The Silver Cobweb

by Ben Benson

  “That’s all right. I’m not mad at her.”

  Harry laughed. “Why should you be? You gave out the ticket. Not her.”

  “What time does Amy go on?”

  “In about half an hour. The girl sure draws a crowd here. The first time she came here was last spring. Stayed until the fall. Then she left to make a tour of different clubs. She came back last week for a three-week engagement. I guess she could earn a lot more dough elsewhere, but maybe she figures she owes something to Carl. He gave her her start, you know.”

  “No, I didn’t know. Carl has a big club here.”

  “Sure. I don’t think he actually owns much of it, though. Most of these clubs are controlled by outside people. Might be a half-dozen people each owning a piece of it for all I know. But Carl runs it.”

  “No back room?”

  “Gambling? Here? Would I tell you if there was?” He laughed. “Naw, I was only kidding. No gambling. Couldn’t get away with it if we tried. This is a tough spot for gambling.”

  “Carl’s lucky to have Amy Bell singing here,” I said.

  Harry wiped the bar again. “You keep mentioning Amy Bell,” he said, an odd little smile on his face. “Kind of like her?”

  I grinned. “She’s a hell of an attractive woman.”

  “Thanks, Daddy-o,” a woman’s voice said. I turned. Amy Bell was standing directly behind me.

  She said, “I’m afraid it was a dirty trick. Harry saw me coming up to the bar and he asked you a loaded question.”

  I grinned again. “I still say you’re a hell of an attractive woman.”

  Harry laughed, shook his head, moved away and began to mix a drink.

  “I’m beginning to like you a little,” Amy Bell said. “Let’s go sit in a booth, dear. Harry’s making my usual Tom Collins. I always have one before I start to work. Gin is kind to my throat. Must be the juniper in it.”

  We crossed the floor and sat down in a red-leather-padded booth. Harry brought over the Tom Collins and nudged me.

  “Keep going, kid,” he said. “You’re doing good.”

  “I’m trying,” I said.

  “How about another bourbon?”

  “Let me nurse this one,” I said.

  He went away. I looked at Amy Bell, at the soft red mouth, the black, glossy, luxuriant hair, the roundness of her smooth face, the long eyelashes, the supple, catlike sensual body sheathed in a form-fitting black gown. There was an extra femaleness in her. Not femininity but femaleness—there seems to be a difference between the two.

  “You like what you see?” she asked directly.

  “I sure do,” I said simply. “Why do you always wear black?”

  “Good for business,” she said. “Black is sexy. I also wear black lace panties, and when I go to bed it’s a black chiffon sheer nightie. But tonight I’m absolutely bare under my evening gown. Not a stitch on, really.”

  “Don’t try to startle me, honey,” I said. “I’m a big boy now. My mother even lets me go to the barber shop myself these days.”

  She laughed in her throat. “You are a big boy, aren’t you?” she said, her eyes wandering over me. “And I’ve been mean and nasty to you, haven’t I?”

  “Nobody ever treated me worse.”

  She smiled delicately. “But you came back for more, Dad-dy-o.”

  “I’m a glutton for punishment.”

  “Stubborn, stubborn,” she said. “How old are you, anyway?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  “A child,” she said. “But I’ve been reading such wonderful things about you. All about the little David who captured the big, bad Goliath yesterday.”

  “The name is Ralph,” I said. “And he was no Goliath. He was a lot smaller than I was.”

  “But you’re only a child.” She sighed. “Oh, what I’d give to be back to your age.”

  “You’re not so far away from it.”

  “I’m all of twenty-five.”

  “Twenty-seven.”

  “That’s the trouble with becoming friendly with a cop. You saw that damn driver’s license. Now I can’t even snip two years off my age.” She lifted her glass and drank. “Well, I’m still in the spinster classification.”

  “Only by choice,” I said.

  She toyed with her glass. “You always say the right things, don’t you? They must give state troopers a terrific course in public relations. Why, you were so smooth and polite with that ticket last night, I thought I was being patriotic to my country by taking it. When I go into court to pay the fine I’ll probably salute the colors.”

