian, what was he? She asked Johnny, who ran the club, and he said, “I’m Italian, Lou Tessa’s Italian, Teddy’s Jewish.” She told Jack and he said, “You didn’t know he was a Hebe? Look at the honker on him.” Jack had to let you know, if just by his tone of voice, he was smarter than you were. He’d insult you and think it was funny. Show off and scare the hell out of you. She was thinking seriously of leaving him, but wasn’t sure how to do it. Tell him they were through or not tell him. He’d kept the money from the bank, close to seventeen hundred, and made her give him most of what she earned at Teddy’s. If she left Kansas City she could clean him out, take all the cash he kept in the Quaker Oats box in the kitchen. But she liked her job and the way rich guys tipped and knew if she offered a little commercial screwing now and then, being selective, she could buy anything she wanted, clothes, even her own car. But if she stayed at the club she’d have to forget about taking the money; Jack would know where to find her. Even walking out on him without the money she’d be taking a chance. She was thinking that if she ever got something going with Lou Tessa, it would be a lot easier to break it off with Jack.

  Four days after the bank job the La Salle pulled up in front and Teddy Ritz walked in, with Lou, to solve her problem.

  It started out like a social call, Jack offering to take Teddy’s hat and coat, Teddy saying no, they weren’t staying long. He sat down in the morris chair, a newspaper folded in the pocket of his Chesterfield. Tessa, his bodyguard, stood by the front door wearing his long black coat, hands folded in front of him, reminding Heidi of a funeral director she saw one time. Jack offered Teddy a drink, coffee, whatever he wanted. Teddy said he wouldn’t mind a cup of hot tea on a cold day. Heidi gave Lou Tessa a careful look and went out to the kitchen to turn the gas on under the kettle. She came back to the living room, Teddy was telling Jack what a bang-up job she was doing with their customers. “From the first night, Jackie, she’s one of our most popular girls.”

  Jackie? She had never heard him called that before.

  “I believe it,” Jack said, “she’s a little sweetie.”

  Teddy took out a cigar and bit off the tip.

  “So what’ve you been up to?”

  “Not much, this’n that.”

  Teddy lit the cigar and blew a smoke ring, not a perfect one but it was okay. Watching the ring he said, “Which was the bank in North K.C.?”

  Jack was watching the smoke ring, too, dissolving now, and took a moment to say, “Excuse me?”

  “The one you knocked over the other day. Was the bank this or was it that?” Teddy looked at Heidi. “Pretending he don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  Heidi nodded saying, “Mmmmm.” She quit glancing at Tessa to pay closer attention.

  Teddy leaned to one side to bring the newspaper from his pocket folded to an inside page, and dropped it on the coffee table. Heidi saw a headline that said BANK & TRUST ROBBED OF $5000!

  Jack said, “Wait a minute. You think I robbed that bank?”

  Teddy said, “You and little sweetie.”

  The teakettle started to whistle.

  Heidi rose from her chair.

  Teddy held up his hand to hold her there. “Twice in the bank she called you by name. When she told you the manager pressed the alarm button, and when she said she was leaving.” He looked at Heidi. “The manager said you couldn’t wait to get out of there. Go on, make the tea. I won’t tell Jack any more till you get back.”

  She started for the kitchen hearing Jack say, “That’s why you think it’s me? A woman calling to some guy named Jack?” And Teddy saying, “You hear what I told her? We wait till she comes back.” Now she stopped in the kitchen doorway hearing, “Sweetheart, what kind of tea is it? Where’s it from?”

  “It’s Lipton’s,” Heidi said. “I don’t think it’s from anywhere.”

  Teddy winked at her and she went in the kitchen telling herself she’d be okay. Jack was the one in the fire.

  Jack finally came clean: all right, he and Heidi had robbed the bank, but he thought it was okay since it was out of the city limits. Teddy said, “You think Tom’s influence ends at the river?” Jack said he should’ve known better—sounding like a kid who got caught stealing a candy bar from the dime store. Heidi loved it that he couldn’t get smart and put on that tone with Teddy Ritz, sitting there puffing on his cigar. He’d dip the tip into his tea and slide his lips around it before taking a puff, his shadowy cheeks drawing in before blowing out a cloud.

  He said, “Jackie, I’m gonna forget about the bank job, you’re new here. But you created a problem we have to take care of.”

  Jack squinted at him. “What problem?”

  “The first thing you do is put the five in a bank.”

  “I didn’t get five.”

  “And cut a check for half of it, twenty-five hundred.”

  Jack had to hold on to the arms of his chair. “I’m telling you we never got any five grand. They always do that, give the papers a higher figure than was taken.”

  Teddy held up his hand.

  “You cut a check for twenty-five hundred made out to the Democratic Club—no cash that can be traced. That’s what it’ll cost to keep the police and the sheriff’s department over there looking the other way. You killed a seventy-eight-year-old bank guard who spent fifty years in law enforcement and was loved and respected by the community. His people get a remembrance.”

