Falling Angel

by William Hjortsberg

  Hyde’s smile lost most of its crookedness at the memory of those smoky rooms. “When Basic’s band was in town, a bunch of us would get together and jam all night.”

  “Did Favorite make those sessions?”

  “Nope. Johnny didn’t care for spades. After a gig, the only black people he wanted to see were the maids in Park Avenue penthouses.”

  “Interesting. I thought Favorite was a friend of Toots Sweet.”

  “He might of asked him to shine his shoes one time. I’m telling you, Johnny Favorite had a thing about spades. I remember him saying Georgie Auld was a better tenor man than Lester Young. Imagine that!”

  I said it was beyond comprehension.

  “He thought they were bad luck.”

  “Tenor players?”

  “Spades, man. To Johnny they were like black cats, no pun intended.”

  I asked him if Johnny Favorite had been close to anyone in the band.

  “I don’t think Johnny had a friend in the world,” Vernon Hyde said. “And you can quote me if you like. He was a loner. Kept to himself most of the time. Oh, he’d joke with you and always had a big smile on his face, but it didn’t mean a thing. Johnny was good at charm. He used it like a shield to keep you from getting too close.”

  “What can you tell me about his private life?”

  “I never saw him except on the bandstand or riding through the night on some bus somewhere. Spider knew him best of all. He’s the guy you should talk to.”

  “I have his number on the coast,” I said. “We haven’t connected yet. Another beer?”

  Hyde said why not and a round was ordered. We spent the next hour swapping lies about 52nd Street in the old days, and Johnny Favorite’s name was not mentioned again.

  THIRTEEN

  Vernon Hyde departed for points unknown shortly before seven, and I walked two blocks west to Gallagher’s and the best steak in town. I finished my cigar and second cup of coffee about nine, paid my check, and caught a cab on Broadway for the eight blocks down to my garage.

  I drove uptown on Sixth, following the traffic north through Central Park, past the reservoir and Harlem Meer. I left the park by the Warrior’s Gate at 110th and Seventh and entered a world of tenements and shadowy side streets. I hadn’t been to Harlem since before they tore down the Savoy Ballroom last year, but it looked just the same. Park Avenue was under the New York Central tracks at this end of town, so Seventh, with its concrete center islands dividing the two-way traffic, became the street to be seen on.

  Crossing 125th Street everything was bright as Broadway. Further along, Small’s Paradise and Count Basie’s place seemed alive and well. I found a parking spot across the avenue from the Red Rooster and waited out the light. A young coffee-colored man with a pheasant feather in his hat emerged out of a group loitering on the corner and asked if I wanted to buy a watch. He pushed up both sleeves of his natty topcoat and showed me a half-dozen timepieces on either arm. “Can make you a nice price, brother. Real nice.”

  I said I already had a watch and crossed on the green.

  The Red Rooster was plush and dark. The tables around the bandstand were crowded with uptown celebrities, big spenders with their bare-armed ladies glittering beside them in a rainbow display of sequined, strapless evening gowns.

  I found a stool at the bar and ordered a snifter of Remy Martin. Edison Sweet’s trio was on deck, but from where I was sitting I saw only the piano player’s back as he hunched over the keyboard. Bass and electric guitar were the other instruments.

  The band was playing a blues, the guitar darting in and out of the melody like a hummingbird. The piano throbbed and thundered. Toots Sweey’s left hand was every bit as good as Kenny Pomeroy had promised. The group had no need of a drummer. Above the moody, shifting bass rhythms Toots traced an intricate lament, and when he sang, his voice was bittersweet with suffering:

  I got them voodoo blues,

  Them evil hoo-doo blues.

  Petro Loa won’t leave me alone;

  Every night I hear the zombies moan.

  Lord, I got them mean ol’ voodoo blues.

  Zu-Zu was a mambo, she loved a hungan man;

  Messin’ with Erzuli wasn’t part of her plan.

  The spell of the tom-tom turned her into a slave.

  And now Baron Samedi’s dancin’ on her grave.

