Jazz Funeral (Skip Langdon #3) (Skip Langdon Mystery) (The Skip Langdon Series)

by Julie Smith

  “I’m a friend of Joel’s. Mel—uh, Janis, uh, Frank.” After Anne Frank; someone else who died young, who had an artist’s soul. Melody was pleased with herself for thinking of her.

  “Well, I’m Joel’s dad, Tyrone—and this here’s my brother, Chick.”

  “Baby, you sho’ can sing,” said Chick. He was a fairly young guy, probably not more than thirty, with hair cropped short and round, wire-rimmed glasses; very severe. He reminded Melody of Delfeayo Marsalis, and she thought that was probably not accidental. The way he talked, kind of affectedly funky, didn’t even begin to go with the look. He reached out his hand, as if to give her high five, but then thought better of it and slapped his own leg. “Mmmmph! You sho’ can!”

  She felt herself go red as a cardinal. “No! I can’t—I just— really, I can’t, I was just kind of …” And then she recovered enough to say, “Well, thank you,” in case this wasn’t some sort of cruel joke, which of course it had to be. He must be making fun of her. The idea took hold like oxalis. Her lips tightened.

  She knew with certainty that it was that. Here she was, a white girl out of her depth, out of her neighborhood, and this was their territory in more ways than one. She was fair game. And the guy was probably having an identity crisis, the way he looked like an intellectual and talked like a street kid—he was probably deeply disturbed. That made her feel superior, but not much. She looked down at her lap, trying to think what to do next.

  The other one, Tyrone, said, “Young lady, you got talent.” He said it in that upbeat way that parents and teachers have when they’re trying to be encouraging. She’d heard that tone too often. She knew it was real. She stared up at him, and was glad he cultivated a more relaxed style than his little brother—slightly longer hair, a nice moustache, sort of the Allen Toussaint look, everybody’s pal. She liked him a lot, found him very … well, dadlike. In a way that her dad wasn’t. Even though he fell asleep on the floor and didn’t go home the way he should.

  She gave Chick a second look, with the thought that maybe he hadn’t been kidding. He was grinning. Friendly, she thought, not hostile after all. She found she liked him too.

  Could this be? Here were two members of the illustrious Boucree family praising her music. For a moment she was glad she wasn’t dead. Or maybe she was dead. Maybe in heaven you got to have all your dreams come true and that’s where she was. But she didn’t believe in heaven or hell or life after death or God. She wasn’t about to start now.

  And yet, that stuff was about as likely as what was happening now.

  “Well, listen,” said Tyrone. “Don’t let us interrupt you. Go ahead. That’s a real pretty song—almost made me cry. Let’s hear the end of it.”

  “Well, actually, that’s almost all of it so far. I’m still working on it.”

  Chick said, “You mean you wrote that song?”

  Not sure how to take that, Melody said, “Uh … yeah.”

  He let out his breath, not saying anything, just puffing against his lips. Whether it was meant to be positive or negative, she didn’t know.

  Tyrone said, “Well, let’s hear something. What else can you play?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Anything, I guess.” No Janis, no Marcia Ball. Something sort of black. Perhaps because she had just heard Ti-Belle sing it, she thought of “St. James Infirmary,” and without speaking, turned around and started to play.

  She didn’t know what happened to her. It was the same thing that had happened before, when she was working on Ham’s song, but more powerful. It was like a great force came into her through her feet and swelled up to her diaphragm and then came out like a tornado, singing the song for her. It was singing it, not Melody; and yet a piece of her was singing it, was fully conscious even as she channeled, if that’s what she was doing. She didn’t know what to call it, she just knew she’d no idea she could sing that well. She might have sung herself right into that heaven she didn’t believe in if she hadn’t heard a disgusted, “Oh, shit.”

  Joel.

  But she didn’t stop singing. She wasn’t going to anyway, but still it was gratifying when someone said, “Shhhh,” and there were slight sounds of a scuffle, as if Chick had cuffed Joel for being so rude.

  When she was done, Chick said, “All right!” and applauded. They all did, even Joel. There were five of them now.

  “You are one talented lady,” said Tyrone, and she was almost as pleased at the adult appellation as at the compliment.

