by Phil Swann
If apartment E hadn’t been broken into, the task would have taken me less than ten seconds to complete. But given my once orderly record collection had been reduced to complete mayhem, it took quite a bit longer. Eventually, however, I triumphed.
It was smaller than a typical LP, which made it difficult to find under all my modern day vinyl. It also resided in a paper sleeve, not the modern cardboard kind. Holding it in my hand, I began to question my whole hypothesis. “Surely, this can’t be what everyone’s after,” I said out loud. But still, I silently concluded, it was the only thing that added up.
With record in hand, I returned to the bedroom, turned off the light, and headed for the door. As I opened it, I was thinking about how Detective Barnard was going to blow a gasket I rousted him from his bed for nothing.
The first thing I saw were his boots; shiny, black patent leather. I fell back into the room, tripping over my records and landing hard on my back. I tried to quickly get up, but he pushed me back onto the floor with his foot. He wore a black suit over a black turtleneck. His sandy blond hair was cut in a bowl shape, and his sharp, chiseled features were sufficiently intimidating.
He looked down at me with a sinister smile. “I’ll be taking that,” he said, holding out his hand.
I didn’t notice it in the alley, but he had an accent. It wasn’t thick, but enough to hint English wasn’t his native tongue. I didn’t say anything. I just handed him the record.
“Thank you,” he said.
He put his hand in his pocket, and I was prepared for him to pull out the switchblade. He didn’t. Instead, he pulled out a pair of black leather gloves. With his eyes locked on mine, he methodically placed them on his hands. I swung my legs up in an attempt to push him away, but looking more annoyed than assaulted, he simply chopped at my kneecap with the force of a jackhammer. The pain reverberated through my body, and I went limp. Then, with the casualness of someone wrapping a birthday present, he placed one hand over my mouth, the other around my throat, and began to squeeze. His face never changed expression as his grip tightened, as if it was all matter-of-fact, another day at the office, a job that needed to be done. In some macabre way, it made being the recipient of his terror more peaceful.
I recall being unable to move and a heaviness pushing on my chest caused by the lack of oxygen to my lungs. My peripheral vision was fading, and when I looked into his soulless eyes, it was as if I was seeing them through a long, dark cylinder. Even though I was at the edge of the abyss, I was still coherent enough to know I only had moments left; moments before the eternal mystery of the great unknown would be solved. It’s said as the Grim Reaper approaches, one sees their entire life pass before their eyes. It didn’t. I also felt no fear, no pain, nor any angst of any kind. Only heaviness, acceptance, and anticipation.
I heard three spits in total, one followed by two quick ones. My attacker’s eyes rolled back in their sockets, and his grip around my neck released as blood began oozing from the corners of his mouth. A second later, his eyes closed, and he fell backward.
I rolled over on my side and inhaled. That first gasp of air was truly like nectar from the gods; nothing had ever tasted sweeter. As my senses slowly returned, a feeling of overwhelming joy and unmatched appreciation washed over me. All I wanted to do was leap to my feet, wrap my arms around Detective Barnard, and hug the big lug like he’d never been hugged before in his life. Imagine my surprise when I looked up, and it wasn’t Detective Barnard I saw.
“You okay, Callaway?” asked the velvet voice.
It was Clegg.
Chapter 14
Clegg holstered his gun inside his jacket. He moved to the man on the floor, kneeled down, and placed two fingers on his neck. He stood, went back to the door, removed a handkerchief from his pocket, and wiped down the doorknob. He turned and surveyed the room. “He touch anything else?”
“Is he dead?” I replied, rubbing my throat.
“Did he touch anything else?” he asked again, this time more forcefully.
“No, I don’t think so.”
He moved to the telephone, picked up the receiver with his handkerchief, and dialed. All I heard him say was, “Execute eighteen.” He hung up the phone and turned to me. “You need to leave. Now.”
