Eye Witness

by George Harmon Coxe

  Apollo tossed his hat and coat aside. He selected a cigar from a humidor as he went behind the desk, motioned Murdock towards a chair. Murdock stood where he was, aware that Willie had taken up a position by the door and that Nick had disappeared. Apollo sat down and bit off the end of the cigar.

  ‘That was just a dry run, Murdock.’

  ‘I hope you enjoyed it’, Murdock said, his voice tight and still too angry to be either wise or witty.

  ‘I just wanted to show you how easy it is.’ Apollo sat down, rolled the cigar between his lips, and touched his little moustache with his thumb. ‘If it happens again it’ll be for keeps.… You can yell copper if you like about what happened to-night but I can tell you now it won’t do you any good.’

  ‘Are you through?’

  ‘Not quite. I don’t like to play rough. It’s expensive and sometimes it’s dangerous. Especially I don’t like to fool around with a newspaperman; it’s bad business. I just want to get one thing across. I’ve got an idea—I could be wrong—that O’Brien is trying to angle me into a murder rap and I don’t intend to stand still for it. If I get indicted on your testimony you’ll never be around to tell the jury. That’s a promise, and if I’m held without bail I’ll see that somebody else takes care of you.’ He sat down and leaned back, his tone at once conversational. ‘Have you seen the club?… Turn left when you go downstairs and take a look at the show if you like. Tell Antonio the drinks are on me.’

  The sudden switch in Apollo’s attitude left Murdock momentarily speechless. He felt like a boy who had just been given an object lesson by his elders, a demonstration in practical procedure to which there was no immediate answer. Caught off balance and unwilling to resort to bluster, he turned away without a word.

  Willie opened the door for him. The two small marks on his face had almost disappeared and he bore Murdock no ill-will. ‘Be good, Battler’, he said.

  The downstairs hall led past two or three doors on either side, coming at last to a curtained doorway. As Murdock pushed past this he heard the voices of a coloured trio blending in a swing version of a spiritual whose title escaped him. The room itself was darkened except for twin spotlights that centred on the small stage to his left. and he had to wait a few seconds while his eyes adjusted themselves before he could make out the tables and banquettes, most of them occupied, which filled the room.

  Waiting where he was until the number was finished and the applause came, he picked his way along a perilous aisle between the tables until he came to the glass doors at the far end of the room, beyond which was the bar. When the trio, its act unfinished, went into another routine, Murdock checked his hat and coat and then went to a bar stool where he ordered whisky and water.

  The sounds of the larger room did not penetrate here and when he had a cigarette going he took stock of his surroundings, finding the bar a horseshoe affair, in the middle of which was a raised platform and a black upright piano, apartment size. The balance of the lounge was done in mirrors and black enamel in keeping with the establishment’s name; the tables on one side had black glass tops and the banquettes were done in black leather, or an imitation thereof. All in all the effect was both pleasant and striking, and he had to admit that Joe Apollo was a man of some taste if not good judgment.

  The drink tasted good and he did not dally with it. With the second one he felt less inclined to brood over his recent experience, though the scar still remained in his imagination. When he discovered that the trio had gone and the room lights had brightened somewhat he stood up and took his drink over to the glass doors so he could get a better look inside, remaining there absently counting the house until he saw someone come out of the curtained doorway he had recently used and sit down at a small, obscure table near the corner of the stage and all but hidden by its decorations.

  He went immediately to the bar then and settled his account. The head-waiter inside the glass door started to intercept him, but when he indicated his destination and said he was a friend of Apollo’s he was allowed to pass; then he moved down one side of the room towards the obscure table, finding an extra chair and pulling it out before Claire Emerson was aware of his intentions.

  ‘Good evening’, he said. ‘May I join you for a minute?’

  He was already sitting down as he spoke, and since there was not much she could say, she remained silent. But she recognized him this time; he could tell by the way her eyes examined him, without hostility but with some suspicion. A waiter appeared at his shoulder almost at once and when Murdock asked what she would have she hesitated briefly.

