The Blues Don't Care by Paul D. Marks

Author:Paul D. Marks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Down & Out Books

Bobby couldn’t get “Long Ago and Far Away” out of his mind. It was one of those songs that stuck with you. Now even more so because his mother had been humming it the other day. He flipped on James’ Zenith radio—war news. Cleared his head with steaming coffee, a fresh breeze from the open window, and a cool, crisp, sunshiny L.A. day. But on every sunshiny day lately the same thought occurred to him: what were our boys overseas doing? Were they doing it in sunshine or snow? And did it make a difference? It was hell either way.

Where to start? Clues. Start thinking like a detective. He wasn’t getting anywhere on the Dietrich angle. But if he worked the Thomas side of things it might come back around to Dietrich anyway. Follow up on the various items in Thomas’ briefcase. Try to find out who beat the hell out of him. He was starting to form an idea of who might have been behind the beating.

Bobby left the Dunbar feeling relatively calm. On the way to the Sunset Tower, his gut ached more every minute he sat in his car. Bile rose until it was an explosion waiting to happen.

Adrenalin pumping, he went straight to the bar. Leach sat at the same table as last time. Bobby lurched across the room. A large man in a dark suit jumped up from a nearby table—someone Bobby had seen on the Apollo? The bartender bolted across the room. Both charging to intercept Bobby. Leach looked up.

“What goes on?” he said.

Bobby stood over him. Dark suit grabbed his lapel, yanked him back a foot. Bobby tried to pull his ham-hand off. Leach nodded. Dark suit let go, with a hard jerk. He stood by, just in case. The bartender returned to the bar.

“You’re the kid with chutzpah, from the band. What happened to your face?”

“Same as happened here.” Bobby wrenched up his shirt, showing his bruised purple belly to Leach. While Leach looked, Bobby eyed his dark-suited thug, trying to ascertain if he was one of the men in the Mercury. He didn’t think so. But Leach had a lot of thugs at his disposal.

“You think I did this to you?” Leach’s voice crescendoed.

“I, I don’t know what to think. But you have people—”

“Let’s go for a walk, kid.”

Dark suit pulled Leach’s chair out, trailed several yards behind Bobby and Leach as they walked along Sunset.

“Y’know, for things like this, accusing me, I’ve had people smashed. I like you, kid. You’ve got guts. My boys didn’t do it and it hurts me to think that you think they did. Why?”

Bobby knew he should probably keep his mouth shut. Pissed off, he couldn’t hold back. “You want me to stop investigating so the cops’ll close the case and you can reopen the Apollo.”

“Nobody talks to me the way you do, kid. And somehow I let you and you don’t end up getting accidentally pushed into traffic.”

Bobby looked to the traffic whizzing by on Sunset.

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