Danny kicked the skinny around and watched the trumpet player inch over from the curtains, holding his horn like it was a ikon to ward off demons. He said, “Mister, I think I got something for you.”
“What?”
“Marty told me he had to meet a guy after the midnight set, and I saw him walking across the street to the Zombie parking lot.”
“Did he mention a name?”
“No, just a guy.”
“Did he say _anything_ else about him? What they were going to do–anything like that?”
“No, and he said he’d be coming right back.”
“Do you think he was going to buy dope?”
The saxophone player bored into Danny with blue eyes lighter than his own brown ones. “Man, I fuckin’ told you Marty was clean, and intended to stay clean.”
Boos erupted from the audience; paper debris hit Danny’s legs. He blinked against the spotlight and felt sweat creeping down his rib cage. A voice yelled, “Ofay motherfuck”; applause followed it; a half-chewed chicken wing struck Danny’s back. The sax man smiled up at him, licked his mouthpiece and winked. Danny resisted an urge to kick the horn down his throat and quickwalked out of the club by a side exit.
The night air cooled his sweat and made him shiver; pulsating neon assaulted his eyes. Little bursts of music melded together like one big noise and the nigger sleepwalker atop the Club Zombie looked like doomsday. Danny knew he was scared, and headed straight for the apparition.
The doorman backed off from his badge and let him in to four walls of smoke and dissonant screeching–the combo at the front of the room heading toward a crescendo. The bar was off to the left, shaped like a coffin and embossed with the club’s sleepwalker emblem. Danny beelined there, grabbing a stool, hooking a finger at a white man polishing glasses.
The barkeep placed a napkin in front of him. Danny yelled, “Double bonded!” above the din. A glass appeared; Danny knocked the bourbon back; the barman refilled. Danny drank again and felt his nerves go from sandpapered to warm. The music ended with a _thud-boom-scree_; the house lights went on amid big applause. When it trailed off, Danny reached in his pocket and pulled out a five-dollar bill and the Goines mugshot strip.
The bartender said, “Two spot for the drinks.”
Danny stuffed the five in his shirt pocket and held up the strip. “Look familiar?”
Squinting, the man said, “Is this guy older now? Maybe a different haircut?”
“These are six years old. Seen him?”
The barman took glasses from his pocket, put them on and held the mugshots out at arm’s length. “Does he blow around here?”
Danny missed the question–and wondered if it was sex slang he didn’t know. “Explain what you mean.”
Side 22
Ellroy, James – Big Nowhere, The
“I mean does he gig, jam, play music around here?”
“Trombone at Bido Lito’s.”
The barman snapped his fingers. “Okay, I know him then. Marty something.
He juices between sets at Bido’s, been doing it since around Christmas, ’cause the bar at Bido’s ain’t supposed to serve the help. Hungry juicer, sort of like–”
Like _you_. Danny smiled, the booze notching down his temper. “Did you see him last night?”
“Yeah, on the street. Him and another guy heading over to a car down by the corner on 67th. Looked like he had a load on. Maybe . . .”
Danny leaned forward. “Maybe _what_? Spell it out.”
“Maybe a junk load. You work jazz clubs awhile, you get to know the ropes. This Marty guy was walking all rubbery, like he was on a junk nod. The other guy had his arm round him, helping him over to the car.”
Danny said, “Slow and easy now. The time, a description of the car and the other man. Real slow.”
Customers were starting to swarm the bar–Negro men in modified zoot suits, their women a half step behind, all made up and done up to look like Lena Horne. The barkeep looked at his business, then back at Danny. “Had to be 12:15
to 12:45, around in there. Marty what’s his face and the other guy were cutting across the sidewalk. I know the car was a Buick, ’cause it had them portholes on the side. All I remember about the other guy was that he was tall and had gray hair. I only saw them sort of sideways, and I thought, ‘I should have such a nice head of hair.’ Now can I serve these people?”