Strip For Violence - Ed Lacy

“When I introduced myself, they both looked astonished and bully-boy, whose name I never did get, asked Boscom, “Hey boss, you kidding? This little blond nance is a guard?” I let the “nance” crack go by, although the punk's short thick neck was interesting. Boscom was sitting at an old desk, puffing on a cheap rope, and he squeaked, “He's been keeping order at my dances... Ain't had no trouble and...”

“And you pay him off with a few bucks and leftover bottles,” I cut in. “You're a businessman, Mr. Boscom, and policing your dances should be done on a strict business level that...”

“Look, anybody starts anything, I give them the business all right—with this!” The punk held up a beefy fist.

It was a warm day, I had on one of my good suits and the carpet was dirty as hell, so I didn't want to take this joker. I tried to keep calm as I told Boscom, “Bet this clown hasn't a license—that means if there's a real rumble, you not only could be sued, and lose your liquor license but...”

“Who you calling a clown?” tough-boy growled. Boscom seemed to be amused by it all.

“Let me tell you something about policing a dance,” I said to Boscom but watching the punk's feet. “There's a difference between a guard and a bouncer. Using your fists or a billy is the last thing you want done. Know who the best guard I ever had was? A midget! Lost him when he got a steady job with a carnival. Only real trouble you get at dances are drunks, and when they saw this midget bawling them out, they laughed and that was that Of course, always had another man that could handle any real trouble. Now for twelve dollars a man, I supply you experienced, intelligent, uniformed men who...”

“Intelligent? You cracking I'm a dummy?” bully-boy snarled, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet.

Guess I still could have avoided trouble, but there was a gleam in Boscom's eyes that got me sore. He deliberately had the punk in so he'd have a ringside seat for a free brawl. I said, “Two-bit goons like you come at bargain rates, dime a dozen. And in a real scrap you're not even worth a dime.”

“You little sawed off...!”

He didn't try to sock, instead he charged, a horrible scowl on his face. I grabbed his lapels, pulling him toward me, jockeying around till I had Boscom at my back. The punk had a hand at my throat, another about to wallop my kidneys, as I sunk one foot in his stomach and suddenly fell back on my shoulders. We landed with a boom, but his arm and my other foot broke the fall for me. I pushed my shoe in his gut as hard as I could and let go of his suit—fighting down a desire to grab his neck. His body made a neat arc as it sailed through the air and crashed into Boscom and his old desk. There was a deep grunt from Boscom, then the sound of broken wood and glass. I jumped to my feet, brushed my suit.

The punk was sprawled across the desk top, a busted ink bottle dripping on Boscom, who was doubled up in his chair, both hands holding his pot belly. The goon must have kicked him as he came in for a landing. For a second I stared at bully-boy and was scared the clown had broken his back—even a simple judo fall can be dangerous as hell. But when he got his wind back, he sat up and worked his shoulders, blinked his glassy eyes.

With mock politeness I said, “Sorry, Mr. Boscom, but you saw him start the show. Now you know what I mean by knowing how to handle yourself. Shall I call you tomorrow, talk over a contract?”

Boscom's doughy mouth was sucking air but he managed to grunt, “Yeah,” as I walked out.

8

I drove up the West Side Highway, watching the shad fishermen working their nets out in the Hudson, turned off at Dyckman Street and went up Broadway. Will Johnson lived in one of these neighborhoods where everybody had been averaging fifty a week for years—nobody real poor, nor eating high off the hog either. I climbed five flights, stabbed the doorbell with my finger. A plump woman in a worn, pink housecoat opened the door. When I introduced myself, she said, “Come in. I'm Mrs. Thelma Johnson. Willie—the detective is here.” She sounded nervous as she called Willie, and when she spoke, all her face seemed to work.

Will came shuffling down the hallway in slippers and as he shook my hand, Thelma said, “Excuse me, I'm cooking,” and went into the kitchen.

Their living-room was a comfortable, standard job, a couple of bad paintings on the wall, even some artificial flowers. Except for being neater, it reminded me of Louise's place. Will said, “Of course I've had the window fixed, but there was a hole in the bottom pane, and here's the one in the Venetian blinds.” I examined a jagged hole in one of the thin metal slats. He showed me the copper vase over the fireplace, the dent in its side. “See, I was sitting here, reading, when it happened. Little lower and it would have ploughed through me.”

“If it hit the bottom pane, then it must have come up, from the street,” I said, brightly, pulling up the blinds. He had a nice view, nothing around but open lots and private houses. I could see the Empire State from his window, and part of the Hudson and New Jersey.

