Day of Wrath (14 page)

I parked the Pinto on St. Gregory and walked up to the
corner of Hill. From the outside, The Pentangle Club seemed very different
than the raucous bars farther up the street. For one thing, there was no
roar coming out the open door. Just the sweet, recorded sound of a woman's
voice—Billie Holiday, I thought—singing wistfully of lost love. The
wind blew her voice out to me, swallowed it up in a sudden gust, then brought
it floating back again, as if it weren't a record I was hearing but a real
woman, singing softly through a window, unaware
she was being listened to.

Oh why, oh why is love so strange?
Why you want me? Why you come back again?
You say you leave me, but you never let go.
You say you love me, but you hurt me so.

A teenage girl was sitting on a rocking chair just inside
the door. She was dressed like one of the Pointer Sisters, in a tight,
print, hand-me-down dress, black high-heeled shoes, and silk stockings
with a dark seam down the back of each leg. She had a black straw hat cocked
on her head with a long ostrich feather stuck in the band. She smiled at
me and I smiled back.

"Who was that singing just now?" I asked her.

"That was Billie Holiday," she said. "Did you like her?"

"I have for years," I said.

"Lady Day," she said blissfully.

She was a pretty, blonde kid with very pale lashes and
brows and very pale skin. Her emerald eyes and pink lips were the only
spots of color in her face. I figured she was no more than. eighteen or
nineteen. But I could have been wrong. From the way she'd outfitted herself,
she seemed to have a well-developed sense of style; and that I wasn't something
she could have picked up overnight.

"I'd show you to a table," she said. "But we're getting
ready to close."

"
Do I have time for a beer?"

"
Sure. Tell joey it's on the house."

"Why so generous?" I said.

"I don't know,". she said with a giddy laugh. "Because
you like Billie Holiday."

"Thanks," I said to her.

The bar was on the far side of the room. Tables and chairs
were set up between it and a small, spotlit stage near the door. The stage
was empty, but a few kids were still sitting there staring at it with devotion,
as if it might suddenly come to life and make music again. I wondered who'd
been playing there that night.

I asked the bartender and he said, "Jim Tuttle. Jazz sax.
He's great, man. Great."

The jukebox started to play—Charlie Parker. I leaned
up against the bar rail and looked out across the room.

"We had coffee houses in my day," I said to the bartender—a
young, red-headed giant with razor-burned cheeks, a sparse red moustache,
and pale-blue eyes.

"
Great, man," he said.

I laughed and turned back to him. "How about giving me
a Scotch? Johnny Walker Red Label. Straight up."

He turned to the liquor shelf and picked up a quart bottle
with a chrome spout. "Can't see how you drink this stuif," he said flipping
the Scotch into a shot glass. "Tastes like medicine to me."

"Give me my medicine," I said.

He smiled and set the glass in front of me, as daintily
as if he were building a model ship. He pulled a bar rag from a metal loop
and began to polish glasses.

"Coffee house, huh?" he said as he worked.

"Well, that's what we called them. But all I remember
drinking is tea. We were just hippies imitating the beatniks."

"Everybody's got to believe in something," he said.

"
You had Woodstock and we got Iggy Pop."

"
Here's to Iggy Pop," I said. "And all that he stands
for."

I downed the Scotch and put the glass on the bar.

"One more."

He poured me another Scotch. I picked up the glass.

"Who are we drinking to this time?"

"
To peace and love," he said with a grin.

"To peace and love." I swallowed half of it and began
to feel good. "Who's the girl by the door?" I asked him.

"Her name's Grace."

"
She work here?"

"On weekends," the boy said. "Mostly she hangs out.

She's a jazz freak. Goes to CCM. Or used to. She actually
has a pretty nice voice. She sings here when The Count plays."

"Who's The Count?"

He looked at me with surprise. "You don't know who The
Count is, man? The Count is God."

"That's a hard act to book,".I said.

He laughed. "You don't know the half of it."

"When's The Count playing again?"

"Theo?" he said. "Next Monday, I think."

I took another sip of the whiskey and said, "Theo? I thought
you called him The Count."

"Oh, that's just bullshit. He calls himself the Lost Prince,
too. His real name is Theo Clinger. And he's a helluva musician. A little
weird, but first class. Maybe the best in the city."

"What's he play?"

"He plays the guitar," the bartender said in a hip voice.
"But you better get here early if you're thinking about coming to hear
him."

"He's got a big following?" I said.

The boy said, "Following is the word. Theo's practically
got a family of worshippers? He said it a little sourly, as if he preferred
to worship somewhere else.

"Is she part of his family?" I nodded toward Grace.

"A charter member. She lives with him, but then a lot
of the chicks do."

I gave him a surprised look, although I wasn't very surprised.

"
Oh, yeah," he said coolly. "The Count loves the little
girls. And the little boys, too, from what I hear. He's got a devoted following.
And they do what he says."

His voice had soured again. It made me wonder if he'd
lost a little girl of his own to The Count's troupe. It also made me wonder
about Robbie Segal. I took the photograph out of my pocket and tossed it
on the bar.

The boy's face darkened and something in his eyes—some
spark of amusement that had kept our conversation loose and amiable—blew
right out. "You're a cop, aren't you," he said. "Yeah, you're a cop. I
guess I should have known that." He slapped the wet towel against the bar,
as if he were flogging himself for his stupidity.

"I used to be a cop," I said. "I used to be a hippie,
too."

