Half-Blood Blues (17 page)

‘Okay,’ she said, nodding quickly. ‘Yes. Okay then.’

She sort of spun round awkwardly on her heels, started walking purposefully off in the opposite direction. Ain’t nothing down that way but the prop closet.

Sick ain’t even the right word. Mortified, ashamed, embarrassed – hell, I was so far deep into it I ain’t even known what I was feeling. And being trapped in that damn club. Jesus.

The next night, I drifted into the green room looking round for something, anything, to rid me of my restlessness. Chip was sitting in there, brooding on the wall like he waiting for a painting to appear. Dame Delilah the Second was curled in his lap, purring away.

He give it a disgusted look. ‘This damn mangy rotten godawful ugly thing,’ he scowled. He still sounded drunk.

I sat beside him.

‘Her bank still closed?’ he said. ‘What you thinkin, courtin a dame when you three sheets to the wind. You ain’t
never
go in drunk, brother. You crazy.’ He shook his head. ‘Fool fool fool. Tellin a dame you aim to sin with that she frigid.’

I sort of lifted my shoulders, dropped them with a sigh. He was right. I got to get a hold of myself. Get smarter bout how I gone after her.

He give a sharp laugh. ‘A cat ain’t somethin you can one up. It ain’t.’ He lift up the Dame from his lap, its claws digging in hard to his suit. He grimaced and set it back. I could smell the czech on him still, coming off his breath in waves. ‘But it alright. Now you exactly where you want to be. Now you get to be
apologetic
, brother. Dames love that.’

I scowled. ‘Hell, Chip. I want you advice, I ask for it.’

‘I serious, brother. Go on up there right now, tell her how damn sorry you is. It goin work. You see.’

I studied his face in the ugly yellow lights from the costume trace. The light was pooling weirdly along his oyster lips, making him look like he leering at me.

‘What. She here?’

‘Where you been, buck? She been upstairs the last hour.’ He chuckled. ‘Up in Ernst’s office. And she
alone
, brother.’

‘Where the kid?’

Chip shrugged.

Hell. Hell and hell again. I got up, casual like, turning my old hat in my fingers, then sort of sauntered out into the corridor like I just thinking of something else. But what I was thinking was:
Enough. Clear the damn air, let her see what you thinkin. Then leave it be.

Ernst had dragged a chair up onstage, was sitting alone cleaning his licorice stick softly. He ain’t even look up as I gone past, the instrument gilt as a blade. The club was dark, but there was lights on in Ernst’s office. I shuffled through the tables, up the narrow stairs. The door stood open, but I stopped in the shadows anyhow before tapping on the doorframe.

She stood in her blue silk dress, holding the gold scarf on her head with both hands, the fabric slipping like silty water down one ear. Her taut armpits was peppered with hairs black as scabs. ‘Sidney,’ she said, turning to me. ‘What a surprise.’

‘I come to apologize.’ I ain’t looked at her face. I feared her irritation. But the silence, it was brutal. I lift up my eyes. She was staring hard at me, waiting.

‘I ain’t got nothin to give you,’ I said.

She stood there, blank-faced for a minute. ‘Is this a joke?’

‘No.’

‘Because I’ve had just about enough of those from you.’

I cleared my throat uneasily.

‘What do you want, Sid?’ Something in that sounded thin, vulnerable.

I went to take her hand but she bowed forward quick, tying that sloppy gold fabric back into place. She let her hands hang loose at her thighs. I ain’t so foolish as to try it again.

‘I ain’t got nothin to give you, Delilah,’ I said quietly. ‘But I wish to all hell that I did.’

My face gone hot, hearing myself talk like this. I ain’t never spoken to a jane this way, not even in my greenest years of dating. Delilah’s great intelligent face, the rough pureness in it, like both pain and happiness left their mark on her. Hell.

She stood there looking at me, her lips like a ripe bruise. She ain’t said a word. I felt sick.

‘Hell, girl,’ I muttered. ‘I sorry. It ain’t right, puttin all this on you.’

I touched my old hat with two fingers, nodded, turned back to the door.

‘Sidney.’ She said it full of a sullen tenderness, like she irritated with herself.

I stopped. The oak flooring creaked under my heels. I felt a hot radiance in my nerves, my whole body filling with a confused, battered feeling, like a moth caught in a lantern.

‘Come in,’ she said. ‘Shut the door.’

She reached across, drawn the curtains shut in the office windows. That cramped awful place with its heatless heaters. Her thin blue dress so sheer I could see the hooks of her undergarments through the satin.

