by Bill Moody
I start to ask her how I’ll know him but she anticipates my question. “Mal is black and the biggest guy in the room.”
“Thanks.” I walk down the hall and find the small dining room. There are only a few men sitting around in little clusters seated at the picnic table style seating. Mal Leonard is by himself near the window with a cup of coffee in front of him.
“Mr. Leonard? I’m Evan Horne. You left a message for Cal Hughes last week.”
He turns to me and smiles broadly and stands up to shake hands. “I sure was sorry to hear about Cal. Sit down, man. I’ll get you some coffee.”
For such a big man, he moves gracefully. He gets up and goes over to a small table with a coffee urn, mugs and brings me back one. Cream and sugar are on the table already. His hair is salt and pepper and tightly curled and he could be anywhere from fifty to seventy. He sits down again and looks at me.
“So you were a friend of Cal’s, huh?”
“I didn’t see him as much as I should have and now of course—”
“I know what you mean,” he says. “Damn if I had known he was around here I would have got up there somehow. You a piano player too?”
“Yes.”
He nods. “Figures. Well you must be good. Cal didn’t mess with people that couldn’t play. So what can I do for you?” He smiles again. “I got my bass back in my room if you feel like playin’?”
“Well, I—”
He grins. “I’m just teasing.” He flexes his hands. “This arthritis got me. I don’t know why I even keep my bass. I tell you, getting old sucks.”
He takes a sip of his coffee. “How can I help?”
I open the file folder and show him the photo with Cal and Miles and Barney Jackson first. He adjusts his glasses and studies the photo. “Uh huh,” he says. “Well course we know that’s Miles and Cal. Other guy is Barney Jackson, but I bet you already know that.”
“Yes, I was at the Musicians’ Union. One of the business reps recognized him, and I talked to his wife. He died over a year ago.”
Mal blinks a couple of times. “You don’t say. I don’t know how I missed that. I knew Barney pretty well at one time. We used to trade gigs sometimes.”
I take out the other photo. “This is the one I can’t figure,” I say as I show it to him.
He leans over close to peer at the photo and studies it for a couple of minutes then pushes it aside. “You know Cal talked about a woman in Kansas City but, well, I s’poze this could be her, but I didn’t know nothing about no baby.”
“You think this could be Cal’s baby?”
“Could be, man. Could be. We spent a lot of time in Kansas City in those days. There was women everywhere.” He turns and looks out the window, smiling, digging through memories. “Women, lot of bands, lot of music. There was a lot of scuffling, but we always had gigs in those days.” He looks at me again. “What did you say your name was?”
“Evan Horne.”
“And do you know Cal?”
The questions confuse me for a moment but then I realize Mal’s short term memory is much less accurate than his early life.
“I’m sorry, man. I can remember gigs, conversations, even hotels I stayed at but sometimes I can’t remember what I did yesterday.” He shakes his head. “Just drives me crazy.”
“Do you think this photo might have been taken in Kansas City?”
He looks at it again. “Oh yeah, no doubt about that.”
I sit up straighter. “Really? Why are you so sure?”
He points to the OTEL sign in the photo with a thick finger. “That’s the Carlisle Hotel. The H was shot out by this crazy trumpet player and they never fixed it.” He laughs so hard then his whole body shakes. “Mmm, mmm. Billy Webb. That boy thought his girlfriend was up in one of the rooms. He was trying to hit the window and missed.” He looks at me steadily, then points to the photo. “Right there to the left is 18th and Vine. Yep. Carlisle Hotel, Kansas City, MO. Charlie Parker, Lester Young. Why I remember one night—”
Then he’s off for ten minutes recounting a jam session he was involved in before he realizes how long he’s been talking. Or that I’m even there. I was just the trigger. He stops suddenly and then looks at me.
“Sorry, I get carried away sometimes. Are you Evan Horne?” He leans in closer. “Any chance you got an extra cigarette?” He notices the pack in my pocket. “We can’t smoke in here and I’m not supposed to at all but hey, one won’t hurt. Let’s go outside.”
