Nine Fingers (21 page)
Authors: Thom August
At the Casbah
Wednesday, January 22
8:30
A
.
M.
:
Strange place. Little slice of the desert, middle of the Near North Side. Table upstairs, little booth, alcove, whatever.
No straight lines. Arches the color of clay. Sand on the floor for Christ’s sake, six inches deep. Sand all in my shoes.
Pain is about a two. For a change.
The waiters? Waitresses? All wearing poofy white shirts, no collars, all buttoned up. Poofy black pants, tight around the
ankles. On their heads? Those little caps, look like an upside-down thimble. What do you call them? A fez. With a tassel on
top.
The clientele? All dressed in black. Not a necktie in sight. Air kisses for the women, knuckle bumps for the men. Heavy jewelry,
all around. Paradise for phonies.
Ridlin shows up last. Same face. Looks like he has lost half his weight. Powell introduces the band. They start right in.
Modern jazz tonight, place like this.
9:15
A
.
M.
:
Scan the room. Check each one, one at a time. No Laura.
First set finishes up. Band splits up, Powell to the bar, talking to Amatucci. Jones screwing with her drums. Worrell comes
up the staircase, the can. Landreau sits there, the piano.
10:00
A
.
M.
:
Second set. More of the same. Grows on you. Crowd starting to get into it. Talk is down, dinner mostly over. My foot is tapping.
Old habit.
10:22
A
.
M.
:
The front door opens. She walks in and stops the freaking room. Again.
Laura.
Wears a little gold number. A black coat over her arm. She walks to the bar. Seat opens up, like magic. Slings the coat down,
perches. Next to Amatucci.
Powell still staring at the floor. Eyes closed. Worrell playing a solo. He is sneaking peaks. Ridlin looking straight at her.
Jones looking up at the ceiling, eyes half-closed, flailing away with the brushes. Landreau? Sees her at the door. Tracks
her all the way to the bar. Leans forward. Squints. Then there’s Amatucci. Sitting next to her. Looking at the band.
Laura reaches over. Places her hand on Amatucci’s arm. There is a cigarette in her other hand. He sees it, gets a lighter
out. Snaps it on, holds it up. She leans in, lights up. Nods at him.
Whole time, he does not look at her. She does not look at him. Usually a moment, when the flame touches the tobacco, the woman
looks up. The whole point. Not this time. She stares at the lighter. He stares at the cigarette.
Great. The high probables? Do not even see her. The low probables? Are all staring.
Powell introduces the band again. I am watching Laura. She applauds the same for each one. Powell introduces Amatucci, at
the bar. She gives him the same smile, the same applause.
I told them. This is not what I do.
Introductions are over. Remember this one, the old days. “Night In…” something. Middle-Eastern-sounding. “Tunisia.” “Night
in Tunisia.”
Perfect. It is “Night in Tunisia,” in the Casbah. She is here and they are here and I am here. And what I am supposed to see?
Is invisible.
Band plays the hell out of it. Got to give them that.
Laura is looking at each one of them, when they play. She is rocking on her bar stool.
Maybe it is none of them. Maybe she likes the music.
Coming to the end now. Powell plays a phrase. Holds the last note. Then seven crashes on the cymbals, and a pause, and they
all end with two short choppy notes.
Crowd goes nuts. I am looking. Laura is standing, cheering. Crowd sees her standing. They stand. Powell waves the horn over
his head. Crowd roars. They walk toward the bar.
They come up to Amatucci. Handshakes all around. Laura jumps in. Starts kissing everybody. Kisses Jones. Kisses Worrell. Kisses
Ridlin. Leans over, kisses Amatucci. Kisses Powell. Kisses Landreau. Gives him a big hug.
There is someone else. Coming up behind them. Female. Long fur coat. Floppy black hat. Grabs Landreau by the shoulder. Hauls
back her right hand and slaps him hard. Across the face. He reels back. She pulls back to slap him again. Freezes.
Looking for her face. Cannot see her face.
Landreau falls back. The woman grabs Laura. The hair, a good handful. Pulls her off the barstool. Pulls her to the door. Waiters
diving for cover.
The woman turns. Hat falls off. Stares back at Landreau. Her face? A mask of shock.
Aw, Jesus.
Aw, shit.
At the Casbah
Wednesday, January 22
The crowd is buzzing, my head is throbbing, my eyes are blazing. We have maybe ten minutes left on the break. I turn to the
band, say, “Let’s go. Everyone outside. We need to talk.”
I’ve got my serious voice on, and they comply. It takes all of a minute to get them rounded up and out the door and into the
alley.
