Chapter 7

THE FIGHT

Jeff recognized him from the billboards in the lobby. He was Danny Casino. He and his band backed the show and made dance music for the customers at BRUNO'S PLACE.

Danny was a good-looking guy with big shoulders and a neat, trim body. His custom-tailored clothes seemed as much a part of him as his black wavy hair and sparkling white teeth, that shone even whiter against the drab olive tone of his skin. Danny had fabricated a romantic background of colorful Spanish cavaliers and castles overlooking the Mediterranean. Actually, he came from the New Lots section of Brooklyn-cradle of Murder, Inc.

"You know each other?" Ninette asked curiously-

Danny shook his head, his dark eyes settling on Jeff. "He don't know me. But I know him. Took a few minutes to place him."

He gave a brief thumbnail of Jeff's background including the eight years he spent in jail.

Ninette's face washed with surprise and she fastened her gaze on Jeff, sternly. "That true?"

"True," Jeff admitted. He looked at Danny, coldly, then got up from the bench and started to leave.

"Where do you think you're going?" Ninette wanted to know.

"Back to the kitchen to wash dishes," Jeff said, bitterly.

"I just hired you to play piano."

"Play piano?" Danny blurted out. "Him?"

Ninette looked at the band leader defiantly. "He's going to fill-in between shows."

"But people're gonna know what he is, what he did...."

"I seem to recall somebody named Danny Casino, spending a year in prison."

"For assault and battery. I never pushed no H."

Ninette let her eyes travel from Danny to Jeff, without any noticeable change of expression. She said, "I find it kind of hard to believe that he ever pushed any either."

"But they found-!"

"I don't want to hear about it." Ninette said sharply. "Take him back to the dressing room and find him something to wear. And dammit-I don't want any trouble, you understand?"

As Bruno had done, Danny obeyed her order, even though his face turned lived with resentment. But the moment they got to the dressing room and closed the door, the band leader whirled at Jeff and grabbed the front of his white shirt. There was a lot of strength in Danny Casino's fingers as he backed Jeff into the wall.

"You dope-peddlin' bastard," he spit venomously through his sparkling white teeth. "I got a good thing goin' for me here and I don't intend to have it loused up by any dope-pushin' son-of-a-bitch like you. You're turnin' down Mrs. Bruno's offer. You're takin' your ass and gettin' the hell out of here, right now, or I'm gonna beat your goddam brains out!"

Jeff let the guy get it all out of his system, then he balled his right fist and buried it deep into Danny Casino's belly. The band-leader grunted and let go of Jeff's shirt. Jeff belted him with a left that drove him backwards into one of the straight-backed chairs. The chair collapsed under his weight and he crashed to the floor 'mid the splintering wood. Those eight years in prison, if they offered no other compensations, had attuned Jeff's muscles to tempered steel.

Jeff glared down at him as Danny rubbed his jaw. "Next time you tackle a job, make sure you can finish it."

Murder looked out of the band leader's eyes as he dragged himself to his feet. "That's only round one. I'm gonna get you outta here, one way or another. So don't go signing no leases, or sendin' your laundry to any place that can't give twenty-four hour service."

Shortly after seven o'clock that night, Freda came in. She was surprised not to see Jeff at the sink. She wondered if he'd gotten into an argument with Roy and been fired. She hurried over to where Roy was standing in front of one of the big stoves and asked what happened.

He whirled to face her. His face was a black scowl.

"The next time you bring one of your goddam cousins around here," he grated, "make sure the son-of-a-bitch can't do anything but wash dishes."

He told her about Jeff's new job.

Without even waiting for him to finish, she burst into the club. She saw Jeff seated at the baby grand. She just stood there and looked at him; listening to him play. Her heart danced with joy for him-until she saw Ninette step alongside him at the piano and caught a glimpse of the look in Ninette's eyes. Then she felt her heart suddenly stop its dancing and begin to sink as she retreated into the kitchen. Because she knew full well, that it was all over between them; that all at once he had moved up out of her league.

At the piano, Ninette fully made up and dressed for the first show, took away Jeff's breath. The flame red off-the-shoulder gown she wore clung to her body like wet paint revealing every hollow, swell and curve of her sensuous body; making her long, black hair seem even blacker, her white skin like alabaster. It had no back and a neckline cut to show enough of her luscious white breasts to excite even the most blase gentleman in her audience. Jeff found himself lost in her intriguing cleavage.

She gave his imagination plenty of time to work before interrupting his mental mountain-climbing.

"We haven't discussed yet, what your salary's going to be," she said. "Suppose you drop by my husband's office just before you leave."