Cassidy looked back. She was getting her bearings, casing the joint, looking a little uncertain, the way she had at the door of Cassidy’s hospital room.
“Cindy Squires. She works at Max’s club.”
“And? Go on.”
“Singer,” Cassidy added.
“Well, luck don’t fail me now.”
Cassidy watched him head across the sunken living room. The man had a damn fine tailor.
Cassidy had drifted past some couples who were dancing slowly near the piano and was making himself another drink when he felt Harry Madrid settle in at the bar beside him. His gray hair was plastered down and his blue suit was pulling across his broad meaty shoulders. He grinned crookedly and spoke out of the corner of his mouth, like a man confiding a dirty story. “Fancy,” he said, nodding at the room. “Can’t say old Terry doesn’t know how to live.” He pulled a cigar from his breast pocket. “Terry gave me this, one of Max’s. The Babe coulda hit a homer with one of these babies. Light me, will ya, Cassidy?”
“Light yourself, flatfoot. I don’t seem to hear much from you these days, Harry. You give me the dog-and-pony show, then it gets real quiet. Not nice, Harry.”
“What are you all of a sudden, some kinda tough guy? Tough guy with a cane?” He frowned and lit a match.
“I’ve always been a tough guy. Be careful. I might stick this cane right up your nose.” He sipped the Scotch and soda and looked into Harry’s little black eyes. It was hard to believe they were windows to the soul or any other damn thing. They were like mirrors where you saw all the bad things about yourself.
“Relax, Lew, we’re all friends here. It’s a party.”
“I’m a little itchy, Harry. Ratting on my best friend always gets under my skin. The way it strikes me now, it’s all your fault.”
“You haven’t done any ratting yet, Lew. Relax. Hell, maybe you wanna forget the whole thing, let Terry go into the shitter with Max … it’s all the same to Harry Madrid.” The match was burning his fingers and he dropped it. It smoldered on the pale carpeting.
“Pick it up, Harry.”
“Aw, for the chrissakes—”
“Pick up the fuckin’ match, Harry.” Casually he placed the point of his cane on Harry Madrid’s shoe and leaned on it a little.
“You’re being a prick, Lew—”
“The match …” He leaned a little harder.
Harry Madrid’s face got red when he bent down and dug the match from the carpet. It broke and made his fingertips black. He puffed and dropped the match into the ashtray on the bar.
“You pull this shit, Lew, you’re gonna go right off the high ledge.” He struck another match and got the cigar lit.
“Sure, sure, I’ll watch it, Harry. Terry hasn’t said a word about Max, not a word about gas stations or rationing stamps. What can I do? I can’t make him—”
Harry Madrid interrupted. “You haven’t let on to Terry about any of this?”
“Are you kidding? I tell Terry what Dewey and Luciano and you are up to, he’ll get his gun and use you guys for target practice.”
“That’s what I mean.” He nodded vigorously. “He’s a touchy sonuvabitch.”
“Touchy? You want to put him in the big house and you don’t want him to get touchy about it? You ask too much, Copper. But no, I haven’t told him. You’ll know if I do.”
“We’d have to kill him. And you’d be responsible, Sunny Jim. He shows one sign of knowing what Tom and Lucky have got planned …” He raised his eyebrows, a paradigm of injured weariness. “He’s deader than Lindbergh’s baby, get me? Mum’s the word.”
“And so cleverly put,” Cassidy said.
Harry Madrid shrugged, looking hard at the room. He was sweating. “We got other sources. You’re not the only one. This is big stuff, Lew. You’re just a little piss-poor part of it … We’re gonna get Max—”
“You’re smoking Max’s cigars, you’re drinking Terry’s liquor. What kind of guy are you?”
“Thirsty guy who appreciates a good smoke. What kind of guy are you, Lew?”
“Still tough,” Cassidy said. “Did I hurt your foot, Harry?”
“Yeah, you bastard.”
“Good. That’s good. That was the whole point.”
“You’re makin’ a mistake here, Lew. I’m your buddy’s only chance—if we nail Max, just maybe …” He shrugged. Anything was possible, maybe even saving Terry’s ass.
“Then I’d say he’s in trouble.”
“That’s as may be. Slim chance is better than none.”
“Better be,” Cassidy said. “For your sake.”
“I’ll be all right, don’t you worry about Harry Madrid. And Terry—he stays in the dark. Ignorance is bliss.”
