by Bill Moody
I find him at the kitchen table, staring out at the pool. It’s covered with some kind of quilted plastic cover. A mug of coffee is beside him.
“Got some more of that?”
“Sure.” Ace gets me coffee and takes a carton of half-and-half out of the refrigerator.
I sit down with him, fix my coffee, and light a cigarette. “We have to talk, Ace.”
He nods. “I’ve been sitting here thinking about Ken,” he says quietly.
“How well did you know him?”
“Not very well, really. We did a couple of deals together, some not especially valuable records.” He looks up at me. “God, Evan, I was never in this for the money. It was the music I was interested in. You know that. You know what I’ve got in my collection. I was just excited that this might really be Clifford Brown.”
“I know, Ace, I know. But Ken?”
Ace shrugs and shakes his head. “Ken was part of a very serious network of collectors. He was a very secretive guy, never talked about his finds, as he called them. But this deal, this was the most excited I’ve ever seen him.” Ace gets up and pours us both more coffee, then stands leaning against the sink.
“What about this other guy? He seemed to be calling the shots.”
Ace nods. “I guess he contacted Ken, told him about the tapes.”
“And that’s where I came in?”
“Right. I guess before they did anything more, they wanted to be reasonably sure that it was actually Clifford Brown on those tapes. Then they could estimate their worth, get the word out to collectors, or go directly to a record company.” Ace stops and looks at me. “Was it Brownie?”
Was it, or did I just want it to be? To have something new of Clifford Brown out and available was an exciting prospect. “I’d have to say yes, it sure sounded like him to me. You think the other guy just wanted to cut Ken out of the deal, they argued, and it got out of hand?”
“Possibly. These guys are crazy,” Ace says. “I guarantee you he wouldn’t have cared about it for the music. It would be because it was a rare find and worth a lot of money.”
“Suppose it is Clifford Brown on those tapes. How valuable would they be? Do you have any idea?”
Ace shrugs and begins to pace around the kitchen. “What if somebody found those stories Hemingway’s wife lost in Paris, or some paintings by Georgia O’Keeffe no one knew about?” He stops and points his coffee cup at me. “They’d be worth a lot, enough—”
“To kill for.”
“Yes,” Ace says quietly. “With these guys, I think they would.”
I think about that for a moment, letting it all sink in. Still, despite what Ace and I thought about jazz, Clifford Brown was not Ernest Hemingway or Georgia O’Keeffe, although at some point, if there’s any justice, Louis Armstrong or Charlie Parker or Clifford Brown might be considered as important an artist.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Ace says, “but remember the discovery of the Charlie Parker tapes, the Dean Benedetti collection?”
“Vaguely. Wasn’t he the guy who followed Bird around, recording him in clubs?”
Ace sits down again and assumes his professorial persona. “Dean Benedetti was an alto player, just like Bird, but he idolized him. Recorded him, got drugs for him. He made the recordings on metal-based disks and early paper tape, so the quality wasn’t that good. Sometimes he ran the mike from the men’s room at clubs. When Bird died, Benedetti drifted out of music altogether, left the tapes with his brother, and moved to Italy.
“He died two years later. His brother didn’t do anything with the tapes until they came up in conversation with a writer in the early eighties. It was about 1988 that he started negotiating with some record companies and finally sold them to Mosaic Records.”
“How good are they—the sound, I mean?”
“Not very,” Ace says. “I read something about one of the sessions being done at the Onyx Club in New York. Benedetti had the recorder beneath the bandstand, directly under Max Roach’s drums, but it didn’t matter. He caught Bird when he was clean and playing well, even if he did virtually shut off the machine during the other solos. The point is, they were undiscovered tapes of Charlie Parker. I’ve got the set right there in the other room. You can listen to them if you like.”
“So if these tapes are of Clifford Brown, with the better sound and all, they could be worth even more, right?”
