He had to swallow a couple of times before he could get his voice out. “I’m not — hiding out. What’s the matter, Billie?”
“Hal Thatcher’s dead down in that room in the basement where we have our jam-sessions! I woke up just now and — he was right there in front of me, hanging from the pipes.” She stared at him. “Frankie! Pull yourself together. Didn’t you hear what I just said to you?”
He held up three fingers, looked at her with fear-dilated eyes.
She seemed to understand what he meant by the gesture. “Yes, it looks like we’re jinxed. But if we once let ourselves believe it, then we are jinxed for fair.”
“I’m going to get out of this crew,” he stammered. “I’m... I’m quitting right now. I’d rather be out of work than... than—”
“This is no time to talk that way! We can’t let Dusty down now, of all times. This is when we should stick by him. Don’t be a welsher, Frankie. You haven’t told me yet why you were skulking up here, peeping out through a crack in the door at me.”
His eyes dropped before her scrutiny. “I wandered up here when the session wound up. I tried to get some sleep curled up in the bathtub. It was the only thing I could find for a bed.”
“How’d you get your hair all wet like that?”
“My head was splitting. I ran some water from the shower on it just now when I woke up, trying to get it down to its right size again.”
Her eyes sought the nickeled dial of the shower fixture. It was dry as sandpaper. Not a drop clung to it. She didn’t say anything.
“What’re you asking me all kinds of questions for?” he flared out suddenly, nerves on edge.
“Try to pull yourself together, Frankie,” she said coldly, turning away. “Run out and drink some black coffee. I thought I was shot, but I’m all in one solid chunk compared to you.”
He took out a pocket comb, ran it through his hair. “What’re you going to do?” he asked her apprehensively.
“Where did Dusty go? We’ve got to get hold of him and tell him.”
“Back to his hotel, I guess. Or maybe to a Turkish bath.”
“If I can’t reach him, I’ll have to notify the police on my own.”
He dropped the comb, picked it up again, blew through its teeth. “It’s not going to look so hot for me, y’know.”
“Why should it look bad for you? I suppose you mean because he gave you that shiner last night. What do you suggest we do, not notify the police? Bury him under the cellar floor or something?” She dropped her voice and tapped his shirt-front with one finger. “I don’t like the way you’re acting, Frankie. Before I ring anyone else in on this, you’d better tell me — do you know more about this than you’re letting on? Did you know it had happened before I came up and told you just now? Had you already seen him like that? Is that why you ran and hid up here?”
His weak, chalky face twitched spasmodically. His hand started toward her arm, appealingly, then he dropped it again. “N-no,” he said, “I didn’t.”
The girl gave him a skeptical look. “I hope for your own sake that’s on the level,” she said. “Here goes for the cops.”
Chapter Two
Two Out of Three
A detective named Lindsey was the first one to get there, even before Dusty Detwiller, the band-leader. She’d put in her call direct to headquarters, without bothering to send out for a neighborhood cop. They’d been through this twice before, and she knew by now the policeman was just an intermediate step. Headquarters was always notified in the end anyway.
She was holding the fort alone, down in the jam-session room, when he got there. Armstrong was still stupefied up in his room, Frankie was around the corner trying to steady himself on coffee, Detwiller was getting an alcohol-rub downtown at the Thebes Baths, and she hadn’t been able to locate Kershaw, the fifth member of the Sandmen. Her nerves were calmer now, she didn’t mind going back in there as much as at first. Besides, she wanted to make sure that nothing was touched. They always seemed to attach a lot of importance to that, though of course that was in cases of murder. This was plainly a suicide.
She had had no reason to like Hal Thatcher while he was still alive, so she couldn’t really feel bad about his going. She wondered what had made him do it. She sat with her back to him, on the piano-bench, looking the other way. She kept her face down toward the floor. It was pretty horrible when you looked squarely up at him. It was bad enough just to see his long attenuated shadow on the basement floor, thrown by the light coming in more strongly now through the sidewalk-vent.
The voice of Hoff, the janitor, sounded outside, asking questions, so she knew that her vigil was over at last. “Somebody in the house sent for you? Who? That’s the first I know about anyt’ing being wrong. Them musickaners, I bet. I knew it! I’m only surprised it didn’t happen already before now—”
The door flung open and this detective came in, a uniformed cop behind him. She looked up relievedly, threw down her cigarette.
He wasn’t a particularly handsome individual, but she thought what a relief it was to see a man with healthy brown color in his face for a change, instead of the yeasty night-pallor she was used to. His eyes went up toward the ceiling behind her, came down again. Then they switched over to her.
“You the girl that phoned in?”
“Yes,” she said quietly.
“Pretty cool little number, aren’t you?” he told her. She couldn’t tell whether he meant it admiringly or unfavorably. To tell the truth she didn’t care much.
“The boys’ instruments are all in here, and I thought I’d better keep an eye on them until you people got here,” she explained. “I woke up in here with him, so I didn’t think it would hurt to stay a minute or two more.”
“All right, let me have his name, please.” He took out a little notebook.
“Hal Thatcher.”
He scribbled. “You say you found him like this when you woke up, Mrs. Thatcher?”
A circumflex accent etched the corner of her mouth. “No, you don’t understand. I’m not married to him. We worked together in the same band, that’s all. I’m the canary and he played the slush-pump.” She saw his face redden a little, as if he felt he’d made a social error. “Oh, because I said I woke up— No, we were having a jam-session, and I fell asleep there at the piano, that’s what I meant. We rent this room from the building-owner, come up here after work about two or three in the morning every once in a while and play for our own amusement — you know, improvise. That’s what a jam-session is.”
He nodded almost inattentively, but she had a feeling he’d heard every word. “What went on last night, to the best of your recollection? Better let me have your name too, while we’re about it.”
“Billie Bligh. The formal of that is Wilhelmina. About last night — nothing any different from any other time. The way these sessions come up is, Dusty — he’s our front man, the leader, you know — will say ‘How about having a session tonight?’ and so we all agree and have one. We left the Troc, that’s the club where we work, about three, and piled into a couple of taxis, instruments and all, and came on up. We sat around chinning and smoking for a while, waiting for the spirit to move us—”
He eyed the gin bottles meaningfully, but didn’t say anything.
“Some of the boys had a few nips to warm up,” she agreed deprecatingly. “Then finally somebody uncased his instrument and started tootling around, and one by one everyone else joined in, and first thing you know we were all laying it in the groove. That’s how those things go. In about two hours we were all burned out, they started dropping out again one by one. That’s when I laid my head on the piano and dozed off. The others must have left after that, and Thatcher stayed behind, and the willies got him and—”