A Century of Noir

by Max Allan Collins

  I played him “Night and Day,” no Segovia job, but plenty good, for free. On “day and night,” where it really opens up, I knew things to do, and talk suddenly stopped among the scattering of people that were in there. When I finished there was some little clapping, but still he didn’t react, and I gave thought to mayhem. But then a buzzer sounded, and he took another powder, out toward the rear this time, where she had disappeared. I began a little beguine, but he was back. He bowed, picked up his V, bowed again, said: “Mr. Cameron, the guitar did it. She heard you, and you’re in.”

  “Will you set me up for two?”

  “Hold on, there’s a catch.”

  He said until midnight, when one of his men would take over, she was checking his orders. “That means she handles the money, and if she’s not there, I could just as well close down. You’re invited back with her, but she can’t come out with you.”

  “Oh. Fine.”

  “Sir, you asked for it.”

  It wasn’t quite the way I’d have picked to do it, but the main thing was the girl, and I followed him through the OUT door, the one his waiters were using, still with my Spanish guitar. But then, all of a sudden, I loved it and felt even nearer to her.

  This was the works of the joint, with a little office at one side, service bar on the other, range rear and center, the crew in white all around, getting the late stuff ready. But high on a stool, off by herself, on a little railed-in platform where waiters would have to pass, she was waving at me, treating it all as a joke. She called down: “Isn’t this a balcony scene for you? You have to play me some music!”

  I whapped into it quick, and when I told her it was Romeo and Juliet, she said it was just what she’d wanted. By then Jack had a stool he put next to hers, so I could sit beside her, back of her little desk. He introduced us, and it turned out her name was Stark. I climbed up and there we were, out in the middle of the air and yet in a way private, as the crew played it funny, to the extent they played it at all but mostly were too busy even to look. I put the guitar on the desk and kept on with the music. By the time I’d done some Showboat she was calling me Bill and to me she was Lydia. I remarked on her eyes, which were green and showed up bright against her creamy skin and ashy blond hair. She remarked on mine, which are light, watery blue, and I wished I was something besides tall, thin, and red-haired. But it was kind of cute when she gave a little pinch and nipped one of my freckles, on my hand back of the thumb.

  Then Jack was back, with Champagne iced in a bucket, which I hadn’t ordered. When I remembered my drink, the one I had ordered, he said scotch was no good, and this would be on him. I thanked him, but after he’d opened and poured, and I’d leaned the guitar in a corner and raised my glass to her, I said: “What’s made him so friendly?”

  “Oh, Jack’s always friendly.”

  “Not to me. Oh, no.”

  “He may have thought I had it coming. Some little thing to cheer me. My last night in the place.”

  “You going away?”

  “M’m-h’m.”

  “When?”

  “Tonight.”

  “That why you’re off at twelve?”

  “Jack tell you that?”

  “He told me quite a lot.”

  “Plane leaves at one. Bag’s gone already. It’s at the airport, all checked and ready to be weighed.”

  She clinked her glass to mine, took a little sip, and drew a deep, trembly breath. As for me, I felt downright sick, just why I couldn’t say, as it had to all be strictly allegro, with nobody taking it serious. It stuck in my throat a little when I said: “Well—happy landings. Is it permitted to ask which way the plane is taking you?”

  “Home.”

  “And where’s that?”

  “It’s—not important.”

  “The West, I know that much?”

  “What else did Jack tell you?”

  I took it, improvised, and made up a little stuff, about her high-toned friends, her being a society brat, spoiled as all get-out, and the heavy dough she was used to—a light rib, as I thought. But it hadn’t gone very far when I saw it was missing bad. When I cut it off, she took it. She said: “Some of that’s true, in a way. I was—fortunate, we’ll call it. But—you still have no idea have you, Bill, what I really am?”

  “I’ve been playing by ear.”

  “I wonder if you want to know?”

  “If you don’t want to, I’d rather you didn’t say.”