“Don’t be out of touch for so long this time, Harry. Let me know what’s going on.” He smiled at Madrid, who looked momentarily confused. “Relax, Harry. We’re in this together, you and me and Lucky and Tom Dewey. I just got a little touchy a minute ago. Hey, let’s see a smile, it’s a party, remember?”
“You’re way outa line, Lew.” He began moving away.
“Enjoy yourself,” Cassidy said. He’d have to watch his temper. It was always lurking in its cave, occasionally rattling its chains, needing exercise. Football was a help. But there wouldn’t be any more football. He watched Harry mingling, moving through the crowd. He didn’t look like he belonged. He looked like a security man hired for the night. We got other sources. You’re not the only one. What the hell was he talking about? Somebody else close to Max Bauman? Max wasn’t close to anyone. Maybe Harry was blowing smoke, just whistling “Dixie.”
Marquardt Cookson always had to be the center of attention, which, given his size and high-pitched voice and the constant beacon from his vast, sweating, domed forehead, was inevitable anyway. That night he arrived wearing a crimson-lined opera cape, carrying a large rectangular package about four inches thick. His little friend carried the oversize rain-slick umbrella and a magnum of Dom Pérignon ’27. He surged through the crowd, grabbed Terry in a great moist hug, then made a place for himself on the big cream-colored couch. He held out his hand for the handkerchief, dabbed at his forehead, then looked down at his patent-leather dancing pumps. There was no way he could reach them. He pointed at them, handed the handkerchief to the pretty boy, who dropped to his knees and whisked the rain spots from the glossy finish. Terry placed a silver bucket of ice on the coffee table and rotated the champagne, screwing it down into the cracked ice. Cassidy moved closer, watching. Harry Madrid stood at the edge of the circle, scowling intently at the unfolding scene.
Cookson took the bottle of champagne from the bucket and quickly worked the cork up with his thumbs. It rocketed out and glanced off a long mirror with a chromium frame. He ceremoniously filled several glasses, passed them around. He motioned to someone to come closer, offered a glass. Harry Madrid accepted it blandly. It hadn’t seemed to Cassidy at the Louis fight that they’d known each other, but now they did. Harry Madrid seemed to get around.
Cookson lifted the glass. “To me! And to my greatest acquisition!” He tapped the package. Everyone drank. The group made a little island in the center of the party, which had lost interest and was racketing along on its own.
“What is it, Markie?” Terry asked.
“A copy of the Necronomicon!”
Harry Madrid laughed. “Like he said, what is it?”
Marquardt Cookson explained, his pudgy hands cradling the new possession. He lived entirely in his own world, where there was no war, no Bataan, no real life. In his world there was only the timeless, eternal vastness of Marquardt Cookson.
Charley Drew was playing “Tonight We Love,” courtesy of Freddy Martin via Tchaikovsky, very loudly right behind him, but from what Cassidy could tell this Necronomicon was some kind of ancient Book of the Dead, full of witchcraft spells which, if you did them right, were capable of summoning up the dead and all the scary powers of the Darkness Beyond. Cookson nattered on and the champag
ne flowed as champagne does and Cassidy began to get a headache. He was slipping away from the nuttiness when he felt a hand on his arm. It was Harry Madrid again.
“Florida,” he said.
“What?”
“Florida. Supposed to be some guys comin’ up from Florida. Keep your ears open, you hear anything, let me know. Could be Johnny Rocco’s boys …” Harry Madrid was back to scowling at Cookson. “The fat man’s higher than a kite. Guys like that worry me. I look into my crystal ball, nothin’ there. No future. Sylvester Bean was like that. He’d been on borrowed time for twenty years, you ask me.” He blinked at Cassidy. He looked tired, older than he was. He dug a finger into his hairy ear. “You use dope, Lew?”
“Nope.”
“Atta boy.” He leaned close, took the cigar out of his mouth. “No hard feelings, Lew?”
“No hard feelings, Harry.”
“Man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” Harry Madrid said. “Florida? You lemme know, you hear any talk.”
Charley Drew had switched to “Cabin in the Sky,” a Vernon Duke song. Terry had once told Cassidy that Vernon Duke’s real name was Vladimir Dukelsky. He knew funny things like that, couldn’t forget them. He said it was a curse.