Amatucci lights a cigarette. Worrell pulls out a briar pipe and sucks on it, unlit. Powell has his hands in his coat pockets,
Jones has her hands in her armpits. Landreau leans up against the bricks, watching his toe draw circles in the snow.
“So what the hell was that?” I ask.
No response. I expect a wisecrack from Amatucci, but even he is mute.
“So what the hell was that?” I repeat. “Talk to me.”
They are looking away. Shifting their weight. Looking at their shoes.
“You don’t want to talk?” I say. “Then you get to listen. That was Amelia Della Chiesa, the long-lost wife of Joe Zep, the
Boss of all Bosses for the whole damn city. She was dragging her little girl out of the bar, the little girl that one of you
is screwing. The Don, he knows that one of you is screwing her. And now that
she
knows it, I’d be surprised if it isn’t on the front page of tomorrow’s
Sun-Times
.”
They still do not want to talk.
I turn to Landreau. “And you, she turns specifically to you, and slaps you in the face. Is it you who’s screwing her?”
He shakes his head, but he’s avoiding my eyes.
I know he’s all wrong for it, but I hate the attitude. I grab him by the shirt and push him against the wall, get in his face.
“This is the cop speaking, not the saxophone player, you hear me?” He nods, looking away. “Is it you? Are you the one who’s
screwing her?”
He looks me in the eyes. “I have not had intercourse with her or her mother. I swear.”
What? Where does that come from?
Amatucci reaches in, grabs my arm. “Leave him alone,” he says. “It’s not him.”
“OK, smartass,” I say. I drop Landreau, get in Amatucci’s face. “You want to play, too? How about you? Have you been screwing
her?”
He looks at me, and says, “Yeah, I fucked her.”
I step back. Is he being sarcastic?
“Vince,” Jones pleads. “Vince…”
“It’s true. I fucked her. She was something else, man. It was truly incredible. She was without a doubt the best piece of
ass I’ve ever had in my life, and I’m not lying.”
I’m counting. That was five, six sentences, not two.
“Shut up!” Jones yells. “Shut up shut up shut up!”
I turn toward her. She is shivering. I notice she is wearing black jeans and a T-shirt, and it is only fifteen degrees out.
“What, is he lying?” I ask.
She looks at Amatucci, looks back at me. “No. Yes.”
I wait.
“Yes, he slept with her. Once. At my apartment, the night after his hand got broken. He was loaded on meds, half out of his
mind. And he woke up and found us there, Laura and me.”
I stare at her. Landreau leans forward. “She’s my lover,” she says. “We’ve been together for six months. They—they were coming
after
me.
”
After the Casbah
Wednesday, January 22
The rest of the gig? Well, let’s just say that we finish it. The last set is terrible. Amatucci is sulking at the bar. Jones
is playing the drums like she has two broken wrists. Powell doesn’t want to solo, Landreau is a million miles away, sneaking
glances at the door. Worrell is sawing at the bass like he wants to cut it in half.
Me? I’m playing my ass off, best I have played in years. Story of my life.
So it drags on and on, and soon enough Powell introduces the band one last time and thanks the crowd. And we are done.
I immediately turn to them and say, “Is there a place we can talk?”
They fumble around. I get the feeling I’m not about to be invited into anyone’s house.
Amatucci turns to me, says, “I’ve got the cab. It’s a big old Checker International, seats seven in a pinch.”
I look at him.
“Hey, I’ll even leave the meter off,” he says. “What the Fat Man doesn’t know…”
I nod and we all pack up.
Amatucci is helping Jones with her kit, one-handed. I tuck the soprano-sax case under my arm, grab the tenor and alto cases
with the same hand, and pick up her bass drum. Worrell is standing by the door, his bass under one arm, his tuba under the
other. Landreau picks up the high-hat bag and the snare. Powell grabs the tom-tom. Usually, she won’t let anyone touch her
stuff.
We’re outside in the snow and it is still fifteen degrees but the wind has come up and it is like a knife in the back of the
neck. Amatucci’s cab is parked in a cabstand right out front. There are three or four couples lined up, waiting for a taxi
to show. They see us start to load up, and don’t know whether to applaud us or curse us. We’re the band they were just cheering.
We’re also the people who are taking their ride. One guy has a cell phone in his hand. Amatucci slings the drums he is carrying
into the trunk, taps the guy on the shoulder, motions for the phone, opens it, taps in a number. He talks, they all listen.
He turns the phone off, hands it back to the fat guy, says “Five cabs, five minutes.”
He turns to me: “I called Checker. It seemed the decent thing to do,” he says.
We load up the cab and pile inside, Amatucci in the driver’s seat, me in the front passenger seat, the others in the back.
We go three, four blocks. I signal to pull over. He does, rounding a corner onto a side street, easing into a loading zone.
