HIS NAME, THEY SAID, was Johnny Nocturne.
Perhaps it was not his real name, but it didn’t matter. To the people in Tin Pan Alley, and the disc jockeys, and the lovers who listened dreamily to his songs, he was Johnny Nocturne, creator of mood music for the night people.
He’d never be another Irving Berlin or Cole Porter because his music somehow lacked the universal appeal of true greatness. But for those who liked the ever-changing moods of darkness, he was the master.
And like his music, Johnny Nocturne was a prowler of the night places. He claimed he got his best inspiration riding through the dark places of River City in a police prowl car. The cops of the night beat all knew him, and often they enjoyed having him in the back seat, humming a little tune that might be tomorrow’s hit.
Friday night was a good one on the night beat, and Johnny always managed to meet car 52 when it pulled out of Police Headquarters just before midnight. The cops in 52 were good fellows, not the kind who looked for trouble—just good fellows.
On this Friday night, Tom Harper was driving 52. He’d been on the force for some ten years, with the last three spent in a patrol car. It was a lot better than walking a beat, and it had made him feel that he was getting ahead on the force. It gave him an answer when his wife nagged him about the poor pay and long hours.
His partner for the past year had been Harvey Backus, a big, long-legged kid still in his mid-twenties. Harvey could run faster than any man on the force, as any number of young hoodlums had learned to their sorrow.
Together, these two prowled the post-midnight streets of River City. And quite often Johnny Nocturne could be found in the back seat.
“O.K., Johnny, it’s been a quiet night,” Tom Harper said as he wheeled the car around a corner. “Let’s see if we can find some inspiration for you.”
Harvey Backus paused in the act of lighting a cigarette to point out the side window. “Look! A light in the back of Blinky’s Cigar Store.”
Tom Harper pulled the car into the curb. “That means an all-night card game. Come on, let’s give ’em a scare.”
They hopped out of the car, and Johnny Nocturne slid out of the rear seat to follow. He paused on the sidewalk to shove the pencil and pad into his pocket and then followed them inside.
“What’s up?” a short, balding man said from the door to the back room.
“Just checking up, Blinky. Let’s have a look.”
“There ain’t nothin’ here, cop, honest!”
“Let’s look anyway.”
Tom Harper shoved past him and threw open the door. A half-dozen men looked up from around a green felt poker table.
“O.K.,” Harper told them. “Everybody out. And make it quick or I’ll run the whole lot of you in.”
There was some grumbling from the table as the men pocketed their money and moved towards the door. Harvey Backus towered tall and commanding next to it, and they had to edge past his glistening badge to reach the street.
“This is just a warning, Blinky,” Harper said. “Next time…”
“Ah, cop, I don’t hurt anybody. Here, have a cigar.”
Harper accepted the cigar, because that was the kind of cop he was. Then he and Harvey went back to car 52 and Johnny Nocturne trailed along. As they pulled away, Johnny saw that Blinky was dimming his lights and preparing to close up.
“Did that inspire you, Johnny?”
“A little,” Johnny Nocturne admitted, scribbling on his piece of paper. “A little… Perhaps in the night, when the cards are all aces… And the smoke is so thick, you can’t see their faces… Perhaps that is when…”
“Hold on,” Harvey Backus shouted. “What’s that up ahead?”
“It’s a girl,” Harper said, speeding up a bit until they drew alongside. “Are you in trouble, miss?”
The girl lifted her blonde head and looked at them with wide, glazed eyes. She was barely twenty, and Johnny wondered what she was doing alone at this time of night.
“I…” she managed to gasp, and then she seemed to collapse in a heap.
Tom Harper jumped out of the car and turned her over. “Damn,” he muttered. “She hasn’t got a thing on under this coat.”
Harvey Backus was already coming around from his side of the car, and Johnny slipped out of the rear seat to join them.
“What happened, miss?” Harper asked her.
She coughed once and opened her eyes, gazing up at them with glazed, unseeing vision. “I… it was Cravess… Cotton Cravess…”
And then her eyes closed and somehow they knew she was dead.
Cotton Cravess was a big man in River City. Perhaps some day he would be a big man in Washington. Certainly he was trying hard enough, and even Johnny Nocturne’s usual casual notice of the political scene had observed Cotton Cravess in action many times.
He was there on the front page of the paper every morning now, touring slum areas, or awarding prizes, or greeting Negro leaders or puttering in the garden with his wife. It was something different every day, but it was always page one news, possibly because Cotton Cravess owned the newspaper.
He’d taken over when his father died some five years before, and now, at the age of forty, he was possibly the most powerful figure in the state. His chain of newspapers could sway at least 10 percent of the public on any occasion, and he’d once proved it by getting out a crowd of 15,000 to hear a poetry reading.
