I step out of the hazy moonlit night and right into a bar that's darker inside than a Robert Hamer film, and with characters to match. I walk past the shrouded silhouettes, veiled by shadow and sheltered in whiskey bottles. Only the occasional illumination from a drag on a cigarette lends any evidence that these statues are men, sharing their tables and booths with the ghosts of memories. This was the kind of joint I frequent often, half of the time for business and the other half for pleasure--if you could call it pleasure to curl up on a bar stool and nurse a bottle of bourbon for a few timeless hours.
This time around, it was for business. My trilby--my favorite one actually--gets pushed down to my brow to aid my trenchcoat's flipped collar in concealing my mug. In a locale like this, you don't have a face. You're just a walking coat, hat, and shoes, or God help you. This isn't some two-bit dance hall for flappers and their slick-haired swinging dicks, offering sasparilla sodas and a joyride, this was a refuge for the wronged, the cheated, the betrayed, the deceived, the forsaken, the abandoned. The darkness of the venue and the wistful blues trickling down from the group on stage near the bar are the only two things keeping all the self-pity in the room from becoming alcohol-fueled rage. Just one interruption--any interruption--might break the spell, and before you know it some construction worker who just found his wife in bed with his boss is using your face for a creative outlet.
But don't think I'm scared. I've been to places like these too many times before to be afraid, even if I don't know how many pairs of eyes are following me to the bar, which irritates me because I always like knowing how many people are in a room at once. Call it a work habit.
Oh, I forgot to introduce myself. Private investigator James Burnett. If you want a crime reported, go to the cops. If you want a crime solved, come to me. Just ask the boys in blue; they hired me for this case anyway.
The bar counter is doused in a low overhead light, along with its solemn, gray-haired bartender probably twice as old as all the age of all the alcohols on his shelf combined, carefully cleaning a glass with a rag. He stares at the clear object with a dull intensity, meditating on thoughts a thousand miles away. He's the medicine man of this sad little village of schmucks and dupes. Just a tired old man, worn down like so many drained bottles of comfort on his shelf.
But he's not what I'm here for. It's the dame at the bar, sitting alone. She looks a real femme fatale, sitting stock still in a strapless ruby red dress so tight it looks like it was made of shrink wrap. Two fingers from a gloved, dainty left hand loosely cross over a fancy cigarette holder and two soft, firm legs you could cook an egg on cross under the short skirt of her dress. Boy, she couldn't stop preening if she tried. Fair skin, dark brown hair, and shiny brown eyes the size of dinner plates underneath a red felted tilt hat with decorating jet black flowers--what's a knockout like her doing in a place like this? That's what I'm here to find out.
I take the stool next to her and order a shot of bourbon. The bartender silently obliges. The band--a bass cello, a sax, and a piano--switches the tune: "Stardust" by Hoagy Carmichael. Beneath her button nose the dame's glossy lips make a small smile; I guess she likes the song. Sorry kid, we've got business to attend to.
"You know you don't need to come to dives like these to enjoy the blues, Ms. Moretti?"
A pause. A sigh.
"I wish the police would leave a woman be on how she chooses to spend her evenings. Was the writing in the 19th Amendment unclear on a woman's right to choose, detective?"
Well, you can't blame a fella for trying to start out nicely. She has a voice like room temperature butter; soft but solid. A guy only wishes he could spread it on some toast and keep it in the refrigerator.
"I'm a private eye Ms. Moretti, any connection I have to the fine police force of this city is purely commercial. Care for another drink, Ms. Moretti?"
"Please, mister..."
"Burnett. James Burnett." Pride.
"Please, Mr. Burnett, you've already interrupted my favorite song. What do you want?"
Ugh.
"Very well, Ms. Moretti--"
"Elisabetta, please."
"Very well, Ms. Moretti, let's get down to business. Where is he?"
A drag on the cigarette. A finger down on the bar for another bourbon. This isn't going to go anywhere, but I have a funny feeling tonight and I swear it's not on account of her hourglass figure staring me in the face.
"I don't know," she replies. She's bored of this question. "Why do you ask me, Mr. Burnett? Even if I knew I wouldn't tell the police."
I get serious, leaning in and pointing at her. It's impolite to point but it sure comes in handy for getting a message across.
"We know you two keep in contact Ms. Moretti. When you got pinched in his place we knew you were communicating with him through the jail walls. You expect me to believe that after all that, you two have suddenly given up the ghost on your little romance? I don't buy it for a second Ms. Moretti, and neither would any dupe with half a brain in his head. Tell me the truth Ms. Moretti; your lover has a lot to answer for."
