Death of a Tenor Man

by Bill Moody

  “You remember her name?”

  “Naw.” He waves his hand in the air as if that’s not important, then chuckles. “She was fine, though. I remember that. She was a dancer in the show. Long, pretty legs. Yes indeed, she was fine, and she dug Wardell too.”

  I wait silently, letting Sonny remember at his own pace, but there are so many questions I want to ask. Wardell Gray was in Las Vegas only two days before his death. I have another idea.

  “You know this woman in L.A. too?”

  “Sure,” Sonny says. “I seen her with Wardell lots of times.”

  “And they came to Las Vegas together?”

  “I don’t know,” Sonny says. “I just know they found his ass in the desert. I told him not to mess with that woman. They wasted him.”

  “Who is they, Sonny?”

  Sonny looks at me and grins. “The Man.”

  “The police?”

  Sonny grins again and shakes his head. “No, the other Man.”

  I don’t get a chance to learn any more. Sonny pulls up the sleeve of his coat as if to look at his watch, but there’s nothing strapped to his wrist.

  “I gotta split, man, I got my gig.” He gets up and shakes hands with me almost formally. “You be cool, man.” He walks to the door. He never looks back once.

  The other man? What else can he mean but godfather dudes?

  Spago is in the Forum shops at Caesars Palace. When I invited Natalie, I had some reservations about jazz at a trendy restaurant like Spago. But my source was good. In fact, when we arrive, he’s strapping on a tenor saxophone.

  “You didn’t tell me this was your gig.”

  Billy Mills blows a couple of notes before he answers. “It’s not. I’m a sub today and glad to get the work.” Billy takes in Natalie and shakes his head. “I thought tenor players were supposed to get the best-looking girls. See you after the set.”

  Natalie and I get a table close to the band. This patio part of the restaurant extends out into the Forum Shops area. There’s a continual parade of passersby who stop occasionally to listen as the quartet begins the set with a Jackie McLean blues line.

  The piano is much better than the one at the Hob Nob, but again there’s no real bandstand, just a corner cleared away near a cash register at the entrance. We order a glass of wine and listen to three tunes before there’s any real conversation.

  I watch Natalie nod to the music, a slight smile playing on her lips. “I don’t recognize any of these pieces,” she says.

  I lean across the table. “Billy tells me they’re mostly the piano player’s originals.” He’s a tall, thin man with glasses who kind of bounces on the piano bench as he plays. His eyes dart from the music spread out in front of him to the other musicians when someone plays something he likes.

  The bassist, white-haired, bearded, and wearing an eye patch that makes him look like a model for the old Hathaway shirts, plays head down, intent on the music. Nearly hidden by the piano, the drummer pushes and prods the group with splashes of color on the cymbal.

  I get caught up in the music. I’m as unaware of the crowd as the band is, mentally following the pianist’s fingers through impressive single note runs and block chord musings. He’s really good, and I’m envious. The set ends to polite applause. Except for a few faces I recognize from the Four Queens, this is obviously a tourist crowd who’ve wandered over from Caesars or come out for a day of shopping and smart lunches.

  “They don’t know who or what they’re listening to, do they?” Natalie observes.

  “Probably not. Billy tells me they’ve been here over a year. The manager is an amateur pianist himself. He talked Wolfgang Puck into a jazz group, and I guess it’s working.”

  “Is that him?” Natalie asks, pointing toward the piano.

  The waiters and waitresses wear pink shirts and bow ties, but this man is in a dark suit and slicked-back blond hair. He’s talking to Billy, who’s pointing toward our table. He shakes hands with Billy and then comes over, his hand already outstretched to me.

  “Allow me to introduce myself,” he says, bowing slightly. “I am Baron Jordan von Esebeck, and very happy to have you as our guest. Perhaps you will play later, yes?” The German accent is softened, probably by many years in the States.

  “No thanks, Baron. I’m just listening today, but thanks for the invitation.”

  He takes Natalie’s hand and kisses it, Continental-style. “Please then allow me to buy you a drink.” He snaps his fingers at a passing waiter and points to our table. “Later I will subject you to my own playing if the band will allow it.” He laughs at his own joke.

