Written in Dead Wax (38 page)

I thought,
Hollywod
. I went and got a pen and returned to the large photos on the wall. I studied Hobartt, the scars of the fire that raddled his cheeks. Then I looked at Geary, that smooth, unlined, almost Asian face. I checked the scars and started drawing. I drew the lines on Geary’s face, copying carefully. Finally I stepped back and looked at it, then at Hobartt’s.

It was the same face.

I picked up the medical directory. I knew where to look now and I immediately turned to find the marked page.

Plastic surgeons.

“Okay,” said Tinkler, “so they’re the same guy. That’s fairly interesting. But do you want to hear something that’s
really
interesting? This morning Turk came charging through the cat flap with a magpie in her mouth. A magpie! This thing was almost as big as she is. Still alive. Unharmed, in fact. She’d brought it back alive. That’s my girl. She let the magpie go and went and ate some biscuits. So I had to open the windows and chase the bird out. Which in all modesty I have to say I did with brilliant success.”

I said, “Tinkler, I don’t want to sound disloyal to my cats but I think this discovery of mine is even more important than Turk bagging a magpie.”

“No, you’re right. You’re probably right. I guess you’re right.”

I said, “Ree is so pleased with me, that I worked it out. I don’t know what the hell good it does her. Or anybody. But she’s as pleased as Punch. Even the guys at the garage are pleased. And they don’t know what the hell I found out. But they bought me a bottle of mescal. You know, with the worm at the bottom.”

“Yes. Yuck.”

“And they gave it to me with a note that said, ‘For the Book Worm’. You know, referencing the worm and everything.”

“So, anyway, they’re the same guy?” said Tinkler. “Easy Geary and Burns Hobartt?”

“The weirdest thing,” I said, “is that it makes absolute sense, from a musical point of view. Nobody played Hobartt’s tunes like Easy Geary did. He played that music as if he knew it from the inside. Which it turns out he did.”

“But Hobartt was the king of swing. And Geary was a bebop cat.”

“Hobartt was already moving in the direction of bop when he vanished. And he probably would have moved faster and further in that direction if he hadn’t needed to stay popular with a mass audience.”

“But to hell with these questions of artistic integrity,” said Tinkler. “What about the
money
? Hobartt was rich. Astonishingly rich for a musician. Thanks to his compositions he must have owned a huge chunk of AMI.”

“The company that would later become AMI. And it wasn’t such a huge chunk because Davenport Music was already a big concern before he came along, thanks to stealing half of everything Professor Jellaway ever wrote.”

“Anyway, you’re saying that he actually went from being a big-shot millionaire bandleader to some unknown little guy who played in little clubs?”

“Yes.”

“And he did it deliberately. He gave up all that.”

I said, “Yes. To become a cult genius known only to a few. But it was only a matter of time. That’s what he must have figured.”

“That he could rise like a phoenix from the ashes?” said Tinkler.

“Exactly. Start all over again, because when you’re a genius like that it’s only a matter of time before you break through again. In fact, he was already on the rise, with a growing reputation and destined for greatness—again—when he died.”

“So he just assumed another identity? Hobartt became Geary. And he walked away from his band and his music and all the publishing rights and royalties?”

“He also walked away from a murder charge. If that story about the Lake Tahoe house is to be believed.”

“But didn’t they find his body there?”

“They found
somebody’s
body there. It could have been anyone. We may never know who it was. Except is wasn’t Burns Hobartt.”

There was a pause as, on the other side of the world, Tinkler thought about it. “This was the late 1940s, right?”

“Right.”

“So it wasn’t exactly
CSI: Lake Tahoe
.”

“The forensic sciences were in their infancy if that’s what you’re trying to say, yes.”

“So no DNA. So just use the body of some John Doe or skid row bum…”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

“So they actually could have pulled it off? I mean,
he
actually could have pulled it off?”

I said, “When I listen to their stuff I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. It’s the same musical mind. So clearly the same mind.”

“But there was more to it than just planting a body in a burning house, surely. How the hell did they do it? I mean, did
he
do it.”

“Well, by the late forties plastic surgery had advanced to the point where Hobartt could get his scars fixed.”

