42 Days For Murder

Chapter Five

Kewpie hadn’t been guilty of any understatement when he’d said the Three C Club wasn’t so hot. It was about two miles from town, just a big, long barn-like affair sitting by the road. No shade around it. It was painted a bright and nasty red and the front of it was fixed so that it could be opened during hot weather. It was open then. There were a dozen cars parked in front of it and the gravel, in front of the place, was all chewed up in a way to show traffic there was heavy.

I parked my coupe and we went in.

The bar was at least forty feet long and there were three bar men behind it. All busy. There were at least fifty people in the place and lined up along the bar and it was only about seven-thirty. Far too early for any crowd as yet.

The bar itself was a classic, that is the bar and back bar combined. Whoever bought it in the first place must have done so well before the San Francisco fire. One of the old-fashioned, tremendously heavy and ornate things they used to go for. The back bar was stacked almost to the ceiling with glasses except for the space directly in front of the mirrors, and these were all soaped up with signs.

The bartenders didn’t fit the bar. You’d expect to see old-time bar men back of a layout like that. The droopy-mustached, pomaded hair type. Big-paunched and all that goes with it. But the three back of the plank looked as though they’d been picked for a beauty contest. As though Hollywood had missed a bet on all three. Kewpie saw me staring at them and giggled and said:

“The bird that runs this is a smart son of a bitch. This place gets a big play from society women and he knows what they want. They’ve got a service bar for the back room, besides this.”

He led me through a partition and into the back room. A dance floor about twenty feet square, a big Steinway grand at the side of it, and the whole thing lined with booths. The booths had curtains.

I went over to the piano, tried it with one hand, and a short dark man that looked Italian, came from one of the booths and said to me:: “You play?”

He saw Kewpie, looked at him as though he didn’t want to, and added: “Hi, Kewpie boy.”

Kewpie beamed and said: “Hi, Gino. Can this guy play? He’s tops. I worked with him at the Del Mar, in Tia Juana. Four years ago. He’s really tops. This is Shean Connell.”

The short man said eagerly: “Do you want a job? I’m looking for a piano player. To start tonight.”

“I just got in town,” I said, “and I’m tired. I want to look around a bit before I get myself a spot.”

“You’ll do better here than any place in town. I’m telling you. Ain’t that right, Kewpie?”

Kewpie said that was right and that he’d been telling me the same thing. I said, that if the job was as good as all that it seemed funny nobody was on it. The short man started to jump up and down and wring his hands. He almost moaned:

“These piano players they are pimps. I get one and what happens? What? I ask you? What happens?”

I said I didn’t know.

“They get mixed up with women; that’s what happens. Every time. If I keep one a week, I’m lucky. The women give them money and they’re lazy and won’t work unless they’re broke and hungry. All piano players are the same.”

Kewpie started to laugh and I wanted to. Gino said then: “But not you. I don’t mean that. I can see you’re not that kind.”

Kewpie said: “Hell, Shean, take a few drinks and maybe you’ll feel like working. You can knock off a few bucks for yourself tonight as well as not.”

“I take it you’re the boss?” I asked the short man. He said he was, that his name was Gino Rucci. I said: “Okey! I’ll eat and take a few drinks and if I’m not too tired I’ll work. How’s that?”

“Mister, that will be fine. You understand. I’m stuck for a piano player.”

I said: “Sure, I catch. But listen. About this woman business.”

“Yes?”

I winked at Kewpie and said: “You might as well know, I won’t work unless I’ve got women around me. I’m the type that has to have women around. Can you get ’em for me?”

“Sure! Sure! Sure, mister.”

I said: “And you just getting through telling me that piano players were the pimps. Shame on you.”

Kewpie and I turned and headed back for the bar. I looked back, as we went through the door, and Gino Rucci was standing by the piano and staring after us.

He was scratching his head and showing a lot of gold teeth in a grin and I figured my crack was probably more truth than poetry.

