He shrugged. Well, it was still gold—or gold-looking, anyway. Beggars can’t be choosers. He slid it into his coat pocket and made a mental note to give it some further scrutiny at a later date.
As he turned, he noticed a man standing at the sink. The man raised his hands toward his big Afro … and removed it.
He was wearing a wig! What in the—
Tyrone looked away, suppressing a smile. A drag queen, no doubt. He knew they hung out in some of the jazz clubs—worked in some of them, for that matter.
He grinned. Just another night in Babylon.
He started across the bathroom, then stopped. Now wait a minute. This supposed drag queen had a beard—a fake one, anyway. That would definitely make for an exotic act. As Tyrone watched, the man began peeling the facial hair off, a tiny bit at a time.
Whatever was going on here, it was more than just a drag queen getting in or out of costume. This was something strange and, in all likelihood, illegal. And he’d be a lot better off if he didn’t get dragged into it. He tiptoed quietly across the bathroom …
But not quietly enough. The man whirled around and glared at him. Those eyes, Tyrone thought, were the darkest eyes he had ever seen. And the meanest.
Tyrone spent enough time around tough customers to know what the man was thinking. He was thinking he didn’t want any witnesses to his disrobing routine. And now that he realized he had one, he would have to do something about it.
The man started across the bathroom, eyes lowered, his face still obscured by the bushy false beard. His hand was reaching for something shiny, something inside his shirt.
Good God—was that a knife?
Tyrone didn’t know what to do. There was nowhere he could go, no way he could maneuver. He was trapped. Dead meat.
The man moved closer to him. Tyrone was pressed against the far wall with no escape route …
They both heard it at the same time—a loud voice from somewhere outside the bathroom. “I dunno. You try in there, I’ll try over here.”
The man shoved his knife back in its sheath. “Later,” he whispered. Then he moved quickly toward the door. He shoved against the swinging door hard, driving it into someone on the other side who tumbled to the floor. The man with the knife lit out.
Tyrone checked himself in the mirror. His face was drawn; the panic was still visible in his eyes. He inhaled deeply, trying to calm himself, then left the men’s room. He didn’t know exactly what had happened in there, but he had the distinct feeling he had just narrowly escaped a particularly nasty and unpleasant end.
As he stepped into the club, he saw that a crowd was beginning to gather. The show would start soon. Well, thank God for that. He was more than ready for a little entertainment now. And more than ready for a drink. A serious drink.
He saw a pretty slip of a thing sitting at the bar and scooted onto the stool beside her. “Hey there,” he said, putting on his best smile. He pulled two shot glasses and a hard-boiled egg out of his jacket pocket. “Five bucks says I can move this egg from one glass to the other—without touching it.”
Within seconds, he was lost in the script for yet another con, his mind miles away from the fact that only seconds before, he had come two steps shy of being ripped to shreds by a thin, shiny serrated blade.
Chapter 8
BEN AND EARL scoured the backstage area, but they were unable to find any trace of the man with the rug. Earl was beginning to think Ben had hallucinated him. Ben was beginning to wonder himself.
At any rate, there was no more time for searching for unauthorized personnel. The crowd was beginning to rumble. It was five minutes past eight; they needed to get the show on the road.
Scat and Denny and Gordo and Ben took their places behind the curtain. Diane stood just offstage and gave them the one-minute sign. The musicians began tuning and warming up—except Scat. He never seemed to do anything in preparation. He just picked up his sax and slid on his glasses, and he was ready to make it happen.
“Psst, Ben! Take a look.” Gordo was peering through a gap in the curtain. “Not bad, huh?”
Not bad at all. The floor was packed; they had even set up tables in the bar to accommodate more patrons. He hadn’t seen such a full house in the entire six months he’d been playing here.
“Look up front. See the guy with all the hair? Isn’t that Wooley?”
Ben scanned the front row. Sure enough, there he was. John Wooley, jazz critic for the World. Ben recognized him from his photo in the paper.
