The Red Storm by Grant Bywaters

said.
    â€œRead it from the papers, did you?”
    â€œNo, I was there when they were hauling him off.”
    â€œMy, you get around, don’t you? I suppose you also know that the police dragged me in for questioning early this morning.”
    â€œI figured they’d do as much.”
    â€œDo you know anything about this supposed note I sent telling him to meet me at that park?”
    â€œNo, I don’t. I only know that you didn’t write it. Unless you figured it out on your own where he was, which’d be a nifty trick, since I don’t even know that.”
    â€œI didn’t. I told the police that, too. I mentioned that you told me he was looking for me, but you left it up to me to let you know if I wanted to meet him or not.”
    â€œWhat did the police say to that?” I asked.
    â€œNothing. But they did have a few nasty looks when I mentioned your name. Not the most popular one with them, are you?”
    â€œThat’s something I’ve been trying to rectify,” I said. “It’s bad for business when you got almost every cop in town stacked against you. But you seem to have come out of it unscathed. They let you go.”
    â€œThey had to. They really didn’t have anything. Anyone could have written that note, but I sure as hell didn’t. What’s your take on it?”
    â€œI think it speaks for itself. The note was just an easy ploy to draw him out into the open.”
    â€œThey wanted me to claim the body,” she said. “But I refused. I ain’t paying for that bastard’s burial costs. I applied for county disposition.”
    â€œThat works,” I said. “I suppose that’s that. Good luck with your singing and all.”
    â€œOh, about that,” she said, and went on to tell me she would be singing tonight at a new, “classier” venue a few blocks up from where she had performed.
    Apparently Zella and the owner had some choice words with each other that ended with her quitting. Lucky for her, she got a call from a promoter of a competing establishment in need of entertainment tonight
    â€œSaid if I do well,” she continued, “I’ll get more bookings with him. You best not be getting any wrong ideas; this ain’t no whorehouse like the last joint.”
    â€œI’m sure it isn’t,” I said.
    â€œYou should come tonight if you ain’t busy. Bring your girl if you have one.”
    â€œI don’t have one, and even if I wanted to come, I doubt they’d accept coloreds at the door.”
    â€œI’ll make sure they let you in,” she said.
    â€œWhat’s the name of the place?”
    â€œYou’ll know. It’ll be the place that has my beautiful picture on it,” she said with a laugh, and hung up.
    For half an hour I flipped through the reverse telephone directory to get an address for the number Storm had given me. The directory was an important tool but hard to get since it was restricted mostly to telephone companies and law enforcement. Naturally, neither had any inclination to let me have one, and so I took one from the city library.
    The address for the number was on Tchoupitoulas Street in the Warehouse District. Storm had to have been staying at the Sugar House Hotel. It was the only hotel there and got its name because it once was the site of a sugar mill. At one time, the Warehouse District flourished, storing everything from coffee to grain to Chiquita bananas. You wouldn’t know that by looking at it today. The Depression had stopped a lot of business done on the docks and the area had since become a wasteland.
    I lit a cigarette and started out the door. Twenty minutes later, I parked my lift a block away from the hotel, and took out a pair of sheepskin driving gloves, which I rarely used for actual driving, and lock picking tools from the glove compartment.
    The hotel was made of the same exposed brick and steel as most old warehouses.