Usually, a man in his position would be content as the power behind the scenes, but not Cotton Cravess. He’d seen his favorite candidates elected to Congress and the State Legislature, and after a time he’d just gotten the bug. So now it was COTTON CRAVESS FOR GOVERNOR posted on the billboards, shouted from the television screens. Cotton Cravess for Governor…
Johnny Nocturne thought about it as he looked down at the nude girl at their feet. Cotton Cravess was somehow linked to this girl, and now, three weeks before election, that fact could spell his doom at the polls, especially in an ultra-conservative place like River City.
Johnny looked at Harper and Backus, and he wondered what they were thinking. He didn’t really know them well, in spite of their nights together in the prowl car. Were they thinking now that the power of Cotton Cravess was suddenly broken, or were they perhaps thinking that here was a chance to make a little money? He didn’t know, but long ago he had lost the illusion that all cops were honest.
Now Tom Harper turned to him, as if suddenly remembering he was there, listening with them to the girl’s dying words.
“Johnny, you’d better get out of here. This thing is going to be a mess, and you’d only complicate things if you’re around.”
Johnny Nocturne nodded. He’d heard that before, and he wasn’t surprised to hear it now. He was unofficial. He was just a guy who wrote songs—nice to have around when things were dull, but likely to get in the way when there was work to be done.
He nodded again and walked slowly away from the car, hearing Backus as he switched on the two-way radio and called headquarters. Oh well, he could read about it in the newspapers.
As he walked he thought about the dead girl, and slowly, very slowly, the words to a song began to form themselves in his mind. A song for people who lived by night…
With the coming of the dawn he slept. But not for long. Just after ten o’clock the telephone rang, and he rolled out of bed to answer it.
“Johnny Nocturne here.”
“Who used to be Johnny Noctorno?” a girl’s voice asked.
He’d almost forgotten the name. “Yes… Who is this?”
“You probably wouldn’t even remember after all these years, but the name is Nancy Stevens.”
“Nan! Where are you?”
“Right here in River City. Did you think I was calling from Europe?”
“When did you get back?” Somehow he still couldn’t believe it, after all these years.
“Just yesterday. I tried to call you last night but you were out.”
“I sort of work by night.”
“Can we get together today, Johnny? I’ve so much to tell you.”
“Sure, Nan. I’ve got a lot to tell you, too. Where are you staying?”
“At the River Arms till I can find an apartment. Suppose I meet you in the lobby at eight?”
“Fine, Nan. Eight o’clock.”
He hung up and rolled over in the bed. Nan Stevens! After all these years… Nan Stevens, the girl most likely to succeed. Nan Stevens, a best-selling author at the age of twenty-four. He remembered the first shock of reading her book, a long rambling account of sex and history in fifteenth-century Europe. It wasn’t very different from a dozen other books of the times, except possibly that the sex was more sexy and the history more historical. Nan had always liked history, even during her school days.
He remembered trying to reach her after that first novel, only to learn that she’d gone off to Europe to gather material for a new book. That had been—how long?—three years ago. Three long years.
He rolled over on the bed and closed his eyes once more… A song for Nancy, whose eyes are like fire; a song for Nancy, after all these years…
“Nocturne!”
He awoke.
“Get up, Nocturne.”
His eyes came open, and he looked up at the stranger standing above his bed. “Who are you?”
“Get up and get dressed. Cotton Cravess wants to see you.”
Cotton Cravess… And suddenly the memories of the previous night were back with him again.
Yes, Cotton Cravess would want to see him.
As they drove downtown toward the penthouse office of Cotton Cravess, Johnny wondered which of them it had been. Harper or Backus? Which had tipped off Cravess to the dying girl’s words? Because he knew one of them had.
One of them.
“We’re here,” the man spoke from the driver’s seat. “I’ll take you up in the elevator.”
“Does Cravess always send goons to break into people’s apartments when he wants to talk with them?”
“Cut out the talk and come on.”
Johnny followed him into the office building that housed the various organizations which made up Cravess Enterprises. He rode on the elevator past the busy editorial rooms of the newspaper, and the silent studios of the radio station. And there were other offices that even he did not know about. It was a long way to the top of Cravess Tower.
But finally he was there.
“This is him, Mister Cravess.”
Cotton Cravess turned toward him in his big swivel chair, smiling widely as if he were posing for a campaign poster. “Well, well. Thank you for coming.”
“Did I have any choice?”
Cotton Cravess ignored the remark and motioned to another man in the room. “I want you to meet Congressman Yorkman. Jim, this is Johnny Nocturne, the great song writer.”
Jim Yorkman stepped forward with an outstretched hand. “Happy to meet you, Johnny.”
Cotton Cravess motioned with a big, waving hand. “Find a chair for Johnny, will you, Jim? We’ve got a lot to talk about.”
A Congressman and a candidate for Governor of the state, talking to him as if he were the deciding vote in the election… Maybe he was.
“Cigar?” Cotton Cravess offered.
“Thanks, but I’ve got some cigarettes.”
