Gone, No Forwarding

Eleven

The man weighed over two hundred pounds and little of it fat, with a luxurious brown mustache and straight brown hair fanned out across the shoulders of his fringed buckskin jacket. Except that he waved a flashlight instead of a Colt Peacemaker, he would have been Wild Bill Hickock. He pointed the flashlight at the worn plush curtain. “The daughters of sin, come in! The daughters of sin, come in!”

Four college types in warmup jackets accepted the invitation and followed the beam through the curtains to the unknown delights.

“Gorgeous female models in... the... nude!” cried the barker. “The daughters of sin, come in!”

A gold Eldorado convertible stopped in front to disgorge two daughters of sin. The blond white girl was taller than the afro’d black girl, but both were striking in their revealing Frederick’s of Hollywood party dresses.

“It’s all right inside, folks!”

They trailed cheap perfume past the barker as they went in. The black girl also trailed lingering fingers along his jawbone. “Ti-i-i-ger!” she purred.

As they disappeared inside, the driver got out of the Caddy. He was a very black dude in a wide-brimmed pimp’s hat.

“Gorgeous fee-male models in... the... nude! The daughters of sin, come in, come in...”

The women stopped inside the door to let their eyes adjust to the gloom. On the stage to their right, bathed in red light, a topless dancer gyrated to the soul beating from the juke box. She had more breast and buttock than was to either woman’s taste, but it wasn’t them she had to please.

“Oh mama, shake that stuff!” yelled one of the college types.

The woman on the platform did not respond in any way. She was green as a Martian at the moment, courtesy of the spotlight.

“Jesus!” said the blond sotto-voce. The black girl threw back her head and laughed loudly, as if at a very funny remark. Then she said, “Git-down time fo’ us girls.”

They sauntered on. It was one-thirty of a Saturday morning, and there were a number of tables open below the raised platform where the dancer jounced and quivered her talents. A scantily clad waitress appeared, tired of face and bare of breast apart from pasties.

“We want a table, shugah,” drawled the blond. She was smoking a cigarette made to look forearm-long by its holder.

“And what to drink?”

The black girl simpered. “We was hopin’ maybe some kind gen’mans take care of that little item fo’ us.”

“Sure, sure. But while you’re waiting for Mr. Right.”

“Misters Right, baby, cause we two togethah is dy-no-mite!” She waved a peremptory hand. “Two Scotch-and-waters.”

The waitress turned away.

“An we wants to taste the Scotch, shugah,” called the blond.

The dancer — yellow at her finale — finished, and a black girl of about the same dimensions took her place as the jukebox flipped sides.

“Boogie on me, baby!” yelled a college type.

The blond at the table caught the eye of a hard-faced fiftyish man sitting with a red-headed man at a nearby table. She winked. The redhead intercepted the wink and leaned forward to say something to his companion. They laughed loose and dirty laughs.

“Rattle those milk cans!” shouted a college type at the dancer.

“Chocolate milk!” called a third, to loud laughter.

The curtain was swept aside and the girls’ pimp entered. Over his Edwardian suit was a knee-length white fur coat. He sauntered back to the L-shaped bar past the black topless dancer, who was now turned to gun metal by the blue spotlight. The newcomer found an empty stool at the arm of the bar habited by other black males as outrageously colorful of dress as himself. He swept back his fur coat to sit. “Scotch-and-water,” he told the bartender.

A very tall, lean man detached himself from the group and moved with a dancer’s grace between the tables. He did a sudden expert dance step to the music, finished with some bumps and grinds, yelled “Shake dat moneymaker, momma!” at the dancer, and sat down at the girls’ table. “You a fine-lookin’ stallion,” he told the blond. “You got a old man?”

“You tryna take my application, jiveass?” she said.

“Now, momma, we jus’ talkin’ a little shit here. Your of man black an beautiful?”

“At de bar, mack man,” said the black woman.

“You jivin’ me?” He turned to look at the bar. “I know all them players...”

He stopped as his eyes lit on the newcomer in the white fur coat. He looked back at the girls again, then stood up and strolled to the door, pulled aside the curtain and stood talking with the barker outside. The hard-faced man and his red-headed companion stood up and went over to the girls’ table.

“Park the frame, Red,” said the blond.

As they sat down, the lean black man let the curtain fall and returned to the bar without another look in their direction. The red-headed man had Huck Finn freckles on a debauched Huck Finn face. His hard-eyed companion smiled at the black girl. “Do you think we should buy you ladies a drink first?”

“No need.” In the background, the blond and the redhead laughed loudly together. “We just have to talk price.”

At the bar the tall, lean pimp was buying a round. “An fix up de brother here, too,” he added.

