“Seems to me you got over it,” she laughed and hugged me close.
“Yeah, guess I did. I know it sounds silly now, but I feel guilty over how I behaved.”
“You are being silly. We both got our jobs to do.”
“That’s right,” I agreed. “You’re right. I have to share her now.”
In the darkness of the apartment, there was just enough light to see the fog of confusion on her face. I didn’t think what I said was so odd.
“That’s not the way I look at it,” she said after a moment.
“No?”
“Erica has to share you with me.”
She smiled at me in the darkness, our faces close together, and then she added, deflating me a bit, “Look, I don’t want to give you the wrong idea or lead you on. I like you, and this blew my mind but…I’m not looking for a serious relationship right now, guy or girl. I think I’d like to try this again—” She kissed me tenderly, briefly. “—And soon, but I also like how we’ve become friends. Would that be too weird for you? Hooking up when we need it? Some people have said to me, ‘Jill, you treat sex like a guy,’ like I’m a callous bitch or something, but I don’t know. I can’t be objective about myself.”
“It’s a two-way street,” I said, stroking her hair. “What if I’m really frustrated, and I need you for a night? You going to be there for me? Or will you tell me you’ve ‘done a lot of soul-searching,’ and you’ve found yourself now. That you’re straight?”
“Honey, I don’t think I’ll ever think of myself as that after tonight.”
Fair enough, I thought. Things were promising. Her talk about not wanting anything heavy but asking permission to sleep with me now and then—who was she kidding with that? We’ll see how it goes.
She led me back to my bed, and I was happy. I felt the euphoria of infatuation. And I also felt: I’m home safe and dry. She’s with me now. She asked me if she can trust me, and now she believes she can. Even if we don’t get involved, if we never sleep together again, there shouldn’t be any more questions about Steven Swann’s murder. Dead ends on all the roads to evidence, and the one persistent, relentless individual who once still gave a damn now likes me naked. Jill’s on my side now. It’s over.
I was wrong. I was wrong about everything.
I was in my office when the phone rang. Morgan. Ugh. He didn’t bother to say hello. What he said in that gravelly tone was: “It’s not enough.” Blunt and to the point, and I wondered if he’d already been drinking.
“What’s not enough?”
“Your little kiss-off remuneration, my dear. I’ve got my pocket calculator out, and I can work up a rough estimate of what Erica’s going to make on her royalties.”
“Morgan, we had a deal.”
“Yeah, based on what we thought the songs were worth. Seems I underestimated your girl—or rather myself.”
I let out a long breath. “I can’t go and up your price again for the arrangement work. It’s a done deal, and you were paid. BSB’s going to wonder what the hell I’m thinking if—”
“Then get it from one of their other ‘special’ funds,” he snapped sarcastically.
“What? So you can come back and bleed us again?”
“I think I’m letting everyone off pretty easy considering what you’ll make off that album. And you know I can sink it with one phone call to Rolling Stone or one of the other mags. Doesn’t matter if they think I’m full of shit, they’ll print it anyway—”
“You keep threatening us, Morgan. No one will buy it, they’ll dismiss it out of hand.”
“Not if I go to court.”
“You do that, Morgan, and you know you’ll lose every friend you’ve got. You won’t even get gigs in basement dives anymore.”
“So you’re threatening me now?”
I sighed in exasperation. “No, Morgan, no, I’m not! We’re friends. Why are you doing this? I can talk to a couple of people around the office, see if we can get you more arrangement work, maybe even a producing contract on one of the B-artist albums—”
“I don’t need help getting work, Michelle,” he said indignantly. “And doing more work isn’t payment on work already done.”
“Why are you coming back to me with this shit, Morgan? Why do you want to hurt her?”
“This isn’t about hurting Erica,” he said. “Michelle, do you think she’s the first blazing hot talent to find her way into my elevator, demanding my help?”
“I’m sure she’s not.”
