“Surely he got some satisfaction out of his music. After he became a success.”
Earl shook his head slowly back and forth. “Didn’t matter who George met, who he hung out with. It was never enough. Never, never enough. No matter who he was with, he always ended up alone.”
“That’s a shame,” Ben said quietly. “Everyone should have someone.”
“All George had was his music. He gave it everythin’, and it gave him everythin’ back. Everythin’ it had, anyway. Which wasn’t enough.”
“Why did they accuse you of—”
“Of offin’ the Professor? Wrong place at the wrong time, son. Story of my life.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m going to need some details.”
Earl took a deep breath. “We were makin’ the rounds, playin’ a gig together. Little club not too far from here. I was havin’ a great run—I was in the zone, as they say, firin’ on all engines. I’d come up with a few new tunes that really worked wonders for me. I was gettin’ applause like I’d never heard before.”
“That sounds great.”
“Great for me, yes. For the Professor, no. He was a genius, son, but like most geniuses, he was selfish and insecure. When I started gettin’ popular, he saw it as a threat. And that led to trouble.”
“What happened?”
“George had been in brawls before, usually for the stupidest reasons. Sometimes I thought he wanted to be hurt, maybe even wanted to die. But he’d never picked one with me before. Not till that night, anyway.”
“He started a fight?”
“You got it. Right onstage. Hell, I didn’t want to squabble with the man. I didn’t like that scenario from the jump. But what could I do?”
“He started a fight—just because you were getting rave reviews?”
“Well … that wasn’t the only thing.”
Ben looked at him sternly. “Earl, if I’m going to represent you, you need to tell me everything.”
Earl’s lips thinned. “I ’spect you’ve guessed already. What else would we fight about? A woman.”
“Lily Campbell?”
“You are a smart fellow, ain’t you, Ben? Why didn’t I notice that before?” He grinned, then returned to his story. “Lily was a hot number on the club circuit. Considered very high-tone. An up-and-comer. George had been tryin’ to date her for years, and to everyone’s surprise, he finally had some success. It was never as serious as he liked to think it was, at least not to her. She was a good-time girl, with a wild streak the size of the Grand Canyon. She liked bein’ seen with the famed Professor Hoodoo, but not so much that she stopped messin’ around with some of the other boys. Includin’ me.”
“And George didn’t like that.”
“No, he didn’t care for that one little bit. ’Specially when he caught the two of us buck naked in the orchestra pit. He kept it pent up for a while, but for some reason, when he and I came out onstage that night, somethin’ happened. I dunno—maybe it was too much better livin’ through chemistry. It was like a trigger went off inside his brain. He just exploded.”
“There was a fight?”
“Like you never saw before. We were like prizefighters up there, trying to smash each other’s brains out. Right up where everyone could see. The other boys in the band tried to break us up, and next thing you knew, they were fightin’, too. Some of the audience joined in and—well, it was a right regular brawl. Cops had to come out to break the mess up. But they did break it up, and everyone cooled off, and we all went home. It was over. Or so I thought, anyway.”
“What happened next?”
“What happened was—the next morning, George Armstrong turned up burned to a crispy critter and dead as vaudeville. And about a thousand witnesses recalled seein’ me onstage punchin his lights out, shoutin’ that if he didn’t leave me alone I—” Earl paused.
“You’d kill him?”
Earl nodded grimly. “Those were my unfortunate words. I didn’t mean it, of course—not like that, anyway. But all those witnesses didn’t know that. All they knew was I threatened George, beat him up—and the next day he was dead.”
“You said he had a self-destructive streak. Maybe he killed himself.”
“The thought occurred. But in such a horrible way? In a fire? No, I jus’ can’t believe it. He may have wanted pain, maybe even needed it. But no one needs it so much they set themselves on fire. It ain’t human. And besides, he couldn’ta carved that smile on his own face. It was murder, no two ways about it.”
“So the police arrested you.”
“Did they ever!”
“And the jury found you guilty. I’m surprised you only got twenty-two years.”
“Well, you see, Ben …” He swallowed. “Truth is, there was no trial.”
“What?”
“There was no trial… ’cause I copped a plea.”
Ben stared at him wordlessly.
“It seemed smart at the time. The lawyer they gave me told me it was the best thing I could do for myself.”
“But you said you were innocent!”
“I was. But everyone on God’s green earth thought I was guilty. And what with that big fight and all—well, it just didn’t look too good. I thought I’d get convicted murder one, and if that happened—”
“You’d get the death penalty.”
“A black man in a white town? You know it. The jury would probably be all white. I’d be a goner.” He pressed his two huge fists together. “As far as I could see, my choice was simple. Either plead innocent and die, or plead guilty, do some time, and have a life.”
“After twenty-two years.”
“Yeah. Twenty-two very long goddamn years. And they wouldn’t let me blow my stick the whole time. Not once in all those years I was in the joint. That’s why I don’t play no more, see. It ain’t that I don’t want to. It’s that I can’t. I lost it. Twenty-two years was way too long to go without makin’ music. Whatever I had, I lost.”
