The Devil's Interval

by Linda Peterson

  “Come on,” she said, “tell me why we’re here tonight?”

  “To make some money, honey!” shouted a guy from the back of the room.

  “You bet your sweet ass,” she shot back. “And the fine members of the fish-wrap trade have volunteered to pick your pockets. Give us a wave, guys,” she gestured to the front door. Puck’s pal, Jon Noble, and his beat-up-looking colleagues stood up, looking like a rag-tag group of cheerleaders from a twelve-step program.

  “Think of those guys as The Devil’s Interval kissing booth,” she said. “Drop some green stuff, or a big fat check in the hat, and I’m sure you’ll be well-compensated.”

  A wave of derisory hoots and “ewwws” came up from the crowd. “Hey, Jon,” called the guy from the back of the room, “I’ll pay big bucks for you not to kiss me.”

  “You don’t know what you’re missing,” Noble shouted back.

  Ivory held up her hand, and leaned into the microphone.

  “Okay, okay,” she said. “I’ve got to be serious for one minute. Thanks to all of you. From me and from Travis. We’ve got a great attorney,” she paused and scanned the room. “Where are you, Isabella?”

  Isabella stood on tiptoes and waved. Ivory gave her a crooked smile. “We’ve got some well-placed friends helping us.” Her eyes met mine briefly, and I gave her a tiny nod. “And we’ve got a whole roomful of the coolest, most generous folks in town.” She leaned in close to the mike again and lowered her voice to a throaty, come-hither whisper. “Remember, I said…‘most generous folks in town.’”

  “It’s a shakedown,” shouted the obnoxious guy in the back.

  “Oh, you are so right,” said Ivory. “As the late great Otis Redding said, ‘Ain’t too proud to beg.’” She stepped back for a moment, wavering. “It’s important to me that Travis have a place to come home to. I want the piano tuned up and ready to go, I want the beer cold and the jazz hot, and folks like you in the room, the day that Travis comes home.”

  Once again, the room had grown very quiet, very still. Puck leaned close to me. “That woman is banking on a miracle,” he said.

  “Amen, sister,” called the guy with the sax, leaning against the piano.

  Ivory gestured to Karen to come join her at the mike. “So, what do you say we get Karen and the guys to give us another tune?”

  Karen put her arm around Ivory, and took over the mike. “How’s about, ‘Come on baby, let the good times roll,’ with Miss Ivory Gifford at the keyboard?”

  Folks began hooting and applauding. The hoots turned into a repeat chant of “Ivory, Ivory, Ivory,” with some good-natured floor-pounding and rhythmic clapping. Ivory gave Karen a look of mock exasperation, and walked over to the piano.

  With one graceful slide, she was on the bench, left hand on the keys, right hand in her lap. I could see her lean forward, breathe into the keyboard, precisely the same way I’d seen Glenn Gould or Horowitz, in old documentaries. I’d watched Eubie Blake, long about his eighty-fifth birthday, do the same thing, just before he ripped into “Joshua Fit the Battle of Jericho.” Breathing into the keyboard, being one with the music. Playing a mean piano is playing a mean piano, didn’t matter the genre.

  Ivory gave the bass player a nod and then did a chord progression, up from the bass to the first note of the tune. Then the clarinet, then the bass player, and then Karen leaned into the microphone, and pretty soon there were good times rolling all over The Devil’s Interval.

  I felt a light hand on my shoulder, and turned around. John Moon was standing there, a bottle of Singha in hand and an unexpectedly blissful look on his face.

  “Hey,” I greeted him. “Pretty good tunes, huh?”

  He shook his head, “Not pretty good. The best.” He looked around, “Michael here?”

  “No,” I said. “He’s in charge of the home front. I came with Puck.”

  He raised his eyebrows and sipped his beer. “How are things?”

  I scowled at him. “Who knows? And, as you keep reminding me, that’s what we have a shrink for.”

  Moon gave me a mild, vaguely remonstrative look. “Okay, Maggie, just asking. Being polite and concerned. You remember those fine character attributes, don’t you?”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Come on, I’ll buy you another beer.”

