Brett Halliday - Killers from the Keys

At a small table in the corner beyond the spotlighted platform, the featured dance team of the evening were having an acrid argument.

“Don’t you go tryin’ to tell me where to get off, Ralph Billiter. I worked this act up and you know it. If I was to walk off tomorrow, where’d you be.”

“That’s what I’m always telling you, Essie. That’s why you got to get yourself smart an’ quit fooling around on the floor with men between numbers.” Sloe Burn’s companion at the table was as young as she, and muscular. He had tousled hair and a broad, sullen, unintelligent face. He was hunched toward her with heavy forearms on the table, big hands clenched angrily as he glared at her.

She leaned back and puffed contemptuously on a cigarette without inhaling it. “I don’t fool around with men. I get paid for drinkin’ with them, just like the other girls do. You know they pay good money to get me to set at their table.”

“You do more’n just drink at the table with that old goat you’re so sweet on.”

“What if I do? I ain’t your woman, Ralph Billiter.”

He snarled, “Like hell you ain’t. You bin my woman since you first laid with me in the swamp back uh your pappy’s barn.”

“We was just kids then. Freddie’s different, Ralphie.” A softer, yearning note came into Sloe Burn’s voice. “He’s real polite an’ scared, an’ he treats me like I was his own daughter, sort of. Not really, I guess,” she hurried on, looking slightly horrified by what she had said. “I don’t mean he’s the kind… you know… to do with his own girl what he does with me… but it is sort of like that! He’s got respect for me, Ralphie, an’ a lot of money too,” she added naively, taking the cigarette from her mouth and pushing the tip of her tongue out to wet her red lips.

“How you know that for a fact?” Ralph challenged her. “How much real money you done seen?”

“He gimme a hunderd-dollar bill twice, didn’t he?”

“That ain’t money.” Ralph spat the word out angrily. “You know how you and me figgered it when we run off up here to Miami. We was gonna make it big. We got the chance, I’m tellin’ you, if you just don’t go an’ spoil it. Our dance is going over bigger every night. We gonna get us a real bigtime manager an’ get us booked up north in Noo York an’ places like that. That’s where the real cash money is. Don’t you be messing it up just when we’re about to get goin’.”

“How’m I messing it up?” she asked innocently.

“You know how.” One of his big hands shot out and caught her wrist in a crushing grip. “I’ll kill you some night, you keep it up. I’ll just pure kill you, Essie. I’ll get to thinkin’ about you an’ that old man, and my guts’ll twist up in a knot and I’ll purely stick that conch shell right in your white belly an’ twist it good.” He was breathing heavily, half out of his chair and leaning over the table.

She slapped his face with her free hand. It wasn’t a dainty, feminine slap. It was a hefty, infuriated wallop, with tempered muscles behind it, and a lot of solid young weight. He grunted, more with surprise than hurt, and released her wrist.

She sat erect and glared up into his scowling face. “You listen to me, Ralphie Boy. Any big talk of killin’, just don’t forget a conch shell’ll slide into your belly just as easy as mine. Aw, let’s cut it out,” she broke out crossly. “We’re a team, Ralph, you and me. If Freddie don’t come across with a wad of money right quick, sure I’ll quit him. Why not? But you ain’t got no cause to be jealous. If you ain’t gettin’ enough…”

“How big a wad?” demanded Ralph sullenly, settling back into his chair.

“Big enough so we can make that trip to New York or wherever, and make it right. So’s they’ll sit up and take notice when we hit town. Anyhow,” she ended dispiritedly, “he ain’t been around for a couple of nights. Not since those two men was looking for him. I reckon maybe they found him, so what’re you gripin’ about?”

“Yeh… well…”

“Miss Piney.”

Ralph’s mouth fell open when he heard the words precisely spoken just behind him. He twisted his chair around slowly as Sloe Burn exclaimed delightedly, “Freddie. We was just talking about you. Ralph an’ me. Ralph Billiter. My dancin’ partner. I don’t know you met him or not.”

Steven Shephard said, “I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.” He smiled thinly and held out his hand. Ralph got up and mumbled something and took the other’s fingers and dropped them quickly and shambled away to the rear of the stage.

Shephard looked after him admiringly. “Really a magnificent specimen.” He staggered only slightly as he turned Ralph’s chair back and sat in it. “I’ve meant to ask you, Miss Piney.” He fingered his mustache nervously. “Watching you two dance together… uh… makes me wonder.”

“He’s just a boy I’ve knew from down on the Keys when we was both kids,” she told him with a toss of her head. “I been worried about you, Freddie. When you didn’t come back a-tall after them two men was in lookin’ for you, I got scared they maybe found you.”

He blinked near-sighted eyes at her. “What two men, Miss Piney?”

“Right after you was here last time. They scared me. Real tough an’ asking all sortsa questions. But they didn’t get no change outta me, Freddie.”

“Two men?” He compressed his lips tightly. “Yes, I’ve… I’ve been thinking… could we have a drink, Miss Piney?”

“Why not? You got the money to pay, aintcha?” She turned and snapped her fingers and a waiter materialized from out of the semi-darkness. “Bourbon on the rocks for me. Scotch an’ water for my friend,” she ordered.

“Yes, I… have money to pay.” Steven Shephard smiled happily as he got out his wallet. He carelessly took out a twenty-dollar bill and placed it on the table between them. It had been less than two hours since his last drink and he was floating nicely, but he felt he needed reinforcements for what he was about to say. He seized his glass when it came and took two gulps of the liquid which was even weaker than the drinks he made for himself in the motel.

He said, “We did talk about going away together. To some distant place. Perhaps you doubted my sincerity, Miss Piney. I beg you not to. I… uh… will you go away with me?”

“That takes money,” Sloe Burn told him coldly. “Lots of money, Freddie.”

“I have lots of money.” He stated the fact flatly and precisely. “More than you ever saw or dreamed of seeing. And if there are men in Miami looking for me…”

“Gee, oh, God, Freddie!” She was looking past him into the hazy dimness. “Talk about the devil! There they come now. To this table. You gotta get out quick.”

She kicked back her chair and flashed around to his side and caught his arm and tugged him desperately upward. “You come with me.”

With her arm around his waist, she half-pulled and half-carried him past the end of the platform where the stripper was at long last getting down to bare skin, and into the wings where Ralph was standing in a position where he’d been able to watch their table.

“Take him out back an’ help him get away, Ralphie. I don’t know where he’s staying…”

“Pink Flamingo,” mumbled Shephard, dazed and frightened, and leaning on Ralph’s strong right arm.

“I’ll go back an’ string them guys along.” Sloe Burn paused to give Ralph a hard look. “Take care of Freddie, you hear. I got somethin’ real important to tell you.”

She whirled away from them and ran back onto the floor where the spotlight had just been turned off as two of the rosettes dropped from the stripper’s body.