A woman spoke from behind him. “Don’t you find that man rather—how to say it? Creepy? Scary?”
He looked at her. A cat’s face with an upper lip that didn’t move much when she spoke. Her hair was like white gold, which she raked from her eye with a long fingernail painted brownish red, like dried blood. She wore a low-cut black cocktail dress. Her breasts were tiny. Her shoulders with the stringlike straps were frail, delicate, fine-boned. Her eyes had that faraway look, shining as if they were full of tears. They were almond-shaped, like a cat’s.
“Harry?” he said. “Yeah, I suppose. Scary, anyway. He’s a little hard to be creepy. Hard men are scary. I didn’t know you knew him.”
“Max knows everybody,” Cindy Squires said. “But I didn’t mean Harry Madrid. That one”—she inclined her head—“the fat one. With the boyfriend. Look into his eyes sometimes. He’s drowning in drugs, killing himself—”
“Oh, Markie.” Cassidy smiled. “He gets a little tedious, but he has his good points.”
“Really? Somehow I doubt that. I wish Max didn’t know him so well.”
“They do seem an odd pair. Max probably just knows him in passing.”
“Oh, you think so?” She shrugged. “Max knows everybody,” she said again. “That’s what they’ll put on his tombstone. ‘Here lies Max Bauman. He knew everybody but didn’t have a friend.’ Somebody he knows will be the death of him, too.”
“I’d say Max is pretty careful,” Cassidy said. He lit her cigarette, watched it tremble in her fingers. Her lipstick smudged the paper.
“Not careful enough. Someday when he least expects it …” She made a pistol out of a pointed forefinger and a cocked thumb. “Pa-choo, pa-choo,” she said, firing the gun. “That’ll be all for Max …”
He followed her eyes and saw Bauman standing in his tuxedo by the fireplace talking to Terry. They looked serious. Were they talking about Rocco coming up from Florida? Rocco had a place on Key Largo, a gunboat or two, ran girls and money and dope in and out of Havana. Everybody knew about Rocco, one of the old Chicago gang. He’d been in the papers using his gunboats to hunt for German U-boats off the Florida coast. Somebody had suggested giving him a medal. Was Rocco coming up from Key Largo to see Max? Was Max cutting him in on the gas stations and the stamps?
When he turned back to Cindy Squires, one eye had overflowed and a large teardrop clung to an eyelash, losing the struggle against gravity. She stuck out her lower lip like a little girl looking for a fight.
“Are you all right?”
“Of course. I always cry at parties.”
“Listen, I can’t tell if you’re serious or pulling my leg or what. You’ll just have to slow down on the curves if you want me to follow you.”
“Who said I wanted you to follow me or anything else? Why don’t you go pour your fat friend some more champagne, play the host, get him some cocaine … Oh, damn!” The tears were streaking her face. He took her arm gently. “No, no, you mustn’t touch me. He’ll see … I’ll be all right.” He withdrew his hand, watched her helplessly. “Look”—she swallowed a sob—“are you really trustworthy? Like Terry says? Do you run to Max with everything you hear?”
“You keep asking me that. Don’t be silly. I know Max, that’s all. He’s the poor guy who owns the Bulldogs and as such I feel sorry for him. Come on, smile at that.”
She sniffed, smiled. “It’s not such a hot team,” she admitted, dabbing a knuckle at a wet eye. “I need to talk to someone I can trust … I’m scared. Oh, damn, I can’t stop crying. He’s going to see me—where’s the bathroom?”
He led the way down the hallway, past the movie in the large bedroom, to his own room. The rain was blowing at the windows and it was dark in the room except for the street lamps’ glow. The bed was piled with coats. He pointed to the bathroom door.
She started across the room, then turned back, sobbing, her guard down, and stood against him with her head on his boiled shirtfront. He felt her shaking and he put his arms around her. She made herself small, he smelled her hair and kissed it. It tasted blonde.
“Cassidy,” she whispered several moments later. They hadn’t moved. He felt lulled, holding a woman, feeling her body and her warmth. Her crying had stopped. “I’m sorry about this. There’s something so sad about everything—I don’t even know you and yet you’re the person I come crying to when I’m scared …”
“What are you scared of?”
