by Max Lockhart
PROLOGUE
Onstage at The Crescendo Club black satin gowns on black satin skin shimmered in the oval of hot white light as Mary Hart and the Van Horns belted out the rock and roll strains of "He'll Be Back" to the late-night crowd of Sunset Strip hipsters.
... he goes, but that's okay
'Cause he'll be back. Don't ask me
How I know... He'll be back...
He can sail the seven seas
I don't have to keep track...
'Cause he'll be back.
Backstage at The Crescendo Club, dust motes floated in the shadows cast by the dim light as Eddie Parris belted out the rhythm and blues of the cuckolded male. Transplanted Trenton, New Jersey, would-be rock and roll impresario variety.
"She's trying to kill me!" screamed Eddie Parris as he rolled his eyes and grabbed the back curtain, balling it up in one fist like a baby with a blanket. "She's trying to kill me!" he repeated for dramatic effect, staggering back and collapsing on a stool. Unfortunately he failed to let go of the curtain.
With only mild interest, Jack Cleary watched the corner of the curtain tear away from its moorings, listened to the Van Horns crank the volume up another fifty decibels to cover the sound of ripping cloth, and then focused his weary eyes on his twitching client, all five feet, three inches of him.
"Take it easy, Eddie," he said, without any real hope that Eddie would. His kind never did. They lived on dreams and Scotch, and too damn much of both. Like private detectives, thought Cleary wryly.
Eddie Parris studied the half-dozen 8 by 10s and bit the backstage curtain. After chewing madly, his eyes flickering from photo to photo, he spat out the soggy mass and looked up at Cleary. "She never did that with me," he said in a plaintive voice.
After comparing the well-muscled, nude male body in the photos to Eddie's scrawny frame, Cleary could understand why. He shrugged his shoulders. He wasn't paid to make smart-ass comments.
Eddie unwrapped a roll of Tums, crunched into a handful, and washed them down with most of his double Scotch. He stabbed at the photos with one finger. "Do you have any more of these?"
"My man took four rolls before he ran out of film."
He wondered why Eddie wanted more. Jesus, the ones he had covered most of the positions in the Kama Sutra. So far as he knew, the couple in the surveillance photos had tried them all.
Eddie picked up an 8 by 10 and studied it, his pinched face turning tight and red. "Four rolls! The lousy, two-timing bitch!"
"Want some free advice, Eddie?" asked Cleary, then winced as the singer turned a hopeful face toward him. Why the hell did clients always think he had all the answers? He hadn't even figured out the questions yet. "Get rid of her. She's ruining your life." Eddie slumped down further on his stool, sadly shaking his head. He looked up hopefully at the band's manager. "What do you think?"
The manager moved closer, trying to peer at the photos. "The man ain't woofen, Eddie. It's the fourth time since we left Atlantic City."
"Pittsburgh doesn't count!" retorted Eddie, jerking the pictures out of the manager's lascivious visual range.
Jack Cleary shrugged his shoulders again, and moved off. There was nothing more he could do here. Eddie had paid his money and taken his chance. He would go on being a doormat to his wife, a ripe nineteen-year-old package of talent and raw sexuality who had already been opened and sampled, evidently by anybody who could undo her wrapping.
Cleary hesitated as he stepped through the door from the backstage area. Maybe he ought to say something else. Then he glanced toward the stage and Mary Hart's gyrating pelvis, thought of the pelvis in the photographs, and discarded the idea. He would buy Eddie a bottle of Scotch and another package of Tums instead.
He dropped onto a bar stool with the weariness of thirty-six years of life and twice that of experience. He glanced in the mirror behind the bar and noticed his eyes looked more red than blue, and the stubble on his chin reminded him he hadn't shaved within the last twenty-four hours. Maybe longer than that. He didn't remember. He rubbed his chin and considered his reflection. His wasn't a bad face, given the amount of mileage on it. A few lines around the eyes, a sharpness to the cheekbones, a certain stiffness about the mouth that said he didn't smile much. Did he look like a private eye, or an ex-cop? He studied the face in the mirror. Both, he guessed. And why not? He was both. Thrown out of the LAPD on a trumped-up bribery charge, he had taken over his brother's detective agency after Nick was murdered. He was a private eye by choice.
