Felonious Jazz

by Bryan Gilmer

  He re-oriented five more marigolds – a definite improvement – before the apartment door finally opened again. He stole a long glimpse at the chicks under the brim of his baseball cap. Mr. Smooth brought both of them out to the blonde girl’s car, and the brunette put her violin in the back seat and climbed in after it.

  He pulled the brim of his cap low, stood facing away from them and brushed soil off the overalls as he eased toward his station wagon. When their car doors closed, he shimmied under the steering wheel.

  He took off the cap so they wouldn’t make the visual connection. He caught up to them at the first traffic light, two cars behind. With those two to look at, he was certain J. Davis Swaine would never notice him following, anyway. Leonard kept them in sight all the way to the Statesman Hotel near the capitol, where the one with dark hair went inside.

  * * *

  Jeff buckled his seatbelt in the passenger seat of Ashlyn’s car – Margaret had insisted on riding in the back – dreading the worst brunch of his life. But now Margaret was explaining to Ashlyn she was scheduled to play a matinee concert before leaving town, so she didn’t have time to eat.

  “Too bad,” Ashlyn said. “Let me drive you back to your hotel” – and the sentence hung unfinished in the air, with Jeff imagining, where you belong.

  They drove downtown stone silent, and when Ashlyn pulled up to the hotel, Jeff pulled the lever to slide his seat forward. He didn’t think it would be wise to stand and hold the door while Margaret climbed out.

  So she squeezed out, said, “Bye – nice to meet you,” and walked toward the hotel door, turning to wave, her eyes fixed deliberately on Ashlyn’s, not his. Ashlyn waved back, and Jeff slid the front seat back into position, leaned back and shut the door.

  Jeff knew the key was not to admit that he’d been anywhere close to sleeping with Margaret, to work his way up to a righteous oratorical offensive. Even though he hadn’t slept with Margaret, there was Caroline. He didn’t deserve a prize for one out of two.

  And the truth was, there had been a perilous moment just after he and Margaret had walked through the door of the apartment. The lights were off. He could smell how the wine that legitimately made it a bad idea for him to drive her back downtown sweetened her breath.

  He gave himself credit for this much: standing still for ten seconds when he normally would have entwined his mouth in Margaret’s and located the tab of her zipper. Yet he thought things had stayed platonic mainly because Margaret had spoken up just then: “There’s something I should have told you that I haven’t.”

  Her drowsy smile had turned to a pained one. “I have a boyfriend back at my condo who’s waiting for me to call and say goodnight. He’s kind of a shit, and we could break up any day, and Jeff, you don’t know how much I want to, but I just can’t. I’m sorry to lead you on.”

  Jeff had stepped backward, exhaled and flipped on the overhead light. Margaret had sheepishly gone to the terrace to make her phone call, and he’d retreated to the kitchen to pour himself a glass of water, the evening’s spell broken. He’d brought out the pillow, blanket and spare clothes for Margaret and told her all about Ashlyn.

  And Margaret had smiled her Renaissance-painting smile and said, “Normally you wouldn’t have given me the time to raise an objection. But I’m glad you did. It’s the right thing, and you’re a good guy, and that’s why I’ve always been so crazy for you.” They’d exchanged something like a handshake, a hug seeming too risky, and he’d lain awake for an hour in the bedroom, knowing she was just 14 steps away on the couch.

  Now Ashlyn unclenched one fist from the steering wheel and rested the hand on her knee. “She’s really stunningly pretty, Jeff. Beautiful.”

  Jeff recognized the conversational trap and kept quiet.

  “And very intelligent and charming. I don’t blame you for keeping in touch with her.”

  Now was the time to speak. “We haven’t been in touch. She saw me mentioned in the newspaper and called yesterday and offered me a ticket to her concert.”

  Margaret had said all of this, but Jeff figured Ashlyn was going over it again, like any good interrogator, to look for inconsistencies. She’d probably check the trash for used condoms, count how many were left in the box in her top dresser drawer and then question her memory of how many there had been.