  One of them stepped forward and stuck out a big black paw. “I’m Terence. Don’t know who you are, but I sure want to shake your hand.” Melody grabbed his hand as if she thought he could pull her to safety.

  “I’m Janis,” she said, looking Joel straight in the eye. “I’m a friend of Joel’s. He showed me this place once and I sneaked in to work on this song I’m writing. Listen, it’s not his fault, he didn’t even know—”

  The fourth man interrupted her, speaking not so much to her or his brothers as to the ether. “She’s the answer to everything, you know that? She could be, like, our Aaron.”

  “Raymond, what you on about?”

  “Know why we’ve never made it big? ‘Cause we’ve never had a star, that’s why. We play good, but we sing shitty. All of us. What we need’s a vocalist, and we always have. Like Aaron Neville, you know what I mean? Like, what would the Neville Brothers be without Aaron? Look here, this white girl sings as good as Aaron does, any day of the week. Well, maybe not quite as good, but the chick’s hot.” He paused. “And she can play too.”

  Melody felt as if she should jump up in protest, it was such a travesty using Aaron’s name in vain that way. As far as she was concerned, he was the best male singer since Elvis, and what this man was speaking was purest blasphemy. One did not compare a deity with simple Melody Brocato. She was frozen in amazement.

  Joel was smiling. He nodded and gave her a thumbs-up sign, as if to say, “I told you so.”

  Chick said, “You mean, like, ask her to play with us? Like that chick in The Fabulous Baker Boys?”

  Raymond shrugged. “Well, we all talked about it at the time. Everybody said it was what we needed.” He folded his arms smugly.

  Melody had seen The Fabulous Baker Boys, had cried all the way through it and for days afterward. She had cried for the Jeff Bridges character, the sensitive artist, the true musician unrecognized by an uncaring world. But she had identified with the Michele Pfeiffer character. She wanted her own band to save.

  Now she imagined the Boucrees seeing the movie—renting it, probably, after some acquaintance had recommended it—and having the same fantasy.

  They needed her, she needed them, just like in the movie.

  She smiled, couldn’t help smiling, and then dug her nails into her wrist to get back to reality.

  Hold it, Melody. They’re just talking. This doesn’t mean anything.

  Terence said, “You know who said they’d catch our set, don’t you? Those two A&R men—from Atlantic and Warner.”

  “Tomorrow?” said Tyrone. “You mean tomorrow? We change our whole act for this girl here?”

  Suddenly Melody got angry. One minute it had been all gratuitous compliments and now it was gratuitous put-downs.

  She said, “Excuse me, I’m not available,” got up and started out the door, cheeks hot, thinking that if she wanted to be discussed in the third person, she could always go home.

  “Young lady, you just hold up there a minute.” The speaker was Tyrone again, and his tone was decidedly paternal.

  She turned around and spoke in what she hoped was a dignified manner. “Thank you for the loan of the piano. I did not come here to apply for a job.”

  The dignity ran out when the tears came into her voice, and this frustrated her so much, she turned around and started to run again. She wondered if that stuff ever stopped, if she’d ever be able to say what she meant, what she wanted, without crying like a kid.

  Joel touched her arm as she went by. “Hey, Mel, come on�
��nobody meant to hurt your feelings.”

  She looked at him, and his eyes were so pretty, so moist and brown, so sincere and pleading, that she couldn’t leave him. “Janis,” she whispered. But she stopped.

  Tyrone said, “I’m mighty sorry, young lady—I think I’m the one was out of line. You’re a fine, fine singer, and even though you didn’t ask for a job, we were just thinking out loud about how we could get you. ‘Cause we want you, you know? That goes without sayin’. I didn’t mean nothin’ by what I said—I was just wonderin’ if we could do it—if it could physically be done by tomorrow.” He stepped forward and gave her his hand and a big smile. “Could you find it in your heart to accept my apology?”

  Melody shook with him and nodded. She couldn’t think of anything to say.

  Raymond said, “Janis, what you think about singin’ with a broken-down old band like us?”

  Before she could say a word, Tyrone said, “Now wait just a minute, you’re rushin’ things.”

