by Bill Moody
“I didn’t lie about Greg. I couldn’t have known about the things I’ve told you if I hadn’t talked to him. You know that.”
“I don’t care about that. You lied to me. You figure out who’s next.”
“I’ll be waiting, Gillian. Come and get me.” I slam down the phone, feel my heart beating.
The phone rings again, but I don’t pick up. I hear my own voice on the answering machine, but there’s no music, no message. Gillian’s already got mine.
I finish my drink, listen to some more Keith Jarrett, then collapse into bed and sleep better than I have in days.
“This is how it lays out,” Wendell Cook says. “We’ve listened to the tape from last night’s call. You pushed her hard, so we think she’s going back on schedule.”
I’m in Cook’s office with Andie and Ted Rollins. Coop’s absence makes me miss him even more, but when I checked with the hospital this morning, they told me he was resting comfortably, whatever that means.
“Yeah, I went too far, I guess. I was thinking about Coop.”
“You should have thought of that before you called him. That was a real bozo move,” Rollins says. He gives Cook a challenging look, but Cook doesn’t react.
“The point is,” Cook says, “you might have done the right thing.”
“What do you mean?” I’d spent the morning regretting my actions, but at the time, all I could think about was Coop lying on the pier, bleeding to death.
“She’s angry,” Andie says; “this is when she’ll make a mistake. She’s been in control so far, but now that’s changed. She’s going to get careless. She would never have shown herself if it wasn’t for Greg’s horn. Now she says the bargain is off.” Andie looks at her notes. “‘You figure out who’s next.’ That’s what’s on the tape.”
“So, how does that help?”
“We think we know who it might be. We’ve been tracking concert appearances of any groups that fit her target profile.” Andie pauses and looks at Cook. “Do you know a group called Moontrane?”
“I’ve heard of them, can’t miss them on the radio sometimes.”
Andie looks at Cook, passing the ball to him. She looks uncomfortable. They both know something I don’t, and they’re about to break the news. “We’ve already alerted the leader,” Cook says, “given him the option to cancel without telling him too much, but he’s adamant about going on. So—” Cook scratches his head, then continues. “Gillian wants you too. If she’s thinking about Moontrane, you’ll be a bonus.”
“I don’t understand.”
“We want to put you with Moontrane for that concert. I’ll be there, so will Ted, a lot of our people. We’ll have it well covered if Gillian shows.”
“What does the leader say about this?”
Cook smiles. “Well, it seems he knows you, says he’d like to have you with the group, even under these circumstances.”
“He knows me? Who is it?”
“Guy named Nicky Drew.”
I don’t say anything for a moment, just look away. Playing with Moontrane will be bad enough, but Nicky Drew? My luck just keeps getting worse.
“You do know him, right?” Cook asks. “Is there some problem with that?”
“Yeah, I knew him. Look, I don’t know if this will work. Drew and I didn’t get along very well. We both went to Berklee, played in a group together there, and—”
“So what’s the problem?” Rollins wants to know. “Your friend is lying in the hospital, and that’s on your head.” He gets up and walks over to me, leans on the table.
I look up at him. “I don’t need you to remind me of that, Rollins.”
“Well, maybe you’d like it better if it came from Andie.”
I glance at her. She colors slightly but doesn’t look at Rollins. Cook looks at all of us, his gaze raking across all our faces and finally coming to rest on me.
“I don’t know what’s going on here,” he says, “but at this point, I don’t care either. We’ve got a lot to do before Saturday, so let’s get to it.” He looks at Andie now. “You work this out with Evan, set up a meeting with Nicky Drew, and we’ll go from there. Do I have your cooperation on this, Evan?”
“Yeah, sure. I’m in. Where is this concert?”
“Las Vegas.”
At the hospital Coop is sitting up, smiling, watching TV, talking to Natalie. There’s a frozen moment when she sees me walk in with Andie. The three of us stand still and look at each other. Only Coop is amused, and he does his best to break the tension.
“Well, you’re probably all wondering why I’ve called you here today,” he says.
Andie and Natalie lock eyes for a moment. “I’ll wait outside,” Andie says, and leaves before I can say anything.
