by Bill Moody
“Lavonne,” I call to her. “Is that you?”
Her back still to me, she stops, pulls the scarf off her head, and takes off her glasses.
When she turns around, a slight smile plays at her lips. Then Louise Cody gets in her car and drives off.
Behind me, his bass back in its canvas bag, Pappy leans on it and says, “Now you know.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I stand in the parking lot for a minute, baking in the unmerciful sun, staring after Louise Cody’s car as it turns onto Las Vegas Boulevard. I take off my coat and loosen my tie. Suddenly my hand doesn’t hurt so much. When I turn around, Pappy Dean is watching me, his forehead glistening with a sheen of perspiration, his arm round his bass.
Behind him, I see Natalie talking with Trask. I want to jump in the VW and go after Louise right now. Find out why she has held back so much, about Wardell Gray, Pappy Dean. I want to be angry but I can’t.
Something back there in 1955 is haunting her today. That smile she gave me when I called the name Lavonne was not a taunt but her acknowledgement that I had figured out at least part of it. She would tell me the rest, the smile said, but not now. Louise will be waiting for me, and I have Pappy to deal with first, then Trask and Natalie.
“You’re good, man, real good,” Pappy said, “but I wish you hadn’t done that.”
“And I wish you hadn’t lied to me, Pappy.”
He looks down at his feet for a moment, then locks eyes with me. “Yeah, I guess I did, but I had my reasons.”
“I’d like to hear them. We need to talk, Pappy.”
He nods, takes off his hat, and wipes his brow with a large handkerchief. “Yeah, we need to do that.” He glances back at Natalie and Trask. “That dude’s a cop, right?”
“You know he is.”
“Can you keep him out of it, at least for now?”
“Right now, he doesn’t even know who you are. I’ll do what I can.”
“Do that. Louise don’t need no trouble with the law, and neither do I.”
“Where, Pappy?”
He thinks a minute then says, “Where else? Moulin Rouge in an hour.”
“I’ll be there. You have some answers.”
Pappy lumbers toward his car, pushing his bass ahead of him. Natalie and Trask are already walking toward me. “What was that all about?” Natalie asks.
“Some ancient history.”
She shrugs out of her jacket and starts walking toward the VW when she sees I want to talk to Trask. “I’ll be in the car.”
“That was Rachel Cody’s mother?” Trask asks me.
“None other.”
“What’s she got to do with all this?”
“I don’t know yet. Probably nothing,” I say, trying to look sincere.
“Sure,” Trask says, shaking his head. “Well, maybe your buddy can talk some sense into you.”
“Coop?”
“Yeah, he’s coming back up on this extradition thing. We picked up the other guy Santa Monica wants. I’ll be in touch.” He gets in his car, and now there’s only one left in the parking lot.
I throw my coat in the backseat of the VW and join Natalie. I tell her Coop is coming back to town. She glances at me as she starts the engine and pulls out of the parking lot.
“Is this going to be awkward?”
“No,” she says. “Not at all.”
We drive in silence for a few minutes. At the expressway, I tell her to turn right.
“Where are we going?”
“Home. I want Ace’s car so I can drive. I have to go to the Musicians Union and then meet Pappy at the Moulin Rouge.”
“You want some company?”
“I don’t think so. He may not talk with you along.”
Natalie smiles. “We could play good cop, bad cop.”
“I don’t think that would work with Pappy.”
Back at the house I get out of the suit and, without too much trouble, convince Ace I can handle the Jeep with one hand. He offers Natalie lunch, and I leave the two of them to while away the afternoon.
At the Musicians Union I catch Larry Jenkins on his way out. “I was going to call you,” he says, looking at his watch. “Come on back. I’ve got a few minutes.” We go into his office, where he grabs a file folder off his desk. “We got very lucky. One of the business agents is kind of an amateur historian, thought he knew where this stuff was buried. I think this is what you’re looking for.”
