The Howling Man (42 page)

And all the hearing aids were turned to "loud" when he rode out a solo marked Personal. Almighty sad stuff; bluesy; you knew--I knew--what he was thinking about. Him and his wife in bed on a hot morning, with the sun screaming in, them half-awake, and the air bright and everything new. Red ice. Warm blues.

Max listened with his eyes tight shut. He was saying: Don't touch a thing, boys; don't make a move. You might break it. Leave the kid alone.

Davey stopped, suddenly. Ten beat pause. And we thought it was over, but it wasn't. He was remembering something else now, and I knew that that first was just the beginning.

He started a melody, no life in it, no feeling: Just the notes: "If You Were the Only Girl in the World"--Then he smeared his fist down the keys and began to improvise. It was wicked. It was brilliant. And the cats all swallowed their ties.

But I got his message. It came into me like private needles:

There's a girl in a box, Deacon Jones, Deacon Jones,

And that girl in a box

Is nothin' but bones . . .

Which girl you talking about? I wondered. But there wasn't any time to figure it out, because he was all done. The Peacock Room was exploding and Davey Green was sitting there, sitting there, looking at his hands.

"A one. A two," softly from Max.

We all took off on "St. Louis Blues," every one of us throwing in something of his own, and I blew my horn and it was break time.

Max put on his blinkers and went over to the kid. I could barely hear him: "Very clean, Mr. Green." The kid was still with it, though: he didn't seem to be listening. Max whispered a few things and came on down off the stand. He was ten feet tall.

"We've got it, Deek," he said. There was a light in back of his forehead. "It's ours now."

I knocked the spit out of my trumpet and tried a grin. It was a falsie.

Max put a hand on my shoulder. "Deek," he said, "that was a sanitary solo you blew, but I'm worried. You've been thinking about the accident. Right?"

"No."

"I don't blame you a lot. But we're
complete
now, you dig, and we're going high. So forget about the goddamn thing--or talk it over with me after the show. I'm available." He smiled. "You know that, don't you, Deek?"

I'd been praying to God he wouldn't say it. Now it was said. "Sure, Max," I told him. "Thanks."

"Nothing," he said, and went over to Bud Parker. Bud was hooked and Max kept him supplied. It always seemed okay because otherwise he'd be out stealing, or maybe killing, for the stuff.

Now I wasn't so sure. Parnelli leaned over and blew a sour note out of his valve bone. "Nice kid," he said. "I think Max'll want to keep him."

So right. With ten hot fingers, we started doing business in a great big way. I don't know why. Why did Woody Herman die for weeks in a Chicago pad and then move two blocks away and hit like a mother bomb? It just happens.

We got out of the Corn Belt fast, got booked into the Haig in L.A. and out-pulled everything since Mulligan. Quartets and trios were all the bit then, and that made us a ricky-tick Big Band, but nobody cared. In a month the word got around and they were coming down from Frisco to give a listen.

I didn't have much to do with either Max or Davey: they were buddy-buddy now. Max almost never let him out of sight--not that he neglected us. Every couple of p.m's he'd show, just like always, ready with the jaw. He was available. "Got to take care of my boys . . ." But Davey was the star of the show, and he didn't circulate much. It was enough just to see him, anyway. His piano was getting better, but he was getting worse. Every night he told the story about him and Sally, how happy they were, how much he loved her, and how she got whatever she got and died. Every mood they might have had, he pulled it out of the box. And always ended up in Weep City. Used to be he'd get mad as hell at the son of a bitch that took her breath out of her body and put her under ground; now he was mostly just sad, lonely, brought down.

And the Band of Angels couldn't do anything wrong. Before, we were a bunch of smart musicians; we could give you Dixieland or we could give you Modern; hot or cold; and nothing you could call a style. With Davey's fingers, we had a style. We were just as smart, could play all the different jazz, but we were blues men. We played mostly for the dame at the end of the bar, all alone, with too much paint or too much fat. Or for the little guy who won't dance so they think he hates women, only he's crazy about women, but he's scared of what will happen when he's up that close. We played for little chicks with thick glasses, thick chicks with little asses, and that drunk loser who kissed it all good-bye.

Blues men.