“Exactly, and there’s probably more we don’t know about, because they didn’t keep very good records of recording sessions in those days, and tapes get misplaced, misfiled.”
Or sessions get done and never released. I’ve talked to many older musicians who don’t even remember doing some sessions. But if these tapes were really of Clifford Brown, when had he done them, and where?
“You know about the Coltrane tapes Atlantic found?” Ace says, breaking into my thoughts.
I’d forgotten about those. Somebody at Atlantic Records was assigned to clean out a closet. “What about these boxes?” the guy asked his boss, when he came across some unlabeled tapes. It turned out they were reels of stuff John Coltrane had done in the ’50s. They’re now a multidisc CD set called Heavyweight Champion.
“I hope that guy got a raise.”
Ace nods. “They should have made him a partner. There are also some rumors about some Bill Evans tapes made at the Village Vanguard by some doctor and his wife who made every gig. Evans didn’t even know they were recording. The doctor’s wife had a recorder in her purse, and they always sat at a front table. Only one who knew was Max Gordon, the owner.”
“What happened to those?” That’s a collection I’d like to have.
“I read they were turned over to Orrin Keepnews at Riverside Records.”
“Turned over?”
“Well, sold, I imagine, and of course, very valuable.”
Even more so if they also included Bill Evans’s piano. I don’t have a piano, but maybe I have Clifford Brown’s trumpet.
And by now, the guy who killed Ken Perkins might know I have it.
CHAPTER FIVE
Ace doesn’t feel like cooking, so we have pasta and a carafe of red house wine at a small Italian restaurant in a strip mall next to a Lucky Market on Rainbow. Viva Trattoria is small and cozy, family run, with checkered tablecloths, candles in Chianti bottles, and smells wafting from the kitchen into the dining area.
The food is good, and miraculously the waiter—one of the sons, according to Ace—doesn’t continually hover around our table, even though we have the place almost to ourselves.
Over cappuccino we continue to talk about the Clifford Brown tapes and Ken Perkins’s death. I light one of my generic menthols, and Ace wrinkles his nose.
“What are those?”
“Not my regular brand. I’m trying to quit.”
“Well, good for you.”
On our second cup of coffee, I get to what I’m really thinking about and raise the possibility that I might be charged with something.
Ace scoffs at the idea. “I don’t see how you can be,” he says. “You told Trask everything, just how it happened. What could they charge you with?”
I hope Ace is right. I don’t think I’m a suspect—Trask seemed to accept my account of things—but he is certainly going to want to talk to me again once he’s had time to go over my statement and whatever evidence has been collected. It could go wrong.
“What if he comes up with some scenario like I realized how valuable the tapes were, I decided I wanted a bigger fee, Ken and I argued, Ken or the other guy pulled a gun, there was a struggle, the gun went off, and—”
“No,” Ace says emphatically, slapping his napkin down on the table. “You stayed there. It was you who called the cops. The other guy, the killer, left, and you certainly didn’t hit yourself on the head.”
Instinctively, I touch the bandage. The only residual effect is a slight headache. “I hope you’re right, Ace, but there’s only my word that there was another man, and I didn’t
actually see the shooting.”
Ace says no again. “I’ll testify to that if necessary, that there was another man. I got you into this, Evan, and I think my standing in the community is sufficient for me to be a very good character witness. Besides, you have a track record with Trask over the Anthony Gallio thing.”
“Yeah, I guess so. That was kind of fun, putting Gallio away and helping to save the Moulin Rouge.” Ace is right, of course. I just wish I could be more convincing, even to myself. “We need to find that guy, Ace.”
“We?” Ace looks panic-stricken. “Are you nuts?” He looks around the room, realizing his voice has become louder. In almost a whisper, he leans across the table and says, “He killed Ken Perkins, Evan, and that is business for the police.”
“Okay, okay, but there is one other factor to consider. What if the tapes are phony, and Ken got cold feet and was killed because he wouldn’t go through with the scam?”