“He’s the one we want to please,” Gordo whispered, moving away from the curtain.
“We want to please them all,” Ben corrected.
“Well, yeah, right.” Gordo hoisted his guitar and strummed a chord. “But you know what I mean.”
Ben nodded. He did. “For that matter, I saw notepads in several laps. I bet Wooley isn’t the only critic in the crowd.”
“There’s more?” Ben immediately realized his mistake. Gordo’s facial expression suggested extreme airsickness.
“On the other hand,” Ben said, “they may just be waiting to get your autograph.”
“Oh,” Gordo said. His face relaxed a bit. “Well, that ain’t so bad. Anyone got a pen?”
Scat lowered his shades a fraction. “I expect your groupies brought their own, Gordo.”
“Oh. Yeah, right.” He settled back on his stool and practiced the opening ten bars.
“Are you boys ready?” Uncle Earl asked from the wings.
“Ready,” they shouted back—all except Ben. Ben had just noticed that, once again, the piano was bathed in darkness. He couldn’t even see the set list, much less make out all his chord notations.
“Just a minute,” Ben said as he climbed onto the piano bench, but it was too late. Earl had already switched on the backstage mike and begun his warmup spiel.
“Good evening, sweet ladies and gentle men,” he boomed out. The crowd yipped and whistled in response. “Good evening, hustlers and hobos, rustlers with your mojos. We got a super-special spectacular for you tonight.”
The crowd roared. Ben continued groping for the overhead stage light.
“We got a show like no show you’ve ever seen before,” Earl continued. “We got living legends up here on this stage. We got the funksterators and tricknologists and true mu-jicians. We got more excitement than a D.A.’s indictment. Are you ready?”
The crowd shouted back: “Yes!”
Earl’s voice swelled. “I said, are you ready?”
“Yes!”
“All right then, brothers and sisters. He-e-e-ere we go!” Earl gave the signal, and the curtains parted.
Thunderous applause erupted as the curtains split apart, revealing three musicians poised behind their instruments and one shortish white kid standing on the piano bench with his arms overhead groping for a light fixture.
The downstage lights hit Ben and he froze. Oh my God, he thought, suddenly realizing there were about a billion eyes out there—all of them staring at him. They must think I’m a total moron. He stayed right where he was, not moving, not sure what to do.
“Sit down!” Earl hissed from the side of the stage.
The other three musicians also appeared not particularly thrilled with the onstage state of affairs. Normally they would start playing as soon as the curtains parted, but Scat could hardly give the signal while their pianist was standing on the bench with his arms flung up like some perverse sun worshiper.
“Sit down!” Denny barked from behind the drum set.
“Like now!” Gordo spat out. His voice trembled a bit. Obviously, this unforeseen wrinkle was making them all nervous, Gordo worst of all.
Ben couldn’t decide what to do, and his indecision was only prolonging the moment and making it worse than it already was. His heart was racing.
“Sit down!” Earl bellowed again.
Easy to say, Ben thought, but he couldn’t play in the dark. He pushed up on his tippie-toes and reached for the large flat overhead lig
ht fixture.
“Leave it alone!” Earl shouted. He had gone long past stage whispers now. His voice echoed across the stage and probably well into the audience.
Diane was in the wings on the other side of the stage. “Start the show!” she said, shaking a black-gloved fist at Ben.
“I have to see!” Ben hissed back.
“The show’s started!” Earl bellowed. “Leave it alone!”
Ben ignored him. He reached up even higher and grabbed the lamp with one hand. It seemed unusually heavy; he could barely budge it. Gritting his teeth, he jerked it forward with all his might…
Something tumbled off the top of the stage light, something big and bulky. Ben gasped and ducked, but not in time. Screams erupted from the audience as the large burden spilled off the lamp and directly on top of Ben. It knocked him off the piano bench like a wet sandbag; both Ben and bundle fell to earth in one heavy thud.
Ben felt the air rush out of his lungs. He blinked his eyes, fighting to retain consciousness.
