by Tim Bryant
The guitar magically appeared, having been discovered by Jackie and a really tall dame who looked like a female version of Ernest Muchado. She handed it to Ernest, who looked it over, shrugged and passed it over to me.
"Everybody happy now?" he said.
I turned it over on its back, unlatched the trap door and opened it up.
"Not overjoyed to be honest."
He laughed and shook his head. When you're laughing, you're at your most defenseless. Vulnerable even. I took my chance, grabbed the neck of the guitar with both hands, right where it joined the body, and came up fast with all the moxie I could muster. The guitar split right down the middle, but not before it broke Muchado's nose, sending a spray of bright blood down his shirt, over the guitar and onto my hands. Slant Face tagged him right on the jaw with his fist, and the giant buckled and came down, hitting the back of his head on the air of his chair for a bonus.
It didn't surprise me that he fell so easy. He was tall, but he had no meat on his bones, and he wasn't a fighter. He did get one decent punch in on his way down, although I didn't notice it until I woke up the next morning with a blood bruise on the right side of my face, stretching down to my neck. Slant said he'd put even money on it being the guitar that hit me. When it came to getting physical, Muchado had other people to do that sort of thing for him.
"Is he out?" Slant Face said.
"Like a light," I said.
The door to the office swung open, and there stood one of Muchado's thugs, complicating our exit somewhat.
"Where the hell did you two come from?"
I was caught flatfooted but Slant had his gun beaded right on the guy's chin.
"I just shot your boss right in the face, and I have five bullets left just for you," he said.
Looking at Muchado splayed on the concrete floor, blood still rolling from his mouth and nose, no one would have doubted him. The thug threw his hands up, and we wrestled him into the room, emptying him of a knife, a .357 Magnum and a roll of bills cash before tying him into Muchado's chair with the phone cord.
"What do we do now, kemosabe?" said Slant Face.
I rifled through Muchado's desk, finding a Colt .38 like my own and a much bigger stack of bills, all banded together real nice and looking like they'd never been circulated. I didn't need the gun, but it seemed foolish to leave it behind so I took it for backup and gave the .357 to Slant Face. I took the money, too, just to make it clear. Lester Young or whoever it was could play the 2222. We were shutting operations down here, at least for the time being.
Nobody much tried to stop us on our way out. We ran into Jackie coming down the hall and told him the boss man might be needing some of that ice. I had the guitar slung over my shoulder like a wounded soldier being dragged off the battlefield. On the way out, we cut the electricity and removed the fuses from the fuse box. Everyone was filing out into the parking lot like a bunch of bums being moved on down the line. We joined right in.
"That was easy," Slant Face said.
"Half of everything is easier than you think it's gonna be," I said.
The same old guy who'd told me that the night's entertainment was going to be a package show walked by, complaining to himself about not getting the last drink he'd ordered.
"The other half is harder," Slant Face said.
"It was only easy because it was the first punch," I said. "That fight just started."
Walking across the parking lot, we could hear sirens getting louder.
"See what I mean?"
32
The sirens we heard when we walked out of the Rose Room weren't coming our way after all. They were, in fact, going to 224 Sixth Street, where Adolphus Merriweather had walked up not fifteen minutes earlier.
"Patrick Cavanaugh, come out here and fight me like a man," he said, his voice echoing down through the darkened streets. There weren't many homes on Sixth Street, unless you went about half a mile down, but there were several along Taylor and Throckmorton.
Merriweather walked across the street from the Feed & Seed store and watched the little apartment. It was dark, no lights inside, so movements that he could see. He thought about moving up the staircase and taking a look into the window. He crossed over the street and leaned on a post at the stores entrance, looking up through the slats in the balcony at the moon. It was almost straight overhead.
"Cavanaugh, come on out," he said.
Merriweather was starting to hurt, deep down in his guts. The pain that drinking made, that only more drinking would help. He took a slug on his bottle, and the vodka went down like water.