He kills the headlights.
“Vince, do you have a cigarette?” Powell asks.
Amatucci flips one out of his pack, passes it back to him.
“I didn’t know you smoke,” I say.
“Smoke? I don’t smoke,” he says, taking a light from Worrell. Worrell himself has got his pipe out, and spends a minute firing
it up, tamping it down, and firing it up again. Jones tries to wave the smoke away and they both crack their windows and try
to aim the smoke outside. Amatucci is fumbling with something in his lap, one of those little pot pipes. He fills it up carefully,
one-handed. As he’s about to light it, he turns to me. “Gonna bust me for this?” I just turn away and crack my window. He
takes a couple of hits, passes it to Jones. She takes one hit, another, passes it back. He offers it to Landreau, who declines,
offers it to me. There was a time, well…I tell him “No, thanks.”
“So,” I say, to no one in particular, “tell me about it.”
Jones exhales, looks at me. “We met in a bar. I was playing there with one of my other bands. She asked me out for a drink,
and it kind of went from there.”
“How long?” I ask.
“Six months, so far.”
“She has a long history with men,” I say, “not that it matters.” “Maybe they were all the wrong men.”
She looks me in the eyes.
“I guessed that part about her, like, right away. Looking the way she looks, it’s a pretty easy guess. I guessed it was a
history with the worst kind of men, too. I even insisted she had to get tested before I would sleep with her.”
I look up.
“Made her wait a whole week. Got her hotter than shit.” She almost giggles, then frowns.
We all have a question we want to ask.
“Oh, she passed,” she says, answering it. “Not that it matters.”
“Then why—?”
“Being willing to take the test passed the test. It meant I wasn’t just another conquest, you know, just a one-night stand.”
“And she’s been with you, uh, exclusively—I mean—”
“Except for that night we were with Vince, yes.” There is a pause. “I mean, who knows? But she says so, and I don’t have any
reason to doubt her.”
Worrell turns to her. “You knew who she was, Akiko?”
Jones nods. “Well…soon enough.”
“You must be very much in love with her,” he says.
She lowers her eyes. “I must be.”
I flick my eyes to Landreau. He’s spooked, I can see it. He’s ready to run. O’Hare, Midway, Union Station, Greyhound—east,
west, north, south—Detroit, St. Louis, Minnesota, Cincinnati. Slide back into “Where do I stand and what key are we in?”;“Do
you want me on piano or cornet?”;“Chicago Style or New York?” I so much as blink at him, he’s smoke.
I turn to back to Jones.
“Look, I make no judgments. You fell in love, and a person is allowed to fall in love.”
Amatucci starts to say something. I hold my hand up. “Let me finish.”
They settle back.
“Here’s the thing. That show the two of them put on is gonna complicate things. The Don is gonna hear about it. He can’t sit
there and let his invisible wife go public like this. In his mind, she’s showing him up and he is gonna be pissed. And when
he’s pissed, he calls that guy—”
“Who is this guy?”Amatucci asks. “Do you even know?”
They all look up, nod.
“There’s a guy they have been using for years for contract killings only. He is a professional, the best of the best. We have
him down for over fifty killings. Here in Chicago, around the Midwest. They send him out, he does the job, he disappears.”
“So who is this madman?” Worrell asks.
“We have not one eyewitness description. And I’m not sure I’d call him a madman.”
“He could be quite psychotic, but just highly organized in his psychosis,” Powell adds.
I nod. That’s exactly what the police shrinks say.
“He’s coming for us,” Landreau says. First thing he says in a while.
“Maybe yes, maybe no. We’ll just have to be ready.”
“Ready?” Amatucci asks, all excited. “Ready for what? For a guy who looks like I don’t fucking know what and is going to shoot
us I don’t fucking know how at around the time of I don’t fucking know when? What the fuck are we supposed to do?”
I look at him. “When and where is the next gig?”
Amatucci reaches into a little calendar, turns it so he can read it in the orange smear of the streetlight.
“Friday night. 8:00
P.M.
The Nickelodeon Club, Calumet City.”
“Oh, Vinnie, you didn’t…” Powell moans.
“What? What is it?” I ask.
“The club. He doesn’t like it. It creeps him out,” Amatucci says.
“Why is that?”
“Me, I think it’s kind of cool, in a
retro nuovo
sort of way.”
“We’ll try to use it, somehow,” I say. “Let me see if I can set something up.”
We discuss logistics, how we’re going to get there.
I turn to Landreau. “In the meantime, no one leaves town. That means you.” He looks down at the floor, defeated. “You’ll be
watched.”
“By you or by ‘him’?”Amatucci asks.
Well, yeah, that’s the question.