The Brass Halo

Jack Webb

• Editorial: Prologue Books
• Año: 2012
• ISBN:
  9781440541452
• Categoría: Literature
• Categoría: Crime & Mystery Literature

Out of the night, she came. She walked into Augie's place and she sand. Lord, how she sang. She wrapped her voice around a song and the customers loved it.Then, suddenly she disappeared. She walked out of the club, into the night. There was nothing left behind to show she'd been there … nothing but the body of the man who lay dead on her dressing room floor.

IT came out of the clarinet as softly sighing as death is, and she wrapped her voice around it and gave it away. A cascade of notes, a floating sadness, and the bass behind her went thump-thump-thump as though it were a Salvation Army drum a long way down the alley. Only the trumpet, muted with all of its brassiness taken away, whined and complained. The piano talked softly in the background, off the main mike, like an interpreter at some United Nations of hearts. For this was the way that Domino sang.

Lonely, Lord, she was lonely, and there was that in her soft voice which was as eternally blue as the cool, deep waters, as the wide open eyes of a child fresh-born, as the sky above high mountains, and as the hurt which is inside all of us—the something hidden, something remembered hurt, wrapped in all the blue ribbons of a bygone first love.

All of which suited Little Augie perfectly, and he had it pretty well defined. Nothing sold liquor as loneliness did. And when your blues were not New Orleans, not Birdland, not Light House, but something more eternal more universal than all of these, then you were in, then you had it made—and you didn’t have to cater to the cats, the hep or the cognoscenti, to the longhairs, or the very short. You could cater to everybody. Anyone who was a little bit blue inside—and who the hell wasn’t?

Take tonight’s full house—an off night like Monday. Augie smiled. What a thing she was, what a pretty little piece! Hair no darker than a raven’s wing, and those surprising blue eyes with a skin as pale as moonlight. Moonlight, yes, but with a warmth underneath that was almost rosy. He had seen marble like that somewhere. Marble you wanted to touch. Little Augie pulled on his ear. At Forest Grove, he guessed, that time he had buried a cousin, dead of lead poisoning—there had been some statuary with flesh surfaces almost as inviting as the skin which held within this small dove’s voice.

Domino had finished with The Party’s Over, let the combo backing her make a few sweet footnotes, and then all together they slid into Ellington’s Sophisticated Lady. What she did for that fallen angel, forming her of the whole cloth of sadness, was wonderful to hear. Augie rubbed his big hands together. Liquor was flowing throughout the Intimate Club like tears.

Funny girl, Augie thought, not a mixer. He remembered some of the joints he had run. In those days, she wouldn’t have done at all. No sir, not at all. He grinned at the idea of Domino hustling drinks. There was a surprising gentleness in his bright, dark eyes. He could have climbed down any beanstalk.

Enough of his pleasant reveries. Augie glanced around the club. You didn’t get white ties, or black, or even ties at all very often down at the beach. Still, that big fellow there at the end of the bar with the front tails of his shirt tied across his tan navel and none of the buttons even close to the buttonholes…. Augie put the frame in motion. Augie began to glide.

At the young man’s shoulder, he paused. “The drink doesn’t suit you?” His voice was velvet.

The young man glanced up. His eyes were grey, comfortable. “It’s fine.”

“You’ve not touched it for half an hour.”

“Domino,” the young man said, “she’s singing.”

“Friend of yours?” Augie was worried.

He nodded. He twirled the glass between lean brown fingers. Up the stretch of arm behind those fingers was a lot of muscle.

Augie puzzled over the nod. “Never saw her talk to you.”

“Never has.”

Domino dropped out of Sophisticated Lady and the combo drifted into I Hadn’t Anyone ‘Til You.

Jerk, Augie thought. Smart boy. Still, it would be better to do it smooth; there was something about the easy grace of the fellow that promised trouble if you tried a hard bounce.

The girl wove her voice into the music. The anyone ‘til you became a melancholy last chance. The young man forgot all about Augie.

