A Song In The Dark (18 page)

“I can have the boys find him.” I had an odd feeling about Mitchell. What if he'd decided to make a quick trip to Lady Crymsyn to see Bobbi? I stood to leave. “I'll check on 'em both.”

Kroun flapped one nonchalant hand, apparently content to watch the dancers. The waitress, either determined to earn her keep or responding to his particular magnetism, came back with a glass of ice water for him. He smiled warmly up at her. She smiled back. He wouldn't be short of female attention tonight if I read her look correctly. Alan Caine had nothing on Kroun when it came to acquiring company.

There was a phone at the Nightcrawler's bar—the kind Bobbi wanted me to put in—and I used it to call Crymsyn's lobby booth. Several rings went by until a drunk guy answered. I'd expected Wilton, but he was probably busy.

The drunk guy was remarkably unentertaining,
parroting my questions back at me and giggling. A woman's voice cut in, there were sounds of a wrestling match, a slap and a yelp from the guy, followed by more giggling. I wondered if I'd been that boring in the days when I'd been able to get properly drunk. One of them hung up the phone.

Hm. Bobbi's idea was looking better by the minute. Crymsyn was a swank place. Busy. No reason why I couldn't have
two
phones in it. I waited a minute, watching Kroun use his charm effectively on the waitress, then dialed again. This time Wilton answered. He sounded harried and said he'd get Escott.

Clunk
, as he dropped the receiver onto the booth's small writing ledge. From the sounds filtering through there was a large, noisy crowd in the lobby. That was reassuring. I should be there to greet the customers as usual. A smile, a firm handshake, the suggestion they'd have a
great
time, hit home with a little eye whammy . . . well, maybe not that. Until the axe-blade migraines stopped I'd have to stay on the wagon from artificially winning friends and influencing people.

The waitress was now sitting with Kroun; but that was okay, everyone knew who he was, and none would nag her to get back to her job. In passing I noticed she was slim and dark-haired, very like Adelle Taylor but shorter. He must have liked that type. The waitress sure seemed to like him.

“Hallo?” Escott. Finally.

“It's Jack.”

“You all right?”

“I'm dandy. Just checking on things. Remember Mitchell from last night? The mug who wasn't Strome and didn't have a streak of silver in his hair?”

“The ill-favored Casca of the trio?”

I recognized the theatrical tone and perfect inflection. Escott must have had a good dollop of brandy. It brought
out the Shakespeare in him. I'd had to read some of the plays just to get his references at times. Looks like I'd have to put another one on the list. “I guess. He's not shown up there, has he?”

“Not that I've noticed. Is there a problem?”

“So long as he stays away. I sent some extra bouncers over. They doing their job?”

“Of looking formidable and threatening? Yes, they're covering that most excellently well. One of them said they were there to keep Hoyle and his cronies out.”

“Yeah. It's probably nothing, but I don't wanna take chances. Tell them I said to add Mitchell to the list. I don't want him bothering Bobbi.”

“Why would he do that?”

“He knows her from when she was with Morelli.”

A pause. “Indeed. I take it you'd prefer she not be subjected to unpleasant reminders of that chapter of her life.”

“Bull's-eye. If Mitchell shows, tell him his boss Kroun wants him back at the Nightcrawler, toot-sweet.”

“I shall be pleased to do so.”

“You seem to be in a good mood.”

“Ah. Yes, well, I am, as it happens. Vivian was
delighted
at the idea of a party. Bobbi's setting it up for Saturday. My appreciation is
boundless,
old man.”

“Uh, okay, likewise.” Escott in love. What a picture. Color it pink. Lace it with brandy. “I'll be by later. I got business here still.”

“Take your time, all's well.”

I hung up. Next he'd be skipping in a meadow throwing flower petals around.

No he wouldn't. But still.

Kroun looked like he might not care to be disturbed. I left him to proceed with his conquest and went on to pass
the word for the help to be looking for Mitchell. Let
him
interrupt his boss's canoodling.

Another shiver. Damn.

Since Strome was likely to come in by the alley door, I made my way to the rear of the club. The kitchen would be warmer than the rest of the place. I'd wait by a fired up stove and hope to thaw out. If that couldn't shake the chill, then I didn't know what else to do. Maybe retreat to my office and turn up the radiator and sit on it all night with a hot-water bottle. Come the daytime, and the cold wouldn't matter.

