Make Mine Murder!

Chapter Two Sucker-Punched

The pride and satisfaction was evident in Logun’s voice as he showed Steve Archer through the Chez Shirley after Steve’s bag had been put in one of the small rooms in the east wing of the main building. “On the ground floor here, Archer, we have the main bar on the left and the game room on the right. That is the foyer and check room back there.

“Those glass doors you see ahead lead out onto the pier. The glassed-in portion is used in bad weather. There’s a small bar there. Come on along and we’ll walk out through and I’ll show you the open pier where we have the floor show on good nights. Revolving band platform.”

Beyond the glass doors Logun looked over toward the small bar and stopped. Archer saw the muscles at the corner of his jaw tighten. Shirley Logun, dressed in a pale yellow two-piece bathing suit, sat on the high bar stool in the corner, a glass half raised to her lips.

Logun went over with that same catlike speed Archer had noticed before. The glass smashed against the wall.

In a soft tone he said, “I’ve told you before, darling. Liquor spoils your voice. You have to sing for the people tonight. They won’t like it to have to listen to a sloppy drunk, you know.”

Her eyes were green flame, her mouth loose, her cheeks flushed. In a faintly slurred voice she said, “Not in front of the help, Gerry.”

Logun turned to Archer. “One of your additional duties, Archer, will be to take any liquor away from Shirley when you see her drinking.”

“She’s your wife. That’s your job.”

Logun regarded him steadily. “You may be right, Archer. You may be right.” He turned back and smiled at Shirley. “For a man who likes to live nicely, a drunken wife is a sad, sad thing. Go to your room.”

“No.”

“I don’t want to mark you, my dear. The people have to watch you.”

Archer instinctively turned away as he saw Logun move in close to her. He heard the sound of the blow, heard Shirley gasping and coughing. The stool fell over and she leaned heavily against the edge of the bar.

“Go to your room,” Logun said sweetly.

Shirley walked by Archer with dragging steps, her face averted. She pushed through the glass doors. Archer followed her with his eyes.

“Come along, Archer,” Logun said briskly. “Forgive the way my home life intruded just then. She’s a good girl, but not quite bright. And with a strong taste for liquor.”

“People usually have a reason,” Archer suggested.

Logun gave him a quick, keen look. “Indeed?” he said politely. “Ah, here comes MacLayt. Mac, meet Archer. MacLayt is my accountant and general business manager. Local boy who made good. Right, Mac?”

MacLayt was a rawboned man in his forties with hollow cheeks, very dense black eyebrows, a dirty shirt and poorly fitted false teeth. He had discolored puffs under his eyes and walked with the careful mannerisms of a man accustomed to poor health.

“Hello, Archer,” he said in a soft drawl.

“Mac, Archer is on the books at fifty a week.”

“More overhead,” MacLayt said moodily.

They found Bob Kister out at the end of the pier. Like his twin brother, Kister was a husky young man with crisp golden hair, a puffy red mouth, a thin voice, and tiny gray eyes.

“Relli told me about you.”

Archer didn’t answer him. Logun said, “Bob and Ben Kister are just like little children. They’ll have to know if they can lick you, Archer.”

“Do they try at the same time?”

“Ben is — away for a while.”

“We’ll settle that some time,” Archer said gently. He put his hand out. Bob Kister met the handclasp eagerly. His face slackened as he put his strength into the grip.

“Through?” Archer asked politely.

In response Bob Kister suddenly yanked hard without relaxing his grip, pulling Archer in toward the straight left. The sun and sea spun dizzily around and the pain of the blow was like a torch held against Archer’s lips. Staggering back, his right hand released, he dimly sensed Kister coming in, fast.

He covered up to give his head a chance to clear, took a thumping blow over the ear, another near the nape of his neck.

His vision cleared and, from his doubled up position, he saw Kister’s feet. He swooped his long arms down, yanked up hard on Kister’s feet, fell onto the man as he tumbled, smothering the blows by his closeness. He grabbed Kister’s throat, lifted him a few inches, smashed his fist in Kister’s face.

Kister was as relaxed as a rag doll. Supporting him with an arm around his neck. Archer jolted two short, right hooks against Kister’s glazed, half-open eyes.