I take the file and look inside. The contract, filed with Musicians Union #369 of Las Vegas between the Moulin Rouge and leader Benny Carter, lists the starting date, the amount, and the roster of musicians. Wardell Gray’s name is there, as are several others that ring a bell from that era. One other name pops off the page. I thought it would be there, but actually seeing it is still a shock.
“Is it possible there was an amended contract, after Wardell’s death?”
Jenkins shrugs. “Could be. Someone obviously replaced him. I know there was another contract when Lionel Hampton came in. Why? You looking for someone else?”
“No, just curious. Can you make me a copy of this?”
“Yeah, I don’t see why not. Hang on a minute.” While I wait for Jenkins, I run everything through my mind.
A lot of people have been either lying to me or leaving things out of the mix, and now I have some concrete proof to confront them with. I still don’t know the why, but I think I am about to find out.
When Jenkins comes back with a photocopy of the contract, I ask him about Elgin “Pappy” Dean. The name brings a smile to his lips.
“Pappy Dean. Yeah, he’s kind of a legend around here. You know he did a little stint with Count Basie sometime in the ’60s?”
“Yeah, I’d heard about that. Has he always been in Las Vegas?”
“I don’t know,” Jenkins says. “There was the time he was on the road with Basie, but I seem to remember hearing he was gone, just kind of disappeared for a while years before that. Come to think of it, it wasn’t long after the Moulin Rouge opened. Then there he was again, showing up on gigs all over town. Every once in a while he gets a big band together for some benefit or a night at the Four Queens. Why? You think he had something to do with this Wardell Gray thing?”
“I doubt it, but research is research.” Jenkins nods absently and glances at his watch again. I thank him for his trouble and say good-bye.
“If you think of anything else, give me a call.” He walks me out to the parking lot, and we head for our respective cars.
The Jeep feels solid under me and, more important, cool inside. I think about a cruise to Alaska and punch in the jazz station in time to catch most of a recording of Stan Getz at a club in Copenhagen. It’s one I have in my own collection, but I’m always amazed at the grace of his elegant, fluid tone. Another gig I would like to have played at.
When I turn into the Moulin Rouge parking lot, large dark clouds loom over the mountains to the west. The sun has disappeared, but not the heat.
I park the Jeep in the half-full lot and survey the Moulin Rouge. Up close, the ’50s glamour is gone, replaced now by peeling and faded paint. In the front window a poster is taped to the glass, advertising a blues jam session on Sunday night. It’s as good a place as any for Sonny Wells’s wake.
Inside it’s dark and cool, and the bar is about half full, a mix of construction guys in work clothes at the bar and several solitary afternoon drinkers who’ve probably wandered in from the neighborhood to play the video poker machines. No sign of Pappy Dean.
The bartender takes my order for a draft beer and a roll of quarters. I down the beer, order another, and hit a full house on one of the poker machines on the fourth quarter.
“Those things are addictive,” Pappy says, sliding on the stool next to me. He points to my glass and holds up two fingers for the bartender. I cash out my quarters and shove them across the bar for the beers.
“So tell me about Lavonne, Pappy.” I light a cigarette while Pappy downs half his
beer. The tie is gone, but he still has the suit and hat.
“How’d you do that?” Pappy asks. “Ain’t nobody called that name for thirty years.”
“Thirty-seven.”
Pappy nods and grins. “Yeah, you right. Thirty-seven.”
“Just before he died, Sonny whispered it to the doctor. I didn’t know what it meant at the time, but when saw the song title on Wardell’s CD, I knew that had to be it.”
“I was supposed to be on that date,” Pappy says, another one of those good things that almost happened. “I would have been if I hadn’t gone out on the road with some sorry singer.”
“But you made the gig here, right?” Looking around the Moulin Rouge bar, I find it hard to believe this was a jumping place for six months, or ever.
Pappy looks at me over his glass. “Shit, you are a detective. Who told you that?”