He grinned to himself. Choice, hell. Who was he kidding? He was a gumshoe private dick because that's all he could be. How else could he pack an iron and fight for truth, justice, and the American way? He sobered and beckoned to the bartender.
"Yeah, Cleary," said the bartender, wiping his hands on the tail end of a towel. "Want the usual?"
"Sure," said Cleary, glancing back at the stage.
"Wouldn't mind a piece of that," said the bartender, pouring him a shot of I.W. Harper.
"You and a lot of other people," said Jack cynically, thinking that little Mary Hart had come a long way from her daddy's gospel choir in Salem, South Carolina. He lifted his glass. "Welcome to the Strip, Mary Hart," he whispered. "Street of broken dreams and cheap Scotch." He drank and set his glass down. "And private eyes who hide in closets to take dirty pictures and talk to themselves about choices."
He glanced down the bar and watched the bartender pass a bottle over half a dozen shot glasses in a row, sloshing liquor on the bar. Over the screaming decibels of Mary Hart and the Van Horns he heard a deep voice.
"... you got to understand, I was blind drunk on mescal. The damn horse was smarter than I was. He pulled up and I went ass over teakettle, right past the cameras and into the gorge. Broke a leg, busted some ribs, cracked my collarbone, rearranged my nose. If I hadn't been so fucking drunk, I'd really been hurt."
Cleary slid off his stool and started down the bar, feeling a grin pull at his mouth.
Joe Quinlan interrupted his story to pick up a drink from the row of shot glasses and hold it up in a toast. "Here's to smart horses and dumb stuntmen."
Everybody followed his lead, and Joe snatched the bottle from Scotty, the bartender, and refilled the shot glasses, sloshing still more liquor on the bar. He slammed the bottle down and turned back to his circle of admirers, his eyes sparkling with the recklessness of the born troublemaker.
"This pretty little brown orderly smuggled me out of the hospital, got me started cliff diving after the bandages came off. She took all my money and left me in Acapulco with a busted eardrum and six hundred dollars in bar bills—"
"And two hundred worth of bail which you still owe me for," Cleary broke in.
"Son of a gun!" said Joe, his face breaking into a huge crooked grin.
"What do you say, Joe?" asked Cleary, grinning back at him.
"Well, if you aren't a sight for sore eyes!" exclaimed Joe, clamping a paw around Cleary's shoulders, the thick plaster cast on his forearm making Cleary feel as though he were being hugged by Popeye.
Cleary examined his friend and decided the years were showing. A broken nose that mended in a bump, reddish-brown hair creeping up his forehead, lines around the eyes and mouth, and dressed in a seedy-looking brown-figured shirt and cheap plaid jacket, Joe Quinlan looked as if he was on the downhill side of an ill-spent life. Considering he and Joe were the same age, Cleary decided his own face was holding its own.
"Hey, Quinlan, you told me to boot you out of here by ten," said Scotty, tapping Joe on the shoulder.
"You got to be somewhere?" asked Cleary, thumping him in the chest with his elbow.
Joe glanced at his wa
tch, a frown marking his rugged features, then the reckless grin reappeared. "Nothing that can't wait. Scotty, a couple of shots for me and my old buddy, John Francis Cleary."
Joe dumped a wad of money on the bar, and Cleary watched a dime slide across the polished wood. What the hell, he thought. He didn't have anything better to do except chase down a Chinese who had jumped bail. And he didn't choose to go to Chinatown tonight. A man still had choices.
He lifted a shot glass. Behind him he heard Mary Hart belting out another stanza, felt the beat pounding against his eardrums.
He'll be back... Don't ask me
How I know. Got no special secret.
No expensive French perfumes.
But I know he'll never leave me
Once I get him in my room.
"To choices," he said aloud, and tossed down his drink.
As he stood outside The Crescendo Club a few hours later, Cleary decided he had been drunker. A lot drunker. He was still able to stand without a tilt, still able to put his hand in his pocket at the first attempt, still able to find his valet ticket without turning his pocket inside out. Life was improving.
"Hey, Joe. Good luck against the Indians Saturday night," Scotty called through the open door.
Joe emptied a glass and tossed it back in the club. "Put a few bucks on the Thunderbolts. We're gonna scalp the Indians."
