Peter Rabe - Murder Me for Nickels

“Sure, I know.”

He looked at me, wondering about my irritation, but then he just shrugged.

“Your bedtime,” he said. “Beat it.”

I did. Walter Lippit was not running a democracy.

I drove home-an upstairs apartment with large windows-sat down on the bed and looked at the telephone.

Much too late to do any calling. But much to do. And getting that wrecking job away from Folsom, getting to do that delicate thing by myself, was just part of the problem. What the problem came down to, if Benotti’s repair place got wrecked proper, I would lose money.

I have a rule about money, which goes: make it, spend it. It’s the nearest thing to a rule which fits the way I’ve been living through one job or another, until I put in with Lippit. After a while with Lippit, and what with the business we built, there was money left over. What I mean is, I wasn’t used to spending that much and I didn’t have the time, anyway.

That’s how I got to own Blue Beat.

This studio taped only the rare jazz for the aficionados. Naturally, the place was going broke. I had bought the place for what always comes out as a mixture of reasons: I had the dough; I saw a bargain; I like jazz; I know some of the rare musicians, whether they’re known or not. Sew it all up and call it a gamble, and maybe I got Blue Beat because of that. The Lippit operation by then was getting boring, and smooth.

Then Blue Beat made money. We only taped what we liked, but this time it paid. Next for the action, I bought up what was left of a pressing plant on the ground floor where we started pressing our own records and also did jobs for the rest of the studios in the area. Nothing big, but it didn’t lose money. The whole works was Loujack, Inc., Jack St. Louis on the top of the stock pile, but silently.

I’d rather not mix friends and business, and as for Loujack I wanted Walter Lippit to be just a friend. He knew that the outfit was there, the way you know there’s a lamp post down the street, but so what. He didn’t know-there were few who did-that Loujack was me. That would have been different. That would have been less like a lamp post down the street and more like uncle Walter Lippit observing the doings of his favorite nephew. Next, kindly interest. Next, this being all in the family, he might have dreamt dreams about mergers and empires and since Lippit was not much of a dreamer, next thing, he would grab. I’m not against Lippit-friend of mine-but I myself don’t like to be grabbed.

I sat on the bed and looked at the telephone. It was three A.M., but I picked up the phone and called Herbie who did the errands at Blue Beat.

It rang a long time and then I got disturbed. “Yessir?”

“Herbie, this is Jack. I’m sorry to be…”

“Honey, please!”

“ What? ”

Then there was sudden, dead calm in the earpiece which meant Herbie had his hand over the phone. When he came back on he did with a fierce whisper.

“Jack? It’s three o’clock!”

“I know I’m…”

“I’m not a, l, o, n, e.”

“What’s the matter, she doesn’t know how to spell?”

“I don’t know.”

I took a deep breath and started all over.

“I’ve got to know, Herbie, if you went over to Hough and Daly yesterday.”

“Yesterday? I didn’t do any pick-ups or deliveries yesterday. Today I did, though.”

“It’s after twelve, Herbie. That’s why I asked…”

“Oh. Yesterday. Yes. I took the recording equipment to the Rushmore Hotel, for that session with…”

“Did you go to Hough and Daly, Herbie?”

“Oh. Yes. But I didn’t pick up the mixer. Just the spools Conrad ordered and the new cable. Did you know about the new cable?”

I didn’t know about the new cable and I didn’t care about the new cable. I only cared about the mixer, and that hadn’t been picked up.

Herbie said, “Yes, honey,” again.

“I didn’t say anything,” I told him.

“I didn’t mean-what I was saying-”

“Tomorrow,” I told him. “Spell it for me tomorrow,” and I hung up.

I sat on the bed and worried about the mixer. This is a machine about the size of a portable bar and a good recording studio can’t do without it The one we used at Blue Beat cost twenty G’s plus. The wires come in from the pickups where the session goes on, the wires go out to the tape where everything is recorded. In between is the mixer, and it mixes. With a good operator listening in and working the dials a bull moose can come out like a choir of angels. Without the mixer a violin can drown out a drum.

Our machine was in the Hough and Daly building because it was getting repairs. A little job costing nine-o-five seventy. But the price wasn’t worrying me, only that the machine wasn’t back at the studio. It was after three A.M., and I looked at the phone and said, “Conrad, I’m sorry, and I hope you are only asleep.” Then I rang him up.

He answered very quickly.

“Conrad, I’m sorry…”

“Godammit, Jack, go to hell,” and he hung up on me.

I looked at the dead phone and thought Conrad should have been asleep. He wasn’t a kid like Herbie and working ten, twelve hours a day running Blue Beat Recording should have put Conrad to sleep long ago.

I called him up again.

“Conrad, don’t hang up again,” I said first thing.

He said, “Yes, honey,” rather softly, and then directly into my ear, “Jack, dammit, I thought I made clear that I wasn’t a, l, o, n, e.”

“Yours can’t spell either?”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. Listen, Conrad, it’ll only take a minute.”

“All right,” he said. “What the hell. But don’t ever do this again.”

“I won’t. I just talked to Herbie and…”

“This hour?”

“He wasn’t asleep either. Nor a, 1, o, n, e.”

“Gee,” said Conrad, “I didn’t know he was married.”

“You listening?”

“Yes.”

“He said he didn’t pick up the mixer yesterday.”

“I know. It cuts our schedule to pieces but it wasn’t really promised for yesterday. More like today. Noon, maybe.”

“That’s too late, Conrad. You got to get it out of there before then.”

Conrad mumbled something and then he said, “You sound very anxious. Something wrong?”

“Yes.”

“I warned you,” he said. “Don’t tell me the details, but I warned you.”

Conrad, who ran Blue Beat for me, was the only one who knew that I owned the recording studio and the pressing plant on the first floor. I was in and out of the studio, but the rest of the crew, like Herbie the driver, only knew that I sometimes brought talent over. It explained why I showed up in the place, why I was interested in getting the mixer back, because without that machine there could be no sessions.

Conrad, of course, knew much more. I said, “I want you to call that guy for me, Conrad. The one who’s working on the mixer. And tell him to get it in shape extra early. If he can’t finish it, he should at least tie up the guts, get the thing out of that shop before regular starting time in the morning.”

“Morning? You mean this morning?”

“They open at eight,” I said. “This morning.”

“Jack. Think of the time we lose if he does that. He won’t be finished.”

“Don’t ask why, Conrad, just get it out.”

He didn’t ask why and just said, “Oh.” Conrad, who knew of my double life, did not approve of me with Lippit But he would get the machine out, he said.

The mixer was in the Hough and Daly building. In Benotti’s shop.

Not everybody can repair something complex like a mixer. The man whom we had to pick for the job was very good but he was also working on repairs for Benotti. It had not been important at the time, but it was now.