  Ashlyn glanced over. “It wasn’t the reunion I had in mind for us this morning.”

  “Me, either.” Jeff sighed.

  She smiled a little, though it looked forced. “Were you going to tell me she’d stayed with you?”

  “Of course.” Jeff felt the guilt of telling her the first ever 180-degree lie. And the real transgression was what had happened with Caroline. Jeff felt guilty for violating the rules of the relationship, but somehow he had the odd sense of being within his rights. His mind had already begun to think of him as single again. He heard himself still talking: “But I realize even though she and I are both with other people and nothing was going to happen, it was out of bounds to let her stay over. When I look at it from your perspective, I realize why you’re upset. It was your apartment. I would be pissed too.”

  “I feel stupid for being mad about it,” Ashlyn was saying, really warming up to him again. “I know I have to trust you. If you’re going to cheat on me, you’re going to cheat on me, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

  She stopped at a red light, and he looked her full in the eyes. He wondered why he was putting her through all of this, anyway. She gave him a little half smile.

  “I’m not thinking straight right now, Ashlyn. Night before last, someone broke into my loft. It really freaked me out. I tried to call you, but you had your phone off, and I didn’t want to leave something like that in a message because you might worry.”

  “What happened?” She was alarmed and sympathetic now.

  “Remember that burglary Friday where the woman was nearly killed with the drug they use to euthanize dogs? Well, that guy broke into my place night before last.”

  Jeff told her the story of finding the Ellis’ furniture at his place, and by the time he was done, they were within a couple blocks of the loft. He asked her to stop there so he could show her.

  They rode the freight up and he flipped the light switch for the upper floor, even though light was streaming in the windows. “This is all their stuff. The burglar brought it all here, broke into my place, and arranged it like this.” He pointed at the greasy spot on the floor. “That’s where I dropped the takeout I was planning to eat right after I got off the phone with you. That’s why I wasn’t staying here, and that’s how Margaret ended up at your apartment instead of here.”

  She threw up her arms, and her face suddenly flushed red. “Good – otherwise, she would have slept in your new place before I did. Why didn’t you call me and tell me some criminal had broken into your apartment?”

  It was surprisingly enraging for her to accuse him of sleeping with Margaret when he hadn’t while he was feeling guilty because he had slept with Caroline, something Ashlyn had no inkling of.

  “I told you!” Jeff snapped. “I tried. I knew you were busy, and I figured you were probably having a great day yesterday, and I didn’t want to spoil that for you. I was going to call you this morning.” Jeff realized how stupid this sounded, how his decision not to call her said everything about their relationship.

  She raised her voice to a scream. “But you weren’t too upset to meet your old girlfriend for dinner, and let her talk her way back home with you. I can’t believe this! I’m your girlfriend!”

  As Jeff looked at her, his own anger erupted. He was getting an insecure tantrum. No wonder he hadn’t called her. He couldn’t imagine her reaction if she knew about Caroline. He would never tell her, and even if all the other problems somehow went away, he had irretrievably fucked up the relationship. He would never be able to feel good with Ashlyn again. He would never be worthy of her trust.

  “I am your girlfriend” – she was shouting, and sq
ueezing her fists, her voice echoing off the concrete floor and walls. “Do you hear me? Don’t you understand that? I am your girlfriend.”

  And before he even thought, Jeff said it: “Yeah, you’re my girlfriend, even though I know this relationship isn’t right.” He said it so softly that her anger faded in an instant and she took an apologetic step toward him. His face hurt. “And I’ve known it for a while. That’s the real mistake I’ve made. And I can fix that.”

  Jeff turned away from her and said it louder: “Let me fix that right now.”

  * * *

  Leonard waited in the station wagon at the end of the alley behind the old donut factory.

  The plywood doors lunged open, then bounced halfway closed. The little blonde screamed in frustration and pushed them open again. The car they’d showed up in came backing out too fast, and Leonard started his engine. He didn’t see Davis Swaine, and when the car started moving forward, Leonard made a snap decision. He crept forward too and followed it to the end of the block, turned right to stay with her, keeping well back.