“I enjoyed your new song. The one about the park at night.”
“Thanks.”
“Johnny, I understand you were with Officers Harper and Backus last night.”
Now it was coming out in the open. “That’s right.”
“Do you often ride with them?”
“Sometimes. I find the city by night quite stimulating to my songwriting efforts.”
Cotton Cravess smiled like a father. “Yes. And we can certainly see from your work that it pays off. The point is, you were present when they found that dead girl.”
“She wasn’t dead yet when we found her.”
“No, of course not. But she died a moment later, as I understand it.”
Johnny Nocturne nodded. “You received quite a full report.”
The smile stayed on Cotton Cravess as if it were chiselled in stone.
“Ah, yes. But the point is, Johnny, that the election is only days away. You heard what the girl said. You must realize what my political enemies would do with this in the next twenty days.”
“What happened to the girl?”
Cotton Cravess waved his arm. “A heart attack. It could have happened to anyone.”
“Where were her clothes?”
He noticed Jim Yorkman smile slightly at this question, but Cotton Cravess frowned. “Listen, Johnny, I’ll play square with you. I’ll tell you the whole thing, right from the beginning, and leave it up to you to judge me. I’ll throw myself on your mercy.”
Johnny was beginning to feel sick and he averted his eyes. Cotton Cravess was a hard man to take. If he ever won the election, Johnny thought he’d probably move to another state, just on general principles.
Cotton Cravess cleared his throat and continued. “Some of my people got together last night and threw a little party, sort of as a respite from the campaign. Unknown to me, one of my more—well, fun-loving—aides hired some girls to entertain us. Among them was this girl in question, Marie Karling. Apparently she was new in town and didn’t realize… Well, anyway she didn’t realize what was expected of her.”
Jim Yorkman spoke up from the sidelines. “You must understand, Johnny, that none of this was Cotton’s idea. It was a stupid thing to do, from any angle, and the man who hired these girls has been fired.”
“Correct,” Cotton agreed. “But we’d all been drinking pretty heavy, and you know how things get sometimes.”
“I know,” Johnny said.
“Anyway, somebody ripped the girl’s clothes off. She started screaming like the very devil and grabbed a coat and ran out the door. We chased her, but she was too fast for us. I guess the running was too much for her heart. She must have had a heart attack just as you people found her.”
Johnny Nocturne frowned and took out a cigarette. The story had just the right ring of truth about it. A more or less innocent affair that had accidentally killed a girl. Innocent, but the rival political party could easily use it to ruin Cotton Cravess.
“Why did she say your name as she died?”
Cotton Cravess waved his arm again. “I was the only one there that she knew. I do have a reputation in this state, you know.”
Johnny inhaled deeply on his cigarette. “What do you want me to do about it?”
“Nothing. Simply say nothing about it.”
“How about Harper and Backus?”
“They’ve both agreed that the right thing would be to keep silent.”
Johnny frowned. “What did they get for it?”
The smile returned to the face of Cotton Cravess. “Not money, if that’s what you think. I don’t bribe people. If I offered you money and my political opponents discovered it, I’d really be in a spot.”
“Then what are you offering me?”
“I’ve got a radio station downstairs. One of the best in town as radio goes in these days when everything is television.”
“So?”
“Suppose I were to guarantee that my radio station would play Johnny Nocturne records and songs almost exclusively. It would mean a lot to your sales in River City.”
Johnny laughed. “How to bribe a songwriter! I suppose if I’d been a novelist you’d have suggested your paper run my novel.”
“Take it or leave it.”
Johnny rose from the chair. “It was nice meeting you fellows.”
“Think about it carefully,” the man behind the desk said.
“I will…”
Jim Yorkman joined him at the elevator. “I’ll ride down to the street with you.”
“It’s a free country.”
The elevator dropped through its vertical tunnel, and a few moments later they were in the street.
“Tell me something, Congressman,” Johnny asked, “how did you ever get involved with a character like Cravess? I don’t know much about politics, but from what I hear you’ve got a pretty fair voting record.”
Jim Yorkman thought about it. “Let me buy you a drink and I’ll tell you about it.”
Johnny nodded agreement and followed him into the cocktail lounge of a nearby hotel. They found a dark corner that would be reserved for lovers at some later hour and settled themselves into the foam rubber upholstery and ordered a couple of drinks.
“It’s funny you should ask me that, Johnny,” the congressman replied. “People have been asking me that question for years. My wife, my friends… Sometimes, late at night, I even find myself asking the question. The answer is simply that Cotton Cravess got me elected. He put up the money, he gave me the push I needed. And I was just one of these crazy guys who figured the good I could do in Congress would counteract the evil association with Cravess.”
“It never works that way.”
“No, it never does. But of course I had to learn the hard way. Every time I wanted to vote a certain way, I’d get a long-distance phone call from Cravess. He’d remind me that my first duty was to the people who’d elected me…”
“You still managed to do pretty well.”