"I'm coming up there," he said.
He wasn't sure if he could make it up the stairs. He was tired, and he needed to save his strength. It would only take one good shot. Luke Short.
He heard a click and then the turning of a door handle. At first, he thought it was the front door to the feed store. Had Old Man Atkins been hiding away in the dark? Merriweather had no beef with Atkins. He moved back along the building, trying to keep in the shadows. The moon suddenly became a search light.
When the door shut, Merriweather heard it clear enough. Someone was in the apartment. He stepped out and surveyed the balcony. It appeared empty. He was sure no one had gone up the stairs. Someone was inside the apartment.
"Cavanaugh, I know you're in there," he said. "Come on out."
There was a scuffling sound, and the door opened again. Merriweather stepped out into the street. He raised his gun in the air and pointed it in the direction of the balcony apartment. He saw the light of a cigarette glowing like a lightning bug.
He hadn't fully intended to shoot the man down on his porch. The plan called for a good old duel, right out there under the moon. But he had an itchy trigger finger, and he'd been waiting for this moment. His time was running out. He squeezed off one shot. It knocked him on his back.
For a moment, he thought he'd been hit. He couldn't breathe. He rolled over and lifted his arm and pulled the trigger three more times.
A woman who lived on the corner of Throckmorton and Sixth called the Sheriff's Department and reported a gunfight in front of Atkins Feed & Seed. A man was lying in the street. Wiley King would show up before we did. We took four spins around the Acre, all the way down Commerce to the railroad yard and back up Jones and then over to Main, trying to lose a Chevy sedan with the Muchado woman at the wheel. We finally slowed down and let her get close enough for Slant Face to put a bullet in one of her tires. I hated running from a woman, but not as much as I hated the thought of her catching us.
Everyone thought Merriweather was passed out drunk in the middle of Sixth Street, and, in all likelihood, he was. When they were loading him into the ambulance, some of the deputies noticed blood rolling out of the corner of his mouth. I told them he had some kind of lung disease and needed medical attention as soon as possible.
Back at Harris Methodist, they rolled Merriweather into an exam room, cut away his clothes and discovered a single bullet hole right through his chest. They took him into surgery to try to retrieve the bullet and stitch him up, but when they followed the hole, they discovered a whole lot more trouble than they'd bargained for. They wound up doing something called a suprapubic cystostomy with pretty much finished him right off. He didn't die, he just never got around to waking up.
33
Bismuke had been right. A stack of bills, all neatly stacked and wrapped, doesn't look as big as what it really is. Back in a sadly placid Peechie Keen's, I broke the seal on the money we'd taken from Muchado's office and fanned it out on the corner table. Ray was sitting behind the counter and a lone customer was sitting on a stool at the far end of the bar. Slant whistled under his breath. All twenties.
"That's a chunk of dough," Slant Face said. "What does it work out to?"
It came out to two grand. As much as most people I knew made in a year. More than I'd made in two. In spite of this, my inclinations were to turn it in to Sheriff King as drug money.
"This
is confiscated money," I said. "Not stolen. It's not the same thing."
Slant Face said I was foolish not to keep it. I decided to split the difference. Turn half of it in and keep the rest. A finder's fee.
We were meeting Lieutenant Dewey Mitchell at two o'clock, but I wanted to talk with Ray before he arrived. I took a twenty and hit the bar, with every intention of sitting on the opposite end from the other guy. When I got close, though, I realized who he was and moved closer to the middle.
"Penny Bob," I said.
He sat his glass down and gave me a look.
"Do I know you?"
"Alvis Curridge," I said.
"Dutch," he said. "I haven't seen you in ages and blows."
Ray took my order and asked how my day was. I told him mine was going a sight better than either Hick Hinson's or Adolphus Merriweather's.
"I know Hick Hinson," said Penny Bob. "I went to school with half of his family. I ain't never heard of this Adolf guy. Who in the hell is that?"
