Apprehended

A Fine Set of Teeth

I saw Frank drop two cotton balls into the front pocket of his denim jacket and I made a face.

“Those won’t help, you know.”

He smiled and said, “Better than nothing.”

“Cotton is not effective ear protection.”

He picked up his keys by way of ignoring me and said, “Are you ready?”

“You don’t have to go with me,” I offered again.

“I’m not letting my wife sit alone in a sleazy bar. No more arguments, all right?”

“If I were on a story-”

“You aren’t. Let’s go.”

“Thanks for being such a good sport about it,” I said, which made him laugh.

“Which apartment number?” Frank asked as we pulled up to the curb in front of Buzz Sullivan’s apartment building. The building was about four stories high, probably built in the 1930s. I don’t think it had felt a paintbrush along its walls within the last decade.

“Buzz didn’t tell me,” I answered. “He just said he lived on the fourth floor.”

Frank sighed with long suffering, but I can ignore someone as easily as he can, and got out of the car.

As we made our way to the old stucco building’s entry, we dodged half a dozen kids who were playing around with a worn soccer ball on the brown crabgrass lawn. The children were laughing and calling to one another in Spanish. A dried sparrow of a woman watched them from the front steps. She seemed wearier than Atlas.

Frank muttered at my back about checking mailboxes for the first of the three flights of stairs, but soon followed in silence. Although Buzz had moved several times since I had last been to one of his apartments, I knew there would be no difficulty in locating the one that was his. We reached the fourth floor and Frank started to grouse, but soon the sound I had been waiting for came to my ears. Not just my ears: I heard the sound under my fingernails, beneath my toes and in places my mother asked me never to mention in mixed company. Three screeching notes strangled from the high end of the long neck of a Fender Stratocaster, a sound not unlike those a pig might make-if it was having its teeth pulled with a pair of pliers.

I turned to look at Frank Harriman and saw something I rarely see on his face: fear. Raw fear.

I smiled. I would have said something comforting, but he wouldn’t have heard me over the next few whammified notes whining from Buzz’s guitar. A deaf man could have told you they were coming from apartment 4E. I waited until the sound subsided, asked, “Should we drop you off back at the house?” and watched my husband stalk over to the door of number 4E and rap on it with the kind of ferocious intensity one usually saves for rousing the occupants of burning buildings.

Q: What’s the difference between a dead trombone player and a dead snake in the middle of a road?

A: The snake was on his way to a gig.

The door opened and a thin young man with a hairdo apparently inspired in color and shape by a sea urchin stood looking at Frank in open puzzlement. He swatted a few purple spikes away from his big blue eyes and finally saw me standing nearby. His face broke into an easy, charming smile.

“Irene!” He looked back at Frank. “Is this your cop?”

“No, Buzz,” I said, “that’s my husband.”

Buzz looked sheepish. “Oh, sorry. I’ve told Irene I’m not like that, and here I am, acting just exactly like that.”

“Like what?” Frank asked.

“I don’t mind that you’re a cop,” Buzz said proudly.

“That’s big of you,” Frank said, “I was worried you wouldn’t accept our help.”

Buzz, who is missing a sarcasm detection gene, just grinned and held out a hand. “Not at all, man, not at all. It’s really good of you to offer to take me to the gig. Guess Irene told you my car broke down. Come on in.”

Buzz’s purple hair was one of two splashes of color in his ensemble; his boots, pants and shirt were black, but a lime green guitar-still attached by a long cable to an amp-and matching strap stood out against this dark backdrop.

There was no question of finding a seat while we waited for Buzz to unhook his guitar and put it in a hard-shell case. The tiny apartment was nearly devoid of furniture. Two empty plastic milk crates and a couple of boards served as a long, low coffee table of sorts. Cluttered with the several abandoned coffee mugs and an empty bowl with a bent spoon in it, the table stood next to a small mattress heaped with twisted sheets and laundry. The mattress apparently served as both bed and couch.

There were two very elegant objects in the room, however-a pair of Irish harps. The sun was setting in the windows behind them, and in the last light of day, they stood with stately grace, their fine wooden scrollwork lovingly polished to a high sheen.

“You play these?” Frank asked him in astonishment.

Without looking up from the guitar, which he was carefully wiping down with a cloth, Buzz said, “Didn’t you tell him, Irene?”

“I first met Buzz at an Irish music festival,” I said. “He doesn’t just play the harp.”

“Other instruments, too?” Frank asked.

“Sure,” Buzz said, looking back at us now. “I grew up in a musical family.”

“That isn’t what I meant,” I said. “He doesn’t just play it. He coaxes it to sing.”

“Sure and you’ve an Irish silver tongue now, haven’t ye, me beauty?” Buzz said with an exaggerated brogue.

“Prove my point, Buzz. Play something for us.”

He shook his head. “Haven’t touched them in months except to keep the dust off them,” he said. “That’s the past.” He patted the guitar case. “This is the future.” He laughed when he saw my look of disappointment. “My father feels the same way-but promise you won’t stop speaking to me like he has.”

“No, what you play is your choice.”

“Glad to know at least one person thinks so. Shall we go?”