In the back there’s a garden area and a few wicker chairs scattered around. “Connie won’t see us out here,” he says, taking a cigarette and a light from me. He leans back in the chair and drags deeply on the cigarette. and looks at it. “Menthol. Lucky Strike was my brand.”
“Do you remember a woman named Jean Lane? Somebody Cal knew maybe.”
Mal leans forward. “Cal had a lot of women, they just gravitated to him like bees to a flower, but names? Man, I wish I could help you.”
“Well you did. At least I know where the photo was taken. Jean Lane is listed on Cal’s life insurance policy from the union.”
“Oh I dig,” Mal says, “and you trying to find her.”
“Exactly.”
He crushes out the cigarette under his heel and pockets the butt. “Can’t leave no evidence for Connie,” he says.
“Well if I was you, I’d put on some Count Basie and think about heading for Kansas City.” He laughs and starts humming the tune.
“Thanks again, Mal.”
He smiles and nods but doesn’t get out of the chair.
On the way out, Connie catches up with me. “Did he talk you out of a smoke?”
“Ah, well, yes he did.”
“That old rascal.” She smiles and shakes her head. “He pulls that on anybody who comes here that smokes.”
“Sorry, I—”
She waves her hand. “Don’t worry, he doesn’t get enough smoking visitors to matter much. What else has he got? Come back if you can, even if you don’t find what you’re looking for.”
“I will.”
***
I try Al Beckwood again but still no answer and I wonder if he might be out of town. He’s certainly one of those rare ones who has no answering machine. I turn back toward Hollywood, unsure what to do next.
I’ve identified the people in the photo and thanks to Mal Leonard, it’s reasonably certain the baby carriage photo was taken in Kansas City. But I’m no closer to knowing who or where I can find Jean Lane, if she’s still around. Or for that matter, the baby in the carriage.
I think about what Andie said when I told her I was going to pursue this. You might not like what you find. Was it what I’d find, or was it that she knows more than she’s letting on. She’s obviously not eager to help in the search and surely, since the FBI had checked Cal out before, she could look at that file again. It was something we were going to have to talk about, I realize finally. That’s maybe a conversation neither of us wants to have.
At a stop light on Hollywood Boulevard, a tiny piece clicks into place. The dresser drawer full of receipts and papers.
Suddenly I can’t drive fast enough to get back to the house.
Chapter Five
A junk drawer. Usually it’s that odd, extra drawer somewhere in the kitchen for those things we don’t throw away but don’t quite know what to do with yet. Old receipts, warranty cards that are never mailed, phone numbers on scraps of paper without names, special offers that have expired long ago. A key or two that we don’t recognize or know what they open, old pencils, pens, a battery or two we never got around to using, a small screwdriver, pizza coupons, Chinese take-out menus. The list is endless. Everybody has one, and this is Cal’s.
I’d taken everything from the drawer and put it in a shoe box earlier. Now I bring the box over to the bed, dump it all out, and start going through it piece by piece, first separating papers—receipts, menus, coupons, scraps—fr
om solid objects. There are the usual pencil stubs, pens that don’t work, two small screwdrivers, a Phillips head and one with a tiny blade for glasses, and the pocket watch I’d looked at earlier. I turn that over in my hand. It’s gold with a white face and large black Roman numerals. No inscription, no marks, just a watch with a cover that clicks into place over the face of the watch.
There’s also a silver cigarette lighter, the kind you don’t see much anymore. Small, slim, compact, maybe a woman’s, the body of the lighter done in black, alligator-like leather. On the bottom, Ronson Princess is stamped on it, and on a small silver plate, engraved in all caps is the name JEAN.
I weigh it in my hand and press down on the lever. Not even a spark. I lay it and the pocket watch aside and start with the paper items.