Logun pulled him away. “Hey, he has to work tonight!”

“I want him to look as though he took a beating.”

Archer walked over and looked down at the sea.

He went back, and with a long heave, grunting with effort, he threw Kister off the end of the pier.

Kister smacked flat against the water, went under, came up sputtering and coughing.

Logun said quietly, “You don’t play, do you?”

“I don’t like to be sucker-punched.”

“Kister will try to get even.”

“I don’t think so, Logun. He hasn’t got the guts to kill me and he knows that if he doesn’t there’s a good chance that I’ll kill him.”

Gerry Logun’s eyes widened. “Would you?”

“I think so. Tell him to try me again and then you’ll both know.”

“Did you have a brain injury?”

“Does that matter?”

Logun gave him a long look. He said softly, “I’ve been looking for someone like you for a long time, mister. I play with no holds barred, too.”

“Do you?” Archer said without interest. “Is there any more to this place?”

“Our association might become very profitable to you, Archer.”

Archer gently touched his swollen lip. “These handmade lips cut easy. First aid set around?”

“Mac’s office. Ask his girl. The little door to the left of the inside bar.”

As Archer reached the beach end of the pier he saw Kister walking across the beach, his clothes clinging to him.

“Kister!” Archer said loudly.

The man stopped and peered up, blue eyes squinted against the sun. His face was full of hate.

“You try anything else, Kister, and the next time I’ll put you out for ten minutes and throw you off the end of the pier at high tide. That’s a promise.” His voice was low and steady.

Without waiting for the man to answer, Archer walked on into the main bar and pulled open the door Logun had mentioned.

MacLayt’s office was bright and sunny, and outfitted as a business office. The filing cases and executive desk looked odd after the shoddy day-time splendor of the rest of the night club. MacLayt was at his desk. A slim, dark girl moved quickly away from MacLayt’s side, her pale cheeks covered with an angry flush.

“Didn’t you ever learn to knock?” she demanded.

“Sorry I spoiled your fun. Logun sent me for the first aid kit.”

“This is a new one, June,” MacLayt said. He didn’t seem particularly annoyed. He watched June as she walked over to her own desk, yanked open the bottom drawer.

“They seem to get stronger and dumber,” she said. She handed him the kit in its white enameled box. Her brow and nose were finely modeled, her mouth too wide for beauty. Her dark dress, matching her eyes, accentuated the small waist.

“Through staring?” she asked.

“Now, Junie,” MacLayt admonished softly.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Archer.” He went to the door. “I’m taking this up to my room for a few minutes. You can get back to your games. I’ll knock next time.” The contempt in his tone was clear. He was out the door before she could retort.

When he brought the kit back MacLayt was out of the office. June’s typewriter clacked busily. He did not stop typing or look up when he said his thanks.

Logun was not around. Archer went back up to his room, stretched out on his back on the bed, the door half open. Logun had said that the rest of the kitchen help and the night bartenders arrived to take over around 6. Gambling wouldn’t begin until 10.

Relli would be on the door, Kister in the game room and he was to keep on the move through the place, keeping an eye out for trouble. He was to watch the bartenders. Whenever he saw a bartender with a towel over his shoulder, he was to stay around as the bartender was expecting one of the customers to become annoying.

The walls of the small room were flat white, too much like the ward, too much like the rooms where, after the last brain operation, he had to laboriously learn to talk all over again. He lay there and it was easy to imagine Johnny Jermane’s voice in the silence of the night.

“Yeah, Steve. I planned it and built it. For Shirley. It took every dime I had plus everything I could borrow. I wish you could have seen the place when we opened. Built with most of it on a pier out over the water. I thought I could get it over the hump all by myself. But I had to take in a partner with some dough to meet the notes. An experienced guy. He gave free drinks to the lushes from Biloxi, the ones with the big cars. Those big cars in the lot drew in the other customers. We started to get business all the way from New Orleans, and when you can drag ’em away from there, you’re really operating.”

At last he went to sleep but even in sleep he retained the wariness of an animal away from its natural environment. He drifted just below the edge of sleep, with the hidden springs of his body coiled tightly.

