I looked along the bar. The four people at the bar all had that relaxed, smug and slightly giddy look that comes when you’re on the edge of being tight. I knew them all. I waved and made greeting sounds. I straddled a stool next to Pete Saterlee, the county road commissioner and a wealthy, retired contractor.
Saterlee was the big, hearty, man-of-distinction type. Florid, always expertly barbered complexion. Clipped military gray mustache. A handsome, middle-aged man in sport jacket and slacks, oozing success and well-being.
“Pete,” I said. “What’s new? I mean, I have to ask that. You know how we reporters are. Not that I ever expect to get anything but double-talk from you wily politicians.”
He rocked back on the stool. His fine gray brows raised. “New?” He made a sweeping gesture that included everybody at the bar. “You hear that, folks? This backwoods newsboy asks me what’s new! What do you think we’re stoking up so heavily for? This is a celebration, son. Tell him, Harry!”
Harry Wenzel had gone behind the bar. He was unchaining Satan from the ring in the floor. He grinned across the bar at me. “Yeah, Matty,” he said. “You bumped into a real party tonight. We’re celebrating. Pete Saterlee brought me news that I’m goin’ to be a rich man before long, kid. The county’s going to run a parkway through this section, right at the edge of my property. It’s going to hook up with Route Seventy. You know what that means, boy?”
While I was letting the news sink in, Harry ordered Gus Berkaw, his bartender, who had been sitting around at the front of the bar while Harry was putting on his exhibition with Satan, to take over and fix me a drink.
On the other side of Saterlee, Eric Fabian, leaned forward and looked around Saterlee, toward me. Eric was in his early forties but he still looked like a beach resort life guard. He had a thick mop of wavy, yellow-blond hair, and his features were cut in what was almost classic perfection.
He had made himself a small fortune as a juvenile star in the movies just before silent pictures went out. He was supposed to have invested most of it wisely and as far as anyone knew, he never did a lick of work and had no other source of income.
“I’ll tell you what it means, Matty,” Eric Fabian said. He had a harsh, gutteral quality to his voice that had ended his movie career when sound came in. “It means Loon Lodge is going to be worth a fortune, once that new highway is in. It won’t be just a backwoods gin-mill and occasional flop-place for fisherman. It’ll be right out front with a million cars going past its doors over weekends.
“With the right handling, a guy will be able to clean up. I got so enthusiastic about the idea, I offered Harry twenty-five grand cash, on the spot, for the place when I heard the news.”
I made a whistling noise through my teeth. I was impressed. Now I knew why they weren’t talking about fishing, why they were going heavy on the liquor. This wasn’t going to be any ordinary, pre-opening day get-together. It was going to be rough. I almost wished I hadn’t come.
The other side of Eric Fabian, Irma Wenzel was saying something about what a damned fool her husband was, not to grab Eric’s offer. After all, she said, a bird in the hand and all that and twenty-five thousand wasn’t horse chestnuts. Her low, furry voice sounded a bit thick and too high pitched. I figured she was maybe four or five drinks ahead of the crowd.
The piano player was going to work again. He was knocking out a low-key, throbbing blues and his fingers weren’t just educated, they had half a dozen degrees. From the back, he looked like a short, dumpy, round-shouldered little old man. But it wasn’t him I was really looking at. It was the girl, standing next to the piano, watching him play.
Chapter Two
Poker for Blood
A little better than average height she was wearing jodhpurs and a black, turtle neck sweater. Her hair hung long and shimmering blonde and ended up around her shoulder blades in loosely rolled scrolls of gold. She had her back to me and I couldn’t see her face and something had to be done about that.
The piano player looked up and I recognized him, then. It was Willis Marlow, who had recently opened up a record and music shop in Wildwood. I’d seen him around town and heard about him, but I had never met him. Word had gotten around that up until recently, he’d played piano with just about every name band in the country.
The girl turned, then and I had never seen her before. I wondered who she was and where she’d been hiding. If somebody had kept her under lock and key, I wouldn’t have been surprised. She was treasure enough to do that. She wasn’t just pretty. The nose and the mouth were a trifle on the large side and her forehead was too high and broad but on her those faults looked good. It gave a certain character to her features that mere prettiness couldn’t touch.
It was the eyes that really got me, though. They were wide-set and hazel brown, deep and soft. The lashes were like the long, spiked, sticky jobs that chorus girls affect. Only these were real and they hadn’t been doctored up. She gave me a wisp of a smile and took a sip of a very weak looking highball.
Marlow lifted his fingers from the keys and glanced up at me. “Hi,” I said. “Don’t let me interrupt. That was swell stuff. You don’t know me but my name’s Hoyle. Matty Hoyle. I work for the Wildwood Press.”
He stuck out a soft white hand with long, agile looking fingers. “Pleasure,” he said. “I’m Willis Marlow. Run the new music shop. Been meaning to run over to your place to see about some advertising.”
“Didn’t Sam Walterman get around to see you, yet? He’s our huckster. Must be slipping.”
“No.” Marlow reached for a shot glass of whiskey set on top of the piano next to a chaser of water. He put it down neat and didn’t bother with the water. I saw his eyes, then and they were a squinty, watery blue. They were red veined. There was a slight tic to one corner of his mouth.
He weaved momentarily on the piano stool and caught himself, rigidly. He was quite drunk but in the quiet way that a life-time drinker, an alcoholic, often gets. He gestured toward the girl.
“Matty, meet my daughter, Lee. Fine girl. Been away to school. Reason we’re here, Harry Wenzel stopped in the shop last week for some recordings. Got to chinning and he found out I’m a fishing bug and so’s Lee. He invited us up.”
I saw some fishing gear on top of the piano and ducked my head toward it. “Who owns the spinning outfit?” I said.
Lee Marlow said, “I do.” She made an impatient gesture. “I wish I’d brought my regular casting rod and reel along, though. I can’t get used to that one. I’ll probably make a fool of myself, tomorrow. So you’re Matty Hoyle. I’ve heard that you’re the fishing champ around here.”
I shrugged and shifted my feet awkwardly. Her smile was making me feel like a schoolboy. “I keep my line wet and try hard and sometimes I have some luck.”
“Like landing the biggest bass and pickerel to come out of Loon Lake, on the same day. That isn’t luck. That’s genius.”
I felt the blush rising from my collar and wondered what was the matter with me. I reached to the top of the piano and took hold of the whip-like spinning rod and reel. “This thing shouldn’t bother you too much,” I told her. “You’ll get used to it after the first dozen casts tomorrow. I like these outfits. Got one myself.”
“How about a demonstration?” she said. “Show me what can be done with one of those things by an expert.”
“Here?” I said. “Tomorrow, I’ll show you, maybe. Not here.”
“Please,” she said, softly and if she’d asked me to flap my arms and fly, I’d have done it.
I folded up a matchbook cover and tied it on the end. It was a little light and with a regular casting rod it would have been tough going, but I thought I could handle it with this outfit. An impulse to show off, like a kid riding a bicycle no-hands past his girl’s house, came over me and I’m not apologizing. That’s just the way it was. That’s the way Lee Marlow was hitting me. I took a round, cardboard beer glass coaster from the top of the piano and scaled it across the room. It rolled near the far wall, about twenty-five feet away.