  ‘Scotch and soda’, she said without enthusiasm.

  ‘Make mine with water’, Murdock said. ‘I guess I got here too late to hear your piano’, he added, ‘are you through for the night?’

  She nodded, still watching him, and in the subdued light of the room she looked older than he had remembered her, but prettier, possibly because of the way she was made up and dressed. Her blonde hair was artfully waved to frame attractively her unlined face, her brows were neatly pencilled, her mouth dark red so that she seemed now to have little in common with the girl he had once thought might have been a high-school senior. Her gown, dark-red like her mouth, was strapless, with a small V in the centre which was sufficiently revealing to show that nature had been good to her in many ways. Visualizing her seated at the bar piano, Murdock had an idea that many who called in for one drink would linger for a third or fourth so long as Claire was there to play for them.

  The drinks came without anything more being said and in another minute the lights were lowered, the spotlight flared, and the master-of-ceremonies came forth to introduce the next act, a monologist who was an excellent mimic and in general a very funny man. When, after three encores, he departed, Murdock had a conversational opening which he at once exploited.

  ‘Are all the acts here like that?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Good. That fellow was excellent; so was the trio. I mean I’m a little surprised that Apollo can get talent of that calibre in a city like Uniontown.’

  ‘Joe has good taste.’

  ‘It takes more than that.’

  ‘He knows talent when he sees it.’ Claire Emerson forgot to be suspicious. She was talking now about something that not only interested her but which she was competent to discuss. She took the cigarette that Murdock offered, leaned forward to accept a light. ‘He knows what’s good and what isn’t’, she said, ‘and that’s why acts fight to get a spot on his shows.’

  ‘What about money?’

  ‘They work for less for Joe’, she said, warming up to her subject, ‘and they come up here from New York—from all over—to audition for him. I’ll tell you why’, she said, ‘because there isn’t a week goes by without some of the New York crowd dropping in here to catch the show. Agents, bookers, the fellows that run those East Side spots, all of them come up once every couple of weeks to see what Joe has.’

  She tapped ashes from her cigarette and said: ‘Why? Because they can get them cheaper if they get an act first than if they wait for someone else to give the act a start and it gets a reputation. Take that trio. Joe pays them three hundred. They start on the first of the month in the Golden Slipper on East Fifty-Sixth Street at seven-fifty. They’ll be there two weeks for sure, and if they click maybe for twelve. The columnists drop in and word gets around and the next thing you know they’re getting twenty-five hundred in one of the big spots.’

  She had finished her drink as she talked and Murdock was lucky enough to catch the waiter’s eye without waving. As a result a refill was arranged without anything having been said and Claire went on without interruption.

  ‘Joe doesn’t bat a thousand. Who does? But his average is good and if he sees an act isn’t clicking he drops it and pays off. He gets a crowd in here that can afford to pay a three-dollar minimum and the things that go over here seem to go over in the bigger cities. The good ones don’t stay here long, but Joe has an angle there too. Whe
n you sign on here you agree to give Joe a ten per cent cut on your next contract whether it runs two weeks or twenty-six. After that you’re on your own and all you pay is your agent.’

  ‘Not bad’, said Murdock and was forced to admit that as an entrepreneur Joe Apollo was a skilful and sagacious operator. ‘That trio has to pay him seventy-five dollars a week for as long as it works at the Golden Slipper.’

  ‘And glad to do it’, Claire said, slipping into a vernacular that had little in common with a high-school girl. ‘It’s cheap enough, assuming that you’ve got talent. Otherwise you know what happens? You beat your brains out travelling the circuit, never getting heard by the right people, never getting a chance to perform in the nice spots where you can build yourself a solid reputation. Joe takes the time and trouble to give everybody a chance and that’s the way he gets paid.’

  ‘What about you?’ Murdock said, and grinned. ‘How good are you?’

