A Pure Double Cross (11 page)

I stood at the curb in front of Mrs. Brennan's rooming house at 9 p.m. in subzero cold and wished for a hat. A scrim of ice was frosting my noggin like spun sugar. Jimmy's black Buick nosed down Elm Street five minutes later. I squared my shoulders for a strange night.

I climbed in, and mopped my forehead as I defrosted. I didn't look at the friendly young ladies in the back seat, I'd been with enough whores for one lifetime. Jimmy drove east across the Main Avenue Bridge. Nobody spoke. He turned south on E. 9
^th
Street. Nobody spoke.

“The Pope die or something?” I said. Nobody laughed. 60
^th
and Central was a smattering of storefront churches and chicken and catfish stands wedged between dimly lit row houses and tenements with tarpaper windows. Jimmy curbed the Buick in front of Jolly Jack's Lounge and Dance Parlor. A burly Negro opened his door and greeted him by name. I got out and opened the back door and almost had a heart attack.

Jeannie. The woman who had been sitting directly behind me on the ride over, the friendly young lady Jimmy had promised, was
Jeannie
!

Her wiseacre grin faded as she regarded my beat up face. I had no earthly idea what to say. What in the name of Christ
and the Twelve Apostles was she doing in the company of a guy who had just beat the crap out of her husband?

Jimmy herded us inside. His date was a stacked blond in a fox fur who wrinkled her pert nose at the all black crowd. The seas parted for Jimmy as a light-skinned hostess escorted us through the bar to a table above the dance floor. She removed the
Reserved
card. Jimmy slipped her a folded bill.

We sat down and shivered. Despite the crush of bodies Jolly Jack's was icebox cold. Jimmy ordered a bottle of rum for the table. Also four cokes, a bucket of gizzards and “Plenty of
gris-gris.”

The waitress laughed.

Was Jimmy an octoroon? He seemed at home here. I entertained this asinine question in order to avoid trying to make sense of Jeannie sitting to my right, hair done, lips red, holding her hands in her lap and staring straight ahead.

The waitress poured four rum and cokes, no ice. Jimmy hoisted one. “Always glad to get two old friends back together.”

What in the hell? He must have noticed our reaction to one another at Pappas Deli and asked her later. Jeannie's a terrible liar. She's also a smart cookie, she wouldn't have given him much else.

“Jeannie and I dated a few times in high school. Back in Youngstown.”

“Umm hmm,” said Jimmy, not buying it for a second. “You don't seem too thrilled to see her.”

“She threw me over for a football player.”

Jimmy's girl clucked, Jimmy smirked. Jeannie remained silent. I drank my rum and coke and tried not to look. It wasn't easy.

Jeannie had been girl-next-door pretty as a kid, all freckles and elbows. But she was a grown-up beauty now, composed, almost elegant. A grown-up beauty married to a bald Greek on
a double date with a mobster, his moll and yours truly. What in the hell?

The waitress served a bucket of smoked gizzards, a wad of paper napkins and a bowl of shimmering hot sauce. “How did you peg me for a Fats Navarro fan?”

“Anyone who hates Glenn Miller can't be all bad,” said Jimmy, hot sauce all down his chin.

I had never said I hated Glenn Miller. I
didn't
hate Glenn Miller. Hating Major Glenn Miller, whose single-engine Norseman disappeared over the English Channel in 1944, was tantamount to treason. I had merely groaned and turned down the volume when a Miller tune came on the car radio while we were make our shakedown rounds. “American Patrol” was a catchy little number built around drums and bugles that made patrol duty sound like bubble blowing night at the Trocadero.

Jimmy was nowhere near as dumb as he looked. He paid attention. Which meant he knew I had tried to have him tailed, and probably knew I'd tried to get him axed. The cops didn't much care what happened down here in Dingetown, especially after sunset. I rested the heel of my hand on the butt of my P38.

A man almost as wide as he was high stepped up on the bandstand and spread his arms. This would be Jolly Jack.

“Direct from Key West by way of New York City,” he said in a thunderous baritone, “Jolly Jack's is mighty proud to present Mister Theodore ‘Fats' Navarro and his Be-Bop Boys!”