  At the next stop sign, a Raleigh Police cruiser filled up his rear-view mirror. He nearly swallowed his own tongue. The little Volkswagen headed straight through the intersection. Leonard turned on his right blinker, turned, and the cop turned right, too, hard on Leonard’s bumper.

  Leonard started to panic. The cop was definitely radioing in his tags now. The station wagon shouldn’t be listed as a wanted vehicle, but what if someone had seen him out working on “Choke Point” the other night and written it down? It seemed like too many coincidences to Leonard. He signaled left, turned left. The cop did the same. The guy followed him all the way back to Capitol Boulevard. Leonard kept expecting to see the siren, the blue lights. He wondered if he was swerving or anything from being so nervous.

  But they never came on. On Capitol Boulevard, the cruiser accelerated, changed to the left lane without signaling and blasted past Leonard’s station wagon.

  Leonard shivered and calmed himself. He thought about going back to the donut factory but realized he’d be a fool to do that now. Besides, he had a gig in a few minutes. He kept heading north toward Rocky Falls.

  He was still addled when he got to Rocky Falls Boulevard. He fought the compulsion to steer his Chevrolet Estate Classic into the Catholic church near his farmhouse and light one of the tall candles. Robert’s death had just been one of those random things in life. Not a Mortal Sin. Church stuff was bullshit, but it was hard bullshit to let go of. Damn, The Original Soulless Bitch had really ground that crapola into his brain when he was a little kid. It was about half his problem. Now he realized he felt guilty for calling his mother a bitch. He wanted to scream. She was a bitch! BITCH!

  And Robert had reaped what he’d sown.

  Leonard breathed out and steadied his grip on the hard plastic steering wheel, looked at his watch. Still on time. He was on his way to a church, but to him it was just a gig.

  He pulled into the Rocky Falls Community Church’s Worship Campus. He unloaded his bass case from the back of the car. He played in the Jazz Praise Band. These cats had finally given church a makeover. The place looked like a stadium-seating movie theater inside a private school, or maybe an office park. Non-denominational, no crucifixes, no kneeling. You didn’t even have to say any creeds or prayers or sing. Just sit and groove out to some lite jazz by yours truly and the band, listen to a little talk by a school counselor-type minister – and nothing about hell or anything – nice chats about how to feel better when you’re depressed or be a more compassionate spouse.

  Leonard rolled the bass fiddle past the stand where they sold $3 fair-trade, shade-grown lattes in the lobby. All the proceeds supported the church.

  A little market research had taught the minister how to give the zeros what they wanted, and they wanted easy-listening church, more than a thousand of them, 50 of which were already clustered in the aisles of the auditorium, chatting. For Leonard, this was good for some stage time and 200 bucks a week. He always enjoyed the applause, too, even though the minister said it was for the Lord.

  Leonard thought back to the groovin’ studio session yesterday. He’d improvised on the bass, though he’d had a hard time letting himself do it in the formality of the studio. He’d put some nice, extra flourishes on what he’d composed, gotten thumbs-ups from the guys. That had been a rush, but not as intense as DIY Warehouse or snatching the hottie and the bastard. The guys had seemed surprised he hadn’t blown up at them like usual for making little changes in their parts on the fly – until they heard where he took the melody.

  He laid his instrument case flat on the bandstand at the front of the church auditorium and undid the latches.

  He would work on the rape track right after church. He had a new idea, and he would compose it in his head during the sermon.

  Forty-one

  EmmaJane finished the little tub of beef stew and squinched up her face. Eating it at all was gross, and this was all cold and everything, on top of it. But it was all the creeper had left her: two dozen tubs of microwaveable beef stew and a case of Aquafina. It made her feel a little better that there were so many supplies. It must mean that if he planned to kill her, it might be a while from now.

  The more she thought about it, though, the more worried she was that this creeper was a total perv and that he was going to rape her.

