Solomon's Vineyard

by Jonathan Latimer

  “Yes,” McGee agreed, “but where are we going to find something to show her?”

  “What about those two California dolls?”

  “Dead.”

  “The hell they are!”

  McGee fondled his hands. “A most singular coincidence, Mr. Craven. One died soon after the case collapsed. And a month later the other passed away giving birth to a child in the Vineyard hospital.”

  “They don't fool out there, do they?” I said. McGee put his hands palm up on his desk and raised his shoulders in a shrug.

  “Isn't there somebody who'll talk?” I asked. “Give me a day,” McGee said. “I'll try to think.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  IN THE street sunlight stabbed my eyes. The air felt like it had been blown out of one of those driers they use in barber shops. I got a cab and told the driver to take me to 569 Green Street. Carmel Todd. I wondered what she wanted with me.

  It was a big, two-story brick house set among elms on a lot that must have been a half-acre. I went up on the porch and pushed the bell. I could hear chimes in the back of the house. Near the top of the door was a funny eight-sided window with eight panes of different coloured glass. It looked like a picture I once saw of an enlarged snowflake. A cute Negro maid opened the door a crack.

  “Carmel Todd.”

  “Carmel don' feel good today.”

  “She sent for me.”

  “Oh.” The door came open further. “Then she must feel better.”

  “Yeah, she must.”

  The maid stepped back with the door. She had on a black silk uniform with white culls and collar. She had dust-coloured skin and rouge on her cheeks.

  “You know her room, mister?”

  “I forget.”

  “Upstairs and the last one down the hall to the left.”

  There were oak stairs at the end of the hall. I peered at the living-room as I went by. I saw an Oriental rug on the floor and a combination radio-phonograph and expensive-looking furniture and sonic lamps with tassels. I went up the stairs and down a hall and knocked at the last door on the left.

  “Who's there?”

  “Carmel Todd?” I asked.

  “Just a minute.”

  A blonde in a green kimono opened the door. Her hair had been peroxided the shade of sawdust and on her face was rouge, lipstick and mascara. “Goodbye, honey,” she said over her shoulder.

  The blonde smelled as though she'd taken a bath in perfume. I mean she stank. I went into the bedroom. A woman was lying under the sheet on a double bed. She had black hair and black eyes and a bandage over part of her face. There was a bottle of medicine on a table by the bed. “I wondered if you'd come,” she said. “Yeah?”

  “You don't remember me, do you?”

  “Not with the bandage.”

  “I'm the one Pug socked. For trying to help you.” I remembered. The one with the broken nose. The one with Chief Piper. I thought maybe it was a touch. Well, she had something coming. I got out my wallet. “I don't want any money.” I put the wallet away.

  She said: “What are you going to do about last night?”

  “What should I do?”

  “Kill that son of a bitch.”

  “And fry?”

  “You're too smart to fry.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But, lady, I've been drawing the line at murder lately.”

  She lay against the pillow, watching me. Her skin was dead white and it made the black eyes look big. She wasn't young, but she was still good-looking. Her shoulders were round and firm. As far as I could tell she was naked under the sheet. I sat down on a rocking-chair. It creaked under my weight.

  “But you want to get him, don't you?” she asked. “I wouldn't mind.”

  “Neither would I,” she said. “He's pretty tough for a gal to tackle.”

  “He knocked out my teeth.”

  The way she said it, it sounded like a good reason for bumping off a man. Maybe it was, at that. A girl likes to hold on to her teeth.

  “How do you figure on getting him?” I asked.

  “Look,” she said, sitting up in bed and almost forgetting the sheet. “I don't know anything about you, but I like your looks. Will you play ball if I've got a good idea?”

  “Goon,” I said.

  She did. She'd been Pug's girl once, she said, and now she was Chief Piper's. So she was talking from the inside. Pug, she said, came to Paulton from St Louis about four years ago. In a few months he got to be the local Al Capone, not that it was much of a struggle. There was nobody very tough in Paulton. And as Al Capone, she said, he demanded and got a fifty-fifty split with the Vineyard.

  “Fifty-fifty split on what?” I asked.

  “On everything. Liquor, dope, gambling and women.”

  “The hell!”

  “You don't know the Vineyard's back of vice in the county?”

  I shook my head. I wondered why McGee hadn't told me. Maybe it wasn't true. No, I believed Carmel. She was telling the truth.

  “Pug's just front man for the Vineyard,” she said. “He's got plenty of power, but the Vineyard runs everything.”

  “Who's the Vineyard's head man?”

  “Pug gets his orders from the Princess, but she gets them from somebody above her.”

