Danny was about to say no; the barkeep turned to a bearded young man with an alto sax slung around his neck. “Coleman, you know that white trombone from Bido’s? Marty what the fuck?”
Coleman reached over the bar, grabbed two handfuls of ice and pressed them to his face. Danny checked him out: tall, blond, late twenties and off-kilter handsome–like the boy lead in the musical Karen Hiltscher dragged him to. His voice was reedy, exhausted. “Sure. A from-hunger horn, I heard.
Why?”
“Talk to this police gentleman here, he’ll tell you.”
Danny pointed to his glass, going two shots over his nightly limit. The barman filled it, then slid off. The alto said, “You’re with the Double Seven?”
Danny killed his drink, and on impulse stuck out his hand. “My name’s Upshaw. West Hollywood Sheriff’s.”
The men shook. “Coleman Healy, late of Cleveland, Chicago and the planet Mars. Marty in trouble?”
The bourbon made Danny _too_ warm; he loosened his tie and moved closer to Healy. “He was murdered last night.”
Healy’s face contorted. Danny saw every handsome plane jerk, twitch and spasm; he looked away to let him quash his shock and get hepcat again. When he turned back, Healy was bracing himself into the bar. Danny’s knee brushed the alto’s thigh–it was taut with tension. “How well did you know him, Coleman?”
Healy’s face was now gaunt, slack under his beard. “Chewed the fat with him a couple of times around Christmas, right here at this bar. Just repop–Bird’s new record, the weather. You got an idea who did it?”
“A lead on a suspect–a tall, gray-haired man. The bartender saw him with Goines last night, walking toward a car parked on Central.”
Coleman Healy ran fingers down the keys of his sax. “I’ve seen Marty with a guy like that a couple of times. Tall, middle-aged, dignified looking.”
He paused, then said, “Look, Upshaw, not to besmirch the dead, but can I give you an impression I got–on the QT?”
Danny slid his stool back, just enough to get a full-face reaction–Healy wired up, eager to help. “Go ahead, impressions help sometimes.”
“Well, I think Marty was fruit. The older guy looked like a nance to me, like a sugar daddy type. The two of them were playing footsie at a table, and when I noticed it, Marty pulled away from the guy–sort of like a kid with his hand caught in the cookie jar.”
Danny tingled, thinking of the tags he eschewed because they were too coarse and antithetical to Vollmer and Maslick: PANSY SLASH. QUEER BASH. FRUIT
SNUFF. HOMO PASSION JOB.
“Coleman, could you ID the older man?”
Healy played with his sax. “I don’t think so. The light here is strange, and the queer stuff is just an impression I got.”
“Have you seen the man before or since those times with Goines?”
“No. Never solo. And I was here all night, in case you think I did it.”
Side 23
Ellroy, James – Big Nowhere, The Danny shook his head. “Do you know if Goines was using narcotics?”
“Nix. He was too interested in booze to be a junk fiend.”
“What about other people who knew him? Other musicians around here?”
“Ixnay. We just gabbed a couple of times.”
Danny put out his hand; Healy turned it upside down, twisting it from a squarejohn to a jazzman shake. He said, “See you in church,” and headed for the stage.
Queer slash.
Fruit snuff.
Homo passion job.
Danny watched Coleman Healy mount the bandstand and exchange back slaps with the other musicians. Fat and cadaverous, pocked, oily and consumptive looking, they seemed wrong next to the sleek alto-like a crime scene photo with blurs that fucked up the symmetry and made you notice the wrong things. The music started: piano handing a jump melody to the trumpet, drums kicking in, Healy’s sax wailing, lilting, wailing, drifting off the base refrain into chord variations. The music digressed into noise; Danny spotted a bank of phone booths next to the powder room and rolled back to police work.
His first nickel got him the watch boss at the 77th Street Station.
Danny explained that he was a Sheriff’s detective working a homicide–a jazz musician and possible dope addict slashed and dumped off the Sunset Strip. The victim was probably not currently using drugs–but he wanted a list of local H