“You mean, Burns could lose his burns,” said Tinkler.

“Tasteless but true. He had the money to get his face repaired and medical science could now repair it. Sort of. If he didn’t mind ending up looking like Buddha on a bad day and only have about three facial expressions in his repertoire.”

“That explains his face, but what about the rest of it? Creating a whole new identity.”

“After the Second World War servicemen were pouring back into the States from all over the world. Hobartt bought or forged papers from a soldier who had been serving overseas for years in far-off exotic outposts and was only now returning to the homeland. Don’t forget that he had plenty of money to pull this off.”

Tinkler said, “And these were the days before our friend the computer.”

“It also explains one of the great mysteries of jazz. How Easy Geary could arrive on the scene as an unknown, but already fully formed, genius. Supposedly he’d been listening to jazz greats on records in lonely military outposts. But this explanation is much more convincing.”

“This is amazing,” said Tinkler. “Thinking about it, you’re right. It’s even more significant than Turk’s magpie. You should write a book about it.”

I stared at the piles of literature that still crowded Ree’s living room. “If I never see a jazz book again, it will be too soon.”

“I’ll remind you that you said that next Christmas.”

“Okay.”

“And I want to go on record as saying I still think Turk’s catch is pretty important.”

Tinkler and I said our goodbyes. Ree had also been talking on the phone. When she saw that I was finished she rang off, too.

I said, “Tinkler’s been cat-sitting too long. He’s gone native.”

She said, “That was Berto. Someone tried to break into the garage.”

“Did they get anything?”

“No. They never even got as far as the lock-up before all sorts of alarms went off and they had to get the hell out of there.”

“Do they know who it was?”

“No.”

“I thought they had cameras everywhere.”

She shrugged. “They do. But somebody shot them with a BB gun. Do you know what that is?”

I said, “An air rifle. Fires tiny ball bearings. Traditionally given to young boys so they can learn to slay small animals.”

“Right,” she said. “Also good for slaying small cameras.”

We were both silent for a minute. Then I said, “Let’s not forget that there might be all sorts of reasons all sorts of people might want to break into Berto’s garage. It’s full of valuable auto parts.”

“Right,” she said.

* * *

When we first met, Ree had mentioned the disappearance of her grandmother’s diary, and her suspicions about the shady character who’d supposedly been working on Rita Mae’s biography. The only reason we hadn’t gone straight to see this guy when we landed in LA was because we didn’t know where to find him.

That changed, however. One day she looked up at me triumphantly from her computer and said, “We’re going for a little ride.”

So I found myself standing in front of a white stucco house in a shady cul-de-sac of a street in Downey just off Imperial Highway, watching as Ree rang the doorbell. She said, “Don’t forget what I told you.”

“Let you do the talking and just play dumb.”

“Not dumb.” She shook her head impatiently. “Silent. Just stand around and kind of…”

“Loom?”

“Right. And don’t say anything unless you have to.” She was about to add something else but then the door popped open.

He was a small, chubby man with thinning chestnut hair and a goatee. He wore a garish Hawaiian shirt, Bermuda shorts, white socks and sandals.

When he saw Ree, a hastily concealed look of alarm flashed across his face. But he quickly composed himself and smiled and said, “Ree, I haven’t seen you for the longest time!”

“You’re a hard man to find.”

The guy shot a worried look at me. As instructed, I just stood there silently.

“This is a friend of mine,” said Ree.

The little man said, “Wilburt Sassman, pleased to meet you.” I took the hand he offered but said nothing and my silence seemed to have a profound effect on him. I actually felt his palm grow warm and sweaty as we shook.

He said, “So, ah, what brings you here, Ree?”

“Could we step in for a sec?”

He looked over his shoulder helplessly. I could see he was trying to think of an excuse not to let us in. “It’ll only take a minute,” said Ree, and smiled. He was trapped by social convention. He shrugged and stepped aside and we went into the house. It was cool inside and I could hear a soft bubbling sound like someone smoking a bubble pipe. One enormous endless soft inhalation.

