Die on Your Feet Page 4
“Are you saying he said something that just didn’t make sense?”
A long-suffering sigh. “I’m saying I didn’t understand anything coming out of his mouth.”
“Think on it, Benny. If something comes up, get my number from your uncle and call me. If it pans out, there’ll be some bills in it for you.”
Lu flapped a hand. Lola passed the telephone back to him. She didn’t move out of the alcove. She waited, pulling a folded bill through her fingers like a shirt through a wringer. Lu spoke rapidly and listened carefully. After a few more seconds of unintelligible exchange, he cradled the phone and turned to Lola. She handed over her card along with the money.
“If you remember anything else about Sunny that day, call.”
The girl, Minnie, spoke up. “Are you working for some insurance racket?” Lu tsked and tried to shush her, but the girl kept steady eyes on Lola.
“Nothing like that. Just a worried party with cash on hand to start a private inquiry.”
“Because Sunny’s harmless. He’d never hurt anybody—except maybe himself,” Minnie said.
“I’m not looking to rough him up. Just to find him.” Lola looked at them each in turn. “Does that change your story?” He shook his head. “Like I said, think on it.”
Lu ushered Lola out, opening the door into the eye-shattering sunlight. He kept up an obsequious patter as he followed her out to the curb. Lola thanked him and walked to her car. Lu was still on the sidewalk as she slid behind the wheel. He bowed, waved briefly and hurried back inside.
Lola ventured farther east, coincidentally following Josephson’s supposed trail onto Jasmine. Twenty minutes and ten blocks later, Lola found Allan Drive. It wasn’t hardly as proud as its name. Poor white families stuffed into tiny row houses built at the end of the last century. Not many had indoor plumbing. The house Lola wanted did, though. The widow Walsh made sure to charge her boarders for it.
Lola cruised down the block, searching for an opening. There were a lot of cars along the curb, but hardly anyone was out. Children would’ve been in school, or playing truant somewhere else in the city. A trio in shirtsleeves and tough attitudes sat out on the stoop next to the widow Walsh’s establishment. They watched Lola with unsmiling faces and hard eyes. She got out and approached them. Not a one straightened up from his practiced slouch. They negotiated for the safekeeping of the beat-up Buick. When they were satisfied, and half the agreed money had changed hands, Lola offered them cigarettes from a pack of domestics.
“Do you know this one?” she asked, handing over the photograph of Josephson.
The one uppermost on the steps snickered. “Sunny owe you too?” The other two sneered.
“He owes someone,” Lola replied. “Seen him recently?”
“Naw,” said the first one. “Not for weeks. The word was he’d moved up in the world.” He leaned back, his elbows resting on the top step.
Lola looked to the other two, but they just shook their heads and snickered. She stepped over to the widow Walsh’s rooming house. It was a two-storey clapboard, the white paint long gone from decades in the harsh sun. Flecks stubbornly clung to the warped boards in places, giving the house a scrofulous shell to match its innards. The front porch was reached by five uneven steps. A sign in the front right window proclaimed that new boarders were currently welcome. Lola knocked and stepped back, checking the street and then turning back toward the windows.
A few seconds later, the widow herself showed her face. It was a remarkable one, for all its hardships. Her eyes were still large and almond-shaped, their piercing blue grown even sharper with years of suffering. Her lips still retained their trademark curve, although they were no longer as full. The widow never bothered with lipstick anymore. Cornelia Lee’s career in the silent era of film was a long way from here. She had lines around her eyes and her mouth, but her cheeks looked soft and smooth. She fixed Lola with a scowl. “What do you want?” Lola held up the photograph once more. The widow shook her head. “Not since year’s end.”
“December?” Aubrey was skeptical.
“How regular was he?” Lola asked.
The widow’s eyes narrowed. Her lips were tightly pursed. “Used to be few times a week.” She grimaced. “Ran out of money.”
Lola cocked her head toward the three toughs. “What’s the rumor on Sunny?”