  As the evening wore on, the crowd grew louder, happier, and the music just kept getting better. When I finally retrieved Puck from his scuzzy press buddies at the door, he shouted in my ear that they’d cleared about $30,000, with pledges of another $22,000 coming in. We left at one o’clock, and the joint was still cooking.

  I crept into bed, after showering off a layer of beer fumes, perspiration, and smeared makeup and checking on the boys. Michael turned over, too lost in sleep to remember he didn’t like or respect his wife all that much, and threw his arm over me. I settled in, under the comforting feel of that unconscious embrace, and drifted off. When the phone rang, I woke up with a start, his arm still over me. It was dark out, and the bedside digital clock radio rolled from 4:29 to 4:30 as I answered, too groggy to properly panic.

  “Maggie,” I heard John Moon’s voice in my ear. There was a terrible racket in the background. Sirens, people shouting, and street noise.

  “John? What’s going on?” I sat up and clicked on the light, not too gently moving Michael’s arm off me. He moaned and put his head under the pillow.

  “I’m at The Devil’s Interval,” said Moon. “Or what used to be.” He turned away from the phone and I heard him shout. “Hold on, I’ll be there in a minute.”

  “Got to go, Maggie. The arson squad is here.”

  I clutched the phone. “What are you talking about?” I said. “Wait, John, don’t go, tell me.”

  “It’s Ivory’s club,” he said. “A fire started about half an hour ago, and it’s already three-alarm.”

  “Oh, my God,” I said, swinging my legs over the side of the bed. “Is anybody hurt?”

  “We don’t think so,” said Moon. “I think that big gentleman, Mr. Reeves, Ivory’s friend, got her out of the building.”

  “I’m on my way,” I said.

  “Wait, Maggie,” I heard him call. But I hung up the phone, and felt around for my slippers.

  By now, Michael was awake and sitting up. He turned his light on.

  “What’s going on?”

  I explained, while rummaging through the bureau, and throwing on underwear, jeans, and a sweater.

  “Want me to come with you?” he asked.

  I stopped, about to sling my bag over my shoulder.

  “Anya’s home?”

  He looked exasperated. “No, she’s out at some after-hours dive with Dr. Bollywood. Maggie, for Christ’s sake, are you nuts? Would I even suggest going…”

  I put my hand up. “Okay, I get it. I’m an idiot. I’m sorry. I’m not awake yet, and it’s just so upsetting. I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

  Michael was up, doing the same rummage. “I’ve got to throw some water on my face. Why don’t you make some coffee we can take with us and leave a note for Anya? I’ll be down in five minutes.”

  CHAPTER 35

  Some terrible “if it bleeds, it leads” journalistic instincts were eroding my sense of decency. Even in the rush to get out the door, take one last look at the kids, and the dread I felt for Ivory and the place she loved, I had enough presence of mind to call Calvin as we sped down the hill, onto the approach to the Bay Bridge.

  “This better be good,” he answered the phone.

  “Get over to The Devil’s Interval,” I said. “It’s on fire.”

  “On my way.”

  Michael glanced at me, as we both gulped coffee and tried to shake off the middle-of-the-night funk. “You’re heartless, Maggie,” he said, as he listened to my side of the call to Calvin. “You just want some good shots for your story.”

  I felt my face go hot. “Maybe I do,” I said. “But Calvin would have been furious if I hadn’t called him. And I don’t think it’s irresponsibl
e to think about our readers. This could be a whole other dimension to the story,” I concluded self-righteously. “Plus, I already know that Ivory’s okay.”

  Michael looked back at me, and a small grin started. “You are so full of crap,” he said. “You’ve turned into an ambulance chaser.”

  I grinned back. I couldn’t resist Michael’s uncanny ability to see through whatever little self-deluding detour I was taking. Despite the awfulness of the circumstance, it was wonderful—and comforting—to be in the car with him. “Takes a fire,” I thought, “to melt the ice.”