It was the screams that brought him back. They had intensified and diversified; he heard screams of fright, but also panic and disgust. He heard feet scuffling, people moving away as fast as possible.
He shook his head, forcing himself back into the world of the living. What the hell was going on? And why wasn’t anyone coming to help him?
He pushed himself up on one elbow, and that was when, for the first time, he got a clear look at the bundle that had tumbled down on top of him.
It was unfortunate, he thought in retrospect, that he had to see the face first. There she was, ashen and cold, dark hair hanging limply on either side of her face, which was expressionless save for the ghastly red smile that had been carved upon it.
Chapter 9
BEN TRIED TO pull away, but he was pinned down by the dead weight of the body. His eyes widened like saucers; his breathing came short and fast.
Omigod, omigod, omigod …
He clawed the stage, desperate to escape, but he couldn’t gain any ground. He was stuck like a bug in a science fair project, with that horrible face staring at him, that ghastly smile, caked blood lining the edges like lipstick.
Uncle Earl ran out on the stage. “Listen to me, cats!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Don’t panic! That won’t do no one no good!”
Nobody was listening. It was a virtual stampede. People had panicked, particularly those sitting toward the front. They were climbing on tables, clawing at the walls, knocking down whoever was in their way.
“Shut the doors!” Earl shouted.
Someone up front, probably the bouncer, obeyed. Several people collided into the doors, but they were shut and locked tight.
“There now!” Earl boomed. “There’s nowhere for you to go. So sit down already, before you hurt somebody!”
The news of the futility of flight seemed to have the desired calming effect. Gradually the panic subsided and the screaming stopped. Although, Ben noted, none of the front-row patrons reclaimed their seats.
“Thank heaven for that,” Earl said, wiping his brow.
“Amen,” Ben echoed. “And now, Earl, if you don’t mind or anything, now that you’ve got the crowd under control … could someone please get me out of here?”
Earl ran to his side; Scat dropped his sax and did the same. Gordo and Denny both stayed where they were, and judging from the queasy expressions on their faces, Ben thought it was probably just as well.
The men grabbed Ben by the shoulders and pulled him free of the body. “Thank you very much,” Ben muttered. He jumped to his feet and began brushing himself off. He didn’t know exactly what he was brushing off, but he knew that he desperately wanted to brush himself off.
“First time you’ve ever seen a stiff, kid?” Scat asked.
“Not even close,” Ben replied. “But they don’t usually knock me off the piano bench.”
He turned to thank Earl, but saw that Earl was looking down, staring blank-faced at the corpse.
“Oh, no,” Earl whispered, barely audibly. “Oh, no.”
Ben felt a hollow aching in the pit of his stomach. “Is she … someone you knew?”
“It’s my Lily-lady. My sweet, sweet Lily.”
And then, to the total stupefaction of the crowd, Earl wrapped his arms around the corpse, hugging it tightly, and began to weep.
When Lieutenant Mike Morelli arrived at the club, he took immediate control. He systematically began running through the crime scene protection checklist he kept permanently stored in his head. He cordoned off the stage with bright yellow tape and spread brown butcher paper on the floor. He deputized the bouncers and stationed them at all exits with instructions to keep potential witnesses in and, more importantly, to keep the press out. Ben could hear reporters outside the front door swarming, shouting questions; there was even a helicopter buzzing around overhead. Obviously, Mike wanted to delay the inevitable as long as possible.
Ben watched as two women in green jumpsuits hoisted the corpse onto a stretcher to take it away to the medical examiner’s office. He was pleased to see they had to work at it; it would’ve made him look pretty wimpy otherwise.
He took this last opportunity to gaze at the mutilated face. Even with the grisly handiwork of some twisted mind’s knife, Ben could see that the woman had been lovely. She was not young, but time had not masked the beauty that was her birthright. Her face shone in the low lighting. He could still see the powdery remains of makeup on her face, as well as eyeliner and mascara. A shame she thought she had to paint herself to be beautiful, he thought; she didn’t. She was a born looker.
