“Did you check on them?”
He looked at me as though this was a silly question, which it was. He said he'd checked them, naturally, and that neither had known the woman as far as he could tell. Without anything more he turned away and toward the door and I followed him, with the undertaker bringing up the rear. The undertaker followed us out to the car, shook hands with me and said he hoped to see me again, though under pleasanter circumstances of course, and Kirby drove away, heading back toward the police station.
He didn't say a word during the trip back, but after he'd led the way into his office he said: “Now what d'ya know that'll help on this? We've got an open town here but murder's fairly rare. I want to keep it so.”
I said: “I've told you everything I know. What did Mrs. Wendel have to say about this? When did it happen?”
“Between eleven and eleven-thirty last night. Mrs. Wendel doesn't seem to know of a reason for it, nor does Mr. Crandall, her lawyer. What are you holding out on me? What's all this about, Connell?”
I told him I didn't have the faintest idea. That all I knew about the thing was what I'd told him. He listened to me, very quietly, but he had a veil over his eyes and I couldn't tell whether he believed me or not. Apparently he didn't, because he said:
“Now listen! This is my town and I run it my way. Get it? We're open here because that's the way the city dads want it. People come here with money to spend and we let them spend it the way they want. But we keep an eye out for them right along with it. They're entitled to that for their ante. We can't keep 'em from making damn fools of themselves but we can keep most of the wolves off their backs. Does this mean anything to you?”
I said it was a very nice speech, only I didn't phrase it just that way. He got the idea, though. He reddened a bit around the cheek-bones but he didn't raise his voice. Which showed nice control. “I mean just this, Connell! I've got no objection to your coming in here and doing a job of work. I don't hold any briefs for your kind of work, but you're entitled to make a living the way you want. But that's all. No rough stuff; none of the trick stuff you can pull in the city and get away with.”
'“I don't understand, Chief,” I said.
“You understand all right. No cutting corners and no throwing curves. This woman lives here; you don't. If she wants to talk to you it's fine with me. If she doesn't, let her alone. You're butting in on her business and I want you to remember it. When did you say you got here?”
I knew what he was thinking about and said: “At eleven o'clock last night I was playing piano for a private party and working like hell at it. At Joey Free's apartment; you can call him and check this.”
And then I threw the harpoon; not hard but enough to get under his hide. I kept my face straight and added:
“You ought to remember Joey Free, Chief. He's one of the two you bum-rushed out of here. You know the other, Wendel, the guy I'm supposed to be working for.”
His cheeks got a bit redder. “Listen, Connell. I didn't think you had anything to do with that alley killing last night. Get that out of your head.”
I grinned and said I'd rather got the idea he didn't like private cops and didn't put anything past them, up to and including alley murders. I made a joke out of it and meant it; I really liked the man. He took it the way it was meant and smiled back and said:
“I meant that the right way, Connell, and you know it. After all, I just work here. The local boys can put pressure on me, if you know what I mean.”
He meant Crandall, the Wendel woman's lawyer, but I didn't say I knew this. I just said that a cop worked for the city, of course, and was responsible to a lot of people. In fact, all the tax-payers.
He said that was the theory... and grinned as though it was funny, which it was. There were probably a dozen men in town who could crack the whip and make him jump and he cracked the whip for the rest of the town. Small towns as open as that one are like that, always.
We shook hands and he asked where I was staying. I told him, then said:
“I'm here, but not for long. Too much money for my kind of job. The people I'll meet will think I'm going high-hat.”
“That's where Free and Wendel stayed.” He started to laugh. “That Free's a kick. In any other town but this one, he'd have been lynched.”
“What did he do?”
“Well, he and Wendel were both drunk, as I get the story. They went up to their room and Wendel passed out. But Free had noticed some blonde gal in a room two doors away and he got hot for her. So he climbed out his window, hung onto the building in some way that I'm damned if I can figure, and did a human fly act around to the blonde's room.”
“That sounds like Joey. He's wacky, when he's stiff.”