“Sometimes things work out.”
“What about the girl, Marie Karling?”
“It was a heart attack all right. Cravess was just unlucky.”
“Did he bribe the two cops?”
“I guess so, somehow. Maybe they’re songwriters, too.”
Johnny laughed. Then he was serious again. “What would you do in my position?”
Jim Yorkman thought about it. “Just wait and see. You’ll make up your mind, one way or the other. These things always work out.”
“You’re a great believer that things work out, aren’t you?”
“They do,” he smiled, downing his drink quickly. “I have to be going now, Johnny. Glad to have met you.”
Johnny shook his hand. “The pleasure was mine.”
He watched Jim Yorkman leave the lounge and after a moment Johnny followed. Outside, he blinked his eyes against the sun and headed back towards his apartment.
But sleep would not come to him now. Back in the apartment, he sat down at the piano and ran over the familiar bars of his first hit song.
It was a lonely kind of song, and now, as the shadows of afternoon began to lengthen, it conveyed to him the feeling it always carried. He closed the blinds and tried to think of the night, and the shadowy places of his mind.
Night… his fingers found the keys automatically and gradually the melody began to form itself… and surge slowly through his body… Never, that would be its name… Never, a word that did things to you… Never, when the darkness falls again, never, when we…
The doorbell rang and he was back in the present. He ran his fingers over the keys and went to answer it.
“Hello, Johnny.”
“Nan! It’s not eight o’clock yet, is it?”
“Hardly,” she laughed. “I was just in the neighbourhood and thought I’d drop by to see you. After all these years, who wants to wait till eight o’clock?”
“Well come in, by all means!” He held the door wide for her and she entered, all smiles and silk and satin. If anything she looked even better than he last remembered her, tall and slim and very beautiful.
“A lot’s happened in a few years, Johnny.”
“It sure has, Nan. Let me get you a drink.”
She nodded agreeably and took out a cigarette. “You’re a big man now in the music world. They were playing your songs all over Europe.”
He smiled a bit as he poured the drinks. “I’m afraid they’re more popular over there than they are here. I’m far from being rich off them.”
“I know what you mean,” she sipped her drink. “Being a best-selling author isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, either. But this next book of mine will set them all back on their heels.”
“Not another sexy historical novel?”
“Not this time. It’s non-fiction. I’ve been gathering material for it for more than a year now.”
“The girl writer in Paris! What the devil did you find to write a book about?”
“Joan of Arc.”
“Oh, God!”
“I know,” she smiled. “There have been thousands of books about Joan of Arc.”
“And plays and movies, too.”
“But not like mine, Johnny. Not like mine.”
“What are you going to do, Nan? Prove that Joan was really a boy?”
“No,” she replied quite seriously. “I’m going to prove she was really a witch…”
Johnny threw up his hands and reached quickly for a drink. “Why must young writers—especially girls—be forever so iconoclastic? Can’t you even let poor Joan rest in peace?”
Nancy shook her head. “You can’t let a lie rest in peace. Joan was a witch, not a saint, and I can prove it.”
Johnny smiled. “Some night I’ll let you convince me.”
The phone buzzed quietly at his elbow and he picked it up. “Johnny Nocturne here.”
“This is Jim Yorkman…”
“Oh, yes, Congressman?”
“Have you seen the evening papers?”
“No…”
“What were the names of those two policemen you were with last night?”
“Harper and Backus. Why?”
“Well, a police officer named Harvey Backus was murdered this morning, shot down right in back of Headquarters…”
Harvey Backus, dead.
Johnny spoke into the phone, with a voice he barely recognized. “Who did it?”
“They don’t know. Someone was apparently waiting in the garage where they park their squad cars. He got clean away. I’ve already called Cravess about it, but he denies knowing a thing about it.”
“Do you believe him?”
“Who is there to believe in this world, Johnny? All of a sudden things don’t seem to be working out any more.”
Johnny sighed. “I’ll try to talk with Tom Harper, the other officer. Then I’ll call you back, probably sometime tonight.”
“Right,” Jim Yorkman said, and hung up.
Nancy Stevens stretched out on the couch. “What was all that about?”
“It’s a long story, Nan. I’m sort of involved in something.”
She smiled up at him. “Same old Johnny. You know, sometimes I think we’re an awful lot alike. We both have a certain artistic talent, and yet, I wonder if in some ways we ever grew up.”
He slid on to the couch next to her. “That’s enough of the philosophy for now. Tell me about Joan of Arc.”
Nancy forgot about the phone call as her mind switched back to what was apparently her favorite subject. “Well, for the last fifty years or more there’s been a concentrated drive to make a saint out of Joan of Arc. The Catholic Church actually canonized her some twenty-five to thirty years ago, and even people like Shaw haven’t spared the praise.”
“I guess she was a pretty great person.”
“She was a witch. I can prove it.”
