Solomon's Vineyard

by Jonathan Latimer

  “How about another bottle of champagne?” I asked.

  “Why spoil good brandy?” Ginger said.

  We drank about half the bottle of brandy. The big party at the table near the bar-room door kept getting noisier. The liquor didn't seem to affect Ginger, but she got a little more sociable. She told me she'd worked in the chorus at Harry's New York Bar in Chicago, and then had sung at a Chinese joint on the North Side. She'd also done a little radio singing. Her face wasn't sullen when she was talking about her work. She was really interested in singing.

  “Ever think of the movies?” I asked.

  “Don't pull that,” she said. “I used to work in Hollywood,” I said. “When do you want me to start taking my clothes off?” she asked.

  “The hell with it,” I said. “I was just making conversation.”

  “I'd rather dance.”

  I said “Okay.” I put a dime in the box and we danced again. She danced close to me, her body flat against mine, but I had a feeling there was nothing personal in it. I liked it anyway; her body was so young. When we got back to the table I asked if there was gambling in the place. “Craps,” she said. “In the back.”

  “Let's try our luck.”

  “All right.”

  We went across the bar and then through a big dining-room with a dance floor. There was a raised place for a band. “They open this next week,” Ginger said. Back of the floor was a door. We went through that into a room with thick green carpet and green drapes pulled close over the windows. There was a crap table and six slot machines. One of the slot machines was for silver dollars. I hadn't seen one that big since Reno. I put a dollar in it and pulled the crank. A lemon showed. A dark man with a green visor came into the room. He looked at us questioningly. I gave Ginger a twenty-dollar bill.

  “Try your luck,” I told her.

  She was surprised at the bill. “I don't get you,” she said. “No?”

  “No,” she said. “You talk like a drummer for ladies' hosiery, with your Hollywood stuff. But you don't act it.”

  “Don't let it worry you, beautiful,” I said.

  She got a double handful of silver dollars for the bill. Then the dark man gave her some dice. “Let's see,” I said. I took the dice and gave them a couple of rolls and then I held them up to the light. They were all right.

  “We run a square game,” the dark man said.

  “Thanks for telling me,” I said.

  Ginger did all right. She made three points before she crapped out. I won ten bucks on a come bet, but when I tried the dice I threw snake eyes, a ten and a seven in three rolls. I was very cold. As Ginger started to roll again, the chief's party came in and began to play too. The dark man gave them silver dollars. One of the women called him Dave. They all looked curiously at Ginger and me. The two women were still hanging on to the fat chief. He was drunk and his face was bright red and he seemed to have a lot of money He kept forking it out in twenties to the gals, not caring how much they lost. Once I saw one of them, a dark-haired woman about thirty, slip a twenty between her breasts. She saw me watching her and smiled, and I turned back to Ginger. She'd just lost the dice. The chief was reaching out for them, but I got there first.

  “My turn,” I said.

  He looked at me, but he didn't recognize me. He was too drunk.

  CHAPTER THREE

  THE CRAP game began to grow. Another couple joined it, the man tossing out quarters, and a few minutes later a sour-looking guy in a double-breasted blue suit wandered into the room. He watched for a while and then he began to play, acting as though he was dubious about the game. His face was freshly shaved and powdered, but blue-black stubble showed on his jaws. He looked like a Greek. I figured he worked for the house, but it was all right. Ginger was so hot it didn't matter who was in the game.

  She had the dice. When she shook them her body shook, too, and it was exciting to see her press against the table to read the numbers. The table caught her just below the hips. She threw for a long time and finally made her point. She left the money on the table and threw a seven. It was hard to read the numbers because of the smoke in the room. She let all the money ride and threw an eight. She didn't look sullen any more. She smiled at me.

  “An eighter from Decatur,” she said.

  She did it the hard way: four and four. The Greek had bet against her, and he said something angrily. Ginger drew fifty dollars and let a hundred ride. The Greek laid twenty against her. She rolled a seven. She drew a hundred and let a hundred sit. The Greek muttered again and took the dice from her. He pulled some other dice from his pocket and dropped them on the table.

  “Let's go,” he said.

  I took his dice and tossed them through the door to the dining-room. I heard them roll across the dance floor. The Greek's eyes got thin-looking, but he didn't move.

  “Some house dice,” I said.

  The man back of the table took his time. He pushed aside the box where he had found the first dice and got a pair from another box. I took those and threw them away, too.

  “From the first box.”

  He took a pair out of the first box. He looked scared. He glanced at the Greek, but the Greek didn't say anything. I gave the dice a couple of rolls. They were okay. I gave them to Ginger.

  The Greek stared at me. “Tough guy, hey?”

  “Yeah.”