“But you said—”
“I know what I said. I was convinced, but I’d sure like to listen to the remaining tape again.”
“You think Trask would allow that?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to try. In fact, I’m going to see if he’ll make a copy of it for me, and I need to convince him to have the tape analyzed.”
“What do you mean, analyzed?”
“Look, it should be relatively simple to determine if this brand or type of tape was being used in the ’50s. If not, then the whole thing is bogus, some kind of scam to defraud other collectors or a record company. If it is tape from the ’50s, then maybe it’s genuine, or maybe someone is being very clever.”
Ace gazes into space for a moment, then shakes his head. “No, I don’t buy it. They’d have to, what—just by coincidence find tapes with a guy who could imitate Clifford Brown perfectly, well enough to fool you, anybody? You said yourself that would be virtually impossible. And why choose Clifford Brown? Why not Miles Davis or Chet Baker, someone more well known?”
I’ve been thinking about that, and I already have an answer. “Look, Ace, if there were some unreleased, undiscovered recordings of Miles or Chet Baker, that would be great, but they both recorded a tremendous amount of material. The CD reissue business is big, but most of the stuff they’re releasing now is from record companies. After Atlantic found those Coltrane master tapes you told me about, I imagine most companies are digging through their vaults right now looking to see if they have stuff they didn’t know they had. No, the first thing to do is have the tape analyzed. Then we go from there.” There are several possible explanations, but I’ll have to work on them a bit more. I still leave out the fact that there’s also a trumpet that I have to retrieve.
“I don’t know, Evan. I think you’re asking for trouble.”
By the time we get our check, Ace looks totally exhausted. He glances at his watch. “I’m going to turn in early,” he says. “You be okay?”
“Don’t worry about me, Ace. I’ll find something to do.”
Maybe Ace is right. Am I asking for trouble again? Or, as Carol Mann told me, maybe my pursuit into investigations is more than simple curiosity. Maybe it’s a psychological ploy to distract me from facing the fact that I can’t play piano and maybe never will again.
I find myself identifying with Clifford Brown more and more. He had a near-fatal accident that almost ended his playing days, but he came back to a brilliant, albeit short, career. So far I hadn’t done that yet.
But more and more I’m coming to the conclusion—especially since my own accident—that choice is an illusion. We always do what we have to do, which explains why once we’re back at the house, I stand outside on the patio for a few minutes, smoking, listening to the wind, turning over everything in my mind.
The air is cold. Probably more snow at Mt. Charleston. A slight breeze ripples the pool cover and rustles tree branches. Do I have a choice? Rational thought tells me I should follow Ace’s lead, go to bed early, and see what tomorrow brings.
But that other voice is powerful, always trying to lead me in another direction, like the Robert Frost poem “The Road Not Taken.” The last lines have always struck me with the sense they’ve been written for me. “I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.” I always seem to be drawn to the less-traveled road, whether it’s a career in jazz or asking why when everyone else wants to give up.
I leave a message for Natalie, with no details, and decide to try Danny Cooper in the morning. I slip out of the house, make sure my flashlight is working, then drive back to the Perkins house, finding the street with little trouble. The homes are fronted by a high white wall that is well lit and faces the street. I drive inside, past the house, and down to a cul-de-sac at the other end, checking out the houses as I pass.
Turning around in the cul-de-sac, I pull in behind another car and shut off the lights and engine. The Perkins house is dark except for the outside lights, which are probably operated by sensor. Some of the yellow crime-scene tape still hangs from the gate, fluttering in the breeze, and there’s a red seal slapped on the front door. The police have had all day to finish their work, but they’ll probably be back.
I check the street for cars not belonging to residents, but there don’t seem to be any that look as if they don’t belong. I smoke a cigarette and wait a few minutes more before I grab my flashlight and get out of the car. I stay on the opposite side of the street, walking past Perkins’s house. No one is out walking their dog, no visitors; it looks as safe as it will ever be.
