Gilded Canary (12 page)

Once seated, each ordered a Canadian and soda from the waiter, who physically was a match for the man at the door. “This would
be more
Muffy’s
cup of tea,” Raff explained, pulling out his pipe. “If she preferred men her own age, that is.”

Raff filled the pipe, then drew in on it repeatedly, till he was satisfied it was lit. “Odd, but she does seem to prefer men
my age. Or Jock Bundle’s.” His eyes went a little hard. “Has she been making any noises to you?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Lockwood said. He was staring at the pianist, whose back was to them.

“Come off it, Hook. You’re not that thick,” Raff said. “The last time I saw Muffy, she was asking a lot of questions about
you.”

“Jealous, eh? Well, let me ease your mind. The last time
I
saw Muffy,” Lockwood smiled, “she was threatening to crown me with a hairbrush.”

Raff laughed. “Yes, she told me that.” He sounded relieved.

Lockwood caught a glimpse of a small slice of the pianist’s face, and now he was sure. “That’s Cracks Henderson.”

“So it is,” Raff said. “What the devil is he doing here?”

Lockwood wondered as well, as Cracks continued to play, barely heard over the hubbub of the room. He called a waiter over.
“Tell Mr. Henderson we’d like to see him when he’s done,” Lockwood told him.

Henderson was on his last tune now, driving through “Embraceable You,” having started it as a ballad and then, halfway through,
altering it into a jump tune. His long blond hair was falling lankly over his forehead, a stub of a cigarette hanging from
his lips. He went into a run, altering every chord along the way, hit the last few notes, looked a little dazed as he accepted
the scattered applause, listened to the waiter who bent over him, and then glanced in the direction of Lockwood and Raff.
He shrugged, picked up the drink on his piano, and ambled over.

He blinked a couple of times as he neared them, then focused on Spencer. “Hello, Raff,” he said.

“
Hello
, Cracks. What the blazes are you doing all the way out here?”

Cracks shrugged again. “It’s a job.”

The Hook motioned to him. “Have a seat.”

Cracks peered at him. “Do I know you?”

“Bill Lockwood. We met at Muffy’s opening night. After the fight.”

Cracks eased himself down into the chair next to Raff. “Oh. Well, okay,” he said, blankly.

“Weren’t you playing for Muffy tonight?” Lockwood asked.

“Sure.”

“Then how’d you get out here?”

“Drove. Do it every night.”

“That seems a pretty tough schedule.”

“Whatever Jock wants, I do.”

“Jock?” Lockwood asked in surprise. Next to him, Raff straightened up a little and leaned in.

“Jock Bunche.”

“What’ve you got to do with Bunche?”

“Are you kidding? He’s the guy who discovered me. He’s the one who put me together with Muffy, after he convinced her to be
a pro singer. And when he opened this place, he made sure I’d be the pianist.”

“Jock Bunche owns this club?”

“Sure. Well, not in his name, natch. Some other cats front it for him.”

The Hook sat back and stared at Cracks. Jock Bunche, the owner of the Star. And Widwer Levinskey, One-Eye, involved in some
way with the club. So the two of them were tied together, apparently.

Lockwood began to take another pull at the Canadian, then stopped. Something told him he’d need 100 percent of his faculties
while he was here. Instead, he pulled out a Camel, lighted up, and inhaled deeply, all the while regarding Cracks.

“You know a man known as Levinskey?”

Cracks jerked his head to one side. “Name means nothing to me.”

“He has one eye,” Hook said. “Big man, with one good eye, one glass one.”

“Only gate I know like that is Johnny Apples,” Cracks offered.

“Johnny Apples?”

“He’s a front man here for Jock. Should be around somewhere.”

“This Johnny Apples,” Lockwood said, “does he have a tie with Two-Scar Toomey? Vernon Toomey?”

“You got me. I never heard anything like that. Got a butt?” he asked. “I’m out.”

Lockwood gave him one and lit it for him. “Okay. What have you heard about Johnny Apples and Muffy Dearborn’s jewels?”

Cracks’ pupils dilated, and his hand appeared to shake a little. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Johnny Apples and Jock Bunche and Muffy’s jewels,” Lockwood said. Was it finally all beginning to tie together?

“I don’t know anything about any of that.”

“Johnny Apples or Jock Bunche, or both of them, stole the jewels.”

“No.”

“Come on, Cracks.”

“No. I’m sure they didn’t. Anyway, if they did, I don’t know nothing about it.” Little beads of sweat were beginning to form
on his brow.