  For a few minutes, on the way over, I felt one of those disorienting flashes of joy. Sitting in the car, Michael at the wheel, up and out of the house before anyone else, the freeways almost deserted—it reminded me of our predawn trip years ago to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, when it was closed to all but pedestrians to celebrate the span’s fiftieth anniversary. Then, with a crash back to earth, I remembered why we were on this predawn quest, and what terrible consequences it was going to have for Ivory—and Travis. We could smell the smoke a mile before we got to the club, and see it curling up against the night sky, the smoke fighting with the first pink of dawn to claim the morning. The smoke was winning.

  When we were within a few blocks, the sky had turned as dark and threatening as an Oklahoma thunderstorm, but the lights and engines were filling the street with clamor and so much illumination, it looked like a movie set.

  The street was crowded with fire vehicles, and big, bulky-jacketed firefighters were distributed up and down the street. Despite the bright lights, I couldn’t even see the front of the club through the equipment, smoke, and people in front of the place.

  Michael spotted John Moon across the street from the club, talking to a small knot of people and herding them farther away as they talked. A yellow-coated firefighter and cop shared the road, both armed with big flashlights, waving cars away from the intersection where Clement and 23rd came together, and The Devil’s Interval had swung high and low just a few hours earlier. Michael turned the corner and parked in the first semilegal spot. I grabbed the thermos and a couple extra mugs to bring along for whoever we ran into. We didn’t have to look hard for Ivory. When we came to the first ambulance parked on 24th, there she was, sitting on an overturned paint can, wrapped in a Raiders jacket. Gus was sitting on the ground, just to the side of the can, and holding her hand. His face was streaked with black, and the watch cap on his head looked damp with perspiration. Moon was next to both of them, his hand on Ivory’s shoulder and a cell phone tucked between ear and shoulder. Michael and I walked over to Ivory. I knelt in front of her and looked up into her face. It was frighteningly blank, wiped clean of any emotion. Gus was talking a slow, steady murmur. “It’s all right,” he kept crooning. “We’ll rebuild. You and me, babe. We’ll start all over again. Just us. We can do this.”

  “Gus,” I said gently. “I don’t think she can hear you.”

  I stood up and caught Moon’s eye. “Okay, okay,” he said into the phone. “I’ll wrap up here.”

  He snapped the phone shut. His eyes were hard. He inclined his head toward the end of the street, and I followed him. From the tiny, shuttered dim sum place on the corner, we watched Michael pour coffee into a mug and put it in Ivory’s hands. They’d never even been introduced, but he held his hands over hers and guided the mug to her mouth. She took a sip, choked a little, then took control of the mug and gulped at the coffee.

  “This is just cruelty,” said Moon. “We will find the damn bastard who did this, and he will pay.” I was startled. I’d never heard a single profane word come out of Moon’s mouth.

  “You’re sure somebody did this?” I asked. “It wasn’t just an accident? The place was full of people, and there were candles burning on the tables.”

  He shook his head. “The arson squad will do their real work tomorrow, but I’m willing to bet significant sums of money it was arson. There had to be some kind of accelerant for the place to burn like this.” He swore under his breath. “At least, it’s under control now,” he said. “I was worried we were going to lose half the block.”

  I watched Michael and Ivory. She was leaning back against him, and he was rubbing her shoulders. Gus had hauled himself to his feet, and was sipping coffee from the other mug I had brought from the car. He was dividing his attention between Ivory, still murmuring to her, almost continuously, and shooting occasional glances over to where Moon and I stood. He seemed torn, wanting to stay with Ivory, yet curious about our conversation. Moon and I watched as the firefighters began advancing closer to the smoldering building, drenching the near-skeletal structure with powerful blasts from the hose.

  “What happens now?” I asked. “I mean, if it’s arson, isn’t the fire department in charge?”

  “They’re in charge of figuring out what happened,” said Moon. “And with the information they provide us, we’ll go after whoever did this.” He shot a glance at me. “I meant ‘we,’ as in my police colleagues, Maggie. Not ‘we,’ as in you and me.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t even know enough to try to meddle, John. Don’t worry. I keep thinking about Ivory. Who decided to turn her into Job?”

