A Pure Double Cross by John Knoerle Page A

this?”
    â€œJimmy.”
    â€œHow’d you find me?”
    â€œYour landlady said you were out. I called the nearest bar.”
    â€œSmart boy. What do you want?”
    â€œThought we could have a little chitchat,” said Jimmy and laughed, loudly.
    I held the earpiece at arm’s length. Jimmy laughing? I didn’t figure he knew how. He was obviously deeper into the alphabet than I was. I heard him say something. I pressed the earpiece to my unbandaged ear. “Say again.”
    â€œFats Navarro. Heard of him?”
    â€œYes I have.” Every jazzhead in America had heard of Fats Navarro, hard bopping trumpeter extraordinaire.
    â€œHe’s in town tonight, down on Central. Wanna go?”
    There was only one answer this question. I wanted to find out what Jimmy was up to, sure, why he was making nice after I had taunted, humiliated and outfoxed him at every turn. But I
really
wanted to hear Fats Navarro in the flesh. “What’s the name of the club, I’ll meet you there.”
    Jimmy laughed again. Twice in one night!
    â€œThis isn’t a grease job, G-man, it’s a night on the town.” His voice grew husky. “With a coupla very
friendly
young ladies.”
    â€œJimmy I’m not…”
    â€œPick you up at nine,” he said and rang off. I held the ear-piece at arm’s length and examined it carefully.
    I stood at the curb in front of Mrs. Brennan’s rooming house at 9 p.m. in subzero cold and wished for a hat. A scrim of ice was frosting my noggin like spun sugar. Jimmy’s black Buick nosed down Elm Street five minutes later. I squared my shoulders for a strange night.
    I climbed in, and mopped my forehead as I defrosted. I didn’t look at the friendly young ladies in the back seat, I’d been with enough whores for one lifetime. Jimmy drove east across the Main Avenue Bridge. Nobody spoke. He turned south on E. 9 th Street. Nobody spoke.
    â€œThe Pope die or something?” I said. Nobody laughed. 60 th and Central was a smattering of storefront churches and chicken and catfish stands wedged between dimly lit row houses and tenements with tarpaper windows. Jimmy curbed the Buick in front of Jolly Jack’s Lounge and Dance Parlor. A burly Negro opened his door and greeted him by name. I got out and opened the back door and almost had a heart attack.
    Jeannie. The woman who had been sitting directly behind me on the ride over, the friendly young lady Jimmy had promised, was
Jeannie
!
    Her wiseacre grin faded as she regarded my beat up face. I had no earthly idea what to say. What in the name of Christand the Twelve Apostles was she doing in the company of a guy who had just beat the crap out of her husband?
    Jimmy herded us inside. His date was a stacked blond in a fox fur who wrinkled her pert nose at the all black crowd. The seas parted for Jimmy as a light-skinned hostess escorted us through the bar to a table above the dance floor. She removed the
Reserved
card. Jimmy slipped her a folded bill.
    We sat down and shivered. Despite the crush of bodies Jolly Jack’s was icebox cold. Jimmy ordered a bottle of rum for the table. Also four cokes, a bucket of gizzards and “Plenty of
gris-gris.”
    The waitress laughed.
    Was Jimmy an octoroon? He seemed at home here. I entertained this asinine question in order to avoid trying to make sense of Jeannie sitting to my right, hair done, lips red, holding her hands in her lap and staring straight ahead.
    The waitress poured four rum and cokes, no ice. Jimmy hoisted one. “Always glad to get two old friends back together.”
    What in the hell? He must have noticed our reaction to one another at Pappas Deli and asked her later. Jeannie’s a terrible liar. She’s also a smart cookie, she wouldn’t have given him much else.
    â€œJeannie and I dated a few times in high school. Back in Youngstown.”
    â€œUmm hmm,” said Jimmy, not buying it for a