I moistened my lips, nervous.

Staring hard at me, she raised her arms real slow. Her gaze was full of such awful intensity I ain’t known what all I should be watching – the teasing lift of her arms, or the tension in her green eyes. I glanced from one to the other, feeling frightened, excited.

She untied the gold fabric of her headwrap, unwound it slowly, then pulled it off and held it balled up in both hands.

Holy hell. She was
bald
. Her scalp was rough with tufts of hair, the pale skin shining eerily between them.

Her face was utterly still, utterly empty. But her eyes shone with defiance, water glistening in them. She put one hand on her rigid hip. ‘Still want me now, Sid?’ she said bitterly. ‘You still itching to have a go at me?’

I ain’t said nothing. Just stared.

In a dark voice, she said, ‘They said it was
stress
. It was supposed to grow
back
.’ But her voice sort of choked off then. She glared hard at me.

I took off my hat, blinking sort of slow-like.

Then I stepped forward, leaned down. And kissed her.

She ain’t even moved. But I could feel the relief through her body, the tension going. And then she was kissing me back, her mouth soft and warm on mine. I thought, Hell, this girl don’t even know what she is. She the most stunning and original thing I ever known.

She pulled back, put one hand to my chest. ‘What’re you doing?’

I put a hand on her scalp, real gentle.

‘Don’t, Sid. Don’t. It’s ugly.’ She turned her head away.

‘Hey. Hey,’ I said, brushing my knuckles real soft over her wet cheeks. ‘It ain’t. Come here. It don’t matter. This goin sound crazy. You been here all of a bug’s age, girl, but already I feel like I known you a lifetime. I think I fallin in love with you.’

She looked quickly up at me. Then pushed me hard on the chest. I stumbled back.

‘Don’t you go messing with me,’ she said. ‘I mean it. Sid? I mean it.’

I stood rubbing my chest.

‘Say it again,’ she said.

‘What?’

‘What you just said.’

‘I fallin in love with you?’

‘Come here,’ she said.

My legs unsteady, I stepped closer. Her ropey fingers, the marble wrist bones, that slender pale throat like some young birch. She was all length and grace standing there, and seeing the shadows pooled at her collarbones, like a dent made by a human finger, I wanted to put my mouth there.

She took my hand, drew me over to Ernst’s old sofa. I ain’t took my eyes from hers. She lay herself down, shyly drew me down on top of her.

‘What you doin, girl?’ I whispered. ‘Ernst could come in.’

I could feel her breathing beneath me. I brought my mouth down real soft on her head, kissed the cotton-floss. She made a soft noise, lifted her face, and I kissed her again. Then I rose on one slow elbow and yanked open the front of her dress.

What I remember as I kissed my way down her ribs was the peace she seemed to be in then. The absolute peace.

Shooting out of sleep in the morning, I lifted up onto one elbow, peering through the darkness of Ernst’s office. I was covered in a thin blanket, my trousers, shirt and socks strewn around me like some tentacled beast. I could still feel Delilah’s warmth on me, like a shadow. Turning to touch her, I got a handful of nothing.

‘Lilah?’ I said softly. ‘You here, girl?’

I got this weird feeling in my chest, like something bad was prowling in the damn rafters. The door stood half ajar, and looking across I seen that foul cat sitting in the crack, studying me with its yellow eyes. Then it turned, slipped out.

I shivered. ‘Delilah? Where you get to?’

I got up, slipped into my trousers, come out onto the stairs to stare down over the club. Chip and the kid sat at a table, not saying much. The kid’s horn stood upright at the table’s centre, like it on display.

‘If it ain’t Captain Romance,’ Chip called, as I come down.

I smiled, blushing. I was still buttoning up my old shirt. ‘Where Delilah? You seen her?’

Hiero give me a long measured look.
That’s right, buck
, I thought.
It ain’t all bout you no more
.

‘What, she missin too?’ Chip run the back of his hand across his damp lips. ‘Is my lips bleedin?’

I give him a look.

‘Feel like they bleedin. What?’ He blown out his cheeks. ‘Paul gone out early this mornin. Ain’t none of us seen him go. Ernst out lookin for him.’

‘You foolin.’

‘Ask the kid.’

‘What he go do a fool thing like that for? What he thinkin? Hell.’ But then it felt like I not even in the room, my nerves driving me so far back into myself. All a sudden my throat felt cold.

‘What is it?’ said Chip. ‘What you ain’t sayin, buck?’