“Don’t patronise me, darlin’. No, she’s not. She is, however, for the record, the best of them, but that’s not the issue. They all come up, and I do my stuff and I teach ’em, man or woman, don’t care, and I give all of myself, you understand? I put it all out, and I get stupid time and again. Each time, I think it will be different. They go away, and I hear snatches of my own stuff coming out of their tracks, and I try not to be petty. Not one has ever cut me a cheque except Luther. And Erica and Luther had me do the arrangements, and that’s good. But that shouldn’t be my compensation! They didn’t put it to me that way when they asked, and if they had I would have told them to go to hell. So don’t ask me to be bend-over-backward grateful over what’s reasonably my due! Everybody’s great buddies until the money rolls in. Guess what? I’m a professional, too.”
I didn’t say anything for a moment. Any bitterness he’d ever shown us had always been mitigated by his self-deprecating charm, his bearing and easy grace that seemed to be echoes of a Blue Note Birdland world we admired, but only as spectators gazing back in time. He admitted that he enjoyed all our attention, treating him like a holy relic and national treasure, but when a relic is locked away, it gathers dust. He was sick of it. Recognition would be nice, but cash you can spend. I could see his point—no, not about who wrote the songs. I couldn’t bring myself to believe that, not yet—I thought maybe he was owed more for how he helped her, plain and simple.
It was a debt of Erica’s I couldn’t repay. And Morgan had lately been evolving into another jazz cliché, hell, an entire music industry cliché. The gifted but anonymous player who starts to let himself go a little, who uses just enough drink that he’s not out-and-out pathetic but does become a self-fulfilling embarrassment.
“Morgan. We can talk about this. I can’t give you an answer over the phone. Let me check a few things out first. Why don’t I swing by your place tonight?”
“Okay. But if you’ll excuse the pun, Michelle, don’t bring me any late-night promises.”
I had a grim queasiness of familiarity in my stomach as I took the subway up to Morgan’s place. In some ways, I prepared better than I did with Steven, but a high percentage of me didn’t know what I was actually going to do. I carried the intent, but I didn’t have the means. I sat on the train, trying to concentrate on the tune playing through my portable CD player’s headphones. Vonda Shepherd again. I listened, aptly enough, to a song called “Soothe Me” with its achingly sad lyrics and mournful piano, a song of regret for a lonely wanderer through the streets of New York. It made me think of Luther and Erica, and Luther and Jill, and, yes, of course, I couldn’t hear it without thinking of Karen. And, darling, I love you, but I swear that I’ll be goo-ooonnnne by the time you figure out what you want…
Sacrifices
Music. Messages in music everywhere, and as the freight elevator made its slow crawl up a tunnel of brick and darkness, I heard “Pariah” without the vocals. It was playing from the ADAT through the speakers. The melody was carried in a different key, but there was the same unmistakable bass line. He might as well have painted me a billboard. As I undid the chain and slid back the wooden slat door of the elevator, Morgan ambled over and handed me a drink.
“You’re behind,” he said and lifted my glass in a silent toast before he handed it over. Tonight it was gin.
“These days you give yourself a pretty good head start,” I answered.
“Oh, let me guess,” he said coolly, “you think I have a problem n
ow, and it’s because I’m pitying myself, is that it?”
“Not at all,” I replied, taking a small sip of my drink. I wanted to keep a clear head. “I think you’re getting slack on your own discipline, though. You’re the one who always lectured Erica about creative people, aren’t you? People bitch about the big corporate octopuses and how hard it is to get your foot in the door and get a label or an agent, whatever, and they never consider the idea that maybe they fail because they suck. You said it was easier to compose excuses than music. You said if it’s so goddamn good, play it in the street, and people will get magnetised. They’ll come to hear you, and you’ll know.”
“Yeah, I probably said shit like that,” he admitted. He shook his glass to ask if I wanted another. I was barely halfway through my first. “What’s your point, Michelle?”
“That you don’t need to do this. Bring out new stuff.”
“Maybe I don’t have new stuff!” he barked. “Maybe that’s the best stuff I’ll ever come up with.”
