Too Sweet to Die (7 page)

“Kemp the comic artist,” said Nada. “I guess you probably don’t follow that medium. He’s a cartoonist, very gifted.”

“That explains the spots.”

“Spots?”

“Black, spots on his fingers. I was trying to think what drug will do that. It must be India ink, though.”

Nada touched Easy’s arm with one slender hand. “I let Kemp stay here off and on. I have occasional maternal impulses, though I’m basically bitchy at heart,” she said. “I think I forgot to pay my electric bill for a few months, which is how come you’re being entertained by candlelight.” She picked up the candle from beside Kemp. “I usually hold my at-homes out back in the kitchen. Come along.”

In the long hardwood hallway they passed two more leaning bicycles. “You’re fond of bikes,” said Easy.

“I never had one when I was a kid.” She pointed with her free hand. “Over that way. No, over there actually. Over there across the Bay is Oakland. You know where 7th and Central is?”

“No.”

“Good for you then. That is where I grew up, in that vicinity. Now I’m practically a superstar.”

“When you’re full-fledged you can pay your light bill.”

“I could pay it now except I keep forgetting.” The kitchen was large, with a high white ceiling. Copper pots, all new and unused, hung from hooks around the walls. “Want a drink?”

In the center of a round carved oak table sat a half-full bottle of Riesling and another candle in a saucer. Easy lit the candle. “No, thanks,” he said. “Now, what about Jill Jeffers?”

“I think you’re supposed to chill this,” said Nada, setting her candle on the big table and picking up the wine bottle. She wiped the lip of the green bottle with the back of her hand. “Skol.” She drank from the bottle, took it with her as she walked, slow and slide-footed, across the room. There was a 10-speed Italian bicycle propped against the refrigerator. “I don’t mind making the skin cinema stuff for Dean. However, I still have a … well, maybe you can’t call it a moral sense. Anyhow, sometimes I see things happen which I don’t much like.”

“Did Dean do something to Jill?”

Nada shook her red head. She took another swig of the warm Riesling. “What I’m going to tell you … you have to act like you obtained it from an informed source who prefers to remain nameless. A deal?”

Easy nodded at her. “Sure. What happened to Jill Jeffers? Where is she?”

“I don’t know where she is, not for sure. But what happened to her is Poncho.”

“Who’s Poncho?”

“Poncho is Poncho,” replied Nada. “A great big bastard, and mean. Good looking, in a grizzly bear sort of way. He works in some of Dean’s flicks once in a great while. He took Jill.”

“Took her?”

Nada drank from the green bottle. “Took her with him, away from that party,” she said finally. “I’ve met Jill once or twice before. Saturday she was in a very down mood. I’m bitchy myself most times and you have to be pretty nasty to beat me. Jill did. Poncho kept circling around her. He got her to try some stuff he had, to cheer herself up.”

“What kind of stuff?”

The black girl shrugged her left shoulder and her breasts bobbed under the ribbed wool. “Supposed to be meth. Whatever it was, it didn’t bring her up any.” Nada ran her tongue over her lips. “Nor did what Poncho had in mind for her probably. Poncho and his friends.”

Easy moved nearer the dark girl. “What did they do to her?”

Nada’s left shoulder gave a faint shrug. “A gang shag.”

Easy’s face grew taut. “You mean Poncho and his friends raped Jill?”

Nada looked away, setting the wine bottle on the olive-colored electric stove. “I don’t know what he actually did for sure,” she said. “All I know is what he told me he was thinking about. They’ve done it before.”

“You didn’t try to stop him.”

“Poncho ain’t somebody you try to stop. Anyhow, Jill wasn’t in any mood to be talked out of anything,” said Nada. “It’s not exactly rape if she went along on her own, is it?”

Easy was directly in front of her. He put his big hands on her bare arms. “You didn’t tell anybody until now. Why?”

“Why do you think? Now I’m worried,” she said. “It’s a long time from Saturday to Wednesday. And I told you I feel maternal sometimes.”

“So finally today you’re worried.”

The pretty girl closed her eyes for a moment, shaking her head. “You don’t know all I got to carry around.”

With the fingers of one hand Easy stroked Nada’s forehead and cheek. “Where is Poncho?”

The black girl let herself lean against him. “Poncho doesn’t live any one place. Usually he hangs out over in San Francisco, mostly around the tenderloin. I think maybe he brought Jill over to San Francisco that night.”

“You haven’t heard from Jill or Poncho since Saturday?”

