False Negative (Hard Case Crime)

by Joseph Koenig

  Armstrong was happily married, not known to have a wandering eye. The audience howled as he ogled the dancers, brought his horn to his lips, and lowered it to mop his face with a handkerchief. Jordan didn’t think it was funny. The new girl was a klutz. Armstrong, trying to deflect attention to himself, continued to mug while she stumbled. Suddenly he launched into the cadenza, stringing the notes into gorgeous arpeggios fired off like balls of light from a Roman candle, limpid and pure. His sidemen put down their instruments and listened. In his early fifties Armstrong could play as well as ever, a casual genius when an emergency called for it.

  The end of the solo was lost in wild clapping. Jordan, snapping his fingers, saw Armstrong frown. If you dig my playing, he seemed to say, don’t be coy. Jordan banged his bottle against the table, but Armstrong was reaching for a high note and couldn’t be bothered.

  The piano took the next solo, then the trombone. The rhythm section kicked in, and when it was the trumpet’s turn again Armstrong had lost interest. Thirty years on the road, Jordan figured, gave him the right to be sloppy. The audience fidgeted, drank more, listened less. The All-Stars closed with “Sleepy Time Down South,” Armstrong mugging shamelessly for the hell of it. As the crowd drifted to the exits, Jordan followed the musicians backstage.

  A bouncer with twin anchors on his forearms got in his way. “Band members only, and their families,” he said. “Which are you?”

  Jordan turned his pockets inside out for a joint he’d been carrying around since catching Thelonious Monk in Philadelphia. Armstrong was a heavy pot smoker who’d been busted once or twice on minor drug beefs and didn’t let a day go by without spending a large part of it stoned. Jordan held out the reefer like a badge. “I’m with Mary Jane,” he said, “to see Satchmo.”

  The bouncer, toying with a lighter, made Jordan feel like an undercover cop in a whorehouse trying to get the goods without taking off his pants. He heard giggling behind a tattered curtain. When finally he was allowed behind it, he looked in on the dancers freshening their makeup in a dressing room the size of a closet. Next door the All-Stars were playing gin rummy for a penny a point as they passed around a short dog bottle. There was a third door in the corridor. Jordan rapped on it, and a familiar voice growled, “Ain’t no need to knock.”

  Louis Armstrong, in white socks, patent leather shoes, boxer shorts, and thick glasses, flashed a grin that came from a lifetime of practice. Jordan accepted it as a meaningless souvenir.

  “You doing here, boy?” Armstrong said. “Got two more sets to play.”

  The skirl of the clarinet came through the wall, the reed man polishing a riff he’d botched earlier. Armstrong peeled off his shirt. He was soft, his big barrel chest swollen from self-indulgence. Jordan was surprised to notice a star of David on a chain around his neck. He folded his trousers over the back of a chair, and sat down careful not to crease them. Jordan was lighting the joint when Armstrong caught his wrist.

  “Feeblest reefer I ever seen.”

  Several hand-rolled cigarettes came out of his trumpet case as fat as White Owl cigars. He lit up, took the first hit for himself, and then the second, handing over a soggy joint with a grin that stretched the thick callus on his lip till Jordan thought it would tear apart.

  “Got something you want to tell Pops ’bout his music, or just stopped by to get ripped on his dope?”

  Jordan said, “Big fan—”

  “I see you are, son. Still didn’t say which.”

  “Don’t get me started. I’m effusive, I mean enthusiastic about both subjects.”

  “Nothin’ wrong with ’ffusive,” Armstrong said. “It’s in Mr. Webster’s book.”

  Jordan’s cheeks were hot. He blamed it on the marijuana. He needed to explain that he was trying to cut down on two-dollar words even around people who weren’t Southern Negroes. A portable typewriter stood beside its carrying case at the edge of the dressing table. Paper was curled around the platen, and he tried to steal a peek at a couple of paragraphs typed with a red ribbon.

  “You a writer?” Armstrong said. “Or natural snoop? Not from the newspaper. Been years since they sent anybody down to talk to me.”

  “Some of each,” Jordan said.

  “Here to write ’bout Pops?”

