A cloud of cigarette smoke clung to the ceiling like fog. It was hot. The mismatched furniture looked like it had been picked up off street corners, the walls were painted black, and the stage was a platform supported on concrete blocks. A fan high on one wall over the rear door was doing a failed job of sucking out the smoke and heat.
I didn’t recognize anybody in the room, although some looked interesting: a big man with lazy eyes in a checked sports jacket, who Chuck said was an actor, making a name for himself in westerns, and who leaned forward in his chair with his elbows on his knees, chain-smoking, listening to every note; a bald man doing a crossword, tapping his foot to the music but never looking up; a woman in a leopard coat, sitting with a little man in a tuxedo who was sweating like a sumo wrestler.
The group consisted of Graves; a tall, ebony-black piano player with a grin almost as wide as the hall; a horn player named Turk Ziegler, who used a mute most of the time; Bravo Jones, a balding alto sax man in the baggiest suit I ever saw-no tie; a skinny drummer in a striped shirt and a bow tie; and a diminutive colored man with a thin mustache, dressed in a Sunday suit and tie, playing electric guitar. They were wrapping up a lively version of “Airmail Special” as we entered. We sat at one of the dime-sized tables near the bandstand and ordered drinks from a waiter who looked like he was wilting.
Graves, a tall, rangy, good-looking blond with a musician’s pallor and sad brown eyes, walked over to the table with a kind of loose-limbed slouch. His soft, mellow voice drove the girls crazy, especially when he sang sad ballads.
“Hi, copper,” he said with a wry grin. But he didn’t look at me, he was staring at Millie. He kissed her hand and added, “Chuck Graves, at your service, ma’am.”
“I’m over here,” I said.
“Oh, I know, son, but I doubt anybody cares.”
She looked embarrassed until it dawned on her that we were joking around.
“We can’t stay long,” I said. “Millie’s a working lady and I got to go up the coast at dawn.”
“That’s cool.” And to Millie, “Next set’s for you.”
The band came back, Chuck said a few words to them, and they looked over at the table. The piano man and Chuck laid down a beat, and Chuck started to sing:
I’ve flown around the world in a plane,
Dined on caviar and champagne,
And the North Pole I have charted
Still I can’t get started
With you.
Chuck sang from the heart, soft as marshmallows, and finally wrapped it up:
I’ve been consulted by Franklin D,
Greta Garbo has had me to tea,
I got a house, a showplace,
Still I can’t get no place
With you.
We stayed an hour.
When they wrapped for a break, Millie blew a kiss to Graves and I waved to the rest of the crew. I dropped a fiver in the bucket. From the corner of my eye I saw Millie add a hundred-dollar bill.
Maury held an umbrella over Millie’s head as we raced out to the car. He helped her in.
“Hey, Zee,” he said, “don’t get lost so much. We miss ya.” And to Millie. “Make him bring ya back, okay?”
He ran back into the club.
“Do you know every body in town?” she asked.
“This was my beat when I started out,” I said. “It’s my old neighborhood.”
I started to put the key in the switch but she laid a hand on mine and stopped me.
“Was Chuck playing that song for me or you?” she asked.
“Which one?”
“ ‘I Can’t Get Started.’ ”
“Maybe he was telling me in his own way that…”
“Stop right there,” she said softly. “You can go anyplace with me, Zee. I’d fly around the world in a plane just to come home to you.”
She laid both hands on my cheeks. Her hands were as smooth as fine suede. She drew me to her and kissed me. Her lips were soft and full and giving, and she folded into my arms.
I shoved the gear stick into second to get it out of the way and slipped over to her side of the seat. She shifted, facing me, and her leg slid over mine. She reached over, her hand moved down my spine and pulled me to her. I could feel the heat of her as she crushed against me.
We never stopped kissing but I could hear her sigh deep in her throat and she began to tremble as my hands explored her.
I don’t know how long we were there.
Long after the rain stopped.
CHAPTER 23
I picked up Ski a little after seven in the morning and took the same route I had taken going up to San Pietro the first time. Ski spent most of the trip dead asleep, sitting straight up with his arms folded. He didn’t like long drives.
When we passed the fruit stand on 101, I looked up on the hill but the beautiful young girl on the pinto pony wasn’t there. Maybe it had been a vision. Maybe there wasn’t any girl on a pony dashing across the hilltop. Maybe it was subconscious. Maybe Millicent was the young girl and the pony was her baby-blue Phaeton. Maybe I was thinking too much.
At the turnoff I nudged my partner.
“Almost there,” I said. “Any time now a black Pontiac will probably drop in behind us.”
But it didn’t. I stopped at the overlook and gave Ski a quick visual tour of San Pietro, the Hill, and Grand View House. I looked out on the bay but the Grebe yacht was gone. We drove down into town.
I parked in front of the city hall. The maroon Packard was parked haphazardly a few yards farther on.
“That’s Culhane’s prowler,” I told Ski as we got out.
“Does very well for the sheriff of a county the size of a saltine,” Ski said.
“The county owns it,” I said. “I guess that makes it legal.”
Ski just snorted derisively. I left him to stroll around the park.
There was no sign of Culhane or Rusty, but I couldn’t imagine them being very far from his rolling office. I went in to the police station. Rosie was behind the counter. She recognized me when I walked through the door.
“Hi,” I said. “Remember me?”
She graced me with what might have passed for a smile and said, “He’s fishing. It’s Friday.”
“Ah. Wednesday everybody plays golf at noon, Friday morning they go fishing. When do they take their ballet lessons?”
“The captain wouldn’t know one end of a golf club from the other.” She looked at the Seth Thomas on the wall. “He should be in any time now.”
“I’ll just go down and wait by the pier.”
“It’s a free world,” she said, looking for something else to do. As I was headed for the door she mumbled, “He said you’d be back.”
I went back to the car, drove to the foot of the street, and parked next to a silver Duesenberg Murphy convertible, which was sitting in a diagonal parking strip between the park and the pier area. Ski wandered over munching on a snow cone.