“Well, the blonde was going to bed and was dressed for it. Rather, she wasn't dressed for it. She looked up and saw this Free grinning at her through the window and she went nuts. She thought he was a burglar, I guess. She ran out in the hall and raised hell about it and the house cop went up and found Joey sitting on her bed and waiting for her to come back and play. I didn't hear about it until the next day. It didn't make difference; I wouldn't have done anything about it unless the blonde had signed a complaint, anyway.”
I asked whether the blonde had any clothes on when she ran out in the hall and he said he'd heard not. I said I could see I was going to like the town; that the nudist idea had always fascinated me. Kirby grinned and said:
“That's the pay-off. Free didn't have to do a monkey trick along the wall to get in that room. Hell! All he'd have had to do would have been to knock on the door. She'd have let him in. Probably dragged him in.”
“That didn't have anything to do with you chasing him out of town, did it?”
Kirby started drawing rings on a desk blotter and broke the pencil point doing it. Then he stared out the window and said:
“Sure is a swell day. You've got to admit we've got climate here.”
I agreed with him and he stood up and we shook hands. I told him I'd tell him when I got a new address and he followed me to the door of his office. Then he said, very softly:
“You're bucking against quite a man here, mister. I suppose you know that.”
I said I'd gathered that. And then: “D'ya think the maid getting killed in that alley has anything to do with Mrs. Wendel's business? Can you see a connection, Chief?”
“I'll know more about it when I get New York's check on those references of hers. It's got me puzzled and I don't like puzzles. Not when there's knife murders mixed in them, anyway.”
I said I didn't blame him, thanked him, and started to leave. He called after me:
“I'll be seeing you, Connell.”
CHAPTER FOUR
I LEFT the station and stopped in the first bar on my route. It was called the RUSTIC and the decoration scheme wasn't too original. Pine logs with the bark on them covered the walls and the bar itself was a big tree cut in half and polished. Big sugar-pine cones were festooned all over the place with deer heads and guns on the walls. The place even smelled piny and out-doorsy.
By the time I'd taken my first drink all the way down I'd figured the place was phony. The logs on the wall were just slabs from some sawmill; the bar was geed up in the same way and the pine cones looked as though they'd been dipped in shellac. The guns looked as though they'd come from an Army and Navy auction and the deer were Michigan White-tailed deer instead of the mule deer native around there.
The smell came from pine incense being burned in saucers back of the bar.
I was looking this all over and wondering if anybody could get the real western feeling from a spot like that, when somebody came up from behind me and smacked me on the back and said:
“Shean Connell! Jeese! Shean Connell!”
The wallop on the back had been hard and there was a second in which I thought I'd maybe cough up my drink. It stuck, though. I turned around and Kewpie Martin reached for my hand and began pumping it up and down and saying:
; “Shean Connell! Well I'll be damned!”
This over and over again.
I'd worked with Kewpie on a roadhouse job four years before that. He was supposed to be a saxophone player and singer as well as being able to Master of Ceremonies a bit. It was all a lie. He had a soggy tone on sax beside having no technic; he sang flat and through his nose, and his M. C. stuff wasn't funny. Just pitiful.
He got by because he was such a swell guy to work with. Everybody would hold him up on the job just to keep him there. He was about five-six but he weighed two-fifty, at the least. He wasn't quite bald but had a little tuft of hair like Kewpie dolls have. Which is why the name, I suppose. I said: “Well, Christ, it's Kewpie. Where've you been, kid?”
“Around and around. Like the music. How long you been here?”
“Just got here.”
“Looking for a spot?”
I said I was looking for a drink, more than anything else, at least at that time. I bought and Kewpie bought and then he said: “You could land here, if you want. I hear they're looking for a man, now.”
I'd spotted a piano over in the corner of the room before that. It was prettied up the same way; had itself decorated in the pine motif. I nodded at it and said:
“Nuts! Me play a box like that? That'll be the day.”
