Honky-Tonk Girl (16 page)

Hargiss-Jones began to look as frightened as Raye Cowles.

Johnny knelt beside the blond man and grabbed a handful of his T-shirt. “That pistol shot in Mexico. You were trying to kill Ruth Jordon, weren't you? Cowles was afraid she might talk in spite of the dirty pictures and records he was blackmailing her with. So he had to trail her after she left the hospital, find a convenient spot and put a bullet in her.”

“Yeah,” Hargiss-Jones spat at him, “but you'll have a hell of a time proving it.”

“And Tizzy Mole,” Johnny swore through grinding teeth. “He must have been getting close to the truth, too. So you ran him down.” He shook the big man. “Didn't you?”

“Wait a minute,” Hargiss-Jones protested. “You can't pin that job on me. I never touched the man. I didn't even know him.”

Johnny smashed his fist across Hargiss-Jones' mouth, splitting his lips like ripe tomatoes. “Tell the truth, dammit!”

Hargiss-Jones held his bleeding face in his hands. “You can't pin that on me...,” he mumbled over and over through his broken lips.

George Swenninger had picked up the telephone and dialed his newspaper. The gun Johnny had taken away from Hargiss-Jones was in his hand. He spoke rapidly into the instrument. “Yeah, a .32 automatic. What?” He looked incredulous. “Are you certain? Check on it again. Oh, you did?” A mixture of emotions crossed his face. “Okay...thanks.” He hung up and stared at Johnny.

“This isn't the gun that killed Miff Smith,” he announced in a strange voice. “I just talked with the reporter who's been working on the story. He's been down at the police ballistics lab. The slug they dug out of Miff was from a Luger, a big heavy German pistol!” He turned toward Ruth. “Are you sure it was a small shiny gun she shot at you with?”

Ruth put her fingers against her temples. Her eyes were wide. “I—I remember the light reflecting off it...and it looked small....”

The front door slammed. Sam Cowles strode in from the hallway. There was a businesslike automatic in his freckled fingers and he pointed it efficiently at them. “Drop that thing, George. That's right.” His voice was like the crack of a whip. “I hurried right on over when I got your call, Gene.” His eyes flicked toward Nickles. “I was standing out on the front porch for a minute, listening before I came in. Of course that isn't the gun that killed Smith.” He nodded at the nickel-plated automatic that Swenninger had dropped at his command. “Raye never even came close to hitting him that night. She was drunk. And sober, she couldn't hit the floor with a bucket of sand. But it was a bad situation. I wanted her kept out of it.” He snapped his head toward his daughter. “Get your clothes on, Raye. I'm taking you up to my place.”

He faced Swenninger. “You can print this in your lousy sheet. Make it tomorrow morning's headlines. Raye went up to Smith's apartment Monday night, we'll admit that. She had a gun, all right—that one on the floor. But she missed both Ruth Jordon and Miff Smith. Then she got scared and ran out of the place. Just after she left, while Ruth Jordon was hiding up in the attic, somebody else came in and shot Miff Smith.

Cowles waved off Swenninger's attempt to interrupt him and went on. “The police laboratory dug two .32 bullets out of the plaster in Smith's room. They were from Raye's gun. But the bullet they got out of Smith came from a Luger. “The killer,” he said, “Is in this room, all right!” He pointed at Johnny. “And there he is! I got a telephone call from Sheriff Botello less than half an hour ago. This afternoon they searched Johnny Nickles' apartment. And they found a Luger of the same caliber that killed Smith. They just got a report from the lab. It was the same gun that killed Miff Smith!”

For a moment stunned silence hung in the air.

Then Cowles took a long-legged stride toward Johnny Nickles. His lips skinned back from his teeth. “I'm taking you to Botello myself. The only way you'll get out of this is by way of the electric chair!”

At that moment Ruth Jordon called out in a choked voice.

Cowles half-turned in her direction.

She had taken out the small pistol she carried in her purse, and it was in her right fist, pointed at Sam Cowles. Her face was dead white.

Cowles swore and snapped a shot at her. It tugged at the sleeve of her dress. She stumbled back a half-step. Then carefully and deliberately, she shot Sam Cowles through the heart.

“That's for a lot of things, Sam,” she whispered.