  She didn't know who that was. But she did know, she said, that Chief Piper was a Vineyard man. He got a grand a month to let things stay wide open. He was afraid of Pug Banta.

  I said: “I got that idea.”

  The district attorney, Carmel said, was on the payroll too. I said it would be hard to shake Pug loose with a set-up like that. Carmel said she didn't think so.

  “None of them like Pug,” she said. “My idea's this: if things get very hot the Governor will threaten an investigation. Then the Vineyard will throw Pug to him. Pug'll get a long stretch; the Governor will think he's cleaned up the county, and the Vineyard'll go on operating.”

  I said that sounded good. Carmel said: “Only how can we turn on the heat?”

  “You got some beer?” I said.

  She rang a bell and the Negro gal got me four bottles of cold Bud. Carmel didn't want any. Her mouth hurt too much to drink. I poured down a bottle of beer and asked her how much crime paid in the county. The monthly net, as near as she could figure it, was about ten thousand dollars. Banta got about half of this, and the Vineyard the other half. She said she didn't know how much the DA took.

  I said we would probably need help. She said she couldn't think of anybody she'd trust.

  “What about McGee, the lawyer?”

  “That old fossil!” she said. “He hates the Vineyard, all right, but he isn't bright enough to do anything about it.”

  I decided McGee wouldn't be much help. “Anybody in town who really hates Banta?”

  “Is there anybody who doesn't?”

  “I mean important. Somebody Banta might like to get, too.”

  She thought for a while. Then she said: “Gus Papas. He's got the only independent joint in the county. Pug's been trying to drive him out.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I think I can use Gus.”

  She smiled a little. She looked pretty nice, lying under that sheet. Seeing a woman in bed always gives me ideas. I drank another bottle of beer and told her I'd better be getting along.

  “I'll be up tomorrow,” she said.

  I stood up. The room's windows were open, but no air came in. I could see the elm trees in the yard, the branches drooping with the heat. The beer made me sweat. “I'll give you a ring,” I said.

  I took the phone number. “Don't call after ten at night,” she said. “Mrs. Fleming gets sore.”

  I said: “By the way, who was the guy you sent after me?”

  “Charley? He's my half-brother.”

  “A hop?”

  She looked as if she was going to throw the medicine bottle at me. “Of all the goddam nerve!” Then she relaxed. “He's pale because he's had tb.�
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  I didn't believe that. I said: “Does he know why you wanted to talk with me?”

  “No.”

  “Don't tell him,” I said. “Don't tell anybody.”

  “I won't.”

  I took another look at the sheet and the shape outlined under it. I wondered if I dared lift the sheet. What would I have if I did? I thought. I said “Goodbye, sweetheart,” and went out into the hall. I smelled perfume in the hall and heard women laughing in one of the rooms and went down the stairs.

  I walked back to the hotel. I asked the clerk if there were any calls for me, but there weren't. I went to my room and pulled off my clothes that now were wringing wet with sweat and got in the shower with the bottle of bourbon. I drank the bourbon and let the water pour over me. It had been a mistake to walk to the hotel.

  I decided Carmel was on the level, not that I would trust a whore. I didn't belong to the school of thinkers who held all whores had hearts of gold and would give their last two bucks to keep some guy from starving. All the whores I ever knew, and, brother, I knew plenty, would get you drunk and jack-roll you if you gave them half a chance. But Carmel hated Pug Banta. No woman likes to be socked by a guy who'd throw her down. That made the difference.

  Jesus, I was tired! I sat down on the cement floor of the shower and finished the bourbon. I thought about what I had to do with Gus Papas. I would need Ginger and I wondered if she would be in the bar at seven. I began to have the tight feeling in my stomach I used to get before a football game. I saw plenty of trouble ahead. I wondered if it was worth the five grand I had gotten. Hell, yes, it was.

  My buttocks had stopped up the drain and the shower water began to sluice over into the bathroom. I got out and mopped up the water and dried myself. I looked at my watch. It was ten minutes to seven.

  The bar-room was empty. I sat on one of the stools and ordered an old-fashioned. The bartender pretended he'd never seen me before. He got a bottle of whisky and started to make the drink. A portable radio was playing swing music from New York. I listened to it: they had a good boogie-woogie piano player. He played variations on the 'Basin Street Blues', making it sound like part of a symphony. I drank my drink and ordered another. I looked at my watch. Quarter past seven. I'd just made up my mind she wasn't coming when I saw her. She had on a black evening gown that showed a lot of that milk-coloured skin redheads usually have. I was glad to see her. She came over to me.

  “Are you crazy?”

  “About you, baby,” I said. “If Pug sees you with me, he'll bump you.”

  “That punk!”

  “You didn't talk that way last night.”

