42 Days For Murder

Chapter Four

I left the station and stopped in the first bar on my route. It was called the RUSTIC and the decoration scheme wasn’t too original. Pine logs with the bark on them covered the walls and the bar itself was a big tree cut in half and polished. Big sugar-pine cones were festooned all over the place with deer heads and guns on the walls. The place even smelled piny and out-doorsy.

By the time I’d taken my first drink all the way down I’d figured the place was phony. The logs on the wall were just slabs from some sawmill; the bar was geed up in the same way and the pine cones looked as though they’d been dipped in shellac. The guns looked as though they’d come from an Army and Navy auction and the deer were Michigan White-tailed deer instead of the mule deer native around there.

The smell came from pine incense being burned in saucers back of the bar.

I was looking this all over and wondering if anybody could get the real western feeling from a spot like that, when somebody came up from behind me and smacked me on the back and said:

“Shean Connell! Jeese! Shean Connell!”

The wallop on the back had been hard and there was a second in which I thought I’d maybe cough up my drink. It stuck, though. I turned around and Kewpie Martin reached for my hand and began pumping it up and down and saying:

“Shean Connell! Well I’ll be damned!”

This over and over again.

I’d worked with Kewpie on a roadhouse job four years before that. He was supposed to be a saxophone player and singer as well as being able to Master of Ceremonies a bit. It was all a lie. He had a soggy tone on sax beside having no technic; he sang flat and through his nose, and his M. C. stuff wasn’t funny. Just pitiful.

He got by because he was such a swell guy to work with. Everybody would hold him up on the job just to keep him there. He was about five-six but he weighed two-fifty, at the least. He wasn’t quite bald but had a little tuft of hair like Kewpie dolls have. Which is why the name, I suppose. I said: “Well, Christ, it’s Kewpie. Where’ve you been, kid?”

“Around and around. Like the music. How long you been here?”

“Just got here.”

“Looking for a spot?”

I said I was looking for a drink, more than anything else, at least at that time. I bought and Kewpie bought and then he said: “You could land here, if you want. I hear they’re looking for a man, now.”

I’d spotted a piano over in the corner of the room before that. It was prettied up the same way; had itself decorated in the pine motif. I nodded at it and said:

“Nuts! Me play a box like that? That’ll be the day.”

He said: “You always was a fussy bastard, Shean.”

I agreed and said: “I don’t even like their whisky. Let’s go down to my place.”

He asked me where I was staying and I told him the Golden Eagle. He smiled admiringly and said that I always was one for putting on the Ritz. We started out the door and met Kirby, face to face, and Kirby said:

“Hi! Have a drink, Connell.”

If I’d stayed, I’d have had to introduce Kewpie and I was afraid Kirby might crack about why I was in town. It might do no harm, but I hadn’t decided just what I was going to do or how I was going to try and do it and I couldn’t see any reason for letting Kewpie in on secrets. So I said to Kirby:

“Thanks, Chief! Some other time. I’m late for a date now.”

Kirby said “Too bad!” and strolled over to the bar, and Kewpie and I went out and down the street. Kewpie said: “Jeese! Just in town and know the Chief already. Are you hot, keed?”

I said I wasn’t and that I’d known Kirby for a long time.

We kept on to the hotel.

Lester was in the room, which I was afraid he’d be. Kewpie and I came in and I said “Lester, I want you to meet an old friend of mine. Kewpie Martin. Kewpie’s an entertainer. Kewpie, this is Lester Hoyt.”

They shook hands and I winked at Lester over Kewpie’s shoulder. Lester missed it entirely, Kewpie said to him:

“Hi, Lester. You in the music business, too?”

Lester looked puzzled and said he wasn’t. I sidled over closer to him, having an idea what was coming.

It came. Lester quit goggling at Kewpie, who was really something to look at, if you like chubby fat men, and said to me, “Did you see the...”

I got him on the instep with my heel when he’d gotten that much out. He yelped, lifted his foot and held it with both hands, glared at me and said: “Gee, Shean, that hurt.”

“I must have stumbled,” I said, and winked at him again. It still was a miss.

He sat down on the edge of the bed, still holding his foot, and this time he managed to say it. Just: “Did you see the Chief, Shean?”

“Sure,” I said, and put my finger up to my face. And then to Kewpie: “I was telling Lester that I used to know the Chief. We weren’t exactly pals, or anything like that, but I knew him. Maybe I told you about it, Kewpie?”

Kewpie looked from Lester to me. And then looked puzzled. The little fat devil was no fool and smelled something sour. I got on the phone and ordered soda and cracked ice, just to change the subject, and when it came, mixed two highballs. Kewpie looked inquiringly at Lester and Lester said: “I never drink.”

This as though he was proud of it. Kewpie snorted, took half his highball down, and said: “Well, man and boy, I’ve been drinking for thirty-five years. Well, anyway thirty years, if you want to make me out a liar for a matter of five years or so. I haven’t lost any weight from it.”

Lester said, very seriously, that he could see this. Kewpie kept staring at him, as though trying to figure out whether the joke was on himself or Lester. Finally he said to me:

“Look, Shean! The C. C. C. wants a piano player. I’m thinking of moving to that spot myself. I got a bid last week. What d’ya say we talk to them and work together again?”

“What d’ya mean C. C. C.? Is it one of these government things?”

“Dope! That’s the City and Country Club. It’s new and it’s getting a play. We can get a guaranty but the cat will run over it easy. What d’ya say?”

Lester showed signs of breaking out in speech and I shook my head at him and said to Kewpie: “Let’s go out and look at it. What kind of a play does it get?”

“The big shots. The gals and guys with folding dough. They’ve got six weeks to spend here and they get tired of the same places. A new place will sometimes go bang for a while. I’ll tell you now, Shean, the spot ain’t so hot.”

He turned to Lester and explained: “Shean’s a fussy sort of bastard. He won’t work in a joint. Or at least he didn’t used to.”

Lester had finally judged the angle. Of course he knew I was an ex-pianist. He said: “Do you want me to go along, Shean?”

Kewpie said hurriedly: “You’d better wait for him, kid,” and I told Lester the same. We got outside and Kewpie said:

“Jeese, what a jerk! How come you got him on you, Shean? You always used to be lugging some tart around; now you’re going for the boys. How come?”

I said: “Nuts! I just felt sorry for the kid. I picked him up on the highway. He was hitchhiking and I brought him in with me. I didn’t want the poor devil to starve. I’m softhearted, Kewpie.”

He looked at me and said: “Okey, keed! I get it! I get it!”

“Get what?”

“The idea,” he said slowly. “I don’t know what the score is and I don’t want to know. But don’t give me that softhearted stall. You’ve got some reason for having the kid along and we both know it. It’s not my business; I haven’t got nose trouble.”

“You’re nuts, Kewpie.”

“Maybe so. Any time Shean Connell gets good-hearted I’m nuts. I’ll admit it.”