He stared at her with his mouth open. He looked down at the gun in his hand, then glanced at Johnny and Swenninger, and died as he stood there, falling heavily at last in a limp heap.

Ruth Jordon's face looked green. “Run, Johnny,” she gasped. “Run. I—I think I'm going to be awfully sick.”

He took the gun out of her icy, clenched fingers.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

IN THE GROOVE

Saturday Morning, 1:30 A.M.

Elsewhere, the city was going to sleep. But in the Honky-Tonk Street district, musicians were still sweating it out, playing music that grew hotter with the passing hours. The smoke was thick and the crowds were noisy and the music was loud in this part of town that never slept.

In one of the joints,
Mamie's Place
, an open jam session was going full blast. Musicians had been drifting in during the night as they got through working at other bars. They were taking turns up on the cramped little bandstand.

Mamie herself was circulating through the crowd, a large-bosomed woman with yellow, flabby arms generously coated with talcum powder. She was dressed in a glittering rhinestone-sprinkled black evening dress. Her hennaed barn-red hair was awry. She was waving a hat with one hand, yelling above the music in her foghorn contralto, and gesticulating with a half-empty beer glass in the other hand, sloshing beer suds out on the heads of customers seated at tables.

Mamie was taking up a collection. She had been taking it up all evening, carrying the hat back to her office periodically and dumping its jingling content into her safe whenever it was filled.

The purpose of the collection was emblazoned on a large banner stretched across the bandstand. It read: “
Benefit Jam Session, Collection Being Taken for Tizzy Mole Funeral
.”

Some of the boys from Johnny's band were up on the stand—Eddie Howard, J. W. Richey, and Link Rayl. Mack Dyer, a good man from the Golden Peacock down the street, was on drums. And they had a kid on bass who was just off the Dorsey band. A colored boy was blowing some fine tenor in the style of Eddie Miller.

“Play it, boys!” Mamie bellowed, waving her beer glass. “Here, you sonuvabitch!” she croaked, thrusting the hat under a newcomer's nose. “Kick in!”

In another part of the district, in a quieter bar, Johnny Nickles sat alone in a booth. He had left Swenninger and Ruth and had come down here by himself. The net was growing tighter. He knew it was just a matter of time before Botello's bird dogs picked him up. The streets were alive with patrol cars and city detectives on the prowl for him. Botello had learned of Cowles' death by now. He would doubtless double his efforts to get a conviction against Johnny to bolster his crumbling political power in the face of a full-fledged newspaper assault. With Cowles dead, Botello stood on his own...and George Swenninger was determined to clean out all the remnants of the Cowles machine.

The jukebox at the back of the bar was playing. Johnny looked at the names on the coin box. Three of his band's records from the
Ghost Album
were on the machine. Smiling grimly, he dropped three coins in the box and punched the buttons for those numbers.

Then he sat down and tried to think. Cowles and Botello had outsmarted him on the Luger. No doubt they had planted it in his apartment today. Yet, he was puzzled about one thing—admittedly, Raye Cowles could have shot Miff with the Luger. Then she could have given the gun to her father and he and Botello could have planted it in Johnny's flat. But why was Ruth so sure Raye Cowles had used a small, shiny automatic instead of the heavy black Luger?

Excitement? Stress of the moment? Those things played fantastic tricks on the memory.

Or had Ruth Jordon, Raye Cowles and Sam Cowles all told the truth? The business about the lab boys digging two .32 slugs out of the plaster in Miff's room seemed to bear them out. Had Raye come in with the .32 and shot twice, missing both Ruth and Miff as she'd said, and had somebody else then come in and done the real killing moments after she'd fled, while Ruth Jordon was still cowering upstairs in the attic?

Or had Ruth Jordan come downstairs and killed Miff herself?
She had done a neat job of it with Sam Cowles. The girl knew how to handle a gun.

Johnny's heart wanted him to believe something else. And, what possible motive could Ruth have had?

The jukebox began to play the
Ghost Album
record,
Teegerstrom Struts His Stuff
.

Johnny catalogued the known facts. Jean Nathan had been in Miff's apartment on Monday night. Raye Cowles had found them together and stormed out in a rage. Then Jean left. Then Ruth Jordon came in. And while she was there, Ruth Cowles had returned and fired two shots at them. According to Ruth, a third shot was fired while she was up in the attic, hiding.