I said he was a northerner, had just moved down from the Chicago area not too long ago. Penny Bob seemed relieved to learn this.
"Anything happen after things cleared out here last night?" I said.
Ray slid my glass to me and sat down with one of his own.
"I went to my girlfriend's place and slept it off. Woke up just in time to head back up here and hear the news about the guy on Sixth Street."
"You think there's a connection?" Penny Bob said.
Ray said there was bound to be, but I said I didn't see it. I couldn't for the life of me figure out who was killing Peechie Keen's bartenders, and I didn't see the sense of Ray setting himself up for trouble.
"I've got people watching my back," Ray said. "Anybody tries anything, they'd be real surprised what they might be starting."
Ray didn't have to say any more. I knew what he was saying, and I knew it didn't matter if he'd walked out of his apartment and pulled the trigger on Adolphus or whether his girlfriend had done it. Maybe it was the woman on Throckmorton who'd had enough of his caterwauling. Merriweather had met his match in the shadows of Sixth Street, and he'd gone down firing. He hadn't been Luke Short, but what did it matter. People still talked about Longhair Jim Cartwright too.
Mitchell showed up with the High Sheriff himself, and the four of us took the table at the front window. The same window I'd seen Mitchell at not so many days before, although it seemed like a long time.
"Either of you two know anything about an incident over at the Rose Room last night?" King said.
Wiley King had the face of someone who enjoyed his job. He had a wink in his eye that could lure a man into saying things he might regret later. There were men in prison who could attest to it.
"Why would I know anything about something like that?" I said.
Dewey Mitchell laughed, pulled a cigar out and twirled it in his fingers as he fired it up.
"I was trying to help you out, telling you to keep your distance from Omer Simms," he said. "Next thing I know, you're giving Ernest Muchado a beating with Mr. Simmses guitar."
"Dutch, we had more eyes on that place than ticks on a dog's ass," King said. "Why do you think you walked out like you did? I was practically holding the door for you."
"I don't see it," I said.
"Muchado's rolling over, testifying against some big boys," Mitchell said.
"It was either roll or get rolled," King said. "When we showed him what we had against him, he got smart in a real hurry."
I still wasn't sure how that mattered to me. I was there to retrieve a man's guitar. I did what I had to do.
"Let me help you, Dutch," Sheriff King said. "We told Ernest to withhold payment to Omer Simms and anyone else he owed. He'd been holding some of them off for two weeks. Meanwhile, we were putting together a major operation. You know what was going to happen?"
I shook my head.
"We had it arranged that, one by one, these dealers and suppliers were going to show up at the Rose Room. Why would they do that?"
I was starting to get the picture.
"Each one of them had been told to come by and pick up their money."
"That's why I told you to watch yourself," Mitchell said. "The last thing we needed from you was for you to show up in the middle of the operation and demand that goddamn guitar back."
"The operation was to go forward last night," King said. "That is, up until you knocked out the power and sent everyone home early."
Slant Face was crestfallen. I was still looking for a way through the debris. A card to play.
"Anything else before I have my say?" I said.
"Yeah, one more thing," Merriweather said. "You owe us two grand."
Slant Face laughed. Not loud, not boisterous. Maybe even incredulous. But he laughed.
"Two what?" I said.
"We planted it so we could follow a few people," Kind said. "It's all marked bills."
I gave him half of it. I told him I would get the rest.
"Maybe...."
"Maybe?"
I took a drink from the glass in front of me and tried to loosen myself from my surroundings.
"What would you say if I were to tell you I know who killed Patrick Cavanaugh, and I know who killed Hick Hinson."
"I'd say you're full of shit," said Sheriff King.
Slant Face looked like he was siding with the Sheriff on this one.
"How much would that information be worth to you?"
Sheriff King thought for a minute.
"Three hundred. Four, tops."
"Okay," I said. "So I'm free to take the information to the FBI and let them act on it."
