A Last Act of Charity (Killing Sisters Book 1) (31 page)

Amanda stood uncertain. Embarrassed. She nodded to Bili, to Stretch on the piano. He beamed back, broad white grin splitting the shining ebony of his features.

Silence suddenly on the stage. Stoner leaned back against his stool, Bili looked vaguely around her. Stretch looked at Amanda and smiled even wider. And with a deep breath Amanda blasted the quiet with the unmistakeable opening bars of a slow blues, playing it in the key of C, the better to suit her estimate of Bili’s vocal range. Immediately she was transformed from nervous newcomer into a confident instrumentalist. Bili and Stretch entered the verse with immaculate timing, playing as though they’d been playing together for years, which they had, and as though Amanda was a familiar friend dropping by and sitting in.
Which she was not. The intro verse let itself out with no contribution from a preoccupied Stoner, who watched the doorways one after the other with no obvious interest in the music around him or the guitar in his hands.

‘Have you heard about my baby?’

Bili wept into the microphone, singing so close to it and so loud, so penetratingly loud, that the speakers released a feedback background harmony of their own.

‘Where’s he gone, where’s he gone; I just don’t know . . .’

And Stoner’s sharp strings cut in suddenly beside her, holding her hands as she sang of her loss. He still stared at the doorways, at the bar, anywhere but at Bili, but his timing was exact, his pitch perfect, the notes bending from flat to sharp and the edge of the flat pick scratching across the strings instead of plucking them. Abrasion not complication, fingernails down the blackboard, the individual notes crunching crisply one into the other. He looked up only when Amanda’s alto saxophone added a defiant and questioning trailing harmony to his notes.

The unoccupied stool behind the stage drum kit remained unfilled, but as the bass guitar’s speakers boomed, so the bass drum added its own resonant echo; unplayed, the cymbals hissed and the snares on the smallest drum sang a metallic backdrop of their own. Ghost drums, playing themselves, their own blues for their own pleasure behind the living band. The audience stood, rapt. Bili sang. Two verses of loss, longing and a lover’s agonies, and then she stepped back from the microphones’ range, looked straight at Amanda, and bowed with her eyes, smiled with her mouth. A challenge.

A challenge accepted. No trace of nervousness. Amanda bent lungs, lips and fingers into the brazen sax. Its response was alive, alive as only a brass horn in the hands of an instinctive expert can be. The notes hit their peaks, a complete twelve-bar verse, carefully constructed to end on a high note, which faded along
with the player’s breath, overtaken suddenly and shockingly by the double-speed interruption, interrogation, of Stoner’s battered Fender. A barrage of hard full-treble notes. He was bending every note on every string as it sounded to make every note sharp. Out of tune. Deliberately putting every ear in the place on edge, hairs rising on the necks of anyone in earshot. True blues at its intense, insistent best. Stoner played while staring at Bili. Just looking at Bili. Gaze unwavering. Whether there was focus, consciousness behind the eyes, it was impossible to see, and only Stoner and Bili would have known that, their own shared musical chemistry being almost a member of their shared stage world, an exclusive world of their own.

And quite suddenly the moment was broken by the alto again. Interrupting mid-verse this time and intercepting the guitar, joining it in an ascending scale; playing in unison, the same notes doubled, two very different voices. One of them powered by living breath, the other by electricity.

Stoner wound up the volume on his Fender, then dropped it swiftly back to silence, watching the doors, always the doors, while Amanda’s brazen alto completed the verse. Playing exactly what Stoner would have played had she not been there, or so it felt to the audience, and to Stretch, judging by his smile. And after the final sung verses, the saxophone completed the number and the audience revelled in their loud appreciation of an unexpectedly fine piece of big, brassy, band music. Amanda took her bow, sat down on the edge of the stage and unscrewed the reed from the sax, shaking the spit from it, nodding at Stoner. ‘I’ll sit this out, hey!’ She looked exhausted. Deflated. After a single number. Less than ten minutes.

Stoner nodded. Shouted ‘“Hideaway”. In E,’ and launched into that fine instrumental, the band chugging along into their own rendition of Hound Dog Taylor’s classic tune. Played well, too, and as the middle section neared its end, Stoner nodded an invite
to Amanda to take a verse for herself, but she appeared to be losing a staring match with a face in the audience which was unwelcome but familiar to Stoner, and plainly to the lady herself.