“What about him?” I asked, nodding to the dead man on my floor.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t worry about it?” I replied. “He tried to kill me. Now he’s dead. In my apartment. A man’s been killed in my apartment, and I’m supposed to not worry about it? Who are you? Who’s he? What’s going on?”
Clegg came over and helped me up off the floor. He put his hand under my chin and raised it. “You’re going to have a nasty bruise around your neck, but you’ll be okay.”
I pushed his hand away. “Who are you? Is your name even Clegg?”
“Of course my name is Clegg.” He went back to the dead man and removed the record from his clenched hand. “So, is this it?” he asked.
I didn’t answer.
“I’ll take that as a yes.” I swallowed hard and asked point blank. “Did he kill Ken and Lydia? Or did you?”
Clegg started going through the dead man’s pockets. He didn’t look at me as he spoke. “Here’s what you’re going to do, Trip. I can call you Trip, can’t I? It’s such a great name. You’re going to leave here and go back to The Jam Jar. You’re going to stay there until it’s time for you to return to the Sands tomorrow night and resume your wonderful life as third chair trumpet player in the orchestra. And this is the important part, Trip. You will not speak about this to anyone. Ever. Am I clear?”
“Tell me who you are. Who is he?”
Clegg stood, looked back at me, and smiled. “I’m the man who saved your life. He’s the man who tried to end it. You’re welcome, by the way.”
“That’s not good enough,” I said.
“That’s all you’re going to get.”
“No, I need to know—”
“Listen to me, Trip,” he interrupted, moving a few steps closer to me. “Here’s all you need to know. I’m one of the good guys. He was one of the bad guys. If you do exactly as I say, then with any luck, in a couple of days all this will be over, and by the end of the week, it’ll be like it never happened. However, if you don’t do as I say, and you keep insisting on sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, you will…” He looked over at the man on the floor. “Just do as I say, Trip.”
“Are you threatening me?”
Clegg let out a long breath and massaged the bridge of his nose, “I’m telling you that you’re involved in something you have no business being involved in. I’m attempting to convince you for your own good you need to go back to The Jam Jar and forget all this ever happened. I’m trying to get it through that thick head of yours that if you do as I say, your life will become considerably better, and longer. How’s that? Am I being clear now?”
“My friends are dead. He tried to kill me. How am I supposed to forget it happened?”
Clegg shrugged. “You’ll figure it out.”
I didn’t say anything.
Then Clegg added, “But you have to get out of here. Now.”
I looked into the man’s eyes. I’d never witnessed such an intense calm. He’d just shot a man to death, and he appeared to be no more bothered by it than if he’d just dialed a wrong number. Slowly, almost in a daze, I began moving toward the door, taking care not to look at the bleeding corpse on the floor. Everything inside me screamed it was wrong. A man had been shot to death in my apartment, and I was just leaving, trusting that the man who killed him was one of the good guys.
“One more thing,” Clegg said as I opened the door. “Stay away from the Las Vegas police. Don’t go see them and don’t call them. You tell no one about this. Understood?”
“A man named Detective Barnard is going to be here any minute.”
Clegg nodded. “I know. I’ll handle it.”
That didn’t make me feel bette
r. “Clegg, you’re not going to…I mean, Detective Barnard, you’re not going to, you know—”
“Goodbye, Trip. We won’t be seeing each other again.”
Generally speaking, I'm not the kind of person who takes well to being ordered around. Especially when I’m told it’s for my own good. Pop used to say, “If you want Cecil to do something, tell him not to do it.” I think that was Pop’s version of the old axiom: If you want a law broken, just enforce it. It’s not that I’m a perpetual malcontent who rebels against authority at every turn. I’m really not. It’s just that when somebody tells me not to do something and then adds, “It’s for your own good,” it’s always been in my nature to question why. What are they keeping from me? Are they really looking out for my welfare, or looking out for their own? Furthermore, I’m no idiot and believe my barometer for what is and is not in Trip’s best interest is considerably better than someone else’s. An easier case for me to make now than when I was ten.
