2 A.M. at The Cat's Pajamas

12:10 A.M

Madeleine wakes, palms and armpits damp. For a moment she does not remember the events of the day. When she does she rolls over to burrow deeper into the blankets. Her forehead flattens against the spine of a book.

History of Jazz, Volume Two.

Madeleine clutches it to her chest. Her father! She touches each picture on the cover. A phalanx of saxes. Louis Armstrong, cheeks blazing. Billie Holiday, in the ecstasy before singing. Madeleine flips each page with the care of a scientist. Toward the back she finds the write-up on The Cat’s Pajamas with two (two!) pictures. She forces herself to read the entry before allowing herself a look at the pictures.

The Cat’s Pajamas is a squat outcropping on Richmond Street in the city’s Fishtown neighborhood. It was founded by Giuseppe Lorca in 1963, who passed it down to his son, Francis Lorca, under whose ownership it became a magnet for world-class acts. At one time it was the #1 jazz venue on the East Coast, hosting the likes of John Coltrane, Hampton Hawes, Bud Powell, and Horace Silver, who called the club, “My second womb, the only place to build chops.” Francis Lorca ran The Cat’s Pajamas until suffering a stroke during a late-night hang, literally passing away behind the bar. He willed the club to his son, Jack. In recent days, as jazz’s popularity dwindles, The Cat’s Pajamas does not attract anywhere near the numbers of its heyday, though nearby jazz club Mongoose’s (see pages 156–159) continues to thrive.

In a black-and-white photograph a man holds up a guitar like a prized marlin. Francis Lorca owned one of the only known D’Angelico Snakeheads, the caption reads. In the other photo, a woman sits at a piano, a silky black braid hanging down her back. Every night in the 1990s Valentine Morris, a girl from the neighborhood, led a raucous hang until the wee hours of dawn.

Madeleine covers and uncovers the woman’s face with her fingertip. Valentine grins, gums showing over perfect teeth, stomping on the pedals. Madeleine can hear the jangle of this woman’s laugh. She feels the faultless ivory keys, the pat of her feet on the pedals.

“A local girl,” Madeleine recites. “… named Valentine Morris.” She presses her cheek against the book’s centerfold, a boozy picture of the New York skyline.

She hears scratching at the front door. She opens it and Pedro saunters in, looking bored, unaffected by the panic he has caused. He circles around himself and falls asleep on the rug.