The expressions striding across Amanda’s features marched through unhappiness to anger, via frustration and despair. The band played on, all bar Stoner, oblivious to the tiny drama. The small man wearing the too-large leather jacket leered triumphantly at Amanda, who was fast approaching a perfect impersonation of someone who had passed through annoyance and was moving rapidly towards resignation.

The small man had eyes only for Amanda. The number ended, quite abruptly, with none of the usual and expected self-important percussive flourishes from Stoner. Instead and uniquely, Stoner laid down the guitar halfway through the final verse, dropped it to the floor beside his vacant stool, left it feeding back gently through the loud Marshall amplifier while he paced across the stage and dropped from it, landing with his full weight upon the small man in the too-large jacket, and bringing his gripping fists down together with his full weight upon that unfortunate’s head. The dismal crunch of spinal bones compacting together was mostly drowned out by the background sound. Mostly. Leatherjacket fell as though he’d been axed. Lay unmoving at Stoner’s feet. His eyes stared without seeing, then closing slowly, one after the other. One eye held out for a few moments, staring in blind accusation at Stoner’s innocent foot, then flickered shut. The fingers of one hand twitched in silent applause.

The audience voiced their raucous approval of the number, and although those nearest the altercation appeared confused, it was plain that they had no real idea of what had just happened before them. Amanda stared, silent. Expressionless. Eyes unreadable and silent. Saxophone hanging from her neck like a bright mute bird.

Stoner stood similarly silent, still, unmoving while gazing around
him. The man at his feet posed no threat, none at all, any threat would come from a man still standing. None appeared imminent. The Chimp and a door heavy appeared. The audience, with a glorious misunderstanding of the performance they’d missed, shouted for more. Chimp and the door heavy lifted Leatherjacket, looked at Stoner, then at the door, a silent question.

Stoner shook his head.

‘Keep him. Somewhere safe. I need to ask him who he is.’

‘You enjoy attacking strangers? Fuck, JJ . . .’

The Chimp and the heavy staggered towards the bar, Leatherjacket semi-conscious, feet dragging. Stoner hopped back up to the stage, retrieved the atonal Stratocaster, nodded thanks to Bili for winding down the scream of its feedback, and set about tuning it. He glanced across the stage at Amanda, who stood, still, looking worried. Unhappy. The audience was buzzing, aware of tension and mistaking it for the tension of the music, of the new face, the new brass player, maybe.

Bili punched Stoner in the ribs, made a joke of it for the crowd. They applauded. An involved audience, then, unaware of what it was they were involved with. ‘You good, big man?’ Bili slurred her words, dropped her face and peered up at Stoner in mock supplication. He nodded.

‘Stormy Monday, huh?’

He nodded again, and tried to appear unsurprised as a sudden drummer tapped up the intro count, added a shouted ‘Two, three . . .’ and Bili, Stretch and Stoner slid seamlessly together into an old familiar friend, and time stood effortlessly still, as time can when fine music, fine blues music, is being played live.

Stoner glanced to the bar. The Chimp was back at his post, cheerfully exchanging drinks for money, a job he did well and always with good humour. Of the evening’s latest casualty there was no sign at all. And the band played until the end. And they accepted the reward of applause. And bowing, they left the stage.
Wallpaper music replaced them. The audience headed for the bar. Drinks appeared as if by magic for the musicians. Stoner smiled grimly as Bili vanished into a swamp of appreciation, curls swinging, silent smiles floating along with her as she acted the gracious one. He looked for Amanda, who had packed her sax into its case and was sitting alone in the darkness at the edge of the stage, the corner nearest the fire exit.

‘OK. Who he?’

Stoner passed her a bottle of water, something neutral to share. If not a pipe of peace, at least a bottle of it. ‘You’re plainly not strangers.’

She passed the bottle back. Looked up into the air above them and sighed.

‘There’ll be another one. They always work together. Big bloke. Big as you. Heavier.’

‘We’ve met. Just tell me who they are, who you are, and why I don’t like them.’

‘Why
you
don’t like them?’ She appeared at least a little surprised. ‘I doubt they’d give you any grief. They’re more into scaring drunks and women than attacking big, fit blokes.’

Stoner shook his head a little.