Since Monday night there had been one more murder and two attempted murders.

The bullet aimed at Ruth in Mexico had come from Hargiss-Jones' gun, he knew. And he also knew the blond giant had tried to kill Jean Nathan—all to protect Raye Cowles against the testimony of both women. But how about Tizzy Mole's death. Now that Johnny thought about it, Hargiss-Jones couldn't have run him down because he was in Mexico at about that time, taking pot shots at Ruth and Johnny. Another one of Cowles' men, then? Perhaps. But why should they want Tizzy dead?

And there was that other business about Miff Smith's blackmailing somebody. That was an angle that didn't seem to fit in with any of the other things.

He lit a cigarette and took out the small bundle of belongings that had been removed from Tizzy's pockets after he'd been brought in to the morgue. These were the items George Swenninger had passed on to Johnny back at the hotel. He spread them out on the table before him. There was Tizzy's soiled handkerchief, pocket comb, billfold, cigarettes, some loose change, a poker chip and a crumpled scrap of music manuscript paper.

He went through the billfold and found nothing.

Behind him, the
Ghost Album
record played.

He thought about the
Ghost Album
. All the trouble had started from the time they had made that thing. It had started with Zack Turner's heart attack at the recording studio.

He picked up the objects again, one by one. Then he stopped. The music was reaching a climax in the all-out ride chorus. Johnny held the torn piece of manuscript paper in his hand. He was staring at the date on it. At the notes. His fingers began to shake. The cigarette dropped from his lips, showering unnoticed sparks down the front of his coat.

Suddenly, he had it.

Simply and suddenly. Just like that.

He couldn't believe it, yet it couldn't be any other way. It had been right there under his nose all along, tying in perfectly with the blackmail, the rest of the whole setup too!

He stuffed Tizzy's things back into his pocket and walked out of the bar in a daze.

A few block down the street there was a Rent-A-Car company that stayed open twenty-four hours a day. Johnny headed straight for it He went in and talked to the sleepy night clerk.

He kept his hands in his coat pockets so the handcuffs wouldn't slip down and show.

“There's a person who rents cars from you regularly. I want to see if they got a car this past Wednesday night.”

The clerk was dubious. “Our records are confidential....”

“This is important. I could go get a cop and a warrant to search your files—but you wouldn't want me to bring in the law, eh?”

The night clerk didn't see any need to bring the law into it. He fished out a card index file.

“Wednesday night. Here you are. These are all the cars we rented out that night. It was a slow night.” He spread out half a dozen cards, fan wise. They contained the names, addresses, descriptions and driver's license serial numbers of all persons who had rented cars.

One of the cards held Johnny's gaze. His tongue felt sticky. “That—that '51 Chevy, plate number 2-446-88. Is it in your lot now?”

The clerk nodded.

“Get your flashlight. I want to have a look at it.”

They went out together. Johnny took the flash and ran the beam of light over the car. He got down on one knee and examined the front of it carefully. He found a dent in one fender. Then he studied the bumper. Behind one of the bumper bolts, he discovered several strands of hair. The car had been washed but there were traces of dried blood under the rim of the bumper and around the bolts.

He stood up. “Don't let this car get out of the yard. It killed a man Wednesday night.”

There was only one thing for Johnny to do then. He walked to a hockshop that the Honky-Tonk Street musicians patronized regularly. He pounded at the plate glass front door until the proprietor came downstairs in his underwear and opened up.

“Uncle Ben,” Johnny told him, “I want to buy a trumpet.”

The wizened little old man scratched himself, looking at Johnny with sleep-laden eyes. “That's-a matter, you drunk? At this time of night you want to play a trumpet”

“Yeah. Sort of like Gabriel on Judgment Day.”

“Crazy musicians!” Uncle Ben swore under his breath, shaking his head. “Crazy musicians....” He led the way into the back of the shop, muttering to himself. It was a dust-shrouded cubicle lined with glass showcases containing everything from a child's silver spoon to a set of false teeth. He snapped on a light over the musical instrument showcase. Everything from a mouth harp to a tuba, I got. Please, take your pick.”

Johnny picked out a brass trumpet, green with age. He tried a few runs on it and satisfied himself that it had a clean, true tone and that the mouthpiece was cupped about right for his lip.