I didn't get as far as the kitchen. Strome was in the wide hall of the backstage area with Derner, and their heads were close together. Even at a distance I could see something off in their posture. They weren't the sort to broadcast much in the way of emotion, but I did pick up there was trouble of some kind going.

They spotted my approach at the same time, and each gave his own suppressed version of a guilty start.

“What is it?” I asked, my voice low. The lights were necessarily doused here to keep from showing on the stage area in front. Only thin threads seeped from under the dressing room doors. All but one: Alan Caine's.

“Got a problem, Boss,” said Derner.

“We can take care of it,” said Strome.

“What is it?” I suspected that Caine and Evie Montana were locked in, most likely involved in some very advanced canoodling. Not unheard of in a dressing room. Hell, Bobbi and I had . . .

The grim mugs in front of me said I was on the wrong track. I waited them out, just looking and frowning.

Derner broke first. “There's been an accident.”

Strome winced at the word. That he reacted so strongly
was more than enough to put my back hairs up. “Accident, my ass,” he muttered.

He
was
upset. “Spit it out,” I said.

Derner rubbed a hand over his face, a show of weariness and frustration in the gesture. Next he checked the wide hall, which was empty, which was not normal. There should have been chorus girls wandering about, the stage manager, stray waiters. All I saw were a couple of the muscle boys at the other end, waiting and watching . . . me. Derner opened Caine's dressing-room door. It creaked inward to silence.

No sounds of an interrupted tryst, no squawk of outrage, no movement at all.

Dark inside. The dim spill from the hall didn't penetrate far, even for me.

“What happened?” I asked. “He leave?”

“Caine's still here, Boss,” said Strome.

And without going any farther, without any visible facts, I knew what was wrong.

O
F
course I'd have to
look
. I was the boss. It was my job to deal with this kind of disaster.

Disaster it was. An almighty ugly one.

With me on the threshold and using his body to block the view of anyone passing, Derner reached in and flicked the light switch.

Alan Caine had his back to me, slumped awkwardly over his dressing table. There was a big mirror above it, and I couldn't chance Derner noticing my lack of reflection.

“Gimme a minute,” I said from the side of my mouth, then stepped in and shut the door on him before he saw. If only I could hypnotize without hurting myself, then I wouldn't have to be alone in a room with a fresh corpse.

I chanced to take in a whiff and got what I expected: talcum powder, grease paint, and sweat mixed with the stink of urine and crap. Death had been brutal to Caine, and once
relaxed, his body had given way with everything. No sweet peace here.

Fists in my pockets, I kept my distance. Had to bend low to check his face. What I expected: bloated and purple, broken blood vessels in his bulging eyes, tongue sticking out as though to offer a final opinion to the world. Something that looked like a blue necktie but wasn't was wound tight around his throat, the middle part almost lost in the folds of violated skin. Whoever had done it hadn't wanted noise and was strong enough to make it quick. No signs of a struggle anywhere else; the only evidence of the violence was the body itself.

“Damn.”

The guy had been abusive, obnoxious, and
alive
not too many minutes ago. I hadn't liked him, but to take the life out of another this swiftly and easily was just wrong. Having killed as well as been killed, I understood how little effort was needed to do that which should be unthinkable. We unite to build towers to the sky, make music and art to feed our souls, can sacrifice selflessly to help others, yet cling with a lover's greedy passion to the to the lowest and darkest of our emotions. Most of us don't act upon that hate-driven force. We resist.

But for someone . . . not this time.

That blue thing on Caine's neck. Jewel had worn a blue dress. I didn't want her to be involved. A quick check of the closet turned up nothing of similar color.

Ah. Coatrack by the door. There was a blue satin smoking jacket hanging from a peg. Same color as the tie. Empty loops on the garment. Same material. Good. But Jewel wasn't off the hook entirely.

The killer must have stood
here,
watching Caine, maybe listening, but looking for something to use against him.
Something quiet. A .22 being fired might not be heard, or the sound misinterpreted. Knock a wooden chair over the right way and it makes more noise. But the killer might not have known that or possessed so small a gun. Most of the guys in this outfit never went with anything less that a .38.

Why not a knife, then? Plenty of them in the club's kitchen and simple enough to boost one and walk out. Or bring your own.

They can take time to do the job, though. You have to know what you're doing. Human skin is tougher than one would think, and dragging even a razor-sharp blade through a couple of inches of muscle and cartilage of a throat takes effort. The victim doesn't die instantly. There can be messy thrashing around; the killer can get splashed with telltale blood.