  “It’s like painless dentistry,” I said. “We try to keep our customers happy.”

  “You’ve made me absolutely delirious,” she said. “What’s the next step in your plan of conquest, dear?”

  “Now I get you to talk about yourself. That always breaks the ice.”

  “Aren’t you going to tell me how gorgeous I am and where have I been all your life?”

  I shook my head. “That’s the old dance-hall line. It went out with the horse car. The approach nowadays is more subtle.”

  She smiled and, surprisingly enough, she did begin to talk about herself. She had been born in Plainville, Connecticut, and had studied piano and voice in Hartford. A short term at the Boston Conservatory had convinced her that her voice was suitable for popular music and no more. Getting started was the hardest part. First there had been the amateur shows and benefits, any place where she could get a little recognition. It was Carl Podre who had given her her first professional booking. That was last summer. From her earnings she had made the down payment on the red convertible, registering it in Dorset where she had been staying. After some months at The Red Wheel she had acquired an agent, and he booked her into a small supper club in Chicago. Then it was Salt Lake City and Reno and Las Vegas and San Francisco. All small clubs, she explained, but you had to build up booking dates like credits. With each new club she got small increases in her contract. Now she was back at her first place, The Red Wheel. It wasn’t altogether altruistic on her part. She was getting paid double what she had received last year.

  “Then what?” I asked.

  “The ultimate goal, of course, is New York. The big supper clubs. Along with those you hope for records, radio, TV, pictures. If you really want to dream, you hope for a show of your own or the lead in a big Broadway hit musical. That’s about the peak. How many of us do you think ever reach it?”

  “You will,” I said. “I heard you sing last night.”

  “Thank you, Oscar Hammerstein,” she said. “Do you have a cigarette, please?”

  I took out my pack and lit a cigarette for her. She blew a thin wreath of blue smoke. I looked down at her left hand holding the glass. She noticed my glance.

  “There’s no marriage ring on that third finger, Sherlock Holmes,” she said. “Which means, obviously, that I’m not married. Now don’t be typical and ask me why.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Now you’ve forced me to answer. No girl can resist talking about marriage.” She inhaled slowly on the cigarette, her eyes focused distantly. “Marriage is a problem that haunts every girl who thinks she has a little talent. Which shall it be? Marriage or a career, or both? So far, for me, the career has come first.”

  “I’m curious about that,” I said. “How do you ward off all the offers?”

  “What kind?” she asked a little bitterly. “I get all kinds of offers. You’d be surprised at some of the shocking offers this little girl gets. One of these days some nice, young, clean-cut chap might even propose marriage. I hope I won’t die from the surprise.”

  “I think you’re acting a little too defensive about it. Maybe you’ve had honest offers and your own acceptance had a string dangling from it. Maybe the man who makes the offer has to have an orchid corsage in one hand and his bankbook in the other.”

  She smiled and shook her head. “Either, at your age, you’ve developed an old cop’s analytical mind, or I must be as t
ransparent as that fictitious chiffon nightie I mentioned. You’re right, dear. I don’t believe in love in a garret. That’s for peasants.”

  “You may be wrong. Peasants are supposed to be happier than princes. Love is supposed to make the world go ’round. Didn’t you ever hear bells ringing inside?”

  “That’s only a fairy tale, Junior. I’ve been around too long to swallow it. You see, I’ve come in contact with many men. There isn’t one of them I’d want to bring home to Mother and say, ‘Look what I caught, Mother dear.’ Do I sound just a wee bit cynical to you?”

  “Just mildly.”

  “It takes one to know one,” she said. “The most cynical people in the world are cops.” She sipped on her drink. “How long have you been a trooper?”

  “Not very long.”

  “I knew it. You re still starry-eyed and wallowing around in idealism. Wait a few years, dear, and we’ll compare notes brooding over our absinthe.”

  She was wrong, though. I had seen enough rottenness and sordidness in the world. I had been to Korea and seen war. And I had come in contact with all kinds of people in my short career as a police officer. The world would never be a utopia. There would always be thieves, murderers, rapists and sadists. I knew all that. But I also knew you could control criminals, like you did insects and bacteria, so they were always in the minority.