"Let's see, since the last time I saw you, you've been a bull rider, stuntman, cliff diver. Now it's Roller Derby," said Cleary, eyeing Joe's alcohol-flushed face.
Joe nodded, the neon lights striping his face with black-and-white bars. "Sport of the future. More Roller Derby ovals being built every day. We're gonna end up with our pictures on bubble gum cards just like baseball players." He reached in his pocket and pulled out two tickets. "Here you go. A couple of ringside seats."
"When the hell are you going to slow down?"
"When they nail the coffin shut. Come on. We get a move on and we can catch a nightcap up the street." He searched his pockets. "Looks like you're going to have to spot me a couple rounds. I blew my whole wad in that dump."
He had a sheepish lock on his face that Cleary recognized. You always had to spot Joe a couple, he thought as he handed his ticket to the valet. Money ran through his fingers like water through a sieve. If it weren't for Eileen Quinlan standing around with a bucket to catch the leaks, Joe would be flat busted most of the time.
"So how are you and Eileen doing these days?" he asked, turning around to find the ex-stuntman had quietly disappeared. "Hey, Joe?" he called, looking up and down the street and finally spotting him ducking behind the broad beam of a '55 Lincoln. "You lose something?"
Joe put his finger to his lips, his eyes glittering with enjoyment. "Do you see three no-necks in a black New Yorker going up the street?"
"Yeah, but they're not going up the street anymore," said Cleary as the gleaming front end of the '55 New Yorker plowed over the curb and slammed to a halt in front of him.
Joe, his eyes mirroring the potential explosiveness of a Molotov cocktail in the hands of a Hungarian freedom fighter, straightened up as two huge leg-breakers, led by Sidney Bloom, erupted out of the black car like steam out of a geyser, but considerably more substantial.
"You with me on this, Jack?" he asked, his eyes never leaving the three muscle-bound hoods,
"Do I have a choice?" asked Cleary, sighing and flexing his hand in preparation for a few rounds. He had forgotten another problem of being Joe Quinlan's buddy. Sooner or later you were going to get involved in a fight, because Joe collected trouble about as fast as he spent money. This time it looked as if Jack Cleary, private eye, had a good chance of getting the shit kicked out of him.
"With these guys? I doubt it," replied Joe, cocking his fists.
"I hate these situations," said Cleary, tossing away his cigarette.
"We been looking all over the Strip for you, Quinlan," said Bloom, flexing huge biceps and grinning in anticipation.
Joe grinned back as he suddenly threw his jacket over Bloom's head. "You found me," he said as he delivered a perfect punch with his good hand.
Legbreakers One and Two seemed to resent the sight of their boss sitting on his rear in the gutter, and went to work with fists and feet on Joe. Cleary admired their economy of motion. It was always a pleasure to watch professionals at work. However...
He grabbed Legbreaker Two, spun him around, and decked him. "Two against one isn't fair, punk."
"So you want to play?" asked Legbreaker Two, bouncing back to his feet and smashing Cleary in the face.
Cleary, reeling backward, tasted his own blood and decided he didn't like the coppery flavor. If he was going to play Count Dracula, he would open up someone else's veins. "Hey, son of a bitch!" he shouted at Legbreaker Two.
Son of a bitch turned back and bumped his chin on Cleary's fist. The results were so satisfactory that Cleary put his fist in the way of the hood's nose, and waited until proboscis met knuckles. "Legs a little wobbly, punk? Ready for a little nap?" he asked as he whirled the man around, grabbed a fistful of jacket, and ran him into the front grille of a parked car.
"Sleep tight, and don't let the bedbugs bite," said Cleary as he stepped around the thug.
In the meantime, Legbreaker One had discovered that fists were no defense against a plaster cast across the forehead, not to mention the back of the skull, the shoulders, the chest, and the belly.
"You got a dirty nose," said Quinlan. "Better wipe it. " He aided the hood by dropping him like a sack of potatoes and substituting asphalt for a handkerchief. Legbreaker One lost interest in the proceedings as he lay face down, with bits of plaster floating down on his body like dandruff on a black suit.
"Bastard!" screamed Bloom, emerging from underneath Joe's coat and trying to scramble to his feet and go for his gun.