“Need help carrying your equipment?” Frank offered. I was relieved to see him warming up a little.

“Oh, no, I’m just taking my ax, man.”

“Your ax?”

“My guitar. I never leave it at the club. My synthesizer, another amp and a bunch of other equipment are already at the club-I just leave those there. But not my Strat.”

Q: How do you get a guitar player to turn down?

A: Put sheet music in front of him.

On the way to Club 99, Buzz talked to Frank about his early years of performing with the Sullivan family band, recalling the friendship his father shared with my late mentor, O’Connor.

“O’Connor told me to come to this music festival,” I said. “There was a fifteen-year-old lad who could play the Irish harp better than anyone he’d ever met, and when he got to heaven, he expected no angel to play more sweetly.”

“Oh, I did all right,” he said shyly. “But my training wasn’t formal. She tell you that she helped me get into school, Frank?”

“No-”

“It was your own hard work that got you into that program,” I said.

“Naw, I couldn’t have done it without you. You talked that friend into teaching me how to sight read.” He turned to Frank. “Then she practically arm-wrestled one of the profs into giving me an audition.”

Frank smiled. “She hasn’t changed much.”

“Sorry, Buzz,” I said, “I thought it was what you wanted.”

“It was!” Buzz protested. “And I never could have gone to college without your help.”

“Nonsense. You got the grades on your own, and all the talent and practice time for the music was your own. But when your dad told me you dropped out at the beginning of this past semester, I just figured-”

“I loved school. I only left because I had this opportunity.”

“What opportunity?” Frank asked.

“The band you’re going to hear tonight,” he said proudly.

I was puzzled. “It’s still avant garde?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm. I guess I never thought there was much money in avant garde.”

“Not here in the U.S.-locally, Club Ninety-nine is about the only place we can play regularly, and they don’t pay squat there. Our band is too outside for a lot of people.”

“Outside?” I asked.

“Yeah, it means-different. In a good way. You know, we push the envelope. Our music’s very original, but for people who want the Top Forty, we’re a tough listen. That’s the trouble with the music scene here in the States. But Mack-our bass player-came up with this great plan to get us heard over in Europe. We made a CD a few months ago, and it’s had a lot of airplay there. We just signed on for a big tour, and when it’s over, we’ve got a steady gig set up in a club in Amsterdam.”

“I had no idea all of this was happening for you, Buzz. Congrats.”

“Thanks. I’m so glad you’re finally going to get to hear us play-three weeks from now, we’ll be in Paris. Who knows when you’ll get a chance to hear us after that-Frank, it’s been awhile since Irene heard me play and-oh!” He pointed to the right. “Here’s the club. Park here at the curb. There’s not really any room at the back.”

He had pointed out a small, brown building that looked no different from any other neighborhood bar on the verge of ruin. A small marquee read, “Live Music. Wast Land. No Cover Charge Before 7 P.M.”

“Wast Land?” Frank asked. “Is that your band?”

“The Waste Land. The ‘e’ is missing. And the word ‘The.’ ”

“You named the band after the poem by T.S. Eliot?” Frank asked.

“You’ve read T.S. Eliot’s poetry?” Buzz asked in unfeigned disbelief.

“Yeah. I think it made me a more dangerous man.”

I rolled my eyes.

Buzz sat back against the seat and grinned. “Cool!”

Q: What band name on a marquee will always guarantee a crowd?

A: “Free Beer”

As we pushed open the padded vinyl door of Club 99, our nostrils were assailed by that special blended fragrance-a combination of stale cigarette smoke, old sweat, spilt beer and unmopped men’s room-that is the mark of the true dive. I was thinking of borrowing Frank’s cotton and sticking it in my nose.

Behind the bar, a thin old man with tattoo-covered arms and a cigarette dangling from his mouth was stocking the beer cooler, squinting as the cigarette’s smoke rose up into his own face. He nodded at Buzz, stared a moment at Frank, then went back to his work. We were ignored completely by the only other occupant, a red-faced man in a business suit who was gazing into a whiskey glass.

“I thought you said the band was meeting here at seven,” I said as we walked along the sticky floor toward the stage. I glanced at my watch. Seven on the dot.

“The others are always late,” Buzz said. He set up his guitar, then invited us into a small backstage room that was a little less smelly than the rest of the bar. It housed a dilapidated couch and a piano that bore the scars of drink rings and cigarette burns. The walls of the room were covered with a colorful mixture of graffiti, band publicity photos and handbills.

“Is there a photo of your band up here?” Frank asked.

“Naw. Most of those are pretty old. But I can show you photos of the other members of the band. Here’s Mack and Joleen, when they were in Maggot.” He pointed to two people in a photo of a quartet. Everyone wore the pouting rebel expression that’s become a standard in band photos. The man Buzz pointed out was a bass player, about Buzz’s age, with long, thick black hair. The woman, boyishly thin, also had long, thick black hair.

“That photo’s about ten years old. Mack and Joleen were together then.”

“Together?”

“Yeah. You know, lovers.”

“They aren’t now?”

“No, haven’t been for years. But they get along fine.”