  “I look forward to it,” I say. The baron bows again and moves away.

  “Charming,” Natalie says. “I wonder how he plays.”

  “Billy tells me he’s a Thelonious Monk fanatic, not bad, and of course the guys call him the Red Baron.”

  Natalie sips her wine and studies me across the table. “This is hard for you, isn’t it? Coop told me about your accident. The music is still in your head. It must be frustrating to not be able to get it out.”

  “You’re very perceptive, Miss Beamer.” I try to be flip, but she’s hit it on the head. Any other time I’d be glad to sit in and probably acquit myself very well. Maybe I would just be better being out of music altogether. “Most nights I alternate between feeling sorry for myself and being determined to prove the doctors wrong.”

  When the quartet starts again, I try to content myself with the surroundings—good music, good wine, the company of a pretty woman, and perhaps the start of something good. I’m doing fine until the baron stops at our table again with two glasses of chardonnay.

  “The gentlemen across the way beat me to it,” he says. “Enjoy.”

  That’s when I see Tony and Karl. Wedged between them is a small, nearly bald man, who holds up his glass to us.

  Natalie follows my gaze. “Who are they?” she asks.

  “No idea.” Do we leave now, or stay here in this very public place until they leave? My mind is racing, but there isn’t time to act. Tony and Karl stay where they are, looking bored out of their minds, with Billy’s sax practically in their faces. The other man gets up and comes over to our table.

  He’s dressed in an expensive suit and dripping with gold—watch, rings, and collar pin. He looks right at home at Spago. “Mr. Horne, allow me to introduce myself. I’m Anthony Gallio.” I watch Natalie’s eyes widen. “May I join you for a minute?” He pulls out a chair and sits down, engulfing us in a cloud of cologne. “And .this lovely young lady is?”

  “Natalie Beamer.” She offers her hand to Gallio.

  “A pleasure,” Gallio says. He smiles pleasantly but immediately turns his attention back to me. “I think you’ve already met my associates.” He nods his head toward Tony and Karl. Their eyes are riveted on our table. “I’m afraid I owe you an apology, Mr. Horne.”

  “Oh, how’s that?”

  “The unfortunate incident at the—Hob Nob, I believe that’s the name of the establishment. Tony and Karl are, what’s the right word, exuberant, perhaps even overzealous in carrying out their instructions. As a matter of fact, Tony is my nephew. He likes to please me.”

  “But they were your instructions?” Natalie is trying to signal me with her eyes.

  “I meant merely for them to inquire about your interest in the Moulin Rouge.”

  “My interest is simply that that’s where a musician I’m researching was playing when he died. It’s ancient history, Mr. Gallio.”

  Gallio takes a sip of his wine. “Exactly. Perhaps we should all keep that in mind,” he says. “I have some interest in the Moulin Rouge myself. I’m a businessman, Mr. Horne. I have a proposition on my desk at the moment that concerns the Moulin Rouge.” He pauses a moment, glances once at Natalie. “Business deals being what they are, sometimes fraught with delicate negotiations, I wouldn’t like to see circumstances complicated by outside interests like yours.”

  “I’m not sure I fo
llow you, Mr. Gallio. How does the death of a saxophonist thirty-seven years ago affect a business deal for you?” The quartet has slipped into a minor blues. Out of the corner of my eye I can see Billy, his hands crossed over his horn, listening to the pianist. I’ve never wished more to be that pianist.

  “Probably not at all. My concern is that musician’s unfortunate death is your only interest.” Despite his congenial air, the polite smile, Gallio’s eyes bore into me. My expression must assure him he’s made his point.

  “Well then, we have no problem, do we?” Gallio smiles, sets his glass down on the table, and stands up. “Nice to meet you, Miss Beamer. Enjoy your stay in Las Vegas. Horne.”

  Gallio walks back to his table. Tony and Karl are already on their feet. Gallio peels some bills off a large roll and leaves them on the table. With Tony and Karl as escort, Gallio walks out past the quartet. As they pass the piano, Gallio pauses, whispers something to the pianist, and lays a bill on the piano.

