McCallen hit the brakes hard and we skidded. I braced myself, but no impact came. Instead he let forth with a forceful flow of volcanic cursing at some other driver.
"d.a.m.ned drunk!" he concluded, brutally shifting gears and hitting the gas as though to make up for lost time. I braced again in the small s.p.a.ce, glumly reflecting that I wasn"t exactly getting paid for this little adventure.
"That detective she"s got, he can"t always be with her, can he?" asked the mystery man, Paterno.
"She"s got money enough to hire a dozen watchdogs twenty-four hours a day."
"If you can"t get past them-"
"I"ll get past "em, never you worry, and pay "em back double. b.l.o.o.d.y b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, tearing through my house like it was b.l.o.o.d.y Grand Central Station."
A gross exaggeration. I"d been very careful to put everything back again. Including the cat"s box. McCallen hadn"t been nearly so neat when he"d ransacked the Sommerfeld place.
"But when?" Paterno sounded impatient. "The people that want it won"t wait forever."
"I said never you worry, I need their money too much to delay things. I"ll keep an eye on her, bide my time, and then as soon as she"s alone-"
"Bide your time?" Disbelief from Paterno.
"If that"s what it takes, yes, and b.u.g.g.e.r the buyers. They know how valuable the property is. They"ll wait if need be, but I promise you it won"t be long."
"I should hope not."
McCallen made a sharp turn, slowed, and stopped. "Come on, I"ve a bad taste in my mouth that wants changin" for the better."
They got out, slamming the doors, leaving me in silence except for a few cars going by. I waited a few moments, then cautiously raised my head. I saw McCallen and a smaller, thinner man walking away down the sidewalk toward a tavern. They went inside.
I let myself out for a look around, finally getting a street name and block number from the sign at the corner. The neighborhood seemed familiar, the houses at one end all having the same age and look about them. McCallen had taken us toward his home. This was probably the bar where he spent his evening hours.
If he was drinking, then giving him my special evil-eye whammy wouldn"t work. I decided to go into the bar anyway, just to try my luck. Maybe I could persuade him to step outside before he got oiled up. That would solve a lot of problems.
The street was lined with modest businesses-shoe repair, candy store, a clothing shop, and the like. The two largest were a drugstore on one corner and the bar on the opposite. All must have been there for a long, long time and verged on shabby, but weren"t mean enough to have completely toppled into decrepitude.
The red neon sign behind the tavern"s front window said MOE"S, in flowing script. I didn"t think it had anything to do with the Three Stooges. I pushed through the door. Nothing pretentious here: peanut sh.e.l.ls on the floor, the smell of wood polish, beer, and booze. The bar ran nearly the length of the dim room, which was wider than it looked from the outside. The wall between this building and the one next door had been knocked through; tables and booths were set up in the extra open s.p.a.ce. For a Sunday night the joint had a good crowd, mostly young twenties, mostly male, though some had brought dates. They all had that wholesome-but-willing-to-be-corrupted-so-long-as-their- parents-didn"t-find-out look of college students.
There was quite a knot of them gathered in one corner, where a man with a thick brush of salt-and-pepper hair perched on a tall stool and played his guitar. He was working a slow piece, crooning away in a whiskey-rough voice.
No one listening to him moved a muscle.
I paused a moment. His song was about the Mississippi and lost love set to soft, evocative music that could break your heart. The words were poetry, the magical stuff that stops you in your tracks and stirs your heart until it turns inside out. I forgot all about chasing McCallen and drifted over to the crowd, easing down at an empty table on the edge of things.
My jaw was hanging by the time the man finished; he"d transfixed me so I was slow to come out of his spell and join the applause. I hadn"t heard a voice like that since my last visit to Coldfield"s place, but this guy was white. And yet it wasn"t all to do with his voice, a lot of it was the feeling he put into his song. There was something special here; I had to hear more, and to h.e.l.l with the Sommerfeld case.
The singer picked things up with a faster number. He went from brokenhearted misery to triumphant satisfaction, with everyone clapping a beat out for him, then traveled back to heartache again. That"s what the blues were about, after all.
And then all too soon he was finished and pa.s.sing a hat. I grabbed a business card from my wallet, scribbled a three-word message, and folded a five-dollar bill around it, dropping it in when my turn came. The other money was all quarters and dimes. The bill would get his attention.