“Don’t yell at me,” I said in a low voice.
“Maybe it’s my best stuff, now and forever,” he said, eulogising himself on the spot.
“If it is your stuff, Morgan.”
“You actually believe I’d lie about it, don’t you, Michelle?”
“I think you’re looking back on a career and feeling a little desperate,” I said. “I think a person can start out with a lie, and after a while they get so good at repeating it, they start to buy it themselves.”
“I defer to the expert,” he said cryptically.
“What?”
He crossed the floor to light himself a cigarette. I watched him, not knowing what to think. If he was making it up that he helped Erica write those songs or composed them himself then he was contemptible. If he honestly, sincerely believed Erica had ripped him off then I had to question how I’d been handling this. I hadn’t brought in the cavalry on this one.
There was no way I would have taken this to the Brown Skin Beats management. Too political, and they would have had me for breakfast, made me a fall guy. I could still go to Luther and ask: is it possible? If not, help me show the guy he’s wrong. But like I mentioned before, I didn’t know where Luther’s head was these days, and he had this integrity thing. If I thought Morgan and Erica could talk this out, I’d push them together, but Morgan said he didn’t plan to take it up with Erica, she’d just deny it. He was taking it up with me. I had sense, I did damage control—
“Talk to Erica, Morgan. She’s reasonable.”
He shook his head. Not an option.
“You still want her,” I said.
“Huh?”
“Is that what this is all about, Morgan? That you feel left behind? Steven dies, and she no longer feels like spending nights here?”
He laughed at me. “Yeah, sure, Michelle. I give away my material out of love then I decide I want royalties on them, but I do that out of love, too…? Mmm-hmm, you got me pegged. Interesting logic, dear.”
“I don’t think love is ever rational.”
“Love!” he groaned. “You got me confused with Luther’s hurt puppy act. Have I ever given you one sign that I’m sentimental? No? Right. Then please get me the money.”
“You’re in love with her,” I insisted. “Why come to me with this? Why don’t you go bug Erica and talk to her about it? Because you want me to open the door for you again.”
“No, I want you to cut me another cheque.”
“You’re in love with her.”
“Michelle,” he said, shaking his head, and fool that I was, I thought he was about to protest too much. “You’re right on one thing. This does have to do with love, but not mine.”
“What are you talking about?”
“If I go to Erica, stubborn girl that she is, she’ll tell me to fuck off. ‘See you in court, man.’ Now you, Michelle, you’re calmer. You’re perceptive. You watch, you listen, and you know she’d be making a mistake. You want to protect her. You always want to protect the person you fall in love with.”
“Wha—what?”
“You’re the one who loves Erica, so that’s why I came to you, baby. Oh, that’s cute—you’re blushing. Swann was such an idiot, of course, he didn’t notice, and Luther? Well, Luther’s a good boy. Kind of slow when it comes to people, though, and then he wonders why he gets fucked over in contract disputes…”
I couldn’t believe it. I stood there, listening, and he had taken the wind out of my sails. I never thought anyone could have guessed. Yes, I was passionate about how I protected her, I was Erica Jones’s quietly aggressive advocate, but she was my boss and my friend. I’d always thought I hid my feelings well.
“Too bad she likes guys, isn’t it, Mish?”
I was ready to spit blood in that moment, and I couldn’t even put my finger on why, maybe because he talked about my feelings as if they were a dirty little secret.
“Okay, I’m in love with her, I’m not ashamed of it,” I told him. “So what? Before, I didn’t take personally what you’re doing, Morgan, but now you’re making it personal. You’re saying your little shakedown is aimed at me.”
“Naw, I’m just dealing with the person who has her interests at heart.”
“And you’re banking on me to cover up for her again. Because I love her.”
He turned away to light himself another cigarette. “Hey, if you do what you do out of love, then it’s not so bad, is it?”
“You’re right,” I said.