But strangulation, it's very intimate. That's one way to feel the whole progression of things shutting down as the life goes out of the body. There's no doubt about death. If you have the strength and speed and cut off the blood to the brain quick, a few moment's effort will do it. After that, then only forty pounds of pressure to crush what needs to be crushed, and it's over and done, make a quiet exit.

Freeing up one of my hands, I lifted one of Caine's by the shirt cuff and checked his manicured fingernails. Small dark crescents were under those nails, but not dirt—bloodsmell. He'd managed to dig in deep in his last struggle and left marks someplace on his killer's body. The wrists . . .

Looked the rest of the small room over. No cover, no place to hide. Just me and what Caine had left behind of himself.

Bobbi had also used this as a dressing room at one time. And Adelle Taylor. And lots of others I knew by name or in person. Their ghosts seemed to shift uneasily around me,
disliking what had happened in their sanctuary. I stood and was dizzy from the shift, staggering a step. Waited, expecting another fit to sneak up from within, but it didn't happen. It was the air here. The presence of death. I didn't have to breathe to be overwhelmed.

I got on the other side of the door, met Derner's and Strome's gazes.

“Yeah,” said Derner, apparently agreeing with whatever he saw on my face.

“Any ideas?” I asked.

“ 'Bout what?”

“Who did it.”

He shrugged. “Try a phone book.”

“Not good enough. Show me your hands, both of you. Push your sleeves up.”

They were mystified. Good.

“We don't shoot dope, Boss,” said Strome, misinterpreting.

Derner was clean. Strome's knuckles were banged up and raw, but that was from the fight last night with Hoyle. His arms were free of nail gouging and scratches. I needed these two to be in the clear. On the other hand, they might have ordered someone else to strangle Caine, though the why of it was a mystery. I could settle such questions easy enough, but at the cost of collapsing in agony at their feet. Bosses weren't supposed to do that in front of the hired help.

Until I knew better, I'd just have to keep shut. “Who knows about this? Who found him?”

“Stage manager, just a few minutes ago,” said Strome.

“Did he see anyone else in or out?”

“Nope. I asked him special. He knocked on the door, it opened, and he saw, then locked up and went for me and Derner. He won't say nothing.”

“We gotta get Caine out of here,” Derner advised,
casting a glance up and down the hall. “The next show starts soon, there's no backup act—”

“Where's Jewel Caine?” I asked.

“What? His ex? She's here?”

“She was when we opened. Came back here to talk with friends. See if she's in with the dancers.”

He did so, banging once on their dressing room door and barging in. No one screamed a protest, and I heard their negative replies to his question.

“She left just a little bit ago,” someone within volunteered. “What's the idea locking us up? Hey—”

He returned. “You think
she
did it?”

Strome nodded. “She was plenty burned with him last night.”

“I don't know,” I said. “We'll figure that later. Where's the stage manager?”

Derner got him, explained that Alan Caine had come over sick and had to leave. The manager nodded slowly, rightly taking this to be the blanket explanation he would pass to others. After that, we did some fast shuffling to fill out the second show for the evening. An apologetic announcement was to be given to the house. One of the dancers also sang, so she'd have to change to a gown and do some solo numbers to keep things going. The other dancers had a hoofing routine already worked up that would pad the bill. The manager went off to fix things.

“What if the audience wants a refund?” Derner asked me.

“Give 'em their money, we can afford it.” We sure as hell wouldn't be paying the star. I turned to Strome. “Hoyle might have tried collecting markers again and got too rough. I want to see him before we call the cops.”

They were shocked. “The
cops?
”

“You heard.”

“But we can't,” said Derner.

I almost demanded to know why not, then bit it off. The Nightcrawler was already a favorite target for easy headlines; a murder under its roof just couldn't happen. Too many of the people here had records, and I wasn't about to draw official attention to myself if I could help it.

The trump card against bringing in the law was Gordy. If I didn't clean up this mess, he could get hauled off by the cops. He was in no shape to deal with even routine questions.

I debated over which course to go with, and not for the first time settled things by thinking, “What would Gordy do?”

“All right,” I said. “We take care of it ourselves.”

“Take care of what?”

None of us were virgins when it came to dealing with death firsthand, but the three of us gave a collective jump at that mildly put question from an outside party.

Kroun stood rather close to our group, and no one had heard his approach. “Take care of what, Fleming?” he repeated.

Now I knew how Derner and Strome felt when I'd turned up. “We got a problem.”

