“Hello, I’m looking for Queenie,” says Olivia to a harried hostess.
The hostess hands her a little cardboard card with the number 36 written on it. “She’s running behind schedule. Maybe in ninety minutes. Just find a place where you can park yourself. Sorry, the club is blocked out for the auditions and space is a little tight in the lobby,” apologizes the hostess.
***
It’s actually closer to two hours that Abby and Olivia have to wait, but that’s fine. This club is a living museum: autographed pictures of all the greats since the 1930’s are here. Ella, Billie, George, Duke, Count—not just single autographed pictures of themselves but of their groups performing onstage and enjoying themselves in the club.
What was not fine was seeing the stream of dejected women leave the club—obviously their careers as musicians were not going to begin at Café du Music on Monday night.
A voice on the speaker calls, “Number 36.”
This is it! Abby and Olivia enter the storied lounge where jazz giants of the ages enthralled, enchanted and entertained.
“Over here,” yells a female voice in the club proper.
Abby and Olivia walk up to the table up front. They hide their surprise at seeing this young Eurasian woman. Particularly striking are the multi-colored feather boa, vest made of feathers, and Queenie’s signature patch of red on the top of her head. Yes, they have definitely arrived in New York.
“Are you Queenie?” asks Abby.
“That I am. And you are the yin and yang Benjamin was talking about? East and West?”
“I’m Abby. I’m the singer, and this is my pianist friend, Olivia.”
“Last names?”
“Southam is mine and Sung is Abby’s,” says Olivia.
Right on! “So what you got for me? Let’s hear something,” says Queenie in a friendly voice.
Abby and Olivia get up on the stage. This is definitely a musician’s paradise.
Abby picks up a vintage German microphone and stares at it for a moment. Ella might have used this!
Olivia sits down at the piano and peeks inside the frame. A pre-WWI New York Steinway. Definitely a handmade piano. Of course. New York has been home to Steinway since the 1850’s and it is the piano of choice for almost everyone who can afford one.
“Hit it girl,” smiles Abby with a little rocking tilt of her head.
Olivia starts playing single notes with her left hand. Abby’s intro scat singing acts as counterpoint to the walking bass part.
Olivia starts playing with two hands. Pretty impressive how she plays solo piano yet gives it a full orchestral sound.
Abby launches into a Gershwin favorite, “They Can’t Take That Away from Me.” Ever since Fred Astaire introduced the song in 1937 in the movie, Shall We Dance, this song of separated lovers has been covered by thousands of singers from Ella Fitzgerald in duet with Louis Armstrong to Frank Sinatra to Rod Stewart and Michael Bublé.
Abby and Olivia’s performance stands up to the best of them, swinging and bopping. Abby moves and leans over the lid of the grand piano to sing at Olivia, then whips around and sees Queenie snapping her fingers in time with the beat—looking good, babe!
As the end of the tune approaches, Abby turns to Olivia and winks. Olivia nods her head in approval. Abby grins widely. On the last note, she starts doing an incredible scat, lengthening it for an additional fifteen seconds. Just as it seems she’s going to finish, Abby pauses, takes a little run and does a somersault in the air and lands in front of Queenie.
Now if that doesn’t make you stand out, nothing will.
***
The three hot babes sit around a lounge table, drinking what else? Manhattans. Half of the men in the bar interrupt their chat with some of the corniest—and most creative—pickup lines they’ve ever heard, but each is quickly rebuffed and further aroused when Abby plants a very large kiss on Olivia’s lips.
“Gets them every time,” says Olivia.
“But it makes the braver ones worse. Then they take you as a personal project,” says Queenie, in the know.
The camaraderie allows Abby and Olivia to open up—about their upbringing in Hong Kong, their time on the East Coast going to school, about returning to Asia, about joining the Chan Huang Foundation but finding themselves unfulfilled with a need to see if they could make it in the Big Apple. They leave out the part about their fathers being involved in major criminal activity. While it might add to the mystique, it’s definitely something they don’t want to talk about.