  None of it was turning out quite as I wanted, and I guess maybe I showed it. She studied me a little and asked: “The silver I wear, that didn’t tell you anything? Or my giving you change for your dollar? It didn’t mean anything to you that a girl would run a straight game?”

  “She’s not human.”

  “It means she’s a gambler.”

  And then: “Bill, does that shock you?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “I’m not ashamed of it. Out home, it’s legal. You know where that is now?”

  “Oh! Oh!”

  “Why oh? And oh?”

  “Nothing. It’s—Nevada, isn’t it?”

  “Something wrong with Nevada?”

  “No! I just woke up, that’s all.”

  I guess that’s what I said, but whatever it was, she could hardly miss the upbeat in my voice. Because, of course, that wrapped it all up pretty, not only the tune, which the band would naturally play for her, but her too, and who she was. Society dame, to tell the truth, hadn’t pleased me much, and maybe that was one reason my rib was slightly off key. But gambler I could go for, a little cold, a little dangerous, a little brave. When she was sure I had really bought it, we were close again, and after a nip on the freckle her fingers slid over my hand. She said play her “Smoke”—the smoke she had in her eyes. But I didn’t, and we just sat there some little time.

  And then, a little bit at a time, she began to spill it: “Bill, it was just plain cockeyed. I worked in a club, the Paddock, in Reno, a regular institution. Tony Rocco—Rock—owned it, and was the squarest bookie ever—why he was a senator, a civic, and everything. And I worked for him, running his wires, practically being his manager, with a beautiful salary, a bonus at Christmas, and everything. And then wham, it struck. This federal thing. This ten percent tax on gross. And we were out of business. It just didn’t make sense. Everything else was exempted. Wheels and boards and slots, whatever you could think of, but us. Us and the numbers racket, in Harlem and Florida and Washington.”

  “Take it easy.”

  “That’s right, Bill. Thanks.”

  “Have some wine.”

  “. . . Rock, of course, was fixed. He had property, and for the building, where the Paddock was, he got two hundred fifty thousand—or so I heard. But then came the tip on Maryland.”

  That crossed me up, and instead of switching her off, I asked her what she meant. She said: “That Maryland would legalize wheels.”

  “What do you smoke in Nevada?”

  “Oh, I didn’t believe it. And Rock didn’t. But Mrs. Rock went nuts about it. Oh well, she had a reason.”

  “Dark, handsome reason?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it, but that reason took the Rocks for a ride, for every cent they got for the place, and tried to take me too, for other things besides money. When they went off to Italy, they thought they had it fixed; he was to keep me at my salary, in case Maryland would legalize, and if not, to send me home, with severance pay, as it’s called. And instead of that—”

  “I’m listening.”

  “I’ve said too much.”

  “What’s this guy to you?”

  “Nothing! I never even saw him until the three of us stepped off the plane—with our hopes. In a way it seemed reasonable. Maryland has tracks, and they help with the taxes. Why not wheels?”

  “And who is this guy?”

  “I’d be ashamed to say, but I’ll say this much: I won’t be a kept floozy. I don’t care who he thinks he is, or—”

 
She bit her lip, started to cry, and really shut up then. To switch off, I asked why she was working for Jack, and she said: “Why not? You can’t go home in a barrel. But he’s been swell to me.”

  Saying people were swell seemed to be what she liked, and she calmed down, letting her hand stay when I pressed it in both of mine. Then we were really close, and I meditated if we were close enough that I’d be warranted in laying it on the line, she should let that plane fly away and not go to Nevada at all. But while I was working on that, business was picking up, with waiters stopping by to let her look at their trays, and I hadn’t much chance to say it, whatever I wanted to say. Then, through the IN door, a waiter came through with a tray that had a wine bottle on it. A guy followed him in, a little noisy guy, who said the bottle was full and grabbed it off the tray. He had hardly gone out again when Jack was in the door, watching him as he staggered back to the table. The waiter swore the bottle was empty, but all Jack did was nod.

  Then Jack came over to her, took another little peep through the window in the OUT door, which was just under her balcony, and said: “Lydia, what did you make of him?”

