Blind Moon Alley (24 page)

“He didn't suffer,” I say, giving Reeger an ounce of dignity for no reason other than to stop Lovely's gloating. “Garvey got him clean. Reeger never knew what hit him.”

Lovely looks disappointed. “That's too bad,” he says, before leaning forward and looking me in the eye. “But I still owe you. Name your price.”

I've heard Lovely can be quite generous with those who help him, but I don't trust him any more than I trusted Reeger, I don't care how old and feeble he is. This is the same bastard who lends working stiffs money and chops off their thumbs when they don't pay, who enjoys pissing on the corpses of legit businessmen when they refuse to partner with him. He doesn't just hand out money. If I take what he's offering, I'll be working for him, on his payroll, until his dying day—and it's clear that he's figured out a way to live long past his expiration date. I came in here afraid to get on his bad side. Now I'm scared of leaving on his good one.

“You don't owe me,” I say. “I didn't stop Reeger, Garvey did.”

“But you were with Garvey, right? You did it together? Or am I mistaken?”

He's not that far off the mark. The guy's got more sources than Eliot Ness.

“Yeah,” I say. “Garvey was an old friend.”

“That settles it.” He licks the corners of his lips, and even I'm grateful that they've finally gotten some moisture. “I owe you. You've been running around with one of my singers, right? Maybe I can help you there.”

“You mean Myra?” I say. “She's more than your singer, she's your partner. It cost her twenty grand for the privilege, and it cost Garvey his life.”

He gives a chuckle. “You seem to think everybody is my partner. That's humorous. No, she's a singer, no more. I've got a million Myras. They pay me so they can act like owners, get some time on the stage, throw their weight around. And I protect them. It's square.”

I hate to admit it, but it fits. Myra didn't buy a piece of the Red Canary; she bought a piece of the spotlight she'd spent her whole life seeking—and she paid for it with twenty thousand of Garvey's greenbacks. For her, it was worth it.

Lovely leans forward and steadies his arm on top of the desk. “How about I give Myra her money back, no strings attached?” he says. “As a favor to you, of course.”

It's nothing to sneeze at. If Myra got back the twenty large, we'd be set for a long, long time. But I think of the champ, how he managed to keep his dignity by avoiding deals like this one. I look at Lovely, the old, demented man ready to pave my road out of here. Then I picture him calling me for a return favor while I'm sitting on a beach in Santa Monica.

I shake my head. “You don't owe me.”

His face turns mean. “You think you're too good for me, you fucking pasty albino piece of shit?” His black eyes are sizzling. “I wipe my ass with freaks like you.”

I can't see Charlie, but I'm sure he's reaching either for his thirty-eight or a scalpel. I stand up, put my right foot on the chair, and cross my arms over my knee. My ankle is now only twenty inches from my trigger finger. If this gets ugly, I might get a shot or two off before I visit Garvey.

“Listen to me,” I say. “This has nothing to do with being too good for you. It's got to do with honesty. I don't want to take your dough because I didn't earn it.” I sound like my father and I'm proud of it. I wish the champ were here to see me in action.

Lovely calms down and I can only hope Charlie is doing the same. The old man leans back and nods as if he understands, but his mood is no more reliable than the stock market.

“Maybe that teen center of yours could use a few bucks,” he says.

He sure knows a lot about my life, which at last count is the eleventh advantage he has over me.

“The club has plenty of money,” I say.

It's the biggest lie I've told in years. There's a soup kitchen on every other corner in Harlem. There's no way the Hy-Hat is going to be able to survive. I've got to throw out something more believable.

“But I don't run the place, my father does,” I say, as if the champ would ever be interested in Lovely's dirty money. “I'll ask him.”

Lovely bobs his head in agreement. “That's better,” he says.

I take my foot off the chair and start to make my exit, but he's not finished.

“One more thing,” he says.

“Yeah?” I say, turning back to face him. I'm two feet from the office door.

“There's the matter of the missing folder.”

Oh, shit. I picture Johalis sifting through the assortment of receipts, marked-up cocktail napkins, and handwritten memos. Of course Lovely would want those records. There are probably a dozen killers in town who'd like to get their hands on them.