  Natalie takes a deep breath and a drink of her wine. “I think I need another drink. Do you know who that is?”

  “Anthony Gallio, right?” I watch as the trio passes by the rail. Gallio and Karl look straight ahead, but Tony catches my eye and points a finger at me like a gun.

  “Evan, Anthony Gallio is some kind of organized-crime figure, at least he was. I’ve seen him on the news, walking into court with his lawyers. And you just sit here calmly and answer questions. Jesus, what are you into? And what happened at the Hob Nob?”

  “It was nothing. I’ll tell you about it later.” Good question, though. What business proposition is Gallio talking about with the Moulin Rouge, and what possible interest could someone in organized crime have in Wardell Gray’s death?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Monday morning, with Ace off at UNLV, I lie around the apartment and the pool, reading over Louise Cody’s diary and sorting through my thoughts on Gallio, Natalie, and everything else that’s come my way in the past few days.

  I make arrangements to meet Natalie later at the Four Queens, but discourage her from coming to the Fashion Show Mall. That’s something I need to work out on my own and I feel strangely embarrassed to have Natalie around for that. It’s as if I don’t want her to see me struggling. Unreasonable? Strange? Yes, since I hardly know her, but that’s how it’s coming out.

  Still, I know her well enough and myself even better to know it’s time to call Cindy or take the easy way out and write her a letter. At the Fashion Show, Brent Tyler doesn’t come around at all, so I guess he thinks I’m doing okay. I fill a couple of requests for some timid shoppers, but when Mary Lou relieves me I’m grateful. My hand is aching after my two sets.

  My other distraction for the day is looking for Tony and Karl or Anthony Gallio. I doubt if he gets out much, and I wonder about his visit to Spago. It took a lot of persuasive talking to keep Natalie from calling Coop to tell him about our lunchtime guest. In the end she promised and went back to the hotel after a quick dinner. A lot of thinking for me—alone.

  Leaving Mary Lou to entertain the shoppers, I swing by the apartment and change into some casual clothes, a sport shirt, jeans, and some boat mocs, before running downtown to the coroner’s office to look up the records on Wardell Gray.

  A bored clerk digs out the records and shows me the file. Everyone at least is telling me the truth about this. There’s an incident report, just as Trask said, and cause of death is listed as drug overdose. I have a copy made just for the record. Maybe Ace can use it for his paper.

  Since it’s Monday, I decide to try the Four Queens. Besides Pappy, I’ve put out the word to anyone who might come across Rachel Cody. Maybe I’ll get lucky. I head down early for something to eat and the first set without even checking who’s scheduled to play.

  I park in the Four Queens garage, but before I go in, I decide to drop by Sonny’s storefront and see if his “gig” is going. The sun is starting its slow descent, glinting off store windows and casinos, but the temperature, according to a sign on a bank, is still a hundred and three.

  There seem to be more people than usual out on Fremont Street, wandering from hotel to hotel carrying the obligatory cups of coins, some with drinks in their hands. The whole street is like a big party, and the eternal display of neon gives the street a surreal effect. It’s like a movie set, shooting with lights in the sun.

  I’m taking this all in, feeling almost like a tourist, until I near Sonny’s spot. Three police cars, red lights flashing, are parked at odd angles, blocking two lanes. One of the uniforms is waving traffic around, and a crowd of curious onlookers has gathered around Sonny’s store as if they’ve heard about a sale.

  There are several uniformed cops keeping the crowd at bay, and a yellow police tape across the doorway. I almost don’t want to see what the crowd is blocking off. I manage to shoulder my way through and bump into Detective John Trask.

  He turns around and starts to say something, recognizes me, and waves me through the uniforms. I duck under the tape, not knowing what to expect. Sonny’s carpet is there, and the open saxophone case with some change and a couple of forlorn dollar bills. His horn lies nearby, dented and bent as if it was ripped out of his mouth and thrown to the ground. The mouthpiece has fallen off and lies a few feet away. No sign of Sonny.

  “What are you doing here?” Trask asks. He’s got a pad and pen out.

  “What happened?”

  “Somebody reported a disturbance, some yelling, and called it in. Apparently a guy plays his horn here every evening.”

