It took him only an hour and forty minutes to get her drunk enough where his watery explanation of why he had to leave for a few minutes seemed logical to her. “I’ll be right back,” he said in her ear. She was staring dimly at the ceiling from her position on the couch with eyes that saw very little.
“I’ll turn out the lights,” he said.
“You’ll be back, won’t you?” she begged him.
“I’ll be back,” he said, cold and wooden inside.
He found ten guys he knew at the Double-Decker, having malts and salami burgers, and he clued them in. It wasn’t quite as he told it, but they accepted his story. He led them back to the rooming house, and sent the first guy down into the darkness of the basement room with a slap on the back.
Her passionate moan sounded final, and while he waited with others, smoking, he recalled what the gypsy had said. Somehow, he could not bring himself to chuckle.
4. The Truth
I’D SPENT THE WHOLE DAY down at the Union Hall, trying to pick up a good horn, but anybody who’d have fitted in was either out on the cultural exchange bit or blowing on the Coast.
There were half a dozen fat lips lying around, there always are, but I wouldn’t have spit on the best of them. Which left me right where I’d started when Cookie had come down with a bad case of holding and the fuzz had carted him away to Lexington. I could’ve told them they were flapping their wings out-of-rhythm; Cookie’d rather die than lose his monkey.
But he’d been the best horn in town.
Which left us an important side short, going into the most impressive gig of our career. Saul Maxim wasn’t paying us for a four-man quintet, and I was about to call one of the numbers I’d taken from those dogs at the Hall, when this kid came into Maxim’s, with a horn case tucked tight under his wing.
He looked around, mostly at us on the stand, and finally gave it the leg. He was tall, with a sort of loose-limbed Mulligan look about him, crew cut, nice face, and the white muscle ridge on his upper lip that was his membership badge in the trumpeter’s club. Looked like a nice-enough kid, and the boys stopped screwing around as he walked up to the stand.
“You Art Staff, ’round here?” he asked.
I nodded and stuck out my hand. “The same. Something I can do for you?”
He took the hand and looked me cold in the eyes with, “The word’s been goin’ around you need a horn. I was on the loose, so I figured I’d come over, give it a try. You still needing?”
“We’re still needing,” I said, “if you can do the work. It’s five sets a night, and you’ll get scale. That sound okay?”
He shrugged. It didn’t seem to matter. “Fine by me. Want I should audition now?”
I was about to say go ahead but Arville Dreiser, our drummer, whistled loud behind me. “Want to hold it a minute, Art? Call of nature.”
I gave him the go-ahead and he cut for the sandbox. I invited the kid to sit down and jaw with me for a couple minutes. He set the case right beside himself, and slumped onto the stand beside me. “What’s your name?” I asked.
Deliberately, he wiped the corners of his mouth where little sticky clots of saliva-dirt had gathered. “Del Matthews,” he answered, cooly. It seemed to fit.
“You don’t look like you need this gig too bad,” I made small talk. “Who’ve you played with?”
He made a small wave in the general direction of nowheresville. “Around,” he said. “Nobody you’d know. A few rhythm-and-blues outfits. I been in the city a couple months, haven’t been able to make too much of a connection.”
That sounded bad. If the kid had been any good, with the shortage the way it was, he’d have been bound to pick up at least something. “You, uh, you got a card?” He nodded, reached into his hip pocket, and brought up an empty, weathered wallet. He flashed the card. It was current. It looked bad.
“What’d’ya blow?” I inquired, as politely as I could, trying not to let him know I was spooked.
“Anything, mostly. Makes no difference. You call ’em, I can play it. Just as long as I can blow, that’s all I’m looking for. Just work.”
There was something peculiar in his eyes. I’d have laughed at myself if I’d recognized that look at the time, but I didn’t. It was only lots later that I dug it was the same expression I’d seen in paintings of the big man, Christ. Strange how things like that hang with you. I didn’t dig, then, but later it came to me.
All he seemed to want to do, apparently, was work.
So I was game to try. We had to work that night, and I was backed to the wall. We needed the gig bad.
About that time Dreiser came out of the KINGS room and hopped up onto the stand. He sat down behind the traps and gave me the nod. I heaved a sigh, stood up (wondering which number I should ring up for a horn when this kid blew out), and moved to the piano. The kid took his horn.
I figured we ought to give him every possible, so I asked him if he knew the Giuffre “Four Brothers.” He said he did, without hesitation, so I gave it a three-bar intro, and Rog came on with the bass the way we’d rehearsed it; Dreiser hit the drums down soft and Frilly Epperson joined at the same instant with his sax. We were all swinging, and waiting for that first note, when the kid came on.
Now I want to tell this just so. He could blow, that was the first thing. I don’t mean he copied: he wasn’t Farmer, and he wasn’t Miles; he wasn’t Nat Adderley or Diz, either. He was all himself.
He was fingering a Selmer that looked as though it had seen a few hock shops, and hadn’t been shined very often, but he could blow. He came on like the west wind and for a second we all stumbled, listening to him.
Then when we hit the solo spot where Cookie’d usually ride out — “Four Brothers” was a virtuoso piece any time — the kid went on ahead like Hurricane Hilda. He caught the repetitive riffs and whanged on each one till it said “Uncle!” Frankly, I was impressed as hell.
The kid wasn’t any finger-poppin’ Daddy, either. He knew his sounds. There was —what was it? — there was like truth in what he blew. It was really, honest to God saying something. I looked over and Frilly was staring at the kid with eyes like pizzas. I heard Arville Dreiser drop the beat for a second, which he never, so I knew they were all pretty high on the kid.
When he had expended his conversation, we went into a restatement of the theme and finished it up faster than even Cookie had been able to gun it. I didn’t say anything for a minute, then said, “Let’s try ‘Laura.’”
He nodded, and Frilly opened it so quick I gave him a long look. But he didn’t give a damn; he wanted to hear more of that horn, he couldn’t wait.
Well.
He blew “Laura” like it would have made Gene Tierney bawl. And this time I was sure. The kid was blowing the truth. It was the kind of sound Monk has in his piano, the kind of thing Bird had, and the thing Bix had right up to the end. It was the kind of thing Louis had for a while till he found the tomming routine paid better. It was simply the truth.
“Laura” finished and the sound still hung. When it had gone to its velvet rest, I realized the kid had finished the piece alone, we’d sunk to silence digging.
The kid didn’t say anything. He just banged out the spittle and settled onto one hip, waiting for the word.
I swung around on the stool and pulled out a butt. I lit it, and didn’t look at him as I said, “Sorry, kid, don’t think you’re exactly what we want. We play a little too hard bop for you, I guess. Maybe some other time. No hard — ”
He cut me off with a flat sweep of his hand. He’d heard it all before. He holstered the Selmer and mumbled a cool, “Thanks. Yeah, later,” and was gone.