Bird Lives!

by Bill Moody

  “What’s up?” she says. Her shoes are off, and her hair is tousled, like she’s been running her fingers through it. She holds the door with one hand, kind of leaning on it and looking at me with a hint of curiosity, a smile just short of a smirk, like I’m an old boyfriend she hasn’t seen in weeks.

  “How about some dinner and jazz?” I throw it out as casually as I can.

  “Something to do with Greg Sims?”

  “No, I don’t think so. A piano player. Just thought it might be fun, kill some time. We have to eat, right?”

  She looks over her shoulder toward the computer. “Well, I have some work to do. I was just going to order in something.”

  I shrug and smile. “Yeah, fine. It was just a thought.” I start to turn away. Rejected by two women in as many minutes.

  “No, wait,” she says, “maybe it would be. Fun, I mean.” She leaves her hand on the door, straightens up and looks at me as if to gauge my reaction, and decides it’s genuine. “Give me a half-hour, okay?”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  “Who is this piano player? Anybody I should know?”

  “Dave McKenna. You don’t know him, but you should.”

  Moose’s is near North Beach, on Washington Square, a big, brightly lit, bustling place with large plate glass windows facing the square. Judging from the crowd out front, it’s a good thing I called ahead.

  We leave the car with valet parking and fight our way through to the reservations desk. A harried young woman is telling several couples it’ll be at least an hour wait. I give her my name. She checks her list, draws a line through several names, tells me it will be about fifteen minutes, and invites us to wait at the bar along one side of the large room.

  The dining room is divided by pillars and a huge grand piano. In the back, we can see a crew of chefs in tall hats, flame-broiling, stir-frying, yelling at each other. The noise level is such that I have to almost shout at the bartender to get our drinks. It’s three deep at the bar, and every table in the dining room is full.

  “How is he going to play in all this?” Andie says, looking around. A heavyset man jostles her for position at the bar, and some of her drink trickles over the glass. She glares at his back.

  “Show him your badge,” I say. “You’ll see.”

  We get to our table just moments before Dave McKenna slides onto the piano bench. We both order the grilled salmon special and salads, and decide on the house chardonnay.

  “Watch this,” I say to Andie. McKenna glances around the room, seemingly oblivious to the crowd noise. In a dark suit and tie, his steel-gray hair combed straight back, he might be mistaken for an account executive who wandered in, had a couple of drinks, and decided to try out the piano.

  It takes only a couple of minutes, not more than half a chorus of “I May Be Wrong,” for everyone to turn toward the piano and stop in mid-conversation.

  For most of the next hour, waiters lean in close so orders can be whispered, and even the bar noise drops a few notches as McKenna moves from one song, one style, to another without stopping. He ends the set with a rousing stride piano rendition of a Fats Waller tune, then stands up for a quick bow while the audience cheers and applauds. McKenna, who seems slightly embarrassed by the display, ducks out the front door.

  “Now that’s what you call command of the instrument,” I say to Andie. “A history of jazz piano in fifty-five minutes.”

  “I just can’t believe it,” Andie says, shaking her head. “He never stopped. I knew half those tunes, but I’ve never heard them played like that.”

  I get up from the table. “I just want to say hello and have a smoke. Be right back.”

  “Do you know him?” Andie asks.

  “Met him once in Boston, but I doubt if he remembers. Why don’t you order us some coffee?”

  I go outside, spot Dave standing off to the side, away from the crowd at valet parking. When I approach him, he does remember.

  “Oh, yeah,” he says, “you were conducting for Lonnie Cole. I heard he was in prison. Tough way to lose a gig.”

  Fortunately, he doesn’t remember I helped put Cole there. To my surprise, he agrees to let me buy him a drink. When we go back to the table, Andie’s eyes get big.

  “Andie, Dave McKenna.” They shake hands, and Dave sits down, ordering a brandy from a waiter who has instantly appeared.