  “Why—he’s drunk, that’s all.”

  “You notice him, Mr. Cameron?”

  “No—except it crossed my mind he wasn’t as tight as the act he was putting on.”

  “Just what crossed my mind! How could he get that drunk on a split of Napa red? What did he want back here?”

  By now the waiter had gone out on the floor and come back, saying the guy wanted his check. But as he started to shuffle it out of the bunch he had tucked in his vest, Jack stopped him and said: “He don’t get any check—not till I give the word. Tell Joe I said stand by and see he don’t get out. Move!”

  The waiter had looked kind of blank but hustled out as told, and then Jack looked at her. He said: “Lady, I’ll be back. I’m taking a look around.”

  He went, and she drew another of her long, trembly breaths. I cut my eye around, but no one had noticed a thing, and yet it seemed kind of funny they’d all be slicing bread, wiping glass, or fixing cocktail setups, with Jack mumbling it low out of the side of his mouth. I had a creepy feeling of things going on, and my mind took it a little, fitting it together, what she had said about the bag checked at the airport, the guy trying to make her, and most of all the way Jack had acted the second she showed with her cigarettes, shooing her off the floor, getting her out of sight. She kept staring through the window, at the drunk where he sat with his bottle, and seemed to ease when a captain I took to be Joe planted himself pretty solid in a spot that would block off a run-out.

  Then Jack was back, marching around, snapping his fingers, giving orders for the night. But as he passed the back door, I noticed his hand touched the lock, as though putting the catch on. He started back to the floor but stopped as he passed her desk, and shot it quick in a whisper: “He’s out there, Lydia, parked in back. This drunk, like I thought, is a finger he sent in to spot you, but he won’t be getting out till you’re gone. You’re leaving for the airport right now.”

  “Will you call me a cab, Jack?”

  “Cab? I’m taking you.”

  He stepped near me and whispered: “Mr. Cameron, I’m sorry, this little lady has to leave for—”

  “I know about that.”

  “She’s in danger—”

  “I’ve also caught on to that.”

  “From a no-good imitation goon that’s been trying to get to her here, which is why I’m shipping her out. I hate to break this up, but if you’ll ride with us, Mr. Cameron—”

  “I’ll follow you down.”

  “That’s right, you have your car. It’s Friendship Airport, just down the road.”

  He told her to get ready while he was having his car brought up and the boy who would take her place on the desk was changing his clothes. Step on it, he said, but wait until he came back. He went out on the floor and marched past the drunk without even turning his head. But she sat watching me. She said: “You’re not coming, are you?”

  “Friendship’s a little cold.”

  “But not mine, Bill, no.”

  She got off her stool, stood near me and touched my hair. She said: “Ships that pass in the night pass so close, so close.” And then: “I’m ashamed, Bill, I’d have to go for this reason. I wonder, for the first time, if gambling’s really much good.” She pulled the chain of the light, so we were half in the dark. Then she kissed me. She said: “God bless and keep you, Bill.”

  “And you, Lydia.”

  I felt her tears on my cheek, and then she pulled away and stepped to the little office, where she began putting a coat on and tying a scarf on her head. She looked so pretty it came to me I still hadn’t given her the one little bouquet I’d been saving for the last. I picked up the guitar and started “Nevada.”

  She wheeled, but what stared at me were eyes as hard as glass. I was so startled I stopped, but she kept right on staring. Outside a car door slammed, and she listened at the window beside her. Then at last she looked away, to peep through the venetian blind. Jack popped in, wearing his coat and hat, and motioned her to hurry. But he caught something and said, low yet so I could hear him: “Lydia! What’s the matter?”

  She stalked over to me, with him following along, pointed her finger, and then didn’t say it but spat it: “He’s the finger—that’s what’s the matter, that’s all. He played “Nevada,” as though we hadn’t had enough trouble with it already. And Vanny heard it. He hopped out of his car and he’s under the window right now.”

  “Then OK, let’s go.”