Will said, “The view is worth walking all them stairs. Hey, want to see something real good?” He took an old pair of binoculars out of a desk drawer, handed them to me and pointed to a tennis court about six blocks away. The glasses were powerful, I could plainly see a girl in white shorts banging a tennis ball against the side of a small house. She had her back to me, but her legs were lean and muscular, and her small breasts jumped against her T-shirt.

“Man, you should see the broads there on a Sunday,” Will said, winking like a school boy. “That one you see now, she's there all the time.”

“Nice-looking dish,” I said, scanning the rest of the area. “Any building or excavating near here?” He said no and as I turned to give him the glasses, I saw part of a pink housecoat in the doorway. Thelma was listening hard.

I asked the routine questions, to make it look like I was working and again he told me the bunk about it only being curiosity on his part. As I was leaving, Thelma asked if I wanted tea and cake. I told her no, and Will said to be careful not to lose the sliver of rock. I assured him it was in my office safe, but when he mentioned the stone Thelma looked sick and worried.

It was a little after two-thirty when I returned to the office. I couldn't make Will and his wife, they didn't look the type to be mixed up in anything shady. Anita was reading a true detective magazine. She asked if I'd read about this gal working behind a soda counter who recognized Public Enemy No. 3 by this wart he had on his pinky? Got a reward of two thousand—”

“Forget it,” I said, giving her the sliver. “Knock off for the day and snoop around Will Johnson's place. Some open lots around there, see if any of the rocks look like this sample. Ask around if anybody else got their windows busted. Check with the weather bureau as to what kind of a day it was a month ago... unless it was real sunny he wouldn't have the blinds down in the middle of the afternoon.”

“This assignment is jazzy as all get-out!”

“Look Humphrey, or are you Robert Ryan this afternoon? The guy is paying us, we give him a day's work at least. I'm going to hunt for this Lodge babe, will stop back here before I go home. Call me at six. And grow up—life isn't all cream puffs and excitement.”

She screwed up her cute face at me, pointed to my cheek. “You shouldn't walk around with lipstick there.”

“Where?”

“Here.” She kissed me hard on the cheek, pulled away and laughed. She dropped the rock in her bag and walked out—her hips waving goodbye.

9

I washed up, stopped for coffee and a sandwich, then drove to the last known address of Marion Lodge, a fairly clean rooming house on West 22nd Street. The owner vaguely remembered her, thought she had moved to some place on West 67th Street. There, I had to show her picture to a dozen candy store and newsstand people before one of them remembered Marion lived in a house down the block. This was a real flea-hive, stinking of insecticide and the blowsy old bag who ran it stunk from a lot of other things. It was a small apartment house that had been made into rooms and she said she had seen too many people come and go to recall any. A couple of bucks acted as a refresher course: Marion had fallen behind in her rent, been locked out. A month later Marion had sent the back rent and a truck called for her two suitcases. “Don't know why she bothered, nothing in them but cheap rags and... What? Aw, how do you expect me to remember the name of the trucking company? Some big truck all painted a baby blue...”

At a bar I got a handful of dimes and started calling the various moving companies in the phone directory, asking what color their vans were painted. A buck-twenty later I struck pay dirt. The rest was easy—the company kept records and I found Marion had moved up in the world—to a high-priced brownstone on East 71st Street. This had been converted into small, ritzy, furnished apartments—the kind you pay two hundred a month for. The janitor lived in the basement of another house down the block. A quiet, middle-aged man who liked to talk, he studied the picture, told me, “Tell you, mister, I've only been on the job less than a year and I never saw her. But people don't move around much, far as I know, we've only had one vacancy in last two years, apartment 3F, and I sure remember the last tenant there, Miss Margrita de Mayo!”

My face showed the name didn't register and he added, “Margrita, the TV sensation!” A silly note of pride crept into his voice, the way nobodys talk about a celebrity.

“Sure, girl with the fine, fine legs,” I said. “Still live there?”

“No, sir, moved to a big suite in some hotel. But when I first came she was a struggling young actress and...”

“Got any old rent records here?”

“No, sir. But when she got her big break, it made me feel right good that a nice, quiet, young woman like her...”

I left and called my buddy in the electric company, dialed him back ten minutes later. “No record of any Marion Lodge in 3F, Hal,” he said. “Bills were sent in the name of a Mary Long. After four months it was changed to Margrita de Mayo, with a letter from Miss Long requesting her deposit be applied to Miss de Mayo's account.”

“What's all that mean?”

“Probably sharing the apartment and then this Spanish one took it over, often happens when people who share a place split up. You know: the Long girl took the table radio, or something, instead of the deposit, or... Say, isn't that Margrita the...?”

