series of crunches.
Monk went to the door and knocked lightly. Built into the nearby wall was an aquaterrarium—half gravel and the other side a miniature pond. Various plants he didn’t recognize pop-ulated the tank, as did several reptiles. A dark green toad sat on a rock, croaking and glaring at him between blinks. Monk glared back.
“Come in,” a throaty voice announced.
He entered and shook the proffered hand. From his research Monk knew that Nazeen Loveless was past fifty, but she was still a striking woman with a toned body encased in a silk shirt tucked into a mid-length skirt with a slit. A heavy silver bracelet slid up and down her right wrist.
“So, old Ardmore sent you out here,” she said affectionately. She sat back down and he took a seat opposite. Behind her a window overlooked the morphing landscape of Phoenix’s south side.
“He’s putting out this compilation CD package, as he told you, and asked me to run down some leads to make sure everything was cool rights-wise.”
The handsome woman tilted her head, her chandelier earrings tinkling. “And you’re Ardmore’s coproducer?”
“I’ve got a private ticket,” he said.
“Pardon?”
Monk explained he made his living as a PI. “Ardmore asked me to do his legwork because we’ve known each other awhile and—”
“Antony never did like lawyers,” she finished.
He nodded agreement and removed a PDA from the inner pocket of his sport coat. It was hot as a mother outside but he’d put the jacket on in the comfort of the air-conditioned building to look professional.
“There’s a couple of people Ardmore hoped you could help me locate.”
“It’s been a long time,” Loveless said.
“I know,” he said sympathetically. “When I was a teenager, I remember KDAY playing the hell out of ‘Blazin’ on Broadway.’ I still have the LP it was on,
“You weren’t into disco then?”
“I got into my share of clubs with my fake ID, sitting around playing Pong and backgammon,” he admitted, “learning the Hustle and trying not to sweat all over some girl. But I have to credit my sister Odessa with being the keeper of the flame when it came to R&B and Soul. She predicted disco would die, though not the numbers like what Hayzell and the Sugar Kings performed.”
Loveless seemed distracted for a moment, then asked, “Who are the ones you’re trying to find?”
He consulted his handheld’s screen. He’d initially argued strenuously with his old lady about how his steno pad was trustworthy, how words on paper had proven satisfactory for hundreds of years. But she’d prevailed.
“Believe me, you’ll get hooked,” Superior Court Judge Jill Kodama had said. Damned if he now didn’t find his Crack-Berry indispensable.
“How about Minnie Thaxton?” Monk asked. “Also, what about Burris Parchman?” He looked up expectantly.
“When Ardmore called last week I figured Minnie’d be one of the people you’d want to talk to. In fact, her set’s closing tonight at the Raven’s Mill. I can call over there to let her know you’ll be coming.”
“Thanks.” He noted this using his stylus. “And Parch-man?”
She folded her arms, shaking her head, a morose cast to her features. “You know he was a slave to that ’caine.”
“Ardmore understood he’d been clean and sober,” Monk suggested.
“Last I knew, and this was maybe ’97 or ’98, he was back in Baltimore living in a shelter. But,” and she held her hands apart, “that’s the last I heard.”
Parchman had been a session man, keyboardist and organist on several later Hayzell and the Sugar Kings numbers. It was believed that Parchman had come up with an instrumental called “Do Your Thing” on one of the tracks. There had been several conflicting publishing credits for the tune and Monk hoped to settle the matter. But Parchman was most known as the man who’d killed Hayzell Mumford, the Sugar Kings’ lead singer.
“Well, I’ll talk with Minnie and see how that goes.”
“She’s going to like you,” Loveless observed. “She must be pushing back seventy, hard, but she appreciates her some younger sturdy mens, as she would say.”
“I ain’t that young no more,” Monk averred.
Her eyes brightened. “You’re upright and got those shoulders. That’s good enough.”
They both chuckled and he asked, “Is there anyone else around from then who I should talk to? I believe Hayzell’s mother is alive.”
She bristled. “You said you only wanted the ones who wrote some of the numbers.”
Monk hunched a shoulder. “I like to be thorough.”
“You’re nosy,” she declared.
He grinned, hoping to defuse the tension. “That too.”
“What is it that you’re really after?” she hissed, an edge in her voice. “About how Hayzell was killed over drugs?”
Monk was going to offer a denial but she leaned forward, her hands splayed on her desktop. “I know goddamn well that he was, now don’t I? I’ve had plenty of offers to tell my story, from
Monk rose and put out his hand. “Thanks for seeing me.”
She pretended to be reading some paperwork and mumbled, “Uh-huh,” and didn’t proffer her hand again.
At the Raven’s Mill that night, Minerva “Minnie” Thaxton tore up a rendition of T-Bone Walker’s “Cold, Cold Feeling.” The club had been closed for years but several enterprising types, including a skateboarding champion turned brand name, had cleared up the title, then refurbished and reopened the place. There was money to be made on the nostalgia angle, and there were the loft dwellers trickling into the south side who knew all about the blues from public television.
The audience was more white and young than black and old, but the applause was genuine and the vibe mellow. She finished her first set with one of her own numbers, “The Heat of My Heart,” which showcased her searing riffs on guitar. Monk was allowed backstage as had been arranged, and after announcing himself, he entered Minnie Thaxton’s dressing room.
“Sheeeittt,” the big woman said, sipping more of the Stoli-over-ice Monk had been advised to bring. After introductions, she’d asked him to pour one for her and one for himself from the short dog he’d brought along. “That chick always did have her ways. Even back then when Nazeen and Hayzell were going around together, she was whispering in his ear about how he should go solo and whatnot.”
She took another dainty sip. Monk figured she could drink like that all night and not be affected.
“You know she was my manager for a while?”
“No, I didn’t know that.”
“Oh, yeah, Nazeen may be high-toned, but she can TCB, honey. She handles that fitness club hustle but puts on a few doo-wop concerts each year too. I play ’em, it’s good money.”
“She was your manager after Hayzell was killed?”
“Yeah,” she said, swirling the contents of her plastic cup. She tilted her head back. “That was some time around here. You from L.A. and I know about Watts in ’65 and all that, but black folks here in Phoenix, child, we caught double hell when it came time for us trying to get ours.” She shook her head. “Then, as now, this is Goldwater Country. It don’t matter he was part Jewish, that didn’t temper a goddamn thing. Don’t let them fancy golf courses over in Scottsdale or what they building round here fool you,” she shook a ringed finger at the wall, “there’s plenty of redneck cowboys left to remind you in case you get giddy.”
She cracked herself up and had another taste.
“I understand Hayzell died in his mother’s arms and you two were there. Is that why Nazeen Loveless is so sensitive about it? Watching him die?”
She put her feet up on a hassock and kicked off her heels. “I guess,” she sighed. “It messed her up bad when it happened. We all knew he was snorting up enough snow to coat the Rockies, but she wanted to believe she could