  I was a little too burned to make with the explanations and took my time, parking the guitar, sliding off, and climbing down, to give them a chance to blow. But she still had something to say, and to me, not to him. She pushed her face up to mine, and mocking how I had spoken, yipped: “Oh! . . . Oh! OH!” Then she went, with Jack. Then I went, clumping after.

  Then it broke wide open.

  The drunk, who was supposed to sit there, conveniently boxed in while she went slipping out, turned out more of a hog-calling type, and instead of playing his part jumped up and yelled: “Vanny! Vanny! Here she comes! She’s leaving! VANNY!”

  He kept it up while women screamed all over, then pulled a gun from his pocket and let go at the ceiling, so it sounded like the field artillery, as shots always do when fired inside a room. Jack jumped for him and hit the deck as his feet shot from under him on the slippery wood of the dance floor. Joe swung, missed, swung again, and landed, so Mr. Drunk went down. But when Joe scrambled for the gun, there came this voice through the smoke: “Hold it! As you were—and leave that gun alone.”

  Then hulking in came this short-necked, thick-shouldered thing, in homburg hat, double-breasted coat, and white muffler, one hand in his pocket, the other giving an imitation of a movie gangster. He said keep still and nobody would get hurt, but “I won’t stand for tricks.” He helped Jack up, asked how he’d been. Jack said: “Young man, let me tell you something—”

  “How you been, I asked.”

  “Fine, Mr. Rocco.”

  “Any telling, Jack—I’ll do it.”

  Then to her: “Lydia, how’ve you been?”

  “That doesn’t concern you.”

  The she burst out about what he had done to his mother, the gyp he’d handed his father, and his propositions to her, and I got it at last who this idiot was. He listened, but right in the middle of it he waved his hand toward me and asked: “Who’s this guy?”

  “Vanny, I think you know.”

  “Guy, are you the boyfriend?”

  “If so I don’t tell you.”

  I sounded tough, but my belly didn’t feel that way. They had it some more, and he connected me with the tune and seemed to enjoy it a lot that it had told him where to find her, on the broadcast and here now tonight. But he kept creeping closer to where we were all lined up with the drunk stretched on the floor, the gun under his hand, and I suddenly felt the prickle that Vanny w
as really nuts and in a minute meant to kill her. It also crossed my mind that a guy who plays the guitar has a left hand made of steel, from squeezing down on the strings, and is a dead sure judge of distance to the last eighth of an inch. I prayed I could forget it, told myself I owed her nothing at all, that she’d turned on me cold with no good reason. I concentrated, to dismiss the thought entirely.

  No soap.

  I grabbed for my chord and got it.

  I choked down on his hand, the one he held in his pocket, while hell broke loose in the place with women screaming, men running, and fists trying to help. I had the gun hand all right, but when I reached for the other he twisted, butted, and bit, and for that long I thought he’d get loose and that I was a gone pigeon. The gun barked, and a piledriver hit my leg. I went down. Another gun spoke and he went down beside me. Then there was Jack, the drunk’s gun in his hand, stepping in close and firing again to make sure.

  I blacked out.

  I came to, and then she was there, a knife in her hand, ripping the cloth away from the outside of my leg, grabbing napkins, stanching blood, while somewhere ten miles off I could hear Jack’s voice as he yelled into a phone. On the floor right beside me was something under a tablecloth.

  That went on for some time, with Joe calming things down and some people sliding out. The band came in, and I heard a boy ask for his guitar. Somebody brought it to him. And then, at last, came the screech of sirens, and she whispered some thanks to God.

  Then, while the cops were catching up, with me, with Jack, and what was under the cloth, we both went kind of haywire, me laughing, she crying, and both in each other’s arms. I said: “Lydia, Lydia, you’re not taking that plane. They legalize things in Maryland, one thing specially, except that instead of wheels they generally use a ring.”

  Still holding my leg with one hand she pulled me close with the other, kissed me and kept on kissing me, and couldn’t speak at all. All legalized now, is what I started to tell about—with Jack as best man, naturally.