Still, Ben was not unhappy to see the body depart. The whole club was being contaminated by a heavy, musty odor. The sooner the remains were gone, the sooner they could all breathe freely again.
Ben was relieved Mike had been dispatched to handle the crime scene. Ben and Mike went way back, all the way to college days, when they had been roommates and played music gigs in local clubs and pizza parlors. Mike fell in love with Ben’s sister, Julia, and ultimately married her. The marriage hadn’t lasted long, and after the divorce, Ben found himself on the outs with both Mike and Julia. His friendship with Mike had never really been the same. They were still sewing it back together, one stitch at a time.
Mike was crouched over the spot where the body had dropped, scraping the wood planks for blood samples. Ben noticed Mike had managed to smear some blood on the crumpled and disgustingly dirty trench coat he always insisted on wearing to crime scenes.
“Shouldn’t you be wearing coveralls?” Ben asked.
“Don’t like ’em,” Mike grumbled, not looking up. “They wrinkle my raincoat.”
“How can you tell?” Ben nodded at Sergeant Tomlinson, Mike’s protégé, who now served as a SID crime scene tech. He was fascinated, watching the players go through their motions. It was like watching an ant farm: everyone had specialized tasks, and a strictly observed caste system remained in place at all times. The detectives spoke only to each other or to Tomlinson; the uniforms spoke only when spoken to. And no one spoke to the people from the medical examiner’s office.
To be fair, the detectives would confer with the medical examiner himself or his tech, if either happened to be on the scene. In the main, the conversation would be a rapid-fire series of questions, most of which the examiner either couldn’t or wouldn’t answer, at least not until after the autopsy had been performed and the tox tests had been processed. Of course, that didn’t prevent Mike from asking “What was the time of death?” and “How was she killed?” The only inquiry that produced a useful response was: “Where was she killed?”
The tech had answered in reverse: “Not here.”
“Not D.R.T.?”
“No way. She’s been moved.”
Maybe that wasn’t all that helpful, now that Ben thought about it. Did anyone really suppose the murder had occurred on top of a stage light? But the tech’s conclusion went further. She didn’t think the victim had been mu
rdered within the building. She thought the body had been transported a considerable distance.
Mike set his sergeants scurrying through the club interviewing employees and patrons, all of whom had been detained and several of whom complained audibly. Meanwhile, Mike continued his interview with Ben.
“Tell me more about this guy lugging the rug around. You say he was black?” Mike extracted a notebook from his trench coat.
“I thought so at the time. In retrospect, it could have been a disguise.”
“Tell me about his face.”
Ben sighed. “I didn’t really look.”
“Because he was a blue-collar worker, so he was beneath your notice.”
“Because it was dark and he was in shadow and I was preoccupied.” Ben’s lips pressed tightly together. “Don’t pin the snobby-rich-boy bit on me. You know better.”
Mike grinned. “I’m just trying to make you remember. It’s my job.”
“It’s not your job. It’s how you handle your job. And it sucks.”
Mike’s eyes fluttered. “A bit testy tonight, aren’t we?”
“You would be too if the sky started raining corpses on you.”
“You’ve seen dead bodies before.”
“Yeah, but I don’t normally play Twister with them!”
Mike flipped a page in his notepad. “How ’bout if I bring in a sketch artist? See if he can put together a composite.”
Ben shook his head. “It’d be a waste of time. I never really saw him.”
“And you’re sure about the hair? Bushy Afro. Bushy beard.”
“Right.”
“A ’fro? In this day and age?”
Ben shrugged. “That’s what I saw.”
Mike grumbled. “Maybe that’s what he wanted you to see.”
Sergeant Tomlinson stepped up on the stage, escorting Earl. “Got a minute, Mike?”
“Yeah. What?”
“This guy owns the place.”
“I know.”
“And he can ID the corpse.”
“ ’Zat a fact.” Mike’s eyes narrowed. “What do you know about that.”
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