Queenie just soaks everything in. It’s amazing what people will reveal to you when they think you can do something for them. She processes the information, and inwardly the makings of a strategy start to form.
“So the poor little rich kids want to prove that they’re more than busty babes with bucks?” says Queenie.
“Ooh, that’s harsh,” says Olivia, taken aback.
“That’s reality. Look at me. I’ve worked hard to get everything I’ve got. No silver spoon in my mouth. I don’t mind telling you I’ve done a lot of things that you would never stoop to do in order to get to where I am,” says Queenie with almost a jealous edge. “You know what I heard when you were telling me your story? ‘Oh I didn’t feel like being a lawyer’ and ‘Woe is me. I feel so unfulfilled so I’m going back to New York so I don’t have to play with the uncouth cowboys from China.’”
Olivia and Abby are stunned. Queenie has just stripped away the niceties of their description and laid it on the line.
“Are we going to get the gig?” asks Olivia, trying hard not to sound deflated.
“Obviously. Should go without saying. I’m just letting you know that I’m playing for keeps and I got no safety net. If you want me to work with you, I need to know your commitment matches mine,” says Queenie with a short snort of laughter. “And I don’t want any kind of bullshit contract full of loopholes that I can get screwed in.
“Olivia’s a lawyer. Their job is to complicate life beyond human comprehension. Nothing is obvious and everything has to be written down before they’ll accept it.”
Abby’s joke breaks the tension. Then Queenie gets serious.
“The reason I’m having a showcase is because I’m starting a new business. A new jazz recording label, to be exact.”
Nothing Queenie could have said could have gotten Olivia and Abby more interested.
“Is that why you’re looking for an angle?” asks Olivia.
“Yeah,” exhales Queenie. “There are so many talented and deserving musicians in the world. Most of them teach or just play for themselves or maybe the occasional gig.”
Abby says, “That’s great for them, but ...”
The words hang in the air for a moment before Queenie completes her thought for her. “But it doesn’t really do anything to advance the cause of art. They are re-inventing the wheel, not creating new modes of transportation.”
Abby and Olivia cringe inwardly. Singing standards from yesteryear is hardly groundbreaking. Which is exactly what they do.
Queenie turns to them. “What I like about you is that you’ve got a spark that a lot of musicians don’t have. Not to mention that somersault thingy at the end was pretty cool. And of course if you look at me, you will see that I am definitely a fan and product of East West synthesis.”
Queenie is of course referring to her Eurasian background.
“Let’s be real. New York is the hardest market in the world to conquer. It’s a launch pad, but once you’re airborne, you got to let the winds figure out where it’s going to take you. I want to record an album here which we will market the heck out of. You’re not going to get a ton of play here, at least at first, but I think you’ll do big in Europe and of course, Asia. Your goal is to conquer New York but that’s such a hard nut to crack. We will do it, but I don’t think you’re ready to take the city by storm, if you get my drift. If we can get you some positive exposure elsewhere, then New York will pay attention. There’s a whole lot more t
o discuss but that’s a start. What do you think?”
“That sounds like a big dream,” says Olivia.
“And we came here to leave Asia, not be part of that scene.”
“Okay, we’re done. Like I said, I don’t need to coddle two rich bitches with nothing else to worry about except dreams.”
Queenie gets up.
“Wait,” says Abby. She looks at Olivia, who nods. Abby curls her lip and exhales—this is so not easy. “The main reason we’re here is because we want a fresh start. Our fathers were both killed recently, courtesy of one of Asia’s biggest gangsters, Chin Chee Fok. Mine had a crossbow arrow shot into him in a huge casino/restaurant—there were no witnesses.”
“Mine got barbecued along with Chin after he rescued me from being kidnapped,” explains Olivia. “Asia’s our home, but right now there’s just too much baggage there. We came here for a fresh start.”