The long evening which stretched out until 3:00 in the morning was a jumble of conflicting impressions. Shirley in a strapless dress which made the enamel on a refrigerator look like a loose drape, standing on the darkened pier, swaying and singing in the light of the baby spot; the sea wind in her hair, the stars remote above, the tiny lights near the tables, the people silent — caught by the husky sorrow in her voice, caught up in their own dreams and disappointments.

Logun in white mess jacket, elbows hooked over the edge of the bar, staring out across the tables to where Shirley swayed and sang, hands clasped in front of her. The filled stools at the bar. The crunch of tires on the crushed shells as the cars arrived.

He walked through the people, tall and slow and easy-moving, and he saw the richness of it and the profit of it, the shallow glasses and the ice-cold croupiers and the nervous laughter, all under the warm night of the Gulf Coast.

After the last of them was gone, after the last car had pulled out, Logun called him over to the bar. “You’re off, now, Archer. Drink?”

“Thanks. Brandy.”

The bartender filled the glass. “You can take off now, Bill,” Logun said. “I’ll lock the backbar.”

The tables had been stacked and a sleepy janitor slowly mopped the dance floor.

“How do you like it?” Logun asked.

Archer shrugged. “It looks profitable.”

“It is. Relli told me about you and the little redhead. You don’t have to get that fatherly about the trade, Archer.”

“Her boyfriend got drunk and passed out. That guy who picked her up could have been her father. I scared him off her.”

“He might not come back, Archer. A month ago he dropped three thousand on the tables in one hour. We’re not running a charitable institution.”

Archer spun his glass on the bar, tilted it and drained it. “If you want me to work here, you’ll give me a free hand. And you’re not as smart as I thought you were. Suppose the redhead’s people have influence. They could cost you more than three thousand.”

Logun laughed. “Boy, I butter the local politicos. It’s a hell of a lot less than it used to cost me in Jersey, but it is considerably more than they ever saw before. Nobody can cause me any trouble.”

“And if the boyfriend came gunning for you?”

“I have you and Relli and the Kister twins, and some boys you haven’t met yet.”

They walked out to the end of the pier. The tide was in. The low moon slanted against Logun’s face. Archer tightened up and his breathing was faster. So easy. There were good ways. One way would be to break Logun’s arms and throw him into the sea. That would be a slow way. But somehow it wasn’t good enough.

The man would die, yes, but it wasn’t good enough. Too quick. He would die while he was on top of the heap. He would die in the midst of success. It would be better if he were broken first. Archer faked a yawn. “With your permission, I’ll turn in.”

“ ’Night, Steve. Your time is your own until six tomorrow night.”

As he pushed through the glass doors Archer glanced back. Logun still stood alone at the end of the pier. Archer heard it then, the distant high whine of powerful marine engines. He looked out to sea.

Whatever it was, was coming closer with great speed, without running lights. He saw the tiny flashlight in Logun’s hand, beamed out to sea. The motors were throttled down to a heavy, pulsing beat. The moon outlined the hull of the fast ocean-going speedboat. As it nosed toward the tiny protected basin, Archer turned and went up to his room.

In the morning he carried a breakfast tray out onto the open pier.

Shirley sat at a table for two in the shade. There was an aging puffiness about her face, a fullness under her chin, a sagging of her body. She glanced up at him without enmity, waved toward the vacant chair opposite her.

He sat down, curious about her. She said, “Thanks, Archer, for refusing to be a watchdog over me.”

“I didn’t think you needed a watchdog.” He looked at her eyes and saw that she had had a few drinks.

“Archer, there are many things you don’t understand. You don’t understand how the angles can go sour, and how people don’t know when they’re well off.”

“Aren’t you well off?”

“With money, boy. Only with money. But a person can give you money and steal your pride and steal your hope until finally there’s nothing left. Shirley was one smart girl. She was stranded down here and she found a lad with a few dollars. The lad I’m talking about thought that our little Shirley was a princess or something. So he took this broken-down showgal and built this little roost for her, and went broke doing it.”

“Logun doesn’t look broke.”

“I’m not talking about Logun, stupid. Does he look as though he thought of me as a princess? What a laugh that is!”

“Then where does Logun fit in?”