  Claire Emerson’s attitude had changed considerably since Murdock sat down. The suspicion she originally showed had disappeared and now, whether from the drinks or simply from the fact that she realized she had an interested and sympathetic listener, she smiled:

  ‘I’m no Mary Lou Williams’, she said, ‘but I like that sort of music.’

  ‘How did you get started?’

  Her smile remained. ‘Like everyone else. Taking lessons—that the family couldn’t afford—from the time I was eight. I kept at it, on and off, until I was about fourteen and then I began to hear records by Tatum and Wilson and Chittison. I don’t know, they played the kind of harmony that did something to me and I started to imitate them. Luckily I had good hands and fairly long fingers and that helped. I played in high school with a band and a trio, and later on a small radio station. You know how it is.’

  Murdock said he thought he did and asked how long she had been in this spot.

  ‘Nearly six months.’ She looked into her glass and found it empty. Her smile was gone now and Murdock wondered if she was thinking of Lee Farnsley, whose influence was no doubt responsible for her staying as long as she had. He signalled the waiter again and she said: ‘Maybe I’ve got myself in a rut. I guess it’s about time for me to move along. Harry Usher’s working on something for me now.’

  Murdock nodded, aware that the confidential turn he had been able to give the conversation had been broken.

  ‘I had a session with Joe Apollo’, he said. ‘Joe says he wasn’t at the Greene last night. He says he didn’t see you and you weren’t there either. Is that what you told the police?’

  ‘For three hours this afternoon I told them—thanks to you.’ Her green eyes inspected the knot in his tie, his face, the part in his dark hair. They were not hostile eyes, or suspicious; they were thoughtful and at ease. ‘Did you know I was out on bail?’ she asked. ‘One thousand dollars. Joe put it up for me.’

  ‘Cheap enough’, Murdock said dryly. ‘No matter what you told the police, you were there. And you can’t blame them for wondering about you. They know you went after Lee down here not long ago with one of these metal lamps. Why not again—with a candlestick?’

  She studied him a moment through lowered lids. ‘So you heard about that, too. I guess you heard that he gave me the gate and I went for him in a jealous rage.’ Her laugh was small and abrupt. ‘Well, part of that is right. I did swing at him.’

  ‘But not because he walked out on you.’

  ‘He walked out—if that’s what you call it—three days before that. We’d broken up other times since we’d been together. This was the last time—for me. I knew what Lee was like. I knew he was weak, that he’d never amount to anything, but there was something about him that I did like … I don’t know, he had a sweet, helpless way about him at times and he could be contrite and appealing when he wanted to.’

  She sighed and said: ‘Anyway, we broke up, and for me it was the end. I was finished, done. And then he came here that night to try to make things up. I wasn’t buying any this time and when he finally saw I meant it he began to lay me out. He was a foul-mouthed heel when he was angry and I took all I could of it and then I blew up. I grabbed the first thing I could get my hands on. I was furious. If the lamp had been a hatchet I probably would have used that.’ She shook her head. ‘But not because I was jealous.’

  Murdock went back to his original line of thought. ‘You changed your story about seeing Lee last night. You covered up for Joe. Are you afraid of him?’

  ‘Not particularly.’ She hesitated while the waiter served fresh drinks; then leaned forward again. ‘I had a talk with him after you left this morning. He said it I told the police what I told you they’d hold me—and he was right. From all I can find out I may have been the last one to see Lee alive and if I stick to the truth maybe the police are going to wonder if he really was alive when I left him.… Joe didn’t kill him’, she said as if this answered all of Murdock’s suspicions.

  ‘What makes you so sure?’

  ‘Lee owed him nine hundred dollars. Why should Joe kill him, knowing if he did he’d never get paid?’

  It was a practical question and Murdock considered it. ‘Joe didn’t go up there to kill him. It just happened that way because Lee was ugly and probably started something.’

  Claire was not impressed. She shook her head, her smile wry. ‘If he did—start something, I mean—Joe could have handled him. He wouldn’t have needed a candlestick. Maybe he isn’t quite as husky as Lee but Joe can be tough when he has to be. Lee never was. Not really.’