The crowd erupted, the bassist, drummer and pianist dug into an up-tempo tune and Jolly Jack looked around for his star attraction. Jimmy and his girl did likewise.

I chanced a look at Jeannie. She met my eyes, cool as a cuke, and winked. I removed the heel of my hand from the butt of my gun. If Jeannie was jake with this sideways setup then I guess I was too.

The crowd stirred. The man of the hour made his way to the bandstand, slapping hands with the patrons, horn tucked under
his arm. He was just a kid, a chubby-cheeked kid. He took center stage and waved away a curtain of green-gray smoke, some of it from cigarettes. The rhythm section backed into a standard 4/4.

“Let's warm this joint up,” said Fats Navarro and swelled his cheeks like a fireplace bellows.

The resulting long-held low note rattled empties on the club tables. He picked up steam from there, always half a beat ahead, the crowd leaning forward, wondering if the piano, bass and drums could catch up.

Fats switched gears. His eyes got big and he began to talk through his trumpet. That's what it sounded like, I swear. The rhythm section kept up a backbeat as Fats Navarro gave out with his sermon, his soliloquy.

The audience pricked up their ears, this chubby-cheeked kid was saying things that needed to be said. I dug the jive-crazy intensity of it but, watching the dark rapt faces of the crowd, I also felt out of place, felt like a spy. Whatever message Fats Navarro was sending out through the bell of his trumpet wasn't meant for me.

He went on for a long time, whispering seductively, snarling in anger, finally winding down to an extended breathless pleading that froze the crowd in their seats and shamed the big talkers at the bar into silence. Fats gathered himself and concluded with a high C that had dogs howling all the way to Akron.

The crowd went nuts. Jimmy pointed at me with his cig, I nodded my appreciation. The light-skinned hostess huddled with Fats on the bandstand. He nodded and slipped something in his pocket.

“Special request from the congregation,” said the young trumpet player with the almond eyes. Rumor had it his mother was Chinese. “A dance tune,” he said and leaned into the microphone. “For two very special young lovers.”

The crowd said
unh huhh huhh.

My worst fears were realized after the first few bars. Even with Fats Navarro sliding up one note and down the next you couldn't help but recognize “I Dream of Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair.”

Jeannie and I sat bolted to our chairs.

“Well
dance
with the young lady,” said Jimmy. “Really,” said his lady friend. The next table over muttered encouragement. A consensus had been reached.

I stood up and offered Jeannie my hand. Mine was hot and sticky, hers cool and dry. We made our way out onto the dance floor.

I was a so-so dancer under the best of circumstances. With the eyes of the crowd upon us and Fats Navarro beaming down from the bandstand I danced as if I had two clubfeet and a spastic colon. Jeannie didn't help. She smelled like a summer breeze that comes out of nowhere and cools you behind the ears. My head swam.

Jeannie drew me closer and squeezed my hand. “C'mon now,” she murmured, “we know how to do this. Remember?”

I remembered. We danced a passable four step to Jeannie's signature song. Fats kept it slow and easy. Jeannie rested her cheek on my shoulder. The crowd went “Awwww.”

Fats goosed the tempo a minute later. Other dancers took the floor. Young bucks in electric blue suits twirled giddy young girls in floral print dresses. The joint warmed up.

Jeannie backed up a step. I was grateful. Holding her body close to mine was pure torture.

We danced to the new beat, face to face. “What are you doing here?” I halfway shouted.

“Jimmy called and apologized about Dimitri, said he was just doing his job.”

The thought of Jimmy apologizing made my skin itch.

“He said you wanted to see me but were afraid to ask.”

“And that sounded like me to you?”

“I wanted to see you again!”

I lost a step in our swing and sway and just stood there and looked at her. Fats must have noticed because he changed the tempo from hard bop to slow waltz.

Jeannie and I came together again on the dance floor, wove and entwined ourselves till we could barely breathe. That's the way it had always been between us, rough and sweet in equal measure.

“And what are
you
doing here?” said Jeannie after a time, caressing my bandaged ear. “In Cleveland, with a hoodlum like Jimmy Streets?”

I gave her the best answer I could. “I can't answer that question right now.”

