The unmarked black Chevie sedan prowled slowly east on Baltimore Street towards this tawdry playground. Phil Egan, full of chop suey, slumped behind the wheel, wishing to hell he was back at Muriel’s apartment, with Muriel in his arms, listening to Judy Garland at Carnegie Hall on the hi-fi.
He parked the Chevie in front of Biggy’s Bar on Commerce Street, just off The Block. Biggy’s was near the Gayety Burlesque stagedoor, and, although it advertised itself as a stag bar, strippers from the theatre hung out there along with musicians, stagehands, and comedians.
The show was on in the Gayety so there was only one customer in the bar. The bartender was a fairly attractive girl of about twenty-seven who sat moodily smoking a cigarette behind the polished mahogany. The lone customer was studying the autographed photos of the strippers above the bar mirror.
The bar-doll — that’s what they call lady bartenders in Baltimore — looked up. “Egan,” she said. “What you-all doin’ down heah tonight?” She had all of the Blue Ridge Mountains in her voice. She was one of his people.
“Hello, Marge,” he said. “How’s business?”
She flicked the ashes from her cigarette. “Reckon it’ll pick up when the show breaks. At least, it usually does.”
In a low voice Egan said: “You get anything on that last jewelry heist?”
“The one abaht a week ago? Wheah that salesman got hisself slugged?”
He nodded.
“Uh-uh.”
He took four photos from his pocket and a ten dollar bill from his wallet and held them out to the girl. “You make any of these?”
She studied the four mug shots that the salesman had picked out as possibles. “Naw,” she said finally. “Ah kain’t make a one of ’em.” She looked wistfully at the bill folded between his fingers.
He sighed and put the pictures back in his pocket and the bill in his wallet. “Get anything, call me quick.”
“Ah’ll do that, Egan.”
That was the way it went all night. The people hadn’t gotten a single rumble on the jewelry heists. Snaps O’Toole, who sold girlie magazines and dirty pictures, Loretta, the plump B-girl at the Tampico Club, Ferdy, the bookie at the newsstand on the corner of East Baltimore and Gay Streets, Big Joe, the bouncer at the Troc Sho-Bar — all looked longingly at the ten-spot and regretfully admitted that they hadn’t gotten a thing on the jewelry capers and couldn’t make a mother’s son of the mug shots. It was one A.M. and the last shows were going on in all The Block clubs. He decided to try one more informant — Charmaine, a stripper at the Three O’Clock Club. Her real name was Haydee Melendez and she was a Cuban refugee.
Egan really liked Haydee, who supported her mother and three younger sisters by taking off her clothes for a bunch of drunks twice a night, wheedling drinks for a percentage, acting as a police stoolie, and doing whatever else was necessary to pay the rent for three buggy tenement rooms on Paca Street and some groceries from the supermarket.
The Three O’Clock Club was the usual Baltimore show spot. There was a horseshoe-shaped bar enclosing a stage and runway, and a five-piece band played behind a curtain at the open end of the horseshoe.
There were maybe fifteen men scattered about the bar, most of them carefully nursing a single bottle of beer. Three bartenders, a girl and two men, slouched with their backs to the stage, indifferent to the feigned ecstasies of the undulating peelers.
Phil Egan found a place at the bar. He didn’t see Haydee anywhere. He said to the girl bartender: “Bourbon and water. Charmaine working tonight?”
“Yeah,” the bar-doll said languidly. “She’s back stage gettin’ dressed. She’s on next.”
The girl who was working bumped a final sinuous bump, pulled the pasties from her breasts and threw them to the beer-drinkers, yanked down her transparent panties to give the crowd a completely untrammeled look at her curvacious posterior, and exited to scattered applause.
Then Charmaine came on. She was twenty, blackhaired, brown-eyed, full-figured, with a coffee and cream complexion. She worked strong — she had to; the strong workers were always in demand, and she couldn’t afford long layoffs. In no time at all she was out of her sequin-studded silver dress, and working in a blue strobolite to bring out the full effect of the man’s hands outlined in orange on her buttocks.
She saw Phil Egan and nodded in recognition, but otherwise ignored him as she stripped her brassiere and panties and writhed on the stage in simulated passion. She got a big hand from the beer-drinkers.
She came from backstage wearing the same sequin-studded silver dress she had worn at the beginning of her act.
“’Allo Eegan,” she said, smiling a gold-toothed smile. “’Ow you like me tonight?”
“You’re hotter than three feet inside a furnace,” he said, taking her light brown hand in his. Then in a lower voice: “Let’s talk for a minute.”
She nodded and led him to an unoccupied table between the bar and the wall. One of the bartenders bustled over and he ordered another bourbon and water. She shook her head at the bartender, meaning she didn’t want a drink and this guy wasn’t a mark to be taken.
She took his hand in both of hers. “So, Eegan, wot I do for you?”
“Take a look. Any of ’em ring a bell?” He handed her the four photos, and made sure she saw the folded ten between his fingers.
She looked carefully at the pictures. Three of them she turned down with a shake of the head, but the fourth she studied intently. Then she smiled and deftly plucked the bill from between his fingers.
“Thass heem,” she said. “Thass Pete.”
“Pete who?”
“Pete I don’t know who. Zey jus’ call heem Pete.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“Hees buddies. Two of zem. Zey come here many time for oh, ’bout eight months.”
“Catch any other names?”
“Lemee theenk. Wan zey call Frank. Zat all I hear.”
“Are they heeled?”
She nodded. “Oh, good! Zey buy wheesky, teep big. Five dollah, wan time I treenk wiz zem.”
“What did they talk about?”
She shrugged. “Ball game, horses — I don’t remember.”
“Anything about jewelry?”
Her eyes opened wide. “Joolry? No, I don’ theenk—”
“Haydee, the next time they come in, try to get their names and addresses. It’ll be worth fifty.”
“Feefty dollah? Oh, I try hard, Eegan!”
“So long, Haydee. You’re a good kid.” He kissed her lightly on the cheek.
She giggled and said: “Not like zat, Eegan. Like zis.” She kissed him on the lips, her full mouth working sensuously against his.
“Very nice,” he said. “Thanks, Haydee. And don’t forget those names and addresses.”
Well, it wasn’t much to show for a night’s work, but it was something. Binky Byers, the fat hoodlum tentatively identified by Feldman as one of his assailants, was still in town, was hanging around The Block with two pals, and was calling himself Pete.
Wearily he headed the black Chevie towards his apartment on Calvert Street.
4.
Two nights later Egan had dinner at Muriel’s. Afterwards they made a fire, threw some pillows on the floor in front of the fireplace, and lay there, sipping brandy and listening to the hi-fi. It was cozy and warm, and so was Muriel, but at 11:25, just as their kisses were beginning to take on a new meaning, the phone rang.
“Let it ring,” he groaned.
“Damn! I’d like to.” But she got up and answered it Then she held it out to him. “It’s for you.”