The widow glared. “He’s not here anymore. I don’t care why. His money ran out and that’s the language I know.” She pulled back inside and slammed the door.
Lola walked off the front porch and went around to the back of the house. Along the side pathway, a few bare ash trees scratched at her sleeves as she passed. There was rubbish strewn on the brown grass. She kicked at rotting paper and stepped over rusting tins.
The cellar door wasn’t the standard set of double doors laid at a low angle to the ground. This cellar was special. Lola took the five steps down to the proper door and rapped hard on the wood. It opened to reveal a large, potbellied man. He squinted out and held out his hand, palm up. Lola passed over her fee and he stepped aside. She slid past and turned to watch him. As he closed the door behind her, she paused to let her eyes adjust to the dim interior.
“Breathe shallow, Lola, or you might never make it out.” Aubrey spoke with an authority that surprised Lola, but she remained silent.
The doorman stood, his hands stuck low in his trouser pockets. He watched her with incurious eyes, said nothing. Lola nodded and started down the remaining steps into the cellar. It wasn’t a high-class joint, so no art on the bare brick walls or plump-cushioned alcoves. There were benches, though, and a few chaises-longues in faded or patched upholstery. The ceiling was eight feet high but obscured by lack of light and a pervasive layer of smoke. Elaborate floor lamps were scattered around the large room, mostly between alcove entrances. There weren’t any curtains to give privacy. It wouldn’t matter anyway. The people who came here weren’t in much shape to care, after a few minutes.
Lola stopped at a low table to the left. A skeletally thin blonde in a worn flowered frock held out a pipe. Lola took it and dropped some money into the outstretched hand. The blonde counted out the bills. She watched as Lola walked over to an alcove. Lola remained impassive as the blonde turned to a safe behind her and dialed the combination. She placed the money inside, sorting out the denominations into a partitioned drawer, and slammed the heavy door shut. Then she went back to her navel-gazing.
Lola looked around the room. There were a half-dozen patrons. The room could accommodate three times that number. When it did, Lola imagined the stink was tolerable only by those in oblivion.
“They’re not here,” said Aubrey. “None of these people have Ghosts.”
Lola tried her shtick with the blonde. She shook her head and refused to answer questions. Lola didn’t bother to leave a card. She nodded once again to the doorman on her way out. He watched her impassively, then shut the door behind her with a soft thud. The sun was still hot, the ash trees still bare, the trash still milling about the house. Lola walked to the car and paid off the toughs. They snickered and pushed off their steps, laughing roughly and jostling each other as they walked down the block.
She pulled out of the neighbourhood and continued eastward. She found nothing but a burned out shell at her next stop, the sorry remains of another basement den. It was clear the blackened hull was weeks old; weeds were knee-high within the crumbling four walls. Similar luck met her at the mah-jongg parlour closest afterward. The new owners and manager of the Jade Phoenix were close-mouthed and new to town. They’d fired everyone associated with the old Golden Cock. They took an instant dislike to Lola and a distinct lack of interest in her money. She left under their baleful glares, trusting Aubrey to warn her if they decided to jump.
Lola headed south and west then, leaving the city’s slums for fresher climes. She weaved through h
eavy traffic and the increasingly stultifying air. The sunlight wasn’t just blinding now; it was torturous. Every mirrored and shiny surface refracted its rays tenfold. She rubbed at her pounding temples and tried to stop squinting. After half an hour, she slid the Buick into a spot a block down from the office and got out. Droopy passers-by barely gave her a glance. It wasn’t hard to fit in. She trudged to the corner drugstore and ordered coffee and a roast beef sandwich at the counter. The cook sat a sweating glass of water in front of her with a wink. Lola left him a little extra when she paid.
The office was stuffy and hot. Windows and the fan were the first priority. Coffee came second.
“Bit hot out for that,” said Aubrey.
