by Bill Moody
“Are you saying this is Clifford Brown’s trumpet? This is unbelievable,” I say, looking from Ken to Cross. I don’t know if it’s really Brownie’s horn. I’m certainly no expert on that, and I don’t know if his initials were engraved on his horns, although I remember a story, about him picking up some new ones before his last gig.
Ken can’t help but smile as he removes the case and confers again with Cross, then comes back over to stand by me.
“Would you excuse us for a few minutes, Mr. Horne? We have something to discuss briefly, something concerning your fee, if you don’t mind. Then we’ll take you back to your car.”
“The fee? I thought that was decided on already. My friend—”
Ken smiles reassuringly. “Nothing to worry about. We’re talking about a bonus. We’re not easily fooled, Mr. Horne, and we don’t think you are either. If in fact these tapes—and the horn—are indeed genuine, we would naturally want to reward you for your expert opinion. At the least your fee would be doubled. Now, if you will come with me, please?”
I’m not happy about this part, but I can see at least from Ken’s expression—I still haven’t seen Cross clearly—that they’re not kidding.
I suddenly flash on them not letting me go, keeping me here until they make a deal, something I hadn’t thought about because I guess I really didn’t expect these tapes to be the real thing. From their point of view, I could be a liability now, but I reason that Ace must have vouched for my integrity. Still, something tells me I should just leave now. I never did listen to myself well enough.
Ken leads me off to another room, adjacent to the tape room. “We won’t be long.” He crosses the room and turns on a small TV.
He shuts the door behind him. I sit down, staring absently at the television, amazed at the music I’ve just heard. A few more minutes pass before I look at my watch. I get up and roam around the room restlessly, wondering what’s taking so long. I’m ready to get out of here, go back to Ace’s, and crash.
Over the sound of the TV, I hear voices from the other room. Ken and Cross and someone else I don’t recognize. The driver? I turn the sound down on the TV and listen at the door. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but one voice is louder than the others and it’s clear they’re arguing about something.
“Listen!” one of them shouts. Cross? Then one of the tapes begins playing, much louder than before. All the voices get jumbled and lost in the music, then silence except for the tape. I try the door. It’s locked. Then, two other sounds, clearly audible: a shout and some kind of banging noise on the floor.
And more sounds: too much like gunshots.
I reach for the doorknob and twist. “Hey, what’s going on?” I rattle the door, then hear the lock click, and suddenly the door crashes back on me, knocking me down. I turn and glimpse a face just as something cracks down on my head. I’m not out entirely, but there are points of light before my eyes as I get to my hands and knees. When I touch my head I feel blood, and from somewhere in the distance I hear a car start and drive off.
I get to my feet slowly, feeling a little dizzy. I go in the other room, heart pounding, adrenaline pumping. The Clifford Brown tape is still playing full-blast. Ken is sprawled on the floor, his arms spread out, his white shirt soaked crimson, and his glasses askew on his head. I check for a pulse and hear him moan slightly.
“Hang on, I’ll call 911.”
Now what? I look around for a phone, but there’s not one down here. I run upstairs, only now aware of the size of this house. At the top of the stairs there’s a small table with a phone on it. I grab for it, hit the three buttons.
“Emergency services,” a female voice says.
“I need help, and an ambulance. A man’s been shot.”
“Is he still conscious?”
“What? Yes, he was a minute ago.”
“What is your name, sir?” Same calm voice.
“There’s no time for this. He’s hurt bad.”
“Where are you, please?”
I suddenly realize I have no idea, and there’s no number on the phone. “Hang on.”
I drop the phone and run out the front door. The yard is bathed in light, surrounded by white wrought-iron fencing. I look above the door, on the gate, but I can’t see any numbers. Doesn’t matter, I don’t know the street. I throw open the gate. We’re two houses from the corner. I run down and check the street signs, but it looks like I’m in some kind of compound, one of those walled housing estates. I can see a sign, Rancho Bonito, lit on a white wall that opens into the street.
I sprint back to the house and grab the phone. “Rancho Bonito, I think west of Decatur.”
“We’re responding now,” the voice says.
I slam down the phone and rush back down the stairs two at a time. Ken hasn’t moved. I check his pulse again. Nothing. The music is still playing. I go to the tape player, press the button, and glance around for the other tape box, but it’s gone. My foot bangs into the trumpet case in front of one of the speakers, right where Ken had put it after showing it to me.
For a moment I blank. I just have my hand on it when I hear a car skid to a stop outside. There was no siren, but I think I know who it is and why he’s back.
I grab the trumpet case and duck back into the room I was in before. No place to hide here, but there’s a window high up on the wall. I get it open, knock out the screen with the trumpet case. I throw the case out, drag a chair over, boost myself up, and crawl through the window. I’m on the side of the house, near a three-car garage. Still carrying the case, I run for the back of the house.
Seconds later, I freeze. Sirens, and they’re getting louder.
Somebody else has heard them too. I hear a car start and roar off, then the sirens are louder and I see the glow of spinning red-and-blue lights. Above me, the drone of a helicopter, its spotlight sweeping toward the house.