I wait until the door is shut, then walk over to the bed. “How you doing, guy?” Except for the bandages and IV, Coop almost looks like his old self.
“Okay, sport, they’re treating me well. Got this little pain in my shoulder, though. Can’t think what that could be.”
“He was very lucky,” Natalie says. Her look is accusing. She holds it for a moment, then turns away.
Coop rolls his eyes. “Hey, Nat, thanks for coming by. I need to talk to this piano player for a minute, okay?”
“Sure,” Natalie says. “You get well fast.” She bends over the bed and kisses Coop.
She starts out of the room, but I stop her. “Can you wait for me a few minutes?”
“I don’t think so,” Natalie says. “You look pretty busy.” She goes out without looking back.
“Do I sense a little tension between you two?” Coop shifts in the bed and puts his right hand behind his head.
“Yeah, you could say that. Our little talk didn’t go so well the other night. She thinks we need some time apart.”
Coop raises his eyebrows. “Wish I could tell her the whole story. So, bring me up to date. What’s the next move?”
“Andie has been tracking the list of potential victims. A band called Moontrane is doing a concert in Las Vegas on Saturday. They look like the best bet. They want me to go undercover with the band, draw her out.”
“Not your kind of music?”
“It’s worse than that. The leader is a jerk I knew in school.”
Coop shakes his head. “You do pay some dues. Saturday, huh? Well, I should be out of here by then. Haven’t been to Las Vegas in a while.” He sees me start to protest. “Don’t even think about it. I want to be in on this, even if it’s just to see how things come out. You think she’ll show?”
“Oh yeah, she’ll show. I pissed her off good.” I look at my watch. “Well, I have to go, Coop. Take care.”
“You too.”
In the hallway, I see Andie leaning against the wall, her arms crossed in front of her.
“Did Natalie come by here?”
“Yes, she did,” Andie says. The corners of her mouth turn up in a slight smile.
“She say anything?”
“She said, ‘He’s all yours.’”
On the drive out to Malibu, Andie reads from a press release about Nicky Drew and Moontrane. The rain has stopped as quickly as it came, and now the coastline looks like a postcard.
“There’s more to Nicky Drew and Moontrane than gold records,” Andie reads, “and his upcoming concert in Las Vegas is a good example. Drew, one of jazz’s premier artists, has rededicated himself to the music that’s brought him fame and wealth. ‘This one is going to be a gift for my true jazz fans,’ Drew said in a recent telephone interview. ‘We’re going to do more acoustic music. I’m going back to genuine roots for a more organic sound, the sax featured in its full glory.’” Andie looks over at me. “Should I go on?”
“You mean it gets worse?”
“Afraid so,” Andie says, continuing. “‘I truly feel this sound found me, and to prove it, I’m bringing in my old friend Evan Horne from my Berklee days, a really great piano guy, for the Las Vegas concert.’”
“An organic sound? Who
wrote that?”
“Drew did most of it. He insisted,” Andie says as we pass Malibu Pier. “Keep going, it’s past Zuma on Broad Beach Road.”
We ease up the incline past Pepperdine University on our right, the Pacific shimmering blue on the left. I roll down the window and breathe in the sea air.
“So tell me about this bad blood between you and Drew.”
I shrug. “Not much to tell, really. We had some classes together, played in a couple of groups. He was cocky, even then. Thought he was the next Cannonball Adderly. He organized a group, got some gigs around Boston, but got pissed at me because I wouldn’t play the electric piano. After that, we went our separate ways.”
Andie looks out the window as the road dips down nearer the ocean. “You never compromise, do you?”
“Is that so bad? Look, what I do has nothing to do with Nicky. He made his choice, I made mine. I couldn’t do what he does.”
We’re both silent for a while, until we reach the light at Trancas Canyon. “That’s Broad Beach over there,” Andie says, pointing to the left.
I turn off the coast highway onto the narrow beach road, past multimillion-dollar houses that from the rear look like nothing but carports and garages and mailboxes on pedestals.
“Slow down,” Andie says. “It’s right along here.” She checks the numbers and points. “There, that’s it.”