“I think they burned her for being one, but I believe you’re a few hundred years behind history if you still believe she really was a witch.”
“This is new evidence. Historical evidence that I’ve uncovered.”
Johnny reached over and poured himself a drink. Only half of his mind was with Nancy’s tale. The rest of him was back in that police car with Harper and Backus.
“Go on,” he told her, aware suddenly that she had paused.
“You’re not listening.”
“Yes I am.”
“Well,” she continued, “there are at least four points of evidence supporting the theory that Joan was really a witch. Some authors like Murray and Smith have touched briefly on this evidence, but to my knowledge it has never been the subject of a full-scale study.”
“Four points?”
“Four points. First, records show that Joan was the commonest of all names for a witch. Quite often girls were trained in witchcraft by their mothers, who gave them the common witch names. Of course there were others, but Joan was the commonest.”
“Not too good as evidence,” Johnny pointed out.
“Let me go on. Second, it was quite common for witches to offer themselves in human sacrifice to Satan, and to avoid trouble with the law they sometimes had themselves falsely accused of a crime and put to death by the public executioner. Thus all their cult could gather for the sacrifice and still be perfectly safe from the law. Joan could very well have done this.”
“Well, now…”
“Let me finish. Point three: Joan’s military commander, Gilles de Rais, a Marshal of France, was actually condemned for sorcery some nine years after she died. The evidence shows that he murdered some two hundred women and children during Satanic rites. And fourth, my dear Johnny, this fact was known to the people and to his servants in Joan’s time. Joan must have known she was serving under a man who practiced human sacrifice to Satan.”
“The prosecution rests?”
“The prosecution rests,” she smiled.
“Well, I’ll think about it, but I don’t know. You intend to make these four points the basis of an entire book?”
“Of course. Johnny, young writers like us—no matter if we write songs or stories—can’t get ahead unless we attack some of the old idols. If I write a sexy historical novel, I might make a little money, but what makes it a better book than a dozen others? What makes me a more important author than a dozen others?”
“It’s important to be important, isn’t it?”
“Now you’re making fun of me, Johnny.”
“Not really.” He glanced at his watch. “Say, it’s time for supper. How about it?”
“Fine!” She jumped off the couch and started combing her hair in front of his mirror.
Johnny walked up behind her and stood very close for a moment. She turned half towards him. “Sing me a song, Johnny. One of yours.”
“For you I could write them.”
“You did once.”
“I did always.” He kissed her lightly on the mouth.
“Come on now,” she broke away. “Let’s not behave like a couple of characters in one of my books or one of your songs.”
He backed away and sighed. “Same old Nancy. Even after all these years.”
They went down to dinner, finding a quiet place not far from his apartment. On the way he bought an evening newspaper and while they waited for their food he read through the article on page one.
“What’s so interesting?”
“A cop I knew was murdered this morning.”
“Was that what the phone call was about, from the congressman?”
“Yes. It’s a crazy thing, all mixed up with this fellow Cotton Cravess who’s running for governor.”
“I saw his pictures around town. What kind of man is he?”
“I don’t know. Newspaper publisher, business tycoon, anything you can name. He got Jim Yorkman elected to Congress, and probably did the same for lots of others. Now he’s running for governor, but apparently his associates aren’t too careful with their pre-election activities. They caused the death of a girl last night.”
It was out now. He’d spoken the words. He’d told someone about it, even if it was only Nancy. He told her the rest of it then, all of it, watching her face for any change of expression that would tell him her thoughts.
“What are you going to do?” she asked him finally.
“Talk to Officer Harper, like I told Yorkman I would.”
“Why get involved in it any further, Johnny?”
“I am involved, though. If Cotton Cravess had Backus killed so he wouldn’t talk, he might do the same to me.”
“Let me go with you, then.”
“No…”
“At least to question Harper. There can’t be any danger there.”
Johnny Nocturne sighed. “All right. I think he goes on duty early tonight. We can probably catch him at Headquarters.”
They left the restaurant and headed down the street to the old stone building that served as River City’s Police Headquarters. He led Nancy around the back, to the garage, because this was where it had happened.
“Tom Harper around?”
“Yeah, he’s around. Who wants to know?”
“Johnny Nocturne. Tell him I’d like to talk to him.”
“Hey, Tom! Fellow here to see you!”
From behind a line of gleaming black and red police cars Tom Harper appeared. Johnny was struck at once by the deep, tired lines of his face. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in a week.
“Hello, Johnny.”
“Hello, Tom. I heard what happened.”
Tom Harper frowned at Nancy and then shifted his gaze back to Johnny. “He was so young, so damned young.”
“You think Cotton’s men did it?”
“I don’t know what to think, Johnny. He was shot down right here in this garage, not twelve hours ago. I don’t know what to think.”
“Of course Cotton Cravess approached you?”
“Of course. As soon as you left us last night one of his men appeared from somewhere. He must have figured the girl had gasped out a dying message.”