  “Sonny Wells.”

  “What?”

  “Sonny Wells. That’s the guy’s name.”

  “You know him?” Trask takes me aside. He’s not as friendly as he was the other night at the Sands with Coop.

  “Yeah, he’s a musician down on his luck.”

  “I know he’s a musician, Horne,” Trask says. “He left the goddamned saxophone.”

  “Lieutenant.” We both turn to the voice of one of the uniforms. He’s holding the mike from the black-and-white radio. “You better take this.”

  “Wait here, Horne.” Trask goes to the car. He talks on the radio for a minute, listens, then comes back. “You better come with me.” He takes my arm, and we head for his car, an unmarked Chevy. “Don’t touch anything till you hear from me,” he tells the uniform. We get in his car. He attaches a red light to the roof, and we’re off.

  He cuts over to Carson and back up to Las Vegas Boulevard, then turns north. At Bonanza he makes a left. For a minute I think he’s heading for the Moulin Rouge.

  “Another anonymous tip,” Trask says, both hands on the wheel. “Jogger found someone in the desert.”

  “Is he dead?”

  Trask shakes his head. “Don’t know.” He glances at me. “Why’d you say he?”

  “It’s Sonny Wells, I know it.” I sit back.

  A few blocks down Bonanza we see a police helicopter circling overhead. “They called it in,” Trask says. He skids to a stop alongside a black-and-white and a blue-and-yellow paramedic truck. The crew is in a vacant lot near a convenience store I’ve already seen. There’s a stretcher and two uniformed cops bent over something in the patch of desert. I turn and look back west, toward the Moulin Rouge, thinking of Wardell Gray.

  Trask and I get out of the car and walk over. “Whatta you got?” Trask asks one of the attendants.

  “He’ll make it,” the attendant says. “He’s in bad shape, though. Somebody went after his head with a baseball bat or something like it. They also broke the fingers of his right hand.”

  I move in for a closer look. Sonny’s face is covered in blood; his hands are folded across his chest, the right one in a splint and swathed in bandages. Both eyes are swollen shut. I step back and watch the crew superficially dress his wounds, get an IV going and get him ready for the stretcher.

  “You know him?” Trask asks me.

  “Yeah, it’s Sonny Wells.”

  “All right, you wait over by m
y car. They’ll take him to UMC—the University Medical Center. I don’t imagine this guy has Blue Cross.”

  I walk back to Trask’s car, light a cigarette, and lean on the fender. It’s dusk now. The lights of downtown and the Strip beyond fill the sky as Sonny is loaded in the paramedic van and it roars off. Trask and one of the uniforms comb the area with flashlights, and in minutes it’s over.

  “Nothing,” Trask says as he walks over and joins me at the car. “I’d like a statement from you about this Wells character.”

  “Now?”

  “In the morning will do. How do you happen to know a homeless saxophone player, or shouldn’t I ask?”

  “I’ll tell you in the morning. It’s a long story.”

  We drive back downtown, and Trask drops me off at the Four Queens. “What about Sonny’s stuff?” I ask before I get out of the car.

  “What stuff?”

  “His horn, the case.”

  Trask shrugs. “It’s being handled. We don’t know whether we have a simple mugging or attempted murder yet.”

  “We don’t? Doesn’t it look to you like Sonny was taken from his storefront out to the desert and beaten there?”

  “Horne, what is it you do for a living? You’re a musician, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Fine. Do I come around and tell you what songs to play, what chords to use?”

  I put up my hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. What time tomorrow?”

  “Between nine and ten,” Trask says. I open the door and am starting to get out when he asks one final question. “Why do you think the fingers on his right hand were broken?”

  “Right or left, it wouldn’t matter,” I say. “It’s hard to play a sax with one hand.”

  I slam the door and watch Trask drive off. Of course it does matter, and I know exactly why Sonny’s right hand was broken. The message was clear, and directed to me.

  Inside the Four Queens I look for three people—Alan Grant, Natalie, and Pappy Dean. It’s Pappy I see first, standing at the bar looking much like he did the first time I met him. He sees me, notices my expression, and breaks away from the people he’s talking to.