  And, of course, to bring it closer to home, it had to be Joe Derechy walking into the taproom just then.

  He was wearing a pair of sloppy pants and a colorful, but dirty, sport shirt. He had shaved since I had seen him in the afternoon, but that didn’t appear to make him very much cleaner. It would have taken six men with sand soap and steel brushes working six hours to do that. His gait was unsteady and his face was red with drink. With him were two men, both sharp-faced, loudly dressed men who had the appearance of race-track touts. Derechy walked up to the bar, pulled out a wad of crumpled bills, threw them on the counter, then banged loudly for drinks.

  I watched the reaction of Harry, the bartender. There was a worried, wary look on his face. I was puzzled, too. Derechy was not the type of clientele that visited The Red Wheel. Not a man whose family had been receiving welfare. But here he was at the bar treating others to drinks.

  Harry mixed the drinks slowly. When he brought them, Derechy urged his two companions to drink, acting very much like a big advertising account executive hovering over important clients. The men tasted their liquor, one bending over to Derechy and whispering. Derechy guffawed and said something obscene in a loud voice.

  Harry moved in quickly. His mouth was pinched. With a gesture of pained, polite caution he pointed to the presence of Amy Bell in the booth.

  Derechy turned, looked at the booth, then nudged his friends. The three of them laughed uproariously. I saw Harry begin to get a little fidgety as he peered toward the entrance of the bar. I didn’t know if The Red Wheel had a bouncer, but this was more than Harry could handle alone. I was debating whether to move Amy Bell out when Derechy left the bar and sauntered over to the booth.

  He didn’t recognize me in civilian clothes because he said, “Hey, college boy, I’ve got the word on your friend. Watch out you don’t get your fingers burnt with this song thrush. She’s been around.”

  I looked quickly at Amy Bell and saw her hand clutching her glass so tightly that her knuckles turned white. There were tiny beads of moisture on her upper lip.

  I said, “Derechy, why don’t you go home and take care of your wife and kids?”

  He squinted at me. Then his eyes widened. “Hey, the cop.” He turned and waved for his two friends. They came up to the booth and he said, “See this young kid? He’s a state trooper. Honest.”

  The two men smirked. One in a panama hat said, “Don’t tell me, Joe. Not this nice little boy.”

  “On the level,” Derechy said. “And a nosy sonovabitch. The kind who comes barging into your house asking questions, then insults you.”

  The panama hat said, “Joe, I wouldn’t let no cop insult me.”

  I stood up, squeezing by them, moving a few feet away from the booth, trying to draw them away from Amy Bell so she wouldn’t get hurt. My heart was beating rapidly and my larynx felt squeezed tight. I said, “Get out of here, Derechy.”

  The panama hat edged closer to me. He had little black-agate eyes. He smiled softly. “I eat young cops for breakfast.”

  He was a small, runty, bowlegged man and I didn’t waste any time with him. I pushed him suddenly on the chest with the flat of my hand. He fell over backwards, bounced on the floor and started to slither away like a snake.

  Derechy said to the other, “Come on, Augie. Let’s take this kid.”

  He closed his big fist and brought his arm back. But I jammed my heel down hard on his instep. He bent, howling. As he did, I grabbed the upended seat of his pants and his collar. Pushing him ahead of me, I ran him across the floor, our momentum carrying us through the taproom entrance into the foyer. I opened the front door and hustled him outside into the parking lot. He was shouting to the other two for help, at the same time twisting to get at me. I hooked one leg under his and threw him to the ground. When he tried to get up I pushed him down with my foot.

  “Stay there a moment,” I said. “Breathe some of the cool night air.”

  The fight seemed to have gone out of him suddenly, because he sat there and started to sob.

  The door of The Red Wheel opened and Derechy’s two friends came out, their heads moving from side to side looking for us. Behind them I saw Harry standing anxiously in the doorway. I reached back for my pocket gun. I didn’t have my billy with me but the butt of the S&W would do fine.

