“You get out!” Bridewell yelled at him. “Don’t tell me what to do. Don’t come around threatening me, you hear.”
Terrell shook his head slowly. “You don’t just go to jail for murder, Mr. Bridewell. You go to hell.”
Bridewell didn’t answer; he tried to speak but no words passed his dry lips. And Terrell saw from the frightened look in his eyes that he had finally shaken him. “Good night,” he said.
From Bridewell’s home, Terrell drove to The Mansions, Ike Cellars’ big and brilliant nightclub in center-city. The head — waiter, Miguel, greeted him cordially and sent a message back to Connie Blacker with a bus boy.
“Drink?” Miguel said. “A touch of our old, old scotch? My compliments?”
“No, thanks. Another time, Miguel.”
“As you wish.”
A few early diners sat about the large, graceful room, eating the best food in the city, and listening to a girl on the bandstand who was playing soft, excellent piano. The bartenders stood with arms folded, grave, clean-shaven, white-jacketed, their eyes occasionally checking the tools of their craft, the lemon peel and orange slices, the fat cherries and pale yellow cocktail onions, the racks of glasses and mixers, and the sinksful of ice cubes and shavings. The atmosphere was quiet and expectant; from hatcheck girl to master of ceremonies, they were ready for the evening’s trade.
The bus boy returned and told him Miss Blacker was waiting in her dressing room. Terrell nodded a so-long to Miguel and crossed the floor to the corridor that led to the entertainers’ quarters. She was waiting for him at the door of her room, and in the soft light her eyes seemed very dark.
“I’m glad you could make it,” she said.
“You sounded pretty urgent.”
“Come in, please. It’s cluttered, but there’s a spare chair and an extra ashtray.”
“Men have lived and died with a lot less,” Terrell said. She was nervous as hell about something, he realized. Shaking in her boots.
The room was functional, and not much else; the walls were painted gray, and there was a vanity, a clothes rack, and a few straight-backed chairs.
“How’s your job coming along?” he asked her.
“Pretty well. I’m about one notch above a cigarette girl. I do a chorus with the band in the closing number — and I have a little stooge routine with the MC.” She smiled rather quickly. “Please sit down.”
“You’ll get along,” he said. “Places like this always need icing.” That was putting it clinically, he thought. She was more than just icing. More like something from the top of a Christmas tree. Like a doll. She wore a ribbon in her short, yellow hair, and her skin was like a young girl’s, flawless and clean without make-up. Her costume gave her figure an assist it didn’t really need; a white blouse, triangular shorts and full-length mesh hose — with her tiny waist and long, beautiful legs, the effect was stunning. But Terrell had an illogical feeling that she didn’t belong in Ike Cellars’ elaborately camouflaged clip joint. She was decorative certainly, but she was more than that. She belonged in a home that smelled of clean babies and a pot roast for Sunday dinner, with maybe a log fire and martinis thrown in. But he could be wrong.
“What did you want to see me about?”
She glanced at the door. “If I told you something you could use — what would I get out of it?”
“The usual tawdry things,” he said wearily. “Peace of mind, self-respect, an easy conscience. It’s a good trade.”
She sat down slowly, watching him now. “Nothing else?”
“You mean something clean and idealistic — like cash?”
She crossed her legs and moved her foot about in a quick circle. “That’s it,” she said. The light above the dressing table played with rhinestones on her small black velvet pumps. She glanced toward the door again, and Terrell saw her hands were gripping the edges of the chair.
“I think we might make a deal,” he said.
“How much would you give me?”
“Connie, I’m with a big, rich paper. But we didn’t get big and rich paying for tips in advance. I’ll need an idea of what you’ve got.”
She leaned toward him suddenly. “Get out of here,” she said, in a breathless, desperate voice. “Get out fast.”
Terrell stood quickly, but the door was already opening and he realized that he was too late. Frankie Chance came into the room, his deceptively gentle brown eyes alight with anger and excitement. Behind him was one of Ike Cellars’ bodyguards, a tall, wide man named Briggs.
“I told you not to bother her,” Frankie said.
“She wasn’t complaining,” Terrell said.
Frankie glanced at her. “Soft-hearted, doesn’t want to finger you, that’s all. But I know the story. You had a few drinks, Sam, and you began to get ideas.”
“This is pretty stupid — even for you,” Terrell said.
“Two things Ike won’t stand for are drunks and guys who molest his girls.”
“Judas Priest,” Terrell said. “Ike Cellars, defender of last year’s virgins. It’s your move, Frankie.”
Briggs put a huge hand on Terrell’s arm. “We’ll just escort you to your car.”
“Thanks for nothing,” Terrell said. He tried to pull his arm free but Briggs’ hand was as firm as a concrete cast. He looked at Connie then, but she turned away from him and sat down on the chair in front of the dressing table. “Nice going,” he said.
Briggs led him through the doorway, and glanced at Frankie Chance. “Back way?”
“Sure,” Frankie said, taking Terrell’s free arm. “It doesn’t look good dragging drunks across the dance floor.”
They took Terrell through the kitchen and out to the parking lot in the rear which was used for overflow business. Now it was empty and quite dark. An attendant came out of the shadows and flipped his cigarette aside. He seemed to know what was expected of him.
Briggs pushed Terrell against a brick wall, and the attendant and Chance held his arms.
“Sam, you’ve been a nuisance,” Frankie said.
“Get it over with,” Terrell said.
“Well, you tough sonofabitch,” Frankie said, laughing softly.
Briggs rubbed his hands with a gesture of a man about to go to work. He opened a flask then and splashed whiskey over Terrell’s face and shirt front. “Shame to waste it,” he muttered. Then he hit Terrell in the stomach with his free hand, bringing the punch up with a kind of lazy power. Frankie and the attendant tightened their grips as Terrell pitched forward, gagging against the pain spreading from his loins to his throat. Briggs hit him a dozen times, methodically and thoughtfully, and then paused and took a pull at the flask he held in his left hand.
Terrell couldn’t fight the pain any longer. He began to moan and when the sound came from him Briggs slapped him back and forth across the mouth with a hand as big and hard as a ping-pong paddle. “That should do it,” he said when Terrell was quiet once more.
“Take him home,” Frankie said to the parking lot attendant. “We don’t want him cluttering up the alley.”
15
Terrell lay on the sofa in his apartment, breathing with infinite care against a frightening pain that moved up and down his body with the rise and fall of his chest. He stared at the dark ceiling, too spent to make himself a drink or get out of his clothes.
The clock in the Insurance Building struck eleven and then twelve, but it wasn’t until after one that Terrell stood and limped unsteadily into the bathroom. He needed water desperately; his throat was raw and dry, and the air in the room was like the gust from a blast furnace.
The first glass of water didn’t stay down, but that made him feel better. He sipped more, and was able to control the shudders that had been shaking his body. His face wasn’t too badly marked up; there were flecks of black blood on his lips and his skin had the white, poreless look of ivory. But his body had taken a beating, although he was fairly certain that nothing important had been ruptured or broken. He cleaned himself up and went into the kitchen. Fortunately there was cold coffee in the pot and he filled a glass three-quarters full and topped it with whiskey. With the drink and a cigarette he limped back to the couch, completely exhausted, his heart beating protestingly in his ears.