“Wow.” Queenie sits back down.
***
It’s a pretty mixed high-stakes game being played. Abby and Olivia were only partly truthful. The circumstances of their fathers’ deaths are true but not their motives. Queenie got that bang on, but obviously that’s a deal killer so the ‘fresh start’ angle was perfect.
For Queenie, she has to hide her excitement. This confirms that Olivia and Abby are the right targets but there was something else important revealed as well—they don’t know her father isn’t dead. How that’s important, she’s not sure just yet.
“Why didn’t you tell me that to start with?”
Abby shrugs. “Uh, how do you think it goes over when you tell a prospective colleague, ‘By the way, there might be a gangster or two that shows up occasionally.’”
“And it really isn’t relevant about us,” adds Olivia.
“Everything is relevant and in your case, it adds dimension.”
“Quoi?” asks Olivia.
“The jazz world, like a lot of modern music now, is stale. Almost everything sounds like it came out of the same music grinder. Everyone goes to college or music school, everybody plays with their friends... they all come from the same roots. Just like you. What I like about this Café du Music and places like this is that this is where jazz lives. It’s not really Carnegie Hall, it’s the smoky clubs with music played by people who really knew pain—racial prejudice, substance abuse, poverty. It was real. Not like the electronic stuff that comes out of the marketing factory today. Totally soulless. You got baggage, you know pain. You know pain, you got soul in your sound.”
“So being the daughters of two kingpins of a transnational criminal organization is an asset?” says Abby.
“We can never talk about that,” demands Olivia.
“No need to mention it. It just lets me know you are.”
Olivia and Abby sigh relief.
“And another thing,” says Queenie.
“Yeah?” says Olivia, dreading what might come.
“I want to do it for the kids.”
Olivia and Abby’s ears perk up even more.
“Music isn’t just for people that can pay a thirty dollar cover charge or twelve dollars for a drink or a hundred and twenty-five dollars for a concert ticket. What better way to contribute than to let the kids participate at the gut level. Why can’t they make records? Why can’t they play on a Steinway grand piano?”
“There are already hundreds of music programs for young people,” argues Olivia.
“All good, some even very good, and even a few that are excellent ... but none of them really are involved in taking people to the next level. Why can’t we have a music lab where the instructors are the people that play here or at Birdland or the Vanguard? Why can’t I take them into a world class recording studio instead of them trying to do everything in their basements or in their bedrooms?” Queenie states firmly. “If we want greatness, let’s expose them to greatness so that it is normal, not the exception. We can train them and then maybe take a piece of the action. Anyways, that’s my vision for the New Amsterdam Arts Center.”
Olivia looks at Queenie thoughtfully, then quietly says, “There’s somebody I think you should meet.”
“Who’s that?”
“My old boyfriend.”
Queenie rolls her eyes. “I wouldn’t want anybody to meet mine.”
“Noah is different. He’s got access to money and he’s got a heart.”
“So do Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, and the introduction isn’t coming from a girl who just dumped him.”
“If Noah can come, he will,” says Olivia confidently.
Queenie pretends to give it a moment of thought. This is exactly what I want! “You think he’d want to come tomorrow night? We can meet when he sees your performance.”
“I can always ask,” says Olivia.
“Tell him that for him, there’s no cover charge, but he’ll still have to do the two drink minimum.”
“Does orange juice count?”
“Benjamin will be happy to charge twelve bucks for an OJ.”
“Oh, and one more thing. How do you know I dumped him and not the other way around?” asks Olivia.
Queenie gives her the up and down of a testosterone-fueled teenager. “Because if I were a guy, I would do anything in the world to make sure that I kept you, no matter how much of a bitch you were to me. Anything.”
CHAPTER SIX
Noah, Sam, and Wangdan play a pickup game of basketball at an outdoor court in a park in Hong Kong. It’s the same field where Noah met with Sam at a few months ago. While the names have changed, the kinds of kids they play with are the same—a couple of rich kids, a lot of poor kids, and a few that might be murdering, manhandling, pushing or smoking product if they weren’t playing basketball.