  Jordan shook his head.

  “Won’t be offended, I don’t believe you?”

  “I might be,” Jordan said.

  “Won’t be offended, I don’t give a damn? People writing ’bout me most of this century, but I know more about me’n they do. Keeping a diary longer’n most of ’em been on earth. Sure you don’t want to talk ’bout music?”

  Jordan started to correct him, but caught himself. Louis Armstrong wanted to talk jazz to him, and he was going to shut him up? Was his brain useless? Maybe there was a story for him, and he could sell it to Downbeat, and wouldn’t that be a hoot?

  “The music got no future,” Armstrong said. “New generation making what they call bebop, lay it on them. That Miles Davis, the Mingus boy, want to rile you. Ain’t it proof they artists, give you a headache. Few years down the road won’t be nobody paying ’ttention to jazz ’cept old folks like you and me, and how many records do we all buy? How many bands we keep on the road? But that ain’t what brings you here, so what does?”

  “One of your dancers,” Jordan said.

  Armstrong took the last hit, and stubbed out the roach. “Funning with me, boy? Nobody come by ’bout my dancers, ’less you mean you want one for yourself.”

  “No, just to talk.”

  “Ain’t what to discuss. I can’t keep a girl long enough she learn the steps. They spend a few weeks with the band, go their own way when I move on to the next date. I hire new girls where I find ’em. Want to see good dancing, catch Swan Lake. Like to look at pretty brownskin gals in short pants, you at the right address. Was less bother when I had the orchestra. Folks came to hear us play, didn’t need girls shaking their what-have-you to fill seats.”

  Jordan nodded woozily.

  “One in particular you here ’bout? All of them? Two out of the three? What?”

  “Just the one.”

  “Which?”

  “She wasn’t onstage tonight,” Jordan said. “Etta Lee Wyatt.”

  Armstrong took a fresh joint from the trumpet case, lit up, and looked skeptical when Jordan refused it. Then he turned his back, and Jordan watched in the mirror as he used a toenail clipper to trim the callus on his lip. Armstrong began pruning his lip like it was a hedge, cutting back the mass of dead skin at the edges, and thinning it across the top. The callus was part of his embouchure, the product of decades of contact with the trumpet mouthpiece, an important element contributing to his sound.

  “Did you know her well?” Jordan asked him.

  “Persistent cuss, ain’t you? Not a cop. Cop wouldn’t be in the confused state you in. Why an amateur snoop interested in my dancer?”

  “You know she went missing.”

  “Lot of girls missing in action,” Armstrong said. “The way it is, that’s all.”

  “This one may be different.”

  “Ain’t two cents’ difference ’tween any of ’em. Colored girls in these towns got one kind of future—as a domestic. Band come to play, they want to run off with it, same reason little boys run off with the circus. Look like fun, pay better’n what they got here. They strut their stuff, and we hire the frisky ones, give ’em a paycheck till the excitement wear off and they take a powder. Some of ’em, they sleep ’round, figure somebody going to marry ’em, give ’em a comfortable life. Wishful thinking. Jazzman don’t want a girl hanging on him like an anchor. The fellas sleep with ’em, and leave ’em for the next band come through town. Why you making a big deal out of a little deal?”

  “Something bad might have happened to her,” Jordan said.

  “Nothing good happened,” Armstrong said. “Never does. You mean by bad?”

  “She may have been killed.”

  “Gonna say why?”
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  “Another girl was murdered on the beach here several weeks ago. Etta Wyatt was going to the beach when she disappeared.”

  “Colored girl, the other one?”

  Jordan shook his head.

  “Ain’t no connection, ’cept they girls.”

  “The other girl was ambitious, out to make a name for herself. I think Etta Lee was, too. They had more in common than you might suspect.”

  “Ambitious women got one thing in common,” Armstrong looked at Jordan to say that it wasn’t necessary to spell it out, and seemed to change his mind. “Handful of trouble for any man fool enough to want ’em.”

  “Who wanted Etta Lee?”

  “Seen what she looked like, boy? How she moved? Asking the wrong question.”

  “What’s the right one?”