“They say she died of heart failure.”
“She probably did, but in that guy’s position he might as well have murdered her. If that story got out he wouldn’t have a chance of being governor.”
“They tried to bribe you?”
“Offered us a thousand dollars each on the spot. But I must admit that later, when Cravess himself asked to talk to us, he didn’t offer money.”
“No, he wouldn’t.”
“But he said we’d be promoted, promised us things like that. He explained it all, too. About the party and how the girl ran away.”
Johnny Nocturne sighed. He noticed a spot on the garage floor and wondered if it was grease or possibly the blood of young Backus. “So you believed them and said nothing.”
“I said nothing at first, but this morning I went in and told everything.”
“You told them about Cotton Cravess and the dying girl’s words?”
“Yes. I told them everything.”
“What about Backus?”
“He was young…”
Johnny looked hard into Harper’s eyes, and then he turned away. “Come on, Nancy. We’d better call Jim Yorkman.”
They left the garage and found a pay phone nearby. But no one answered at the congressman’s number. Johnny dialled the office of Cotton Cravess and waited.
Presently a gruff voice answered. “Hello?”
“Could I speak to Jim Yorkman, please?”
“Yorkman? I don’t know if he’s here.”
“He’s there. Let me speak to him. Tell him it’s Johnny Nocturne.”
Outside, a truck was dropping off the first copies of the morning newspaper, for the night travellers who could not wait till dawn for their news. Johnny motioned to Nancy. “Get me a copy of that.”
From the telephone came the familiar voice of Cotton Cravess. “What do you want, Johnny?”
“Right now I want to speak with Jim Yorkman.”
“What about?”
“I told him I’d call. Put him on.”
Cotton Cravess snorted into the phone. “The deal’s off. You can blab all you want now.”
“No songs on your radio station?”
“No songs on my radio station.”
Johnny snatched the newspaper from Nancy and propped it up in the phone booth. “Let me read you a few headlines from the morning paper, Cotton.”
“What?”
“COP KILLING LINKED TO GIRL’S DEATH: POLICE HINT POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS.”
“What the hell!”
“It’s all out, Cotton. I’d suggest you resign from the campaign.”
“Go to hell!”
Johnny sighed. “You’re already in on the girl’s death and the bribery attempts, but I can still keep you out of the cop’s murder if you play ball with me.”
“What? Are you crazy, Nocturne? Are you trying to blackmail me?”
“Just let me come up and talk to you.”
He was silent on the other end of the line for a moment, but finally the voice came over again. “All right. Bring that newspaper with you.”
Johnny hung up and left the booth. “Come on, Nan, we’ve got a date.”
“Johnny, would you mind right now telling me what this is all about?” she asked.
“Well, the whole business is a little strange for me. I don’t usually get involved in politics or things like that. But what you told me about Joan of Arc started me thinking.”
They were walking now through the brisk darkness, passing only occasionally into the pools of light from the street lamps overhead.
“What about Joan of Arc?” Nancy asked.
“I hate to go into it, after you’ve spent over a year gathering your material, but of course your reasoning about Joan is somewhat in error.”
She paused beneath a street light and looked at him. “You should stick to songwriting, Johnny. History is more in my line.”
“You’re not the first person that’s told me that, but I think I have to explain it anyway, so you’ll understand this thing.”
“Go on.”
“Earlier you brought up four points about Joan to prove she was a witch: her name, the manner of her death, her commander’s guilt, and her knowledge of this guilt. I’ll take the points in order. First, you say Joan was the most common name for witches, but this implies that Joan’s parents—or at least her mother—must have also been a witch, and trained her in the black art. If such was the case, though, I’m sure it would have been brought out at her trial, when they tried to uncover all sorts of evidence linking her with witchcraft.”
Nancy Stevens started walking again, and he fell into step at her side. “What’s all this got to do with Cotton Cravess?”
He ignored the question for the moment and went on. “Your second point—that Joan’s death might have been a carefully planned sacrifice to the devil—is hardly possible. Had Joan really been a witch, and really wanted to die, she could simply have told the truth about her Satanic activities. The facts of history show that she certainly didn’t want to die. Which leaves you with only two points, Nan, both of which—even if true—prove only that Joan knew her commander was practising witchcraft.”
“Isn’t that evidence enough against her?”
Johnny gazed up at the night sky, where a thousand glistening diamonds glowed and twinkled. “No, oddly enough it isn’t. I met a man today in a somewhat similar situation. Jim Yorkman isn’t a saint, but he’s that equally rare species, an honest politician. He’s honest, but Cotton Cravess got him his job. He feels that he still owes Cravess something. But I think maybe we can get him out from under, and at the same time spike this whole thing before it snowballs into more murders.”
“That’s not songwriter talk, Johnny.”
“No, I guess it’s night talk. Talk for when the night is warm and clear like this. And when you’re here and I feel I could beat the whole darned world.”