“What folder?” I ask him.

“The one that was here and now isn't,” he says. “The one that has Reeger's records. The one you took.”

Charlie's shadow engulfs me, and the muzzle of his gun kisses my neck. I was so close to getting out of here. Now I'm envisioning my funeral and wonder if Myra will be there. I picture Angela and Wallace sitting in the back row as my father curses me for not taking his advice and walking away from these mobsters.

“I didn't take any folder,” I say. “And you should know that, because I don't know a thing about Reeger's business. Remember? I thought you guys were in this mess together.”

Lovely grabs the top of his trousers in his rickety hands and lifts his leg to cross it over the other. Then he tries to brush some lint off the cuff of his shirt and misses by six inches. He doesn't seem to notice how badly his body is betraying him, and I'm not about to tell him. It's obvious that Charlie isn't bringing it up, either.

“Now you listen to me,” he says through a raspy cough. “I was never partners with that scumbag. And I need that folder. It's got names, dates, the details of my loans—at least the ones that Reeger muscled in on. I thought you had it, but you say you don't. Okay. How do you suggest I find it?”

I shrug. “Are you sure it's not in here? Or at Reeger's house?”

Lovely stares at me, his shoulders are bobbing, but his eyes are locked on mine. I think he's trying to determine whether or not I'm lying, so I force out a smile and try to look relaxed. Then my eyes start shimmying and he turns away, disgusted. Nystagmus to the rescue.

“Get out of here,” the old man says. “But if I find out you're lying about that folder,” he says, “I'll send you off to the morgue one piece at a time.”

He extends his hand and I do the same. It's a handshake in reverse—I actually stop his hand from moving when I grip it. Then I thank him because I can't think of what else to say.

When I walk out the door, Charlie the Mustache follows. I put two and two together and come up with this: Lovely is Charlie's new boss—and Charlie's new boss is a lot smarter, and a lot more dangerous, than Reeger ever dreamt of becoming.

I step out of the pool hall and into the evening air a free man. I palm the sweat from my forehead, put on my fedora, and walk west, leaving Charlie to figure out how the hell I fit into this puzzle. I'm sure Lovely is wondering the same thing.

I wish I had an answer for them.

CHAPTER 14

It's been a week since I left Lovely wallowing in his whiskey and depravity. Since then, I've spent every day in Room 311 at Philadelphia General, sitting in an orange armchair the nurses dragged in from the sun room especially for me, watching Myra's cheeks regain their color as bacon and eggs replaced the laudanum on her breakfast tray.

She now knows about Garvey and Reeger. I didn't mention my conversation with Lovely about her supposed partnership in the Canary; she already knows how little she got for her money and doesn't need to hear me say it. I also didn't let on that Lovely wanted to give me her twenty large. She wouldn't understand why I walked away from the offer; I'm sure she'd see it as a pair of one-way tickets to Hollywood. Me, I saw it as an invitation to join the swindlers in Lovely's coffee can—one body part at a time.

Myra returned to life on Thursday morning, singing “Bye Bye Blues” along with the radio, her head on her pillow, her eyes as clear as her voice. I should have been happy, but all I felt was the guilt of knowing the doctor was about to snuff her new spark with his prognosis. I should have told her myself—I could've lessened the blow—but I couldn't bring myself to say the words I knew would hurt her so deeply.

When Dr. Dailey arrived later that afternoon, he had no such qualms. He stood at the foot of the bed, his stomach protruding beyond the reaches of his lab coat, and gave a short lecture on the anatomy of the human foot—specifically, the third metatarsal and what happens when it breaks in four places. Then he took out Myra's X-rays and began talking about her arch and how it affects her gait.

I held my breath when Myra's upper lip started quivering.

“What are you trying to tell me?” she said. She had her hand in front of her mouth, her fingers splayed in front of her lips as if she feared the bad news might hit her in the face. I wanted to reach out and steady them, but there was no shielding her from this.

“I'm not certain,” he said. “But your gait will probably not be the same as it was. It's likely you'll walk with a limp.”