“Cracks, I’m not a cop. I’m an insurance investigator.”

“Oh yeah, now I place you!” Cracks grinned foolishly. He appeared to be happy to get off onto another topic, one other than
the jewels. “You’re way outta your territory, aren’t you? Have a good ride?”

Lockwood steered him back. “Whatever you know won’t get you into trouble with me. I don’t arrest people. All I want is the
jewels. I’ll even pay to get them back.”

Cracks’ smile faded, and his pale blue eyes stared unblinkingly at Lockwood.

“Well?”

“I don’t know anything.”

“I think you do.”

Cracks turned to Raff. “You’re a nice cat, you’ve always been decent with me. How about getting him to lay off?”

“He’s got a job to do,” Raff said.

Cracks turned sullen. “I don’t know anything, and that’s that.”

“It could mean money for you,” Lockwood told him. “Reward money, or something like it.”

“I don’t dig people who call me a liar, Lockwood,” Cracks snarled, angry now, or at least giving a good imitation of it. “I
treat people like gentlemen and expect to be treated the same way.” He pushed his chair back, and rose.

“Cracks,” Lockwood began.

“Stuff it!” Cracks cried, and backed away, as if afraid to take his eyes from them. He reached the crowd by the bar, still
watching them, and then quickly exited through a doorway.

“Jock Bunche? You think Jock Bunche stole Muffy’s jewels?” Raff asked, after Cracks disappeared.

“He’s got something to do with them. I’m sure of that now,” Lockwood answered, grimly. “I was hoping I could get Cracks to
spill.”

Raff looked up, then smiled and relaxed into his chair. “Forget Cracks. You seem to have another possibility.”

The Hook glanced at Raff, then toward the direction in which his companion was looking. One-Eye was about ten feet away, facing
them. Behind him were the maitre d’ and their waiter. None of the three looked friendly.

The Hook raised his glass in acknowledgment. “Greetings, Widwer,” he said.

The three of them stepped closer, till they were standing over him and Raff. “Why are you here?” One-Eye asked.

“Looking for you,” Lockwood replied, his hand ready to go for the .38 if necessary..

“I think maybe you better come with us.”

“I like it here,” Lockwood insisted. He glanced over at Raff. Raff smiled.

“I’m ready for anything,” he told Lockwood.

“We can talk better out in the back,” One-Eye urged.

“No thanks,” Hook demurred, and then he felt the cold steel against the small of his neck. Another waiter, probably. You really
got service in this joint.

“Come on,” One-Eye told them. Lockwood and Raff rose and followed.

They walked toward the bar, then through the door Cracks had entered. It brought them into a dingy hallway floored with old
wooden boards, the passage at its end opening into a large, sparsely furnished room. Cracks was seated there at a table, looking
nervous.

Once inside, One-Eye spoke. “Cracks tells me you were asking about the Dearborn jewels. I thought I already told you to forget
about them.”

The Hook regarded him coldly. “What’s your involvement, Levinskey?”

One-Eye flushed. “Shut up, you!” he snarled. “Search them,” he told the two men with him. The other waiter had evidently returned
to his station, where, presumably, the tips would be better.

They got Lockwood’s .38 and the .32 he’d handed to Raff before they entered the club. One-Eye stood and considered them.

“I got no beef with you,” he told Raff. “But your boyfriend, that’s a different story.”

“We go together,” Raff told him. “Whatever happens to him, happens to me. We’re like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Or,” he added
cheerfully, “like a right eye and a left eye.”

Levinskey ignored him. “You keep these two here for a while,” he said to the waiter, indicating Cracks and Raff. “Dave and
Tommy and Charlie got a little business with this one. Okay,” he motioned to Lockwood, “let’s go.”

The Hook hesitated, then saw the three men in the hallway. One of them was pointing a shotgun in his direction. He nodded
a brief goodbye to Raff and walked toward the three. “Dave and Tommy and Charlie, I presume,” he said as he neared them.

One of them grunted and waved him to another door, which was open to the outside. He stepped through, and they followed him.
“Into the car,” said another, and held the back door open for him. It was a big Cadillac, shiny under the light of the lamp
that jutted out over the club’s back door. He got in and two of them joined him, he in the middle of the back seat, the other
two on each side of him. The third man moved into the driver’s seat, and in a moment they pulled away, the gravel of the drive
crackling as the wheels spit it out.

The two in the back began speaking, apparently resuming a conversation that had been interrupted earlier. “Louis is a dumb
nigger,” one of them said. “He got lucky against Schmeling.”