Nancy laughed and linked her arm in his. “I guess you and I never did really grow up, did we?”
“You can write a book about us sometime.”
“I’ll have to, now that you’ve spoiled my theory of Joan of Arc.”
“It’s just that sometimes there are so many different ways of looking at the same set of facts…” He turned in at the tall building that housed Cravess Enterprises. “Here we are.”
They went up in the familiar elevator, rising into the tower offices of Cotton Cravess. But now all was turmoil there. The followers, campaign managers, aides and speech-writers for the would-be governor were all there, talking on telephones, listening to the news on radios, shouting at each other in utter confusion.
Johnny didn’t know many of them, but he recognized Blinky, the man whose card game had been broken up by Harper and Backus the night before. Yes, someone like Blinky would have a place here.
Johnny fought his way through the press of activity, pulling Nancy along behind him. “Blinky,” he called out, when the others seemed to ignore him.
“Yeah?”
“Find Cravess and tell him Johnny Nocturne’s here to see him.”
The gambler gave him a tired look and then retreated behind a thick oak door. He returned after a moment and motioned them in.
Cotton Cravess was there, pleading with some unknown person on the telephone. Finally he threw down the instrument in disgust. “My own newspaper turning against me!” he almost shouted. “What good is it owning a newspaper if they won’t print what I tell them to?”
Nancy slipped into an empty chair and Blinky closed the door behind them, staying where he was on the inside. Johnny looked around the room but no one else was there.
“O.K., Nocturne. Start talking,” Cotton Cravess said, his mask of goodwill suddenly gone. “What have you got to offer?”
Johnny tossed the folded newspaper on the desk. “Judging from the activity outside, you fellows have already seen this.”
“It’s worse than that now,” Blinky said.
Cotton Cravess silenced him with a look. Then he turned his attention back to Johnny. “You might as well know about it,” he decided. “The whole story’s out now, and the opposition’s shouting for my scalp.”
Johnny smiled slightly and decided he’d come at the right moment. “Get Congressman Yorkman in here.”
“For what?”
Johnny leaned against the wall and took out a cigarette. “If you want to get out of this thing in one piece, you’ll do as I say.”
“I don’t take orders from any hack songwriter.”
Johnny Nocturne smiled. “That’s not what you were saying about my music a little earlier in the day.”
“Get to the point, Nocturne. I’m busy.”
“I don’t talk until you get Yorkman in here.”
Cotton Cravess sighed and pushed a button on his desk. An intercom squeaked into life and he bellowed, “Find Jim Yorkman.”
Johnny lit the cigarette. “Thanks.”
Cravess studied him for a moment. “When this is all over, I’m going to take special pleasure in running you out of River City.”
“We’ll see.”
The office door opened and Jim Yorkman emerged from the outer bedlam. “Hello, Johnny,” he said.
“Hi, Jim. I thought you’d want to be in on this.”
“Oh, what?”
Johnny Nocturne walked over to Cotton’s desk and ground out his cigarette. “Cravess, I know how you’ve been running honest politicians like Jim Yorkman here. I know how you got them elected and then thought you could control every vote that they cast.”
Cotton Cravess rose from behind his desk. “You seem to forget that you’re addressing the next governor of the state.”
Johnny Nocturne laughed.
It was then that Blinky moved in behind him and caught him with a rabbit punch to the back of the neck. Johnny felt himself falling forward, unable to catch himself on the desk.
Dimly, he heard Nancy screaming, and then, as he hit the floor and rolled over, he saw Jim Yorkman going into action. The Congressman grabbed Blinky by his shirt and yanked him forward.
“Cravess, we just dissolved our partnership,” he said, as he hit Blinky a crushing right to the jaw. The gambler toppled backward and crashed into the desk.
Cotton Cravess groped for buttons on his desk. “I’ll see you in hell, Yorkman!”
The door of the office opened and two or three men crowded in. “What’s up, Cotton?”
Cravess waved his arm. “Throw these bums out.”
But Johnny struggled to his feet. “Cravess, call them off if you don’t want to face a grand jury on a murder charge.”
“I don’t know anything about that cop killing.”
“But you’ll burn for it, Cravess.”
Cotton Cravess dropped back into his chair. “Leave us alone for five minutes. Then toss them out.”
“Right, Cotton.”
Blinky started to get to his feet and Jim Yorkman shoved him into their waiting arms. “Take this with you.”
When the door had closed again Johnny walked over and sat on the arm of Nancy’s chair. “I can get you out of the murder charge, Cravess, in return for two things. First, you give up all connections with Jim Yorkman and anyone else you helped to elect. And second, you withdraw from the race for governor.”
“What? Withdraw?”
“You heard me.”
“I’ll never withdraw.”
“Cravess, I hardly think the people of this state would elect a man under suspicion of killing a policeman and raping a girl.”
“I didn’t rape any girl and I didn’t kill any policeman.”