The man in the white fur coat turned to look at him. Not even his heavy white coat and beautifully tailored clothes could disguise the breadth of his shoulders or the hard muscularity of his body. He nodded and smiled and stuck out a palm to be slapped. The lean man did. “I see by yo short you jus’ out here from Dee-troit,” he said.

The new man laughed. “That too fas’ a track back there fo’ this sucker.”

“Bein?”

“Black Bart.”

The tall man put out his palm to be slapped. “Ready Eddie.” He looked over at the two girls, just getting to their feet with the men who had picked them up. “That gray woman could open my nose fo’ me, man.”

“That be my bottom woman.”

“You bringen her out here fum Dee-troit?”

“Both of ’em,” Black Bart said. “Johnny Mack tol me my ladies’d bring me plenty cookies in this town.”

“Johnny Mack Brown?”

“He’s de one.”

“That nigger in Dee-troit now?”

“If I’m lyin, I’m flyin.”

The pickup foursome was just disappearing through the front curtain to the street.

“Looks like they gonna break luck. I could get behind some partyin tonight to celebrate our firs’ night in this town.”

Ready Eddie looked at his watch. “Me an’ my partners goin to de jam house fo’ a little blow after the man cuts us aloose here.”

“Mmm-hmm! Say it loud, brother!”

Out on Broadway, the two hookers and their tricks had walked to the parking lot just off Rowland Alley. The hard-faced man gave the white-jacketed attendant his ticket, the black girl hanging adoringly on his arm. Behind them, the blond and the red-headed man were giggling together. The attendant returned with a four-door LTD hardtop, and they got in. The hard-faced man waved away the change from his five and they drove out into Broadway’s bumper-to-bumper bar-close traffic.

“Where now?” demanded Corinne Jones. “The night is yet young.”

“And I’m not,” said Kearny from behind the wheel. “How in hell Bart dreams up these scenarios...”

Giselle was disentangling herself from O’B in the back seat to begin repairs by her compact mirror. “Wait’ll I tell Bella.”

“We had to make it look good,” said O’Bannon.

“Not that good.”

“I’m still not totally clear on what this accomplished,” said Corinne.

“It established Bart’s bona fides,” said Kearny. “You girls, and us picking you up, were his credentials with those pimps so he can try to find where Johnny Mack Brown went with Verna Rounds.”

“Remind me never to become a prostitute,” yawned Giselle.

Kearny looked in the rear-view mirror to catch O’Bannon’s eye. “Want to take a drive down to L.A. over the weekend?”

“With the hearing coming up Monday?” asked O’B, surprised.

“Larry got a direct lead to Jeff Simson from his ex-roommate, and I want to get a statement from Simson myself. So I’m going down to talk to him while Larry goes north to get hold of Rose Kelly. She apparently was on the switchboard that night.”

Corinne said abruptly, “I wonder what Bart’s doing right now.”

Bart Heslip took from his vest pocket a crisp new hundred dollar bill folded longways. He said, “I like the way you got yo crib freaked off, man,” unfolded the bill and extended it toward Ready Eddie. They and several other players from the bar were at Eddie’s apartment on Page Street in the Haight.

Eddie dipped a tiny gold pocket spoon into the hundred dollars’ worth of cocaine the folded bill held. “You one bad nigger,” he said, lifting the spoon daintily toward a nostril. The other players followed suit.

Heslip nodded. “Y’know,” he said, “I gotta get my string expanded now I’m here. Johnny Macks was tellin’ me ’bout a sweet little ho he had here, whut was her name...” He frowned in thought. “Was it Verna?”

“Verna. Sure, hey, cat, I remember Verna. But I thought that sucker took her with him, man.”

“You jivin’ me?” demanded another. “Man, that Johnny Mack is a boss player, not no simple pimp. That little girl, she was a dope fiend, wouldn’t no Johnny Mack take her back east with him.”

“Boss player!” snorted Eddie. “Lissen, mother, I don’t know as he had such a heavy game. Whut ’bout that Sally he had in his stable, got a crib over there on Hickory just off Webster? Now, there’s a ugly, nothin’-ass bitch I ever see one. She an’ that Verna was mighty close, I come to think ’bout it.”

“Well, shit, mother, that Johnny Mack was jus’ playin the short money game with both of ’em.” The pimp started to laugh. “She prob’ly got the claps anyway, that Sally.”

“The Texas claps?” asked Heslip, to cover the fact he had not snorted any coke himself. Then he chanted, “Them bugs at night is big and bright, clap, clap, clap, clap, deep in de heart of Texas...”

And the conversation drifted to other things. Heslip had what he’d come for: Sally, 600-block of Hickory Street. But Kearny was going to wig out when the expense voucher for $100 worth of cocaine came in. Labeled, of course, “payment to informant.”