When the hat got back to him his eyes widened with surprise, and he looked around the joint. I raised my hand slightly. He thought about it, frowning, probably measuring the five dollars against my flashy suit. I was the only one in the audience who could have given him such a huge tip. He finally nodded and set his guitar down, picking up a st.u.r.dy cane. There was something with his legs that gave him a stiff, strutlike walk as he came over to my table, and when he stood still he braced himself with the stick. He held my card and the folded bill between two fingers like a cigarette as I stood to greet him.
" "Come see me"?" he quoted from it. His speaking voice was just as husky as the one he used for singing. "If you"re wanting company, I don"t play that game." He put the card and bill on the table.
I chuckled once. "Nothing like that. My name"s Jack Fleming."
"Jim Waters," he said, and briefly shook my offered hand. We sat down. He had to lower into his chair, stretching his legs out straight. "What do you want, Mr. Jack Fleming?"
"You don"t waste time."
"A guy dressed like you doesn"t walk into a place like this without some kind of angle; I"d as soon you get to the point so I can get on with my drinkin"."
"Fair enough." I started to turn for a waiter, but one was already on his way to the table. "What"ll you have?"
Waters said he wanted his usual, and I asked for a coffee. The waiter came back with the coffee and a bottle of beer. I gave him a quarter and said to keep the change.
"You are a big spender, young fella," said Waters after taking a long swig.
"I like to make a good impression."
"You did that right enough. Was this a joke or is it funny money?" He held up the five. "If I"m lucky I might make this on a Sat.u.r.day night after payday."
"It"s not a joke. You impressed the h.e.l.l out of me."
"Well, thank you kindly. But what"s the angle?"
"First I want to know why I"ve never heard of you. I"ve been to just about every blues place in this town-"
"Except this one." His eyes crinkled.
"It doesn"t exactly advertise itself. You only play here? Only here?"
"Why not? It"s close to where I live and work."
"Where"s that?"
"I got a little shoe-repair business up the street. Sweet, ain"t it, a guy with no feet fixing shoes?" He tapped one of his legs in ill.u.s.tration.
"I guess it is. Was it the war?" I couldn"t tell his age, he had one of those forty-to-sixty faces.
"Oh, yeah. Got in the wrong place at the wrong time. They give me a medal for it and a pension, but that ain"t enough to get by these days, so I fix shoes and play guitar." His accent wasn"t from Chicago, but from farther south, not too far. St. Louis maybe. That was a major blues town.
"Where"d you learn to play like that?" I asked.
"It"s just something I picked up."
"And the songs?"
"Those are mine." "My G.o.d."
"Impress easy, do you?" His eyes twinkled and he tilted his beer.
"Just the opposite, Mr. Waters. I"ve heard a lot of "em. The best of the best in this city. I think you could hold your own onstage with any of "em, and they"d agree with me."
"Well, that"s mighty nice of you to say so. Now... you tell me your story."
I hesitated. The way things stood I didn"t really have one. I"d just have to blunder through and hope for the best.
"I"m going to be opening a nightclub and will need good acts to play there."
He snorted. "Uh-huh. An" you think you want me for your bill?"
"I know I do."
"Me and who else?"
"Ever hear of Bobbi Smythe?"
His disbelief wavered. "Yeah, she"s one of the club singers around town. I seen her name in the papers."
"Right now she"s starring over at the Nightcrawler, but when I get things set up she"ll be starring at mine. That"s the level of acts I"m putting in."
"Uh-huh. And when"ll that be?"
I gave him a rueful face. "You got me there, Mr. Waters. Right now I"ve let my ambitions get ahead of my schedule, but I had to talk with you while I could. I can"t give you an opening date for the place, but I would like to know if you"d be interested in playing once it got going."
He shook his head and shrugged. "Yeah, sure, why not?"
"You think I don"t know how this must sound to you?"
"Son, at this point you are big bucketful of ifs." He drained away a fourth of his beer. "But for a tip like that and a cold one I can at least listen to you. You come back to me when you get your club going and we"ll see about things then."
"Deal," I said, holding my hand out again.
He started to take it, then pulled back. "Hey, now, how much you plan to pay me?"
I calculated it against what I knew other singers made in the kind of club I planned to open and made him a generous offer. "That, plus whatever tips you get, and I have someone drive you there and home again."
He rocked back in his chair and couldn"t talk for a while. "You crazy? You just walk in here cold, listen to a couple my songs, and give me a pitch like that?"
"You"ll be worth it," I said. "Will you accept? I"ll put it in writing later."
