The Screaming Mimi Page 16

  “Yolanda is under contract for four more weeks.” Sweeney smiled. He asked; “Have you read the contract?”

  Yahn’s eyes opened fully halfway and he looked at Sweeney.

  He asked, “Are you representing Greene on this? Did he send you to shake me down?”

  “No. And nobody is trying to shake you down, Harry.”

  Harry Yahn said a nasty word. He said, “It doesn’t wash, Sweeney. If there was a hole in that contract that would let Greene book Yolanda elsewhere, he’d be in there pitching. For himself. Why would he tell you about it?”

  Sweeney leaned back comfortably in his chair. He said, “He didn’t tell me about it. He doesn’t know about it, yet. He and I had a little bet about how much Yolanda and Devil were getting at El Madhouse and he showed me his copy of the contract – with Nick’s signature – to win his bet. And he won the bet. But while I had the contract in my hand I happened to read it. Have you?”

  “What’s the gimmick?”

  “Sweet and simple. It must have been an El Madhouse contract, a standard one you give your talent there, because it’s full of escape clauses for the party of the first part, which is El Madhouse. But there’s also an escape clause for the party of the second part, only it’s one that wouldn’t be worth a damn in any ordinary case. But this isn’t an ordinary case.”

  “And what is the clause?”

  “One that wouldn’t be worth the paper it’s written on to anybody else, Harry. It provides that the contract may be canceled by the party of the second part by payment of the face amount of the contract – by refunding all moneys received under the contract and paying an amount equal to the balance still to be received under the contract.

  “Yolanda’s contract is for seven weeks, three down and four to go, at two hundred a week. Doc could buy her out of that for seven times two hundred-fourteen hundred dollars. And if he could book her elsewhere for two thousand a week for the next four weeks, he and Yolanda would be ahead six and a half thousand dollars. Maybe more; I think right now he could get more than two grand a week from her current publicity, even if I don’t add to it.”

  Sweeney leaned forward and stubbed out his cigarette in the ash tray on Yahn’s desk. He said, “The only bad thing about it is that Greene’s gain would be your loss.”

  “Greene doesn’t know that’s in the contract?”

  “Obviously not. He probably read the contract when it was signed, but a clause like that wouldn’t have meant anything then. Only in case a performer’s value suddenly increases ten times overnight would a clause like that really be an escape clause. And the odds are a thousand to one against his happening to reread the contract. He thinks he knows what’s in it.”

  Sweeney stood up. He said, “Well, so long, Harry. Sorry we couldn’t see eye to eye on my doing a little publicity for your club.”

  “Sit down, Sweeney.”

  Yahn jabbed a button on his desk and it seemed he had hardly lifted his finger off it before Willie Harris was in the doorway. He said, “Yeah, Boss?”

  “Come in and close the door, Willie. And just stick around.”

  “Want me to take this guy apart for you?” Yahn said, “Not yet, Willie. Not if he sits down.” Sweeney sat down. Willie stood, ready. If you looked at Willie’s face you might have got the idea that Willie hadn’t taken anybody apart for a long time and had been missing it badly. Anyway, that’s the idea Sweeney got. He quit looking at Willie’s face and got out another cigarette and lighted it, moving very slowly and carefully so as not to startle Willie.

  He wished that he felt as casual as he hoped he was acting.

  Yahn picked up the phone on his desk and dialed a number. He asked for Nick. He said, “Harry, Nick. You got the contract for Yolanda Lang in the safe there. Get it out and put it in your pocket and then call me back. Right away, and privately. Use that phone in the back office and be sure nobody’s in hearing distance, see? And don’t let anybody notice what you’re taking out of the safe... Okay.” He put the phone back on the hook and looked at Sweeney.

  Sweeney didn’t say anything. Nobody said anything.

  In three minutes the phone rang.

  Sweeney said, “Tell him the sixth paragraph, Harry. That’ll save time.”

