The Big Nowhere (6 page)

Danny hit Bido Lito’s. A sign in front proclaimed DICKY MCCOVER AND HIS JAZZ SULTANS—SHOWS AT 7:30, 9:30 AND 11:30 NITELY—ENJOY OUR DELUXE CHICKEN BASKET. Walking in, he thought he was entering a hallucination.

The walls were pastel satin bathed by colored baby spotlights that hued the fabric garish beyond garish; the bandstand backing was a re-creation of the Pyramids, done in sparkly cardboard. The tables had fluorescent borders, the high-yellow hostesses carrying drinks and food wore low-cut tiger costumes, the whole place smelled of deep-fried meat. Danny felt his stomach growl, realized he hadn’t eaten in twenty-four hours and approached the bar. Even in the hallucinatory lighting, he saw the barman make him for a cop.

He held out the mugshot strip. “Do you know this man?”

The bartender took the strip, examined it under the cash register light and handed it back. “That’s Marty. Plays ’bone with the Sultans. Comes in before the first set to eat, if you wants to talk to him.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Las’ night.”

“For the band’s last set?”

The barman’s mouth curled into a tight smile; Danny sensed that “band” was square nomenclature. “I asked you a question.”

The man wiped the bartop with a rag. “I don’ think so. Midnight set I remember seein’ him. Sultans played two late ones las’ night, on account of New Year’s.”

Danny noticed a shelf of whiskey bottles without labels. “Go get the manager.”

The bartender pressed a button by the register; Danny took a stool and swiveled to face the bandstand. A group of Negro men was opening instrument cases, pulling out sax, trumpet and drum cymbals. A fat mulatto in a double-breasted suit walked over to the bar, wearing a suck-up-to-authority smile. He said, “Thought I knew all the boys on the Squad.”

Danny said, “I’m with the Sheriff’s.”

The mulatto’s smile evaporated. “I usually deal with the Seven-Seven, Mr. Sheriff.”

“This is County business.”

“This ain’t County territory.”

Danny hooked a thumb in back of him, then nodded toward the baby spots. “You’ve got illegal booze, those lights are a fire hazard and the County runs Beverage Control and Health and Safety Code. I’ve got a summons book in the car. Want me to get it?”

The smile returned. “I surely don’t. How can I be of service,
sir
?”

“Tell me about Marty Goines.”

“What about him?”

“Try everything.”

The manager took his time lighting a cigarette; Danny knew his fuse was being tested. Finally the man exhaled and said, “Not much to tell. The local sent him down when the Sultans’ regular trombone fell off the wagon. I’d have preferred colored, but Marty’s got a rep for getting along with non-Caucasians, so I said okay. Except for ditching out on the guys last night, Marty never did me no dirt, just did his job copacetic. Not the world’s best slideman, not the worst neither.”

Danny pointed to the musicians on the bandstand. “Those guys are the Sultans, right?”

“Right.”

“Goines played a set with them that ended just after midnight?”

The mulatto smiled. “Dicky McCover’s up-tempo ‘Old Lang Syne.’ Even Bird envies that—”

“When was the set finished?”

“Set broke up maybe 12:20. Fifteen-minute break I give my guys. Like I said, Marty ditched out on that and the 2:00 closer. Only time he did me dirt.”

Danny went in for the Sultans’ alibi. “Were the other three men on stage for the final two sets?”

The manager nodded. “Uh-huh. Played for a private party I had going after that. What’d Marty do?”

“He got murdered.”

The mulatto choked on the smoke he was inhaling. He coughed the drag out, dropped his cigarette on the floor and stepped on it, rasping, “Who you think did it?”

Danny said, “Not you, not the Sultans. Let’s try this one: was Goines feeding a habit?”

“Say what?”

“Don’t play dumb. Junk, H, horse, a fucking heroin habit.”

The manager took a step backward. “I don’t hire no god-damned hopheads.”

“Sure you don’t, just like you don’t serve hijack booze. Let’s try this: Marty and women.”

“Never heard nothing one way or the other.”

“How about enemies? Guys with a hard-on for him?”

“Nothing.”

“What about friends, known associates, men coming around asking for him?”

“No, no and
no
. Marty didn’t even have no family.”

Danny shifted gears with a smile—an interrogation technique he practiced in front of his bedroom mirror. “Look, I’m sorry I came on so strong.”

“No, you ain’t.”

