Dream Town

Chapter 20

Archer put the phone down and looked at his watch. It was almost six. He scribbled a note to Callahan and went back out to the Delahaye. He drove to Boleros and parked on a side street to hide it from sight, since Ransome had already seen the car. He passed by competing billboards for the Roy Rogers TV show and Gene Autry’s program. Both men were in full frontier regalia. Rogers held a pearl-handled six-shooter, while Autry brandished a fancy guitar. There wasn’t a speck of dust or dirt on their colorful cowboy duds. Their smiles were sparkling white even in the growing gloom. This made him think of Jacoby’s comments on maybe a more sobering and substantive dawn coming for the country. Well, Archer, for one, thought it was long overdue.

He walked into Boleros and looked around. It was pretty much like every other dive bar he’d been in. Wooden stools worn down by drunken butts, a slick, scarred bar with a string of names either carved by knife or via the long fingernails of the inebriated, a few rickety tables, a scattering of more private booths, three tiered rows of bottles behind the bar, and cigarette smoke grazing the ceiling like trapped clouds. The only things that looked out of place were a battered and dusty black baby grand piano with fake gold trim by the window, and a cadaverous old man dressed in a tux from the early forties with a tacky white carnation pinned to his lapel sitting at the piano. He had a toothpick dangling from bloodless lips and an old bowler hat pushed back on his mostly bald head. He was pecking out an Andrews Sisters tune that was impressing truly nobody, not even him. When someone dropped a dime into the neon jukebox and Eddie Fisher came on to sing “Tell Me Why,” the cadaver got up to hit the men’s room.

The bar wasn’t crowded yet but Archer knew that would change, particularly on a holiday. LA liked its booze and a place to sit and drink that was not home, particularly if you were married and your wife didn’t understand you.

He picked the booth that would allow his back to be to the door, but also have him facing the mirror over the bar, enabling him to see anyone coming in. The woman who escorted him to that booth asked for his drink order. She was petite, in her early twenties, brown-haired, slim-hipped, and full of spunky attitude.

“Make it a cup of coffee black to start and we’ll go from there. And make sure it’s fresh.”

“Oh, what a dream customer you are.”

He slipped the woman a five and she clammed up and went away to fetch the coffee.

Archer kept his hat on to hide the bandage. He got his coffee, which was good and hot, and watched as it started to rain, the chilly drops pitter-pattering the glass like liquid bullets.

Archer suddenly remembered he hadn’t had any food since his noontime breakfast. “What do you have to eat in this place?” he asked the waitress.

She leaned down with a pouty look and said, “Sandwiches, potato chips on the side. And a fat pickle.”

“Any good?”

She put her elbows on the table. “Tell you what, dreamy, for another five I’ll grill the rye and make it myself with love and kisses. A Reuben do it for you? We got real Russian dressing.”

“Sold, but go light on the Russian dressing.”

“Why?”

“Haven’t you heard? We’re in a Cold War.”

He ate while the rain drizzled down. The Reuben was warm and excellent, and Archer ate fast. He was finishing his last potato chip when, at seven on the dot, he saw her glide in. Cecily Ransome hadn’t changed clothes since he’d seen her before, only now she was wearing a man’s black fedora and a dark peacoat with a white scarf, because the rain had dropped the temperature. With the coat and her hair hidden inside the hat, she could have easily been mistaken for a man. She lowered her umbrella, looked around, and walked over to a corner booth on the other side of the room.

The jukebox had gone quiet for the moment, but the cadaver had come back from an extended performance in the john and was doing an Irving Berlin tune, badly. The growing number of people around the bar, both young and old, took turns glancing his way and probably wondering what the hell he was even doing here.

Then the cadaver stopped plunking keys. To Archer’s surprise, he walked over and sat down across from Ransome. They immediately started talking in low voices.

When his waitress came by Archer said, “What’s with the piano player?”

She followed his gaze. “We don’t have a piano player. Least not anymore. Guy we had quit months ago. They don’t pay nothing and the tips are lousy. And we got the jukebox now. They just don’t want to pay to have the piano moved out of here is all.”

“So what’s with that guy?”

“He just walked in tonight and started playing.”

“And nobody thought to ask him why?”

“Hey, it’s not my problem. If the guy wants to play, what’s the big deal?”

“He a regular?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Just to remind you, angel, I paid you ten dollars for a buck-fifty meal and thirty cents’ worth of coffee. Can I at least get a passable return on my investment?”

“Okay, okay, I’ve never seen him before.”

“That’s better. You know the lady?”

“She’s been in a couple of times.”

“Alone or with someone?”

“Alone. Hey, how was the sandwich?”

“Much better than the pickle.”

She blew him a kiss. “That’s what they all say, dreamy. See, I don’t make the pickles.”

A while later, Ransome leaned across the table and gave Cadaver a hug and a peck on the cheek before she left.

When the old man exited a minute later, Archer followed him out into the rain.