  Terence said, “Well, I think we all agree.”

  To her amazement, Joel, her buddy and comrade-in-arms, her only friend, blurted, “She’s white! What the hell we gon’ do about that?”

  Raymond gave him a swat. “What’s the matter with you, boy, you a racist? You just shut up now.”

  Joel staggered. Raymond had hit him a good one. It was funny—Melody had imagined he was a boy who’d never been hit, a kid from a family so loving he wouldn’t even know what violence was. The strange thing was, the Boucrees did seem loving and warm when they weren’t arguing. She wondered if the Brocatos did.

  Chick said, “Harry Connick’s a white boy. Played JazzFest with James Booker when he was a baby, almost. And that was so long ago, nobody hardly remembers. We gon’ discriminate here in the nineties?”

  Tyrone said, “Okay, hush everybody, just hush now. Joel, I don’t know why you talk like that.”

  Melody thought that if Joel had been white, he would have turned scarlet. “I didn’t mean anything—I just thought it might look funny.” He paused. “I mean, she’s a girl, and Harry Connick wasn’t. How’s it gonna look, sixteen-year-old white girl up there singing with eight or ten black dudes? Gonna look funny, I can’t help it.”

  The image nearly drove Melody mad with delight. But Tyrone tugged his moustache—apparently something he did when he was thinking. “You got a point, son. I apologize to you.”

  She couldn’t imagine her own father apologizing.

  To Melody, Tyrone said, “We got more trouble than that, though, don’t we?”

  She stared at him, hoping he didn’t mean what she thought he did.

  “I know who you are, girl. I heard what Joel called you.” He said to the others. “Y’all leave us alone for a minute. Joel and I need to talk to this lady.”

  But Melody couldn’t see a reason for that. She felt an irresistible tug toward these people, wanted them, warts and all, to be her family, to adopt her and take them in. She said, “It’s okay. They can know. But y’all can’t turn me in. You’ve got to promise me that.” She looked at the others, pleading with her eyes, wanting them to know how desperate she was.

  Chick snapped his fingers. “Oh, no. Oh, shit. I know who you are too. You gotta be the little sister.”

  “Huh?” The other two were bewildered.

  “Ham Brocato’s little sister. The one that’s gone missing and every cop in the city’s looking for.”

  “Oh, man!”

  “Oh, shit!”

  “Look, I have a right to my own life. Things weren’t working out for me at home, that’s all. I haven’t committed any crime.”

  Terence said, “You didn’t kill your brother?”

  Joel said, “Shut up, motherfucker!” It pleased her that he was defending her.

  “It’s okay, Joel,” she said. She turned to the others. “No. I didn’t kill my brother, do you hear that? No!”

  Raymond flinched. “Girl, you sure got a voice on you.”

  “You might not have committed any crime,” said Tyrone, “but I bet we have if we take care of you.”

  Take care of her? What did he mean by that? The phrase made her knees go wobbly.

  Chick said, “Listen, y’all. This girl sings like a motherfucker. That’s the long and short of it.”

  “Yeah, but she’s sixteen. I bet we got to have her parents’ permission or something.”

  Melody said, “Haven’t you ever heard of a liberated minor?” She didn’t know exactly what it was, but maybe they didn’t either.

  “I think they got to be older,” Tyrone said gently.

  “Look, nobody has to know—I’ll just turn black. I can get a wig and skin-tanner.”

  To her horror, everyone in the room laughed, even Joel—and not polite little titters either; great, heartfelt guffaws. She didn’t even begin to get the joke, but knew she was the butt of it. Dying had been a really good idea, and she didn’t know why she hadn’t gone through with it. Anything was better than this shit. Her eyes went out of control again.

  “Hey, what you cryin’ about?”

  “I wish I were dead!”

  “Hey, Mel, take it easy.” Joel moved closer, put an arm around her.

  Terence took a tentative step forward as well. “We didn’t mean nothin’, little sister. It was just funny, that’s all.”

  “What was so funny about it?”

  Chick started to laugh again, but caught himself.

  Terence said, “Somethin’ ‘bout the way you look, I guess. Those blue eyes, maybe.”

