Solo Hand

by Bill Moody

  Strange was hardly the word I’d have chosen. “Has there been anything else? Any other contact?”

  “No,” Megan says. “We were going to ask you if you’d been contacted.”

  I shake my head and study the note. This was getting more bizarre all the time. “What if I don’t agree to this?” Being Lonnie’s bagman doesn’t appeal at all.

  “Why wouldn’t you?” Carlton says, breaking his silence for the first time since I arrived.

  “I don’t know. Are you going to pay?”

  “Of course we are,” Megan says a little too quickly for Carlton to answer. “Charlie Crisp called this morning and said whatever we agreed was fine with him.” Megan pauses dramatically. “We don’t want Lonnie’s career destroyed, do we, Evan?”

  Maybe I am being unfair to country music, but it might be a public service as far as Charlie Crisp was concerned. “No, of course not, but, well, this has kind of taken me by surprise.”

  “Good,” Megan says. “In the meantime we want you to make yourself available and investigate.”

  “Investigate what? This is pretty straightforward, isn’t it? You can’t go to the police, so what is there to investigate?”

  “Think about it, Evan. Whoever sent this note is someone who knows a great deal about all of us. We don’t know how much time we have, but it’s a safe bet the contact and demand for payment will be before the Music Awards show next week. This could do the most damage then.” Megan is all business now, calculating, planning strategy, plotting the future.

  “Whoever took these photos must have been at the party in Las Vegas, right? That includes all of you, I take it,” I say. Everyone nods but Carlton, who wouldn’t leave his office to go to Las Vegas for a mere party.

  “Does Crisp have any ideas?” I ask.

  Megan nods. “Yes, but he didn’t want to talk about them on the phone. He wants you to go up to Las Vegas and see him. He’s at the Frontier.”

  “What about being contacted?”

  “I think it’s safe to assume,” Megan says with her customary coolness, “that whoever sent the photos will have a way of keeping track of your movements.” She pauses again and regards the group. “There is one other thing.”

  I look up from the note. I’m sure I won’t like this any better than what I’ve already heard, but I’m wrong.

  “If you should come up with the photos,” Megan says, “get them back, negatives and all, Lonnie and Charlie are willing to pay you a ten-percent recovery fee.”

  Emerson looks at me and smiles. “That’s fifty grand each, man.”

  I don’t need Carlton’s calculator to figure that out. I pause and look around the group, then out to the pool. I can see Lonnie, sitting at a patio table, twirling the .38 like a gunfighter.

  A manager, a lawyer, and an accountant. All eyes are on me. “Okay, I have a couple of ideas, but I’d rather not say what just yet.” A collective sigh of relief wheezes from the group.

  “Fair enough,” Megan says. “Just keep us-me-apprised of your progress if there is any.” That means Megan has already decided there won’t be any progress and Lonnie will just be out a half a million dollars.

  “I’ll want to talk to all of you individually and I want to start with Lonnie. Understand, though, I’m not promising anything.”

  “You’re the right one for this, Evan,” Emerson says. “I know you can do it”

  I’d like to believe him, but• somehow I don’t share Emerson’s faith in me.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “C’mon, man, I got to feed my babies.” Lonnie says, leading me around to the side of the house.

  I’d left Megan, Emerson, and Carlton inside to continue planning their strategy. And, I suspect, if Megan has her way, figure a way to cut me out of the picture as soon as possible.

  Lonnie’s babies are two Dobermans the size of ponies named Miles and Bird. He keeps them in a run alongside the house, but, as one burglar has discovered, they roam about freely at night. I’ve always gotten along well with dogs, but these two only have eyes for Lonnie.

  I watch him scoop half a barrel of dry dog food into huge dishes. Both dogs eye me suspiciously. Even though I’d been around them a lot while I was working with Lonnie, now it’s as if they know I’m no longer part of the fold. Lonnie dumps the food in their dishes, talks to them soothingly, then shuts the gate on the pen.

  We walk over to the pool. It’s Olympic-size, and on late-summer, early-fall evenings, it’s inviting even without the fiberglass windbreaks on the valley side. The view of the valley below is a patchwork of winking lights.