Myra's face fell into her hands as she sobbed uncontrollably. Her hair hung down and blocked the sides of her face like curtains in front of a private dressing room. I stroked the smooth skin behind her neck and told her that a damaged metatarsal didn't change anything, but I knew the truth. In grammar school, that blasted shoe chafed more than her ankle; it scraped her soul. And those kinds of wounds don't heal. Ever.

We walked out of the hospital about an hour after our meeting with Dailey. Myra refused my help. She made her way to the Auburn on a pair of wooden crutches, her wrapped foot swinging beneath her like a plaster pendulum. I brought her back to my place, poured two chilled martinis, and cooked some spaghetti. Then I planned our trip to California.

All we needed to leave, I told her, was a thousand bucks. I tried to look like I believed we'd make it, that we could both find work and save our money, but there are precious few jobs to be had in Philly. Yesterday, a shoemaker's help-wanted sign sparked a line that stretched a full mile to City Hall. I thought about getting on it myself, but I know as little about shoemaking as I do about sunbathing.

After dinner, we came to the Red Canary for Myra's set and we're still here now. I'm at the same table, the one in the corner near the fire exit, which is now permanently reserved for Myra and me. I wonder if a private table and free drinks are the kind of perks that Lovely gave Myra in exchange for her twenty large. I could ask him—I know he's here, I saw his white-walled Packard outside—but I'd be crazy to start up with him again. The odds of seeing Lovely and walking out the door are slim. As far as I know, the odds of doing it twice have never been tested.

It's nearly midnight and the joint is still filling up. Four suits are leaning on the bar, singing along to a Cole Porter tune the piano player is banging out in the dining room. A couple of flappers are behind them, dancing and sipping shots of moon. Everybody at the bar has shiny faces and glassy eyes; I'm guessing their mood lifted about one second after they heard Reeger left for the pearly gates and took his weekly raids with him.

Myra finished her set a few minutes ago—she closed by sitting on the piano and singing “Blue Is the Night,” her hobbled foot dangling just below the reach of the spotlight. She made her way to the dressing room when the lights went down, hoping the rummies would be too busy applauding to notice she was wearing a cast the size of a birdcage. I feel for her, even though that cast will come off in a few weeks.

Red puts a couple of martinis on the table as I watch Myra limp her way over, swinging on her crutches, avoiding the stares coming from the dining room. I'm surprised to see that she's got a smile on her face. Her cheeks are as round as cue balls.

“I've got good news,” she says.

At this point, any news that doesn't involve somebody getting killed is good to me.

“Feeling better?” I say, nodding toward her foot.

The smile leaves her face. “Not really.”

She sits down and extends her leg under the table. Then she leans forward and says with a twinkle, “We can go to California.”

“Great,” I say, as if we haven't been through this before. “As soon as we have the money.”

“We have it,” she says. Then she looks around to make sure nobody can hear us. She doesn't have to worry; the singing voices at the piano are loud enough to drown us out. “Lovely gave me back my twenty thousand.”

Fucking Lovely. I should've realized that he'd pull something like this. Myra's looking at me; her eyes are as wide as a kid's on Christmas morning. I've got two choices: owe Lovely a favor, or tell Myra she has to give her new doll back to Santa.

“Myra,” I begin, but stop in mid-sentence. She's looking at me and holding her breath, and I don't have the strength to watch her cry again, not after seeing her view that X-ray.

“What's wrong?” she says. I can tell she's afraid of what she's about to hear.

“Myra,” I say again, “Lovely's not giving that money to you. He's giving it to me. He wants me in his circle. You can't take it.”

She looks confused. And beautiful.

“What do you mean, giving it to
you
?”

“He offered me the dough. He said it was payment for killing Reeger, and I told him I didn't want it. I know all about that heartless bastard and I don't want to owe him one red cent. I'll wind up being his gun for hire. I won't do it.”

Myra's not saying anything, but her stoic look is betrayed by a quivering lip—as well as a single tear that rolls down her cheek. I'm sure she doesn't want to believe me, but I'm making too much sense to be ignored.