  “You are so unfair! Chick has blue eyes!”

  “Eyes aren’t the point,” said Tyrone. “The point is we got a sixteen-year-old young lady ought to be home with her parents.”

  “I can’t go home.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just can’t, that’s all. That part of my life is over.”

  “Ohhhh, shit. Ohhhh fuck.” Chick was moaning like he’d been shot. “You didn’t kill your brother, but you know who did. That’s it, ain’t it?”

  Melody looked him straight in the eye and told the truth. “That’s not it.”

  “No, that ain’t the whole thing. ‘Cause it’s worse than that. Whoever it is knows you know. That’s why you can’t go back.

  ‘Cause they’d know where to come get you.”

  Raymond said, “You been watchin’ too much television.”

  Melody twisted her mouth into a kind of ironic half smile. She shook her head slowly from side to side, as if to say, “Poor Chick. Pitiful. A candidate for the loony bin.”

  At least she hoped that’s how it would play, but she had a feeling the distressed look on Tyrone’s face reflected her own.

  “It’s not that! I swear it’s not that! Listen, I’ll prove it to you. Let me sing with you tomorrow and I’ll go back home and straighten it all out. I swear it!”

  Just let me have this one chance and life will have been worth living. I’ll die happily if I can just do that. I’ll climb up to the roof of that building and take a short walk to the ground. Just let me sing Ham his song and go.

  Tyrone gave her a hard stare. “You mean that, little sister?”

  “I swear it on a stack of bibles.” That was easy, she wasn’t a Christian.

  “My wife and I are gon’ take you there and walk you up to the door. You okay with that?”

  No!

  But she’d worry about it later. She could slip away after the gig. By the time they noticed, she’d be dead. “Just let me do the gig.”

  He nodded slightly. “You want it, you got it.” The room exploded.

  “All riiiight!” Raymond and Chick slapped each other high fives. Terence came over and shook Melody’s hand. Joel hollered, “Yes!”

  Melody thought she must be missing something. All this fuss couldn’t be about her.

  When it had subsided, Tyrone said, “You got a place to stay?”

  “Well, I had a hotel room, but—”

  “Where?”

  “
The Oriole.”

  “Oh, shit! Kid your age at the Oriole? Oh, shit.”

  “It’s full of kids my age. That’s mostly who’s there.”

  “Well, you ain’t goin’ back.” He pulled out a wad of bills. “Joel’ll take you to a Holiday Inn, someplace like that. You really think you can turn black?”

  Melody smiled. “With a little help from my friends.”

  He turned to Joel. “You know that place ya mama gets her hair fixed? Take her to Louise, see what she can do. Maybe she lend you a wig or somethin’. Then go ‘round to Billy DuPree’s, get her a caftan or somethin’ African-looking. If she’s wearin’ something like that, her skin’s dark enough, maybe nobody’ll look at her too close. Maybe she’ll pass.”

  To Melody, he said, “A hundred dollars of that money’s your costume allowance. The other hundred’s an advance on the gig.”

  She heard someone gasp, maybe Raymond, and knew that meant he was overpaying her, giving her a handout. “I can’t—”

  But he put up a hand. “Dawlin’, aren’t you forgettin’ something? You’re gon’ make us rich.”

  She tried to speak, but couldn’t get anything out.

  “Now y’all get out of here. Be back at three o’clock. Terence, you call the others. We gon’ have one hell of a rehearsal. Melody, what’s your best song?”

  Joel said, “They’re all her best song, Daddy.”

  Melody thought that maybe she wouldn’t die, maybe just go to California or something.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Ti-Belle had been running from this all her life. This cell, this stink, this depressing half-light, and the ugly faces, ugly voices of the other prisoners.

  Now that she was here, she couldn’t believe it hadn’t happened years earlier. She’d sung everywhere there was to sing, including on national television, and after the first few years didn’t even break out in a sweat at the thought of someone recognizing her. She’d genuinely convinced herself no one ever would. She looked different; she had a different name; she’d grown up.

  She had a notion why she’d gotten away with it. Because the only place she ever sang in Doradale was the choir. Nobody had especially noticed her voice, and anyway, the songs she did now were so different.