  “That’s a shame,” Heidi said. “Jack even told the old guy he should find a different job.”

  Teddy looked at Jack. “Day after tomorrow around noon? I come by for the check made out to the Democratic Club of Jackson County. After that I watch you get in your car and leave Kansas City and I never see your face again. Sweetie stays here.”

  Heidi wanted to ask him, Keep my job? Hoping to God that’s what he meant.

  But Jack said, “Or what?”

  Teddy frowned at him. “What’re you talking about, ‘Or what?’”

  “I don’t give you the check, you shoot my sweetie?”

  Teddy started to smile. He leaned forward in the chair and looked around at Tessa standing by the door. “You hear what he said?”

  Tessa nodded showing a faint smile. “I heard him.”

  Teddy said to Jack, “Shoot her—Lou shoots you, you dummy.”

>   14

  Carl, carrying his grip, walked in the Reno Club on Twelfth as the band was leaving the stand: colored guys looking sharp in their gray, double-breasted suits, the piano player, a woman wearing a red silk headband, closing the cover over the keys. Carl said to the bartender, “I’ll try that Ten High with a touch of water,” and asked if the band was through for the night. It was only half past twelve.

  “’Nother band’s coming on.” The man placed Carl’s drink on the bar. “The Count, Lester, Buck Clayton, whoever wants to sit in.”

  Carl said, “They any good?”

  The bartender had turned away and a colored guy sitting at the bar, a scar under his left eye, a space between his front teeth, was looking at Carl holding his grip. He said, “Just come to town, huh? You one of those crazy Shriners?”

  Carl said, “No, I’m a crazy U.S. marshal. I’m looking for somebody I know ain’t here. Everybody in this joint’s darker than she is.”

  Carl sat down wearing the hat he was breaking in and his raincoat. This tough-looking guy next to him had turned and placed his elbows on the bar in front of his bottle of Falstaff. Carl drank the top part of his highball and got out his Luckies. The guy next to him already had a cigaret going.

  “I came in to the Union Station,” Carl said. “That’s the biggest place I’ve ever been in, like a cathedral only bigger. They got a Harvey’s, a bookshop, a waiting room just for women…What I don’t understand, the ceiling in the lobby must be a hundred feet high. What good’s all that space?”

  The guy next to him, leaning on his arms, said, “You never heard of Count Basie?”

  Carl paused before saying no, he hadn’t. “But I think I’ve seen you someplace.”

  The guy shook his head looking tired. He said, “Man, don’t pull that shit on me. I never been arrested in my life.”

  “You ever been to Tulsa?”

  “A few times.”

  “You play piano,” Carl said. “Where’d I see you, at Cain’s Ballroom?”

  A painful look passed over the guy’s face. “Man, I don’t do that hillbilly shit. I played at La Joann’s with the Gray Brothers.”

  “That’s where I saw you,” Carl said, “yeah, La Joann’s. You were playing piano…Your name’s McShane?”

  “Jay McShann. You saw me play, huh? But you never heard of Count Basie?”

  “I might’ve, I don’t recall the name,” Carl said. “I got interested in the music and bought some records. Andy Kirk—”

  “And his Clouds of Joy.”

  “Chauncey Downs and his Rinky Dinks.”

  “Has a tuba in his band.”

  “George Lee and his sister.”

  “Julia. They the ones just left the stand.”

  “Yeah? I didn’t know it was them.”

  “You want to meet ’em? I’ll introduce you.”

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t mind.”

  “Shake the Count’s hand too. He’s coming when he gets here.”

  “You play with him?”

  “No, uh-unh, the man owns the piano, any piano he sits down at. I’m on later at a club with cats from around town. We piss on the stage, man, sit down and wail till the sun comes out. You never heard anything like this at La Joann’s.”

  “I heard Louis Armstrong in Oklahoma City when I was there and bought one of his records. I took it home, my dad only listened to it once. He said that was enough.”

  “You live with your daddy?”

  “I’m in Tulsa, he’s in Okmulgee. I go down there sometimes for the weekend.”

  “Man, I was born in Muskogee, left there as soon as I had a pair of long pants.” This piano player named McShann stared at Carl before saying, “You know, there’s something about you looks familiar. Like you had your picture in the paper?”

  “A few times.”

  “You shot somebody famous, didn’t you? I’m thinking it was a bank robber.”

  “Well, I shot Emmett Long—”

  “That’s the one, some years ago. I remember reading you knew him from before.”

  “When I was fifteen, still living at home. I stopped at the drugstore to get an ice cream cone and Emmett Long came in for a pack of cigarets.”

  “You knew him by sight?”

  “I recognized him from wanted dodgers. He’s there and a tribal cop I knew happened to walk in, a Creek named Junior Harjo and Emmett shot him twice, for no reason.” Carl paused and said, “Before Junior came in I was eating the ice cream cone…Emmett asked me was it peach. He wanted a taste, so I handed him the cone and he held it out in front of him as it was starting to drip. He took a bite…I looked at him, there was ice cream on his mustache.”

