“Fine by me. Tape deck in the stereo unit over by the fireplace.”
They played on the porch, where it was cooler, with the windows and front door open so they could better hear the music. He’d taken a little time in selecting tapes, because he wanted to give her an idea of the broad range of jazz, old and new. The three he’d settled on were a hot-jazz medley of artists and arrangements from the forties, a late-seventies Miles Davis album, and a mixed bag from improvisational swing to electric funk by such contemporaries as Joe Henderson, Charlie Hunter, Ornette Coleman, and Sonny Rollins. Dacy seemed to like them all. It pleased him that her strongest response was to the forties tape. She particularly favored Louis Armstrong’s “Potato Head Blues,” Sidney Bechet’s “Polka Dot Rag,” Bunk Johnson’s “St. Louis Blues,” and Billie Holiday’s “Keep Me in Your Dreams” — all favorites of his.
Her enthusiasm led him, without realizing it until he was already launched, into a fervent discourse on jazz. He told her about its central laments of wasted youth and lost loves and bittersweet dreams, its shrieks and whispers of melancholy and pain, its mournful expressions of that all-gone feeling on the morning after a long, troubled night. He told her the old folk theory that the true originator of the blues was the mighty Mississippi; that W. C. Handy had stood on an old wooden bridge in Memphis, listened hard and close to Old Man River singing its lonesome songs, and lifted out “Memphis Blues,” “St. Louis Blues,” and others whole, words and all. He told her about the mechanics of improvisation, how each instrument worked to complement the others and what each brought in terms of harmony, melody, rhythm, and syncopation: the hard-driving moan of the trumpet, the hoarse bray of the alto sax, the insistent, sometimes raucous tones of the clarinet, the burry cry of the trombone, the steady throbbing four-four beat of the piano and the drums. And in the vocals, the glides and skidding elisions, the lyrical invention, the husky and tender tones that only good hot singers like Billie Holiday and Mildred Bailey and Bessie Smith could achieve.
Dacy didn’t interrupt. Unlike too many people these days, she listened to and absorbed what she was hearing; and her interest seemed genuine. When he finally ran out of steam she gave him another of her long, speculative looks before she spoke.
“You really love that music, don’t you, Jim.”
“I do. Yes. It’s... another world to me.”
“Better than the one we live in?”
“Reflective of it. And a lot more honest.”
“No argument there. You play an instrument yourself?”
“God, no. I was born with plenty of musical appreciation but not a scrap of musical talent. I tried trumpet, clarinet, and guitar when I first developed an interest in jazz in college. Hopeless in each case.”
“So now you just listen and yearn.”
He liked that; it made him smile. “Now I just listen and yearn.”
He was no match for her on the chessboard. She played a calculated, determined game, and made no move without carefully considering it first; and like all good chess players, she was capable of thinking and planning several moves ahead. She checkmated him in twenty-two moves the first game, in nineteen the second.
Jazz and chess on an isolated desert ranch, he thought as he set up the board — an old one made in Mexico, its alabaster pieces chipped and worn smooth from long use — for a third game. Incongruous to some; perfectly natural to the two of them. Shared enjoyments between two people who at first meeting had seemed to have little or nothing in common. Easy and relaxed with each other. Kindred spirits: partners in loneliness. Maybe...
No, he warned himself, don’t go jumping the gun. Some connection here, yes, but she’s still the boss and you’re still the hired hand and there’s been nothing to suggest any change in that relationship. Jazz and chess on a Sunday afternoon — that’s all this is. If it’s enough for her, it ought to be enough for you, too.
She broke into his thoughts by saying, “We’re about to have company.”
Messenger glanced up from the board. Dacy was looking toward the valley road, at what he saw then were chutes of dust above and behind a fast-moving car or truck. The vehicle had passed the gate to John T.’s ranch; there was little doubt that it was headed here.
“Lonnie?” he said.
“No. He won’t be back until late.”
They waited without speaking. In half the time it took Coleman Hawkins to blow “Body and Soul” on his sweet tenor sax, the vehicle reached the Burgess gate and turned in — a high-riding Ford Bronco with a rack of spotlights atop the cab.
Dacy said, “That’s Henry Ramirez’s Bronco.”
“Ramirez?”
“Jaime Orozco’s son-in-law. You didn’t meet him when you talked to Jaime?”
“No.”
Messenger went ahead to meet the Bronco as it slid up. Buster had begun his usual furious barking and lunging; Dacy yelled at the dog to shut up and for once it obeyed. The man who swung down from the high cab was in his thirties, dark-mustached, and building a beer belly; he and Dacy exchanged greetings. The nod he offered Messenger was brief but not unfriendly.
“What brings you out, Henry?”
“Favor to Jaime.”
Messenger asked eagerly, “He found out who owns the pickup with the broken antenna?”
“Little while ago,” Ramirez said, nodding. “Man named Draper, Billy Draper.”
“You know him?”
“No. Miner, works at the King Gypsum Mine. The other one’s probably Pete Teal, another miner out there — word is the two of ’em are always together.”
“Are they close to anyone in Beulah?”
Ramirez shrugged. “Not that Charley Wovoka knows about. You know Charley,” he said to Dacy. “Bartender at the Wild Horse.”
“Sure, I know him.”
“Well, he’s the one who tied them to the pickup. They come in once or twice a week to gamble. Sports book, mostly. Big sports fans. He saw Draper parking the truck once.”
Messenger said, “If they’re in the casino that often, there’s a good chance John T. knows them, too.”
“Wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Where’s the King Gypsum Mine located?”
“Montezuma Range,” Dacy said, “northwest of here. But you don’t want to go out there, Jim, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“Why don’t I?”
“Those gypsum miners are pretty rough boys,” Ramirez said.
“That’s one reason,” Dacy said. “Another is that the King is privately owned and the land is posted and patrolled. It isn’t likely you’d get past the front gate.”
“So what do I do then? Espinosa won’t do anything without the kind of proof he can’t ignore — we all know that.”
Ramirez said, “They’ll be in the casino bar at six tomorrow night.”
“Draper and Teal? How do you know?”
“Charley Wovoka says so. He says they come in every Monday night during football season. Watch the Monday night game on the Wild Horse’s big-screen TV.”
“That’s it, then. Thanks, Henry. Tell Jaime I’m in his debt.”
“Tell him yourself. He likes company.” Ramirez paused. “Watch yourself, man. I wasn’t kidding when I said those gypsum miners are rough trade.”
When he and his Bronco were headed back to the valley road, Dacy said, “Henry’s right. You’d be a fool to try bracing Draper and Teal by yourself.”
The prospect should have worried him, maybe, but it didn’t. He relished it the way he relished the imminent arrival of a vital piece of information in a complicated tax case: It would put him that much closer to a solution. “The casino bar’s a public place,” he said. “Besides, what other choice is there?”
“I can think of a couple.”