Ben felt a horrible aching in the pit of his stomach. What a loss—an irreplaceable loss.
“When I got out of stir, I pulled together everything I had, called in some markers, and bought this place. Maybe I couldn’t play the music anymore, but at least I could surround myself with it.” He smiled slightly. “You know what they say. Those who can, do. Those who can’t buy a club.”
Ben knew he ought to say something, but the words escaped him. He kept dwelling on the loss, what his life would be like if one day the music was all gone, irretrievably gone. It was beyond measure. He couldn’t really conceive of it. All he could do was wallow in the horror of the thought.
He snapped himself out of it, forcing himself back into his investigator role. “Did you and Lily stay together?”
“Aw, hell, no. Soon as the cops got their grubby fingers on me, she was out of there. I never heard a thing from her till she called me up a couple days ago.”
“What did she say?”
“She was in town for a few days and heard through the grapevine that I had a club. Said she’d like to see it.” He paused. “Said she’d like to see me. I knew it was stupid to get my hopes up, after about a million years and all this weight I put on while I was trapped in my closet-sized cell in McAlester. But of course, I did anyway.”
“You were waiting for her last night.”
“I was expectin’ her to turn up, yeah. But not like she did.” His words became tight and bitter. “Not fallin’ like a sack of potatoes off the goddamn light. Not shriveled and cold and with that sick smile cut onto her face.” His head lifted, and Ben saw that his eyes were glistening. “She had such a beautiful smile when she was alive. Everyone said so. But now, I’ll never be able to remember that, never be able to remember her the way she was. Now when I think of her, all I can remember is that grotesque blood-red desecration. That’s all I—I—” His head fell into his hands.
Ben stared at him helplessly. Twenty-two years. And now, just when a little hope had been held out to him, someon
e snatched it away, replacing it with an all-new horror.
He had to figure out some way to help this poor man. He just had to.
“Well, that’s probably enough for now.” Ben laid his hand gently on Earl’s shoulder. “If you want me to help, Earl, I’ll help. We’ll fight this. I won’t let them railroad you again.”
“You think those cops’ll be back?”
“Yeah. Given the similarity between this murder and the one you pled guilty to, and given that you were at the scene of last night’s murder, and given that Lieutenant Prescott is arrogant, obnoxious, but extremely tenacious … I think you can count on it.”
“How long do I have? Days?”
Ben shook his head. “Hours.”
Earl’s head bowed. “That’s what I thought. You really think you can help me?”
“I can’t guarantee results, but I can promise that I’ll do everything possible to make sure these charges don’t get you another twenty-two in McAlester.”
“But that ain’t all, Ben. I want to know who did this. I want the sick SOB who’s torturin’ me like this, who cut up my beautiful Lily.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“You find him, Ben. You find him. And when you do …” Earl raised his eyes toward the ceiling. “God help the bastard.”
Chapter 17
TYRONE SAT AS quietly as the proverbial church mouse. He wanted to say something, he really did. But how could he?
He hated watching Earl squirm, hated watching that jerkoff cop play with Earl’s head. Earl meant more to him than anyone. He’d been like a father to him—far more than his own father, who he’d only seen twice. He had no complaints against his mother; she’d worked like nobody’s business her whole life, typing for the city during the day and cleaning houses at night. But with all that work and six kids to tend, there was little time for one-on-one with her next-to-youngest. When he dropped out of school after the eighth grade and got a job, she could hardly say no. Education was great, but they needed the money.
Small wonder he fell in with the North Side Hoover Crips, one of the hottest gangs on the Tulsa strip. Everyone he knew was doing it; it was the place to be. The organization was pretty loose; it was more like a family than the Mafia. But he needed a family. For the first time in his life, he felt a part of something, felt surrounded by people who cared about him. And it brought him some cash on the side every now and again, something else he sorely needed. It was a great deal, at least till that cop died in a shoot-out near Earl’s club.
Tyrone hadn’t been the one who pulled the trigger, but he was there. And he was smart enough to realize that he could be called an accomplice, that he could be nailed for felony murder, that the cops would consider it a pleasure to put away another punk gangster. When cops got killed, no holds were barred.
Tyrone pushed himself to his feet and walked outside. Gazing north from the club, he could see the site where the shoot-out had occurred, where his life had changed. It was a miracle Tyrone hadn’t been arrested at the scene. He’d gotten his leg busted up during the fight. When the cops descended and everyone scattered, he could barely crawl, much less run. He thought it was all over for him when to his total amazement, Uncle Earl came out of nowhere and dragged his crippled carcass inside the club. Tyrone’d never met this man in his life. And yet here he was, sticking his neck out for him, protecting him.
“Why?” he asked Earl later. “Why did you do this for me?” But Earl just shrugged his shoulders and said he’d seen a spot of trouble in his life, too, and he didn’t want a kid’s life ruined over something he didn’t do. Something about the way he said it told Tyrone this was important to him, something he believed, something that really mattered.
In the aftermath of the shooting, three of his gang buddies were arrested, two at the scene and another later. Two of the arrested boys got life sentences; and Hopper, the trigger man, got an appointment with a lethal injection. Tyrone knew perfectly well the same thing could have happened to him. Earl had done more than just pull him out of trouble. He’d saved Tyrone’s life.