"Excuse me," said Cleary politely, shoving a wing-tip through Bloom's lung cavity. "I didn't see you down there." He gestured to Joe, and they strolled with giant steps toward Cleary's Eldorado, delivered by the valet who'd long since disappeared to safety inside The Crescendo.
"Just like old times, huh?" asked Joe.
Cleary glanced back at the three peacefully snoozing thugs. Correction, he thought. Two snoozing thugs, and one retching in the gutter. "You mind telling me what that was all about?"
"Just some guys I was supposed to meet."
Cleary gave him the same kind of look he used to give robbery suspects he had caught coming out of a liquor store with nylon stockings over their faces.
"You know, some debt-collecting guys that were sent," said Joe, wiggling like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
Cleary opened the Eldorado door. "Sent? Sent by who?"
Joe wiggled some more, glanced back down the street, then finally answered. "Ever heard of a guy called Mickey Gold?"
Cleary wiped his mouth, considered the blood smeared on his hand, and wondered if he had better develop a taste for it. "Joseph, are you telling me we just beat the hell out of three legbreakers that belong to the biggest mobster in L.A.?"
"It's good to see you, Jack," said Quinlan, a guilty grin on his face as they both slid into the Eldorado.
"Shit," said Cleary, and decided to lay in a supply of Tums and Scotch.
ONE
Cleary parked his Eldorado in front of Mickey Gold's Black and Tan Club, a stucco building that boasted a covered walk bounded by a waist-high wall topped by fluted arches. Marble urns containing some unidentifiable shrub sat in the exact center of each arch. Mickey Gold claimed the building had class. Cleary thought it looked like the set for some low-budget French foreign legion movie. He always expected some burnoose-clad, would-be Errol Flynn with camel dung on his boots to leap from one of the arches and run down the Strip with a drawn sword.
Cleary slid out of his car. Slowly. Feeling every one of his thirty-six years. Plus twenty. He slammed the door and winced as the sound reverberated through his skull. He caught sight of his reflection in
the car's gleaming finish and winced again. Between the residual effects of a night on the town with Joe Quinlan and severe knuckle impact, he looked like something the street cleaners had scraped out of the gutter.
Ambling stiffly over to the glass display case, he checked out the photos of Nick Roma, the headliner for the Black and Tan Club. He had a choice. He could skip Nick Roma. He wished he could skip Mickey Gold, too, but he owed Joe Quinlan. He owed a lot of debts, he thought. Some he couldn't pay—images of the delicate features of a dead Chinese girl flickered at the edges of his mind. But maybe his debt to Joe was payable. He hoped so, he thought as he entered the Black and Tan Club. Because the very sound of Mickey Gold's voice gave him a headache.
He hesitated in the doorway and surveyed the club. Sidney Bloom, the leader in last night's fight, stood behind the bar using a funnel to pour cheap liquor into bottles with expensive labels. Cleary made a mental note not to buy a drink in the Black and Tan. He also noted that Bloom's sunglasses didn't do much to hide the bruises. The sight of those bruises improved Cleary's headache almost as much as aspirin.
Reluctantly Cleary shifted his attention to Meyer Alliance, Mickey Gold's money man. He didn't particularly enjoy looking at Meyer, but it beat looking at the sleazy accountant's boss. Meyer was sitting at Mickey's table, which served as office, dining room, and for all the Strip knew, Gold's bedroom.
A phone sprouted out of Meyer's ear. "I'm not sure that's what we have in mind," he said as his eyes swiveled toward the man himself.
"Don't whine, Meyer," said Gold. "Just tell him the terms."
Cleary wished he had chewed a handful of Tums. If the sound of Mickey Gold's voice gave him a headache, the sight of Mickey Gold gave him a bellyache.
Mickey Gold was a sawed-off barrel of a man whose slightly bulging eyes always reminded Cleary of an evil Peter Lorre. An ex-pug who had fought his way out of the slums using his fists, his brains, and much as Cleary hated to admit it, his moxie, Gold was always fastidiously barbered and tailored, and wrapped in a fog of cologne and talcum powder. A pudgy man who gave the impression of being fatter than he was, his vitality seemed to fill the room like a noxious smog as he paced about in a green satin smoking jacket. A tailor with a mouthful of pins duckwalked after him in a futile effort to fit the mobster for a pair of slacks.