Lola sipped in deep satisfaction and turned her attention to the mail. Nothing urgent or even interesting. She unwrapped the sandwich and clicked on the radio. She listened and ate and thought about nothing in particular. She heard footsteps and hushed voices, moving away down the hallway, punctuated by the elevator bell. Plimpton was doing a brisk business at his surgery at the opposite end of the hall. There were always women in this town in need of a little cosmetic tweak. Crescent City had a reputation to uphold; beautiful women were the norm, not the exception. Plimpton did his costly best to perpetuate that belief.
Lola considered her corner of the floor the quiet end, and with good reason. She had a philatelist on one side and a vacant office on the other. There had been a talent agent there last month, but he seemed to have disappeared overnight. She had yet to meet the stamp collector, let alone hear him. She didn’t suppose stamps made for very noisy clients.
Lunch was over quickly. Lola heaved herself back onto the streets. It was another series of grim alleyways and dim basements. The same hoods sat on indistinguishable stoops, leering and sneering. The same beaten spirits and worn dresses plodded along the sidewalks. She kept a tight hold of her gun or blade in four more junkie hidey-holes, but found no trace of Joseph Josephson. Aubrey was the only coherent Ghost in all instances, the others as far gone as their wretched Hosts. It was an inevitable side effect for Ghosts Haunting junkies. Whatever their reasons for Haunting, they were soon forgotten, and the hunt for that next fix became paramount. If there was a lesson in that, it would be lost to them. There would be no next life in which to learn it.
Feeling filthy, Lola made for a final junk house, hidden in the belly of a shoe store. The homes became grimmer for a few blocks until they petered out completely and she was back in a commercial area. She stashed the car in the back alley, more interested in a ready retreat than afraid of larceny. The junk house had a side entrance, off the narrow lane beside the building that led from alley to sidewalk. There weren’t any complicated knocks or secret handshakes, but if the doorman didn’t like the look of you, you weren’t getting in. Lola returned the ugly mug’s beady gaze with a five-dollar note and a grim expression. He stared at Lola so long she began to wonder if he’d fallen asleep. The door finally swung open and his hand waited, palm up. She slid his graft to him. He gestured her inward and sat back down on his chair. It was a wide hallway. Lola gave him wide berth and gripped the blade in her pocket. The hall was well-lit until the single doorway at its end, where a dark green curtain hung. There would be no opiates in the air here. This was strictly a needle joint.
The set-up was familiar enough: alcoves, chaises, benches, tables, floor lamps and gloomy lighting. Immediately to the right sat a dark-haired man in shirtsleeves and a hat pushed up off his forehead. He looked up sharply and made to stand. Lola walked over smoothly and quickly, another bill held out to herald her intentions.
“Just looking for someone,” she explained. She kept one hand in her pocket while the other took Josephson’s photograph out.
He didn’t even look at it before shaking his head. “I don’t know no one.” But he took the money from her fingers and sat back down, jabbing the air with his chin. “You got two minutes.”
Aubrey was done in thirty seconds: “Not here. But talk to the one over there, by the wall.” Lola looked over and saw a pile of rags. As she got near, she found a blissful face and stick-thin arms amidst the grimy clothes. Aubrey said, “I’ve been talking to his daughter, Amelia. She says Lucille was here two weeks ago with Sunny Joe.” He paused. “Lucille said they were leaving town for something important. Something big.”
“Does he know Josephson?” Lola whispered, eying the man. His eyes were closed and his lips slightly parted. As she watched, a bubble of saliva formed at the corner of his mouth.
“No,” said Aubrey impatiently. “Amelia says her father’s dead to the world when he’s here. Wouldn’t know his own mother.”
“And she’s not junked up like him?” Lola was skeptical.
“She’s sober as a nun. In fact, she is a nun. Catholic. Was. Sorry.”
“No kidding,” said Lola.
“Be polite,” said Aubrey.
“Skip the etiquette lesson. I need details, Aubrey.” She looked around at the rest of the room’s occupants. The only one paying any attention was the attendant she’d bribed. He had an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth, but he didn’t look ready to draw a gun or call in the muscle. That could change, of course.
