Reach the Shining River (16 page)

28.

When the curfew lifted, it was like a break in a heatwave. Suddenly the district was loose and cool and full of life. Street vendors shouting, crap games in the alleyways, games of pinochle under the hotel awnings. Kids hawking newspapers, shoe-shine stands doing brisk business, the stores and sidewalks packed with people who had been holed up scared. The Monarch cabs were running again. Big John Creach dug a barbecue pit behind the Negro Veteran’s Club on Cherry Street and cooked up short ribs and pulled pork and turkey sausage. All you could eat. Everybody welcome. It was like all the year’s holidays rolled into one.

And the music – the clubs had reopened and were making up for lost time. Twelfth and Eighteenth Streets were rocking: jazz and blues, swing and boogie-woogie; the Boulevard Lounge and the Cherry Blossom and the Reno Club. Saxophones riffing like a freight train, hot trumpet licks.
Tiger Rag
and
Nagasaki
and
West
End
Blues
. The clickety-clack of tap dancers. Beer and whiskey flowing like the Missouri River. Bill Basie and Bennie Moten in a battle of the bands and Christine Buckner dancing like a dervish, urged on by wild drumming and the call of the brass section. And nothing closing until after the sun came up.

Emmett could sense it from downtown. The whole city was loosy-goosy. But he was worried. The good times were a little too good. A little too Mardis Gras. Underneath the gaiety nothing had changed. The dead were dead, the injured nursed their wounds, murders remained unsolved. Wardell was back home, his mama back at work, but no word from Cal Watkins. Emmett couldn’t blame him for not trusting a white man, but the kid had information. The kind of information that could break this case open. Was it the mother? Was she getting in the way? Emmett decided to visit the Sunset Club and find out for himself.

He’d never been in the Negro district after dark. He was surprised at the energy, the neon buzz and the sensual music. Women in low-cut dresses and boas smiled from doorways, the smell of marijuana drifted from back alleys. No sign of any cops, but plenty of Palm Beach suits and two-tone shoes and felt fedoras. And even a few white guys from downtown offices who had gone from work to the saloons and now drifted to the district looking for a little action.

As he entered the Sunset, he scanned the tables for anyone who might know him. The room smelled of barbecued meat and cheap liquor. He took a seat at the rear, ordered a drink, and set his hat on the chair beside him. There were gaps between the floorboards and a blue haze of tobacco smoke. Onstage, a dance band blared the end of a tune as a chorus line of dancers shook their hips at the hooting audience and shimmied off to the dressing room.

The musicians followed the dancers, leaving the stage empty. He was the only white person in the club. He kept his head low in the sudden quiet and sipped his drink. In his Brooks Brothers suit and striped tie he felt naked.

“Mr. Whelan, that you?”

Hattie Renfroe had stopped at his table, purse dangling from her forearm and lips twitching like she was trying not to smile. She was dolled up: a floral-print dress with the hemline above the knee, heels, heavy make-up, and conked hair. Behind her stood a callow man in an oversized suit and a soft hat. He looked at the floor and slouched like someone forever at his girl’s beck and call.

“Why hello, Hattie.”

She put a hand on her hip and let the smile break wide. “Of all people.” She tilted her head at her consort. “This here Hence.”

Hence touched his hat, eyes still averted. He leaned forward and whispered.

“Whiskey and soda,” she said, and he glided away.

“I thought you didn’t listen to the devil’s music, Hattie.”

She draped her wrist over the chair back and thrust out a hip. “Never said I did and never said I didn’t.”

Though he kept his eye from wandering, he was aware of the cling of her dress and the sheen of her stockings.

She looked at the whiskey glass in his hand. “Look like
you
want to listen to it,” she said.

He pushed his drink from side to side. Back on the sauce since his pint with Fat Jack. What difference did it make?

“I seem to remember you singing the blues once in a while,” he said.

“Maybe you talk to Piney Brown, get me an audition.”

“Who’s Piney Brown?”

“The manager here.”

“And what makes you think he’d listen to me?”

“You important.”

The tables were filling up with neighborhood folks in their Friday-night finery. A few of them looked Emmett’s way. Hattie checked on Hence, who was gabbing with the bartender.

“Where are you working now?” he asked.

“Who said I was workin’?”

She lost the smile. He searched for something else to say and came up with nothing.

“How M’s. Whelan?” she said at last.

“Oh, she’s fine, I guess.”

“That so?”

Stone-faced, she walked off abruptly, just as a piano player took his seat and started playing. Emmett watched the stretch of her legs. At the bar, she grabbed Hence’s arm and leaned into him, moving her hips in time with the music.

The piano man played three or four tunes solo. The music had a church tinge, not the barrelhouse that had accompanied the dancers. Most of the audience stopped chattering and listened. Once in a while the bartender would shout, a blues bark that extended a musical phrase and got the tables murmuring. Emmett tapped his foot and watched Hattie. She sat at a table near the stage. Her dress had ridden up her thigh and Hence had a hand on her knee.

By the time the singer appeared, the house was full. Arlene Gray stepped elegantly on the stage and approached the microphone, one hand moving in time with the music, the other resting against the curve of her hip. There was warm applause. Light-skinned and full-figured, she wore a black, strapless sheath with sequins that sparkled in the house lights.

She looked like a diva, but her voice was delicate, almost shy. She opened with “Willow Weep for Me”. Six years ago, when he was courting Fay, it had been the torch song for a generation. Irene Taylor had the hit, a big, show-stopping number with orchestral flourishes and quavering grace notes. But Arlene Gray’s version was low-key and off-center. She sang as if speaking to her audience, and the phrases moved gently and rhythmically, like the sound of lapping waves.

