The Perfect Host (28 page)

“Yes, I am,” I told him.

He looked at it curiously. “Where’d you get it?”

I told him that too. If he’d only started to sweat and cry, I’d have shot him then. I hated him too much to just shoot him easy. I told him all about it. “They haven’t caught those jokers yet,” I said. “The cops’ll dig one of these slugs out of you and it’ll be the same as the ones in those other killings. They’ll think those hoods did it.”

“They will? What about you?”

“I’ll have one of the slugs, too. In the arm. It’ll be worth it. Anything else you want to know?”

“Yes. Why? Fluke,
why?
Is it—Fawn?”

“That’s right.”

He sort of shook his head. “I hate to say this, Fluke, but I don’t think killing me will help your chances any. I mean, even if she never finds out.”

I said, “I know that, Lutch. But I’ll have an even break; that’s all I ever want. I can’t get it with you around.”

His face was sorry for me, and that’s absolutely all. “Go on, then,” he told me.

I pulled the trigger. The gun bucked in my hand. I saw him spin, and then everything went black, like I was under a baby spot and the fuse blew.

When I came to my eyes wouldn’t straighten out. The whole world was full of dazzly black speckles and something globular was growing out of the back of my head.

I was still in the front seat of the car. Something was scratching and chafing at my wrist. I pulled it away and put my head in my head in my hands and groaned.

“How you doing?” Lutch said. He bent forward, peering anxiously in my face.

I got my handkerchief out and put it behind my heat and looked at it. There was blood—just a speck. “What happened, Lutch?”

He grinned. It was a little puckered, but still a grin. “You’ll never make a gunman, Fluke. I seen you twice with the gang in shooting galleries. You’re afraid of guns.”

“How did you know that?”

“You always close your eyes real tight, screw ’em down before you pull a trigger. I was half-turned toward you as it was, and it was easy to twist aside. Turning made the gun ride around and slip back under my arm. Then I hit you with my shoulder and ran your head back against the door post. Does it hurt much?”

“I didn’t shoot you.”

“You tore hell out of my shirt.”

“God damn you, Lutch,” I said quietly.

He sat back with the arms folded, watching me, for a long time, until I asked, “What are we waiting for?”

“For you to feel well enough to drive.”

“Then what?”

“Back to the club.”

“Come on Lutch; lay it on me. What are you going to do?”

“Think,” said Lutch. He opened the door and got out and walked around the car. “Shove over,” he said. He was carrying the gun. He wasn’t pointing it, but he was holding it ready to use. I shoved over.

I drove slowly. Lutch wouldn’t talk. I didn’t dig him at all. He was doing just what he said—thinking. Once I took a hand off the wheel. His eyes were on me immediately. I just felt the lump on my head and put the hand back. For the time being I was hogtied.

When we stopped in front of the club he said, “Go on up to my room.” We had quarters over the hall. “I’ll be right behind you with the gun in my side pocket. If anyone stops you, don’t stall. Shake ’em naturally and go on up. I’m not afraid of guns and I’ll shoot you if you don’t do what I say. Do I mean it?”

I looked at his face. He meant it. “Well, all reet,” I said, and got out.

No one stopped us. When we were in his room he said, “Get in that closet.”

I opened my mouth to say something but decided not to. I got in the closet and closed and locked the door. It was dark.

“Can you hear me?” he said.

“Yup.”

In a much softer voice he said, “Can you hear me now?”

“I can hear you.”

“Then get this. I want you to listen to every word that is said out here until I open the door again. If you make a noise I’ll kill you. Understand?”

“You’re in, Jack,” I said. My head hurt.

A long time—maybe two or three minutes—passed. From far away I heard him calling, but couldn’t make out what he was saying. I think he was in the stair landing. I heard him come in and shut the door. He was whistling between his teeth.
Daboo, Dabay
. Then there was a light knock on the door.

“Come in!”

It was Fawn. “What’s cookin’, good-lookin’?” she sang.