“What problem?” Kroun's tone indicated he would like a full and truthful answer.

I didn't want to say it out loud, so I opened the dressing-room door. The light was still on. Kroun looked in, but did not go in.

“That's a problem,” he agreed. “What are you going to do about it?”

Strome said to me, “Boss, I can disappear him like the others and no one's the wiser.”

“No,” I snapped.

“The others?” asked Kroun.

“Like Bristow,” I said, to explain. “We're not dumping
this guy in pieces for fish food. He can't just mysteriously disappear, or we'd never hear the end of it. He's too famous.”

Kroun gave me a long look and nodded in thoughtful agreement. “What, then?”

“We smuggle him out after closing. Put him in his own place without anyone seeing. He can't be found in the club. We just say he walked away and stick to that and not know anything else. The cops will come by and ask questions, but it won't be on the same level as it might if they knew he'd died here. Strome, you pick some guys who can keep their yaps shut, and I mean buttoned tight. They do the job, then forget they ever did it.”

“Right, Boss.”

“He was killed with something off his smoking jacket, make sure the jacket is taken to his place along with anything else he might normally have along with him. Make sure his wallet, keys, and stuff like that is on him. Take his hat and overcoat, and don't touch the tie around his neck. Don't just dump everything, make it look like he went home, and that's where he bought it. Everyone wears gloves.”

“Right, Boss.” He went inside the dressing room, shut the door, and from the sound of it, was preparing things for departure. He would have to work quick before the body stiffened up.

“Derner, find out where Caine hung his hat and case it. Figure the best time to get him inside. Arrange for a closed truck, something that won't stand out. No speeding, no busted lights, or whoever screws up will take the fall. Anyone too stupid or too nervous is on their own.”

“Right, Boss.”

“I want to know who was where from the moment Caine walked off the stage—wait—was Evie Montana in the dancers' dressing room?”

“I didn't notice.”

“Find out. I saw her follow Caine when his act was over. Where is she now?”

Derner cut away to bang on the chorus dancer's door again and looked inside. He traded words, then withdrew, shaking his head at me. “None of the girls have seen her since the end of the first show. They said Jewel came by to shoot the breeze. She stepped outside to have a smoke. Not allowed to smoke backstage.”

“See if she's still outside, then.”

He tapped on Caine's door, and Strome emerged. If I expected him to be pale and shaken from his grim work, I was disappointed. This wasn't anything disturbing to him. Derner explained what was wanted, but Strome paused.

“Boss—there's something gone from there.” He gestured back toward the room.

“Yeah?”

“I looked, but Caine's overcoat's gone.”

I digested this a few seconds. “Maybe the killer took it.”

“Ya think?” Kroun put in. “You're sure it's gone?”

Strome nodded. “Not that big a place, and it's a hard-to-miss coat. Tan-colored vicuna. Real flashy, expensive. Someone could get some money hocking or selling it.”

“It'd be too hot an item. Why else would they take it?”

“ 'Cause it's cold?”

Kroun look at me. I shrugged. “As good a reason as any. It'll make a search easier. Strome, go check the alley for Jewel Caine and see if you spot anyone dumb enough to have that coat.”

Strome shot off, moving casual, but not wasting time.

With this kind of distraction I'd forgotten about my internal cold. It flooded its way back, and I had to fight to
keep from visibly shivering. Evie Montana and Jewel Caine were gone, and the man between them thoroughly dead. I didn't think either or even both working together would be strong enough to strangle him like that, so quickly. As for motive . . . well, Jewel had none to speak of; Caine alive meant money to her. Unless my loan of forty bucks had taken the pressure off, and she'd come back to have a gloat and one thing had led to another. If so, then why had Caine turned his back on her? He liked baiting people face-to-face to enjoy their reaction. Of course, he could have watched the reflection in the big mirror, but then he might have seen the attack coming and put up more of a fight.

Where had Evie gotten to, anyway? The way she dogged him, she might as well have been on a leash. Had she seen him killed and run? That was my main worry. If either of them saw something she shouldn't, she was dead, too.

Derner went off to arrange details, leaving me and Kroun in the hall.

“You handled that,” he said, “like you had it written out on a chalkboard.”

I shrugged. “Just trying to anticipate. If I left anything out, I wanna know.”

We looked at each other a minute. I knew for sure that Kroun hadn't personally done it since he'd been in my sight all during the break in the show. But Mitchell could have managed, and he'd been missing for a long time.

“Where's your boy?” I asked.