Shoot the Piano Player Read Free Page A

rent?"
"It ain't available, period."
"Married?"
"No, she ain't married," Harriet said very slowly. Her eyes were riveted on the waitress.
"Then what's the setup?" Turley insisted on knowing. "She hooked up with someone?"
"No," Harriet said. "She's strictly solo. She wants no part of any man. A man moves in too close, he gets it from the hatpin."
"Hatpin?"
"She's got it stuck there in that apron. Some hungry rooster gets too hungry, she jabs him where it really hurts."
Turley snorted. "Is that all?"
"No," Harriet said. "That ain't all. The hatpin is only the beginning. Next thing the poor devil knows, he's getting it from the bouncer. That's her number-one protection, the bouncer."
"Who's the bouncer? Where is he?"
Harriet pointed toward the bar.
Turley peered through the clouds of tobacco smoke. "Hey, wait now, I've seen a picture somewhere. In the papers--"
"On the sports page, it musta been." Harriet's voice was queerly thick. "They had him tagged as the Harleyville Hugger."
"That's right," Turley said. "The Hugger. I remember. Sure, I remember now."
Harriet looked at Turley. She said, "You really do?"
"Sure," Turley said. "I'm a wrestling fan from way back. Never had the cabbage to buy tickets, but I followed it in the papers." He peered again toward the bar. "That's him, all right. That's the Harleyville Hugger."
"And it wasn't no fake when he hugged them, either," Harriet said. "You know anything about the game, you know what a bear hug can do. I mean the real article. He'd get them in a bear hug, they were finished." And then, significantly, "He still knows how."
Turley snorted again. He looked from the bouncer to the waitress and back to the bouncer. "That big-bellied slob?"
"He still has it, regardless. He's a crushing machine."
"He couldn't crush my little finger," Turley said. "I'd hook one short left to that paunch and he'd scream for help. Why, he ain't nothing but a worn-out--"
Turley was vaguely aware that he'd lost his listener. He turned and looked and Harriet wasn't there. She was walking toward the stairway near the bar. She mounted the stairway, ascending very slowly, her head lowered.
"Whatsa matter with her?" Turley asked Eddie. "She got a headache?"
Eddie was half turned away from the keyboard, watching Harriet as she climbed the stairs. Then he turned fully to the keyboard and hit a few idle notes. His voice came softly through the music. "I guess you could call it a headache. She got a problem with the bouncer. He has it bad for the waitress--"
"Me, too," Turley grinned.
Eddie went on hitting the notes, working in some chords, building a melody. "With the bouncer it's real bad. And Harriet knows."
"So what?" Turley frowned vaguely. "What's the bouncer to her?"
"They live together," Eddie said. "He's her common-law husband."
Then Turley sagged again, falling forward, bumping into Eddie, holding on to him for support. Eddie went on playing the piano. Turley let go and sat back in the chair. He was waiting for Eddie to turn around and look at him. And finally Eddie stopped playing and turned and looked. He saw the grin on Turley's face. Again it was the idiotic eyesglazed grin.
"You want a drink?" Eddie asked. "Maybe you could use a drink."
"I don't need no drink." Turley swayed from side to side. "Tell you what I need. I need some information. Wanna be straightened out on something. You wanna help me on that?"
"Help you on what?" Eddie murmured. "What is it you wanna know?"
Turley shut his eyes tightly. He opened them, shut them, opened them again. He saw Eddie sitting there. He said, "What you doin' here?"
Eddie shrugged.
Turley had his own answer. "I'll tell you what you're doing. You're wasting away--"
"All right," Eddie said gently. "All right--"
"It ain't all right," Turley said. And then the disjointed phrases spilled from the muddled brain. "Sits there at a second-hand piano. Wearing rags. When what you should be wearing is a full-dress suit. With one of them ties, the really fancy duds. And it