The Gutter and the Grave (16 page)

“You a musician?” she said to me.

I sat down on the floor beside her. “No,” I said.

“That’s a shame,” she said. She paused. “What else is there?”

She was smiling. She had very brown skin and very
white, perfectly formed teeth. Her face was a narrow oval, with lidded almost-Oriental eyes and a flat broad nose. The eyes were brown. Her neck was beautiful. I’m not a guy who goes around appreciating necks, but this girl’s neck was truly a work of art. I’m not trying to sound funny. Her chin was a good strong chin, and it flowed with the lines of a freeform sculpture into the delicate curve of her neck, swooping down to the full bosom in the sweater. She held her head erect, bobbing it slightly in time with the music. I doubted if she knew what a marvelous thing that graceful neck was, and I wasn’t going to spoil her by telling her.

I looked over to where Ryan was blowing. His cheeks were puffed out, and he held that horn to his lips as if it were glued there. He didn’t seem tired at all. I began to wonder if I’d ever get to talk to him. He looked as if he intended blasting away all night long. I closed my eyes and rested my head against the arm of the chair Clara was sitting in.

She asked me once, “You’re not a junkie, are you?”

“No,” I said.

“The glasses,” she explained. “Lots of them wear them.” She hesitated. “Not that it matters. Some of my best friends are junkies,” and then she laughed at her own wit. I kept my head back against the upholstered arm of the chair, listening to the music. It was damn fine music. Clara began toying with my hair where it wasn’t bandaged. She wasn’t starting anything. She just felt like absently fooling with somebody’s hair, and mine happened to be handy. She did it completely
unselfconsciously, not even looking at me, simply listening to the music and absently winding a lock of hair around her finger, and then releasing it, and then winding it again.

It got to be midnight, and then it got to be two a.m. and then four a.m. and musicians and listeners kept drifting in and out, but Ryan would not release his grip on that horn. The apartment began getting light with the first early stabs of the sun, and still they kept playing. They were playing quiet stuff now, early morning stuff, stuff that came from deep inside a man’s shoes, stuff that wept into a horn and told of busted love and better days and empty hotel rooms and neons blinking to a rainy night.

Along about six-thirty, Ryan put down the horn, yanked his mouthpiece from it, and walked over to where Andy and I were sitting. Clara was asleep in the armchair, her hand resting on my head.

“Oh, man, I’m bushed. My lip’s gonna be like a balloon tomorrow. Anybody got eyes for some breakfast?”

“I could use some,” I said.

“I’m gonna sit in as soon as somebody drops his grip on a tenor,” Andy said.

“Come on, Cordell,” Ryan said. “I know an all-night joint around the corner. This one is on me. Man, do I feel good!”

Gently, I took Clara’s hand from my head and put it into her lap.

“Take her with you,” Ryan said. “She’s a sweet girl. She sings the end.”

“She’s asleep,” I said. “Besides, I’d like to talk to you alone.”

“Oh? Yeah?” He nodded. “Well, come on, let’s make it. I could eat half a cow.”

We went to a twenty-four-hour cafeteria two blocks down on Lenox. There were only four other people in the place. One was a junkie waiting for a meet with The Man, sitting and fidgeting at a table near the window. Ryan bought a mess of scrambled eggs and four onion rolls and coffee. I settled for coffee and a Danish. We pulled up chairs at one of the empty tables, and I allowed him the luxury of eating without being questioned. We were having our second cups of coffee when Ryan began expanding.

“I love music, Cordell,” he said. “Everything else in the world can go, so long as you leave me music. I mean that. Dames, food, whiskey, everything. Just leave me my horn and a piano player like Jocko to bat out the chords. You ever play with a band?”

“No.”

“Then you’ve got no idea. It’s the only time I ever feel free, the only time I get that…that feeling that everybody’s working together for the same thing. Oh, man, you can’t beat it. It’s people. It’s people going,
doing!
And there’s nothing can compare to it.” He paused. “I’m sorry we didn’t have a mike. This Clara Nichols is great. She’s got this little voice that comes out like a whisper but she does things with it that curl your scalp.”

“Is she better than Laraine?” I asked.