  “I didn't want to make a scene.”

  “A scene!” She put her hand on my arm. “Listen. I like you. That's why I'm telling you to scram.”

  “I'm not yellow.”

  “You're nuts.”

  “"Maybe you're yellow.”

  Her eyes got narrow. She didn't like that. “We're talking about you.”

  “You can't be in very good with Pug,” I said; “not if you're so scared of him.”

  “I'm not scared of anybody.”

  “All right. Prove it by having dinner with me.”

  She stared at me, undecided. “Why're you so hot to get killed?”

  I let her have it. “I'm nuts about you.”

  Her mouth came open.

  “So help me,” I said. “I've got to have you. I don't care if Pug's in the way.”

  “You've been hitting the opium.”

  “No.”

  She thought about this. Thinking made her frown. Now was the time to turn it over.

  “Believe that,” I said, “and I'll slice it thicker next time.”

  She blinked her eyes.

  “Nothing about you gets me,” I said. “I'm just excitement-simple. You probably wear corsets and your breasts are broken down.”

  “They are like hell.”

  “And I don't like Pug Banta telling me what I can do,” I said.

  Ginger slit open the zipper on the side of the black evening gown. “Put your hand in there.”

  I did, feeling the smooth flesh with my fingers. “Okay,” I said. “No corsets.”

  The bartender pop-eyed us.

  “Listen,” I said. “I've been trying to make you sore, so you'd go out with me, so I could show Banta.” I ate the cherry out of my old-fashioned glass. “I'm going to fix him some way. But since you're scared ...” I stuck a finger at the bartender. “How much?”

  “Seventy cents.”

  Ginger said: “Wait a minute. How tough are you?”

  “Plenty,” I said.

  She gave me a long look. “If I could believe that. Well, what the hell. Buy me a drink. Then we'll step out.”

  She had a sidecar. I had another old-fashioned. The bartender frowned at us while we drank.

  “Ready?” I asked Ginger.

  “I'll get my purse.” She went out. I gave the bartender two bucks.

  “It's none of my business,” he said, “but Pug Banta's a killer.”

  I got out a fifty-dollar bill and tore it in half. I gave him the smaller half.

  “How would you like the whole demi-c?”

  “Fine.”

  “Call Pug Banta,” I said. “Tell him I'm taking Ginger to Gus Papas's place.”

  “Jeeze!” he said. “I wouldn't dare.”

  “Why not? You'll be doing him a favour. He might even slip you a note or two.”

  He looked at the 50 on the piece of bill m his hand. He wanted it bad. He picked up the telephone and called a number. He asked for Pug. He said something else, and then he put his hand over the mouthpiece.

  “He's out.”

  “Tell it to whoever's there.”

  “Who's this?” he asked. “Oh. This is Tom over at the Arkady bar. I thought maybe Pug would be interested in knowing his gal just went out with the guy she was with last night. Yeah, Ginger. I think they're going out to Gus Papas's place.” He hung up. I gave him the other half of the fifty.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  We got in the Drive-It sedan. I started the motor. There was still daylight at seven-thirty, and the air was hot.

  “Let's go to Gus Papas's.”

  “It's up to you.”

  “Which way?”

  She told me. In three minutes we were in the country. She sat at the far end of the front seat, facing me, her legs curled under her, her back against the door. Her eyes and lips were sullen.

  “I'm dumb,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “I know you're up to something.”

  “Maybe.”

  “You're not a G-man, are you?”

  “God, no!”

  “Are you really going to try to get Pug?”

  “Listen.” I scowled at her. “Nobody slugs me.”

  “I like you when you look like that.”

  We turned left past a schoolhouse and went down a dirt road Trees met over the road, making it dark. The sky was red from the sunset. There was no wind: it was going to be a hot night. We drove along for a time. It was hard to see the road. The trees made it hard to see. I put on the headlights, but they didn't do much good. I could smell clover in a field by the road. After a time we got to Gus Papas's.

  It was a bigger place than Tony's. It was kind of a park as well as a restaurant. There was a small lake with a dock and a line of rowboats, and a ball field, and a lot of trees with tables and benches under them. At one end of the lake were tourist cabins. We drove by the cabins to the main building. Out in front was a gas pump. The building was a hunting-lodge, the walls made of rough-hewn logs and plaster. I parked the Chevy by two other cars.

  Inside the lodge there were Indian rugs on the floor and deer and elk heads on the walls. There were some couches and a big stone fireplace. Ginger led me through a hall to a screened porch at the back where there was a bar and a Greek bartender. He was talking to a small man in a white suit. We ordered a sidecar and an old-fashioned. I asked
the bartender it we could get something to eat.