Another drag on the cigarette. This time it's a little quicker. Sharper. The tough shell has cracked a bit, and it's showing.
"Do you know he has stopped, Mr. James? He said his heart was broken by guilt when the police sentenced me."
Apparently not guilty enough to turn himself in. She continues with that playfully bored voice of hers.
"He promised he'd live a straight life from now on. Did you know that? Will you put a reformed man behind bars, Mr. Burnett?"
Hah. Clever. As if broads never tried to pull the sympathy card on me before.
"Your lover took a lot of people's money Ms. Moretti. He can only reconcile that in a court of law and you know it. Even the kid who steals from a candy store has to reap what he sows whether or not he decides to do it again. You're aiding and abetting a felon, Ms. Moretti."
She laughs lightly but sincerely. Perfect teeth. I shouldn't have said that. Dumb, dumb, dumb. That's a step back.
"I'm well aware of the empty threats law enforcement has to offer me, Mr. Burnett. You know there's no evidence for that old, recycled claim."
The dame's right, damnit. She's been out two years and still not a shred of proof that she's been in cahoots with that bank-robbing coward. There's nowhere else her high-class life could come from except the steady and secret flow of cash from his stash of pilfered money, but for all the private eyes and federal investigators in the country there's not a single good clue. If I'm the one to find out how they're doing it they'll make me head of the FBI whether I want it or not. And I don't.
The broad sighs, ditches the cigarette in an ashtray, and puts the cigarette holder back in her purse. I can hold out against it, but the way her body moves is as intoxicating as the stuff I've been pouring down my gullet. Every motion demands the audience sit down, shut up, and pay attention real good, because there's gonna be a quiz at the end. For example, the way she raises her slim eyebrows in apology but her eyes focus on the cleanliness of her silk gloves. Don't forget where she was looking, junior, because that's your answer.
"I'm sorry, but I must be leaving now Mr. Burnett. Enjoy the band, why don't you? They're one of my favorites."
She stands up when she says it. I crack a smile and try to avoid the baser instinct wanting to memorize every inch of her figure. Come on James, don't be such a goon. You're a private eye. No, bad wording there. You're a private investigator. Lay it out cool before she gets away.
"I always have enjoyed the blues Mr. Moretti. Just one thing before you go."
She stops and looks back with those big brown eyes. The innocent young beauty romanced by the anti-hero life of crime. I continue.
"Remember, you chose the one robbing banks. Sooner or later he'll get caught, and you both will reap what you've sown. You don't have to be on that side of the prison bars."
She smiles again. Of course she's heard it all before, but she's too twitterpated to ever understand. Stubborn broad. She served time for him like it was an act of love.
"Good night, Mr. Burnett."
And then she's gone, out of the shadows, out of the doors, out of my grasp. For now. I'm going to get to the bottom of this case come hell or high water. I order another shot as the bar returns to the despondent, muted place I knew it as before my conversation with Ms. Elisabetta Moretti, publicly secret lover of a master thief. Hah, "master." A master thief doesn't rob banks using tommy guns, a thug does.
Alright, relax James. Enjoy the band she said. Your night's up. Being here just went from business to pleasure. Wait a minute, "enjoy the band..." The bass cello is wavering low and slow as if the cellist was playing on the heartstrings of a cheated lover. The sax next to him follows suit. They're a good pair. The piano is silent.
The piano is silent? Her favorite band frequents a dump like this? Then it hits me like a haymaker in the 6th round: he was there. He was the pianist. Damnit James, you let your guard down. You let yourself get distracted by the girl. When did he leave? After that song, "Stardust", the back door to the alley behind the bar opened. He must have left then, that must have been him.
I burst out onto the lamp-lit night in the pursuit of the forlorn hope that they might still be around. Not a chance. The damp, hazy street is empty. Dead silent too. Damnit. I put my hands in the pockets of my trench coat and snort out some frustration. I should have remembered he's a pianist, it was all over the news how he used to be one before the Depression.
The dumb broad. One day they're gonna slip. The long arm of the law doesn't care about love or devotion or any of that other mother jazz, it cares about getting its man and making things righteous. I go back inside and ask for a final shot. Ah, who am I to talk about righteousness? I'm in it for the money after all. I step back out into the night. Trilby reseated, collar reset; the night's not over yet. I got a client downtown who's been asking me to see what her husband is up to during these overnighters he pulls in his office. I think she already knows, but after all, I'm not one to get in my own way when it comes to making some money off an affair or two.
Another dark night in the city alright.