Most of them are cash register receipts of one kind or other. The printing has faded on most but they seem to be from L.A. businesses, or have no identifying marks at all. The larger pieces are bills, a couple of warranty cards for a coffee maker and a toaster, and several hotel bills. I sort through these and find three for the Hotel Carlisle, Kansas City, Missouri. The dates are 1959-1961. There are also passenger copies of two round trip train tickets from Kansas City to New York.
I stop for a minute and light a cigarette. Cal could and probably did live in both places at one time. Both cities figured prominently in the jazz scene, and many musicians gravitated to New York from Kansas City, Detroit, Chicago. Count Basie, Lester Young, Charlie Parker all had roots in Kansas City. Cal would have been in the thick of things in those days. On a whim, I dial the number on the Hotel Carlisle bill, but of course I get nothing but one of those weird tones and a voice saying, “Your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please try again.”
I set the lighter, the pocket watch, and the hotel bills aside and dump everything else in the trash under the kitchen sink. The pocket watch I stuff in my bag, and for some reason, the lighter in my pocket, wondering if it can be fixed. The hotel bills I slip into the file folder I’ve been carrying around with the intention of making copies of them sometime.
I hear footsteps then and Dana comes in. “Hi. What’s up?” she says.
“Just going through things from that drawer.” I show her the lighter and bring her up to date on my visit to the union and the musicians’ home and my visit with Mal Leonard.
“You’ve been busy,” she says, dropping into Cal’s chair.
“Yeah, but not accomplishing much.”
Dana smiles. “Well, you know more than you did a couple of days ago.”
“I guess. It’s just, it seems like it’s going to be a long haul. Too much time has passed.”
She picks up the hotel bills and looks at them. “God, is this the one in the photo?”
“So Mal Leonard says. He even told me a story about how the H in the sign was shot out by a jealous boyfriend.”
She nods and lays the bill down again. “Do you think Cal was staying there?”
I shrug. “Probably. It’s certainly possible. I still haven’t connected with Al Beckwood. I’ll keep trying with that and, well, after that, I don’t know.”
She nods again and smiles. “It’ll come. You just have to let it happen.”
“Let’s hope so. You have any plans tonight?”
“Well I should do some work on my thesis, but I can easily be talked out of that. What do you have in mind?”
I look away for a moment. What do I have in mind? The more I’m around Dana, the more I like her. “I’m sorry, with all this happening, I’ve never even asked what your thesis is about.”
“Oh that,” she says, laughing. “A close textual analysis of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Colon—there always has to be a colon in academic titles. ‘Daisy: Victim or Instrument of Gatsby’s Death.’”
“Wow.”
She laughs again. “Well I always loved the book, but finding something nobody has written about already is hard, so it’s a stretch.”
“It’ll come. You just have to let it happen.”
“Okay, you got me. Now what are you going to tempt me with?”
I think for a moment. “Want to hear some jazz? There’s a place in the valley with pretty good food and usually a pretty good trio.”
“Yes!” she says. She stands up. “Do I need to change?” She stands up and holds out her arms. She’s wearing very form fitting jeans, a light sweater, and sandals.
“Not a thing.”
***
Conte’s is on Ventura Boulevard in Encino. Nothing upscale but good food, at least the last time I was there, and they’ve maintained a jazz policy, despite the closing of many other clubs. They do it by using studio players who aren’t concerned so much with money as they are with having a place to play, or new guys, just looking to make some gigs, stretch out, get away from the rigors and constrictions of recording or casual money gigs.
The first set is underway when we arrive. We get a booth fairly close to the band. I don’t know the piano player or the drummer but I’m pleasantly surprised to see the bassist is Buster Browne. I catch his eye and wave as Dana and I sit down. He smiles broadly and nods then hunches over his bass and pulls off a couple of choruses on “Invitation.”
“You know him?” Dana says.
“Yeah we go way back.” We order two glasses of wine, salad, and the special of the day, a seafood pasta in cream sauce. We’re just finishing our salads when the set ends and Buster comes over. I introduce him to Dana and he slides in next to her in the booth.
“So, Buster, how you doing?”
“Oh you know, gig here, gig there. Same old thing. I had a good run with Bonnie Rait for awhile. I heard you were in Europe.”