“I can’t talk to you now. He’s going to wonder where I’ve gone, I’ve got to get back.” She stood at the bathroom door. “Can we meet somewhere? I need to talk to someone, to you, I guess … I need help.” She came back and took his hand. “Please …”
“Sure, we can talk. And when it comes to help, there’s always Terry—”
“No,” she gasped. “Not Terry, anyone but Terry. You mustn’t mention any of this to Terry. Promise me—”
“All right. No Terry.”
She squeezed his hand. He didn’t let go, pulled her toward him, kissed her. Felt her warm breath in his mouth, her moist tongue, the membrane hidden beneath her tongue. She trembled against him and finally he released her. She turned quickly away, fled to the bathroom. He waited until she came back.
When they stepped out of the darkened room into the hallway, a huge figure, taller and wider than Cassidy, loomed over them.
“Ah, there you are, Miss Squires.” It was Bennie, looking concerned, almost wounded, behind his spectacles. His tuxedo fit perfectly because Max’s tailor did him, too. He wore his usual polka-dot bow tie. His eyes moved from her to Cassidy. His huge nose twitched, as if he were smelling a rat. “Lew,” he said.
“What is it, Bennie?” she said.
“Mr. Bauman wants you. I couldn’t find you.” He was slightly out of breath. It was his job to find people for Mr. Bauman and it bothered him when he couldn’t do it.
“Mr. Cassidy showed me the ladies’ room, Bennie. I wasn’t feeling well. I’m fine now.”
“I waited to make sure she was okay.” Cassidy explained himself to Bennie because no one wanted Bennie or Max upset with them. He smiled at Bennie.
“Let’s go find Max,” she said.
“Good idea,” Cassidy said.
Cindy Squires moved away, back toward the party. Bennie looked at Cassidy. He was frowning. He took off his spectacles and began polishing them with his folded handkerchief.
“Having a nice time, Bennie?”
“Lew,” Bennie said, checking the lenses and fitting the glasses over his huge ears, “you’ve got lipstick on your mouth.” He handed Lew a perfect white handkerchief. Bennie shook his head slowly. “You better be careful, Lew. You better watch yourself. Know what I mean?”
“It’s always a pleasure being threatened by you, Ben
nie.”
“I’d never threaten you, Lew. We’re friends. I was just thinking out loud, so to speak.” He looked sad, almost mournful. It was mainly in the eyebrows. “There’s so much pain in the world, why add to it?”
“I see your point.”
“Be careful, Lew.” Bennie turned away. “I better go see Miss Squires doesn’t get lost again. Women, Lew, never trust ’em.”
Cassidy went back into his bedroom, stood in the spot where Cindy Squires had held herself against him. He summoned up the smell of her hair, the faint memory of lilacs. There had been sapphires and diamonds at her throat, and her earrings had been sapphires matching her eyes, almost iridescent blue.
When he went back to the party, Bennie was standing with a plate of food, eating and watching Max Bauman, who was talking with Marquardt Cookson. Cindy stood quietly at Max’s side.
“Having a good time, Bennie?”
“Very enjoyable, Lew. A lovely gathering in every way.”
Bauman and Cindy Squires came over to where they stood. Bennie looked from Max to Cindy. “Mr. Bauman was wondering earlier if you’d do a song or two with Mr. Drew … could you do that, Miss Squires?”
Max looked fondly at Bennie like a man proud of a well-trained pet.
“Oh, gosh, Max, I don’t know—”
“I’d appreciate it, darling,” Max Bauman said. “Charley said he’d love to play for you.”
“All right,” she sighed. Her eyes caught Cassidy’s, the light behind the sapphires dimming as if her wattage were running low, her resistance ebbing.
She went to the piano, where Charley Drew was waiting for her. Terry stood morosely across the room, by the windows, watching the rain lashing the terrace. Bennie stood beside Cassidy, watching Bauman drawn once again into a peculiar conversational triangle with Marquardt Cookson and Harry Madrid. Bennie was staring straight ahead when he spoke. “Mr. Bauman is very fond of that girl. You might say he’s taken a deeply personal interest. Know what I mean, Lew?”
“Hey, Bennie, who do you mink you’re talking to? This is Lew. A college man. Not a chump. I got eyes, I see what’s going on.”
“Glad to hear it, Lew. She’s living out at the house now, y’know. That’s how it is. I knew you wouldn’t let me down. Mr. Bauman, he takes a real personal interest in you, too.”
Kiss Me Once Page 11