“Guess you’ll know when you get to London.”
“Not London. I can’t tell you where they’re sending me, but tea and crumpets aren’t in it. Can you at least promise me you’ll look in on him from time to time? Maybe put the fear of God in him when he steps over the line?”
“What’s the skinny, Shirl? Afraid he’ll sit under the apple tree with a bottle blonde while you’re in the Aleutians?”
She paled. “How did you—? Forget I said that. I fell for a musician. Don’t you think I know where to cut my losses? Jerry’s a good egg. All he need’s a woman who cares enough to trim some of that bark off him. Since it can’t be me, I thought I’d draft the Detroit Police Department.”
He lit a Chesterfield. The counterman sighed but kept mum. Black marketers had stuck him up three times for penicillin before he started letting cops order burgers on the cuff. He turned away to flush the soda taps. “You’re still aiming high,” Zagreb said. “I trained on tommy-gunners and axe murderers. Playing Dutch uncle to trumpeters ought to come with combat pay.”
She smiled; he remembered she had horse teeth, but now she looked like Katharine Hepburn. Her fingers brushed the back of his hand where it rested on the Formica. “Thanks, Zag. I knew I could count on you.”
“I didn’t—” he said; but she was giving him details.
As they moved toward the door, Paper Hat ran up the sale, sniffed their glasses, scowled, and plunged them into warm soapy water.
The Ruby Lounge had been padlocked once for operating after curfew, but the lieutenant in charge of that detail was a reasonable man with a wife who liked furs and Florida, so it had reopened immediately. It was in full swing when Zagreb dropped in, flashed his shield at the bouncer, and plowed his way to the bar. The atmosphere was so dense he thought it would hold its shape after the walls fell in, a perfect cube of noise and smoke.
Red Lot’s Red Hots crowded the bandstand twelve pieces strong. Lot, whose facial congestion matched his thatch of flame-colored hair, leaned heavily on his bass drum, propelling the band through a high-test version of “Let Me Off Uptown.” What the girl singer, a light-skinned Negro, lacked in lung power she made up for in body movement; the gyrations of her long slender form in a skin-tight evening dress were incendiary and violated the city ordinance against lewd and lascivious activity. But that one had been passed before a war that had put many things in a different perspective. In any case, that was Vice’s headache. Zagreb ordered a double rye and leaned his back against the bar to watch Jerry Dugan blow his horn.
The Racket Squad lieutenant was tone deaf, but he could tell that Shirley Grabowski’s fella was out of his depth next to the heavyset Negro blasting away at the first trumpet; that party climbed the scale to the ear-shattering crescendo with seeming ease, with Dugan stumbling behind in sweaty confusion. Evidently, all the best men were in uniform or performing with the USO — or, as in the case of the silver-templed colored player, exempted by age from service until storm troopers poured into Paradise Valley.
Zagreb had no beef with the trombones, reeds, vibes, and piano; but his taste in music began and ended with Bing Crosby.
“Let Me Off Uptown” ended the set, of course. It would have been anti-climactic to follow it with anything but an air raid. The clientele thinned out — entertainment was the draw, not the watered-down black market booze — and Zagreb found pace to sidle up next to Jerry Dugan as he called for a Schlitz.
“I always heard you musicians fueled up on ethyl,” the lieutenant said by way of opening the conversation.
“I promised my girl I’d ride the wagon a while.” The trumpeter was a good-looking kid and he knew it. He focused on this reflection behind the bar and smoothed back a sandy lock with an ivory comb. His band jacket was cut to call attention to his narrow waist and square shoulders.
“Tell me which wagon, it lets you blow like that.” The department oath came with a license to lie.
“You should hear me when we’re jamming. Out in the open I got to hang back or sweep these bush leaguers out the door.”
It was going to be impossible to keep this boy out of trouble. “That other trumpeter won’t sweep easy.”
“Well, Lungs is an institution.”
The way he said the name indicated his listener should know it. He made a note to consult McReary. The detective third-grade was the youngest man on the squad and presumably up on current music. “We have a mutual friend. Shirley Grabowski?”
“Shirley’s that girl I told you about.” Dugan introduced himself and reached across his body to offer his left hand. Fritz Kreisler, the violinist, protected his bow hand that way, it was said; but Kreisler needn’t fear the return of better musicians when the war was over.
“Max Zagreb.”
“How do you know Shirley?”
“We met on a double date. She was out with some loser.” No sense naming the loser.
He felt a hand on his shoulder and looked into the scarlet boozy face of Red Lot. “Hey, there, Lieutenant. How’s the boy?”
The bartender had a highball all ready for the bandleader. It wasn’t his first or he wouldn’t be so chummy. They’d barely spoken while he was being released from the marijuana lockup. Before Zagreb could frame a suitable response, Red was gone with his glass, glad-handing his way from table to table.
Dugan said, “Lieutenant. You on leave?”
“Can’t get a pass out of the commissioner.”
“Oh. Cop.” There was no way to say the phrase that sounded friendly.
“Off duty tonight. Only raid polka joints when I’m on.”
“Come to think of it I heard her say she knew a cop. She send you to check up on me?”
“You need checking up on?”
“Shirley thinks so. She don’t like to see a man enjoying himself. I’d trade her in for the sport model if she weren’t a knockout.”
He was liking Dugan better and better — for the draft. “A lot of mugs that like to pop off sometimes could stand having a knockout like her around. I was a hellraiser myself till my old watch captain took me in hand, and he was ugly as a bag of bricks.”
Dugan tipped up his bottle and didn’t set it down until it gurgled empty. “Well, you can tell her Jerry-boy’s all grown up. She can serve donuts to dogfaces and not give me another thought. Maybe a V-mail now and again to remind me to wear rubbers when it rains. What’re you drinking?” The beer was having its effect. Like most mean drunks, he was on his way after the second round.
“Rye.”
“Make it two, Ace.” Dugan slapped the bar.
The bartender, a big Pole who looked as if he’d started out juggling short blocks at Dodge Main, set them up. “Name’s Stan. Stanislaus to you, Bugle Boy.”
Dugan put back the shot with a jerk, then decided to get mad. Zagreb caught his fist on the cock and twisted his arm behind his back.
“Hey, hey! That’s the money arm.” The trumpeter’s voice was shrill.
“You should’ve thought of that before you tried to break it on a bartender named Stanislaus.” He fumbled out the folder with his shield and showed it to that individual, who nodded and straightened up from the sawed-off every mixologist in the Arsenal of Democracy kept under the bar. “You going to behave?”
“Yeah, sure. Jesus.”
The lieutenant let go, and was ready when Dugan spun around leading with his other fist. He ducked the blow and lifted the boy off his feet in a firearm’s carry when the follow-through put him in position. He gripped Dugan’s wrists, clamped his other arm around his legs, and opened a path through the crowd of gawkers toward the door. “Fireworks over, folks,” he said. “Your tax dollars at work. Be sure and buy bonds.”
“Slow news day.” Sergeant Canal folded The Detroit Times. “You should tell a guy when you moonlight as a bouncer. You won’t let me drive a cab.”