“Oh, I used to know him. I stayed in touch. I wrote him about the chance for him here and he was in trouble up north so he came down.” Her voice had a blank hopelessness in it. “You see, Archer, I asked for it.”

“Yes, you did,” he said softly.

She gave him a penetrating look. “Something about you, Archer. You act like a man with a pat hand. Aces full. I’ve felt that about you for a long time.”

“A long time?”

“Living this way, brother, a week is a long time.” She stood up, pressed down firmly on his shoulder as he tried to rise. She looked down and her eyes were surprisingly soft. “You’re not as hard as you want to make out, Archer.”

“No?”

“In the next few days I’ll have proof.”

“Proof?”

“Yes. Something’s coming up that I don’t think you can stomach. And I don’t think I can either. See you around.”

She walked away. Archer took his time over his coffee. Before he had finished three new men came out onto the terrace, stared at him curiously as they walked by. They had the look of sailors, hard-eyed defiance, a wariness, a light-stepping caution.

Archer guessed that they had come in on the speedboat the night before. And, watching their manner, he guessed that the trips were not exactly for pleasure. It would not be a long run to Mexico. He remembered reading of the new tariffs, of the enormous profit in items not generally smuggled. Locks, small electric motors, precision hand tools.

He got into his car and drove the mile and a half into Amira. The village square was torpid in the morning sun, filled with a dead lethargy. The second floor of the court house was apparently let out to lawyers and accountants. Their names appeared in peeling gilt on the dusty windows.

One window bore the name MacLayt. Even as he wondered if it was the same MacLayt, he saw the girl named June come out of the courthouse. She carried a brown manila envelope. She did not notice him until she was ten feet from his car.

“Want a ride back?” he asked.

She stopped and, when she recognized him, scowled and said, “Not particularly. Why?”

“Get in. I’m going right back. Have to buy some blades.”

The sun was hot. She stood uncertainly for a moment. “I won’t bite,” he said.

She got in. He walked to the drugstore, hurried back to the car, half expecting her to be gone. But she still sat there, a girl with the rare ability to retain a crisp look even in the most deadening heat.

“MacLayt has two offices?” he asked.

“And two secretaries. He sent me down to get some documents.”

“I wasn’t pleasant to you yesterday.”

“You had reason, I guess,” she said without interest.

“You just don’t seem to be — the type.”

She turned a smile on him. “It’s a good job, Archer. I want to keep it.”

“How about a swim when we get back? Or is it against the rules?”

She shrugged. “Too busy. Maybe at five I can.”

As he drove into the driveway he glanced up and saw Logun at the apartment window. Logun beckoned to him. The girl went off to MacLayt’s office. Archer went up the stairs. Logun met him at the head of the stairs. There was no warmth in his eyes. “Come in here, Archer.”

Logun shut the door behind them. The room was clean, well furnished. “What’s with you and the Daley girl?”

“Who?”

“Don’t play dumb. The girl you were with when you drove in.”

“I didn’t know her name. I met her in MacLayt’s office and again in the village. I went in for razor blades and met her there.”

“Show me the blades.”

Archer reached slowly into his pocket, took out the blades, displayed them on the palm of his brown hand. “What goes on?”

Logun finally grinned and clapped Archer on the shoulder. “Forget it, boy. Nothing at all.”

“How long do you have to be one of the family here, before you can take a boat ride?”

“It’s a long trip. You wouldn’t like it.” Logun did not betray himself by the slightest change of expression. It was one of his characteristics.

“Let me be the judge.”

“Sit down a minute. I want to check over an idea I just had.”

Archer sat down, lit a cigarette. Logun paced back and forth, his hands locked behind him. He paused in front of Archer. “Can I trust you?”

Archer grinned. “You don’t trust anybody. Don’t soap me.”

“Will you do something without asking questions?”

“You wouldn’t have to answer the questions, would you?”

“Try this for size. I want you to make a large rough pass at June Daley. And I want it made in front of witnesses. Customers.”

“I’m assuming there’s a reason for doing that.”

“There is.”

“It will humiliate me, Logun. About a hundred dollars worth.”

“Cheap enough.”

“When do I do this little thing?”

“I think tonight would be a good time, Archer.”