“No.” She reached her slender arms around him and hugged him once, then stepped back and away. “Try a bar named Superpop’s on Mason in the tenderloin. They usually know where Poncho is. Are you going to look for him right now?”

“Yeah.”

“Be cautious, will you? Poncho is a nasty son of a bitch sometimes.”

“So am I,” Easy assured her.

T
HE FAT MAN FINGERED
his pearl necklace and asked Easy. “What’s your favorite show tune, dear heart?”

Easy had just stepped through the tufted red leather doors of Superpop’s bar. “You doing a survey?”

“God bless your ready wit,” said the fat man, shifting on his bar stool. He poked two plump fingers into the bosom of his evening gown to fetch out a large business card. “No, I’m going to do my ten o’clock set at any moment, dear heart, and I’m nothing if not a crowd pleaser.”

“ ‘Mr. Evelyn Jazz, World’s Leading Female Impersonator,’ ” read Easy from the scented card. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Jazz.”

“Contrariwise, dear heart.” The blond-wigged fat man snatched his card back, stuffed it down his lacy front. “I specialize in famous stout ladies, past and present. I’m best known for my Sophie Tucker. You look almost old enough to remember the late great Sophie, God rest her soul.”

Superpop’s was about the size and shape of two railroad cars laid end to end. The dominant smell was that of the soap they used to disinfect the urinals. None of the five customers looked to be Poncho. “Has Poncho been in tonight?” Easy asked the female impersonator.

“Oh, him,” said Evelyn Jazz, tugging at his necklace. “You’ll also love my Kate Smith. I jazz it up a little, living up to my name, and throw in a few bumps and grinds while I render
God Bless America.
It’s a real show stopper.”

“Let’s hope,” said Easy. “What about Poncho?”

The fat man lifted his powdered shoulders. “Ask Superpop.” He reached out and caught Easy’s hand. “Who’s your very favorite plump lady? I’ll put her in the next set especially for you, dear heart.”

“Amy Lowell,” said Easy, moving free.

“God bless you, dear heart.” Evelyn Jazz swung around to face his drink.

Behind the long bar a small weathered old man leaped up and grabbed a rope hanging from the ceiling. A boat whistle went off, the cash register lit up yellow and green. The old man let go the rope, picked up a hammer and a tin pie plate. He whanged the plate several times and shouted, “Happy days are here again!” Dropping the plate and hammer he came toward Easy. “Welcome to Superpop’s. We’re always having a good time here.”

“I noticed,” said Easy, taking a stool. “You Superpop?”

“You can bet your ass I am,” replied the old man. He was wearing a stained gray sweat suit and sneakers, with a white apron tied around his waist. “Would you believe I’m eighty-two years old.”

“Yes,” said Easy. “Do you have any dark beer?”

“This isn’t the Mark Hopkins. The best I can do you is a Bud.”

“Okay.”

The man reached into a wooden-doored ice box behind him for a bottle of Budweiser. “Wait a minute.” He trotted down to the rear end of the bar, put a bugle to his thin lips and blew a few shapeless notes. “Happy days are here again!” Back facing Easy, Superpop said, “There’s little enough joy in life. We have to snatch it where we can. Am I right?” He opened the beer bottle on an opener mounted over the bar sink, letting the foam run down his wrist where it stained the cuff of his sweatshirt. “Want a glass?”

“It would add to the joy of the occasion, yes.”

After clunking the bottle near Easy’s right elbow, Superpop reached down under the bar. He came up with a glass and held it toward one of the pink ceiling bulbs. “Almost pristine, I’d say.” He stuck the glass between his knees and wiped a trace of white-orange lipstick off the rim with his apron. “There you go.”

Easy let the glass sit next to the bottle. “I’m looking for Poncho,” he told the gnarled old man.

Superpop trotted down to Mr. Evelyn Jazz’s end of the bar. He snatched a tambourine off the floor, gave it a half dozen vigorous shakes high above his wrinkled bald head. “Happy days are here again!” Back at Easy, the old man asked, “I know all the narcs. You aren’t a narc?”

“I’ll tell you the truth,” said Easy. “But I don’t want this to get around. I’m a friend of an actress named Nada …”

“Beanpole spade chick,” put in the old man. “I know her. She’s an exceptional representative of her race. If I was looking to change my luck, I might think about dipping the wick thereabouts. Did you know I can still get a hardon at my age?”