  She couldn’t even process how horrible that would be. It would feel like getting beat up and humiliated and embarrassed and pukingly grossed out all at one time, she thought. Sex was weird and mysterious and, well, hot, and EmmaJane liked to think about it a lot, especially before she fell asleep at night, usually one guy or another from school, but sometimes this one teacher, which she knew was wrong and made her ashamed. She thought about a lot of things, as best she could guess they would go.

  And two weeks ago in real life, she and a boy named Mario Falcone had taken off their identical lifeguard T-shirts behind the concession stand one night and kissed chest-to-chest until she thought she would faint, and then each gone home in the other’s shirt, which had been so sexy. But she knew she wasn’t close to ready for actual sex with anybody yet. And she knew if the creeper forced himself on her, sex would move from this breathtaking, electrifying place in her life where it belonged – mostly in her control. Sex would become a room of her life where reruns of a nightmare always played.

  So as Jacob napped on a soft little mound she’d made on the floor out of her hoodie, EmmaJane went over to Jacob’s big box of diapers. She unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans, and she stuffed the diaper partway down her panties, so the end with the cartoon characters stuck out the top.

  Like the most godawful maxi pad you ever saw in your life.

  She had to leave her jeans button undone because it was so thick. EmmaJane took two more diapers and sat on the floor. She unfolded them, arranging them in front of her. She took the sharp metal lid from the beef stew can. She gritted her teeth and sliced it right across her ankle bone.

  Forty-two

  Jeff called a taxi to take him back to Ashlyn’s apartment to get his car. By the time he got there, all the stuff of his that had been in her apartment was in a pile near the Audi’s front bumper. He let out a long breath through his nose. He had thought he might knock on her door to talk some more, to wish her well and apologize for saying everything so suddenly, but clearly it wasn’t the time.

  He loaded the stuff into his car and realized he might actually never have a conversation with her again. That felt both odd and agreeable. He regretted how hurt she must be feeling, and he realized avoiding that had been the main reason he’d waited so long to break up with her. He had been weak, and he had hurt her more than he should have. Yet he knew she wasn’t the right woman to marry, and he felt some sort of deep relief at avoiding that mistake.

  He brushed the parking lot dirt off the last item, his blue blazer, and laid it on the passenger seat. As he started the car, he turned on Nickel Creek again and decided
to go to the office. No one else would be there. Maybe he’d have some time to think about the case, to make some headway against this burglar who always seemed to be 36 hours ahead of him. One night off was enough. Maybe immersing his mind in the case would get it off of Ashlyn.

  Jeff parked under Wachovia Capital Center, slipped the Glock into his briefcase without knowing exactly why, and rode the elevator up. He walked through the dim office bullpen and unlocked his door.

  He left his lights turned off and stared at the windows full of cards and marker, now harshly backlit by the sun. He set the briefcase on his desk and pulled out his legal pad. He flipped through it to see what he needed to add to the windows.

  He wrote “Corey Hart” next to “Eddie (Eddy) Grant,” then, “80’s music  age? 35 or older.”

  This same-sounding guy was popping up at the scene of every crime. They weren’t getting descriptions of anyone else. The prints on the forklift matched the prints on the beer bottle from Jeff’s place. Yet the crimes seemed so logistically involved – moving truckloads of furniture, and so forth – that a small team of people would be needed to complete them. Maybe the suspect was the leader of the crew, and different helpers came in after he gained entry or set the scene. Jeff wrote: “Number of suspects >1?” in red marker.

  Then he added the false address from the vet’s below the one from DIY Warehouse. Upsal Street. Germantown Avenue. Interesting that Germantown was an avenue. Not many streets around Raleigh were named “avenue” – there were more “drives,” “trails” and “circles.”

  He sat in his chair and pulled up Mapquest.com to double-check. No Upsal anything in Raleigh. Entering “Germantown” did bring up a Germantown Road west of downtown Raleigh. But the computer told him the street numbers started at 500 and ended at 699. Noblac had listed a street number of 13, which sounded to Jeff like a fake number you might come up with on the fly. He printed the map of Germantown Road so he could drive out there on his way home, but he didn’t expect to find anything. The burglar’s Germantown Avenue was supposedly up in Rocky Falls.