  Yahn talked briefly and then listened. He said, “Okay, Nick. Put it back. And don’t mention this... Yeah, that’s why I had you read it to me. We’ll talk it over tomorrow. How’s business?” He listened a moment and then said “Okay,” and hung up.

  Sweeney asked, “How is business?” Yahn didn’t look at him for a moment. Then he did look at him. He said, “Well, what do you want?” Sweeney said, “I figure handling publicity for you for the month in question ought to be worth nine hundred bucks.” Harry Yahn didn’t look like either Santa Claus or Buddha. He asked, “And if Greene finds out anyway? Happens to reread that contract?”

  Sweeney shrugged. “It could happen. There won’t be any reason why he would.”

  Harry Yahn laced his fingers over his stomach and stared a moment at his knuckles. Without looking up, he said, “Willie, go tell Haywood to give you nine hundred. Bring it here.” Willie went.

  Harry Yahn asked, “How come nine hundred? How’d you hit on that odd amount?”

  Sweeney grinned. Inside, the grin was a little shaky and he hoped the outside of it looked better. He said, “I figure you for a four-figure man, Harry. I cut just under. If I’d asked for a thousand – I might have got something else.” Harry laughed; he looked like Santa Claus again. He said, “You’re a smart son of a bitch, Sweeney.” He got up and slapped Sweeney on the back. Willie came in with money in his hand. He handed it to Yahn and Yahn handed it to Sweeney without counting it. Sweeney didn’t count it either; he put it in his pocket.

  Yahn said, “Show him out, Willie. And let him in again any time he comes.” Willie opened the door and Sweeney went out to the hall; Willie started after and Yahn called him back for a moment. Then Willie came out and opened the door to the outer hallway.

  As Sweeney started through it, Willie’s hand, as big as both of Sweeney’s put together would have been, grabbed his shoulder and spun him around. Willie’s other hand, doubled into a fist the size of a football but harder and heavier, slammed into Sweeney’s stomach. Willie let go of his shoulder and Sweeney fell, doubled up. He wasn’t out, but he couldn’t get his breath and he was sick at his stomach.

  And the pain was so great that he wished the blow had knocked him out, especially if there was more coming.

  There wasn’t.

  Willie stepped back. He said, “Harry said to give you that, too.” He added, as though explaining why Sweeney had got by so luckily, “He said just one, and easy.” It was very obvious that Willie Harris would have preferred it to be more and harder.

  He closed the door.

  Within a minute Sweeney was able to get to his feet and, a bit doubled over, make it as far as the john. He was sick and after that he was able to stand almost straight. He bent over the wash bowl and rubbed cold water into his face, which the mirror showed him to be almost as white as the porcelain bowl.

  But he was breathing almost regularly by now. His abdomen was almost too sore to touch and, very gingerly, he let his belt out two notches to take pressure off it.

  He leaned back against the wall and took the money out of his pocket and counted it. It was nine hundred all right, and it was real. He’d got all he’d asked for, and only one thing more. He’d been lucky, plenty lucky.

  He put the money into his wallet and walking as though on eggs, he went out through the bar of the Tit-Tat-Toe Club. He didn’t look at the bartender or at anyone else on his way through.

  He stood outside breathing the cool night air. Not in deep breaths; that would have been unbearably painful. He didn’t look around to see if anyone came out after him; he knew no one would.

  He’d been unbelievably lucky. Even that poke in the stomach was a good sign, in a way. Harry wouldn’t have told Willie to do that if he�
�d intended to send some of the boys to work him over seriously, or to shoot him. He hadn’t really thought there was much danger of being shot – not for nine hundred dollars. But a working-over had been a real possibility, a working-over that might have put him in the hospital for a week or a month and would have played hell with all his plans. Now he felt reasonably confident that he’d been paid in full, both ways. He was going to be plenty sore for a few days, and he was going to have to sleep on his back – and very gingerly at that. But there wasn’t any permanent harm done. Worse things had happened to him – and for less.

  A cab came cruising by and he hailed it. He walked to it as an old man walks and it hurt him to pull the door open.