“Yeah. I think so, anyway. But Laraine’s good. Make no mistakes. I wouldn’t have taken her on if she wasn’t. Well, I guess that’s not exactly true. I suppose I would have taken her on in the hopes she was good. I mean, what the hell, that kid hasn’t had a bed of roses.”

“How do you mean?”

“Her and her sister—orphans, you know. That ain’t easy. My old man is dead. It ain’t easy. And with them, it was both parents. And they’re girls. It’s tough for a girl to get out there and make a buck.”

“I imagine it is.”

“Especially a kid as ambitious as Laraine. You think she digs this dime-store crap. Man, she hates it! She wants to sing! And she’s good too, no mistakes.” He paused reflectively. “Man, when I went up there the other day to tell her about that audition, I thought she’d flip. She’d only got home from work a little while ago, and she was sitting at the kitchen table with this tired look, drinking a cup of coffee. When I told her about Tammy Terrin, she ran into that bedroom and began changing quicker than I ever seen anybody move. And popping her head out of the bedroom all the while she dressed, and asking a hundred questions. Boy, was she excited! Well, you know. You met us in the street later.”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s a shame it didn’t work out.”

Ryan shrugged. “That fat bastard. What the hell does he know about music? You think he’d appreciate Jocko if he heard him? Balls, he would! Laraine was pretty disappointed, wasn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“She shouldn’t be. She’ll get there. She’s got a good voice, and she’s also got drive.” He paused. “You know her pretty good?”

“Pretty well.”

“What I mean is…” He stopped. “Who cares? I was about to ask what everybody asks, but tell you the truth it don’t matter.” He shrugged.

“Good. Because I wouldn’t tell you anyway.”

Ryan grinned. “What was it you wanted to talk to me about, Cordell?”

“Your employment at the tailor shop,” I said.

The smile dropped from his face. “Yeah. What about it?”

“You said you’d been working there about three months.”

“That’s right,” Ryan said.

“That’s a lie,” I said.

He sipped at his coffee. “Who says?”

“Johnny Bridges says. You’ve worked there for six months, Ryan.”

“Three months, six months. What the hell difference does it make?”

“This difference,” I told him. “Somebody began stealing from the cash register six months ago.”

“So?”

“So what do you say?”

“I say go jump in the lake. That’s what I say.”

“I say you’re the boy. You probably made an impression of Johnny’s key and then had your own key to the register made. Am I right?”

“You’re crazy.”

“Want me to tell you why you stole?”

“Go ahead. Tell me.”

“You needed money for music and stands and possibly some special arrangements. You couldn’t get that money pressing. So you got it stealing.”

“Why should I steal from two guys I like?”

“Because you probably intended to pay it back one day. When the band hit.”

Ryan was silent for a long time. Then he nodded and said, “Okay.”

“You did it?”

“I did it. Johnny left his keys around one day. I pressed the register key in wax, and had my own made. Now what? A trip to the cops?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “But there are a few more questions.”

“Go ahead, let me hear them.”

“Did you kill Dom Archese?”

It hit Dave Ryan right on his upper-lip muscle. He pulled his head back and opened his eyes wide as if the idea had never occurred to him, as if he thought it were completely ludicrous that I should even think of it.

“Me?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Hell, no. Me? Why would I want to…?”

“Did you know I was onto you and the cash register thefts?”

“I thought you might have an inkling.”

“Did you hire two men to beat me up yesterday?”

“No. Is that why your face looks like chopped meat?”

“Yes.”

“I wanted to ask. But I figured if you wanted to tell, you’d tell.”

“There could be another reason you didn’t ask.”

“Yeah, what’s that?”

“You might have already known.”

“Cordell, you’ve got me pegged all wrong. The only reason I dipped into the till was for my music. I love that music, man. You think if I had any loose cash around, I’d spend it on a beating? Man, I’d buy me a new horn!”

“These could have been friends of yours doing a favor.”

“I don’t have any friends who ain’t musicians. And musicians don’t go around beating up people. Do you want to know why?”

“Sure, tell me.”

“Because anybody in the brass section can’t afford a fat lip. And anybody who plays an instrument that needs fingering—and that’s just about every non-brass instrument but the drums—can’t afford to get his hands hurt. Musicians aren’t famous for fighting. If you want to go around hitting people, you’ve got to expect getting hit back once in a while. And nobody who depends on his lip or his hands can afford that.”

“It sounds reasonable.”