The house is all white, kind of art deco; it would look more appropriate in Miami Beach. I turn in, veer down the steep driveway, which curves to the left at the bottom of the incline, and park alongside a Dodge Viper and a Porsche.
I shut off the engine and grip the wheel. I’m not looking forward to this. We get out, walk to the huge, ornately carved door, and ring the bell.
Nicky Drew, in shorts and a designer sweatshirt with the sleeves cut off, comes to the door himself, a bottle of beer in one hand. With the other he brushes his long blond hair back on his head.
“Evan Horne.” He grins at me, and I know he’s going to enjoy this. “Man, you haven’t changed a bit.”
“Neither have you, Nicky.” We shake hands briefly, but his eyes are already on Andie.
“Please, tell me who this is.”
Andie goes official. She takes out the thin wallet and holds up her ID card. “Special Agent Andrea Lawrence, Mr. Drew. Can we come in?”
“Whoa,” Drew says. He grins at her and puts his hands over his head. “I didn’t do it, honest.” He winks at her and backs up. “Come on in.”
We walk down two steps into the living room. The opposite wall is nearly all glass, affording a spectacular view of the beach and ocean beyond. Drew waves us to an enormous white leather sofa that faces the window. He flops in a black leather recliner. He fiddles with a switch on the side till he’s almost horizontal.
“Hey, you guys want a beer or something?”
“Yeah, beer sounds good.”
“How about you?” Nicky asks Andie. “Do I have to call you Special Agent Lawrence?”
“Andrea will be fine. Just a Coke for me.”
“Oh, I don’t do coke, honest,” Nicky says, then laughs uproariously. When he recovers, he says, “Sorry, you mean the liquid kind.” He twists in his chair and yells toward the other room. “Hey, baby, bring my man Evan a beer, and a Coke for Special Agent Andrea.”
A few moments later a tall brunette, her hair tied back in a ponytail, wearing a bikini, floppy sandals, and an unbuttoned man’s denim shirt, comes in. She can’t be more than nineteen or twenty. She sets the beer and Coke on the glass coffee table in front of us and stares at Andie.
“Nicky told me you were coming,” she says. “Are you really in the FBI?”
“Yeah, that’s right, baby,” Nicky says. “Say hello to Evan Horne and Andrea Lawrence.”
“I’m Karen,” she says and shakes hands with both of us. “Nicky says you’re a great piano player and you’re going to do the Vegas thing with him.”
“I guess that’s true,” I say.
“Get out!” Karen says. She claps her hands together. “I’ve never been to Vegas. I can’t wait.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll see,” Nicky says. Karen doesn’t see him roll his eyes at me.
Andie scoots forward on the couch and takes a drink of her Coke. “Mr. Drew, Nicky, we need to talk.” She glances at Karen and smiles, then looks back at Nicky. It takes him a moment to get it.
“Oh, right. We got some business, baby,” he says to Karen. “Why don’t you go down to the beach and work on your tan?”
Karen pouts for about three seconds, then gets up. “It was nice meeting you both,” she says. Her nails are lacquered bright red. She wags one finger at Nicky. “I’ll talk to you later, Mister Moontrane.”
“Yeah, whatever, baby,” Nicky says, then watches her walk out of the room. “She’s one of the Laker cheerleaders,” he tells us. “Got courtside seats, Evan, right near Jack Nicholson. Have to join me sometime.”
“Mr. Drew,” Andie says, “I want to impress upon you how serious this is, the Las Vegas concert. We don’t want to interfere with your music, but we’re dealing with a very dangerous person, and the security arrangements are going to be very tight.”
Nicky glances at me, then back to Andie. “Hey, the FBI has my full cooperation, don’t worry. Long as we don’t have your guys standing around on the stage in black suits with earphones or anything like that.”
Andie allows herself a slight smile. “We thought we could have some people to help your road crew, have them dressed the same, help with unloading, setting up, that kind of thing.”
“Yeah, that could work,” Nicky says nodding. “No bullet-proof Plexiglas, though. My fans want to see me.”
Andie stares at Drew for a moment. “She doesn’t use a gun, Mr. Drew. She uses a knife of some kind. I’m sure you’ve read about the other victims.”