That being said, I did head back to The Jam Jar as ordered. I was tired beyond words, and my throat felt like it’d been placed in a vise, which in a way it had been. Also, the sun was only an hour or so away, and I, like the Count—Dracula, not Basie—was not a creature built for that particular celestial body. I did my thing at night too.
I didn’t get into bed. I collapsed into it. I should have had trouble sleeping due to severe emotional turmoil brought on by almost meeting my maker, but I didn’t. I slept like a baby. Not sure why except to speculate I was just too plumb beat to dwell on it. When I finally woke up, my Timex told me it was almost three in the afternoon; I’d slept for nearly nine hours straight. Those first few moments of consciousness were surreal. I had to convince myself that everything that had happened over the previous two and half days wasn’t just some bizarre nightmare. Unfortunately, as my mind cleared, reality did set in.
The reality was, I had witnessed a man being killed. A man who had tried to kill me. It doesn’t get more real than that. Who was Clegg? Was he truly one of the good guys? Who was the man? And what on earth was so important about that record? None of these questions vanished with the night. Nor did any of the unanswered questions I had about Ken and Lydia. But as I got to doing the things one does to start one’s day, I began to conclude perhaps Clegg was right. Maybe it was time to butt out. Whatever was going on was way beyond that of a humble jazz trumpet player, and if what he told me was true, that in a few days everything would be back to normal, then where was the logic in continuing to search for answers to questions no one wanted me to be asking?
Pop used to tell me it was important to know which hill was worth dying on. He said he got that saying from an old colonel he knew on Guadalcanal. He usually said it to me after I’d done something stupid and was looking for a way to weasel out of it. Maybe this was one of those situations. Ken and Lydia were dead, and though I didn’t know why, perhaps knowing why wasn’t a hill worth me dying on. Perhaps the best thing I could do was to assume Ken and Lydia had been on the side of the angels, and those who were not, be it Clegg, Dead Guy, Square Head, Tonto, or whoever, would get their comeuppance in the end…though I suppose Dead Guy had already gotten his.
In an effort to clothe myself into a better mood, I put on a pair of forest green trousers and a whimsical short-sleeve navy blue shirt for a visit downstairs. I didn’t need to go downstairs for anything in particular, but figured it was better than sitting around in an L-shaped room by myself all day. Turned out a visit downstairs was just the right medicine for my drooping disposition. The instant I walked through the kitchen doors, I knew I’d have no problem following Clegg’s directive of staying put for a while. I also realized letting go of all the murderous intrigue wouldn’t be as hard as I thought, either.
The Jam Jar looked totally different to me, like I was seeing it for the first time all over again. It was beyond charming. It was enchanting, with profundity dripping from the most inconsequential of things. For instance, the club has no windows, yet it somehow seemed brighter than usual. Pete and his wife Ardith, a married couple Luther employs to clean up from the night before and prepare for the night to come, were hard at work. Pete was running the vacuum, and Ardith was making sure all the tables were cleaned and properly Pledged. I thought it was beautiful. On the stage, Eighty-Eight was holding a rehearsal with the boys. They were working up a new Fats Waller medley, and I could already tell it was going to be one of the most brilliant and swingingest numbers in Eighty-Eight’s vast repertoire. I thought it was genius. Luther was at the bar hunched over something with a screwdriver. As I got closer, I saw he was working on my record player. This caused me to become all fuzzy inside, and I had to fight hard to keep an honest-to-goodness tear from welling in my eye. No, I’d have no problem following Clegg’s directive at all. Why would I? Where would I go? I had the best food, the best drink, and the best music in all of Las Vegas right here. I was also surrounded by the best people, my friends. I have no doubt my new acute awareness to my old surroundings was due to dancing so close to death the night before, but maybe it takes something like that to make one appreciate what one really has. Because in that moment, I certainly did.
“Good morning, Luther,” I said, saddling up to the bar.
Luther looked at his watch. “About three hours ago.” It took him about a second and a half before he noticed my neck. “What in the daylights?” he said, moving the collar of my shirt to one side.