  Lonnie strips down to a swimsuit, dives in, and does a few fast laps. He’d been quite an athlete at Centennial High School, and he’s still in good shape. He climbs out of the pool, pulls a hooded terry-cloth robe around him, and joins me at the wooden table poolside. T.J. appears on cue with a couple of beers, winks at me, and leaves.

  “So how you like it, bein’ involved with a blackmailer?” Lonnie asks. He leans back in his chair, eyes closed, his head toward the sky. There’s a slight smile on his lips. It’s slight, but the fear is still in his voice. I begin to understand why he wants me on this whether the blackmailer had insisted or not.

  The relationship between a singer and conductor is like a marriage. You do more than just play the piano and conduct the band. You become the singer’s musical and emotional crutch, his shoulder to lean on, his best friend, critic, collaborator, and conscience. Sometimes you know the song better than the singer. After a while, you know the best tempo, the best key for him, and you don’t hold back if he isn’t making it. If he’s singing out of tune, you should say so. Especially with a singer like Lonnie Cole.

  He knows nothing about music really. He was simply born with a gift, an extraordinary voice. He has only to open his mouth and musical sounds pour out. He doesn’t know how or why that happens, and that too feeds his insecurity. It’s been a long climb from Central Avenue, the poor existence in Watts, to a hilltop mansion in Encino. It’s clear nothing or nobody is going to take this all away from Lonnie Cole without a fight.

  “You got any ideas, Lonnie?”

  He shakes his head and stares out over the valley. He’s been betrayed and hurt, and it shows. “I don’t know, man. Somebody is always trying to get your bread, run deals, cheat you on royalties, some way.” He sits up and grips my arm tightly. “I just want to know who. I want those pictures, man, even if I got to pay for them. And then, once I get ’em, somebody else is going to pay.”

  I nod. “Well, the only thing I can do is try and check out who was at the party, wait to be contacted. I still don’t know why I was picked. Do you?”

  “No,” he answers quickly.

  “What about Charlie Crisp?”

  Lonnie shrugs and takes a pull on his beer. “Nice cat, but he don’t seem too worried. He thinks it might just be someone pullin’ our coattails.”

  I study Lonnie, looking for the telltale signs. He doesn’t believe for a minute it’s a crank. Any more than I do.

  “You gonna see him?” Lonnie asks.

  “Yeah, Megan says he’s at the Frontier in Las Vegas.” I light a cigarette and look out over the valley. “How many musicians did you take with you for the recording session?”

  “Same guys—Buster, Ronnie, and Gordon Carr. You gotta quit those things,” Lonnie says, waving at the smoke.

  Buster Browne and Ronnie Simon I know. No better bass and drums in L.A. Carr, however, is a new name. An Englishman, my replacement, but someone I know only by reputation.

  “How’s he working out?”

  Lonnie smiles. “He’s good, man, real good.” I nod and look away. “But you were better,” Lonnie adds.

  He stands up and belts his robe. “C’mon in the house. I got a list I made of people I can remember were at the session and the party.”

  We go in a side entrance to Lonnie’s den-office. The walls are lined with books he’ll never read, and framed gold and platinum records.
The hits of Lonnie Cole. He rummages around a huge oak desk and finally comes up with a typewritten list. “Here you go,” he says, handing me the list. “That’s all I can think of.”

  I scan it quickly. Who typed this? I wonder. Sharon? The list includes musicians, friends, record company types. It’s not very long or very informative. “What’s this?” I pick up a slim volume, expensively bound in leather.

  Lonnie tilts back in his chair. “You ain’t gonna believe that, man. That’s Charlie’s poetry.”

  “Poetry? You mean the lyrics to his songs?” Charlie Crisp has written his share of country songs, but I tend to agree with the theory that there is really only one country song. Most of them deal with prison, ex-wives, trucks, dogs, and drinking. Variations on these themes are sung by all singers who claim roots in Nashville or Mussel Shoals.

  “No, man, I mean poetry. Take a look at that shit,” Lonnie says. “Take it with you. He gave it to me at the party, real secret-like. Don’t want no one to know, I guess.”

