Tender Is LeVine: A Jack LeVine Mystery (28 page)

“What’s going on?” Barbara said from in back of me. I poked my head outside, into the early morning heat. “Should I look?”

“No,” I told her. People were gathering around a concrete fountain set in the middle of a triangular walkway. Sprawled across the fountain, his head hanging limply in the water, was a man wearing gray slacks, a white shirt rapidly turning red, and a handsome silk robe.

Sidney Aaron was as dead as yesterdays headlines.

I slammed the window shut and headed for the door. “Stay here,” I said to Barbara, just like a big strong man.

“Why?” she asked. “Where are you going?”

“Upstairs.”

“To Toscanini?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m going with you.”

“Barbara, listen—”

“I’m not staying here,” she said emphatically, pulling on her shoes. “What happened out there?” There was now a growing and continual static of activity from outside—racing footsteps, overlapping shouts, car engines turning over.

“Guy got air-mailed out a window.” I opened the door. “Could you just give me five minutes? If I’m not back—”

“You’re not listening to me, Jack. I’m coming with you.”

I paused at the door. She picked up her valise

“If you’re coming, at least leave the valise here.”

She shook her head. This was some stubborn gal.

“We’re not coming back to this room ever, Jack, I just know it. All my stuff is in this bag, all my makeup—”

“You don’t need any makeup.”

Barbara smiled tightly. “Silly man.”

The two of us left the room and went creeping down the hall like Nick and Nora Charles in
The Thin Man Goes to Las Vegas.
I opened the steel door to the fire exit and immediately saw a pair of scrawny house dicks hustling up the staircase to the third floor.

“What the hell’s going on?” I asked. “Guy can’t sleep around here with all this racket.”

“Accident,” the first dick said breathlessly.

“Accident, my ass. Sounded like somebody got tossed. What kind of a dump is this?”

“Can’t talk right now, chief.” The two dicks continued hot-footing it up the stairs.

I waited a beat, then signaled Barbara to come back out to the corridor. I hustled over to the elevator and pushed the down button. Barbara stared at me in some bafflement.

“Why the elevator and why down?”

“Because if those two monkeys are running up to the third floor, it’s my guess that our friend in the Valencia Suite has already vacated the premises and is either going to be in this elevator or in the lobby.”

“Our friend being Toscanini?”

“And his keeper, Gino, who probably did the tossing. The good news is the old man isn’t exactly Jesse Owens. It’s going to take a while to go anywhere with him.”

Barbara looked at me anxiously. “Who was it, Jack?”

“The guy who got tossed?”

“Yeah.”

“Sidney Aaron.”

“From NBC Sidney Aaron?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus Christ.” She bit her lip. “And you’re sure it’s Meyer behind all this?”

“I have to think so.”

“Goddamn,” she said, quietly but urgently.

The elevator doors opened. The car was empty save for a seventy-year-old woman carrying a sack full of nickels. She had bluish hair and wore steel-rimmed spectacles. We entered and I impatiently pressed the button for the door to close.

“I won eleven dollars last night,” the elderly woman informed me.

“That a fact,” I said.

“Yes indeed.” She smiled warmly at Barbara, then at me. “You have a lovely daughter. You must be very proud.”

I nodded gratefully. “I’ve done my best with her. Thanks so much.” The elevator doors opened and I gallantly let the blue-haired lady out onto the casino floor with her cache of small change. Barbara shot me a devilish look.

“Don’t say a word,” I told her.

“Me? Wouldn’t dream of it.”

Even at seven-thirty in the morning there was action in the casino. Slot machines were ringing and about a third of the blackjack tables and crap tables were in operation. The only intimation that someone had just been hurled out of a window was the sight of two maids scurrying toward the front doors, their arms filled with bath towels.

Barbara raised her eyebrows.

“To clean up the mess, you think?” she asked.

“I would say so.” I stopped and looked around the lobby. Barbara took my arm and squeezed it with some force.

“Jack, do you have like a
plan
? Or do you think we’re just somehow going to find Toscanini and drive away? Because that seems like a highly unlikely—”

“I don’t disagree. But I can’t think of anything more systematic, and I’d hate to have gone through all this trouble—getting whacked on the head and doped up—for no reason at all. Plus, I owe it to your old man and your mother.”

“And me?”

“And you. And your sister.”

“That wasn’t exactly what I meant….”

There was a stir across the casino. I heard a voice raised and then I saw Giuseppe LaMarca, in a gray silk suit, yelling at Wally, the redheaded thug who had been guarding Luciano’s room at the Desert Inn. Wally’s broken nose was purple and bandaged, and he didn’t look to be in any better mood than he’d been in last night. The red-haired lout threw up his hands and started jogging toward the front doors.

“You know him?” Barbara asked. “The little guy?”

“He works for Lucky. Giuseppe LaMarca, also goes by Joey Little or Joey Big, depending on his self-image when he gets up in the morning.”

“Very funny. Why was he screaming at that thuggy-looking guy?”

“God only knows. The thug’s name is Wally; he’s local talent and he’s apparently killed a couple of hookers in his time. He was guarding Lucky’s door at the Desert Inn when I made his acquaintance. Why Joey’s screaming at him, I don’t know. But nothing that’s happening this morning falls under the heading of good news. Tossing Aaron out the window could mean any number of things. Mainly, I think it means he must’ve gotten greedy; started lobbying for a bigger piece of the new hotel, either for NBC or maybe for himself.”

“You mean make his own deal?”

“Exactly. Decided to freelance, which is never a great idea when you’re dealing with Lucky or Meyer.”

Now Barbara looked off, and her eyes got very wide. She mouthed,
Jack,
but no sound came out.