  Yeah, she’s got them voodoo blues,

  Them bad ol’ hoo-doo blues …

  When the set ended, the musicians laughed and talked and wiped their sweating faces with large white handkerchiefs. After a while, they drifted in toward the bar. I told the bartender I wanted to buy the group a drink. He filled their orders and nodded in my direction.

  The two sidemen picked up their drinks, shot me a glance, and moved off into the crowd. Toots Sweet took a stool at the end of the bar and leaned back so he could watch the house, his large, grizzled head resting against the wall. I collected my glass and made my way over to him.

  “Just wanted to say thanks,” I said, climbing on the next stool. “You’re an artist, Mr. Sweet.”

  “Call me Toots, son. I don’t bite.”

  “Toots it is, then.”

  Toots Sweet had a face as broad and dark and wrinkled as a slab of cured tobacco. His thick hair was the color of cigar ash. He filled a shiny blue serge suit to the bursting point, yet the feet encased in two-tone black-and-white pumps were as small and delicate as a woman’s.

  “I liked the blues you played at the end,” I said.

  “Wrote that one day in Houston, years ago, on the back of a cocktail napkin.” He laughed. The sudden whiteness of his smile split his dark face like the end of a lunar eclipse. One of his front teeth was capped in gold. The white enamel underneath gleamed through a cutout shaped like an inverted five-pointed star. It was something you noticed right away.

  “That your home town?”

  “Houston? Lord, no, I was just visitin’.”

  “Where’re you from?”

  “Me? Why I’m a New Orleans boy, born and bred. You’re lookin’ at an amfropologist’s dee-light. I played in Storyville cribhouses ‘fore I was fo-teen. I knew all that gang, Bunk and Jelly and Satchelmouth. I went up ‘de ribber’ to Chicago. Haw, haw, haw.” Toots roared and slapped his big knees. The rings on his stubby fingers flashed in the dim light.

  “You’re putting me on,” I said.

  “Maybe just a little bit, son. Maybe just a little bit.”

  I grinned and sniffed my drink. “Must be swell having so many memories.”

  “You writin’ a book, son? I can spot me a book writer quick as a fox recognizes a hen.”

  “You’re close, old fox. I’m working on a piece for Look magazine.”

  “A story ‘bout Toots in Look? Right in there with Doris Day! Haw!”

  “Well, I won’t put you on, Toots. The story’s going to be about Johnny Favorite.”

  “Who?”

  “A crooner. Used to sing with Spider Simpson’s swing band back in the early forties.”

  “Yeah. I remember Spider. He played the drums like two jack-hammers fucking.”

  “What do you remember about Johnny Favorite?” I asked.

  Edison Sweet’s dark face assumed the innocence of an algebra student who doesn’t know the answer. “I don’t remember nothin’ about him; ‘cept maybe he changed his name and became Frank Sinatra. Vic Damone on weekends.”

  “Maybe I’ve got the wrong information,” I said. “I figured you were pretty good pals.”

  “Son, he made a record of one of my songs way back when and I thank him for all the long-gone royalty checks, but that don’t make us pals.”

  “I saw a picture of the two of you singing together. It was in Life.”

  “Yeah. I remember that night. That was at Dickie Wells’ bar. I seen him around once or twice, but he sure didn’t come uptown to see me.”

  “Who did he come uptown to see?”

  Toots Sweet ducked his eyes in mock coyishness. �
�You gettin’ me to tell tales out of school, son.”

  “What does it matter after all these years?” I said. “I gather he was seeing a lady.”

  “She was every inch a lady, to be sure.”

  “Tell me her name.”

  “It ain’t no secret. Anyone who was around fo’ the war knows Evangeline Proudfoot was makin’ the scene with Johnny Favorite.”

  “None of the downtown press seemed to know.”

  “Son, if you was crossin’ the line in them days, it wasn’t something you wanted to brag about.”

  “Who was Evangeline Proudfoot?”

  Toots smiled. “A beautiful, strong West Indian woman,” he said. “She was ten, fifteen years older than Johnny, but still such a fox that he was the one looked the fool.”

  “Know where I could get in touch with her?”