“It’s the truth,” Ryan said. “I didn’t have nothing to do with Dom’s murder—or his wife’s. And nothing to
do with the beating you got, either.” He paused. “What do I do about the money I stole?”

“You tell Johnny about it, and you return it to him with interest. That’s what you do.”

Dave Ryan nodded. “Yeah. Hell, I’m no crook. I’m a musician.”

He said it as if he were very proud of the word.

I believed him.

I left Ryan and caught a cab crosstown to the precinct house. It was now about eight in the morning, and I hoped I would catch Miskler either beginning a tour of duty or just ending one. A sign advised me to stop at the desk and state my business. I did so.

“My name is Matt Cordell,” I told the desk Sergeant. “I want to see Detective Miskler.”

He looked at me steadily, then plugged a wire into his switchboard.

“Frank?” he said. “Cordell’s here.” He paused. “Sure, right away.” He pulled out his wire. “Upstairs, Cordell. You know the way.”

I went upstairs. Miskler met me in the hall. He was chewing on a cigar, and a scowl was on his face.

“How’s the walking corpse?” he said.

“Fine.”

“Why’d you pull out of the hospital, you bastard?”

“I didn’t want to cool off.”

“You almost got cooled off yesterday,” he said, “permanently. You looking for more?”

“I’m looking for a murderer. I didn’t take a beating for nothing, Miskler. Somebody’s scared.”

“Or maybe somebody’s sore. Stop jumping to
conclusions. I can think of a hundred reasons why I myself would pay to have you worked over.”

“Maybe you did, Frank,” I said.

“Don’t call me Frank,” he said. “Where the hell have you been all night?”

“At a jam session.”

“We thought you might be with the Marsh dame. We woke her up at one in the morning.”

“Why so late?”

“I wanted to see her in her pajamas,” Miskler said mirthlessly.

“You know what I’m talking about. I left the hospital before seven.”

“Sure. And would a smart buzzard like you head straight for the dame’s place? We thought we’d give you a little time.”

“Your concern is touching, Frank,” I said.

“Don’t call me Frank!” he shouted.

“What’d you get from Laraine’s suit?” I asked. “Powder grains?”

“Not a trace.”

“Then she’s clean?”

“So far she checks out. She left the dime store when she said she did and returned when she said. But that still leaves a big hour in between.”

“She’s not your customer,” I said. “She damn near died when I told her about her sister.”

“Next time, leave us to do the telling, will you?”

“Sure, Frank. No offense,” I said, smiling.

He didn’t smile back at me, but neither did he tell
me to stop calling him Frank. “We’re working on the boy who messed you up,” he said. “Want to sit in?”

We started down the hall. On the way, Miskler said, “We’ve been researching our pal Archese. He wasn’t exactly in the chips, but Christine would have been fixed for a year or two if she’d lived.”

“His insurance, do you mean?”

“You know everything, goddamnit?”

“Bridges mentioned it.”

“A ten grand G.I. policy. And, of course, there was his share of the tailor shop. The policy named…”

“Christine beneficiary?”

“Yeah. He also left a will leaving her everything he owned.”

“How about her?”

“No will. Dames very rarely make out wills, haven’t you noticed that? I guess they’ve got the American social setup pegged flat. The guy works his ass off keeping everybody in food. The dame works her ass off staying beautiful. The guy drops dead, and the dame goes on staying beautiful on the dough he left her. What dame needs a will? There isn’t a man alive who’ll outlive his wife.”

“Cops are just cynics,” I said, shaking my head.

“Up your bazoo,” Miskler answered. “In here. Don’t mind the rough stuff. We’re not playing around with a decent citizen.”

“I understand.”

“You’d better understand, and you’d better keep your yap shut, or you’ll be next.”

“Just when we were getting along so nice.”

Leadpipe was not getting along so nice. The cops were in their shirtsleeves, and they’d probably been giving him the business all night long. There wasn’t a mark on him, but he’d taken a lot, and he was going to take a hell of a lot more.

“Who was your buddy, Paulson?” one of the cops asked.

“I don’t know nothin’,” Paulson said.

“Why are you protecting a cheap rat?” another asked.

“I ain’t protecting nobody and I urgghhhh!” The grunt came when one of the cops hit him in the gut with a bunched fist.