Doug Allyn - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 131, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 799 & 800, March/April 2008

“I see a lot that I likeness.”

She seemed confused for a moment, then cooed and picked up one of the twin double shots of whiskey that had magically appeared at her elbow. I reached in close to pick up mine. Her breath swept over my neck like the first hot gusts that the Santa Anas send as a warning.

I tossed back the double shot. It hadn’t come from the top shelf. My throat burned. I smiled through it with a sneer.

Lana tossed hers back, leaving off both the smile and the sneer. “Thanks. How ‘bout another?”

I felt warm inside. “Sure.” She started to snap her fingers again, but I covered her hand with mine. The move took me in close. She looked alarmed, but not panicked. “First I have a question for you. If you answer it right, you get that drink.”

She nodded, her lips apart, her breath coming a little faster, the Santa Anas building.

“I’m looking for a friend. An old war buddy from the Sixth Armored by the name of Tommy Parrish. Know him?”

Her eyes darted toward the far corner of the section of booths, then came back to mine cold and distant. The Santa Anas had died out. She pulled her hand away from mine. “Never heard of him.”

I stared hard at her. She stared back.

The silence got to her. “Besides,” she said, doing her version of the icy Lana in The Postman Always Rings Twice, “one drink is my limit.”

I could have pressed her for more information, but I’d always liked the Santa Anas and the sense of unease and excitement that followed in their wake. I wanted them to blow again.

“Thanks, Lana.” I grabbed her hand again and wrapped her fingers around a ten-spot. “Keep the change.”

Her lips parted in Lana-like surprise, but no words came out.

I left her there, her fingers weighing the scratch in her hands, her eyes weighing the darkness that lingered in the corner of one of the Palms’ simmering booths.

Like a bookie collects bets, the alley behind the Palms collected loneliness. Even though a few stray vagrants drifted by as I waited, I never felt the presence of life. The only palpable presence among the trash cans and broken glass was a late-night heat and humidity that compressed the lingering stale air into an invisible solid. Air that nearly had to be swallowed. Beyond the alley, lightning flashed soundlessly in the towering gray clouds that could be seen above the black, jagged silhouette of skid-row rooftops. A rat scrambled over my foot. The first sign of life.

I’d been staking out the alley, buried in the shadows of a second-story fire escape, since I’d left the Palms. Lana had confirmed with her eyes that Tommy Parrish was in a booth. But I didn’t go over to him, because he would have known that Lana had given him up. People pay a hard price for giving someone up. I didn’t have the heart to do that to her. But I also figured she’d tell him that I was looking for him. And I knew he wouldn’t want to be found. It was for just such a situation that bars had back doors.

Maybe twenty minutes had passed when the back door to the Palms pushed open and a man stepped out, his posture strong but wary. He took his time surveying the alley. He wore dark pants and a dark long-sleeved shirt. His hair was short, wavy, and dark, and his face was shadowed by a couple of days’ stubble. As his head turned my way, I was close enough to see even in the dim light that it was Parrish. Time had done nothing to straighten the crook in his nose.

He moved quickly but carefully past me, keeping close to the brick walls, never thinking to look up. Each step he took was a blend of confidence and wariness. He reminded me of a G.I. going house to house in Anzio.

Once he turned the corner of the alley, I swung over the railing and climbed down the ladder to where I could manage a short drop. I reenacted my own memories of Anzio, moving with cautious speed down the alley to the sidewalk.

Out on the streets, Tommy gained the full measure of his confidence. He strode with his shoulders square in a way that seemed to invite trouble. I followed him down Washington Avenue until he stopped at an unmarked door. I ducked into a recessed storefront as he looked both ways before pulling the door open. It was on a heavy spring and slammed shut behind him.

There are times, as a P.I., when you are confronted with two choices: wait for the prey to come back out, or follow the prey into an unfamiliar, potentially dangerous building. One makes perfect sense, the other doesn’t. Most people would choose the former. P.I.s, by necessity, choose the latter. If we didn’t go in, the only things we’d discover by waiting outside would be that every building has a back door and that the prey is long gone. The only thing that can keep us out is a lock. And even that’s more of a detour than a barrier.

I tried the knob of the nameless door. No detour would be necessary.

A long, narrow stairway led up to another unmarked door on the second floor. It was locked. Next to the jamb hung a round buzzer. I gave it the finger and heard a short ring beyond the door.

A wooden chair scraped on a wooden floor and a rectangle slid open on the door at eye level. Whatever goon had opened the peephole had a thick brow and eyes that were as blank as the wooden block he had removed. He regarded me as if I were overripe fruit.

“Beat it. We’re closed.”

“Then why answer the door?”

Brutus hadn’t expected such a puzzler, and it was obvious that his toughness made up for his lack of intelligence.

“I think your watch stopped,” I said. Then I held up a ten-spot. “Get it fixed.”

His dull black eyes flicked down at the lettuce between my fingers, then back up at me. He had some heavy thinking to do. Did I look like trouble? Would the boss have a conniption if I was let in? Could I cost him his job? Was ten bucks worth the risk?

It was.

He held his fingers up to the peephole. I fed them.

The lock snapped and the door backed open. His office was a vestibule of peeling green wallpaper, a battered wood floor, a wooden chair wearing his suit coat, and a silver smoking stand stuffed with butts. Brutus was bending over, stuffing the money into his sock. When he stood up, he had a buzzcut and the thick neck and battered face of a former boxer gone to seed. His white dress shirt, black tie, and black slacks were wrinkled and all a size too small, but the.45 in a shoulder holster under his arm looked smooth as silk and larger than life.

I started toward the third unmarked door of the night, toward whatever illicit activity required three doors, one of them locked, an armed doorman, and a bribe to get in, but Brutus grabbed my arm and gave it a viselike squeeze. “Don’t do nothing to make me regret this.”

“Don’t worry,” I said. “You’ll respect me in the morning.”

He let go and I opened the door to a large room that made me feel like a corpuscle: red carpet, red velvet chairs, red walls, and wall sconces draped with red scarves. Half a dozen dealers wearing red suits and ties stood at red felt-covered gaming tables, dealing to maybe two dozen desperate gamblers who, under the crimson light, looked covered in blood. I glanced down at my gray suit. It looked bloody too.

Smoky music, cracked in places, drifted over the busy room. It took me a second to recognize the singer: Billie Holiday. Pain whittled down to a voice. A sleepless soul lost in the loneliness of “Lover Man.”

Tommy Parrish had found an open stool at a table in the middle of the room and was sneering at the dealer. Three other men at the table hid in the safety that came with keeping their eyes on their chips. I wandered over to within earshot. The dealer, whose face was a collection of sharp angles that ended in a V-shaped chin and who still carried signs of acne both old and new, was explaining something Parrish didn’t want explained.