Jeannie stepped back from my embrace. She looked cross. “You never could make a decision,” she said and returned to the table.

“I'll get out here,” I said to Jimmy at the corner of Superior and E. 9
^th
. It was 1:51 a.m. An odd mix of young revelers and men in overalls were marching up the steps to St. John's Cathedral.

“The church?” said Jimmy.

“Hey, it's Sunday morning.”

I had been stupid to let Jimmy drag Jeannie into our blood feud. He wanted at me in any way he could. By showing him I still cared for Jeannie I'd made her a potential target. Fortunately Jeannie and I had reverted to form and had a spat. We hadn't spoken since we left the dance floor. Best to keep it that way.

“That's the Printers' Mass,” said Jimmy's lady friend between hiccups. “Had an uncle worked at the Plain Dealer up the block. The pressmen they…they always…Gawd, I think I'm gonna be sick.”

That was an exit line if ever I heard one.

I squeezed Jeannie's hand and said “Night all” before I opened the back door and stepped out onto Superior. I wouldn't be riding shotgun in Jimmy's Buick anytime soon, that was sure. His lady friend was hugging her ankles, retching rum, coke and chicken gizzards.

The Printers' Mass bore an eerie resemblance to Jolly Jack's Lounge. A loosey goosey atmosphere, dressed up couples strolling in, drunks in the choir loft noodling “Camptown Races” on the pipe organ. Something else too, whispered anticipation. I picked up bit and pieces on my way in.

“Father
Sullivan
?”...“I thought the Diocese”...“You're kidding”...

I stopped at the holy water font and dipped my fingers and made the sign of the cross. I sat in the last pew. I had no idea why I was here.

A priest with a meaty red face and a great deal of tightly curled gray hair lumbered out of the sacristy and surveyed the congregation from the front of the altar. He was wearing the purple vestments of Advent. Father Sullivan no doubt. Even from the last pew I could tell he was stewed to the gills.

He growled a blessing.
“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.”

“Amen.”

Father Sullivan faced the altar and recited the Introit. The altar boys stood rather than kneeled below him, presumably to catch the good father if he pitched over backward. I bowed my head and listened to the soothing rhythm of the familiar words. I hadn't attended Mass in over two years.

Father Sullivan burrowed through the Introit, the Kyrie and the Epistle in fits and starts. The congregation grew restive, waiting on the sermon. Those who were still awake. Two uniformed pressmen to my right were happily sawing logs.

Father Sullivan clambered up to the pulpit at long last, the altar boys hovering nervously behind. He read from Paul's Letter to the Romans,
Chapter 1
. Recited actually, he never looked down. His rough-edged brogue woke the snoring press-men.

“For the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written. ‘He who through faith is righteous, will live.'”

I had heard the passage many times. What it came down to was ‘Take our word for it.'

Father Sullivan began his sermon. “You have to make up your mind to seek salvation,” he growled. “Salvation will not seek you!”

He was right about that. Jeannie's last comment on the dance floor had been eating at me all night.
You never could
make a decision.
It hadn't made sense at the time, it did now. She'd asked what I was doing here.

I'd said,
I can't answer that question right now.
Hell, I couldn't answer that question period.

Jeannie and I pledged our troth on my 21
^st
birthday. Then I signed on for spy duty and didn't contact her for almost two years. I spent a little time in Switzerland between missions. I could've raised a stink, insisted that someone stuff my mash note in the diplomatic pouch. It was contrary to rules and regs but Jeannie was right, I could have
tried.

I signed on with the FBI when I returned, determined to call the shots this time and make off with a pile. Yet I told the feds I had tipped my hand to the mob, just in case. I had a chance to grab canvas sacks crammed with loot but opted to wait and see. I was playing both sides against the middle, like that sad sack cop we dumped in the alley. It's tough to have superior knowledge when you don't know your own plan.

Father Sullivan said it better, spraying spittle four pews deep.

“Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the door of the Castle Church. He was righteously angry at the Church for selling letters of indulgence. And he was correct. He said that faith was of primary importance. He was right there too. Where he erred, and where his bastard spawn - the Calvinists and the bloody Anglicans - went wrong was the conviction that once grace was bestowed, once faith was embraced, salvation was sealed.”