Sam had been one of those kids, and Noah’s best friend Chad had been trying to reach Sam. Mom an addict, dad in jail, at that time Sam was a train wreck waiting to happen except for Chad’s persistence in trying to keep the teen from falling off the rails. When Chad was killed in the encounter with Chin’s gang, Noah took Sam under his wing. Noah pays Sam’s mom an allowance every month to let Sam stay with him, and Sam is on the Chad Huang Foundation’s payroll as some kind of outreach ambassador to kids his age.
Wangdan, about Noah’s age, had been a young martial arts master in Heaven, the ancient Shaolin monastery where Master Wu, Noah’s mentor, was trained. When Noah went with Master Wu on a final pilgrimage to the sifu’s origins, Queenie’s brother King attacked the entourage, hoping to force Noah to give back Chin’s fortune. Even armed with henchmen, an arsenal of poisons, artillery, and snakes, King could not overcome his determined opponents but did wreak huge damage. Wangdan saved Noah and Sam when Heaven was being destroyed. The young Shaolin monk had his own epiphany through the process. He realized that monastic life was no longer for him and he joined Noah at the Chad Huang Foundation.
Wangdan charges down court with the ball. While he may be a martial arts master, he is definitely no Yao Ming. He bowls over one of the kids before attempting a jump shot that is totally off the mark.
“What you doing man?” yells the kid as he pulls out a switchblade.
“That’s not a good idea,” says Sam.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you,” says Wangdan.
“Hurt me? You’ll never hurt me, you wimp,” says the kid.
The kid pushes a button on the knife and the blade springs out. He lunges at Wangdan with it.
From a standing position, Wangdan springs into an upward somersault, dodging the onrushing blade. When Wangdan descends, his legs unfurl and kick the switchblade out of the boy’s hand into the air.
Wangdan leaps, grabs the spinning knife by the handle, and then does a double aerial somersault and lands in a perfect crouch position on his feet. That hot dog stunt was worthy of any martial arts movie with big stars in it, except this one was done without wires and completely live.
Wangdan hands it back to the kid. “Like I said. I’m sorry.”
The ki
d stares at Wangdan. The other basketball players and everyone else in the park saw Wangdan’s theatrics. They crowd around him asking for his autograph and if he will teach them.
“You want to learn?”
“Yes!” shout the excited group.
Wangdan does another standing somersault and this time lands outside the perimeter of the group. “This is just a taste of what you will learn if you take classes at the Chad Huang Foundation. The classes are free and held three times a week. Come and join us.”
Wangdan gives the martial arts hand sign to the assembled crowd. Sam hands out pamphlets and brochures to all who want to join. They entreat the young sifu to perform another trick but Wangdan simply says, “Come to the classes and I’ll show you.”
Noah smiles and shakes his head as Wangdan approaches him. “You’re a ham you know.”
“Didn’t you tell me that’s how you and Chad got started?” laughs Wangdan.
There’s a touch of melancholy as Noah smiles back. He regrets that he was the one who brought Chad into the situation that resulted in him being killed, and he hopes against hope that he doesn’t do the same to Wangdan.
But that’s not likely. Everything seems to be going smoothly.
Right.
RING. Noah looks at his cell phone—the call is from about the last person he expected to hear from. “Hi Olivia. Good to hear from you. How are things in New York?”
“Things are great. Things are wonderful.”
“Glad to hear that.” So why are you calling me?
“Noah, Abby and I got our first gig. We’re playing at Café du Music in Greenwich Village tomorrow night!”
“Very, very cool. I wish I could be there to see you. New York debut and all that.”
“Actually ... I was hoping you might come.”
The Noah Reid Series: Books 1-3: The Noah Reid Action Thriller Series Boxset Page 44