  “Who didn’t? Damn—!”

  Blood on Armstrong’s lip was running into a corner of his mouth. Jordan watched him pluck tissues out of a box, ball them against the wound.

  “I’m not looking to dig up dirt on your musicians,” Jordan said to him. “But shining a light on a mess is the best disinfectant.”

  “Be shining a light on yourself, too,” Armstrong said. “You want disinfecting, or just the bright light?”

  “It’s what writers do—”

  “Never cleaned up none of mine—Forget it, wasn’t you.” Armstrong put down the clipper. He sopped up more blood, and examined the tissue before throwing it away. Then he turned around. “Ambitious women, they ruthless. ’Nother word you’ll find in Mr. Webster’s. Don’t look scandalized, you didn’t know women use their loveliness in ways got nothing to do with love. Figure it give ’em power over men, when it’s the other way ’round. The gals that dance for me, too many of ’em like that, even the ones straight out of church. Etta was worse’n most. Was also my best dancer, only one wouldn’t be doing mankind better service on her back. Tried to straighten her out, but she wouldn’t listen, ’cept to the lying voice inside her head.”

  “Who was she involved with?”

  “Bad publicity’ll kill the All-Stars,” Armstrong said. “Promoters believe I’m transporting loose women, they’ll ask us to stay ‘way. I wouldn’t tell you who she was sleeping ’round with, even if I knew ’em all. Ones I do know, trust Pops they didn’t harm her. Been messing with showgirls twenty, thirty years. They ain’t provoked to murder in all that time, they never will.”

  “I don’t think they were. I’d like to talk to them, and hear what they can tell me about her.”

  “Weren’t even in town when that white woman got herself killed. What more do you need to hear?”

  “They might have gotten closer to Etta Wyatt than you know. She could have introduced them to her friends, or to someone who knows someone...”

  “Don’t come to me with suspicions. Colored band on the road got all the suspicions we can use, hang over us like a, you know, black cloud. Write ’bout suspicions, might as well be shouting out for people to invite us not to come to their city. Got proof, tell the police. Got suspicions, keep ’em under your hat. Son, playing for the public is my whole life. All I ever done. What I do three hundred nights a year. I ain’t gonna connive with you to put an end to it. Have to find out what happened on your own. Try bugging folks knew the white girl you know was murdered. Be better for everyone, you take that approach. It’s the best I got for you.”

  Pelfrey had been released from the hospital, but wasn’t home. Jordan tried him at the office. A woman with a central European accent handed over the phone after asking who he was.

  “Your secretary sounds like Dietrich,” Jordan said. “Lucky dog.”

  “Hitler’s big sister, you mean,” Pelfrey said. “Helga’s a visiting nurse who comes by twice a week to see if I’m alive, and to clean out my infections if I am.”

  “You’re getting back to your old self. That’s good.”

  “My old self didn’t whistle when he exhaled. His lungs hadn’t been nicked by a knife. I hope you’re better with the facts than you are sizing people up.”

  “You’re divorced, aren’t you?” Jordan said. “Not many close friends. Bet I’ve got that right.”

  “What’s that got to do with—?”

  “Nothing,” Jordan said. “Remember the body found on the sand here? There’s a new wrinkle that’s going to land the case on your cover. Another woman’s disappeared on her way to the beach. A dancer with one of the top name acts to come through Atlantic City.”

  “What name’s that?”

  “Louis Armstrong.”

  “Stop right there.”

  “Don’t you need to hear the rest?”

  “I know the rest. The missing dancer is colored—”

  “Sexy light-skinned girl, twenty-one or so. I can get all the pictures you want. Publicity shots of her and Armstrong together, and alone wearing next to nothing.”

  “I can’t use them.”

  “That’s nuts.”

  “I can’t use her,” Pelfrey said. “We don’t do Negro cases. If somebody kills Armstrong, that’s different. Unless the killer is Negro, too, and then we wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole.”

  “You’re passing up a terrific story.”

  “Murdered Negroes don’t sell magazines. The public doesn’t think they’re worth the two bits cover price.”

  “Enlighten them, why don’t you?”