"Just exactly what are you now, mister?" he said, staring
at me coldly.

"Now, I'm a private detective, looking for the girl in
this picture. She's a runaway and her mother wants her back."

He swiveled the picture around with one finger and eyed
it casually. "I don't want any trouble with the cops," he said. "We're
on probation with the State Board right now."

"There won't be any trouble. I just want to find the girl."

He nodded, but he didn't look as if he believed me. "I
don't think I've seen her before?"

"
Think again, Joey."

He looked up at me quickly. "How did you know my name?"

"Grace told me."

"Well, why don't you take your photograph and your Scotch
and go talk to Grace? I never saw this girl before in my life." He turned
to the shelves of liquor bottles and  began dusting off their caps.
Somewhere along the line he'd been pushed too hard by someone in blue serge, 
and he wasn't going to be pushed again. It irked me a little that he'd
automatically lumped me together with whoever that was. To be honest, it
irked me that he lumped all cops together in the same bin.

I downed the rest of the Scotch and laid a ten-dollar
bill on the bar. "Keep it," I said to him.

"You keep it," he said under his breath. "And keep the
fuck out of my bar. I don't like cops."

"I don't like bartenders," I said.

He whirled around and planted his hands on the mahogany
rail. "You want to make something out of it?"

"Just a point," I said. "Cop or bartender—it's only
a job."

"Well, I don't like your job," he said between his teeth.

I picked up the photograph and the money, stuck them in
my coat pocket, and walked over to the front door. Grace had apparently
been watching us from where she was sitting.

"What happened?" she said as I came up to her.

"
Joey decided that he didn't like my job," I said with
disgust. I was angry, and I knew that I shouldn't have been. Not with a
twenty-three-year-old kid with a red moustache and a chip on his shoulder.
Only it had been a long day; and I was beginning to feel the weariness
inside me. It and the liquor and the lost girl. The booze had killed off
the remainder of that buoyancy I'd been feeling, and now I just wanted
to go home.

"What job is that?" she said curiously.

"I'm a private detective," I said. "Want to make something
out of it?"

She grinned and I found myself smiling back at her.

"A private detective? I don't think I've ever met one
of those before."

"
Well, now you have."

As I started through the door, she picked up a black straw
purse and followed me out.

"Where do you think you're going?" I asked her.

"With you."

"Why in the world would you want to do that?"

She thought it over as we stepped onto the porch.

"Because you're the first private detective I've ever
met who liked Billie Holiday."
 

THE WIND WHIPPED GRACEYS DRESS ABOUT HER LEGS AS we walked
up St. Gregory to where I'd parked the Pinto. Out on the river a barge
horn sounded one long, melancholy blast. The girl hooted back at it in
a graceful, jazzy soprano, pirouetted on her high heels, and flapped her
long arms like a water bird taking flight. She came back to earth with
a carefree laugh, planting a hand on her hat and looping the other through
my arm.

When we reached the car, I took a critical look at her.
She stared back at me with a loose, gum-cracking grin—one leg shifted
forward and bent at the knee, one hand planted on her bony hip. In that
long-sleeved, high-necked print dress, she looked a little like a tough,
brassy broad from a forties melodrama. Of course that was the way she'd
wanted to look. But even though she'd dressed the part to a tee, her face
wasn't right. It should have been fleshier, less chalky and delicate. She
should have had more meat on her bones, too. She looked tough, all right,
and cocksure, but she just didn't look full grown. lf she'd been five years
older, she would have been tacky and pathetic. As it was, she baffled me.
I didn't know why she'd picked me up. or what in the world I was going
to do with her later that night. But, somewhere in the back of my mind,
I was thinking that she belonged to Theo Clinger's circle and that that
was reason enough to play along.

"It's cold," she said, hugging her shoulders through the
thin dress.

"I'll turn on the heater in the car."

We got in and I experienced another awkward moment, listening
to her silk stockings rustle.

"How old are you?" I said as I started the engine.

"Old enough," she said drily. "I'm well past the jail
bait stage, if that's what you're worried about." She tucked her legs underneath
her, turned in the car seat, and gave me an amused look. "What are you
worried about? You're worried about something."

I flipped on the heater and said, "It's been a long day."

She turned one of the vents toward her. "I'm always cold.
Poor circulation. Someday, when I get enough money together, I'm going
to move to L.A. That's where the music is, anyway. L.A.!" She trilled it,
as if it were the top note on the scale. "Then I'll never be cold again."

I shifted into first and started down St. Gregory toward
the Parkway. I wasn't really sure where I was going, but after Sophie and
Irene Croft, and pal ]oey, I wanted off the Hill as quickly as I could
go.

I headed southwest when I got to Columbia, along the riverfront.
At that time of the morning, the streets were deserted and the city looming
behind them looked as sedate and unpeopled as midnight in the suburbs.
I got off the Parkway at Vine and drove through the greenish haze of street
lights to Central. Nothing was moving on the sidewalks but bits of paper,
chased by the wind.

Nothing was lit up but the traffic lights and the arc
lamps overhead. The great marble and glass skyscrapers towered up on either
side of us, with no one but caretakers and janitors inside. Some cities
never sleep—you can never really have them all to yourself. Cincinnati
sleeps each night like it's drugged. And coasting through it at three in
the morning you can still get that small-town sense of scale, that reassuring
feeling that, in spite of the marble and the brass, this is one city that's
not bigger than you are.