  Ginger threw the dice against the backboard. They came up eleven. Then she tossed a seven. She was a tropical heatwave. Her next point was nine and she had to throw for it. I watched her. Her body went into curves every time she pitched the dice. She got the nine, sucked three hundred dollars, and then lost the dice. I figured she was six or seven hundred ahead. The Greek took the dice. Ginger started to bet with him against the house. There was no sense in that. I shook my head at her, but she went ahead anyway. She bet twenty dollars and lost it. She stopped belting. After a while the dice got around to her again. She had her point, nine, when three men came into the room. She looked tin, shaking the dice, and what she saw froze her hand. She stood with the dice in her hand.

  “Hello Ginger,” one of the men said.

  He was short, but his chest and shoulders were: powerful. He had mean blue eyes and he needed a shave. He had the longest arms I ever saw on anything more civilized than an orang-outang. He was a towhead and he had a club foot.

  “Didn't expect me, did you, Ginger!”

  “No.”

  Nobody moved around the crap table. I felt glad the chief of police was there until I saw his face. The man turned his eyes on me; then came towards me, walking with a limp. One of his friends had his hand in his pocket, hither his finger or a pistol made a point under the cloth. He looked tough. I thought it was probably a pistol.

  “He careful, Pug,” said the man behind the table.

  Pug stopped in front of me. His face came about to my neck. He snarled. “You the guy with Ginger?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know whose babe she is?”

  “No.”

  “Like hell.”

  “No.”

  “Well, she's mine.”

  “She didn't mention it,” I said.

  He laughed. It was more like a bark than a laugh. I saw one of his front teeth had been broken. It had turned dark. He came a step closer. I backed away. I didn't want to start a play with three or maybe more toughs against me. I looked at the chief of police. He was still scared. Ginger seemed a little pleased, as though she'd ^planned it. Maybe she had. Maybe she wanted to make Pug jealous.

  “Do you know who I am?” Pug said.

  “No,” I lied.

  “I'm Pug Banta.”

  “Oh.”

  He moved nearer me.

  “I'm sorry,” I said. “I didn't know she was your girl, Pug.”

  He slapped my face. His arm moved so fast I didn't even have time to duck. My teeth cut my lip. I could taste the blood.

  “You'll know it next time, fatty,” Pug said.

  Ginger look
ed frightened now. The Greek spoke to me “I guess you're not so tough.”

  “What's he been doing?” Pug asked.

  “He thinks the game is wrong,” the Greek said.

  “If you don't like our games,” Pug asked, “why don't you go home?”

  I kept saying to myself, don't start anything. I wanted to kill Pug. I never could stand being hit by anybody, not even a woman. I wanted to take him and his pals. I could taste the blood in my mouth.

  “I like your games,” I said; “with the right dice.”

  “Wise, eh?” Pug said, and hit me on the cheekbone. It was a good punch. I fell back against one of the slot machines. The metal stand tilted and the machine fell on the floor, shattering the glass front.

  “Don't get too tough,” I told Pug.

  He hit me again. The dark-haired woman with Chief Piper screamed. He hit me on the right temple. He hit hard with both hands. I sat down with my back to the wall. I felt blood run from my mouth. I was a little dizzy. He tried to kick me, but I blocked his foot with my arm. The dark-haired woman ran to him.

  “Stop that, Pug,” she cried.

  He kicked at me again. The woman jerked his arm, trying to pull him away. He got the arm loose and hit her on the nose. The blow sounded like a ripe tomato dropping on a cement floor. She went over on her back. Blood spilled from her nose. Chief Piper, his small eyes frightened, started to protest.

  “Keep your damn whores in line,” Pug snarled at him.

  The chief backed away. The blood had gone from his face, leaving it the colour of a turnip. The Greek was grinning, his tongue running over his lips. Pug kicked at me again; not hard this time. It was a gesture. He turned his head to the two bodyguards.

  “Toss him out.”

  They picked me off the floor. Nobody bothered to do anything about the woman. She was sobbing, her breath coming in gasps, blood streaming down her face. Pug had broken her nose. The bodyguards started me out of the room. I looked at Ginger. She stared at me as though she had never seen me in her life. In her hand was the money she'd won with my twenty. The bodyguards ran me through the dining-room. I was still a little punch-drunk. They halted on a veranda.

  One said: “If we catch you again, fatso, we'll cut off your tail feathers.”

  “And that ain't all,” the other said.

  They threw me down the steps. I lit rolling, but gravel cut my hands and face. I got up and walked to the parking place. Nobody bothered me. I got in the car and found a rag and wiped the blood off my face. My jaw hurt when I moved it, but I cursed the Greek and Chief Piper and the bodyguards. Then I cursed Pug. I cursed him longest. I decided I would kill him when I got through the job in Paulton. That made me feel better. I started the engine and drove away. For a long time I could see the neon sign, Tony's, through the rear mirror.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  IT GOT really hot again in the morning. I kicked the sheet off the bed, but that didn't do any good. It was too hot to sleep. My watch said nine o'clock. I got up and peered at myself in the mirror. My face wasn't so bad. There was a blue mark on one cheekbone, and a swollen lip. I cursed Pug Banta again, but I hadn't forgotten I had my own business first. My own and then Oke Johnson's. Somebody would toast for that. I hoped it was Pug Banta. That would tie everything up nice.