  She shook her head again and seemed about to continue when something caught her eye and new interest flickered there. When Murdock glanced up, Harry Usher was there, swinging an empty chair from another table, his teeth flashing in his young-looking face.

  ‘Hi, Baby’, he said cheerfully. ‘Okay to break in here?’

  The girl answered in kind, a lightness in her tone that had not been there before. ‘Hello, Harry’, she said, ‘this is Mr. Murdock—Harry Usher.’

  Usher said hello and Murdock said: ‘We met before.’ He paused, seeing no recognition in the other’s glance. ‘You had room 617 at the Greene before I did. You came back for a package.’

  ‘Oh, sure—sure.’

  Harry Usher looked very dapper in his double-breasted blue suit and his bow tie. He looked, as Edgar Preble had remarked, like a boy, and Murdock, recalling his earlier impression, was struck again by the odd facial formation around the mouth that seemed to display more teeth than was customary. Harry showed them now as he pushed an ashtray aside and turned to the girl.

  ‘I think I’ve got you set, honey’, he said. ‘A place downtown called the Hush Club.’

  ‘Where downtown?’ Claire wanted to know.

  ‘In the Village.’

  Claire made a face.

  ‘What’s wrong with the Village?’ Harry argued. ‘Lena Horne started there, didn’t she? Mary Lou played there, so did Wilson, Tatum and——’

  ‘All right’, Claire said, interrupting, ‘what’s the rest of it?’

  ‘You play a little solo piano—the kind you like. And you work with a trio. Guitar and bass.’

  ‘Oh, now wait.’

  Harry retained his enthusiasm. ‘You want to get to New York? You want to get yourself heard? This is the place. These two guys are good. You can work out your own arrangements. A hundred and a half for your end to start. That’s better than the ninety you collect here.’

  He reached out and put his hand on her arm. ‘Also,’ he said, ‘I got a television deal cooking, honey. I’ve been telling you right along, you’ve got to get into that medium. With your piano and your singing and your looks you’ll kill ’em. You’re photogenic, baby, and with a dress like that’—he showed still more teeth and gave the dress a quick but thorough inspection—‘you’re a cinch. That is, if you can get by the studio censor.’

  He said other things—about there not being much money in television yet, and nobody knowing too much about it; he said if she passed u
p the opportunity now she’d regret it all her life. He was a good fast talker and when, presently, he had the girl convinced that her future was assured, Murdock decided to do a little talking on his own.

  ‘Still got the key, Harry?’

  ‘What key?’ Usher blinked.

  ‘The one you used to get back into 617.’

  ‘Oh—ah, no. I turned it in.’

  ‘I thought you were leaving town’, Murdock said. ‘Instead of that you move to the State. I guess you didn’t like it at the Greene.’ He kept his voice easy and he had a smile working to indicate that all this was unimportant and was offered only as a pleasantry to keep the conversation going.

  ‘I ran into a fellow that knows you’, he added, still pleasant, ‘up at the Studio Grill. Some actor—I forget his name—who said you’d be a good man to talk to in case I needed a good buy in a fur or a piece of jewellery.’

  Because Murdock’s tone was so innocuous, Harry went along with it. He spread his hands, pleased somehow, but assuming an air of modesty. ‘Well, you know’, he said, ‘sometimes I run into something that looks good. I try to keep my eyes and ears open. Did you have anything special in mind?’

  ‘Not exactly.… By the way, did you get rid of that bracelet all right?’

  Like that Murdock gave it to him and Usher without actually moving, seemed to rock in his chair. Murdock’s smile was still there but it had a sardonic glint now and suddenly Usher was no longer showing his teeth. His mouth tightened and the narrowed brightness of his gaze was fixed and unrelenting.

  ‘What bracelet?’ he said with all the resentment of a man who realizes he has been out-manœuvred.

  ‘The one you had in the envelope behind the mirror.’ Murdock returned the stare with steady eyes.