“Just a guess at first, but your name is on the contract. I just came from the Musicians Union. Sonny was in the band too, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah,” Pappy admits. There’s a sadness in his gaze as he stares at the blinking light on the poker machine in front of him. “We was both here, different times.” He sighs and stares at the rows of bottles behind the bar. “Benny Carter had the band first, but Lionel Hampton came in later. When Wardell didn’t make the second show that night, they brought Sonny up from L.A. a few days later. He wasn’t Wardell, but he was in pretty good shape then and playin’ good. I subbed here later for about three weeks.”
“So Sonny and Wardell knew each other in L.A., and they both knew Louise?”
Pappy nods and looks over his shoulder as if he’s afraid someone is listening. “Louise was hired in L.A. for the show. She used to hang around the Central Avenue dubs. That’s where she met Wardell and Sonny.”
“What really happened with Wardell?”
Pappy shrugs. “I don’t know no more than you do, probably less. He didn’t show up, and they found him in the desert a couple of days later, dead as a motherfucker.”
“You believe the story about the dancer Teddy Hale taking him to the desert?”
“I don’t believe no junkies when they high.”
“You think someone could have gotten to Teddy, got him to give that story to the police?”
“Hey man, anything’s possible.” Pappy takes a drink of his beer and lights a long brown menthol cigarette.
It’s frustrating to be sitting where it all happened with someone who was there and get this kind of answer. Why is everybody so afraid of the past? “Why didn’t you tell me you knew Louise? And you recognized her daughter’s photo as soon as I showed it to you at the Hob Nob. What’s Louise got to do with all this?”
Pappy turns and gazes at me hard. “Louise ain’t got nothing to do with whatever happened to Wardell. You wanna know more, you talk to her. If she wants to tell you, she will.”
I study Pappy for a moment, wondering how much he knows, how much he trusts me. “Wouldn’t you like to know what really happened to Wardell and Sonny?”
“I know what happened to Sonny, I just don’t know who did it.” Pappy is silent for a moment. He lays the cigarette in an ashtray and rubs his big, calloused, powerful hands together. “I thought I knew what happened to Wardell.”
“What do you mean? C’mon, Pappy, take a chance. I have no reason to draw you into this, but I can’t help you or Louise without some help. I’m in the dark here. I think there’s a lot you’re not telling me.”
“Lord have mercy,” Pappy mutters. He turns and looks at me. “I don’t know why I’m tellin’ you this, but maybe I got to trust you. There was a guy, slick Italian dude, hanging around the club a lot, talkin’ to Louise, and I know he saw her with Wardell, least I thought he did.”
“And? Who was he?”
“I don’t know the fool’s name.” Pappy’s voice rises slightly. Two guys in work clothes, egging one another on at a poker machine, eye us for a moment until Pappy stares them down.
“Me and him got into it, right here in this parking lot when he was gettin’ in his car. I told him to quit messin’ with Louise. You know what he told me? He said, ‘Nigger, you don’t know who you’re talking to.’” Pappy has both hands on his glass, gripping it so tightly I think it’s going to shatter.
“Well, that was it. I didn’t mean to, but I thought he was goin’ for a gun. I used to carry a knife in those days, and—” Pappy drains his glass and signals for another beer. When he looks at me again, I see nothing but pain and remorse on his face. “I think I killed him.”
I stare at my own half-empty glass. I can’t look at Pappy, but I know he’s watching me, waiting for my response.
“Is that why you left Las Vegas?”
“Damn,” Pappy says, “you know everything.”
“No, just putting some of it together.”
“I was scared, man. I hooked up with a show going to Kansas City and stayed around there layin’ low, thinkin’ any day they comin’ after me.”
“The police?”
“Or that dude’s friends. The police, ’cause there ain’t no—what you call it?”
“Statute of limitations?” There is none on murder, and I make a mental note to find some way to check the files on that as well without implicating Pappy. Maybe there were two unsolved murders—three now, counting Sonny Wells.
“Yeah, that’s it,” Pappy says. “Statute of limitations.” He runs the words slowly over his tongue. “But you came back to Vegas.”
“I know, man, it was weird. I couldn’t think about it no more. I came back, laid low for a while, but there was nothing. Nobody was looking for me, police or godfather dudes. I asked around but nobody had heard nothin’.”
