Free Reach the Shining River by Kevin Stevens Page A

was back in moments, followed by two white men in dark suits.
    “When you going to get a real office, Piney?”
    The room grew small. She became matronly, arranging a triangle of chairs and clearing empty bottles from a paint-stained table.
    “May I get you gentlemen something to drink?”
    “Take a seat, sweetheart. We don’t need a drink.”
    There were only three usable chairs. She looked at Piney and he nodded. She sat.
    The men smelled of cigar smoke and cologne. The lead man was broad and fleshy, with thick lips and oily hair. Arlene felt his attention like a rash. The other was older, with pocked cheeks, small eyes, and a lantern jaw.
    “You too, Piney,” the younger man said. “Sit down.”
    The quiet one stood with his back to the door, hat in his hand. The other sat slowly. His knee touched hers.
    “Pretty singing tonight.”
    She nodded.
    “Quite a crowd.”
    “Arlene, she draws,” Piney said.
    The man ignored the comment. He was looking at her. Close up his skin was large-pored and closely shaven. Teeth like a horse.
    “You know who I am, Arlene?”
    “No, sir.”
    “I’m your boss.” He turned in his seat. “You could say that, Richie, couldn’t you? I’m her boss?”
    “Say whatever you want.”
    The seated man wiped his mouth with a large handkerchief. Gold links glinted against lightly soiled cuffs. Though well-dressed, the men were scuffed at the edges. The man beside her had a blankness around his eyes. The kind of man who could easily turn brutal.
    The moments in the morgue came to her and she lowered her head. She had to concentrate not to be sick.
    “You all right, sweetheart? That beer going to your head?”
    “I’m all right.”
    He took a cigar from his pocket and let it rest unlit between his fingers.
    “How’s business, Piney?”
    “Passable, Mr. Lococo. Passable.”
    Piney’s pronunciation of the name was careful.
    “There’s a depression on. Men out of work all over the country. All of us in gainful employment should all be thankful. That right, Richie?”
    Richie didn’t answer.
    “All be thankful.”
    Piney’s eyes, bloodshot and alert, swiveled from one man to the other. Arlene stared at her half-empty glass of beer.
    Mr. Lococo seemed to lose his train of thought. He tapped the table lightly with a signet ring.
    “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said.
    “Wha’s that?” Piney blurted.
    The man gestured in a way meant to suggest generosity. “Like I said, I’m the boss around here. So to speak. I heard about Eddie Sloan. An employee of the club, after all. A tragedy.”
    She watched the man closely. His tone had shifted. She noticed for the first time that he had a slight lisp.
    “I know the details,” he said. “What the papers said, what you might have heard. I know what you could be thinking.”
    He extended his hand and exposed a palm, nicked and quilted. Tobacco stains on his fingers.
    “And I’m here to tell you,” he continued carefully, “that it is not what you might think.”
    He waited for a response. Piney’s tongue was circling his mouth, running between gum and lip.
    “You’ve come here to express your concern,” Arlene said.
    “Sympathy, I would say. Respect. And a word of caution.” He shifted the cigar from one hand to the other and dug in his pocket for a lighter. “A tragedy, like I said. But over and done with. So the best thing for everybody is, say no more about it. I mean, you don’t know who might come along asking questions. Trying to stir up trouble.”
    Piney snuffled and shifted in his seat. “You don’ have to worry about us, Mr. Lococo.”
    “You say respect,” Arlene said.
    “That’s right.”
    “How is it respectful to ignore a man’s death?”
    “Arlene.”
    She was shaking. “How is it respectful,” she said, “to ignore injustice?”
    Piney looked terrified. But Arlene felt only the chill of the morgue, the gashed cheek and gaping mouth.
    “He was a kind, decent man,” she continued. “Eddie