We had drinks and dinner — on the house. Rucci himself came back to us and asked if everything was okey. Then I ambled over to the piano and started noodling around, getting the feel of it. It was good, and in tune. Kewpie showed signs of wanting to sing and I didn’t want that so early in the evening, so I said:

“Listen, kid! Call up the hotel and get the kid. Tell him to go out and get himself something to eat, if he hasn’t already done it. Tell him that if he wants to, he can come out. Tell him to take a cab.”

Kewpie said, very quickly: “I though he was broke and hitch-hiking?”

I said, just as quickly: “And I thought you didn’t have nose trouble?”

He grinned and went looking for a phone booth. He came back in a couple of minutes, said: “He wasn’t in. He’d left no message because I asked for one.”

I said he was probably out getting himself some dinner and just happened to turn my head toward the door.

In came Lester. He had his glasses on and they hid his eyes, but I’m willing to bet he was wild-eyed behind them. He looked proud and scared, all at the same time. He was with a big blonde wench that out-weighted him by at least forty pounds. She had on more than just a paint job. She was practically enameled. She had curves in the right places but she curved too much. And she was wearing a slinky, sneaky evening gown that brought the curves out to perfection. Far too much so. I thought of all the honky-tonks I’d worked and all the madames I’d known and couldn’t think of a one that could hold a candle to this one. She out-madamed them all.

Lester saw me, waved a hand, very weakly, and she took him in tow and headed for a booth. I jerked my head at him and he stopped her and they had an argument for a moment. Lester won out. She went in the booth and he came over to the piano.

I said: “Where in Christ’s name did you pick up the ut-slay? Or is it the other way around?”

He blushed and said feebly: “Now, Shean, you shouldn’t talk like that.”

“Why not?”

“She’s a very nice lady.”

“For my dough, she’s a bum. I’ll admit she’s a big bum, though.”

“She’s a very nice lady,” he argued again.

“Who is she?”

“Her name is Mrs. Heber. Well, there’s more to it than that. It’s really Mrs. Hazel George-Wolff-Heber. She’s a... a divorcee, I guess.”

I said: “What d’ya mean guess? You know damn well.”

He admitted he knew damn well.

“Where’d you meet her?”

“Well, I was in the lobby. Sitting there and waiting for you to come back. She was sitting by me. She got up and left her purse and I returned it to her. That’s all. We just sort of... well, sort of got talking and she wanted to come out here.”

“You’re no help to me, kid. You’re supposed to be a hitchhiker I picked up. That’s what I told Kewpie, anyway.”

He got on the defensive and said: “I don’t see why you told him that.”

“I had reasons. Now listen. From now on your story is you’re a college kid on a lark. You started hitch-hiking to Reno, just because your room-mate told you you didn’t have the nerve. I’ll tell Kewpie the same thing. Does this big tart know you’ve got any money?”

“Well... I... ugh...”

I said: “You put on a flash, hunh? Showed the bankroll That it?”

“Well, we had a couple of drinks before I left town. She... ugh... may have that idea.”

“Does she know you’re supposed to be a detective?”

“Of course not, Shean!” He sounded indignant on this. “I know enough to keep my mouth shut.”

I said: “There’s two sides to that argument. Yours and mine. Okey. Go on back to her. Tell her that I’m the guy that rode you in here. Let it go at that.”

“Are you working here?”

I grinned and said: “Anyway for tonight. I want to see something.”

“What?”

“The kind of women Gino Rucci can dig up.”

He looked at me as though I was crazy. I quit riding him and said: “It’s this way, kid. I’ve got to get close to the Wendel woman in some way. The Chief told me not to try and talk to her.”

Lester looked indignant and said: “He can’t do that. This is a free country; you’ve got a right to talk to somebody, certainly.”

I said: “Okey, kid, you’re right and the world’s wrong. Remember this is Reno. Remember this Chief should know what he’s talking about.”

“What did he say, Shean?”

“He didn’t come right out with it but he just the same as said what I told you. Now run along; I’m supposed to be working.”

He went back to his booth and blonde.