He said: “You always was a fussy bastard, Shean.”
I agreed and said: “I don't even like their whisky. Let's go down to my place.”
He asked me where I was staying and I told him the Golden Eagle. He smiled admiringly and said that I always was one for putting on the Ritz. We started out the door and met Kirby, face to face, and Kirby said:
“Hi! Have a drink, Connell.”
If I'd stayed, I'd have had to introduce Kewpie and I was afraid Kirby might crack about why I was in town. It might do no harm, but I hadn't decided just what I was going to do or how I was going to try and do it and I couldn't see any reason for letting Kewpie in on secrets. So I said to Kirby:
“Thanks, Chief! Some other time. I'm late for a date now.”
Kirby said “Too bad!” and strolled over to the bar, and Kewpie and I went out and down the street. Kewpie said: “Jeese! Just in town and know the Chief already. Are you hot, keed?”
I said I wasn't and that I'd known Kirby for a long time.
We kept on to the hotel.
Lester was in the room, which I was afraid he'd be. Kewpie and I came in and I said “Lester, I want you to meet an old friend of mine. Kewpie Martin. Kewpie's an entertainer. Kewpie, this is Lester Hoyt.”
They shook hands and I winked at Lester over Kewpie's shoulder. Lester missed it entirely, Kewpie said to him:
“Hi, Lester. You in the music business, too?”
Lester looked puzzled and said he wasn't. I sidled over closer to him, having an idea what was coming.
It came. Lester quit goggling at Kewpie, who was really something to look at, if you like chubby fat men, and said to me “Did you see the...”
I got him on the instep with my heel when he'd gotten that much out. He yelped, lifted his foot and held it with both hands, glared at me and said: “Gee, Shean, that hurt.”
“I must have stumbled,” I said, and winked at him again. It still was a miss. He sat down on the edge of the bed, still holding his foot, and this time he managed to say it. Just: “Did you see the Chief, Shean?”
“Sure,” I said, and put my finger up to my face. And then to Kewpie: “I was telling Lester that I used to know the Chief. We weren't exactly pals, or anything like that, but I knew him. Maybe I told you about it, Kewpie?”
Kewpie looked from Lester to me. And then looked puzzled. The little fat devil was no fool and smelled something sour. I got on the phone and ordered soda and cracked ice, just to change the subject, and when it came, mixed two highballs. Kewpie looked inquiringly at Lester and Lester said: “I never drink.”
This as though he was proud of it. Kewpie snorted, took half his highball down, and said: “Well, man and boy, I've been drinking for thirty-five years. Well, anyway thirty years, if you want to make me out a liar for a matter of five years or so. I haven't lost any weight from it.”
Lester said, very seriously, that he could see this. Kewpie kept staring at him, as though trying to figure out whether the joke was on himself or Lester. Finally he said to me:
“Look, Shean! The C. C. C. wants a piano player. I'm thinking of moving to that spot myself. I got a bid last week. What d'ya say we talk to them and work together again?”
“What d'ya mean C. C. C.? Is it one of these government things?”
“Dope! That's the City and Country Club. It's new and it's getting a play. We can get a guaranty but the cat will run over it easy. What d'ya say?”
Lester showed signs of breaking out in speech and I shook my head at him and said to Kewpie: “Let's go out and look at it. What kind of a play does it get?”
“The big shots. The gals and guys with folding dough. They've got six weeks to spend here and they get tired of the same places. A new place will sometimes go bang for a while. I'll tell you now, Shean, the spot ain't so hot.”
He turned to Lester and explained: “Shean's a fussy sort of bastard. He won't work in a joint. Or at least he didn't used to.”
Lester had finally judged the angle. Of course he knew I was an ex-pianist. He said: “Do you want me to go along, Shean?”
Kewpie said hurriedly: “You'd better wait for him, kid,” and I told Lester the same. We got outside and Kewpie said:
“Jeese, what a jerk! How come you got him on you, Shean? You always used to be lugging some tart around; now you're going for the boys. How come?”
