The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps

Chapter One

Swollen Feet

Outside, the neon sign styled Jugger Callahan as the King of Swing but since Jugger owned the Tango Palace and had conferred the title on himself, not many people believed it. The sign also described the forty-eight hostesses as glorious, glittering, glamorous, and that, absolutely nobody believed — not even the girls.

Inside, Jugger Callahan kicked off the beat to the Smiling Troubadours. They played mechanically, with that automatic, pounding, unvarying rhythm that experienced jazz bands acquire, and, belying their name, they were unsmiling. It was nearing the closing hour of one a.m. and they were tired.

The tinted baby spots that were set in the ceiling revolved and played amber, red and blue over the dance floor. The place was large and ramshackle — the kind of second-story loft where you get natty, credit clothing — and it was just as much a fire trap as the taxi joint that had burned down on Jugger two months before. Nevertheless, the Tango Palace was a thriving enterprise aiming at that thin item of change known as the “dime.” The dances were three for a dime and most of the customers stayed on a dime through all three of them.

The hostesses who waited for trade, chatted behind the frayed velvet rope that encircled the dance floor. Their low-cut evening gowns were creased and soiled, their eyes heavy-lidded with mascara and no sleep. Yet when a customer seemed inclined to switch partners, smiles appeared on vermilion lips, hips undulated sensuously and swollen, tired feet suggestively beat time to the music. Out of every dime ticket theirs was two and a half cents.

Ephraim Tuttle, who served as business manager, accountant and general factotum for Jugger Callahan, wandered back and forth, keeping a nervous eye on the girls and the ticket chopper. He was a tall, gaunt man with a bony skeleton-face. His treatment of the girls was always scrupulously fair and they respected him. They could not even accuse him of showing favoritism to Evelyn Dorn, his flame of the moment.

He made a mental calculation of the swaying couples on the dance floor and found that business was only fair for a Friday night. He decided that they’d better pass out some more handbills on Spring and Main streets and approached a man quietly sitting on one of the settees that lined a wall.

“Firpo, have you been messing around in my office?”

Firpo Cole looked up at Ephraim Tuttle. “No. Why should I?”

“Someone stole my letter opener,” responded Tuttle.

“That’s bad,” said Firpo. “If you get a letter now you’ll have to open it with your fingers.”

Ephraim Tuttle pulled a five-cent stogie out of his vest, carefully split the end and lit it before replying. “It’s funny,” he mused, “how the squirts always act the toughest. If I’d spit at you you’d drown, yet you like to throw your weight around.”

“Just leave me alone,” said Firpo. “When somebody loses a night’s sleep around here they right away think I took it.”

“Firpo, you don’t appreciate the break we’re giving you. We let you mooch a few bucks around here instead of letting you go back to picking pockets on the street. But remember, it’s only because Ruth Bailey’s a nice girl and she wants us to give you a break.”

“Thanks.”

“I don’t know what you want from the Bailey kid anyway, Firpo. You’ll never get to first base and—”

Ephraim Tuttle broke off as he noticed Firpo Cole’s face. He didn’t like what he saw there. “God, but you’re touchy about that skirt,” he muttered and walked away.

With expressionless eyes, Firpo Cole watched the business manager retreat. He didn’t know that his face, which always showed an unhealthy pallor, was now even whiter and more strained than usual. He was a youngish, frail man with spindle-legs, chicken-breast and sunken cheeks, and he had once been facetiously dubbed “Firpo” by someone who was supposed to be as funny as a card.

He found a loose cigarette in his pocket and lit it. As he did so, he forgot to make his customary salute to the medical profession by thumbing his nose. The medicos had told him that each cigarette took one month of his life. Like oil and water, cigarettes and lungers don’t mix.

Jugger Callahan and his boys wound up the quickie trio of dances and immediately started on another set of three. The hostesses collected tickets from the men and slipped into their arms for another few minutes of those curious, swaying gyrations that passed for dancing.