A paid ad said it: "The Max Dailey band plays to that piece of everybody that got hurt and won't heal up."

Blues men.

The Haig would have kept us six months more, forever maybe, but we had to spread the Gospel. Max's Gospel. What was wrong with Birdland?

Not a thing. Max had been sniffing around The Apple for years, but who were we then?

Day we hit, he tiptoed in church-style. Spoke even lower, to Davey.

"Kid, this layout is all for the Bird."

Common knowledge.

"Big troubles that spade had, yes, indeed," he said. "Big talent."

We crept out; later on we came back and ripped that church apart at the seams. Davey was going like never before, but you couldn't get at him: he was lower than a snake's kidney. Once after a show I asked him did he want to go out and have a beer with the Deacon, and he allowed that was all right, but Max came along and I wasn't about to break through.

And that's the way it went.
Downbeat
tagged us as "the most individual group in action today" and we cut a flock of albums--
Blue Mondays
;
Moanin' Low
;
Deep Shores
--and it was gravy and champagne for breakfast.

Then, I can't remember what night it was, Max came up to my place and he didn't look gleeful. First time I'd seen him alone since Rollo got picked up for molesting. He made it real casual.

"Deek, you seen Davey around?"

Something jumped up my throat. "Not for quite a while," I said.

He did a shrug.

"You worried?" I asked.

"Why should I be worried? He's of age."

He powdered; then, the next night, it went and blew itself to pieces. I'd finished my bit with the horn--Saturday p.m.--when Parnelli tapped me and said, "Look out there." I saw people. "Look out there again," he said.

I saw a chick. She was eyeballing Davey.

"Max's going to
love
that," Parnelli said. "He's just going to eat that all up, oh yes."

When it was over, the kid ankled down and gave the doll a full set of teeth. She gave them back. And they went over to a dark corner and sat down.

"Oo-weee. Mr. Green has got himself a something. I do declare. And won't you kindly lamp Big M?"

Max was looking at them, all right. You couldn't tell exactly what he was thinking, because none of it showed in his face. He turned the knobs on his bass, slow, and looked. That's all.

After a while Davey and the girl got up and headed for the stand.

"Max, I'd like you to meet Miss Schmidt. Lorraine."

Hughie Wilson's eyes fell out, Bud Parker said "Yeah" and even Rollo picked up-- and Rollo doesn't go the girl route. Because this chick was hollerin': little-girl style, pink dress and apple cheeks and a build that said, I'm all here, don't fret about that, just take my word for it.

"She's been coming to hear us every night," Davey said.

"I know," Max said. "I've seen you around, Miss Schmidt."

She smiled some pure sunshine. "You have a fine band, Mr. Dailey."

"That's right."

"I particularly loved 'Deep Shores' tonight. It was--"

"Great, Miss Schmidt. One of Davey's originals. I guess you knew that."

She turned to the kid. "No, I didn't. Davey--Mr. Green didn't tell me."

Our little box-man grinned: first I'd seen him do it for real. You wouldn't have recognized him.

And that's all she wrote. It was plain and simple: Davey was going upstairs with this baby and she was liking it; and let no cat put these two asunder.

She showed up on the dot every p.m., always solo. Listen out the sets and afterward, she and the kid would cut out. He looked plenty beat of a morning, but the change was there for all to see. No question: David Green was beginning to pick up some of the marbles he had lost.

And Max never said a word about it, either. Pretended he didn't gave a hoot one way or the other; nice as hell to both of them. But Parnelli wouldn't wipe that look off his face.

"Playing out the line," he'd say. "Max is a smart fella, Deek. Anybody else, he'd put it on the table. Say: 'We're taking a European tour' or something like that. Not our bossman. Smart piece of goods .

It got thicker between Davey and his doll, and pretty soon, if you listened hard, you could hear bells. You could hear more. I didn't know why, you couldn't finger the difference: but it was there, okay. We were playing music. Like a lot of guys play music. But we'd lost something.

But Max wasn't upset--and he was a tuning fork on two legs--so I figured it must be me. The dreams again, maybe. They were coming all the time, no matter how much I talked about them . .

It wasn't me, though. We were beginning to sound lousy and it kept up that way, night after night, and I was afraid I knew why, finally.

