Lester saw me, waved a hand, very weakly, and she took him in tow and headed for a booth. I jerked my head at him and he stopped her and they had an argument for a moment. Lester won out. She went in the booth and he came over to the piano.
I said: “Where in Christ’s name did you pick up the ut-slay? Or is it the other way around?”
He blushed and said feebly: “Now, Shean, you shouldn’t talk like that.”
“Why not?”
“She’s a very nice lady.”
“For my dough, she’s a bum. I’ll admit she’s a big bum, though.”
“She’s a very nice lady,” he argued again.
“Who is she?”
“Her name is Mrs. Heber. Well, there’s more to it than that. It’s really Mrs. Hazel George-Wolff-Heber. She’s a... a divorcee, I guess.”
I said: “What d’ya mean guess? You know damn well.”
He admitted he knew damn well.
“Where’d you meet her?”
“Well, I was in the lobby. Sitting there and waiting for you to come back. She was sitting by me. She got up and left her purse and I returned it to her. That’s all. We just sort of... well, sort of got talking and she wanted to come out here.”
“You’re no help to me, kid. You’re supposed to be a hitchhiker I picked up. That’s what I told Kewpie, anyway.”
He got on the defensive and said: “I don’t see why you told him that.”
“I had reasons. Now listen. From now on your story is you’re a college kid on a lark. You started hitch-hiking to Reno, just because your room-mate told you you didn’t have the nerve. I’ll tell Kewpie the same thing. Does this big tart know you’ve got any money?”
“Well... I... ugh...”
I said: “You put on a flash, hunh? Showed the bankroll That it?”
“Well, we had a couple of drinks before I left town. She... ugh... may have that idea.”
“Does she know you’re supposed to be a detective?”
“Of course not, Shean!” He sounded indignant on this. “I know enough to keep my mouth shut.”
I said: “There’s two sides to that argument. Yours and mine. Okey. Go on back to her. Tell her that I’m the guy that rode you in here. Let it go at that.”
“Are you working here?”
I grinned and said: “Anyway for tonight. I want to see something.”
“What?”
“The kind of women Gino Rucci can dig up.”
He looked at me as though I was crazy. I quit riding him and said: “It’s this way, kid. I’ve got to get close to the Wendel woman in some way. The Chief told me not to try and talk to her.”
Lester looked indignant and said: “He can’t do that. This is a free country; you’ve got a right to talk to somebody, certainly.”
I said: “Okey, kid, you’re right and the world’s wrong. Remember this is Reno. Remember this Chief should know what he’s talking about.”
“What did he say, Shean?”
“He didn’t come right out with it but he just the same as said what I told you. Now run along; I’m supposed to be working.”
He went back to his booth and blonde.
Chapter Six
About half an hour later I was just stalling around, on what I could remember of the SARI waltzes. There was nobody dancing; only about a dozen couples in the booths, though the bar was packed and noisy. Lester came over and grinned at me and said:
“Shean, will you play something we can dance to?”
I said: “Sure, if you hit the kitty. And don’t put in two bits. Go first class with a buck.”
He looked pained and split the difference with a half dollar and I started out with a slow fox-trot. Kewpie came over and started to bellow out the chorus, and I couldn’t decide whether that or his saxophone playing was worse.
I knew he’d do both, too enthusiastically, through the evening, and that I’d have a chance to decide. Lester and his blonde and two other couples started to cavort around and when Kewpie got through with his chorus he decided he’d take his sax out of wraps. He started to unpack it and I started to go to town on the tune.
It was an old-timer. BREEZE. The one that blew the gal away, according to the lyrics. An old Goodwin and Hanley number. A honey to go to town on. I got hot on it; it was always a pet of mine, and I could see two good-sized parties leave the bar and head for the back room and dance floor. Some of them started to dance and some went in the booths and I put in a few more licks for good measure and quit just in time because Kewpie had the mouthpiece on his sax and was showing signs of joining in, dry reed and all.
Lester came over right then. He took off his glasses and started polishing them and his eyes looked as big as saucers. He hissed at me:
“One of them’s the Wendel woman! Hazel told me!”
I looked over at Kewpie, who was mouthing his sax reed and looking interested. Lester got the idea and said loudly: “That was fine, Shean! D’ya know WHERE OR WHEN?”
“That’s a show tune. I don’t know whether this place has got a license to play that sort of stuff.” I looked at the kitty and then at Kewpie. And then winked.
Lester was getting smart. He bounced another fifty cent piece in the cat and Kewpie said: “That’s working, Shean, old kid. That’s the stuff to give the troops. If they think we’re working here because we like music they’re nuts. What key you taking it in?”
I said: “E flat, and if you play flat on that damned thing I’ll take it away from you and shove it down your neck.”
He said happily: “The same old Shean!” and we started out.
Things got going good by eleven o’clock. I’d spotted the Wendel woman by then and the crowd she was with and had been paying more attention to them than I had to the music — though this didn’t seem to make any difference to anybody. Rucci had brought over at least ten assorted women and all of them had gushed over the music and said it must be wonderful to be able to play like that. The old line. Assorted women is right; blondes, brunettes, and one red head. All of them the same general type, however. Looking for excitement and all drinking too much by far.
The Wendel party was the exception, apparently they were nursing their drinks. There were six in the bunch, altogether; and my boss, Rucci, and a startlingly blonde gal he seemed to favor sat with them the bulk of the time.
The Wendel girl was prettier than I’d thought she’d be from her picture. Medium-sized, quite dark, and apparently not too fond of talking. At least she seemed to spend most of her time either listening or dancing.
There was a big bald-headed man that I thought might well be her lawyer, Crandall.
Very boisterous in manner but the kind of manner that doesn’t mean a thing. All on the surface. He had light blue eyes that didn’t look merry at any time. Just smart and cagy. A tough baby, I figured.
There were two men that might have been twins, though they didn’t look at all alike. The same type, exactly. My guess was private cops and that they were the guards Wendel and Joey Free had mentioned.
They had two girls with them and the less said about the girls the better. They both looked as if they should have been working for Lester’s big blonde divorcee mama. That is, if the big tramp was running the kind of place that she looked as though she should be running.
It bothered me, this last. I couldn’t figure why nice people like this Wendel girl would be out with such trash. And apparently friendly with Rucci and his girl friend.
But I kept on playing, sitting sidewise on the bench so I could watch the dancers, and pretty soon I decided I had the answer. The whole crowd was the same; just a mixture. You’d see girls that had lady written all over them dancing with men that had hustler written as plainly.