Karen made another face–half vixen, half coquette. “I would have told you. Why did you give me those reports?”
Danny leaned over the switchboard and winked. “I was thinking of dinner at Mike Lyman’s once I get some work cleared up. Feel like giving me a hand?”
Karen Hiltscher tried to return the wink, but her false eyelash stuck to the ridge below her eye, and she had to fumble her cigarette into a ashtray and pull it free. Danny looked away, disgusted; Karen pouted, “What do you want on those reports?”
Danny stared at the muster room wall so Karen couldn’t read his face. “Call Records at the Hall of Justice Jail and get the blood types for all four men. If you get anything other than O+ for them, drop it. On the O+’s, call County Parole for their last known addresses, rap sheets and parole disposition reports. Got it?”
Karen said, “Got it.”
Danny turned around and looked at his cut-rate Veronica Lake, her left eyelash plastered to her plucked left eyebrow. “You’re a doll. Lyman’s when I clear this job.”
o o o
Musician’s Local 3126 was on Vine Street just north of Melrose, a tan Quonset hut sandwiched between a doughnut stand and a liquor store. Hepcat types were lounging around the front door, scarfing crullers and coffee, half pints and short dogs of muscatel.
Danny parked and walked in, a group of wine guzzlers scattering to let him through. The hut’s interior was dank: folding chairs aligned in uneven rows, cigarette butts dotting a chipped linoleum floor, pictures from Downbeat and Metronome scotch-taped to the walls–half white guys, half Negroes, like the management was trying to establish jazzbo parity. The left wall held a built-in counter, file cabinets in back of it, a haggard white woman standing guard. Danny walked over, badge and Marty Goines mugshot strip out.
The woman ignored the badge and squinted at the strip. “This guy play trombone?”
“That’s right. Martin Mitchell Goines. You sent him down to Bido Lito’s around Christmas.”
The woman squinted harder. “He’s got trombone lips. What did he do you for?”
Danny lied discreetly. “Parole violation.”
The slattern tapped the strip with a long red nail. “The same old same old. What can I do you for?”
Danny pointed to the filing cabinets. “His employment record, as far back as it goes.”
The woman about-faced, opened and shut drawers, leafed through folders, yanked one and gave the top page a quick scrutiny. Laying it down on the counter, she said, “A nowhere horn. From Squaresville.”
Danny opened the folder and read through it, picking up two gaps right away: ‘38 to ‘40–Goines’ County jolt for marijuana possession: ‘44 to ‘48–his Quentin time for the same offense. Since ‘48 the entries had been sporadic: occasional two-week engagements at Gardena pokerino lounges and his fatal gig at Bido Lito’s. Prior to Goines’ first jail sentence he got only very occasional work–Hollywood roadhouse stints in ‘36 and ‘37. It was the early ‘40s when Marty Goines was a trombone-playing fool.
Under his self-proclaimed banner, “Mad Marty Goines & His Horn of Plenty,” he’d gigged briefly with Stan Kenton; in 1941, he pulled a tour with Wild Willie Monroe. There were a whole stack of pages detailing pickup band duty in ‘42, ‘43 and early ‘44– one-night stands with six- and eight-man combos playing dives in the San Fernando Valley. Only the bandleaders and/or club managers who did the hiring were listed on the employment sheets–there was no mention of other musicians.
Danny closed the folder; the woman said, “Bubkis, am I right?”
“You’re right. Look, do you think any of these guys around here might have known–I mean know–Marty Goines?”
“I can ask.”
“Do it. Would you mind?”
The woman rolled her eyes up to heaven, drew a dollar sign in the air and pointed to her cleavage. Danny felt his hands clenching the edge of the counter and smelled last night’s liquor oozing out of his skin. He was about to come on strong when he remembered he was on City ground and his CO’s shit list. He fished in his pockets for cash, came up with a five and slapped it down. “Do it now.”