  McShann started to grin. “That stuck in your head, didn’t it? Stole your ice cream cone and the next time you saw him you shot him dead.”

  “He was a wanted felon,” Carl said, “The reason I tracked him down.”

  “I understand,” McShann said, “but it’s a better story you popped him for taking your ice cream cone.” He looked straight at Carl Webster and said, “You sure you didn’t?”

  McShann told how he never took lessons but started playing in church, then with the Gray Brothers, played in Tulsa with them, in Nebraska, in Iowa, came to Kansas City and started playing for a dollar and a quarter a night; then after hours would drop around to other clubs. He said Julia Lee was the best piano player around for making money ’cause she knew the tunes everybody liked and asked you to play. So he learned these tunes—never mind if you liked them or not, you had to make money to live—and pretty soon he was working in the better clubs making two dollars and fifty cents for the evening and another five or six bucks from the kitty they put in front of the stand.

  They each had a couple of drinks while they were talking about music and clubs.

  Carl saying, “It sounds like you’ve played in all the clubs around town.”

  McShann said, “Most of ’em. I get old I’ll play whorehouse piano.”

  Carl said, “I’m thinking this girl I’m looking for, she could be attracted to the excitement—I mean the clubs, not the whorehouses—and could be working in one of the joints. You happen to know of a redhead with pure white skin named Louly?”

  Carl heard the name out loud as he said it and knew he had it wrong.

  But McShann was already telling him, “No, but I know a redhead with pure white skin name of Kitty.”

  The name she wrote on the note Carl had in his pocket.

  She’d say to the gentlemen at the table, “Well, hi,” sounding pleased to see them, “I’m Kitty. What can I serve you fellas?” Every once in a while she’d forget and say, “Well, hi, I’m Louly,” and they wouldn’t know the difference, more interested in seeing what they could see through her peach teddy. Just once a gentleman said, “I thought your name was Kitty,” and she had to make up a story: how she was trying out her middle name, Kitty, ’cause she liked it better but wasn’t used to it yet. After that happened, she’d remind herself who she was before going to the table.

  It was the reporter from the Kansas City Star—the one who came to her home in Sallisaw before she went to Tulsa for the True Detective interview and then wasted her time waiting for Carl Webster to take her dancing—that reporter who told her if she ever went to Kansas City, get a job at Fred Harvey’s in the Union Station. He said those girls made good tips for not having to take their clothes off. He said if she got a job at a club she might have to work bare naked. Louly said, “Oh…?” The reporter said his favorite was Teddy’s, once a millionaire’s home at Eighteenth and Central.

  He said, “But don’t go near the place if you’re Baptist.”

  When she applied for a job, Johnny the manager said, “You’re a cutie, but our customers come first. They want to mess around with you, while they’re in the club, like have a feel? You let ’em. Outside the club, they want to take you to a hotel when you’re through work? That’s up to you.”

  Young rich guys who’d come in late, horny and
half smashed and want to get to it, were kind of a problem. They’d grab her in a back hall, a private room, even in Johnny’s office, work a knee between her thighs and breathe hard trying to get her to leave with them.

  “Parker, please, I don’t work I’ll get fired.”

  “Arthur, I’m so tired I could sleep standing up.”

  “Chip, I hate to say it, but I fell off the roof today.”

  She kept them coming back. They all had money, a couple were good-looking enough to be in the movies, and every one of them was married.

  “Chandler, what will your wife say, you come home with my scent all over you?” It wasn’t easy but worth it. These guys knew how to tip. Kitty’s real problem was with Teddy Ritz.

  She had scrimped to hold on to the $500 check the Oklahoma Bankers Association gave her for shooting Joe Young. Most of the $100 check from True Detective went for gas coming here and renting an apartment on West Thirty-first near the Lutheran Hospital. She had gone to the club to apply for a job and spoke to the manager. Johnny looked her over and said she’d hear pretty quick.

  The next day Teddy Ritz himself stopped by with a dark-haired young guy, really handsome but dark, and with little cut scars on his face like you see on fighters. She had just moved in and was unpacking, a suitcase and a few boxes. Teddy prowled around opening doors, chewing his gum. He came out of the bathroom saying, “I like to know how hygenic my girls are,” and to the young guy, “You ever sleep in a Murphy bed?” The young guy said, “What’s that?” with some kind of accent. When Teddy was finished looking around, sat down and said to Kitty, “Okay, what do you do?”

  “I kept books at a department store.”

  “You’re lying. Doesn’t matter—I wouldn’t have a good-looking redhead working a comptometer. You strip?”

  “I wouldn’t know how.”

  The young good-looking guy with all that curly dark hair said with his accent, “You don’t know how to take your clothes off?”

  She saw Teddy Ritz give the young guy a serious look, cold, and the young guy shrugged.