I followed her gaze. Toscanini and Gino were getting off the elevator. The old man was wearing a raincoat and a tweed cap and was almost unrecognizable. He looked frightened and disoriented.

“Where is Walter?” I heard him ask.

“Went back to New York,” Gino told him.

“
Perche
?”

“To get things nice for you there.”

“I go back?”

“Soon.”

Gino took the old man under the arm and they started for the front doors. Across the casino floor, I could see LaMarca recognize the two men; he started running across the room.

“Get ready. The shit’s going to hit the fan very fast now,” I told Barbara.

“Let me talk to that Gino.” She extracted a cigarette from her bag.

“I really don’t think—” I started to say, but she was already in motion. Barbara pulled her sweater tight, to emphasize what hardly needed emphasizing, and strolled over to Gino, cigarette in hand. She tapped the goon on the shoulder and smiled; Gino turned to her, as did Toscanini. Neither of them knew where to look first. Toscanini gazed at her chest, Gino looked into her eyes. She was evidently asking Gino for a light, moving clockwise to force him to put his back to me. Gino reached into his pockets and I stepped forward. LaMarca was halfway across the casino when he saw and yelled, “Gino,” but I already had my gun out and was cracking the goon on the back of the head. Gino started to fall into my arms, but I stepped back and let him tumble very hard to the floor.

LaMarca was reaching into his pocket.

“Hit the floor,” I yelled at Barbara, who ignored me, grabbing Toscanini and covering his body with hers, which bothered him not at all. I turned around and shot LaMarca high in his right shoulder. Not a great shot, but it did the trick. LaMarca’s gray suit instantly started to darken. He grabbed at his arm and slumped slowly to the floor, while the patrons of the casino started scattering like geese.

“Okay,” I said for no particular reason. I whacked Gino over the skull one more time for good luck, causing Toscanini to cry out with hoarse enthusiasm, “Kill him, Boston Blackie!”

“Not necessary to kill him, sir, but we do have to blow.” I turned to Barbara. “Ready?”

“Yeah.” Her forehead was shiny with sweat and her eyes bright with the excitement of the moment.

“Maestro, pardon the indignity,” I told him, then picked the world’s greatest living musician up and over my right shoulder. I turned and started running toward the coffee shop, Barbara at my side, lugging her valise.

“The coffee shop?” she asked. “I don’t think we’re hungry, right?”

“No, but it’s the quickest way to the service entrance. There’s only one kitchen in this joint; it handles the coffee shop, the restaurant, and room service. Leads right out of this dump.”

“And you’re sure your friend will be there?”

“I deeply hope so.” I could feel the old man’s weight bouncing on my shoulder. “Maestro, how are we doing?”

“Molto bene,
” he said.

I raced into the coffee shop. There were a couple of dozen gamblers consuming their breakfasts, having just arisen or getting ready to hit the sack. They watched curiously as Barbara, Toscanini, and I double-timed our way past the booths and tables. Barbara ran on her tiptoes, which created a great deal of body movement, which, in turn, produced a great deal of attention. We sailed through the double doors into the kitchen and never slowed down.

“There,” Barbara said, espying the service door. She sprinted toward it and pushed it open, then peered outside. I stood and caught my breath.

“You are strong, Boston Blackie,” Toscanini croaked.

“I used to be stronger.”

“Like a bull.” He looked toward the door.
“Chi es la bella figura, le bella donna
?”

“Barbara Stern, the daughter of Fritz Stern.”

“No!
Incredibile
!”

“She certainly is, Maestro.”

“You are making her?” A wicked smile crossed the old man’s features. “Bravo, Boston Blackie! Bravo!”

Barbara came back inside and waved at me. “Cab’s pulling up!”

I gathered myself together and
schlepped
Toscanini outside. The moment we stepped through the door, we hit an almost palpable wall of heat. At eight
A.M.,
it had to be well over ninety degrees.

“Plenty hot, isn’t it, Maestro?”

“Orrendo! Un inferno!
”

I watched as Kim’s red Chevrolet came rolling to a stop outside the service entrance. That was the good news. The bad news was the cloud of black smoke billowing out from under the hood.

Kim hopped out of the cab. I put Toscanini down on the ground.

“Morning,” I said to the cabby. She was wearing dungarees and a short-sleeved white shirt with the name of a bowling alley embroidered in red thread across the pocket.

Kim walked silently to the front of the car and, oily rag in hand, lifted the hood open. It wasn’t a pretty sight. The Triangle Shirtwaist fire might have produced more smoke, but not by much.

“What an effin disaster,” she said, examining the smoldering ruin of her engine. “I thought the radiator was full.” She turned to me. “We have as much chance of getting to Mars as New York in this piece of shit.”

I felt a tug on my arm.

“Jack,” Barbara said. A black car pulled up across the Flamingo service lot and three very large men emerged: Wally the redhead and two other goons. They didn’t notice us and began running toward the hotel.

“We gotta blow,” I told Kim, who was staring at Barbara as if she had just seen a vision of life eternal. “Kim, this is Barbara, and this is Maestro Arturo Toscanini.”

Kim turned her head from Barbara for an instant.

“Holy shit,” she said, registering who the old man was. “You’re him. I’ve heard your records.”

“Is my pleasure,” the Maestro said, beaming at Kim. Then he turned to me. “Boston Blackie, this
macchina
…” He pointed at the useless cab.

“I know,” I said, and then had another idea. Thirty yards away sat the large green bus with
VAUGHN MONROE ORCHESTRA
painted in white script across its sides.

“You ever jump-start a bus?” I asked Kim.

“I’ve jump-started a lot of things, sweetie pie. But heisting that bus would be a major crime.”

“So’s murder, which was just committed about fifteen minutes ago and is about to occur again if we don’t get out of here. Maestro?” I lifted Toscanini up across my shoulder again.