  He said, “Drive over to the lake and north along it for a while. A little sick; I can use some fresh air.” He got in. Closing the door jarred him.

  The cabby peered back at him. He asked, “How sick, Mac? Not going to mess up my cab, are you?”

  “Not sick that way. And I’m sober.”

  “Want me to take you to a sawbones?”

  Sweeney said, “I had a poke in the guts, that’s all.” The cabby said, “Oh,” and started the cab. He drove east to Michigan Boulevard and north until they were on Lake Shore Drive. Sweeney leaned back in the cab and began to feel better, especially after they were on the Drive and a cool breeze off the lake came in the open windows.

  The cab didn’t jar him; the gentle motion seemed to help.

  He felt pretty good with nine hundred bucks in his pocket and no worse price for it than this. A prizefighter took a hell of a lot worse and, except for the top few, for a hell of a lot less.

  He wasn’t angry at Willie. Willie was punchy to begin with, and had been carrying out orders – even though he’d enjoyed doing it and would have enjoyed doing more. But too many punches had addled Willie’s brains, what few he had ever had.

  He didn’t blame Harry Yahn either. After all, it had been blackmail; Harry had let him off easy.

  He saw they were passing Diversey Parkway and said, “Guess this is far enough; you can head back now.”

  “Okay, Mac. Feeling better?”

  “Practically okay.”

  “Should I have seen the other guy?”

  Sweeney said, “Yeah, you should have seen the other guy. He’s about six feet three and weighs about two-twenty.”

  “The hell you say. Must have been Willie Harris. I picked you up in front of the Tit-Tat-Toe.”

  “Forget I said it,” Sweeney told him. “I was kidding you.”

  “Okay, Mac. Where’ll I drop you off?”

  “Bughouse Square.”

  “Bughouse Square at this hour? What the hell you want to do there?”

  Sweeney said, “I wish to commune with God.” The cabby didn’t answer that. In fact, he didn’t say another word until he announced the fare at Sweeney’s destination.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Bughouse square stirred restlessly in the warm night as Sweeney walked into it. The benches were lined with human cargo; there were men sleeping on the grass, too. Shut off from the lake breeze by the buildings on Dearborn, the leaves of the trees hung dead still, the blades of grass did not ripple; the stirring was the restless moving of men who slept or tried to sleep because they had nothing else to do.

  The fourth bench on the right on the northeast diagonal walk, that’s where God would be if he was there.

  He was here, looking older and more disreputable than when Sweeney had last seen him. But maybe that was partly contrast; Sweeney’s own looks and dress were different tonight from what they were when he had last seen Godfrey.

  Unconsciously, one judges others by comparison with oneself; and two people both of whom have eaten onions cannot smell each other’s breath.

  But Sweeney didn’t try to smell God’s breath; he shook God’s shoulder, gently and then harder, and God blinked and looked up. He said, “Whattahell?” Sweeney grinned at him. He said, “Don’t you know me?”

  “No, I don’t know you. Beat it before I call a cop.”

  “Want a drink, God? Badly enough?”

  “Badly enough to what?”

  Sweeney said, “To reach in your right-hand coat pocket.”

  Godfrey’s hand reached into his pocket, clutched something, and stayed there. His voice was a little hoarse. He said, “Thanks, Sweeney. Haven’t had a drink since afternoon; it’d been a hell of a morning. What time is it?”

  “About half past three.”

  God swung his feet off the bench. He said, “Good. How’s it coming with you, Sweeney?”

  “Good.”

  God pushed himself up off the bench. Sweeney said, “Look at the figure on the corner of that bill before you hand it over.”

  God pulled his fist out of his pocket and looked at a corner the crumpled bill. He glared at Sweeney. He said, “A Goddam capitalist. Showing off.”

  He thrust his fist back into his pocket and got up off the bench. He walked away without looking back.

  Sweeney, grinning, watched him until he’d reached the street – mostly to be sure that nobody had heard or seen and would follow. No one followed.