Wilburt led us through to a heavily carpeted living room with thick overstuffed floral furniture gathered inwards towards the centre, as though huddling together for security. Around the walls of the room were glass aquarium tanks full of brightly coloured darting fish. The bubbling noise came from the air pumps on the tanks.

Thick curtains shut out the sunshine. But emanating from the illuminated fish tanks there was more than enough light to see that the walls were covered with framed photographs of Ree’s grandmother.

Rita Mae Pollini.

She was a very beautiful woman and they were striking photos, clearly publicity shots, and any given selection of them would have looked fine and indeed attractive on any wall. But the sheer number of these gave a queasy sense of obsession.

Wilburt gestured for us to sit down. Ree remained standing and so did I. He settled warily into a big soft pale green armchair facing us. Ree moved away from me, so he had to turn his head to look from one of us to the other. He tried to smile and said, “I suppose you’re wondering how the biography is going?”

Ree shook her head. “No, Wilburt,” she said regretfully. “We’re not wondering that at all.”

He gave her a sharp look. “Well, I know I haven’t been as quick about it as I might have been, but I’ve had some health issues.” He looked at me. “Allergies have compromised my immune system.”

I didn’t say anything, just expressionlessly returned his stare, and he grew visibly more uneasy. “Who did you say your friend was?” he asked Ree.

She glanced at me. “I brought him with me all the way from England. To see you.”

“Me?” said Wilburt. His voice was a squeak. “Why?”

“Because I want what’s mine. And he’s here to make sure that I get it.”

“What do you mean what’s yours?” His voice was, if anything, growing more high-pitched. Constricted with tension. “What are you talking about?”

Now Ree sat down. I remained standing, fascinated by what I was seeing. The guy was coming apart in front of us. She was pressing his buttons, and he was self-destructing.

She said, “I think you know exactly what we’re talking about.”

“I don’t understand,” said Wilburt. He sounded close to tears. “I don’t understand what I’ve done that makes you think you can come barging in here, making accusations, with your hired muscle.”

“You mean Chef?” She shot me a look. “Do you want to know why they call him the Chef?”

Wilburt actually covered his ears. “No, no,” he moaned.

Ree went to him and spoke softly, persuasively, lifting his hands from his ears. “You don’t need to ever find out, just so long as you give me what is mine.”

Their faces were close together, but he wouldn’t look her in the eye. “I don’t have anything! I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He was so obviously lying that it was embarrassing to all of us. I didn’t know where to look. “This is so unfair.”

“No, Wilburt,” said Ree gently. “What is unfair is you getting unlimited access to my grandmother and using the opportunity to loot things.”

“I didn’t loot anything!”

Ree made as if to head for the door. “Do you want to continue this interview with just you and Chef? I can leave the two of you alone.”

He glanced at me. “No!”

“Then I want it back.”

“This is so unfair,” repeated Wilburt.

I went and tapped my knuckle against the glass of the aquarium. The fish came and peered at me. “Leave my fish alone!” he cried.

“We want you to give us the diary,” she said.

I looked at him. “Now. Or else you’ll find out why they call me the Chef.”

“Okay,” he said, staring at me. “Okay. Take it easy.” He rose from the chair. “I’ll go and get it.” He glanced at Ree accusingly with big wet eyes, then left the room.

We stared at each other. Ree looked like she was going to lose it and start laughing. I started to get worried. He was gone a long time, and the longer he was gone the more she began to shake with suppressed hilarity. But she managed to control herself and pulled herself together swiftly, adopting a grim, blank face as he came scurrying back in with a small red book.

After all the fuss, it didn’t look very impressive. But Ree flipped through it and nodded. “This is it.”

We took it out to the car. Ree sat at the wheel for a moment, making a bubbling convulsive sound, her shoulders jumping. Then finally she succumbed to laughter. When she finished, she wiped her eyes and turned to me.

“That was fun,” she said. “What say we go back in and do it all again?”

* * *

We stopped off at Berto’s to lock up the diary, and when we got there we discovered another record had arrived in the mail. I unwrapped it while Ree locked the diary in the safe. It was HL-004, Johnny Richards. I felt a particular sense of triumph about acquiring this one, because it was the album we had missed out on at the record mart in Wembley.