Chapter 18

The room smells of fish. The rain slants down and hits the flooded pavement with giant splashes. The neon sign from the barbershop blinks on and off from red to green. Through the open window can be heard the sound of a piano. At the piano sits a large black man in a brown derby hat. He has on a striped silk waistcoat and his shirtsleeves are gathered at the bicep with a silver spring band. He plays with a light hearted power his voice like molasses. By the door stands  another black man in a striped Zoot suit. He is leaning back at an angle his right leg crossed over his left. He is wearing black and white correspondence shoes. His hands are thrussed into his baggy trouser pockets, a bulge of a shoulder holster sits under his left armpit. On his head is a fedora pushed back from the brow. An acid haired blond is lying on the couch, one hand dangling loose to the floor, the other under her head. She has track marks on her arms.

A big white man wearing a dripping belted raincoat runs up the stairs and into the room. He flashes a NYPD shield.  From the back room can be heard the sound of poker chips being thrown on to the table. There is the sound of an argument, and a woman’s voice. Chairs scrape along the wooden floor, there is shot, followed by two more. A red faced man staggers out from the room and falls at the cops feet. A woman the spit of Veronica Lake walks in from the back room holding a smoking gun.

‘Take that cowboy. Nobody pulls a gun on the hostess.’

She turns to the cop. ‘Ah Sgt Doil, just in time, for the finale’. She is bleeding from her shoulder. The blood seeps through her white gown and drips along her arm.

The piano player has stopped, Doil tells him to keep playing.

‘What now?’ she asks Doil.

‘We dump him in the East River’ He signals over to the black guy by the door, who hasn’t moved. ‘Give us hand here and roll him in the rug.’

He does as he says and they lug him down the stairs, bumping his head on every step. The rain is incessant. On the pavement stands a big Buick with large running boards, they bundle him into the trunk and speed off.

Veronica, walks over to the piano player. She places her bloody hand onto his arm and he turns. ‘This could be the one,’ she says. ‘See you at visiting time’.

The poker game continues and more punters turn up to eat the fish. All this I can see from the piano which faces into the room, the window is to my left, and the room is hot and sweaty. Not a breath of air stirs the smoke hanging like gossimer from the ceiling. The rain is ceaseless. When I pause between numbers the sound of it is like a drum roll. A flash of lightning opens up the room and then a crash as the thunder hits. My left arm is very wet from the splashes on the sill. The gig must go on to dawn and it is now just midnight. The night has a long way to go until I am finished. Blue lights flick flack through the dark in the street. Uniform cops run up the stairs, shouting, ‘This is a raid, nobody move,’ I begin the theme from The Keystone Cops.

A big Irish cop with a night stick, bangs it on top of the piano.

‘Very funny wise guy,’ He puts the stick under my chin and says, ‘You wise guy are under arrest.’

‘For what I croke.’

‘For being a wise guy, black and fat. That’s three counts in my book. The holy trinity of misdemeanours.’ Then adds. ‘ And for murder.’