  In the brightly-lit room, it’s easy to see the dark circles under his eyes, the road-weary look, earned from hundreds of gigs. For a moment I flash on my own future. McKenna answers Andie’s questions politely and modestly accepts her compliments. People at nearby tables stare at us and whisper, but McKenna doesn’t seem to notice.

  He finally looks at his watch. “Well, guess I better go do this again. You ever get tired of playing?”

  “Not yet,” I say.

  “No, I suppose not. You’re too young. Well, thanks for the drink. Don’t let him go on the road too much,” he says to Andie. “It can wear you, out.”

  Andie nods and glances at me. “Nice man,” she says.

  “Yeah, he is. Guess he thinks we’re together.”

  “Well, we are, kind of. Does that bother you?” When I don’t answer, Andie touches my hand, “Look, I know you wish I was Natalie tonight. I wish I could do something about that, but I can’t.”

  I pull my hand away and wish I could light a cigarette. I can at least change the subject. “So what’s on tap for tomorrow?”

  “Well, we need to check with the San Francisco police unless you’ve got any more ideas.”

  I shake my head no. “Then back to L.A., right?”

  “Yes, I don’t know what else we can do here. We just have to hope Gillian, if she’s keeping track, will be satisfied with this trip, that she’ll call again.”

  “I’m not really looking forward to that.” I signal the waiter for our check, but Andie grabs it when it comes. “This is all FBI expenses,” she says, as she takes out a credit card.

  I hold up my hands in surrender. “I’m not going to argue with the Feds.”

  “I wish I could believe that,” Andie says.

  I catch Dave McKenna’s eye as we leave and wave good-bye. He nods, smiles at Andie, and continues to dazzle Moose’s audience with more stride piano. Guy doesn’t need a rhythm section.

  I manage to smoke a whole cigarette while we wait for our car. We drive back to the hotel without saying much and once again find ourselves standing in front of our rooms. The air is chilly now, and a light fog is rolling in over the bay.

  “You feel like talking?” Andie asks. She already has her key in the door.

  “I don’t think so. Feel kind of tired.”

  Andie nods. “Okay, see you in the morning, then.” She goes into her room and shuts the door.

  I stand outside for a few minutes, smoking, staring at the fog, the lights from Fisherman’s Wharf winking back at me. The chilly air feels good on my face.

  What the hell. Natalie and I aren’t married. We’re not even engaged. When I go into my room, I glance at the adjoining door to Andie’s room, already knowing it isn’t locked.

  At San Francisco Police Headquarters, Andie and I sit at the desk of Inspector Gene Parello. He’s a short, dark man in his early forties with a shock of curly hair and eyes that flick around the squad room as if he’s looking for someone to arrive. He talks mostly to Andie, but he’s checked me out pretty thoroughly already.

  “I don’t know what else I can tell you,” Parello says, flipping through the file on Greg Sims Andie has brought along. “It was pretty straight up. Jumper off the Golden Gate. Hey, it happens. You a friend of Sims?”

  I glance at Andie to get some cue from her. If I’m reading her right, we’re going to play some version of good cop, bad cop with another cop. “Not really. Just following up for a family member.”

  “Sure,” Parello says, “and you just bring along an FBI agent for company.” He looks at Andie. “Something else going on here you want to tell me about?” />
  “I’m not at liberty to say,” Andie says. “All I can tell you is, it’s an ongoing investigation.”

  “Did you talk to any of Sims’s family?” I ask

  Parello nods. “Yeah, some woman, said she was his sister.”

  “She came in here? Do you remember what she looked like?”

  Parello is already shaking his head no. “On the phone. She never came in, and she was very pushy. Kept asking how we knew it was her brother, how we knew it was suicide. Without a body, there wasn’t much I could tell her. We had to go on the word of his friend. We didn’t have a photo, and the sister didn’t offer one.” Parello shrugs. “Some friend, huh? Friends don’t let friends dive into the bay. Guy was a total freak-out, but hey, we got ’em in San Francisco.”

  Andie and I glance at each other, both of us thinking the same thing. Parello hands back the file, and Andie looks like she wants to open it again right there.

