“Hi, Mac,” said my bartender. “You back already?”
“Who can resist Nirvana?” I said.
“You looking for Miss Sierra?”
“Yes,” I said.
“She ain’t in a good mood, if you ask me. What did you do to her, Mac?”
“Nothing,” I said.
“Maybe that’s why she ain’t in a good mood. Why don’t you go try again?”
“I’m going,” I said.
This time I bought one dollar’s worth of tickets. I found the lady in red seated at exactly the same table, and alone. She seemed to be studying the untouched drink in front of her, but that study was not all-inclusive because she said, without looking up, “Sit down, lover. Glad you’re back. Have a drink. Glasses on the tray, bottle under the table. And it’s Scotch.”
I reached and found the bottle and it had hardly been used. I poured, restored the bottle, said, “You off the stuff?”
“Oh, I don’t deny I like to drink,” she said. “But I like to drink with company I like. You’re company I like, but you weren’t here. Where were you?”
“Looking at pictures,” I said and I brought them out, full face and profile, and I handed them to her quick-like, all of a sudden — and I saw her start before she pulled back into control. “Do you know the guy?” I said.
“No,” she said and returned the pictures.
“Ever see the guy?” I put the pictures back in my pocket.
“Where’d you get those pictures?” she said.
“A friend of mine gave them to me.”
“Give them back to him. Because they’re trouble.”
“How would you know? You never saw the guy, remember?”
“I’m psychic,” she said, and she smiled, and I wished I could stay with her.
“I’m going up to see your boss again,” I said.
“Look, let’s stop playing shuttle-cock. You my date for this evening, or no?”
“Yes, but I got work to do in between.”
“Well, if you’re not back within an hour after you get out of here, I’m not waiting. We’ll catch up another evening.”
“I’ll try to be back,” I said.
“It’s your life,” she said. She looked at me, dark-eyed sullen for a moment, looked past me. “Don’t bother going upstairs for the boss,” she said. “He’s at the coffee-bar, and he’s watching us as if he’s expecting us to break a law.”
I did not turn around. I said, “I’d like to talk to him alone.”
“You mean you want me to blow?”
“Just so’s I can talk to him alone.”
She stood up and kissed the top of my head, lightly. “Good bye, crazy-joe. The hell with you.”
She went away.
I reached down for the bottle to add more color to my drink and saw the well-shod feet stop at my table. I said, still stooped for the bottle, and just to impress him with my prowess as a peeper: “Sit down, Steve. Have a drink. On the house.”
I heard his chuckle.
“Not drinking,” he said. “Thanks. But I’ll sit.”
He sat.
I put the bottle back under the table.
He reached across the table for my drink and drank from it. “I’m going to break down for you, fella,” he said. “Because that son of a bitch George Phillips tried to give you information that put me in the middle.”
“Like what?” I said.
“Like that bull about my threatening Vivian.”
“That was bull?”
“Bull,” he said. “He’s full of it. His name isn’t George Phillips; it’s Gordon Phelps.”
“Who’s Gordon Phelps?” I said.
“A very rich bitch,” he said, “who as George Phillips has himself a ball.”
“How do you know?” I said.
“Vivian told me.”
“Why did she tell you?”
“Because like she had him hooked. Because like she was trying to figure out how to make it pay off. So she took me into her confidence. She asked me for advice, how she could put the hooks in.”
“And did you tell her?” I said.
“I don’t monkey in that stuff. And if I did, I wouldn’t monkey with a dame like Vivian. She was too... unpredictable.”
“So how’d she do with Phelps-Phillips?”
“She discussed him with me. She had him hooked. He really went for her. Even gave her a gun once to protect herself. She asked me to check if he was really Gordon Phelps. I checked. He was. Then she figured she’d hit him for fifty — fifty big ones. She asked me if he could stand a shove like that. I told her he could.”
“So?”
“So, maybe even if he could stand that shove, he figured it would only be the first of many.”
“Are you trying to say he killed her?”
“He tried to put me in the middle, didn’t he? I figure he told you what he was supposed to have overheard between me and Vivian — to put you on to me for that murder. Okay, so I’m putting it right back on him. Like that we’re even up. You go from there, fella.”
“Where do Mousie and Kiddy go?”
“Pardon!” he snapped.
“Mousie Lawrence and Kiddy Malone.”
“You’re using fancy names, fella. Better watch your step.”
“You know them?”
“No.”
“It gets around to murder — everybody tells a lot of lies, Stevie.” I pushed back from the table and stood up.
“You leaving our attractions?” he said and the capped teeth gleamed in an ironic smile.
“Reluctantly,” I said.
“Why don’t you stick around? I been told Sierra’s done a flip. Sierra don’t flip often. Why don’t you take advantage of it?”
“Got to go talk to people,” I said, “to people that talk the truth. I’m going to talk to a stoolie, Stevie. Wish me luck.”
“Good luck,” he said and his soft voice had the flat rasp of a dull knife cutting stale bread.
5
Lorenzo’s was a discreet supper club between Park and Madison on Fifty-third Street, which served string music with its meals — fiddles, zither, and two guitars. It was a plush joint that catered to a late crowd. The inner room had a recessed upstairs gallery, much sought after by the stay-uppers: it was a mark of distinction or a mark of a large gratuity to the maitre d’ to be escorted to the upstairs gallery. It was also the mark of having once been pointed out by the proprietor of the establishment.
I was instantly escorted to the gallery and I was seated at a corner table, alone. I inquired of Mr. Dixon, and I was informed that he would be with me shortly. And shortly, he made his appearance, plump in a fastidious dinner jacket, smiling and affable. He was short, fat, smooth and bald, clear gray eyes swimmingly magnified behind the thick lenses of black-rimmed, studious, straight-templed spectacles.
“Ah, Mr. Chambers,” he said in a voice like the purr of a cream-fed cat. “Always welcome.” He sat down, sighingly, opposite me. “I am breathless in anticipation. I hope it’s big.”
“Not too,” I said.
“That’s what all my customers say — but, of course, since it is their money, they’re prejudiced. I’m prejudiced too, I suppose, but let me be the judge. What is it, Mr. Chambers?”
“Steve Pedi. Mousie Lawrence. Kiddy Malone.”
“Together, or separate?”
“Pedi is separate. Mousie and Kiddy are together.”
“Which is as it should be,” he said. “On one category, you’re going to save money. What I have to offer on Pedi isn’t worth any money.”
“Will you offer it, please?”
“With pleasure,” he said. “Stephan Burton Pedi owns a ballroom called The Nirvana. He bought the joint about ten years ago, but he didn’t operate it himself. He had connections in California, Canada, Florida, and France — some kind of business connections. He’d come in, now and then, and look things over at The Nirvana, but he only took over active operation a few months ago.”