  “Get off your high horse, Jordan. Real Detective isn’t in the business of changing anyone’s thinking. Our readers want confirmation that the world is a dangerous place for decent, narrow-minded white men and women like themselves. There’s fewer of them for each issue. They’re dying off, and we can’t replace them because their children would rather watch TV than read. I’m not going to chase them away faster by mocking their ideas. I’d like to live in their world, too, where Negroes kill mostly each other and the occasional white woman who sparks animal urges. I don’t know what your politics are. I’m a...at Christmas my conscience sends a check to the NAACP. One place I don’t care to see integrated, though, is a police morgue.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve never been tempted to use a case like that.”

  “Don’t tell me what not to tell you. What else have you got?”

  “A big, fat nothing.”

  “I have something that might interest you,” Pelfrey said.

  “Who’s the victim?”

  “I am,” Pelfrey said. “Till I find a new managing editor. Mine just quit. Ever do magazine work?”

  “I’ve sold a few pieces to the Sunday supplements.”

  “Editing’s the other side of the coin. It’s being an English teacher for disagreeable semi-literates who can’t draw a sober breath when you need to double-check a fact. Pays sixty-five a week with no chance of advancement unless the next crazy bastard with a knife does a better job of killing me.”

  “What about vacations and holidays?”

  “Why are you asking about a vacation? You haven’t started yet.”

  “Benefits?”

  “You get advance copies of the magazine every month. Plus all the pencils, paper clips, and typewriter ribbons you can steal. It’s a unique opportunity. What do you say?”

  “Try me again later,” Jordan said. “After I’ve cut another notch in my belt.”

  CHAPTER 6

  The drumming was primitive and heavy-handed, jazz gone insane. Jordan came awake straining to shut it out. He was in bed, pretty sure it was his own, mid-morning light at the edge of the blinds. What wasn’t clear was why someone was at his door so early. Thinking was hard. It was easier to find out who was there and send him away. The ice-cold floor was a crime against his toes. He stopped to look for socks.

  “I woke you, huh?” Pix Pixley said.

  “What do you think?”

  “It depends,” the photographer said, “on whether you usually greet visitors with nothing on but blue argyle.”

  Jordan went for his clothes. Pixley waited in the living room eyeing the typewri
ter buried under news clippings, the books and manuscripts in erratic piles on the floor. He inspected the furnishings and the paint job, and went to the window to take in the pallid view. “Just as I imagined,” he said.

  “Why were you imagining my place?”

  “It’s how I get a read on new people, by conjuring how they live. When I do their portrait, I know what props are essential to the shot.”

  “Is that why you woke me? To take my picture?”

  Pixley shook his head, a little rueful. “No, I want to show you someone else’s.”

  “It couldn’t have waited?”

  “I couldn’t. Why should I?”

  Jordan had ready answers. Some were winners, but it was too early to argue. “How’d you know I live here? I don’t give out my address, and I’m not in the phone book.”

  “You are—in the reverse directory. I’d be lost without it,” Pixley said, but didn’t say why.

  He shook a handful of pictures out of an envelope, and laid them flat beside the mess on the floor. Jordan turned a light on a gruesome rotogravure, black-and-white glossies of a young woman—a Negro, he thought at first, but maybe not—her sad, shamed face made grotesque by a beating. It was impossible to tell what she had looked like before. Both eyes were swollen shut. A cheekbone was several times the normal size. The other had been crushed and the pieces displaced, an earthquake under the skin. Jordan flipped over the pictures, and Pixley said, “Looking for a police photographer’s stamp?”

  “There’s no identifying mark.”

  “They’re copies.”

  “Where’d you get them?”

  “You have your contacts. I have mine. For all we know they’re the same.” Pixley laughed a little boy’s mischievous laugh. “You know I won’t give them up.”

  “Okay, who am I looking at?”

  “Name’s Carlotta Abigail Bianchi, 23-years-old, formerly of Erie, Pennsylvania, most recently of the Bronx, Carla to her friends, Francesca to diners at the Mermaid Room in the Park Sheraton Hotel, where she’s a waitress.”