“Sit down, chicken.”

The chair was wicker. I could hear it plain.

Lutch Crawford always talked straight to the point. That’s how
he got so much work done. “Fawn, about the other night, with all that moon. How do you feel now?”

“I feel the same way,” she said tightly.

Lutch had a little habit of catching his lower lip with his teeth and letting go when he was thinking was hard. There was a pause about long enough to do this. Then he said, “You been hearing rumors about you and me?”

“Well I—” She caught her breath. “Oh, Lutch—” I heard the wicker, sharp and crisp, as she came up out of it.

“Hold on!” Lutch snapped. “There’s nothing to it, Fawn. Forget it.”

I heard the wicker again, slow, the front part, the back part. She didn’t say anything.

“There’s some things too big for one or two people to fool with, honey,” he said gently. “This band’s one of ’em. For whatever it’s worth, it’s bigger than you and me. It’s going good and it’ll go better. It’s about as perfect as a group can get. It’s a unit. Tight. So tight that one wrong move’ll blow out all its seams. You and me, now—that’d be a wrong move.”

“How do you know? What do you mean?”

“Call it a hunch. Mostly, I know that things have been swell up to now, and I know that you—we—anyway, we can’t risk a change in the good old status quo.”

“But—what about me?” she wailed.

“Tough on you?” I’d known Lutch a long time, and this was the first time his voice didn’t come full and easy. “Fawn, there’s fourteen cats in this aggregation and they all feel the same way about you as you do about me. You have no monopoly. Things are tough all over. Think of that next time you feel spring fever coming on.” I think he bit at his lower lip again. In a soft voice like Skid’s guitar with the bass stop, he said, “I’m sorry, kid.”

“Don’t call me
kid!
” she blazed.

“You better go practice your scales,” he said thickly.

The door slammed.

After a bit he let me out. He went and sat by the window, looking out.

“Now what did you do that for?” I wanted to know.

“For the unit,” he said, still looking out the window.

“You’re crazy. Don’t you want her?”

What I could see of his face answered that question. I don’t think I’d realized before how much he wanted her. I don’t think I’d thought about it. He said, “I don’t want her so badly I’d commit murder for an even chance at her. You do. If anyone wants her worse than I do, I don’t want her enough. That’s the way I see it.”

I could of told him then that it wasn’t only him and Fawn that bothered me; that that was just part of it. Somehow it didn’t seem to make no never mind just then. If he wanted to play the square he was welcome to it. “I’ll go pack,” I said.

He jumped up. “You’ll do no such a damn thing!” he roared. “Listen, hipster; you’ve seen how far I’ll go to keep this unit the way it is. You taught me something today, the hard way, and by the Lord you’re not going to kick over this group just when you’ve taught it to me!” He walked over and stood close; I had to crease the back of my neck to see his face. He jabbed his fingers at my nose. “If you walk out on the unit now, so help me, I’ll track you down and hound you to death. Now get out of here.”

“All right,” I told him, “But listen. I’ll take a raincheck on that last. You’re riding a high riff right now. Think it over quiet, and tell me tonight if you want me to stay. I’ll do what you say.”

He grinned the old grin again. “Good, Fluke. See ya.”

It’s hard to hate a joe like that. But if you can make it, you can do a job.

I made it.

So. That was the time I tried it smart. Next time I tried it sneaky.

We played the Coast, up and back. We did two rushes in feature pictures and thirteen shorts. We guested on some of the biggest radio shows going. We came back East after a lick at Chicago, where there was a regular Old Home Week with Fawn’s folks, and we got three consecutive weeks at the Paramount. We played ’em sleek, and had the old folks smiling into each other’s eyes. We played ’em frantic, and blew the roof. You know.

