Season of the Witch (14 page)

“Actually, I’m looking for Lucinda.”

Both eyebrows crept up, and I got a knowing smile. He leaned a little closer, so that I could see his shiny gold incisors, and dropped his voice an octave.

“Ah. Sure. You’re in luck, my friend, I don’t think she’s busy.”

He continued to gaze purposefully at me. I reached into my pocket and shrugged, and slid him a twenty. He looked at me as if in reappraisal, and seemed a little slighted. He made the bill disappear, just the same, then walked away. After a minute or two he reappeared behind the bar.

Magically, an attractive brunette girl, maybe twenty-two years old, clad in naught but a white spider web of lacy bra and panties, slid onto the stool next to mine. She had a very pleasing aroma of French perfume, and pale, flawless skin.

“I’m Lucinda.” She also had a nice smile.

“Roland Longville.” I reached out my hand. She acted surprised, but shook it, Her small white hand disappearing into my big, black one.

She turned to the barman. “I’d like a margarita, Herb.” I nodded at his questioning gaze. He positively beamed at me and he whipped up one of those alcohol-free drinks dancers always get, and slid it towards her. I figured Herb either must get a cut, or was about to ask me for a date.

“Thanks.” She turned back to me, squeezing my arm.

“No problem.” She flinched when she noticed my temple for the first time.

“My god, what happened to you?”

“I got hit by a bus.” It made her giggle, a pleasant little sound.

“So, how did you know my name?”

“An . . . acquaintance of mine.”

“Oh, really. Your friend comes here a lot?” Her eyes were wide, childlike. She took a sip of her phony drink and kept smiling.

“Well, he used to. He doesn’t anymore.”

“Well, what’s his name?”

“Blake Hazelwood.”

The happy little smile vanished, and then came back. For just a second, though, it had been there, the fear of the cornered animal.

She recovered nicely. “So, how is Blake?”

“He’s dead.”

“What? But—how?” There was no trace of sadness in her eyes, just a genuine curiosity.

“Could we get a booth?”

“Yeah.” She called out to the barman. “Herb, I’m going to be on break for a little while.”

“Oh, sure.” Herb gave me a knowing smile.

We slid into a dimly illuminated corner booth, and she got a little closer. I squirmed a little. She was no Eve, but Lucinda definitely had her charms. Her state of relative undress and proximity made this hard to miss, even if you didn’t happen to be a trained detective.

“Was it Blake— um, Hazelwood that did that to you?”

“Don’t get so broken up. No, It wasn’t Hazelwood that hit me. But I’m betting it was someone he knew. I think maybe he mistook me for Hazelwood. Despite our very different complexions, we’re about the same size, and besides, it was dark. This guy was waiting for Hazelwood, but I showed up instead. So I got sap poisoning instead of him.”

“Are you a cop?”

I showed her my credentials. She smirked.

“A private eye, well what about that. I thought you guys were only in the movies.” She rested her chin on her interlaced fingers and regarded me with sparkling blue eyes. “So who was the man that hurt a big tough guy like you, mister private eye?”

Her smile was innocent and sweet, and I felt like a heel, but it had to be done.

“A man I’m looking for, a man named Danny Weber.” The pretty eyes suddenly watered over, and she turned away.

“Well, I don’t know where he is.”

There was a sob in her voice, and I felt my heart sink in my chest. She was just a young girl in a crummy world trying to protect her wayward boyfriend.

“Lucinda, I need to know where Danny is, and you aren’t a very good liar. Listen to me. I don’t want to hurt him. You don’t have to be afraid.”

I saw that her face wore a strange expression that I could not quite read. She was looking past me, at someone who was standing very close to me at the table. My little interior voice told me not to turn around too quickly.

“It’s not you that I’m afraid of,” she whispered in a barely perceptible voice.