He put his hand in his pocket, then remembered that he had spent his last dollar. He slipped off his diamond ring, breathed on it and rubbed it on his lapel. “You want to keep this for security until I bring the trumpet back?”

For an answer, Uncle Ben had a magnifying glass already screwed in his left eye. He scrutinized the ring under the light and whistled. “For this you can have every instrument in the showcase,” he said. Then he thought for a moment and added, “I might even throw in the showcase.”

Johnny put the horn in its mildewed case and walked out into the night.

The last of Johnny Nickles' flash was gone now. There was nothing reminiscent of the expensively-dressed cocky bandleader with the diamonds and the gold horn that had been his trademark. In his wrinkled suit covered with dust and dried blood spots and with the shabby trumpet case under his arm, he looked like any of the bums that haunted Honky-Tonk Street looking for a handout.

Johnny walked slowly down Honky-Tonk Street, mingling with the crowds, drifting into one bar, then another. He listened to the music for a moment in each place, searching the faces of the people inside, then he moved on. He knew the person he was looking for would be in one of the bars.

He walked with a slow tired shuffle, his eyes hollow with fatigue. At last he came to a place halfway down the street. It was loud and noisy, the busiest place on Honky-Tonk Street that night. Johnny stopped there because he had reached the end of his long journey. He stopped at
Mamie's Place
....

Mamie was the first to see him. She was plowing through the crowd with her hat and she moved past the door and bumped into him. “Hey, dig down, brother—” Then the loose yellow folds of flesh around her neck sagged as her mouth dropped open. The hat fell out of her hand, spilling coins all over the floor. “My gawd!” she croaked. Her plump white fingers danced over the rows of beads strung around her neck. Fearfully, she rolled her eyes around, then she shoved Johnny into a corner.

“What'n hell are you doing here?” she panted. “Every cop from here to San Francisco is looking for you!” She suddenly shoved her face close to his, thrusting out her chin. “Listen, you cocky bastard, they're saying you killed Miff Smith. Is that the truth? So help me Gawd, I'll turn you in myself if it is. I'll—”

“Take it easy, Duchess,” he placated her. “That's some baloney Sam Cowles and his bunch dreamed up. You know I loved that guy like a brother.”

She frowned at him, not entirely convinced. “Well, you'd better have a pretty damned good reason for coming into my place. You'll bring the whole stinking police force down around my neck.”

“I've got a good reason,” Johnny said wearily. “Let me up on that stand for one minute and I'll show you.”

Her jaw wagged again. “The hell I will! These cats will tear you apart. They think you killed Smith. And the place will be swarming with cops before you blow a note, Johnny!”

Her soft fat fingers clawed at him. But he eluded her and shoved his way through the half-drunken crowd, up onto the stand.

Up on the small dais, they were just winding up a torrid session of
That's-A-Plenty
.

Johnny slid his trumpet case up on the stand first and then climbed up after it.

They took their horns away from their lips and stared at him. They couldn't have been more surprised if the ghost of Miff Smith himself had come crawling up on the stand.

Eddie Howard half-rose from the piano stool, his eyes bulging like turnips behind the thick lenses of his glasses. “What th'—what th'!” he stuttered.

Silence descended over the crowd like a blanket. Johnny took the mouthpiece out of the case, breathed on it to warm it. Then he put it in the horn and slapped at it to tighten it. “Mind if I sit in?”

“Well, here's a cat with nerve to spare,” the drummer swore. He picked up a beer bottle by the neck.

Johnny's hands perspired against the horn. He tried a long one. “Haven't you heard?” he bluffed. “The cops admitted they were all wet about me. They've called off the search. You don't think I'd be up here if they were still looking for me, do you?”

The other musicians looked at each other questioningly. They were undecided, disconcerted about the whole thing.

“Come on,” Johnny said gruffly, “you're holding up the session. Let's play a good one for Tizzy. Let's play
Teegerstrom Struts His Stuff
from the
Ghost Album
. Make it good—for Tizzy.”

He kicked off the beat. Confused, the drummer picked it up. Hearing him, Eddie Howard joined in at the piano. The others followed suit, although they continued to stare at Johnny from the corners of their eyes. The air of tension remained suspended over the small room. Mamie stood at one end, wringing her hands and swearing she was going to sell the place in the morning and buy a chicken ranch.