“Yeah, the owner of the world's best legs. Thanks. See you.”

Mary Long and Marion Lodge—same initials, and when a person takes on a phony name they usually keep the same initials. The next step was to see Margrita—which would be a pleasure. But it was nearly six and I was pooped. Going to the office, I read the evening paper as I kept the edges of my hands hard by hitting them against a rubber pad. The ads said Margrita was singing at the Emerald Club, a swank spot, and I decided to drop in on her later.

At six-ten Anita called and when I asked what was new, she said, “I got a date for supper. Some joint at 60th Street and 1st Avenue.”

“Well, eat well.”

“You never ask me out for supper...”

“I do better—I pay your salary.”

“And that's nothing to brag about. One of these days I'll stuff an apple in your puss and eat you.” She sounded excited.

“I'd be tough chewing. See you in the morning, early and belching,” I said, hanging up.

Before closing the office, I made the usual check of the safe and one of my three guns was missing—a .38 special, I was so mad I nearly busted the glass slamming the door.

I drove over to the construction job Bobo was guarding. Although he had a permit to carry a rod I never let him —his face was all the protection he needed. No sense packing a rod unless you intend to use it.

Bobo was sitting in a chair propped against the shack that was the contractor's field office. He had his nightstick across his lap, an old cigar in his mouth—the picture of a guy with a snap job. When I started bawling him out, he asked, “What gun, Hal? I wouldn't take a rod without telling you.” And his rough, tan face showed real surprise.

When I mentioned that only he and Anita knew the safe combination, Bobo said, “Cheez, Hal, I wouldn't pull a dumb trick like that. Maybe Anita took it, she's wacky enough.”

If Bobo said he didn't have it, that was that And Anita would most likely be in the movies—she went every night —I could stop at her house before I turned in.

I drove to the yacht basin and Pete, who was just coming on duty as night man, called out, “Hal, looking for you. Be there in a minute.”

He finished gassing up a small cruiser, then came down to the floating barge that was the landing dock, pointed to my dinghy. The seat was busted. “One of those fat-assed drunks off the big sloop out there was horsing around, fell into your dinghy. Have it fixed by morning. He gave me a ten spot to do it. Sorry but...”

“Forget it,” I said, as we both stepped into the 16-foot inboard launch, and Pete gave her the gun, telling me, “Yell when you want to go ashore.”

“Yeah. Right now I'm going upstream after some shad.” Pete licked his thin lips. “I go for a juicy broiled shad.”

“Catch you one,” I said, leaping aboard my boat. I opened the hatch, waited for a moment till the stuffy cabin air went out. I changed to bathing trunks, put on my running lights, and started the old Packard. The tide was coming in fast and when I untied the boat, I had to race like a rabbit back to the cockpit, throw the clutch in, give her a sharp rudder to avoid the craft anchored upstream from me.

In the spring, shad come up the Hudson from the Atlantic to spawn. The silverbacks run in deep water, in the center of the river, and while I might have battled the six-mile current while trying to fish, instead I ran up to a point just below the George Washington Bridge. There, on the New Jersey side, there's a neat cottage that is a fishing club. Due to an irregularity in the bed of the river, the water is deep right up to the shore line, and shad can be caught from the bank. A few old duffers knew of this spot, fenced it in, and set up this fishing club.

In the darkness of early evening, I saw the lights of a couple pipes and cigarettes on the porch of the club as I put the anchor over, waited to see if it caught, then shut off my engine. I hooked a sleek blue and silver two-pounder within a matter of minutes. The fish put up a good battle, but like the guy said, “I ain't here to fight 'em but to eat 'em.” Then it took me nearly a half hour and two eels before I got the second one—a big three-pounder.

I cleaned the fish and on the way back to the mooring at 80th Street, I put the smaller one on the stove with some corn. After I tied up, I ate, sat around and listened to the radio over a couple of highballs, then showered, dressed, and yelled for Pete. I gave him the shad and he thanked me for cleaning it. Leaving him at the dock, I got my car out of the parking lot. It was almost ten as I drove east toward the Emerald Club.

10

THIS WAS a low-ceilinged room with the walls done in a violent lobster red, covered with nude women painted a bold purple. The ceiling was supposed to be one great green emerald and a lot of indirect lighting gave it a cut-stone effect. It looked like hell to me, but then I'm no art critic. A lot of upper-bracket jokers gave the joint a big play, and it was crowded. I stood at the bar and had a Tom Collins which looked like a fruit salad with all the sliced melons, oranges, and cherries floating around the top of the frosted glass. It must have been expensive fruit—they charged two-fifty a drink.