And every dollar that fell into our laps, and every roar of applause, and every line of print in the colyums that drooled over us, I hated, and there was plenty to hate. The Geese played so many different kinds of music there was no getting away from it anywhere. I once saw a juke-box with seven Crawford plates in it at once! There was Lutch with the world throwing itself at his head because he was a nice guy. And here I was in the gravy because he was good to me. And the whole world was full of the skunk and his music, and there’d never be any rest from it anywhere. (Did you hear the Hot Club of France’s recording of
Daboo Dabay?
) A great big silk-lined prison for old Fluke; a padded cell. Lutch Crawford built a padded cell and was keeping old Fluke in it.

Fawn got a little haggard, after that time in Boulder City, but she gradually pulled up out of it. She was learning, the rest of us had learned, to feel one way and act another. Well, isn’t that the rockbottom starting point for anyone in show business? She was the better for it …

We started West again, and South, and the time I tried it sneaky was in Baton Rouge.

It was a road club again, real razzle, with curved glass and acoustic ceilings and all that jazz. I can’t say that anything particular keyed me off—it was just that I’d made up my mind a long time ago how I was going to do it and I needed a spot near running water. Baton Rouge has a fair-sized creek running past its front door, and Old Man River, he don’t say nothin’.

It was very simple—it’s surprising how simple some things can be, even things you’ve been eating your heart out over for years, when they get fixed up at last … Lutch got a letter. The hat-check girl at the club turned away to hang up a coat and when she turned back the letter was there by the tip-plate. There were plenty of people in and out through the lobby. I was, myself. The powder-room was downstairs; I was sick that night. Everyone knew about it; they were laughing at old Fluke. I am allergic to shrimps, and here I had to go and gulp up a pound or more of New Orleans fried shrimp and rice: I had the hives that grease-paint would barely cover, and could just about navigate, and I had to take a trip down below every twenty minutes or so. Sometimes I stayed a long while …

Lutch got the letter. It was sealed, addressed with a typewriter. No return address. The hat-check girl gave it to the head-waiter who gave it to Lutch. Lutch read it, told Crispin and Fawn he’d be back, he didn’t know when, put on his hat and left. I don’t know what he thought about on the way. The letter, I guess. It said

I’m proud of that letter. Fawn’s pop and Lutch were real buddy-buddy, and the old man would never ask a favor unless it were real important. The letter was the only evidence there was and Lutch brought it with him. A nice job, if I do say so myself.

No one saw Lutch. The cab-driver didn’t know who he was or if he did he never mentioned it later. Lutch came as soon as he could, knocked at the door of the office. There was a dim light inside. No one answered. He came in and closed the door behind him. He called out, softly, “Mr. Amory!”

I whispered, from inside the warehouse, “In here.”

Lutch went to the inner door, stepped into the warehouse and stopped, with the light from the office showing up the strip of skin between his collar and his hair just fine. I hit him there with a piece of pipe. He never made a sound. This time I wasn’t going to talk it over with him.

I caught him before he hit the floor and carried him over to the long table beside the sink. The sink was already full of water, and I had seen to it that it was river water, just in case. I put the pipe where I could reach it in case I had to hit him again, and spread him out on the table with his head over the sink. Then I dunked it, and held it under.

Like I thought, it revived him and he began to kick and squirm. The burlap sacks I had laid on the table muffled that all right, and I had him pretty firmly around the shoulders, with my elbow at the back of his neck forcing his head under. I had one leg hooked under the sink support. He didn’t have a chance, though it was hard work for a few minutes.

When he was quiet again, and with five minutes or so over for good measure, I got the small-boat anchor chain—an old rusty one it was—and wound it around him secure but careless-like; it could be by accident. I got the letter out of his pocket and burned it, grinding all the ashes down on a small piece of roofing tin which I dropped into the river. I rolled Lutch in after it. There was quite a current running—he started downstream almost before he was under the surface. I said, “So long, superman,” straightened myself, locked up the warehouse and, picking up the car I’d parked two blocks away, drove back to the club. It was easy to climb in the basement window into the stall of the men’s room I’d left locked, and to come back upstairs without being noticed. The whole thing had taken just forty-three minutes.