Why, I don’t know, but I drop the trumpet case behind a hedge and walk toward the front of the house. Three black-and-whites with lights flashing are near the gate. “Over here,” I yell, waving my arms over my head.
Two cops approach cautiously with drawn guns. The others crouch by their units.
“Put your hands where we can see them,” one of the cops yells. Three flashlights blind me.
“I’m the one who called,” I say, raising my hands.
“Down on the ground. Do it now!”
I stretch out on the grass, and seconds later I’m on my knees and handcuffed.
Another car skids to a stop, and a man in jeans and a windbreaker walks over.
“What have we got here?” The voice is all too familiar. A few seconds later I’m looking at Detective John Trask, Las Vegas Metro Homicide.
CHAPTER FOUR
“What the fuck are you doing here?” John Trask doesn’t look as if he’s at all happy to see me back in Las Vegas.
“It’s a long story,” I say. My head is throbbing now. “There’s a guy downstairs who’s been shot.”
“Check it out,” Trask says to one of the uniformed cops, “and take the cuffs off him.”
The paramedic truck has also arrived, and suddenly this quiet residential neighborhood is teeming with people and cars. Ken’s neighbors, with the security of police now on the scene, have decided it’s safe to venture out to see what’s going on. One of the uniformed cops is putting up yellow crime-scene tape around the perimeter of the house; another is telling everyone to go back to bed.
“There’s nothing to see here,” he says. Of course—that’s why there are three police cars with lights flashing, an ambulance, and at least one plainclothes detective among the officers milling around in the front yard.
As the paramedics rush past us, Trask says, “I hope you didn’t touch anything.”
“Just the phone,” I say. “I need to sit down.” I realize I’ve been running on adrenaline, and I’m coming down fast.
The paramedics are back up quickly. “What have we got?” Trask asks them.
“How about him?” the other one says, nodding toward me as he notices the blood on my forehead.
“Yeah, check him out.”
The medic kneels beside me. His black nameplate says Mike Daniels. He flips open a metal case and adds to the porch light with his own flash, shining it on top of my head. “Must have hit you pretty hard.”
He dresses the wound with something that stings, but is very cool. He adds a soft bandage and tape. “You’ll be okay. Any dizziness?” He shines the flash in my eyes.
“Not now.”
“Do you want to go to the hospital?”
“No, I’m fine. I need to stay here.”
“Okay. I’ll need you to sign a release.” He folds up his case and heads for his truck as Trask comes back.
“I need you to come with me,” Trask says.
I feel drained now. Staying up half the night, being hit on the head, and having virtually witnessed a murder have left me bone-tired and slightly unsteady on my feet. I follow Trask back downstairs.
There are two uniformed cops near Ken’s body. “Just wait right here,” Trask says. I stare at Ken while someone takes flash pictures and Trask calls for the forensics team on his cell phone. Trask has me sit down on the couch; now it seems hours ago that I was just listening to music here.
“Tell me what you did here, and if you touched anything besides the phone upstairs.”
I look around the room. “I don’t know. This table, the Coke can.” I glance at the tape deck. “The stop button. The tape was playing when I came out of the other room.” I run everything down from the time I arrived.
“You were brought here blindfolded?” Trask is incredulous. “That’s going to help a lot on the other guy’s car.”
“I know, it sounds silly.”
“Silly?” Trask says, looking at Ken’s body. “Does that look silly to you?”
I explain the rest, but Trask wants to hear it from the beginning. “Can we go upstairs?” I ask, wanting to get as far away from Ken as possible.
We go back up to the sparsely furnished living room-dining area, just off the main hall, and sit down at a large oak table. “Now, let’s start again. Why are you here?” Trask asks. He flips open a notebook and begins to write.
I go over it all from Ace’s first phone call Sunday morning, leaving out nothing except the trumpet case, which I assume is still outside behind the hedge. Trask’s eyebrows go up when I mention Ace’s name.
“Professor Buffington. Great. So these guys are record collectors? Jesus.”
“Yeah. I was supposed to verify some tapes as being genuine.”
“And did you?”
“Yeah, well, I think so. That’s when they made me wait in the other room.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. They said it had something to do with my fee.”
“Your fee? You do this professionally? I thought you were a piano player.”
“I am—I mean I was—I’m not playing now. This was just a one-time thing.”
“Okay, we’ll come back to that,” Trask says. “You say they were arguing? Ken and the other guy? Could you hear what they were saying?”
“Not really. The door was shut, and the music was playing loudly.”
“And then you heard the shots.”
“Right.”
“And you didn’t get a good look at the guy who shot—Ken, what’s his last name?” Trask flips through the pages of his notebook
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know.” Trask sighs in frustration. “You let somebody bring you to his house blindfolded, and you don’t know his name. Is this his house?”
“I don’t know. Probably. Professor Buffington probably knows.”
“All right,” Trask says. “I’m going to want to talk to him too.”
“I’ll call him.”
“Do that,” Trask says. He flips his notebook closed. “Tell him to meet us down at Metro.”
Trask goes back downstairs, following the forensics crew, who have just arrived and are pulling on latex gloves. I dial Ace’s number, not surprised when he answers on the first ring.