“Lucky? The way he tore Schmeling up like that? Schmeling’s the lucky one, being alive today.”

It was the driver’s turn. “Dave’s right. Look what he did to Harry Thomas and Nathan Mann, for God’s sake.”

“Bums. They were bums,” the first man sneered. “I coulda taken them in half the time it took Louis. Less. They wouldn’t a
gone past the first round with a good white man.”

“You’re a fighter?” Lockwood asked.

“Shut up. Stay out of this,” the first man said. “Louis has no guts. All dinges are yellow.”

Dave flung his head upward in exasperation. “Yellow? He gets the piss beat out of him by Schmeling, and then comes back and
wipes the floor with him in one round! That’s yellow?”

“Luck,” growled the first man, burrowing a little into himself. “Could be it was a fix, too.”

“I tell ya what,” Dave said. “Let’s put on the gloves, and I’ll be Louis, and you show me just how terrible he is, what you’d
do to him.”

“If I was in your weight class, you can bet your ass I would,” the first man shouted, and for the first time Lockwood saw
the scar tissue above his brows.

“So you’re both boxers,” he said.

“I told you, shut up,” the first man ordered. “You’re dead.”

“You can’t give the dead orders,” The Hook shrugged. “I’m a boxer too, you know.”

“Stow it, I tell ya.”

“I’m also half Negro.”

The first man stared at him in astonishment, then dismissed him. “Ah, g’wan!”

“I’m dead serious. My mother was white, my father colored.” That combination might get him.

“Hey,” the first man snickered to Dave. “He says his mother fucked for niggers.”

“That’s right,” Hook said equably. “And it made me a better man than you.”

“You gonna take that, Charlie?” Dave grinned.

“It’s true.” The Hook’s eyes were like a cobra’s as he spoke to Charlie.

Charlie stirred uneasily. “Bullshit.”

“Come on, Charlie. I can take you. You’ve got twenty pounds on me, easy, but I can take you. Because I’m half black.”

“Shut up.”

Dave chuckled in the dark. “See? I’m right about Louis.”

Charlie swung wildly, his fist rocketing into Lock-wood’s chest. “Shut up your mouth!”

The Hook wheeled toward Charlie, but Dave held him back. “You’re yellow,” Lockwood taunted, eyes blazing at Charlie.

Tommy, the driver, turned toward them. “Prove he’s wrong, Charlie. We’re gonna decompose him one way or another. Why not start
with our fists? Or is this guy right about you?”

“He’s lying. He’s no nigger.”

“So what? He’s acting uppity, like one.”

“Okay! Okay!” Charlie exploded. He grabbed Lockwood by the jacket, pulling him close, the rage flooding his face with color.
“I’m gonna teach you somethin’ you’re never gonna forget, Nigger.”

“You’re on,” Lockwood responded, coldly. “And after I’m done with him,” he told the other two, “I’ll take on the rest of you,
one at a time.”

Tommy jerked his head around, his lips a sneer. Dave stirred a bit next to him. Hard to tell, Lockwood decided, whether it
was uneasiness, or anticipation.

Another few miles and they pulled up at a small dock. Off in the distance, Lockwood could hear the roar of the ocean and catch
an occasional glimmer of light as a wave crested, then fell. They must be at an inlet of some sort, he concluded.

“Okay, out!” Charlie snarled, holding the door open.

Lockwood stepped out and ducked, as Charlie sent a blow thundering at him.

He danced back a few steps. “Wait a minute, Charlie. You’re saying Louis can’t fight. I say he can. And we can do it fighting
fair. Let’s work it just like a boxing match. Tommy or Dave here can keep track of the rounds.”

“Up yours.”

“What’s the matter? Can’t you fight like a white man?” Hook egged him on, hoping this last would do it.

“I can outfight you any way you want, nigger-lover,” Charlie shouted. “I don’t think you’re a nigger, but I know you’re a
nigger-lover.”

“You’ve got a watch, Tommy,” Lockwood said, “You can be time-keeper. And remember, Charlie, half of me is just like Louis.
The better half.”

“Move on down to the dock,” Dave suggested. “It’ll be kind of like a ring.”

“Idiot!” Charlie snapped. “One jump and he’s in the water, and we’ve lost him.”

Lockwood sighed. The idea had occurred to him, too. What he really wanted now was a bed with clean, crisp sheets. Preferably
with Stephanie alongside him, her warm, nude body close against his, gentling him. Come to think of it, possibly thinking
about murdering him. Maybe I’m better off, Lockwood concluded, drily.