  “There is one thing,” Parello says. “The sister never claimed his horn, and we didn’t know how to contact her.”

  “His horn?” I shift forward on my chair.

  “Yeah, the jumper was some kind of musician, I guess. Couldn’t get much out of the friend. A space case.”

  “Can we see it?” I ask.

  Parello pauses and looks at both of us.

  “I can get a court order,” Andie says.

  Parello weighs his options for a moment. He says, “I’m sure you can, and I can still make lunch if I don’t get hung up with you two. C’mon,” he says, getting up and shoving the chair under his desk.

  Parello leads us downstairs to the basement. After some small talk in the evidence room, a tall, skinny sergeant finally produces the horn from shelves crammed with boxes, suitcases, and an array of confiscated weapons that range from baseball bats and swords to automatic rifles.

  I don’t know what I expected to find. The case and horn are nothing special—just a tenor saxophone in a fiber case—but there is one thing. I take the horn out and look in the small reed compartment.

  Lying on the bottom is a white feather.

  I hold it up for Andie to see, then put it in my pocket.

  “We need to take this,” Andie says, looking at Parello and tapping on the horn case. “If you need—”

  “I know,” Parello says. “You can get a court order.”

  Andie signs a release form while I repack the horn. As we’re leaving, Parello stands, hands on his hips, facing us. “Hey, sometime I’d like to hear what this is all about.”

  Once we’re back in the car, Andie opens the file folder and points to the name. “Robert Wiley. The Robert at the church? I never connected that, did you?”

  “I’d like to talk to him again.” Something bothers me about the whole thing. If Gillian was so concerned about her brother, why didn’t she come to San Francisco? Why only phone calls? And why didn’t she claim her brother’s horn? Maybe Robert has some answers, something to use with Gillian the next time she calls.

  “How—back to the church?” Andie asks. “You think he hangs out there?”

  “Maybe, but I want to do this by myself. If I do find him, I don’t think he’ll talk with you around.”

  Surprisingly, Andie doesn’t give me any argument. “All right,” she says. “I’ll drop you off at the church and see if I can run down an address.”

  “Try the Veteran’s Administration first. Robert had that look”

  Andie nods and starts the car. We retrace our route from the day before down Divisdero. A half block from the John Coltrane Church, I see Sister Deborah locking the front gate.

  “Let me out,” I say to Andie. “See if you can find an address, and then pick me up in front of the church.” I get out, and Andie drives off. I jog toward Sister Deborah as she heads for her car. She sees me coming toward her, stops, and smiles.

  “Hello,” she says. “I’m afraid we’re not open until later. I just had to stop by and pick something up.”

  “That’s okay.” We stand on the corner, traffic rushing by, pedestrians brushing past us. We move over to the side against the building. “I wanted to get in contact with Robert, the guy that was here yesterday.”

  Sister Deborah’s face clouds over. “Robert is very troubled,” she says. “Is it something about your friend, the one who died?”

  “Yes. I’d like to talk to Robert again.”

  Sister Deborah studies me for a moment. “Robert’s not in any trouble, I hope?”

  “No, nothing like that. He was the last one to see my friend. I just want to—”

  “Well, I’m sorry, I can’t help you,” she says. “Robert hangs around the church a lot, but I don’t know where he lives.”

  “Any idea where he works? Does he have a job?”

  She shakes her head. “Sorry, I don’t know. Sometimes he comes by for the meals we make, but if he has a job, I don’t know where it is or what he does.” She smiles again. “I’m sorry I can’t help. If I see him, tell Robert you’re looking for him.”

  “No, that’s all right, don’t bother. Thanks for your time, Sister.”

  She nods and walks toward her car. I pace around in front of the church for a few minutes, scanning the street, wondering if Robert lives in the neighborhood.

  Andie pulls up then. She leans over and rolls down the window. “Well?” I say.

  “Get in,” she says. “It’s only a few blocks from here.”

  Andie turns off Divisdero at the next corner. A few blocks later, she turns again and pulls up near a row of rundown apartment blocks. She checks the number against a piece of paper and turns off the engine.