I couldn’t imagine even a remotely connected Mafia type not being avenged. Wasn’t that the code? And if it was murder, why wouldn’t the police have investigated and Pappy been a suspect or, at the very least, wanted for questioning? Something was wrong with the whole scenario.
“And all these years, you never heard anything?”
“Nothin’, man, nothin’.”
I anticipate Pappy’s questioning look. “Even if I wanted to, Pappy, what you’ve told me would be your word against mine, and after all this time, well, it wouldn’t amount to much. You know what I think? I think you didn’t kill anybody.”
I watch Pappy’s shoulders relax slightly. “I wish I knew that for sure. Lord, I do.”
“What about Louise? I think some of this-Wardell, Sonny, everything—is connected to Louise.” I watch Pappy give me a long, searching look.
“When you know for sure, you let me know.”
“They might be godfather dudes.”
“They might be,” Pappy says. “They might be.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
After Pappy leaves, I use the pay phone at the Moulin Rouge and call Louise Cody. “It’s Evan, Louise.”
“I know. I’ve been waiting for your call.” She sounds a little shaky, but she is waiting for me. She’ll be home all evening. We settle on a time and hang up. I wonder what she’s going to tell me.
I leave the Moulin Rouge and head the Jeep back to the apartment. Ace and Danny Cooper are sitting around the patio table. Natalie waves from the pool. She climbs out, dripping water from her black bikini on the deck. Wrapping herself in a towel, she shakes out her hair. All three of us watch her every move. I try to imagine her in a police uniform, but it’s impossible.
I drop into a chair as she walks toward me. We’re not going to flaunt it in front of Coop, but she touches my shoulder as she passes. “I’m just going in to change,” she says. “Oh, Brent Tyler called. He wants to know how you’re doing, when you’ll be back.”
I look at Coop, staring after Natalie. He hasn’t missed anything, but he’s not going to talk about it, at least not now in front of Ace. “Well, I didn’t expect to see you back so soon,” I say to him.
“Your friend is really interesting,” Ace says. “He’s been giving me the inside dope on pol
ice work.”
“And Ace here has been filling me in on the politics of academia,” Coop chimes in. “I don’t know which is worse. Sounds like a snake pit in the English department. I thought these humanities types were gentle souls only interested in scholarly pursuits.”
“Something new going on, Ace?” I ask.
“Oh no, it’s not new, I just voted the wrong way on a department promotion. The new chair’s subtle way to get additional votes for himself is to try and run by the promotion of a very undeserving professor who hasn’t published anything in years and has two sexual harassment charges pending against him. My negative vote will no doubt draw some retribution.”
“What will they do?” Coop asks. “Ban you from the MLA?”
Ace and I both stare open-mouthed at Coop. “How do you know about the Modern Language Association?” Ace asks.
Coop is enjoying the moment. “Hey, I took a couple of English courses when I was in college. How ’bout you, sport? What have you got to report?”
I glance at Ace, who if nothing else knows how to take a cue. He’s already getting to his feet. “Listen guys, I’ve got a couple of more steaks. How about a barbecue?”
“Sounds good to me,” Coop says. I nod my agreement, and Ace takes off for the kitchen, muttering about the MLA.
Coop and I let a few moments of silence pass, neither of us knowing how to begin. We listen to the water lap against the side of the pool and, I suppose, collect our thoughts. I know I do. Coop goes first.
“I had an interesting talk with John Trask. You’ve had a busy few days.”
“You mean this?” I hold up my bandaged hand. “It’s already better.”
Coop doesn’t smile. “They could have done a lot more. You’re lucky.”
“I know, Coop, I know.”
“You going to be able to finish the gig at the mall?”
I flex my hand a few times. “I think so. I’m going to try out Ace’s piano later, before I call Tyler.”
Coop nods and lights one of his little cigars. “Well then, I guess the music world can breathe a little easier.” He blows a cloud of smoke into the air. “Let’s cut the shit, okay? You’re in way over your head, and once again a brilliant police mind is going to make some suggestions.”