Three days after Davey had announced his engagement to Lorraine, the dam cracked. Like:

We'd all gathered on the stand and Max had one-twoed for "Tiger Rag" and we started to play. And
suddenly
it was all fine again. The sound was there, only a lot richer than it had ever been. Davey's piano was throttled up and spitting out sadness again, throwing that iron frame around all of us. Keeping us level.

Parnelli tapped me and I went cold. I looked at Davey--he was gone; out of it-- and I looked into the audience, and the chick was gone too. I mean she wasn't there. And Max was picking those strings, eyes squinched, happy as a pig in September.

We swung into "Deep Shores" and I think--I'm not sure, but I think--that's when it all got clear to me. After six years.

I played it out, though. Then I started for Davey, but Max stopped me.

"Better leave the kid alone," he whispered. "He's had a rough one."

"What do you mean?"

"The chick was n.g., Deek."

"I don't believe it."

"She was n.g. I knew it right along, but I didn't want to say anything. But--listen, I've been around. She would have counted the kid out."

"What'd you do?" I asked.

"I proved it," he said. His voice was dripping with sympathy. "Chicks are all the same, Deek. Hard lesson to learn." He shrugged his shoulders. "So leave the kid alone. He'll tell you all about it--with his hands. You've just been bothered with those dreams of yours. Why don't you drop by tonight and--"

"What'd you do, Max?"

"I laid her, Deek. And it was easy."

I jerked my shoulder away and started up the stairs, but the box was empty. Davey was gone.

"Where does the doll hang out?" I said.

Max gave with the hands. "Forget it, will you? It's all over now. The kid was
grateful
to me!"

"At 45 Gardens Road," a voice said. "Apartment Five." It was Parnelli.

"You want some, too, Deek?" Max asked. He laughed: it was the nastiest sound I'd ever heard.

"Coo," Parnelli said. "The cold touch of the master."

I studied the man I'd loved for six years. He said, "She doesn't deny it," and I thought, this is the ax between the eyes for Davey. He'll never get up now. Never.

I grabbed Max's arm. He smiled. "I know how you like the kid," he said, "and believe me, I do, too. But it's better he found out now than later, isn't it? Don't you see--I had to do it, for his sake."

Some of the crowd was inching up to get a hear. I didn't care. "Dailey," I said, "listen good. I got an idea in me. If it turns out right, if it turns out that idea is right, I'm going to come back here and kill you. Dig?"

He was big, but I had wings. I shoved him out of the way, hard, ran outside and grabbed a taxi.

I sat in the back, praying to God she was home, wishing I had a horn to blow--
something!

I skipped the elevator, took the stairs by threes.

I knocked on Apartment Five. No answer. I felt the ice on my hide and pounded again.

The chick opened up. Her eyes were red. "Hello, Deacon."

I kicked the door shut and stood there, trying to find the right words. Everything seemed urgent. Everything was right now. "I want the truth," I said. "I'm talking about the truth. If you lie, I'll know it." I took a breath. "Did you sleep with Max Dailey?"

She nodded yes. I grabbed her, swung her around. "The truth, goddammit!" My voice surprised me: it was a man talking. I dug my fingers hard into her skin. "Think about Davey. Put him in your mind. Then tell me that you and Max slept together, tell me that you took off all your clothes and let Max Dailey lay you! Tell me that!"

She tried to get away; then she started to cry. "I didn't," she said, and I let go. "I didn't . . ."

"You love the kid?"

"Yes."

"Want to marry him?"

"Yes. But you don't understand. Mr. Dailey--"

"I'll understand in a hurry. There isn't any time now."

I let the tears bubble up good and hot.

"Come on."

She hesitated a beat, but there wasn't any fooling around and she knew it. She got a coat on and we got back into the taxi.

Neither of us said a word the whole trip to Birdland.

By now it was closing time; the joint was empty, dark. Some slow blues were rolling out from the stand.

First guy I saw was Parnelli. He was blowing his trombone. The rest of the boys-- all but two--were there, jamming.

Parnelli quit and came over. He was shaking good now.

"Where's Davey?" I asked.

He looked at me, then at Lorraine.

"Where is he?"

"You're too late," Parnelli said. "It looks like the Big M pushed a mite too far, Just a mite."