  “Ain’t seen Evangeline in years. She got ill. Store’s still there, so maybe she is, too.”

  “What sort of store was that?” I did my best to keep any trace of cop out of my question.

  “Evangeline had an herb shop over on Lenox. Stayed open till midnight every day ‘cept Sunday.” Toots gave me a theatrical wink. “Time to play some mo’. You gonna stick around for another set, son?”

  “I’ll be back,” I said.

  FOURTEEN

  Proudfoot Pharmaceuticals was located on the northwest corner of Lenox Avenue and 123rd Street. The name hung in the show-window in six-inch blue neon script. I parked half a block down and looked the place over. The window contained a dusty display bathed in vaporous blue light. Faded boxes of homeopathic cures sat on small, circular cardboard shelves arranged along either side. Stapled to the rear wall was a multicolored anatomical diagram of the human body, flesh and muscles peeled way to reveal a tangled visceral pudding. Each of the cardboard shelves was connected to the appropriate internal organ by a drooping length of satin ribbon. The stuff linked to the heart was called, “Proudfoot’s Beneficial Belladonna Extract.”

  Over the back wall of the display, I could see into a portion of the store. Fluorescent lights hung from a pressed tin ceiling; old-fashioned glass-fronted wooden shelves ran along the far wall. The swinging of a clock pendulum seemed the only activity.

  I went inside. A smell of burning incense stung the air. Bells tinkled above my head as I shut the door. I took a quick look around. On a revolving metal stand near the entrance a collection of “dream books” and pamphlets addressing the various problems of love competed for the customer’s attention in gaudy multilith jackets. There was a pyramid display of lucky powders packaged in tall cardboard cylinders. Sprinkle some of this stuff on your suit in the morning and the number you pick from your dream book will sure pay off big.

  I was examining the perfumed, colored candles guaranteed to bring good fortune with continued use when a lovely mocha-skinned girl came in from the back room and stood behind the counter. She wore a white smock over her dress and looked about nineteen or twenty. Her wavy, shoulder-length hair was the color of polished mahogany. A number of thin, silver hoops jingled on her fine-boned wrist. “May I help you?” she asked. Just beneath her carefully modulated diction lingered the melodic calypso lilt of the Caribbean.

  I answered off the top of my head: “Have you got any High John the Conqueror root?”

  “Powdered or entire?”

  “I want the whole thing. Isn’t the shape what makes the charm work?”

  “We don’t sell charms, sir. This is an herbal pharmacy.”

  “What do you call the stuff up front?” I asked. “Patent medicine?”

  “We carry a few novelty items. Rexall’s sells greeting cards.”

  “I was joking. Didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “No offense. You tell me how much John the Conqueror you want, and I’ll weigh it out.”

  “Is Miss Proudfoot on the premises?”

  “I’m Miss Proudfoot,” she said.

  “Miss Evangeline Proudfoot?”

  “I’m Epiphany. Evangeline was my mother.”

  “You say was?”

  “Mama died last year.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “She’d been sick for a long time, flat on her back for years. It was best.”

  “She left you a lovely name, Epiphany,” I said. “It fits you.”

  Beneath her coffee-and-milk complexion she flushed slightly. “She left me a good deal more than that. This store’s been making a profit for forty years. Did you do business with mama?”

  “No, we never met. I was hoping she might answer some questions for me.”

  Epiphany Proudfoot’s topaz eyes darkened. “What’re you, some kind of cop?”

  I smiled, the Look alibi engraved on my silver tongue, but I figured she was too smart to buy it, so I said: “Private license. I can show you a photostat.”

  “Never mind your dime-store photostat. Why did you want to talk to mama?”

  “I’m looking for a man named Johnny Favorite.”

  She stiffened. It was as if someone touched the back of her neck with an ice cube. “He’s dead,” she said.

  “No, he’s not, although most people seem to think so.”

  “Far as I’m concerned he’s dead.”

  “Did you know him?”

  “We never met.”

  “Edison Sweet said he was a friend of your mother’s.”

  “That was before I was born,” she said.

  “Did your mother ever talk to you about him?”