“Yeah, I worked Ronnie Scott’s in London for a week, then hooked up with a tenor player named Fletcher Paige. We landed a gig in Amsterdam that lasted three months. I’m living in the Bay Area now. Just down here for some business.”
Buster frowns. “Fletcher Paige. Tenor player, right? Wow, I thought he was dead, man. He must have been over there a long time.” Buster smiles at me. “You get into any trouble over there, any detective work?” He turns to Dana. “This cat can be scary.”
I let it go, not wanting to get into the long story about tracking down Chet Baker and my friend Ace Buffington. I glance quickly at Dana. “No, everything was fine, Buster.”
Buster looks at his watch. “We gotta go back. You feel like playing a couple? It’s been awhile.”
I glance at Dana. “Sure, if the piano player doesn’t mind. Who is he?”
“Naw, he’s cool. Joey Beal. He’s been around awhile. You know this town and piano players. Never enough good ones, then too many.” Buster gets up. “I’m going to get some air. Give me a nod when you want to come up, okay?”
“I’m excited,” Dana says. “I get to hear you play.” She’s already downed her first glass of wine. “How long have you known Buster? Is that really his name? I won’t ask about the shoes.”
“Only one I know him by. We worked together a number of times. Last one was the concert in Las Vegas he mentioned.”
“And you don’t want to talk about that one.” She holds up her glass and I pour her some more wine. “So how does this work, you playing with them. Are there some kind of rules?”
“Well, usually if one or other of the musicians knows you, and they like you, you’ll be invited to play and it’s fine. Buster will let the piano player know I’m here, and unless he’s got some particular reason, he won’t mind. It’s just kind of an unwritten protocol. My part means I won’t play more than two or three tunes.”
“Camaraderie among musicians. You have your own little society don’t you?”
“Yeah I guess we do.”
We get through dinner and listen as the trio comes back. Joey Beal has a nice touch and I guess the three of them have been playing together for awhile. The trio has a kind of straight ahead feel as they play standards and blues. Nothing to
really upset the dinner crowd but enough jazz to satisfy people who come for the music. When Buster looks over and raises his eyebrows, I nod and get up. “Back in awhile,” I say to Dana.
Buster introduces me to Joey. “Hey, the detective piano player,” he says but not in an unfriendly way. “The piano is pretty good. Enjoy, man.”
I sit down at the piano and turn to Buster and the drummer, a young black man with a pencil thin mustache. “How about ‘Sweet and Lovely’?”
Buster nods, the drummer nods, and we take it at a medium two tempo, Buster just floating behind me as the drummer stays with brushes for a couple of choruses. I lean in more as Buster starts walking in four and the drummer switches to sticks and we swing hard for two more choruses. Buster solos for two choruses and then we exchange fours with the drummer and take it out.
“Yeah,” Busters says. “You’re playing better than ever, man.”
“Thanks.” I flex my right hand. Not even a twinge of pain. “A ballad? Then I’ll get out of here.”
“Sure. What have you got,” Buster says.
“‘My Foolish Heart’?”
I play through one chorus out of tempo alone, then Buster and the drummer ease in as we take up the slow ballad tempo. Buster nods his head as I near the end of two choruses. He plays half then I come back in and we close it out.
“Thanks,” I say. I stand up as Joey comes back to the piano.
“Very cool, man. Come by again if you stay in town. Good to see you,” Buster smiles.
“You too, Buster.” I shake hands with the drummer and Joey and return to the booth.
“That was amazing,” Dana says. I see she’s already ordered some coffee.
“Glad you liked it.” We listen to a couple more tunes, then I get the check. I wave again to Buster as we leave.
In the car going back to the house, Dana is quiet. The radio is tuned to KLON and Bill Evans is gliding through the changes of “I Love You.” I glance over from to time, see her just staring out the window. “Something on your mind?”
“What?” She turns toward me. “Oh, sorry, just zoned out for a minute.”
“Thinking about your thesis?”