  But nothing happened. Neither of the two men was interested. I looked at the man in the panama hat, but he bent his head and hurried to a car. The other followed him. They got in, started the car and drove off.

  I turned back to Derechy and lifted him to his feet. “Your two friends drove off and left you,” I said. “You could buy their drinks but not their help.”

  “Bastards,” Derechy mumbled.

  “Go on home before you get into more trouble.”

  “My car ain’t here.”

  “Walk.”

  “I’ve got important friends,” he said. “We’ll fix your wagon. You wait and see.”

  “Get out of here or I’ll boot you all the way home.”

  He stumbled down the road, disappearing in the darkness. I went back inside The Red Wheel, going by Harry, who was holding the door open.

  “Everything all right?” he asked me in the foyer.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Thanks. I couldn’t have handled it. Thanks a lot.”

  “It wasn’t much.”

  “You handled it like an old pro,” Harry said. “Psychology. You notice when you pick off the ringleader the rest of the mob backs down quick.”

  In the booth Amy Bell sat sipping her drink. I moved in across from her and sat down. She was silent for a moment. Then she looked up at me.

  “It’s a crazy world,” she said, her voice a little sad. “Yesterday a senseless, vicious gunman murders a girl. Tonight, in the very same town, a lady’s honor is upheld. I say, Hurrah, hurrah, the age of chivalry is not entirely dead.”

  “Don’t grind everything down,” I said. “If it makes you feel any better it was a grudge fight. Ten years ago Joe Derechy stole my pogo stick. I’ve been tracking him down ever since.”

  “Laugh,” she said. “That’s the trouble with the world today. Nobody will admit to kindness because kindness is now considered weakness. So we laugh it off. Everything is a gag. Don’t show your feelings. What’s the matter with us, anyway? And what’s the matter with honest emotion, damn it? Is it out of style?”

  “What with hot and cold wars, A bombs and H bombs, I guess the world is drained out of feelings. We’re becoming robots, honey.”

  “Well, I confess right now you’ve given me a feeling,” she said, touching her heart. “Right here where
it counts. Stick around, dear.”

  “I had no intention of leaving,” I said.

  9

  AMY BELL SANG SEVERAL TIMES THAT NIGHT. The patrons clamored for encores and got them. I agreed with the customers. I could have listened to Amy Bell’s throaty, vibrant voice forever. It was so warm and intimate that you could have sworn she meant every word of love or loneliness in the lyrics.

  While this was going on I sat in a corner booth in the dining room. Amy would make frequent exits for costume changes and to freshen her make-up. About midnight, while she was away from the booth, Carl Podre showed up for the first time. He slid into the leather seat opposite me.

  “What are you drinking?” he asked, signaling to a waiter.

  “I’ve had my quota, Carl,” I said. “One bourbon at the bar. Thanks.”

  “I’ve got some special venison steaks in the deep freeze,” Podre said. “That and a salad—”

  “No, thanks,” I said. “Carl, I feel a little funny about all this. My wallet’s been in my pocket all night and I’ve been taking up space.”

  “Don’t be silly, kid,” he said, smiling. “Harry told me how you handled those three drunks. Any time you want a job—”

  “Not that kind,” I said. “Tossing out drunks is not my idea of a future.”

  “Sure, you’re right,” he said. He turned to the waiter standing beside the booth and ordered a Scotch on the rocks for himself. “But I never figured you’d become a cop, either. You were always the studious type. What kind of course did you take at B.U.?”

  “Chemistry.”

  “So now you’re a cop. It made your father happy, if nothing else.”

  “What’s wrong with that? Does every kid have to make his old man miserable?”

  “Hell, I admire you for it. Don’t get me wrong, you’re with a top outfit. Only I remember Paul telling me you never had the idea of becoming a trooper. Sure, I know what it means to your father. Him being in a wheel chair and not getting anything out of life. The son comes along and carries on the family tradition. How many sons would do a thing like that?”

  “You have it wrong, Carl,” I said. “I like what I’m doing. There’s the difference.”