‘I met them both before. The fat guy tried to play the heavy with me. He’s in hospital, I would think. He should be, in any case. There’s no sign of him here. He certainly won’t be up to a fight. So I’ve met them twice, been in a fight with them both times. The first time they were grilling me, the second . . .’ he paused. ‘What did happen tonight? You looked really really unhappy to see him. Why? Who is he? Tell me something useful before my patience runs out. The Chimp will have him stashed somewhere, and I’d like to at least know who he is and why I’m kicking some sense out him before I do it. Give me a clue. And tell me who you are and why you’re here. No fairy-tales. It’s too late and I’m too tired and too pissed off for tales.’

‘I work for a man.’ Amanda spoke at the edge of audibility.

‘We all do, one way or another.’ Stoner sounded as unsympathetic as he felt. ‘What does your own man do, and what does he employ you to do? Keep it simple, so I can understand it, and keep it short. The night is too young to throw out the crowd and we . . . I need to play a little more. And I’d like to know what I’m going to be saying to your friend in the leather jacket. Whether I can say a few short things and trust him to go away, or whether he and I are about to become great pals and talk all night.’

The Chimp appeared, silent, at the table.

‘He’s in the cellar. He’s fine. Nothing broken. No gun. He’s confused and a touch unhappy.’ And he left, leaving another litre bottle of water on the stage at Stoner’s side. The audience, wisely, stayed away.

Stoner looked again at Amanda.

‘You work for a man?’

‘Yep.’

This was plainly not going to be easy.

‘He runs an establishment. A club. Several clubs. Not like this one. Big. There are different sorts of clubs. He has a couple of clubs in other countries. The States. Russia. The Baltics. It’s a big company, really. They sell food and drink and . . .’ she hesitated, ‘lots of things. I work for him.’

Stoner wore his patience like a weary cross.

‘Yes. OK. You work for a man who runs some clubs. Hooray. What do you do for him? Whore? Musician? Ventriloquist’s dummy? What?’

‘You miss the point. Sorry. I’m not doing this well. I work for him. Just for him.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Anything. Anything at all.’

‘I have no idea what that means.’

‘True. You don’t. How could you? You’re a man. You’re a
successful man. You have respect. Everyone respects you. You’re a great musician. Everyone loves hearing you play. No one tells you what to do. You just come and go and you play whenever you want to play. Whatever you want to play. It’s like this club is your very own club. Like everyone just wants to do whatever it is you want to do. You want to play the blues; everybody loves it, every note. You could play – oh, I don’t know – reggae rubbish, and everybody would love that just as much. You’re just brilliant. No one tells you what to do. It’s written in your face, in the way you play, the way you talk.’

‘Oh yes. And I crap out diamonds too. Still doesn’t tell me what you do for your boss though.’

‘Everything. Anything at all. One of the things I do is be confidential. I can’t talk about it. Not to you, not to anyone. What I do is for him. Just him.’

‘Girl Friday? Lady Friday? Assistant? Private secretary?’

‘All that. Anything.’

‘Bedpal? Lover?’

‘Those too.’

‘Carpet? Dishcloth?’

‘You’re getting the hang of this, JJ. Well done.’ Amanda glared at him, defiance and sadness walking hand in hand across her features.

‘Just ease my mind a little. I’m a curious man. I think in straight lines, not in ellipses like a woman. Be easy on me. What does he get out of it?’

‘Someone he trusts. Someone who is his alone. Someone he can tell anything to. Someone who he knows will do anything he asks.’

‘That’s rubbish. You’re here. If you weren’t your own self you’d be at his side, panting like a puppy, waiting for him to toss you a bone or a biscuit. Or something. Imagine he pays you for these nebulous services? A lot?’

‘There’s a lot of money in my account.’

‘There you go. Don’t complain. Never bite the hand that feeds, so forth.’

‘Good gods, he’s a philosopher too. Stoner the psychic. He has access to the account. He can take money out as well as put it in.’

‘Then open another.’

‘He would know and he would tell me to close it.’

‘You always do that?’

‘I do everything he tells me to do. If I stop doing it, he would unemploy me. I expect he would clear the money from the account and send men after me.’

‘Like our leather-jacketed friend in the cellar?’

‘Exactly like that.’

‘You scared of him? Does he slap you around?’