I stopped his hand and quickly pulled my collar back. “It’s nothing. I had some trouble last night, but it’s okay now.”
“Don’t nothing me, boy,” he snapped. “I know what a mark like that is from, and it’s not nothing. Someone tried to strangle the life out of you.”
“No…I mean, yes, but I’m fine now. Everything’s going to be—”
Luther threw down the screwdriver. “You’re going to tell me what happened, and don’t even think you’re not. In my office, boy. Now.”
Luther marched me back into the kitchen and into his tiny office. He pulled a chair from the corner and set it in front of his desk.
“Sit,” he ordered.
He went around to the freezer, opened it, and went in. He returned a moment later with a bag of frozen okra.
“Put this on your neck. It’ll take the swelling down.”
I winced when I placed the cold bag on my throat.
Luther sat down at his desk across from me, folded his arms, and fixed his stare. “Okay, let’s have it.”
Here’s another truth about Trip: I sometimes lie. I lie to friends, enemies, women—a lot—musicians, loan sharks, highlifes and lowlifes alike. Furthermore, I’m darn good at it. The secret is to look sincere, mix in a little of the truth with whatever yarn you’re spinning, and don’t blink. If you do that, you can pretty much sell any fib to anybody. But Luther’s different. Luther’s the one person on earth I don’t lie to. Never have, never will. But that presented a problem. I had to tell him something, but I didn’t know what I should or could tell him. Clegg couldn’t have been more adamant about me keeping my yap shut about what happened at my apartment, and though I didn’t give two hoots about protecting some dirty little secret for him, I did care greatly about putting Luther in danger by him learning of things he’d be better off not knowing. I’d already done a good enough job of that to myself. That’s when I decided this was one of those rare occasions when telling the truth was actually the best thing to do. I just needed to make sure I told it as artfully as I could tell one of my lies.
“Luther, you know how much you and Betsy mean to me. You’re more than friends, you’re my family. I mean, shoot, if it weren’t for you and all your guidance and support, and…well, you know, I can’t image where I’d be right now.”
“Trip, I swear. If you don’t—”
“No, wait, Luther. I’m going to tell you…as much as I can, anyway.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Yes, something did happen last night, but I’ve been to
ld not to tell anyone anything about it. It was an order, in no uncertain terms. It’s secret stuff, involving, well, I’m not sure who or what it’s involving, really. All I know is if I talk about it, I’m putting myself in more danger, along with anybody I tell. I’ll let you know this though, it has to do with the death of my friends Ken and Lydia. But I think it’s over now. I think if I leave it alone, put it to rest, I won’t be in any more danger. At least that’s what I’ve been told. I’ve also been assured the whole affair will all be over in a few days and life will get back to normal. But Luther, you have to believe me, I’m not allowed to talk about it.”
Luther sat back in his chair but never broke his gaze. He didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Once he did speak, it was considerably less stern. “And this person who told you that, do you believe them?”
“Honestly, I don’t know if I do or not. But I don’t see where I have a choice.”
Luther nodded. “So what are you going to do?”
“I’m going to do what I was instructed to do. I’m going to stay here and not leave until I have to go work tomorrow night—with your permission, of course.”
Luther rolled his eyes.
I smiled. “Thank you.”
He responded to that with a typical wave of his gigantic hand.
“So I was thinking, since I’m going to be hanging around, I’d like to help out around the club.”
“You know you’re always welcome to play here.”
“I know, and I will certainly ask Eighty-Eight if I can sit in with him and the boys tonight, but I was talking about helping out during the day. You know, little things around the club that need to get done.”
“You don’t have to do that, Trip.”
“I know I don’t have to, but I want to. Come on, Luther. I’m living upstairs and not paying rent. It’s the very least I can do. It would make me feel better if you’d let me lend a hand around here for a couple of days.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. When’s the last time you did an honest day’s work? You might go and set the whole place on fire or something.”