He laughed, shaking his head again. "Why the h.e.l.l not?" And we closed the deal.
"Another beer?" I asked.
Waters didn"t answer, but glanced sharply up and past my shoulder. I knew what was coming, and quickly stood to face it.
McCallen strode over fast. He had five or six friends behind him, emerging from a curtained-off opening in the back wall. It must have been a private-party room. He was the biggest in the pack, but the others made up for it with numbers. He stopped an arm"s length away, eyes narrow, shoulders hunched, fists closed and ready to strike. The others formed an ominous half circle around us.
"I know you," he said, all menace. "What"d y"do, follow me here?"
I looked him hard in the eye, but had my doubts about being able to get past his anger, so I tried something else instead of hypnosis. "Let"s talk outside. You wouldn"t want to scare the ladies." People were staring, not the least of whom was Waters.
"d.a.m.n right we"re gonna talk," McCallen rumbled.
I smiled rea.s.suringly at my prospective nightclub star. "Mr. Waters, I apologize for the intrusion. This is a separate piece of business I need to settle with this gentleman, so I"ll have to talk with you later." Waters was obviously mystified and alarmed at why so many hostile customers were interested in me. "Later it is,"
he said.
I surveyed McCallen and his troops. They seemed to be young collegiate types except for Paterno, who was somewhat older. I recognized him by his coat and hat. He had thick black hair and gla.s.ses and watched me with high curiosity. I smiled at him, at McCallen. "Gentlemen? Shall we proceed out of doors?"
McCallen moved his big shoulders sideways by half a foot. It didn"t give me much room, but it was enough. I nodded at him politely, still smiling.
Then I bolted past them all and slammed out the front door, running like h.e.l.l.
A graceless exit, but better than getting pounded flat or having to vanish in front of a bunch of bewildered witnesses. The hoots and laughter that trailed me were soon replaced by a thunderous stampede made by a determined McCallen and his friends. He was close after me, cursing a blue streak. I shot across the street and past the drugstore and spotted the alley running behind it. Perfect. I ducked into it-and disappeared.
My momentum from running carried me forward a few yards. I eased to a halt and waited for them to rush in. It didn"t take them long to discover their problem.
"Hey, where the h.e.l.l is he?" asked Paterno.
"Hiding," snarled McCallen. "Come on, flush him out."
As though through a wall, because my ears weren"t so good in this form, I heard the banging of trash cans as the men rooted around for me. A big dog began barking frantically at the noise. Other canines took up the boisterous chorus.
"Two of you run ahead in case he got to the other end," McCallen ordered.
"But he couldn"t have. We were right behind him."
"He must have gone over the fence. Look in that yard."
"You kiddin"? I think Rin Tin Tin lives there, and he sounds p.i.s.sed."
A woman"s shrill and highly annoyed voice cut in on my fun. "Hey, you drunks! I"m calling the cops if you don"t get out!"
That decided it for them. McCallen wanted to stay, but his friends persuaded him to abandon the search. If I moved that fast, they argued, I was long gone by now. Everyone withdrew, and I tagged invisibly along to see if I could learn any more about his plans for Miss Sommerfeld.
Most of them didn"t want to go back to the bar minus their prize-me-and McCallen was in no mood to return either. After some discussion they settled things: they"d go to another place to finish their interrupted drinking.
Everyone piled into McCallen"s Ford. No one noticed me; I sieved into the trunk again.
The next ride was shorter, with no startling traffic encounters. When they stopped, I counted twenty and slipped from my hiding place, materializing crouched behind the car. They were all heading for a larger, brighter, and considerably noisier place, whose chief virtue seemed to be two-for-a-nickel beers. The music was raucous and loud. I could forget invisibly eavesdropping on McCallen and his group; I"d not be able to hear a d.a.m.n thing. Ambushing him afterward I could also forget. Even that cheap a beer would make the job too difficult if he had enough of them.
I knew the neighborhood, which was only a couple miles from the Sommerfeld house. Flagging a cab was not a problem, as the dispatching office for a company was just down the block. I gave the driver the street, sat back, and listened to him talk about how he would fix things in Europe. He favored the idea of making the leaders all get into a prizefighting ring with baseball bats.
He had a point-and-handicap system all worked out so no one man would have the advantage. It made as much sense as anything I"d heard lately. I told him he should write to the prime minister of England with the suggestion.
"Why not to Roosevelt?" he asked.