“Yeah, right, I did,” Nicky says. “Can’t believe it. Ty Rodman and Cochise, both gone.” He shakes his head. His pensive expression almost looks genuine, but he recovers quickly. “Course I’ll have my man, Evan here, right with me.”
“Evan is a decoy, Mr. Drew. Nothing more.”
Nicky starts to drink from his beer, then stops with the bottle in midair. “You really think this woman you think might be the killer is going to show?” There’s no fear in his eyes, but then Nicky Drew wasn’t on Santa Monica Pier with Gillian. To him it’s a news story, and he was far removed from it. This is some kind of extra excitement for him. I think he likes the idea of brushing up against danger.
“We hope so,” Andie says.
Nicky takes a long slug of his beer and turns to me. “Okay, then, I got a tape I need you to hear, man, so you have an idea of what we do. I don’t suppose you’re familiar with Moontrane, are you?”
“Not a note,” I say. Nicky nods and smiles and shakes his head. “Evan the purist. No, man, you haven’t changed at all.”
Andie stands up. “Well, I’ll leave you guys to it. I think I’ll walk down to the beach and talk to Karen.”
“Cool,” Nicky says. “Right through the sliding doors off the den. You’ll see her. C’mon, man,” he says to me. “Let’s hear some music.”
Nicky takes me down to a room on the lower level of the house. It’s jammed with recording equipment and wall shelves holding hundreds of CDs. There’s a small wet bar complete with a mini-refrigerator, and on the wall behind it, framed behind smoky glass, are Nicky’s CDs. A collection of photos of Nicky in action at concerts adorns the other wall. In one corner, two alto saxophones rest on stands.
“Another beer?” Nicky asks. He goes behind the bar and pulls one out for himself.
“No, thanks. Mind if I smoke?”
“No, just quit myself, but if you want a little toke—” He slides a round glass ashtray across the bar, the label from one of his CDs imprinted on its bottom. He opens his beer and leans on the bar. “So how have you been, man? Long time since Berklee.”
“Yes, it has been. You seem to be doin
g pretty well.”
“Your hand okay and all? I read about that. What a drag.”
“I’m fine, got a trio, new record contract with Quarter Tone Records.”
Nicky shakes his head. “Never heard of them. Small outfit, huh?”
“Very, but a lot of freedom to do what I want.”
“And what’s that?” Nicky almost smirks. “To keep chasing Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett?”
“That’s what I play, Nicky. Maybe someday I’ll catch them.”
“But why, man? Shit, let your hair grow a little more, get funky, and I could get you into some big bucks.” He gestures at me with the beer bottle in his hand. “See, you just don’t get it, man. Bebop is dead. Smooth is where it’s at. It’s on the radio, it’s in Tower Records. Hell, I’m doing a TV commercial next week. Most of the people who buy CDs don’t even know who Cannonball is, much less Bird.”
“All good reasons to keep bebop alive. That’s the trouble, too many of those people think jazz began with you and Kenny G and Ty Rodman and Cochise. You’re not playing jazz, Nicky, you’re playing at jazz.”
I hear my own words and suddenly realize how much I sound like Gillian.
“Yeah, well, wait till you see and hear that crowd in Las Vegas. You might change your tune.”
Both hands on the bar, I lean forward. Nicky backs up slightly, but the nervous smirk is still on his face. He covers it by brushing his fingers through his hair. “What?”
“You listen to me, Nicky. If it wasn’t for the FBI, I wouldn’t be within ten miles of you or Moontrane—and by the way, calling it that is an insult to Woody Shaw. Four people have died so far, and my friend got hurt badly the other night. Do you understand that? Four people. Now, if playing with you helps stop it, that’s what I’m going to do. That’s the only reason I’m here. Are we straight on that?”
Nicky’s face has gone ashen for a moment. “Yeah, sure.”
“Fine, let’s get to the music.” Nicky watches me as I crush out my cigarette in his CD ashtray.
“Whatever,” Nicky says. He goes to the sound system. “This is the final mix of my new one. I’ll do a couple of these Saturday. Mostly blues lines or some sexy ballads. All you have to do is play the chords for me.” He presses the play button, and we hear a voice say, “Blue You, take seven.”