Whisper
to
the
wind
and
say
that
love
has
sinned

Left
my
heart
a
-
breaking
,
and
making
a
moan

Murmur
to
the
night
to
hide
its
starry
light

So
none
will
see
me
sighing
and
crying
all
alone
.

The sad music washed over him. Unused to whiskey, he grew maudlin. He thought of Fay. A lost cause. Solving the case wasn’t going to make any difference. It would land him the job with her old man and make him a shitload of dough, but none of that mattered. She might stay with him for what he could give her, but she hated something inside of him. Something that wasn’t going to change.

He drank his whiskey. Let Mickey get the dirt on her. Let him find out the worst.

At the end of the set he moved unsteadily to the bar. He ordered a double. The bartender was brisk but deferent. He wiped the counter with a cloth and set the drink on a beermat.

“She’s something, huh?” Emmett said.

“Yes sir. M’s. Gray, she know how to sing.”

The man was broad-shouldered and muscular. He continued polishing the bar, waiting for Emmett to speak.

“Do me a favor.”

“Yes sir.”

“Tell Piney Brown I want to see him.”

After a few minutes, the manager approached. He had a heavy limp, gnarled hands, and a puckered mouth. “If you from Charlie, I paid at seven o’clock. Like usual.”

“I’m not from Charlie.”

Piney licked his lips. He was missing several teeth. “How ‘bout another one of those.” He pointed at Emmett’s glass. “On the house.”

Emmett shook his head. “Nice music tonight.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“This singer, she been with you long?”

Piney put his hands on the counter. “Arlene, she been around a good spell. She the house act.”

“Where is she now?”

“Havin’ a break.”

“I’d like to talk to her.”

Piney leaned close. “This ‘bout Mr. Lococo?”

“I just want to talk to Arlene Gray, Piney. I’m not from anybody.”

They passed through a bead curtain to a back booth. Arlene and the piano player were eating chicken.

“Phineas,” Piney said. “You mind?”

Still chewing, the piano player lifted his plate and left. Emmett slid into his place. Piney hung over the table like a waiter. “I’ll get me a chair.”

“Just leave us on our own,” Emmett said.

Piney slowly moved off. Arlene’s knife and fork were still poised over her plate; she laid them down, took her napkin from her lap, and wiped the corners of her mouth.

“Can I get you a drink?” Emmett asked.

She shook her head. She was as elegant in this grimy booth as she was on stage. Her broad face was poised and careful. Her hair was tied back tight, and big, looping rings hung from her ears. Large eyes and high cheekbones and fine skin.

“Mrs. Gray, I’m a prosecutor with Jackson County.”

“I’m working this evening, sir. And I’m back on in ten minutes.”

She spoke as she sang: clearly and without affect, with a little rasp at the edge of her voice.

“Your singing is wonderful,” he said.

A glass smashed somewhere near the bar, and Arlene cocked her head, as if hearing a baby’s cry. “You didn’t come here to ask me about my singing.”

“No, I didn’t. But I don’t mind telling you, I was moved.”

When he wouldn’t give in to her stare, she poked at her food. “I sang in church when I was a girl. Only training I ever had.”

Emmett could see where Wardell got his wary eyes and full features.

“I’m the man who brought your boy to Cal Watkins,” he said.

She looked up sharply and drew her elbows in close to her sides. “You’re Mr. Whelan?”

“That’s right.”

“I suppose I should thank you.”

But her eyes weren’t grateful. They looked caught in the headlights.

“I’m not looking for thanks,” he said. “I just want to ask a question or two.”

She pushed the unfinished food aside and leaned back in her seat. “About what?”

“Well,” Emmett said, “how do you like your new piano player?”

“My new piano player?”

“Yes. Phineas.”

“I like him fine.”

“How does he compare with Eddie Sloan?”

She leaned out of the booth and lifted her bag from the floor. The dress was cut low at the back and its sequined waist strained across her hips as she bent over. Taking a pack of smokes from her bag, she shook one loose and lit up. “I’ve told all I know.”

“Told who?”

“The police.”

“I’m not the police.”

“So who are you then?” she said.

“Like I said, assistant county prosecutor.”

“You didn’t say ‘assistant’.”

“No, I guess I didn’t.”

She blew smoke sideways. She looked more annoyed now than scared. “Phineas is good. But it will be a while before we have the thing I had with Eddie. We played together three years.”

“Since Eddie left, has anything unusual happened?”

“He didn’t leave. He was murdered.”

“Of course. That’s why I’m here.”

“I was told this is a city case.”

“Cross-jurisdictional.”

“Fancy word.”

“Something tells me you know what it means.”

She drew fiercely on her cigarette, and the coal flared beneath her flashing eyes. “Mr. Whelan, I appreciate you found my son. I do. But what makes you think you know what I know?”

He shrugged.

“What I know,” she said, “is that no-one is doing a damn thing to find Eddie’s killers. What I know is, my son went missing for a week, and when he was returned to me I got no explanation as to why he was gone.”

“What did Calvin tell you?”

“Cal Watkins is an old friend of mine,” she said, waving her cigarette, “and he does care for my boy. But he’s got bigger things on his mind just now.”

He brought his hands together and set them on the table, as if in prayer. He needed her confidence. “Police were involved in what happened to Wardell, Mrs. Gray. You must know that, too. Maybe they didn’t snatch him, but they were involved. They think he knows something, and they wanted him where they could keep an eye on him.”