37
Sugar Ray McK was waiting for me in his chair in his room at the Splendid Age. The only indication that he knew he was going out was the porkpie hat he was wearing. He once told me he only wore it when he went out to hear music, which meant he rarely wore it anymore. Under the brim his eyes were sharper than I had seen them in a long while.
“This is going to be fun, dog,” he said and I wondered if he’d been watching too much MTV.
“I hope they’ve got a decent crew for the first set. I didn’t even check.”
“Don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”
He drew out the last word.
“Before we go can I borrow that magnifying glass you use to read the TV guide?”
“Sure can. What do you need?”
He dug the glass out of a pocket on the arm of his chair while I took the last page of the currency report out of my shirt pocket and unfolded it. Sugar Ray handed me the glass and I went over to the bed table and turned on the lamp. I held the page over the top of the shade and then studied Jocelyn Jones’s signature with the magnifier. I got a confirmation of something I had seen earlier while in her office.
“What is it, Harry?” Sugar Ray asked.
I handed him the glass back and started refolding the paper.
“Just something I’ve been working on. Something called forger’s tremor.”
“Hmmm. Man, I got tremors all over.”
I smiled at him.
“We’ve all got ’em, one way or the other. Come on, let’s go. Let’s hear some music.”
“I’m going. You turn that lamp off. That costs money.”
We headed out. As we went down the hallway I thought of Melissa Royal and wondered if she might be visiting her mother. I doubted it. A moment of dread spiked me because I knew the day was coming when I would have to sit down with Melissa and tell her I was the wrong guy.
A porter from the center helped me get Sugar Ray into the car. The Mercedes SUV was probably too high for him to climb into. I realized I would have to think about that if I took him out on any more field trips.
We went over to the Baked Potato and had dinner and watched the first set of the first act, a quartet of journeymen called Four Squared. They were decent but maybe a little tired. They were partial to Billy Strayhorn’s stuff and so am I, so it didn’t matter.
It didn’t matter to Sugar Ray either. His face lit up and he kept the beat in his shoulders as he listened. He never spoke while they played and he clapped with enthusiasm after every song. Reverence is what I saw in his eyes. Reverence for the sound and the form.
The players didn’t recognize him. Few people would now that he was down to just skin and bones. But that didn’t bother Sugar Ray. It didn’t diminish our evening by one note.
After the first set, I could see him starting to flag. It was after nine and time for him to sleep and dream. He’d told me once that he still could play in his dreams. I thought we should all be so lucky.
It was also time for me to look into the face of the man who had taken Angella Benton from this world. I had no badge and no official standing. But I knew things and believed that I still stood for her. I spoke for her. In the morning they could take it all away from me, make me sit down and watch from the sidelines. But I still had until then. And I knew I was not going home just yet. I was going to confront Linus Simonson and take his measure. I was going to let him know who put the bead on him. And I was going to give him the chance to answer for Angella Benton.
When we got back to the Splendid Age I left Sugar Ray dozing in the front seat while I went in to get the porter. Getting him into the Mercedes outside the Baked Potato by myself had been a chore.
I gently shook him awake and then we got him down onto the sidewalk. We walked him in and then down the hall to his room. Sitting on his bed, trying to shake off the sleep, he asked me where I’d been.
“I’ve been right here with you, Sugar Ray.”
“You’ve been practicing?”
“Every chance I get.”
I realized that he may have already forgotten our evening’s outing. He may have thought I was there for a lesson. I felt bad about him being robbed of the memory so soon.
“Sugar Ray, I’ve gotta go. I’ve got some work to do.”
“Okay, Henry.”
“It’s Harry.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Oh. You want me to turn on the box or are you going to go to sleep?”
“Nah, put the box on for me if you don’t mind. That’d be good.”
I turned on the television that was mounted on the wall. It was on CNN and Sugar Ray said to leave it there. I went over and squeezed his shoulder and then headed for the door.
“‘Lush Life,’” he said to my back.
I turned around to look at him. He was smiling. “Lush Life” was the last song of the set we had heard. He did remember.
“I love that song,” he said.
“Yeah, me too.”
I left him to his memories of a lush life while I headed out into the night to see a king about a stolen life. I was unarmed but unafraid. I was in a state of grace. I carried the last prayer of Angella Benton with me.
38
Shortly after ten o’clock I approached the doorway to Nat’s on Cherokee, a half block south of Hollywood Boulevard. It was still early but there was no line of people waiting to get in. There was no velvet rope. There was no doorman selecting who got in and who didn’t. There was no collector of a cover charge. When I got inside, there also were almost no customers.
I had been in Nat’s on numerous occasions in its former incarnation as a dive bar populated by a clientele as devoted to alcohol as any other aspect of life. It wasn’t a pickup spot-unless you counted the prostitutes who cooled their heels at the bar. It wasn’t a celebrity-watching spot. It was a drinking spot and that was the sum of its entire purpose, and as such it had an honest character. As I walked in and saw all the polished brass and rich woods I realized that what it had now was glamour and that was never the same or as long-lasting as character. It didn’t matter how many people lined up on opening night. The place wasn’t going to go the distance. I knew that within fifteen seconds. The place was doomed before the first citron martini was poured shaken not stirred into its frosted glass and placed on a black napkin.
I went right to the bar where there were three patrons who looked like tourists in from Florida after a dose of much needed California Cool. The bartender was tall and thin and wore the requisite black jeans and tight body shirt that allowed her nipples to introduce themselves to the customers. She had a black-ink snake wrapped around one bicep, its forked red tongue licking the crook of her elbow, where the needle scars were evident. Her hair was shorter than mine and on the nape of her neck a bar code was tattooed. It made me think of how much I enjoyed discovering Eleanor Wish’s neck the night before.
“There’s a ten-dollar cover,” the bartender said. “What can I get you?”
I remembered from the magazine article that it used to be $20.
“What does it cover? This place is dead.”
“Stick around. That’s ten dollars.”
I made no move to give her the money. I leaned on the bar and spoke quietly.
“Where’s Linus?”