Augie moved his big shoulders under the pearl-grey gabardine jacket. Then he saw the two men come from behind the drape over the door at the left of the stage. His big head stiffened with the weight of his chin settling toward the white napery of his shirt front. How had they slipped past him, getting back there off limits? Trouble, that’s what they were. You could see that in the taut, whitewashed face of the kid, in the way the little man carried his shoulders in the tight blue topcoat, his hands balled into side pockets.

For a giant, Little Augie moved with astonishing lightness. His sharp, dark eyes, immersed in pockets of flesh, were as dangerous as a wild boar’s.

“You two!” There was a lash to the pair of words though they were no louder than the flight of a wasp.

The little man spun on a leather heel. His hands remained in his pockets. The young man giggled.

“What were you doing back there?” Augie demanded.

“Rest room,” the little man said softly, “we were looking for the rest room.”

Augie jerked his thumb toward the right. “Can’t you read?”

“Sorry,” the little man said. “I guess we missed it.” The kid with him giggled again. Augie glanced at him over the smaller man’s shoulder, looked into his eyes. The kid was riding a kite; the kid was junked good. You could always tell.

“Get out!”

“Sure,” the little man said, “sure.”

It was a good act, Little Augie decided. Only one trouble with it; the little man didn’t scare; he wouldn’t have been so agreeable if it hadn’t suited him to be. The kid had started to say something; he hadn’t, though; the little man had given him a shove and they had kept moving until they disappeared out the door. Augie shrugged. Perhaps that was it, the kid on the needle, the little man wanting to avoid trouble. Not for his own sake, for the kid’s.

Now it was time to get back to the unsettled business of the big young fellow with the bare belly button. Sure, the Intimate Club was on the El Porto Strip just above the beach, and in the afternoon you didn’t care how they dressed when they dropped in for a drink as long as their suits or trunks weren’t soaked with salt water. But at this time of night, it wasn’t good for the tone of the place. Let the nuts go up the road or down it. There were plenty of crumby joints….

Domino was doing the finale for this set. Ramsey, the clarinetist, had written the tune. It had been strictly instrumental to begin with. Then the girl had hummed it one night. And during rehearsals, they had worked up some words. Augie paused to listen. He had been thinking about the tone of his place, and if the kids were successful in their dicker to do an album for the Hy-Phone outfit, Blues from the Intimate Club, that would add a hell of a lot of tone. He would put up a glass showcase out in front with the album cover used four or five times and pictures of the group.

“… how was the moon, my love,

and how close the stars …

together while I was alone, my love,

and why should the night have bars …”

She whispered her way out of the song with the haunting, lingering, almost nothingness that followed the end of most every number, bowed her head, not smiling at all, and the blue spot above her went out.

Augie returned to the carelessly dressed young man. He had swung on his stool and was facing the bar, staring reflectively at his own brown face. It was not so much that he approved of what he saw, but rather that he was regarding something deeper inside.

The Intimate Club’s proprietor said quietly, “I want to talk to you.”

The young man nodded. He did not turn his head. He watched Augie’s face reflected in the mirror. Suddenly he smiled.

“What are you grinning at?”

“An idea. You fit. I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. Absolutely.” He seemed very happy with his discovery.

“What is this crazy talk?” Augie demanded. He was off balance. He didn’t like it.

The young man turned. “Would you have some time in the morning?”

“Time? What for?”

“Here,” the young man reached in his pocket and fished out a soft pencil. On the cocktail napkin before him on the bar, he scribbled an address. “Just a couple of blocks,” he explained. “Left at Ira’s Market and down the hill. About halfway down.” He handed the napkin to Augie. “Any time after ten,” he said.

“Wait a minute, you …” Augie began. Then, she was standing at his shoulder, scarcely reaching the top of it.

“I’m going out, Augie.”

“Sure, kid.” He slanted his wrist watch into the light from the bar. “You got a half hour,” he said. “Don’t you go wandering down none of them dark alleys.” He was remembering the two men, the crazy eyes of the kid, wondering.

“Augie,” she put her hand on his thick wrist. Her blue eyes were brilliant with an excitement he couldn’t define. “I love you,” she said.

She turned quickly and walked away. What a small thing she was, scarcely over five feet. Even the big softness of the casual pink coat failed to conceal a delica...