  I thought about Oke. He'd been killed by a bullet from a rifle with a silencer. That didn't sound like a crime of passion, as the newspapers say. What I'd told the chief about husbands not keeping rifles with silencers in the closet was right. Somebody smart and cold-blooded killed Oke, and h could only have been because of our case.

  I shaved and put on a white linen suit and sent four dirty shirts to the laundry and went down to the air-cooled coffee shop. I ordered the sixty-cent club breakfast, with ham and eggs and corn bread. The waitress gave me the Paulton Morning Mail. It didn't have anything about Oke's death that I didn't know. My name was mentioned at the bottom of the story. The name Karl Craven, that is. I was a friend of Oke's, according to the police.

  I didn't like the story. It meant somebody might take a shot at me with that silenced rifle. Maybe they'd wait, though, to see how much I knew. I'd worry along.

  I drove around the town in the Drive-It sedan for a while. There was a haze over everything and the air was hot and still. I found a cop and asked him how to get to the Vineyard. He told me. I drove past the brick school and followed the car-line. Pretty soon I saw the vineyards. They ran up a range of low hills, broken in spots by flower and vegetable gardens and trees, and disappeared over the crests of the hills a couple of miles away. Green grapes hung from the vines. The road ran between low brick walls, but from the sedan I could see people working in the vegetable gardens. They were mostly women, in bright-coloured clothes that looked like Rumanian or Hungarian peasant costumes. Some of the women had red bandanas on their heads.

  I came to a big gate with a metal sign over it: THE VINEYARD. Up to the left I saw the buildings. The gates were open and I drove in. There were two big live-story buildings, two smaller ones, all of them of brick, and a big marble temple. That was where Solomon lay in state. I'd read about it in the American Weekly. They bad embalmed him like Lenin and had put him in a glass coffin where the people could look at him. They were waiting for the Day of Judgment, when Solomon would jump out and lend his people to heaven in a flaming catafalque. That's what the story said, a flaming catafalque, but I never found out what in hell that was.

  I drove past the temple and parked in front of one of the smaller buildings. There were some other cars parked there. I got out of the sedan and started to go into the building. A tall guy in a white blouse and black trousers stopped me. He wore boots over the trousers.

  “Only on Sunday are tourists allowed, brother, he said.

  “I'm not a tourist,” I said.

  “What do you want?”

  He looked damned unfriendly. His hair had been cropped close almost shaved,- and that made his bushy eyebrows seem queer. His eyes were deep-set and they looked as though they had been mascaraed. “I want to see Penelope Grayson.”

  He hadn't been paying much attention to me before, but now his eyes poked at me from under the bushy eyebrows. “What for, brother?”

  “You can ask her, brother, after I get through talking with her.”

  “Are you a relative?”

  “No.”

  “You can't see her.”

  “If I can't,” I said, “I'll be back with a court order.” His face didn't change.

  “And if that doesn't work, I'll get a warrant charging the Vineyard with kidnapping.”

  He didn't like me. He'd have liked to take a punch at me. He probably couldn't because he was a member of the Vineyard. He went in the building. I looked around. I saw a few more men dressed in the white blouses and black trousers moving between the buildings. The clothes made them look Russian. I didn't see any women.

  He came out and crooked a finger at me. We went along a brick walk towards one of the five-story buildings. Behind the buildings, in a hollow, I saw barns and silos. In one field a woman was ploughing behind a pair of grey horses. It was funny to sec a woman ploughing. We went up the building's front steps and into a big room filled with old-fashioned furniture. A woman about thirty-five with eyes the colour of maple sugar came into the room. She had a soft white face. She wore a white blouse and a red skirt.

  “Daughter Penelope,” the man said.

  I thought I saw interest in the woman's face, but when she turned to me she had no expression at all.

  “Your name?”

  “Karl Craven.”

  “I will ask her.”

  “I come from her uncle,” I said.

  I saw the maple-sugar eyes light up again. She went out. I sat down on a couch and lit a cigarette. The man touched my shoulder.

  “We do not allow smoking, brother.”

  I put the cigarette out. I started to throw the butt in a waste-basket, but I thought better of it and stuffed it in my pocket. The
man stood looking down at me, his face cold and unfriendly. He made me uncomfortable.

  “Hot weather we're having,” I said.

  He didn't answer, just stared at me. I didn't try any more conversation. I sat there and wondered what I'd do if Daughter Penelope refused to see me. That was a funny way to name anybody, I thought. I wondered if all the women at the Vineyard were called Daughter.

  The woman came back, saying over her shoulder: “Here he is, Daughter.”