Danny flushed, hoping the crazy lighting didn’t pick it up. “Have you got a man watching the parking lot?”

“No.”

“Do you remember a green Buick in the lot last night?”

“No.”

“Do your kitchen workers hang out in the lot?”

“Man, my kitchen people is too busy to hang out anyplace.”

“What about your hostesses? They sell it outside after you close?”

“Man, you are out of your bailiwick and way out of line.”

Danny elbowed the mulatto aside and threaded his way through the dinner crowd to the bandstand. The Sultans saw him coming and exchanged looks: cop-wise,
experienced
. The drummer quit arranging his gear; the trumpeter backed off and stood by the curtains leading backstage; the saxophone man stopped adjusting his mouthpiece and stood his ground.

Danny stepped onto the platform, blinking against the hot white light shining down. He sized up the sax as the boss and decided on a soft tack—his interrogation was playing to a full house. “Sheriff’s. It’s about Marty Goines.”

The drummer answered him. “Marty’s clean. Just took the cure.”

A lead—if it wasn’t one ex-con running interference for another. “I didn’t know he had a habit.”

The sax player snorted. “Years’ worth, but he kicked.”

“Where?”

“Lex. Lexington State Hospital in Kentucky. This about Marty’s parole?”

Danny stepped back so he could eyeball all three men in one shot. “Marty got snuffed last night. I think he was snatched from around here right after your midnight set.”

Three clean reactions: the trumpeter scared, most likely afraid of cops on general principles; the drummer trembling; the sax man spooked, but coming back mad. “We all gots alibis, ’case you don’t already know.”

Danny thought: RIP Martin Mitchell Goines. “I know, so let’s try the usual drill. Did Marty have any enemies that you know of? Woman trouble? Old dope buddies hanging around?”

The sax said, “Marty was a fuckin’ cipher. All I knew about him was that he hung up his Quentin parole, that he was so hot to kick he went to Lex as a fuckin’ absconder. Big balls if you asks me—that’s a Fed hospital, and they mighta run warrant checks on him. Fuckin’ cipher. None of us even knew where he was stayin’.”

Danny kicked the skinny around and watched the trumpet player inch over from the curtains, holding his horn like it was a ikon to ward off demons. He said, “Mister, I think I got something for you.”

“What?”

“Marty told me he had to meet a guy after the midnight set, and I saw him walking across the street to the Zombie parking lot.”

“Did he mention a name?”

“No, just a guy.”

“Did he say
anything
else about him? What they were going to do—anything like that?”

“No, and he said he’d be coming right back.”

“Do you think he was going to buy dope?”

The saxophone player bored into Danny with blue eyes lighter than his own brown ones. “Man, I fuckin’ told you Marty was clean, and intended to stay clean.”

Boos erupted from the audience; paper debris hit Danny’s legs. He blinked against the spotlight and felt sweat creeping down his rib cage. A voice yelled, “Ofay motherfuck”; applause followed it; a half-chewed chicken wing struck Danny’s back. The sax man smiled up at him, licked his mouthpiece and winked. Danny resisted an urge to kick the horn down his throat and quick-walked out of the club by a side exit.

The night air cooled his sweat and made him shiver; pulsating neon assaulted his eyes. Little bursts of music melded together like one big noise and the nigger sleepwalker atop the Club Zombie looked like doomsday. Danny knew he was scared, and headed straight for the apparition.

The doorman backed off from his badge and let him in to four walls of smoke and dissonant screeching—the combo at the front of the room heading toward a crescendo. The bar was off to the left, shaped like a coffin and embossed with the club’s sleep-walker emblem. Danny beelined there, grabbing a stool, hooking a finger at a white man polishing glasses.

The barkeep placed a napkin in front of him. Danny yelled, “Double bonded!” above the din. A glass appeared; Danny knocked the bourbon back; the barman refilled. Danny drank again and felt his nerves go from sandpapered to warm. The music ended with a
thud-boom-scree
; the house lights went on amid big applause. When it trailed off, Danny reached in his pocket and pulled out a five-dollar bill and the Goines mugshot strip.

The bartender said, “Two spot for the drinks.”

Danny stuffed the five in his shirt pocket and held up the strip. “Look familiar?”

Squinting, the man said, “Is this guy older now? Maybe a different haircut?”

“These are six years old. Seen him?”

The barman took glasses from his pocket, put them on and held the mugshots out at arm’s length. “Does he blow around here?”