Slowly, I looked up. There were three of them, but the two torpedoes didn’t matter. It was the one in the middle who commanded attention—Longshot Lonnie O’Malley, head of the Southside’s O’Hearn mob. His tall, thin frame was dressed in a sleek gray pinstriped suit. The trademark yellow carnation, the same color as his bushy hair, was stuck in his lapel. His left hand worked restlessly at his silver watch fob. And all his diabolical attention was focused on me.

“I didn’t think that you frequented places like this, gumshoe.” He smiled sardonically. “Or associated with whores.” He laughed, and it was an empty, bitter sound, like a funeral shroud whipped by the wind. His two pet thugs obediently chuckled along. He silenced them with a casual shrug, and slid into the booth across from us. Longshot Lonnie was a dangerous man, an angry and twisted man; an aura of infernal violence seethed about him. He was an animal, like Don Ganato, but of a more brutal and even less likable sort. I was beginning to wonder if I was the surprise guest at some secret gangster convention.

My mind went uneasily to Chief Detective Magnuson. I kept thinking about a certain question he had asked me. It was a question about whether I had ever been involved with Longshot, something about police corruption. I began to experience a distinctly unpleasant sensation. It was a sinking feeling like everyone around me knew the entire picture, some vast and unholy secret that I wasn’t allowed to know.

Lonnie was as close to pure evil as I had ever seen. He ruled the North Side. He was always present, in every shadow that dwelled there, every husky voice that calls from the alleyway, in every torturer’s eyes. There was no pretense, no more than in the jungle. You could feel death’s icy fingers in the sweat that runs down your face when the bullet just misses you. Still some people will tell you that evil does not exist.

Lonnie glared at me with his enigmatic eyes—the right eye blue and cool, the left eye equally bright but maniacally green. Slight astigmatism enforced the idea that the eyes represented separate entities, each with its own secret thoughts, unknowable, unspeakable. He straightened up in his seat and cleared his throat. He fixed me with the calm blue eye.

“I’m looking for something, Longville.” His voice had a strange timbre, almost sad. I let him go on, “You can help me find it.” He nodded solemnly at his own words, as if convincing himself of their truth.

“There’s a lot of that going around. What have you lost, Lonnie?”

Instead of answering, he smiled at Lucinda, a bitter, crazed, charming smile, an alligator with a manicure in an Armani suit admiring a fledgling swan.

“So, how’s the love life, sweetheart, still fucking that two-bit loser, Itchy?”

“You stay away from Danny, you freak, or I’ll—-”

Lonnie’s backhand caught Lucinda across the cheek. She curled into the corner of the booth and was silent.

“You’ll do what?” Lonnie whispered almost imperceptibly to his fingertips.

The cool blue eye still regarded me, and Lonnie went on in a detached and logical tone. “I haven’t lost anything.” The tone was conversational, almost friendly. “Longshot Lonnie don’t lose things. Y’see, something was taken, stolen from me, and that won’t work in this town, brother man. Nor any other on the green earth.”

“Well, that’s pretty vague, Longshot. I don’t see how I can help you. I need more information before we can discuss fees.”

Lonnie gritted his teeth and spoke through them, back over his shoulder to one of his thugs. “Y’see the problem with this town? Everybody’s a goddamned comedian.”

He reached over and grabbed my collar and pulled me to him, face to face. Just like a real gangster in a movie. He snarled, his top lip quivering, his bright and unreadable eyes inches from me. A bright object tumbled out of my shirt. He looked down at it and his expression suddenly changed. He threw his head back and laughed, loud and ironically. His demonic gaze fixed on my neck.

“I see you’re still wearing that silver poker chip around your neck.” His anger was forgotten.

“You also see that I’m still breathing.”

The saturnine smile returned, and his grip relaxed. He sat back, momentarily amused. The past is a funny thing. Its echoes are with us always. I had saved Lonnie from Don Ganato’s hired killers five years before. In return, he had given me his mystical token, a silver thousand dollar poker chip from his casino, pierced with a single bullet hole. In those days it was his only racket.

“Show this to anyone in the rackets in the Zone or the North Side,” he had told me. “It’ll save your life. But,” his other half had added, “if you let some Italian Hood catch you wearing that, your life won’t be worth a nickel, let alone a grand.”