“But try and tell the voters that.”
“Damn you.”
“You’ve got your choice. Bow out now and the party still has the better part of three weeks to build up a replacement. Keep fighting and you’ll either be tossed out by the party or by the voters.”
“And if I agree?”
“If you agree you can still save something of your reputation and also escape a possible murder charge.”
Cotton Cravess looked around him like a man suddenly trapped by the press of events. He sought the eyes of Jim Yorkman and asked, “Jim, what do you think?”
Yorkman sighed. “Either way, I’m through with you. You’ve run my life for too long a time. If it means leaving Congress, I’m ready to do that, too.”
“Well?” Johnny Nocturne asked.
The door opened again and the men were back. “Should we throw them out, Cotton?”
“No,” he answered quietly. “Get out.”
They retreated once more, and Johnny, Nancy and Jim Yorkman faced the man behind the desk, now grown suddenly old. After a moment’s silence he picked up the telephone and spoke into it.
“Arrange for me to go on radio and television at once. I have a statement to make.”
He dropped the phone into its cradle and looked up at Johnny Nocturne. “Now how are you going to clear me of this murder?”
“You’re giving up?”
Cotton Cravess nodded. “I’m giving up…”
Twenty minutes later they were grouped together in the studios downstairs, watching as the television camera rolled in for a close-up of Cotton Cravess.
“Friends and supporters,” he began, “it is not easy for me to come before you tonight…”
Jim Yorkman tugged at Johnny’s arm.
“What’s up, Jim?”
“The killer of Harvey Backus just confessed.”
Johnny frowned. “Keep it quiet till after the speech. That could ruin everything right now.”
And they stood in silence and listened to the words of Cotton Cravess. “…and so it is that I feel it to be in the best interests of the party that I withdraw from the race at once, to devote all my time to silencing these false rumors against my name. I feel sure that the party will be able to…”
“That’s it,” Johnny said.
Nancy sighed with relief. “I still don’t know just how you did it.”
“Come back to the apartment and I’ll explain,” he said. “Right now I can think better with a piano under me…”
The night shadows had lengthened, conquering the world of glowing neon and blinking lights. Now it was the world of Nocturne, of deep, dreamy mood that slipped across the sleeping city.
And Johnny ran his fingers lightly over the piano keys and thought about how great it was to be alive. Jim Yorkman was gone now, but Nancy was still with him, curled up on the couch as his fingers moved lightly over the keys.
“Tell me, tell me how it is…”
“Johnny, the Congressman said someone confessed to the murder.”
“Yes…”
“Who?”
“That policeman we saw this afternoon. Tom Harper.”
“Tom Harper! But why?”
“Why? …The eternal question.” His fingers searched among the keys and his gaze was far away, in the night. And in the dimness of the apartment there were only the two of them.
“Why?” he repeated. “Because Tom Harper was a loyal man, so loyal that he couldn’t bear to see a young cop being bribed. It was too much for him, and when he confronted Backus in the garage there was nothing left to do but to kill him. Backus had sold out the whole police force, and in Harper’s eyes he had to pay for this.”
“But how did you know? How did you know it wasn’t Cravess?”
The music drifted around them, and the darkness clothed them like a warm friend. “There were many things showing it wasn’t Cravess or his men. He was already in enough trouble without chancing a cop killing. And, anyway, Backus had accepted the bribe. They certainly wouldn’t have killed him. Besides which, the murder was committed in the police garage, when Backus was going off duty. Why kill him in the very shadow of Police Headquarters when he would have been out in the street on his way home in another minute? The answer of course was that the killer wasn’t a hired gunman. He was another policeman.”
“Why Tom Harper, though?”
“Because if Backus did accept the bribe and said nothing, only Harper could have known about it. Harper himself didn’t report that incident till morning, so only he—and Cotton’s men—knew that Backus had accepted the bribe.”
“But that’s mostly guesswork, Johnny.”
“It was guesswork until I talked to Harper in the garage and asked him if Backus had taken the bribe. He just looked at me, and said that Backus had been very young, and I knew. Harper’s eyes told me everything.”
“Would you have turned him in?”
“I suppose so. Though I knew his confession wouldn’t be long in coming. A man who murders for the honor of the police force can’t hide his crime for long. The very motivation of the murder told me that Harper would confess the whole thing very soon.”
“And you used that knowledge to deal with Cravess. Why, Johnny?”
His fingers moved again over the keys, and a song of the night came drifting to them. “Partly to save my own skin, since I was one of those who heard the girl’s dying words. But I guess mostly it was our discussion of Joan of Arc that did it. I saw that if someone like her could rise above the evil around her, possibly people like Jim Yorkman could, too. Why don’t you write a book about that?”
She walked over and slid on to the piano bench next to him, and said, very quietly, “Maybe some day I will.”
And then the night closed in around them, and there was only the song of the friendly darkness to comfort their thoughts.