“No, it wasn’t in the papers,” said Easy. “What I’m planning to do is give this Dean Constance guy a little competition …”

“Gimpy fellow,” observed Superpop. “Some dames go for crips. One time in Panama I was living with a Portugee floozie and what really turned on her water was …”

“So I’d like to hire Poncho. Nada tells me he’s a potential star.”

Superpop dived back to tug the rope again. After the whistle and the colored lights, he yelled, “Happy days are here again!”

Easy said, “I understand you can help me get in touch with Poncho.”

A lean man in a khaki jacket and work pants came over and sat on the stool next to Easy. “Give me a dollar,” he said in a low polite voice.

“Go away, Slim,” Superpop told the lean man.

“I’m Sonoma Slim,” the lean man said to Easy. “I intend to use the dollar to bail my only daughter out of a Spanish prison.”

“That’s a bargain price.” Easy handed Sonoma Slim four quarters. “What about Poncho?” he asked the old man.

“I’ve got to take a leak now,” said Sonoma Slim. “I’ll be back in a short while to express my gratitude.”

When the lean man had swayed off, Superpop said, “Eleven dollars.”

“For what?”

“One buck for the beer, ten bucks for your boy’s current address.”

Easy took the money from a supply in his inside coat pocket. “Here you go.”

Superpop took the bills, trotted down to the bugle. He tooted out three sour notes, spun the silver horn over his head, shouting, “Happy days are here again!”

“The address,” reminded Easy.

“Your boy is at the Pearl Hotel. You know it? It’s just over on Eddy, a block up from the bowling alley. Poncho is calling himself Phil Tucker at the Pearl.”

“You going to drink that beer?” asked Sonoma Slim.

“No, it’s yours.”

“Thank you. This’ll help me forget my poor imprisoned daughter.”

“Let me know when I can see one of your films,” said Superpop as Easy left the bar.

“Aren’t you sticking around for my set, dear heart?” asked Evelyn Jazz at the doorway.

“Reluctantly,” said Easy, “I have to go some place else.”

“Try to get back for the midnight show,” suggested the fat man. “That’s when I really let my hair down.”

Easy pushed out into the night street.

S
IX OLD MEN SAT
in the small brown lobby of the Pearl Hotel. The dim movie unwinding on the battered television set was flecked with black snow. Some of the slumped old men were watching it, others were facing the night street beyond the lobby window. Out there two platinum-haired boy prostitutes in leather clothes were hustling a Negro sailor.

Easy cut across a thin lobby rug that looked like discarded camouflage. Dusty plastic ferns in a cracked urn stood in front of the hotel desk in the corner of the lobby. A fifty-five-year-old man with an eyepatch over his left eye was behind the knotty pine counter reading the green sports pages of tomorrow’s
Chronicle.

The one-eyed clerk looked up, asking, “Who won the game?”

“Our side,” said Easy. “Is Phil Tucker in?”

“Whom?”

Easy produced his flat wallet. “Phil Tucker. We call him Poncho. Dean Constance sent me over with some money for him.”

“Poncho you say?”

Taking a five out of the wallet, Easy said, “We’re very anxious to settle this debt.” He dropped the bill next to the green sheets.

The one-eyed man placed a gloved hand over the money. “I know you can’t be a cop. Or you’d be asking me for money. Why do you want Poncho?”

“He did some acting for us and we still owe him two hundred bucks.”

The one-eyed man picked up the five dollars with his ungloved hand, dropping it into the pocket of his faded Hawaiian shirt. “Poncho is out.”

“Out where?”

“Out, out.”

An old man in a loose double-breasted suit began to laugh and point at the window. “Son of a gun.”

One of the boy hustlers was kissing the black sailor on the mouth.

“Takes all kinds,” observed the clerk.

“Poncho does have a room here at the Pearl?” asked Easy.

The one-eyed man tilted his narrow head in the direction of the mail cubbyholes behind him. “That he does.”

Easy leaned an elbow on the registration desk. “Maybe I can leave the money then.”

“I’ll see he gets it.” The clerk held out his ungloved hand. “My name is Onesy LaChance. Anybody around here can vouch for me.”

Shaking hands, Easy asked, “Onesy?”

“A nickname,” explained Onesy. “Due to the fact I got only one of everything. One eye, one arm, one leg, one nut, et cetera.”

Easy was still holding his wallet. “I tell you, Onesy, I’d feel better if I could leave the dough right in his room for him.”

The clerk’s single blue eye narrowed. “I don’t know that’s quite kosher.”

The old man in the limp brown suit said, “You old coots won’t see anything like that on the TV.”