I cleared my throat, sat down. I stared off at the exit, at the doors to the front lobby. ‘He was askin yesterday bout goin back to the flat. He said there was somethin he needed.’

‘What he needin so bad?’

I shrugged. ‘He ain’t said. He was embarrassed.’ I fixed my eyes on his old piano, standing open and grinning whitely at the room. Dread was rising up in me. ‘I said he ought to ask Delilah to help him,’ I muttered, real soft.

‘He wasn’t lookin so good,’ said Hiero. His fingers picked absently at his frayed sleeve. ‘I kept askin if he sick. He kept sayin no, but. Hell. You known somethin was wrong.’

I thought of how Paul was yesterday evening, his blond hair upright as quills, that slack drunken laugh of his. Chip exhaled, set his thick hands on the table.

‘Hold up. Ernst gone out there?’ I said. ‘Jesus Christ. We lose Ernst, we good as buried.’

‘It alright,’ said Hiero. ‘If they just goin off to the flat, they like to be back soon. It ain’t far.’

‘Paul been gone all damn day, buck. It been
hours
.’

I felt sort of lightheaded, thin, near transparent with fear. ‘What time is it?’

‘You missed lunch,’ said Chip.

‘Ernst was goin check the flat,’ the kid said soft-like. ‘He find them. Don’t you worry, Sid. Maybe they ain’t even together.’

I give him a despairing look. Shook my damn head.

‘If they been pinched,’ said Chip, ‘if they been pinched, we got to get out of here. The Boots be comin here next.’

But if they been pinched, hell. Ain’t nothing else matter no more.

‘We got to stay calm,’ said the kid. ‘They could be comin back right now. We just don’t know.’ There was a undercurrent of strength in his voice I ain’t recognized. And then I did. It sound like Delilah.

Ernst come back late the next night. Our anxiety was chewing its way through our guts, we was so nervous. Ernst come in real slow, and I known it at once. Never mind his slick hair looking impeccable, his silver cufflinks shining. He run a pale hand down his tie, tucking it cleanly into his suit. Then he just shake his head.

‘You’re sitting in the dark,’ he said. ‘Somebody turn on a goddamn light.’

I felt my heart sink.

‘Nothin?’ said Chip. ‘For real?’

‘Maybe that’s good news,’ said Hiero. ‘Maybe that means they’re not in trouble.’

‘No, kid,’ said Ernst. ‘It’s not good news.’ Then he stopped, give the kid a hard look, his dark eyes looking liquid. ‘What do you mean, “they”?’

‘Delilah been gone all day too,’ said Chip. He give a quick glance over at me.

I could feel my old head spinning. ‘You go to the police?’ I said nervously.

‘Yes.’

‘They ain’t got them?’

‘They said they hadn’t heard anything about anyone fitting Paul’s description.’ He swallowed. ‘I didn’t ask about Delilah. But she’s a Canadian citizen. She should be fine.’

‘And American. She both.’

Ernst nodded. ‘Then she’s even safer.’ But there was something soft, something pliable in his voice, made me think he ain’t believed it.

‘Aw, look who just in time,’ hissed Chip.

I looked up.

Big Fritz was slipping silent through the soot-darkened curtains upstage. He was carrying his sax, his coat folded over the other arm. For a instant I ain’t believed he real. I sat still in my chair, my eyes fixed on him. He stop to study the cat lying like a pile of rags between the footlights. Then he come forward and down to us.

He look
awful
. His brown suit damp and sallow, his ruddy jowls shadowed with stubble, his small flinty eyes studying us each in turn. His mouth sagged in his soft cheeks like moist dough. He look like he bout to speak, but then he ain’t said nothing.

‘Hell, Fritz,’ said the kid. ‘You okay?’

‘Fritz,’ Ernst said with a quiet nod. But he ain’t moved.

We was all watching him.

He opened his massive hands, gestured weakly. ‘I came as soon as I heard.’ He sound sad. ‘Poor Paul. Jesus. What was he doing out there?’

I stared at Fritz’s raw-looking nose, peppered with fat black pores. Thinking, hell, he look damn gruesome.

‘Not just Paul,’ said Ernst.

‘Delilah’s missing too,’ I said quiet-like.

Fritz give me a long look. ‘Armstrong’s girl?’

Chip scraped back his chair, stood abruptly. ‘Sid’s girl,’ he said in disgust. ‘You been gone a long time, buck.’

Fritz frowned at Chip. His tight lips gone white at the corners.

All a sudden I just wanted to screw from that place, to slit my own throat, hell, just
go
. I ain’t wanted a single damn word more of this. I sat real still.