I said: “Nuts! I just felt sorry for the kid. I picked him up on the highway. He was hitch-hiking and I brought him in with me. I didn't want the poor devil to starve. I'm softhearted, Kewpie.”
He looked at me and said: “Okey, keed! I get it! I get it!”
“Get what?”
“The idea,” he said slowly. “I don't know what the score is and I don't want to know. But don't give me that softhearted stall. You've got some reason for having the kid along and we both know it. It's not by business; I haven't got nose trouble.”
“You're nuts, Kewpie.”
“Maybe so. Any time Shean Connell gets good-hearted I'm nuts. I'll admit it.”
CHAPTER FIVE
KEWPIE hadn't been guilty of any understatement when he'd said the Three C Club wasn't so hot. It was about two miles from town, just a big, long barn-like affair sitting by the road. No shade around it. It was painted a bright and nasty red and the front of it was fixed so that it could be opened during hot weather. It was open then. There were a dozen cars parked in front of it and the gravel, in front of the place, was all chewed up in a way to show traffic there was heavy.
I parked my coupe and we went in.
The bar was at least forty feet long and there were three bar men behind it. All busy. There were at least fifty people in the place and lined up along the bar and it was only about seven-thirty. Far too early for any crowd as yet.
The bar itself was a classic, that is the bar and back bar combined. Whoever bought it in the first place must have done so well before the San Francisco fire. One of the old-fashioned, tremendously heavy and ornate things they used to go for. The back bar was stacked almost to the ceiling with glasses except for the space directly in front of the mirrors, and these were all soaped up with signs.
The bartenders didn't fit the bar. You'd expect to see old-time bar men back of a layout like that. The droopy-mustached, pomaded hair type. Big-paunched and all that goes with it. But the three back of the plank looked as though they'd been picked for a beauty contest. As though Hollywood had missed a bet on all three. Kewpie saw me staring at them and giggled and said:
“The bird that runs this is a smart son of a bitch. This place gets a big play from society women and he knows what they want. They've got a service bar for the back room, besides this.”
He led me through a partition and into the back room. A dance floor about twenty feet square, a big Steinway grand at the side of it, and the whole thing lined with booths. The booths had curtains.
I went over to the piano, tried it with one hand, and a short dark man that looked Italian, came from one of the booths and said to me:: “You play?”
He saw Kewpie, looked at him as though he didn't want to, and added: “Hi, Kewpie boy.”
Kewpie beamed and said: “Hi, Gino. Can this guy play? He's tops. I worked with him at the Del Mar, in Tia Juana. Four years ago. He's really tops. This is Shean Connell.”
The short man said eagerly: “Do you want a job? I'm looking for a piano player. To start tonight.”
“'I just got in town,” I said, “and I'm tired. I want to look around a bit before I get myself a spot.”
“You'll do better here than any place in town. I'm telling you. Ain't that right, Kewpie?”
Kewpie said that was right and that he'd been telling me the same thing. I said, that if the job was as good as all that it seemed funny nobody was on it. The short man started to jump up and down and wring his hands. He almost moaned:
“These piano players they are pimps. I get one and what happens? What? I ask you? What happens?”
I said I didn't know.
“They get mixed up with women; that's what happens. Every time. If I keep one a week, I'm lucky. The women give them money and they're lazy and won't work unless they're broke and hungry. All piano players are the same.”
Kewpie started to laugh and I wanted to. Gino said then: “But not you. I don't mean that. I can see you're not that kind.”
Kewpie said: “Hell, Shean, take a few drinks and maybe you'll feel like working. You can knock off a few bucks for yourself tonight as well as not.”
“I take it you're the boss?” I asked the short man. He said he was, that his name was Gino Rucci. I said: “Okey! I'll eat and take a few drinks and if I'm not too tired I'll work. How's that?”
“Mister, that will be fine. You understand. I'm stuck for a piano player.”
42 Days for Murder Page 2