Crossing the street, I walk quickly around the side of the house, away from the front lights, only now realizing how large the house is. I find the window I went out, and the hedge. I pull it back from the house and snap on the flash for a second, shielding the light with my body, and reach behind the hedge.
Nothing there. No trumpet.
I look again, shining the light behind the hedge in both directions, thinking I’ve mistaken where I dropped it. I check all along the side of the house, but no trumpet anywhere. Now what? I stand for a minute in the yard, watch a light go on in the house next door. I go back to the car, my heart beating hard, and sit there for a few minutes smoking, waiting, thinking, contemplating something that other voice is trying to convince me to do.
Where is the trumpet? Did the police find it? Did someone else beat me to it? Or is it—in the house? I know I can’t leave without seeing for myself. I want to see inside the house once more. Not that I think the police missed anything, but I want to recapture the scene, clear up the fuzzy images in my mind.
I go back to the house.
The broken screen is still dangling where I knocked it out the night before, and no one has locked the window. Maybe nobody even knew it was unlocked; all the activity would have been in the room where Perkins was shot. It opens easily, and I climb through. There’s just enough light from the street to make out the shadows of the TV and other furniture. I cross the room and run the flash around in the music room. The flash sweeps over the outline where Ken’s body was and the dark stains on the carpet, but everything else looks the same. There’s nothing to see, or I don’t know where to look.
I turn off the flash and stand in the darkness, trying to get something clear in my mind. When I’ve got it, I sit down on the couch, facing the tape decks, and point the flash across the room at one of the speakers. Perched in front of it is the trumpet case, just where I’d first seen it last night. Unless Trask comes back to the house, no one will miss it. That’s it; time to get out of here.
I go back out the window, shut it behind me, and after checking the street, get to my car and put the trumpet in the Camaro’s trunk. Getting back inside the car, I light a cigarette and sit there a few minutes, running things through my mind, thinking I’ve missed something.
I’m just about to leave when another car comes around the corner and does exactly what I did twenty minutes ago. It drives by the house slowly. I slide down in the seat as it passes me and turns aroun
d in the cul-de-sac. Back in my direction, past me, it parks near the corner, opposite the entrance to the compound.
I raise myself up just enough to see a man get out of the car. No doubt, it’s Cross or whatever his name is. He walks up to the front door, opens it with a key, and walks right in, breaking the red seal. I sit up straight now to get a better look at his car. A Pontiac, late model. With one eye on the house, I walk in a crouch to his car and kneel down to get the license plate, memorize it, and trot back to my car. I write down the number on some scrap paper and wait.
Five minutes later Cross comes out of the house. He looks around then goes to his car. I watch him for a few minutes; he’s doing just what I did—waiting, thinking, trying to decide what to do next. He’s obviously come back for the trumpet and is trying to figure out what happened to it.
A minute later, he starts his car and pulls away. Time for my second stupid idea of the night.
I follow him.
He turns left out of the compound, then takes the first right at the traffic light. We’re on Oakey now, headed east. I keep a couple of cars between us. He turns right on Rancho, then again on Sahara, then immediately turns on his signal to go left. I pull over and stop, knowing he’s headed for the Palace Station Hotel.
The traffic on Sahara is heavy, so it takes me a couple of minutes to make the same turn into the Palace Station parking lot. There are people out headed for the casino, walking to their cars, or jockeying for a parking space. I cruise around for five minutes before I find his car in the covered parking garage, but now I see it has a rental agency sticker on it. Behind me somebody honks, and in the rearview mirror I see the familiar hands-up gesture that means “Are you going to park or what?”
I pull away and try for a spot nearer the hotel entrance, find one, and shut off the engine. Now what? I don’t like leaving the trumpet in the trunk, and I don’t want to go inside, call the police. Cross could spot me in a second. For once in my life I wish for a cellular phone.