In those days he’d been the meanest hatchet man for old Paddy O’Hearn. Paddy had hand-picked Lonnie to succeed him, the same year the old man’s pump gave out on him. He’d died in his bed,and few in his line of work go out that way. That had been a long time ago, but I carry the chip with me still. Longshot waved his hand as though searching for the correct phrase with which to explain a difficult problem.

“I’m looking for a certain someone . . . they’ve stolen something of mine. If you really don’t know anything, you can help me by staying out of my way.” Then he laughed and sat back, smoothing his hair. When he looked at me again, his face was completely calm.

Someone whom I trusted violated that sacred bond.

It was all becoming a bit surreal.

Roland Longville, counselor to the underworld. Everyone was missing something, and I was expected to provide the answer. Except I didn’t have it.

“Well, I’ll tell you what, Lonnie. I recently got a ride from your old pal Don Ganato, and as it turns out, he’s looking for something, too. Maybe you guys could get together and help each other out. Or maybe you guys should see a shrink. I hear they can hypnotize you so you don’t lose things.”

“You look like somebody roughed you up, gumshoe. Maybe you should try being nicer to people. These are mean streets, a man has to watch his lip.” He chuckled a little and drew conspiratorially close. “My old pal, Don Ganato. Don, my arse. Too bad that Capone wannabe is still breathing. If he’s having troubles, so much the better. If I get my way, one day he’ll have plenty more. But that ain’t the business at hand. Bollocks to that wop, anyway. I don’t know if you being here has anything to do with my little problem. But we’re square so far. So be straight with me, okay?”

“Since you’re being so nice, I’ll help you if I can.”

“Is Ganato looking for a girl?” His eyes bored into my soul.

I tried not to look too amazed. “A girl?”

“That’s right. I’m looking for a young lady. Maybe he and I are looking for the same one. I suppose that it’s possible. Maybe he wants to find her so he can hurt me.” His eyes darted around as if he thought someone might be listening. His voice lowered and became menacing again.

“Maybe you’re looking for her, too.” For a second, there was a strange look on his face, almost a look of pain.

“Well, as a matter of fact, Lonnie, I found the woman I’m looking for right here.” I nodded toward Lucinda and put my arm around her. Longshot was already sliding out of his seat. I couldn’t hide anything from him by clowning. He’d seen all that he needed to know in my eyes.

“Very funny. Maybe you don’t know who I’m talking about. I suppose that it was just a pleasant coincidence, running into you and your lady friend tonight. But I don’t know. ” He turned to walk away, but then stopped and looked at me again, with both eyes this time. The effect was quite disturbing.

“I’m going to find her, and I’m going to find the rotten bastard that double crossed me.” The blue eye coldly informed me.

“. . . And I’ll kill whoever gets in my way,” the green eye interjected.

“I don’t believe I can help, Lonnie. I never even caught your girlfriend’s name,” I said as levelly as possible.

Lonnie grinned maniacally. He leaned back, catlike. He shrugged again, twirling the watch fob in his fingers.

“Eve. Her name is Eve.” And it was in his voice, too, that strange, mantra-like tone that I had heard in Harry’s voice.

He let go the watch fob and snapped his fingers. He tossed me a gunman’s salute. “Big Daddy tells me you put the muscle on Vince, one of his boys. I think you should know that Big Daddy works for me now.”

“Honestly, Lonnie, I thought better of you than that. That guy’s a criminal.”

“Funny, boyo. I’m laughing on the inside. You interfere with him, and you interfere with me. It’s raining outside, Longville. Take care you don’t get rained on with the lowlifes.” He nodded in my general direction, his eyes fixing once again on the poker chip that dangled from my shirt.

“Your line of credit only goes so far.” He and his hoods filed out the door.

I touched Lucinda on the shoulder. “Are you all right?”

“That asshole,” she said under her breath, with an immediate glance to make sure that he was really gone. But she looked all right. I guess she’d been socked a time or two before.