“And a percentage of the increased business,” Sue finished casually.
He got up and took a Havana out of a walnut humidor on his desk. The click of the cigar lighter was a loud noise in the vacuum of their hopes.
“Okay,” he snapped with a fat smile. “We do it!”
Kay went in on a six-weeks’ tryout, and by the end of three months she was the toast of Broadway and the talk of show business. Nat Peters walked around the crowded Shell-Aire Lounge as if he’d struck oil, which indeed he had, and by the end of six months nobody seemed to remember whose idea it was.
Nobody except Kay. She never forgot that it was Sue Grinnell who’d conceived it; Sue Grinnell who’d sold it, and Sue Grinnell who guided her always. From that first moment of success in Nat Peters’ office, Sue and Kay were partners, fifty-fifty partners.
The offers for personal appearances all over the country poured in like a flooding river, but there was always Sue standing there shaking her head.
“You’re not ready for that, hon, not quite yet.”
“What are we waiting for?” Kay would ask anxiously.
Sue always laughed and said, “You’re not ready, hon, not yet.”
Then the stars started dropping in. The little ones at first, then those who counted. Pretty soon there was a famous crooner dropping in to kibitz on the air with Kay almost every night, and after a while, it was Sue who got her to see that it wasn’t the things she said that mattered — it was the records she played. That was when Kay realized the power she could wield with her little microphone. She was a little afraid of it. But not Sue.
“Be smart, hon,” she used to say. “Play it smart, real smart.”
Whenever a new show opened up and Kay liked it and said so on the air, it was assured of a long run, but if she panned it, it would fold in a few weeks. Yes, Kay Winters had really arrived. She wasn’t at all sure that she enjoyed it.
“You’re big time, Kay. Go on and milk it; milk it for all it’s worth.” That was Sue.
But Kay Winters’ heart was too soft. You had to hurt people, step all over them. She almost quit once. That was when young Don Davis had a chance to get on the Governor’s staff in Albany and asked her to go along. Of course, she didn’t really need Sue to point out the difference between love in a cottage and the life of Kay Winters, glamour-girl disc-jockey — but it helped. What would she do without Sue?
Don was assistant D.A. now, and he dropped in quite frequently. When he did she wasn’t sure any more whether she had been right in not going to Albany with him — in caring for him less than the adoration of the nightly crowd at the Shell-Aire.
Chapter Two
Tune in for Murder
They were looking at her now down on the floor, looking at her, staring at her. She searched their faces frantically. Who was it? Who was it?
She could make out Sue sitting there smiling at her reassuringly. Good old Sue. Not every gal was lucky enough to have a manager like Sue Grinnell!
Nat Peters leaned against the black and gold wood of the bar and watched. He stood there with a vague feeling that perhaps he should count the house, the dozens of heads in front of him, around him, all straining to catch a glimpse of the blonde disc-jockey. But Nat was used to the crowds now. After two years he was used to the nightly swarm of Kay Winters’ admirers. He smiled appraisingly and there was a nice warm feeling inside of him.
A voice behind him said, “What a mob!”
“Yeah,” he agreed happily as he glanced over his shoulder at the portly bartender.
“Like New Year’s Eve, Mr. Peters. Every night like New Year’s Eve.”
Big Nat laughed in a pleased way. “That’s good, Ed. New Year’s Eve, huh?” He said it slowly as if he were tasting it, and he laughed again like a man well satisfied with himself and his accomplishments.
Ed, the bartender, leaned closer. “Can I fix you something, Mr. Peters?”
“Naw, I got troubles here.” He patted his round middle tenderly with a fat right paw.
Ed nodded his bald head and thrust his lower lip out knowingly.
“I see what you mean, Mr. Peters,” he said.
“You can fix me something, Ed,” chimed in another voice, moving next to the fat restaurateur. “There’s nothing wrong with my innards.”
“Sure. What do you drink, mister?”
Nat looked at the tall man with the broad shoulders, clear eyes and dark, wavy hair.
“That ain’t just ‘mister’, Ed,” he corrected. “That’s Mr. Don Davis, the D.A.’s brightest young assistant.”
“Thanks for the build-up, Nat.”
“Give him bourbon, Ed — the good bourbon.”
The bartender snapped his fingers in the air and went to work.
Nat nodded toward Kay Winters up on the platform.
“That’s a gal, huh, that’s a real gal.” There was a big wide grin on his chubby face, but his lids were slits through which the hard gun-barrels of his eyes glistened.
Don turned with his back to the spotlighted platform and picked up the shot glass as fast as the bartender set it down. He swallowed noiselessly and then touched his lips with the back of his forefinger.
“Good bourbon, Nat,” he said but he was thinking about Kay.
These days he was always thinking about Kay. Why the hell did the D.A. send him to Shell-Aire? Of all places, Shell-Aire!
He spun the glass to the white-aproned Ed and tapped Peters on the arm.
“Let’s go somewhere, Nat. I want to talk to you.”
Nat turned slowly as though it were an effort, and there was worry peeking from behind his even smile.
“What’s the matter, kid? Is it Kay again? You still got the romance troubles? Well, I ain’t no cupid, kid.”
Don punched the bar and bit his lip. “This is business, Nat — your kind of business.”
“And yours?” It was like a red light flashing.
“Yeah,” Don gritted, his teeth showing white. “My business, too.” He crooked his fingers around Peters’ elbow. “Yours and mine, Nat.”
The restaurant man’s eyes were opaque pools of surprise.
“You mean it’s official — D.A. stuff?” There was disbelief in his manner and a seared twist to his mouth.
Don nodded at him. “D.A. stuff,” he said. “Coming?”
Nat Peters started to laugh but somehow it had the flat sound of a cracked dish. “C’mon,” he muttered jerkily. “We go to the office, okay?”
Don Davis followed Peters’ fat shape around the outer fringe of tables to a door marked Private. While Nat was keying the door, Don glanced backwards to where Kay was sitting, the microphone cupped tightly in her hand. She was staring at him with a strained expression on her face, her lovely blue eyes sending out signals that he should have recognized. But he turned away and followed Nat Peters.
The assistant D.A. didn’t see anything except Nat Peters’ broad back as he followed him inside the large, lavishly furnished room that served as office for the owner of the Shell-Aire Cocktail Lounge and Restaurant.
Don sat down across the desk from Peters and watched him push a polished walnut humidor towards him. He shook his head and waited for the restaurant man to light up. Peters didn’t seem to be in any hurry as he slowly expelled a dense cloud of blue smoke toward the ceiling, his fingers drumming noisily on the desk top.
“I should call my lawyer, maybe?” he asked.
Don hunched his shoulders, plainly showing his annoyance at the restaurant owner’s casual manner.
Peters noticed the tight lines around his mouth and barked, “You should tell me, young fellow. You should tell me what it is that’s official.”