I knew the thought of the FBI coming in and solving the case would kill Wylie King. For one, he hated any outside force coming into his jurisdiction. It would also give the appearance that the Sheriff's Department couldn't handle it on their own.
"Five hundred dollars," he said.
Ray Naylor arrived with fresh drinks.
"How are things going, gentlemen?" he said.
I didn't think things were all that bad. I'd had better days, but I could think of worse. Pending the next twenty-four hours, it might actually turn out to be a halfway decent week.
"I want to talk to your dad, Ray," I said. "You think you could make that work?"
King had had enough.
"Okay, you keep the damn money. I'll tell headquarters it went missing, pin it on Muchado or one of his boys."
I told the Sheriff I still wanted to talk to Jack Naylor and Melvin Chambers. Let me do that, I promised I would whisper a few things in their ears that would make them pay heed.
34
Mondays, as often as not, you’d find me at the public library at Ninth and Throckmorton, grabbing a few books for the week. I'd started out, years before, reading every Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler I could get my hands on. I liked Jim Thompson, who not many people had heard of, but who'd worked for several years over at the Hotel Texas. The Killer Inside Me was a favorite, but I got Miss Barton, the librarian there, to scrounge up most all of them, and I didn't dislike a one. I liked Charles Williams from San Antonio a lot too. I was always looking for someone new.
On this particular Monday, I skipped the library, because I had a special delivery to make. Miss Kay, as broken as she was, was going home. I had no idea where Cat Man Simms stayed, so I stopped by the Skyliner to ask around. A lot of clubs weren’t open on a Monday morning, but this was Jacksboro Highway we were talking about. Some of the guys in there looked like they still thought it was Saturday night. I brought the guitar in with me, on the off chance that Cat Man himself was there.
“Here comes Gene Autry, the Singing Cowboy,” said an old guy sitting at the bar.
I moved the instrument to my shoulder so it would look more like a potential weapon.
"Goddamn," said his partner, "looks the Indians done got him."
Sometimes the best comeback is no comeback at all.
“I’m looking for t
he rightful owner of this here fiddle,” I said. “Any of you guys happen to know a man they call Cat Man Simms?”
“I ain’t seen Cat in a month of Sundays,” said the second smart ass.
“He was in here last week,” the barkeep said. “You wanna leave that here behind the bar, I’ll see it gets to him. I'm not entirely sure he's gonna be thrilled to see it.”
I wasn't inclined to go through as much trouble as I'd been through just to hand it to a stranger and walk off.
“Any idea where Mr. Simms stays?”
The barkeep looked at the first smart ass on the stool.
“I don’t have any iota.”
I decided I was looking in the wrong places. I needed the musicians. The smack users. I needed Ninth Street. The end of Ninth Street, from Elroy's Pool Hall north. Up by the train yard. The end most people like me didn't go. I decided to start at the pool hall— because Elroy knew me— and work my way up.
Elroy was in the middle of a game of dominoes when I got there, but two of the four players knew Cat Man. One even called him Omer. Unfortunately, one of them said he lived in Quality Grove and the other said he lived right there in the neighborhood somewhere.
"Just because you seen him jumping a fence somewhere down here, that don't mean he stays here," said Elroy.
They tried to get me to join the game because Elroy needed to get back to work, but I couldn't see any work that really needed doing. I begged off and took my search on up the block. Corner of Ninth and Grove, I saw Blind Cholly Macon. Blind Cholly was a blues musician who played the streets, mostly Elm in Dallas and Ninth in Fort Worth. Some said he could see as good as I could out of his good eye, but maybe he made a better living being a blind guitar player. All I know is, he always knew who I was.
"Blind Cholly," I said.
He stopped what he was playing. Some kind of picking thing like Blind Boy Fuller used to play. I liked it, but I couldn't play it.
"That you, Dutch Curridge?"
"That sounded all right," I said. "What was that?"