  “You were right. A ’Nam vet. He gets a monthly VA disability check,” she says, “so I think the address is good. It’s number eight.”

  “Okay, I’ll do this.” I get out of the car and walk up to the building. There’s a row of mailboxes, but no name next to number eight. I climb stairs to the third floor before I find Robert’s. I knock several times, but there’s no answer. I try a couple of other doors on the same floor, but no answer there either.

  I go back to the car. Andie has found a better parking place across the street with a clear view of the apartment entrance. I get in and light a cigarette. “Not home,” I tell her.

  “Let’s wait awhile,” she says. She shifts in her seat so that she’s leaning against her door, facing me at an angle. “I’m almost tempted to have one of those,” she says, looking at my cigarette.

  “Does it bother you?” I blow the smoke out the window.

  “No, not really. It’s just tempting.”

  We sit for a few minutes, watching traffic, keeping one eye on the building.

  Andie gets some gum out of her purse, then leans back against the door, a slight smile playing on her lips.

  “You know, I almost knocked on your door last night.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m glad you didn’t,” she says. “I would have let you in.”

  I look at her for a moment. “It’s all about timing, isn’t it?”

  “Timing is everything.”

  I look away from Andie, not really ready to get into this, when I see a tall man, maybe thirty-something, go into the building, but it’s not Robert. Andie follows my gaze. “If we find him, what are you going to ask Robert?”

  “I don’t know, but there’s just something about the whole thing that doesn’t hang together.”

  “You mean Gillian not coming here?”

  “That, for sure.”

  Andie nods. “Maybe she was already planning, didn’t want anyone to see her, much less the police.” Andie sits up suddenly. “There, isn’t that him?”

  Robert comes down the street in the same clothes he had on yesterday. Scruffy jeans, the long shirt hanging loose outside. He stops every few feet, looks in storefront windows or stares at the traffic. Finally he turns in at the apartment entrance.

  “Let’s give him a couple of minutes,”
I say.

  “You sure you don’t want me to go with you?”

  “No, it’s better if I go alone.” I get out of the car and walk up to the building. It’s still very quiet as I climb the stairs. I knock again at Robert’s door, but there’s no answer. I listen at the door, knock again. A few moments later, Robert answers.

  “Who is it?” Robert’s voice is muffled, but he’s close to the door. There’s no peephole, so I know he can’t be looking out at me.

  “Robert? I was at the church yesterday. Remember? I’m a friend of Greg’s.”

  Nothing. Then, “What do you want?”

  “Just want to talk to you.” I reach in my pocket and touch the feather. “I have something I want to give you.”

  More silence as Robert thinks it over, then the clicking sounds as locks turn. He opens the door a couple of inches and peers out. All I can see is eyes, the bushy beard, and wild hair.

  “Hi, Robert. Can I come in? Just want to talk to you for a minute.”

  “Why? What do you want?” His eyes go over my shoulder, seeing if there’s someone with me.

  “I have something for you. It belonged to Greg.” The door opens a bit more. Robert is wary, his eyes searching my face.

  “What? Show me.”

  I hold up the white feather. “This,” I say. “I think this was Greg’s, wasn’t it?”

  Robert turns his head back inside but keeps his hands solidly on the door, then looks back at me. His eyes lock on the feather. “Where did you get that?” he asks. His eyes flick back and forth between me and the feather.

  “Can we just talk for a minute? I have Greg’s horn too.”

  Robert’s eyes widen even more. “They wouldn’t give it to me,” he says.

  “Who?”

  “The police. They weren’t nice to me.” He turns his head inside again. I can almost feel someone standing behind him. He steps aside then, and the door opens wider. The tall man we saw go into the building earlier is standing there.

  “It’s all right, Robert,” he says. “Who are you?” He looks at the feather, a flicker of recognition passes over his eyes.

  “Evan Horne. I’m—I was—a friend of Greg’s. I’m just checking things out for his family. I wanted to return his horn.”