  “Surely, Mr… . whoever-you-are, you don’t expect me to betray my mama’s confidences. I clearly see you are not a gentleman.”

  I let that one pass. “Perhaps you can tell me if you or your mother ever saw Johnny Favorite in, say, the last fifteen years or so.”

  “I told you we never met, and I was always introduced to all mama’s friends.”

  I got out my wallet, the one I carry cash in, and gave her my Crossroads card. “Okay,” I said, “it was a long shot anyway. That’s my office number on the bottom. I wish you’d call me if you think of anything or hear of anybody having seen Johnny Favorite.”

  She smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “What’re you after him for?”

  “I’m not ‘after’ him; I just want to know where he is.”

  She stuck my card in the glass of the ornate brass cash register. “And what if he’s dead?”

  “I get paid either way.”

  It was almost a real laugh this time. “I hope you find him six feet under,” she said.

  “That would be okay with me. Please hang on to my card. You never know what might turn up.”

  “That’s true.”

  “Thanks for your time.”

  “You’re not leaving without your John the Conqueror, are you?”

  I straightened my shoulders. “Do I look like I need it?”

  “Mr. Crossroads,” she said, and her laughter was rich and full, “you look like you need all the help you can get.”

  FIFTEEN

  By the time I got back to the Red Rooster I’d missed an entire set and Toots was sitting on the same stool at the bar. A glass of champagne fizzed at his elbow. I lit a cigarette as I edged through the crowd. “Find out what you were after?” Toots asked without interest.

  “Evangeline Proudfoot is dead.”

  “Dead? Now that is a for-certain shame. She was one fine lady.”

  “I talked with her daughter. She wasn’t much help.”

  “Maybe you better pick somebody else to write about, son.”

  “I don’t think so. I’m just getting interested.” The ash from my cigarette dropped onto my tie and left a smudge next to the soup stain when I brushed it off. “You seem to have known Evangeline Proudfoot pretty well. What more can you tell me about her affair with Johnny Favorite?”

  Toots Sweet lumbered to his tiny feet. “I can’t tell you nothin’, son. I’m too big to go around hiding under beds. ‘Sides, it’s time fo’ me to go back to work.”

&
nbsp; He flashed his star-studded grin and started for the bandstand. I tagged along like an eager newshound. “Perhaps you remember some of their other friends? People who knew them when they were together.”

  Toots settled on the piano bench and surveyed the room for his tardy sidemen. He spoke to me while his eyes darted from table to table. “S’pose I pacify my mind with some music. Maybe something will come back to me.”

  “I’m in no hurry. I can listen to you play all night.”

  “Just sit out the set, son.” Toots lifted the curved lid of the baby grand. A chicken foot lay on the keyboard. He slammed the lid shut. “Stop hangin’ over my shoulder!” he growled. “I got to play now.”

  “What was that?”

  “That was nothin’. Never you mind that.”

  But it was not nothing. It was the foot of a chicken, spanning an octave from the sharp yellow claw on the lizardlike toe to where it was cut off above the joint and bleeding. Below a remaining tuft of white feathers a length of black ribbon was tied in a bow. It was considerably more than nothing.

  “What’s going on, Toots?”

  The guitar player took his seat and switched on his amplifier. He glanced at Toots and fiddled with the volume. He was having feedback problems.

  Toots hissed. “Nothin’s going on you got to know about. Now I ain’t talking to you no mo’. Not after the set. Not never!”

  “Who’s after you, Toots?”

  “You git outta here.”

  “What does Johnny Favorite have to do with it?”

  Toots spoke very slowly, ignoring the bass player who appeared at his shoulder. “If you don’t get the hell out of here, an’ I mean clean out onto the sidewalk, yo’ gonna wish yo’ lily-white ass never was born.”

  I met the bass player’s implacable gaze and glanced around. There was a full house. I knew how Custer must have felt up on the hilltop at Little Big Horn.

  “All I got to do,” Toots said, “is say the word.”

  “You don’t need to send a telegram, Toots.” I dropped my butt onto the dance floor, ground it under my heel, and left.