Meanwhile, Aubrey was talking quietly and quickly to the erstwhile nun. Lola turned back to the nun’s father. If he’d moved, it took a keener pair of eyes than hers to tell. She saw a pair of painfully thin ankles at the end of his jutting legs. His shoes were barely whole, their soles peeling away like wagging tongues. Lola turned away from the open sores on his legs.
She was just in time to see the attendant standing five paces away. He gestured sharply toward the door with his head. “Time’s up, dolly.”
“Your watch is fast.”
“I ain’t got a watch.”
“See what I mean?”
“We don’t like smart mouths.”
Lola’s expression turned solemn. “Life is full of disappointment, isn’t it?”
The ruin of a man at her feet moaned and shivered, but didn’t wake from his stupor. The attendant kept dark eyes on Lola. She shrugged and kept her eyes on him as she walked out. He followed her with a flat stare. She slid out through the green curtain. Mugsy had the door open when she got within five feet. An expression almost twitched into existence on his wide face. Lola got out before she had to see it. The door calmly clicked shut and she was back in the real world.
Lola blinked a few times and got in the car. “You’d better hope the nun had something useful to give up.” She sped down the alley. A screech of tires and an angry horn greeted her sharp right onto Lester.
“You won’t find out if you’re dead,” drawled Aubrey. After several silent minutes, he asked, “Where are we headed next?”
“Golden Phoenix.”
“There’s a drug store at Wong and Second. Stop in there and get some coffee.”
* * *
Amelia, the former nun, was a staunch Catholic even in her Ghosthood. Somehow that conferred to her the ability to withstand her father’s addiction. In her mind, and Aubrey’s, God acted as her shield. Lola was happy enough to concede the point. Aubrey thought it made perfect sense. Catholics didn’t believe in reincarnation, anyway, so Amelia hadn’t given a lot up by turning haunt, and she was guaranteed a trip to meet her Maker when her poor wretch of a father finally achieved his drawn-out suicide. It was strange logic like this that explained why Christians were a group existing on the margins. For Lola, it increased the nun’s credibility a smidge above nil.
Her story was that Josephson had begun reappearing at that junk house at least a month and a half ago. Lucille had crowed to the sober Amelia about her brother’s future prospects. She had happily described gnawing away at her brother’s commitment to stay clean, his trust in his best friend, his self-assurance. Josephson had planned a big score two weeks ago. Or, rather, his sister had.
Lola nodded slowly, lost in thoughts of junkies, Ghosts and hard-headed clients.
“So, the question is,” Aubrey concluded, “do we continue to search for the junkie on his big score, likely some ill-advised drug run?”
“His call,” shrugged Lola. “I’ll give him what I’ve got. See if he has the stomach for it.”
“Unlikely,” said Aubrey.
“In the meantime, I’m still headed for the Phoenix.”
The Golden Phoenix Mah-jongg Parlour arose in a show of gaudy squalor. Red paint flaked from ten-foot columns flanking the single front door. A sad phoenix, naked of its once-proud golden plumage, screamed silently from the right-hand column. It had only one plaster eye left and that without an iris. The three steps leading up from the sidewalk were grimy concrete weathered to grey-brown. The neon lights overhead buzzed angrily but ineffectually. None of the letters were lit. Aubrey gave warning a split second before the door flung outward and a noisome drunk barreled through in the arms of a huge bouncer. Lola breathed shallowly through her mouth for a few seconds. A frazzle-haired scarecrow met her at the inner door. He held a thin cigar with large-knuckled hands and blew smoke straight upward. It was likely the only part of him that struggled toward the heavens.
“Whatcha lookin’ for, doll? We got all kinds here. All the classics. Cantonese, Shanghai, Fukien. You name it.” Lola listened to his assertion with a neutral expression. A quick glance over the scarecrow’s shoulder into the main room made it clear that classical mah-jongg styles were in short demand here.
“Just information.”
The scarecrow squinted at her, then slid his gaze just past her, toward the outer door. Lola turned and saw two unfamiliar men standing just inside the entrance. They were staring at her. One was squat and solid. The other, tall and gaunt. Thick and Thin, personified.