Tyrone strolled back to the club, walked up the spiral staircase to Earl’s office, and picked up the saxophone that was always there. He put the stick to his lips and blew. The note came out sharp, harsh, and flat. Like usual.
He placed Earl’s sax back on its stand. After the cop-killing, the Crips didn’t seem like such a cozy little family anymore. That was when Tyrone first started thinking about getting out. All of a sudden, he didn’t like Tyrone Jackson—T-Dog—so much; he wanted to be someone other than who he was, someone he’d never been before. But getting out was easier to think about than to do. The Crips didn’t like quitters. They didn’t like people who knew too much about them leaving the fold. As soon as he announced his desire to quit, he found that his oldest and best friends weren’t all that friendly anymore. And as soon as he left, he heard rumors that some of the boys might be looking for him. He’d heard that Momo wanted to have what the Crips euphemistically referred to as a “chat.” He was in trouble.
And then he tumbled onto the con game. He’d been panhandling downtown one day, not having much luck, when all of a sudden, without even thinking about it, he began weaving this elaborate tale about his sister (he didn’t have one) being taken captive by militant states’ righters holed up near Tahlequah and trying to raise money to rescue and deprogram her. He was just spinning the tale out of nothing, spouting whatever came into his head.
But the mark had tossed him a fifty-dollar bill. Hadn’t said a word. Just tossed it into Tyrone’s can and that was that.
That day Tyrone realized he had found his calling. For the first time in his life, he had discovered something at which he excelled. Problem was, he felt miserable about it. After every successful sting, he was consumed with guilt. It seemed his mama and all those Baptist Sunday school classes she had dragged him to had left their mark.
It was one day when he was working the bus station that he hit on the idea of scamming the scammers. They were easy to spot—easy for him, anyway. He knew all their routines intimately. And one could hardly lose much sleep over ripping off someone who was, after all, trying to rip you off. It worked perfectly; he’d been doing it ever since.
But he didn’t plan to be doing it forever, he thought, peering down at Earl’s sax. To him, the sax was a symbol, a promise of better things to come. Someday he wanted to live an honest life, a life he could go home and tell his mama about. Earl had said that first day he pulled Tyrone off the battlefield that he thought he could make a musician out of him. It just took time, that was all. So this con man bit was temporary, just until he learned the sax well enough to play in the band. Once he could do that, he would leave all the scamming behind. When the day came, he knew Earl would give him a job.
If Earl could give him a job, that is. If he wasn’t behind bars. Or worse.
That was what hurt most. He hated seeing Earl get the treatment, but he also knew that if Earl took the rap for this killing, it would mean no more sax access, no more free lessons, no more job prospects. Nor more chance of digging himself out.
He left the office, suddenly edgy. It was almost as if he didn’t have the right to be there, didn’t have the right to touch Earl’s belongings. Why didn’t he speak up when he’d had the chance? He’d seen that creep in the bathroom, the one with the knife. Maybe not well enough to identify him. What with the fake beard and all the excitement, the man coulda been his dear old dad for all he knew. But he knew it wasn’t Earl. Earl was being set up. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that okeydoke.
And yet when the police had questioned Tyrone, he hadn’t said a word. And just now, when a word from him might have bailed Earl out of trouble, he stayed mum.
Why? Tyrone knew there were at least two outstanding warrants on him, one stemming from the cop killing and one stemming from a con that went bad, a mark that had the wherewithal to file a complaint. If he got involved with the police, he could count on having c
harges brought against him. And charges like those could lead to a long stretch behind bars.
And so he sat by silently while those creeps humiliated his only friend in the world. Good thing Kincaid was there; for a mediocre piano player, he seemed to be able to handle cops. Tyrone was glad for that.
He flopped down on a stool. He knew damn well those cops would be back, knew they’d make the arrest as soon as possible. How long was he going to let Earl dangle in the breeze without saying anything? Forever? Was he going to sit on his butt and do nothing? Let Earl spend the rest of his life in the joint, doing forever-and-one years?
Hell of a way to thank a man who had done so much for him. Who had stuck his own neck out to help a kid he didn’t even know.
But no matter how long Tyrone pondered, he couldn’t think of a way out.
It was like a game of checkers where your last piece was covered in all four directions; no matter what he did, he was going to get jumped.
Tyrone whirled around on his stool and kicked the chair behind him, cursing silently under his breath. Why was life always such a bitch?
He sat on the back porch staring at the Tulsa skyline as the orange sun dipped below the horizon. Here, perched at the crest of Shadow Mountain, he was able to gaze down into the surrounding city and watch all the bustle. He could see everyone. And no one could see him.
He liked it that way.
He flipped on the radio, checking the news update on KWGS. No new developments on the case the whole city was talking about, the one with the very special victim. It went by various names, depending on the luridness and schlock factor of the given station. One channel was calling it “The Case of the Cordial Corpse.” Hell, what was next—the Sensational Smiling Stiff?
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