Johnny Liddell walked down the short flight of steps from the street level, stood in the doorway looking around. He squinted into the dimness, satisfied himself that the piano on the small dais at the far end of the room was unoccupied. In another corner of the room, a tall, shaggy type in black beret and shapeless slacks and sport shirt was reading some German verse with almost comic gestures. Sitting at his feet, a bearded man was pounding unmelodiously on a pair of bongos.
Suddenly, one of the girls at a nearby table jumped to her feet, started to wave and sway in zombie-like fashion, with no expression and less grace. Nobody paid any attention.
Liddell wandered in, felt his way to a canvas chair near the wall. In a moment, one of the long-haired hostesses materialized in the dusk.
“Bob Horton going to show tonight?” he asked.
The waitress bobbed her head. “Sure thing, Pops.”
“I hear he’s pretty good.”
“Good? He’s away out. I dig him the most, man. The most. You for refreshment or just for the kicks, Pops?”
“Got any Scotch?”
The girl shook her head with no show of enthusiasm. “Chianti. Or beer.” She brushed some stray hairs from her face, “You’re too far downtown for Twenty-one, man. Which? Chianti or beer?”
“Beer.”
The girl bobbed her head, turned, worked her way through the close-set chairs. Her jeans were easily two sizes too small.
Liddell settled back, watched the gyrations of the girl dancing to the bongo beat. He became aware of a girl sitting to his left who seemed to find him interesting. Unlike most of the wild hairdos in the place, she sported a pert gamin cut, affected a cigarette holder tilted from the corner of her mouth. When he turned to return her gaze, she grinned at him.
“Slumming, Pops?”
He grinned back. “I heard about Bob Horton. They tell me he’s the swingingest. I had to hear for myself.”
The girl picked up her chair, moved it over to where Liddell sat. The man she had been sitting with gave them both a disinterested look, shrugged. He turned to the girl on his other side.
She looked at the other man as though she’d never seen him before. “I been with him since last night, man. When you’re making it with a cat, why that’s great. But you can’t stick around forever, man. You want kicks, you got to keep moving. You dig?”
“I dig.” He waited while the waitress opened a bottle of beer, set it on the floor next to his chair, shoved a folded bill at her. “You like a beer or a chianti?” he asked the girl sitting next to him.
She held up the cigarette holder. “I’m swinging. Real crazy.” She watched while he poured some beer into his glass. “You get your kicks from that? That’s real square, Pops. Try Pall Mall”, she indicated the reefer. “It’s real wild.”
A broad-shouldered man with a shock of black hair accentuating the pallor of his complexion, walked in the front door, headed toward a door set next to the dais on which the piano stood.
“There’s Horton,” the girl told him dreamily. “I dig him, Pops. I really dig him the most”
“What’s back there? Behind that door?”
The girl with the gamin cut seemed to be having trouble focusing her eyes on Liddell’s face. “He pads down there between blasts.” She eyed him curiously. “I’m beginning to think maybe I don’t dig you, Pops. You’re not here for kicks, are you?”
“Matter of fact, I came to see Horton — not to hear him.” He set his glass down by the side of his chair. “Whereabouts is this pad of his back there?”
“Look, Pops, I dig Horton. When he starts sending, man, I get so high I know everything. I mean, like I know why.” She shook her head. “But Horton can be a mean cat, Pops. Oh man, you don’t want to interfere with him with his kick. I mean, man, what a drag.”
“Real violent type, huh?”
The girl stared down at her cigarette, a glassiness was beginning to come into her eyes. “For kicks, Dad, anything. He’s away out. Away out.”
Liddell pulled himself out of the canvas chair, started to feel his way through the closely packed chairs toward the door in the rear. By the time he’d reached the door, the girl with the gamin cut had moved in on another man, seemed to forget Liddell had ever existed.
The other side of the door led to a damp-smelling passageway. There was a door on either side of the short passage. Liddell walked up to one, put his ear to it, listened. He could hear nothing but his own breathing. He reached down, turned the knob, pushed it open. It was stacked high with junk, appeared to be a catch-all for the buildings above whose cellar space the Nest had preempted.
He walked to the other door, knocked. After a moment, the door opened. Bob Horton was a few inches shorter than Liddell, but he made up in breadth what he lacked in height. His face, though, was sallow, had a yellowish tinge. His hair showed the effects of having been raked by his fingers. He eyed Liddell hostilely.
“Yeah?”
“My name’s Liddell, Horton. I’m investigating your brother’s death.”
The man inside the door made an attempt at a sneer, didn’t quite make it come off. “He’s dead, isn’t he? So what’s to investigate?” He started to close the door.
Liddell put his shoulder to the door, sent the other man reeling back into the room. Horton recovered with amazing speed, moved in on Liddell. He threw a high left to the head which Johnny fielded with the side of his arm, took a glancing blow to the side of the jaw. It was too high to do much damage. But Liddell didn’t get out of the way of a looping uppercut in time. He was slammed back into the wall, and slid to a sitting position on the floor.
He scrambled to his feet in time to handle the other man’s rush to end the fight. His first left caught Horton in the side of the head, spun him halfway around. As Horton tried to right himself, Liddell buried a right in his midsection, then slammed his left against the side of the pianist’s head as he jack-knifed. Horton spun around fell forward, knocked over a chair as he hit the floor. He struggled to rise, slumped back on his face.
Liddell caught him under the arms, dragged him to the unmade bed, dumped him onto it. He reached down, caught the cuff of Horton’s sleeve, rolled back the sleeve. The entire inner surface of the arm was pitted with needle scars and small ulcers.
He righted the chair, pulled it close to the bed, waited for the pianist to come to life. After a moment, Horton managed to sit up. He swung his legs off the bed, staggered to the small lavatory and retched.
When he came out of the lavatory, his eyes were watery, his hair hung dankly over his face. “I’ll kill you for that, mister.”
“You’ve done all the killing you’re going to do, Pops,” Liddell told him.
Horton’s eyes narrowed. “Who sent you here? My wife?”
“Maybe.” Liddell waited until the pianist had walked back to the bed, dropped onto it. “She thinks you killed your brother. She wants to be sure before she goes to the police.” He watched the man on the bed, got no reaction.
Finally, Horton looked up. “My brother was killed by a hit and runner. Why should I kill him?”
“For the insurance. Because your wife was getting ready to divorce you and marry him.”
Horton fumbled through his pockets, found no cigarettes, finally picked a crumpled butt out of the ashtray near the bed. “That’s crazy. Jack wouldn’t marry her. And she knows it.”
“You and your brother were on bad terms. He wouldn’t lend you any money to feed that monkey of yours.”
Horton made an involuntary motion toward his left arm, quickly dropped his hand. “Jack and I made that up. Right here in the club the night he was killed.”