Danny missed the question—and wondered if it was sex slang he didn’t know. “Explain what you mean.”

“I mean does he gig, jam, play music around here?”

“Trombone at Bido Lito’s.”

The barman snapped his fingers. “Okay, I know him then. Marty something. He juices between sets at Bido’s, been doing it since around Christmas, ’cause the bar at Bido’s ain’t supposed to serve the help. Hungry juicer, sort of like—”

Like
you
. Danny smiled, the booze notching down his temper. “Did you see him last night?”

“Yeah, on the street. Him and another guy heading over to a car down by the corner on 67th. Looked like he had a load on. Maybe…”

Danny leaned forward. “Maybe
what
? Spell it out.”

“Maybe a junk load. You work jazz clubs awhile, you get to know the ropes. This Marty guy was walking all rubbery, like he was on a junk nod. The other guy had his arm round him, helping him over to the car.”

Danny said, “Slow and easy now. The time, a description of the car and the other man. Real slow.”

Customers were starting to swarm the bar—Negro men in modified zoot suits, their women a half step behind, all made up and done up to look like Lena Horne. The barkeep looked at his business, then back at Danny. “Had to be 12:15 to 12:45, around in there. Marty what’s his face and the other guy were cutting across the sidewalk. I know the car was a Buick, ’cause it had them portholes on the side. All I remember about the other guy was that he was tall and had gray hair. I only saw them sort of sideways, and I thought, ‘I should have such a nice head of hair.’ Now can I serve these people?”

Danny was about to say no; the barkeep turned to a bearded young man with an alto sax slung around his neck. “Coleman, you know that white trombone from Bido’s? Marty what the fuck?”

Coleman reached over the bar, grabbed two handfuls of ice and pressed them to his face. Danny checked him out: tall, blond, late twenties and off-kilter handsome—like the boy lead in the musical Karen Hiltscher dragged him to. His voice was reedy, exhausted. “Sure. A from-hunger horn, I heard. Why?”

“Talk to this police gentleman here, he’ll tell you.”

Danny pointed to his glass, going two shots over his nightly limit. The barman filled it, then slid off. The alto said, “You’re with the Double Seven?”

Danny killed his drink, and on impulse stuck out his hand. “My name’s Upshaw. West Hollywood Sheriff’s.”

The men shook. “Coleman Healy, late of Cleveland, Chicago and the planet Mars. Marty in trouble?”

The bourbon made Danny
too
warm; he loosened his tie and moved closer to Healy. “He was murdered last night.”

Healy’s face contorted. Danny saw every handsome plane jerk, twitch and spasm; he looked away to let him quash his shock and get hepcat again. When he turned back, Healy was bracing himself into the bar. Danny’s knee brushed the alto’s thigh—it was taut with tension. “How well did you know him, Coleman?”

Healy’s face was now gaunt, slack under his beard. “Chewed the fat with him a couple of times around Christmas, right here at this bar. Just repop—Bird’s new record, the weather. You got an idea who did it?”

“A lead on a suspect—a tall, gray-haired man. The bartender saw him with Goines last night, walking toward a car parked on Central.”

Coleman Healy ran fingers down the keys of his sax. “I’ve seen Marty with a guy like that a couple of times. Tall, middle-aged, dignified looking.” He paused, then said, “Look, Upshaw, not to besmirch the dead, but can I give you an impression I got—on the QT?”

Danny slid his stool back, just enough to get a full-face reaction—Healy wired up, eager to help. “Go ahead, impressions help sometimes.”

“Well, I think Marty was fruit. The older guy looked like a nance to me, like a sugar daddy type. The two of them were playing footsie at a table, and when I noticed it, Marty pulled away from the guy—sort of like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar.”

Danny tingled, thinking of the tags he eschewed because they were too coarse and antithetical to Vollmer and Maslick:
PANSY SLASH. QUEER BASH. FRUIT SNUFF. HOMO PASSION JOB
. “Coleman, could you ID the older man?”

Healy played with his sax. “I don’t think so. The light here is strange, and the queer stuff is just an impression I got.”

“Have you seen the man before or since those times with Goines?”

“No. Never solo. And I was here all night, in case you think I did it.”

Danny shook his head. “Do you know if Goines was using narcotics?”

“Nix. He was too interested in booze to be a junk fiend.”

“What about other people who knew him? Other musicians around here?”

“Ixnay. We just gabbed a couple of times.”