  Charlie Crisp a poet. This I have to see. “I’ll return it.”

  “Keep it. I don’t want it,” Lonnie says. I flip through the pages. A vanity press? There must be two dozen poems. I fold the list Lonnie has given me and put it inside the book.

  “Okay if I go out the side door? I’ve seen enough of Megan today.”

  “You gonna see more if we don’t get those photos back,” Lonnie says.

  “Whatta you mean we, black man?” I love it. Lonnie is going to sit back and wait like everyone else while the star detective solves the case.

  “Keep in touch, man,” Lonnie says, laughing.

  I leave him there with his gold records, contemplating his potential downfall, and make my way down the hall, past T.J.’s room. I can hear the TV blasting inside. I tap on the door and peek inside.

  T.J. is sitting on the edge of the bed, rubbing his knee. He looks up as I come in. “Rams ain’t shit, man. They got no defense.” I watch the screen for a minute, but T.J.’s movements catch my eye. His whole body tenses as the ball is snapped. When the quarterback is sacked, T.J. punches the air, then goes back to rubbing his knee. How much does he miss the game? About as much as I miss playing piano?

  Frank Gifford calls a time-out and the screen dissolves to a commercial. T.J. relaxes. “You on the case, man?”

  I nod and smile. “No choice. The blackmailer has my name on the list.”

  “Get ’em, man. Lonnie is really down on this. How’s the hand?”

  I dig into my coat pocket for the rubber ball and squeeze. T.J. smiles approvingly. “Stick with it, man.” I start to say goodbye when the game resumes. T.J. is once again mesmerized by the play-by-play.

  I make it to my car without seeing Megan. Emerson’s and Carlton’s cars are gone, but Sharon is pacing around near mine.

  “I’m sorry, Evan,” she begins.

  “You could have told me.” I lean on the car and light a cigarette, acutely conscious of her presence, the jasmine or apple fragrance she is wearing.

  “Would it have changed anything?”

  “No, I guess not. I probably would have come anyway.”

  “That’s what Lonnie said. Am I forgiven, then?”

  “For this? Yeah, I guess so.” She hands me the envelope with the photos. Now I will need them.

  I get in my car and roll down the window. “Sharon, do me a favor. If anything else breaks on this let me know, okay? And no more surprises.”

  She nods. “I was just wondering, though,” she says. “If you don’t know about being a detective, where did you come up with that two hundred dollars a day and expenses so fast?”

  I start the car and give her my best flip look. “Hey, I watch The Rockford Files.”

  Being a fan of The Rockford Files is one thing; being a real detective is quite another. I know a real detective, Lieutenant Danny Cooper of the Santa Monica Police. I also know exactly what he’ll have to say about me playing detective. I have that to ponder as well as my flip remarks to Sharon and the Cole brain trust while I negotiate the evening traffic on the San Diego Freeway. I’ve committed myself to something far beyond flip remarks.

  Coop is an old army buddy from my brief stint in Saigon. Actually, we go all the way back to high school. I can’t think of anyone more unlikely to end up wearing a badge than Coop. It was minor stuff in high school—joyriding, drinking-but he was always in trouble as I recall. He surprised us all. In Saigon, while I was running communications, Coop was running in drunken GIs on R&R for the Military Police.

  When we were discharged, Coop followed the same career path and went through the whole process: squad cars, motorcycles, helicopters, and finally, robbery-homicide and detective. We see each other rarely. I’d gotten him tickets to a couple of concerts, but he wasn’t a jazz fan. Coop was a cop and I was a piano player. Our paths didn’t often cross.

  On impulse, I get off the freeway on Sunset and drive down to the beach. The twisting road keeps my mind on driving, but thoughts of the photos on the seat beside me keep drifting in and out. How am I going to investigate? What am I going to investigate? Except for the insurance claim, the only investigating I’ve done is for some research papers in a college music-history class. It was similar, I guess. Looking for clues, facts, following leads, and putting it all together in some coherent form. But a research paper is not a blackmail case.