  Sweeney went the opposite direction and caught a cab on Chicago Avenue. It was almost four o’clock when he got home, and he was tired. But before he went to his room he called the Northwestern Station from the phone in the hail.

  Yes, they told him, Brampton, Wisconsin, was on the Northwestern Road; the next train that would take him there left at six o’clock, in a little over two hours. The train after that? None that went through Brampton before evening. What time did the 6:00 a.m. train get in? One-fifteen in the afternoon.

  Sweeney said thanks and put the receiver back on the hook.

  In his room he looked longingly at his bed, but he knew that if he lay down to try to get an hour’s sleep before he started for the train, he’d never be able to get up when alarm clock went off.

  And if he waited until the evening train, he’d be losing a day’s time right when it mattered most. This was Saturday already and Monday morning he had to be back at the Blade ready for work and – even if Wally came through and assigned him to the Ripper case – Wally would never sanction a trip to Brampton on the paper’s time. Let alone sanction a trip to New York to check on Greene’s alibi there.

  Well, unless something came up that would save him from having to do that, he could fly there and back next week end on his own time. And his own money; that was no longer a worry.

  An hour ago, with his own hundred, he’d had a thousand dollars. Now, after tithing with God, he still had nine hundred.

  If he had any sense, he realized, he’d do something with part of it; he wouldn’t carry that much money with him.

  But he didn’t have that much sense.

  He looked again at the clock and sighed. He looked at Mimi and swore at her for being so important that he was losing sleep to trace down her origin and talk to her creator, little as that was likely to get him.

  He went over and turned her around on top of the radio so her back was toward him and he couldn’t hear her scream. But, even from the back, every line of her body showed terror.

  He felt for her so strongly that, for a moment, he contemplated euthanasia. But even if he did break her there would be a gross minus one of her still screaming somewhere.

  Wearily – and very gingerly because of his tender abdomen – he undressed. He bathed, shaved and put on clean clothes, decided he wouldn’t have to take anything with him, and left for the station. He would be too early but he wanted to allow time for a couple of drinks. Not as drinks, but because with them he ought to be able to sleep on the train; otherwise he’d probably be too tired, after six, to sleep in a coach or chair car. He’d have paid double price for a Pullman but knew he couldn’t get one; railroads have the strange idea that people should ride horizontally only at night.

  He had to walk to State Street, through the gray still dawn, before he caught a cab. He took it to a place on West M
adison within a block of the station which he knew would be open even at the late or early hour of five. He had his two drinks and a third for the road. He considered, before he remembered that he was on the wagon, buying a bottle to take along on the train; but he remembered in time and didn’t buy it. Besides, too much to drink would get him wide awake again.

  He got to the station at a quarter to six, hoping that the train would be loading by then, and it was. Luckily there was a chair car on the train and the ticket agent sold him a ticket for it and said that he wouldn’t need a reservation, that the chair car wouldn’t be crowded.

  It wasn’t. He picked the most comfortable-looking seat in the car, sat down carefully, and put his ticket in the band of his hat so the conductor wouldn’t have to wake him.

  He sprawled out his legs and put his hat, ticket side up, over the bruised portion of his anatomy. It was a lightweight Panama so it didn’t hurt too much.

  Or if it did, he didn’t know it; he was asleep almost the minute he closed his eyes. He opened them briefly a couple of hours later and found the train pulling out of a station. It was Milwaukee, and it was raining. When he opened his eyes again it was a few minutes after noon, the train was in Rhine lander, and the sun was shining. And he was as hungry as a horse.

  He found the diner and ate the biggest meal he’d eaten in weeks. And finished his second cup of coffee just in time to get off at Brampton.

  He went into the station and looked in the phone book; no Chapman Wilson was listed. Sweeney frowned and walked over to the ticket window. He asked, “You happen to know where in town Chapman Wilson lives?”

  “Chapman Wilson?”

  “Yes.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “Thanks.”

  Sweeney left the station on the side opposite the tracks and a look at Brampton. About five thousand population, he estimated. In a town that size, it shouldn’t be too hard to locate someone, even if they didn’t have a phone.