  Moon sighed. “This is not some random, divine action,” he said. “I’ll tell you that. It’s not God visiting plagues on Ivory’s house. At least not this latest plague. It’s someone very wicked and quite human.”

  We walked back to Ivory, Michael, and Gus. Ivory had put her arms in the oversize jacket, and was standing. She held her right arm close to her, her left arm dangling at her side, and her fist in a near-clutch.

  She handed me the coffee mug. “This is yours, I think,” said Ivory. “I’m done. Thanks for the coffee.” She straightened up, and subtly shook Gus’s proprietary hand off her shoulder.

  “I’m done here,” she said. “The fire guys and cops have this under control.” She turned to Michael. “I don’t know your name,” she said, “but thank you for your kindness. Gus,” she turned to him, “Let’s go…” She stopped.

  He put his finger on her lips. “Home.” He sighed. “I know, babe. Don’t worry, home is…” He hesitated, “wherever we’ll be together. I put a call in to my buddy over at the St. Francis. We’ve got a room already. All clean and beautiful and comfortable. We’ll go over there, get a good night’s sleep, and figure this out tomorrow morning.” He looked at Ivory. “You’ll like it there, doll. They’ve got bathrobes and fruit baskets and stuff.”

  Ivory gave him an exhausted look and looped her arm through his. “That sounds just fine, Gus. Thank you.”

  She turned to us. “Good night. Let me know what you find out,” she said flatly.

  I looked at Gus. “The St. Francis?” I confirmed. “You’ll be there ’til you figure out where to stay?”

  He shrugged and gave me a sheepish grin. “And that’s what Jeopardy money is for,” he said. “Give the traveler a place to lay his or her weary head.”

  Michael gave him a quick look. “Be careful, Gus,” he said. “Look out for yourself and Ivory.”

  Gus nodded. “Don’t worry.” He patted the pocket of his jacket. “Didn’t get much out. But got my Golf Uniform November.”

  We watched Ivory and Gus head down the street. They stopped to talk with Lt. Moon. He kept patting Ivory’s arm and shoulder, awkwardly but earnestly.

  “Is that guy Gus nuts or what?” asked Michael. “Golf Uniform November?”

  “Gun,” I said. “He said he’s got a G-U-N in his pocket.”

  Michael shook his head. “That doesn’t put my mind at ease.”

  I looked back up at the street. It seemed as if some of the urgency had gone out of the firefighters’ work.

  “Something isn’t right here,” I said quietly.

  Michael put his arm around me. “Oh, cara,” he said. “Nothing is right here. Absolutely nothing.”

  CHAPTER 36

  The kids were up by the time we got home, eating cereal and playing video games
, reveling in Saturday morning and a relaxation of the rules.

  Josh couldn’t be bothered to look up, but Zach threw himself at me in his usual still-in-love-with-Mommy greeting. I hugged him back and waved to Anya, who’d emerged from the kitchen as soon as she heard the front door. She looked puzzled and worried. I held onto Zach and watched Michael make a beeline for the kitchen. “Tell me there’s more coffee, Anya,” he said. “Please tell me it’s already made.”

  “It’s made,” she said. “In the thermos.”

  Zach suddenly let go of me and pushed away. “Mommy, you smell funny.” I brought my arm up to my nose and sniffed my jacket sleeve.

  “Yuck. You’re right, sweet pea. I smell like smoke. Dad and I got too close to a fire.”

  At that, Josh abandoned his game, and came to see what the excitement was all about. “Really? Anya said you guys went to a fire. I thought she meant a bonfire or something.”

  “Coffee, Maggie,” Michael called. “It’s poured.”

  I herded everybody into the kitchen, gratefully accepted a mug from Michael, and we all took our usual spots around the table. Both the boys and Anya were peering at us as if we were visitors from another planet.

  “So, here’s what happened,” said Michael. “You know that story Mom’s been working on? And how my students from Hastings were trying to help figure some things out about it?”

  “Josh remembers Krissy,” volunteered Zach. “He thought she was pretty.”