“Evan? Where are you? I thought you’d be back hours ago.”
“Just listen, Ace. There’s been a problem. Ken is dead, he’s been shot. I’ll explain everything when I see you. Get right down to Metro. Lieutenant Trask wants to talk to you, and I hope you have some answers for me too.”
There’s a long pause. “Oh, my God. Ken dead. Of course, see you there.”
I hang up the phone as two guys carry Ken out in a black bag, Trask close behind. Through the front door I can see a small crowd behind the police tape; the first light of dawn is fighting for dominance with the street and house lights.
“All right, let’s go,” Trask says to me. “My crew will be a while down there.”
“Wait a minute—the tape.”
“What tape?” Trask stops, turns, and looks at me.
“On the machine. Clifford Brown. You should take it.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s what this is all about.”
Riding in the front seat with Trask, I take very careful notice of the area as we drive away, memorizing street names and counting turns. I realize we’re only about ten minutes from the Inn Zone. Working Las Vegas is up and clamoring for space on the clogged streets as Trask pulls onto the expressway for the ride downtown.
“Fuck this,” he says, attaching a red light to the roof and barreling up the on-ramp. Despite the emergency light, we get tied up briefly at the I-15 interchange. When we pull into the parking lot at Metro and go upstairs, Ace is already there, eyes red, looking disheveled in jeans and a sweatshirt and tennis shoes, as if he hasn’t slept much.
“Come with me,” Trask says, pointing at Ace. We walk past a maze of desks manned by detectives, who glance up quickly from typewriters and telephones, and back to one of the interview rooms. “Have a seat,” Trask says. “I’ll be back in a minute. You guys want some coffee?”
We both nod yes and sit down at a gray table in two folding metal chairs. As soon as the door is closed, Ace starts in.
“Evan, what happened? This is crazy. You say Ken was shot?”
“Ace, I hope you’ve got some answers. Trask is going to want to know everything, and so am I. Who were those guys?”
“Ken Perkins, he was the one who was shot. My God, he’s dead?” Ace doesn’t wait for my answer. “The other one, he’s the one who had the tapes, is from out of town, made the initial contact with Ken. I don’t know his name. Ken wouldn’t tell me, just that he was a major collector.” Ace looks at me. “You’ve got to believe me, Evan. I had no idea something like this—”
He doesn’t finish the sentence. The door opens, and Trask comes in, carrying two coffees in Styrofoam cups.
“All right, gentlemen, let’s get to it,” Trask says. Ace fills in the blanks in my story. Trask says little but makes a lot of notes while we sip coffee. Finally, he sits back in his chair and looks at us both.
“You’re telling me that this is all because somebody found some tapes that might be of a trumpet player who was killed in a car crash in 1956? What is it with you and dead musicians, Horne?”
“I guess that’s what we’re telling you,” Ace says, “although there was nothing suspicious about Clifford Brown’s death.”
“Well, we can all be grateful for that, can’t we?”
“The point is,” Ace says, “if they’re genuine, these tapes would be worth a great deal of money.”
Trask shakes his head. “No, the point is, someone has been murdered. Valuable to who?”
“Record companies, for one. You see Clifford Brown didn’t record very much during his short lifetime, and—”
“Save the aesthetics and music history for one of your classes, Professor,” Tra
sk says. He shuts his notebook. “I’ll need a full statement from both of you. Where are you staying, Horne?”
“With Ace.”
“Okay,” Trask says. “This is an ongoing murder investigation, Horne, so—you’ll excuse the cliché, Professor—don’t leave town.”
Ace nods and looks sick. We give our statements separately to a police stenographer, a middle-aged woman wearing glasses on a chain, who types up my account of the shooting as if it’s nothing more than a grocery list. It’s nearly ten before we get out of there.
Trask is nowhere to be seen as we walk out past the detectives. He’s probably back at the Perkins house. “I’ll take you to your car,” Ace says as we go back down to the parking lot and get in his red Jeep Cherokee. He drives in silence, his elbow on the window ledge, his hand cradling his forehead.
We go back north on I-15. In the distance, the mountains to the west are topped with snow, and heavy gray clouds hover around the peaks. Neither of us speaks until we get to the Inn Zone and pull around back, where the Camaro is still parked, apparently untouched.
“Evan,” Ace says, as I get out of the car. “I’m so sorry about this. If I’d known—”
“Let’s talk about it later, Ace.” I slam the door of the Jeep and head for my car. All I want to do is sleep.
As soon as it’s dark I’ve got a trumpet to pick up.
I wake up disoriented. It’s either early morning or twilight. The shadows that cast themselves around the patio doors are wide and dark. I look at my watch. Just after four. I sit up in bed suddenly, hoping for a moment I’ve dreamed everything, but when I switch on the radio and catch the tail end of a story about a shooting, I know I haven’t.
I stand in the shower for several minutes, thinking about what’s next. Call Natalie and Danny Cooper, maybe. I need some quick advice. I grab a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and a dark sweater out of my bag, pull on some socks and running shoes, and go to the main house to look for Ace.