He had his back to me. He had turned his back enough that he was vulnerable, and this was the alarm that rang through my mind. Do it now when he’ll never see it coming. There was a statuette sitting on a low coffee table, a modern figurative thing like a Henry Moore sculpture, and I picked it up and raised it high, bringing it down in a savage blow to the back of his head. He grunted a little and staggered. I hit him again, hard. He fell to his knees, and now I was shuddering in panic. Jesus, I have to finish him. I hit him the third time, the last time, and he collapsed to the floor.
It was done.
Morgan was dead at my feet, and I paused for a moment. Part of it, yes, was the gruesome selfish instinct that I hadn’t finished the job properly—that he might stir, moan, display some signal of life. And part of it was because it was Morgan. He had been a better man than Steven Swann, and out of some perverse impulse of respect for the dead, I thought I owed him a few seconds. I had seen dead before, the way that people appear smaller than they were when you knew them, as if the soul had weight and volume. Whatever Morgan was supposed to be, it was gone and his body wouldn’t finish it. I felt a disconnected sadness, a peculiar objective pity for him as if I was merely an assigned executioner given the job of his time. With Steven, I admit I took some pleasure in it. But Morgan…If only he hadn’t kept making threats. If he had honestly cared about Erica, he would never have made threats like that.
That hardened my resolve again for the cleanup.
In my purse, I had brought along a set of latex medical gloves. Some killer, I thought to myself. Brings gloves but has to improvise the murder weapon. Shut up. I had brought wiping cloths. I took a deep breath and got on with my task. I considered removing the sculpture, leaving the cops with no evidence in the same way I had denied them Steven’s gun. It was too bulky to carry away with me. And I had come over, thinking I’d have to make his death look like an interrupted burglary. It looked more plausible to leave the object there. Yes.
I fished his wallet out of his trousers, pocketed the cash. Not much. I hated doing that to him. It sounds perverse, but I felt genuine revulsion for desecrating him like that. Still, it had to be done. I rifled through the drawers of the chest in his bedroom to make it look good. I knocked over the black lacquer bust of Beethoven that sat on its cheap pillar stand near the couch. Another regret, destroying that charming piece of kitsch. But I needed it to look like he had struggled with his attacker.
All this effort wouldn’t be good enough, of course. I co
uldn’t protect Erica by simply killing Morgan. I had to erase Morgan’s threat. I went over to his desk to search for charts, notes, whatever implied a connection between his compositions and her work. I wrote those songs, he told me. Well, no one would ever hear his lies again.
Sitting next to his computer was a loose pile of books, a couple weighing down a padded envelope with a printout clipped to it. Jackpot? No. The printout was a letter from one of the big production studios. Morgan had composed something for Easy Death in Queens, the latest “cutting edge” cop drama, and it turned out they didn’t need it. I opened the envelope. Inside was a music chart with a CD—I assumed it must be the demo. The funny thing was that the address on the envelope was written in Morgan’s own handwriting. Hmm.
There were certainly items of minutiae I didn’t know about the music biz, and maybe this was one of them. After all, I had come into the game as Erica was on her way up. Maybe composers had to send their stuff off like writers with a self-addressed stamped envelope, an “SASE” as it’s called in the book publishing game. And before I gave up the idea that I was going to be Maya Angelou or even the black Danielle Steel, I had opened the mailbox countless times back in Toronto with letters written on the front in my own handwriting.
Focus, girl. This was nothing I needed to worry about. Erica wouldn’t have done theme or background music for a television show. I abandoned it on the desk, putting it neatly back where it was. I couldn’t reseal the envelope, but it was reasonable for anyone to assume Morgan would open his own mail.
I turned on his computer. I didn’t expect to find much, but there could be damning correspondence. He didn’t—I mean hadn’t—gone in much for email, so that made the hunt a little easier. I checked the ADAT. Again nothing.
I was starting to get anxious. His body was cooling on the floor only twenty feet away from me, and I couldn’t stay here. If I was going to find what he was talking about, I had better do it fast.
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