“I can see that you don’t know him as well as I do, Mr. Hanley,” she replied. “Paris here can’t fight to save his life, but you know when women get a man alone, fighting is the last thing on their minds.”
The club was crowded, and the bar was right next to the door. A few of the people standing around heard Loretta’s lecture and started laughing.
Razor smiled and bowed his head to me.
“Excuse me, Mr. Paris, sir. I didn’t know.” He waved his hand and we were taken by a young brown girl in a tight pink dress to a table near the stage.
Milo had a running tab at Apollo’s, but I started my own. I lit Loretta’s cigarette and ordered good champagne. She was 101
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hungry and so we had them bring out a basket of battered and fried shrimp with two salads.
The Winston Marks Trio was playing that night. They were one of the most important components in those early days of the new jazz. Winston could be anything from a lonely whale to a hummingbird’s wing with his trumpet. He would have probably been world renowned if he hadn’t had an eye for every lady he met. One of those ladies was his bass player’s wife. Three weeks after that performance, Billy Stiles shot Winston in the brain, ending the trio’s career.
I spent most of my time talking to Loretta. At one point I went up to the bartender, Silver Martin. I showed him the picture of Angel and he admitted seeing her before. I handed him a picture of Andrew Jackson and he promised to send over anyone who knew something about her.
Th e m u s i c wa s g r e a t . Maybe Winston sensed his death that night because he played like I never heard anyone play before. There was one number where I knew instinctively that he was tracing the cracks of a broken heart that could never be mended. Fool that I was, I even shed a tear.
Loretta placed a hand on mine.
“You’re a sweet man, Paris Minton.”
“And you’re twice the woman of anybody else in this place,” I said.
She smiled and let her head loll a bit to the side.
“What?” I asked.
“Are we going to do something about all these fine compliments?”
Loretta liked black men. She liked us because we knew 102
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how she felt on the inside. She shared our rage and our impo-tence; she strained with us at the edges.
“Well?” she asked.
I was frozen in place. I didn’t know what to say. It was as though I had just been in my house talking loud and bragging about what I’d do with some movie queen, and then she strolled in and said, “Let’s get it on, son.”
Loretta grinned. She was not the kind of woman who would belittle the man she was with.
“It’s okay,” she said.
“No.”
“No?”
“You don’t get it,” I said. “You couldn’t understand because I’m just gettin’ to it right now myself.”
“What?”
Loretta’s eyes shimmered and her presence was absolutely assured. She felt more at home in my world than I did.
“I love you,” I said, and her smile was replaced with aston-ishment.
“What?” It was a whole different question this time.
“I see you sitting there with Milo. I see you loving him and caring for him and everybody he cares for. You’re beautiful and strong and hurt, but you never complain. That man tried to humiliate me, and you shot him right down. And I’m not even thinkin’ that you’re askin’ me to share your bed. Even if you just wonder if we’ll have another date, I’m scared to death about it. You know the girls I hang with might forget my name in the mornin’. And here you are looking into me like I was this glass’a water.”
The smile returned to Loretta’s mouth after a moment.
“Maybe later, then?” she said.
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“Excuse me. Mr. Minton?”
I looked up and saw a short brown man with pockmarks on his skin that made him seem to be made of leather. He had a flat head and snake eyes but wasn’t at all threatening or even off-putting.
“Yeah?” I said, angered by the interruption of one of the few purely honest moments I’d had with a woman.
“Silver said you wanted to know about Angel.”
“Excuse me,” Loretta said, standing. “I have to go to the powder room.”
She left, taking the best part of me with her.
“What you got?” I asked the man, whose name I never knew.
“Angel live with a dude named Useless at Man’s Barn.”