  When I get home, the Occupado sign is still on Cindy’s door. She probably thinks I haven’t seen it. I go in, check the answering machine, find the red light blinking, and rewind the tape while I grab a beer.

  The first message is from Tim Shaw at Blue Note, wanting to know where the Chick Corea article is and if I’m going to finish it. I almost drop my beer when I hear the second one.

  “Good evening, Mr. Horne. I trust by now you have decided to accept the terms of the agreement and understand the gravity of the situation. Let me caution you. Do not fail to adhere to the terms as outlined. You will be contacted later with further instructions.”

  I run the tape back several times, but I can’t do anything about the voice. It sounds like one of those computer-generated things salespeople use. But just in case, I take the cassette out of the machine and replace it with a new one. If I ever hear that voice again I want something to compare it with.

  I don’t at all like the feeling listening to that tape brings. It’s almost as if the caller had been at the meeting at Lonnie’s house. One of the Cole brain trust? It’s a possibility, I suppose, but not a very likely one. The voice certainly didn’t belong to any of them, and it was in all their best interests to get the photos back rather than blackmail Lonnie. If Lonnie goes down, they go with him. Still, one of them could, I suppose, have a partner, and the voice could be the partner’s.

  I finish my beer and think about that for a while. I try to crush the aluminum can but only make some slight dents. Still, that’s progress, I tell myself. I decide against another and get out the photos for another look.

  I study them closely under some better light, trying to comprehend that I’m looking at two photos worth half a million dollars each to someone. I can’t. All I see are the photos—Lonnie Cole and Charlie Crisp together, which in any other context might just be a comical pose. A couple of buddies screwing around, clowning for the camera. But in the wrong hands, the media, they are not funny at all. I begin to realize how much is riding on all of this.

  Maybe if I know what I’m looking for or can tell what kind of film or camera has been used that would be a—yeah, I guess clue is the word I’m looking for. That would take an expert, though, someone who could be trusted or would at least accept whatever story I come up with to explain the photos. I suddenly think I know exactly who can do that, but it will have to wait until tomorrow.

  I put the photos in the sleeve of a Miles Davis album, thinking how amused Miles would be by the whole thing. He never liked Lonnie much and had, according to Lonnie, told him so once backstage at a concert. But you never know with Mil
es. Lonnie never got over it; I think that was why he named one of the dogs Miles.

  I decide on a long, hot shower, a steam bath for my brain. I get out, put on a bulky robe, and just get it tied when the doorbell rings. It is Cindy, complete with a bottle of wine and two glasses.

  “You’ve been ignoring me, Evan,” she says, brushing past me with a slight smile. She puts the glasses on the coffee table, pours us each a glass, sits down on the couch, and pats a place beside her.

  Cindy can still pass for a cheerleader. Even under the caftan thing she wears, her body is still round and soft and full. The mane of blond hair, the scrubbed face that has barely aged, the pert smile all make Cindy a luscious fantasy.

  Occasionally, her green eyes show a darker quality. Something has happened to her somewhere along the way, something she hadn’t planned on. She’s never mentioned it, but I figure someday she will want to talk about it. I’ll be there when she does.

  I join her on the couch and take a sip of the wine. It’s a dry red, Cindy’s favorite since she’s discovered Spanish wine and converted me from supermarket Chablis.

  “So how are the friendly skies?”

  Cindy wrinkles her nose. “Awful. Too friendly. These aging yuppie types are so boring.” She rolls her eyes and sighs and sips her wine. “Mmm… that’s good.”

  “No potential matrimonial candidates,” I tease, and duck when she hits me with a couch cushion. It’s a long-standing joke between us that Cindy is a stewardess simply to snare a husband.

  “I want to hear about what you’ve been doing, Evan. I’ve made a wonderful salad and I have two cute little fillets just ready for the broiler.” She sips at her wine and smiles at me over the rim of the glass.

  Only Cindy would describe a fillet as cute. She’s already at the door before I can protest, even if I was going to.

  “You bring the wine and don’t bother changing,” she says. “The robe is fine.”

  I smile at her. “I’ll be right over,” I say.

  Hey, I’m human and a guy’s gotta eat, right?