Q: What’s the difference between a drummer and a drum machine?

A: With a drum machine, you only have to punch in the information once.

“Over here’s a photo of Gordon. He’s a great drummer,” Buzz said. “He hates this photo. He said the band sucked. Its name sure did.”

He pointed to a photo of a band called “Unsanitary Conditions.” Buzz was right-I didn’t think too many club owners would be ready to put that on their marquees. The drummer, a lean but muscular man, wasn’t wearing a shirt over his nearly hairless chest. He had also shaved all the hair from his head. He held his drumsticks tucked in crossed-arms. He was frowning. It didn’t look like a fake frown.

Live, updated versions of two of the band members arrived a few minutes later. Gordon looked pretty much the same as he did in the “Unsanitary Conditions” photo. He was wearing a shirt, and he had short orange hair on his head, but the frown gave him away.

“Her royal-fucking-highness is late again, I see,” he seethed, then upon realizing that Buzz wasn’t alone, smiled and said politely, “Hi, I’m Gordon. Are you Buzz’s folks?”

Frank snorted with laughter behind me.

“Oh man!” Buzz said in embarrassment. “These are my friends. They aren’t that old!”

“Oh, sorry,” Gordon said. “Buzz, did you listen to that tape I gave you?” He broke off as the door opened again.

Pre-empting a repeat of Gordon’s mistake, Buzz quickly said, “Mack, these are my friends. Frank and Irene, this is Mack.”

It was a good thing Buzz introduced us. Mack was now balding, and his remaining hair was very short, including a neatly-trimmed beard. I judged him to be in his mid-thirties, closer to our age than Buzz’s, with Gordon somewhere in between the two.

“Hi, nice to meet you,” he said, but seemed distracted as he looked around the small room.

“No,” Gordon said, “Joleen isn’t here yet. Shit, can you imagine what touring with her will be like?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Mack said placatingly. “She’ll be very professional.”

Gordon didn’t look convinced.

“Uh, Buzz,” Mack said, “the house is starting to fill up. Maybe you should find some seats for your friends.”

I thought Mack was just trying to make the band’s in-fighting more private, but when Buzz led us back out into the club, a transformation had taken place. Taped music was playing over the speakers, a recording of frenzied sax riffs that could barely be heard above people talking and laughing and drinking.

There was an audience now. The man in the business suit had left the bar, and the place was starting to fill up with a crowd that seemed mainly to be made up of young… as I sought a word for the beret-clad, goatee-wearing men and their mini-skirted female companions, Frank whispered, “Beatniks! And to think I gave away my bongo drums.”

“Poetry and bongo drums?” I whispered back. “Did Kerouac make you want to run away from home?”

“As Buzz said, I’m not that old.”

Buzz wanted us to sit near the stage, but I knew better. I muttered something about acoustics and we found a table along the back wall, next to the sound man. Buzz sat with us for a few minutes, and I was pleased to see that Frank was starting to genuinely like him.

Buzz might not be sarcastic, but he is Irish, and he was spinning out a tale about learning to play the uilleann pipes that had us weeping with laughter. Just then a woman walked on stage, shielded her eyes from the lights and said over one of the microphones, “Buzz! Get your ass up here now!”

Q: What’s the difference between a singer and a terrorist?

A: You can negotiate with a terrorist.

The club fell silent and there was a small ripple of nervous laughter before conversation started up again. The sound man belatedly leaned over and turned off her mike. He shook his head, murmured, “Maybe I’ll remember to turn that on again, bitch,” and upped the volume on the house speakers. I could hear the saxophone recording more clearly now, but I was distracted by my anger toward the woman.

She was thin and dressed in a black outfit that was smaller than some of my socks. Her hair was short and spiky; I couldn’t see her eyes, but her mouth was hard, her lips drawn tight in a painted ruby slash across her pale face.

“Joleen,” Buzz said, as if the name explained everything. He quickly excused himself and hurried up to the stage as Joleen stepped back out of the lights. The other members of the band soon joined them on stage. If Buzz had been bothered by her tone, he didn’t show it.

The group did a sound check, only briefly delayed while Joleen cussed out the sound man and proved she might not need a mike. The members of the band then left the stage with an argument in progress. Although I couldn’t make out what they were saying, Gordon and Joleen were snapping at one another, the drummer looking ready to raise a couple of knots on her head. Mack was making “keep it quiet” motions with his hands, while Buzz seemed to be lost in his own thoughts, ignoring all of them.

“I think I’m going to need a drink,” Frank said. “You want one?”

“Tell you what-I’ll drive home. Have at it.”

Frank spent some time talking to the bartender, then came back with a couple of scotches. He downed the first one fairly quickly, and was taking his time with the second when the band came back on stage.

Q: How can you tell if a stage is level?

A: The bass player is drooling out of both sides of his mouth.

The sound man turned on his own mike and said, “Club Ninety-nine is pleased to welcome The Waste Land.” There was a round of enthusiastic applause. Joleen held the mike up to her lips and said softly, “We’re going to start off with a little something called ‘Ankle Bone.’ ” Amid hoots and whistles of approval, the band began to play.

The music was rapid-fire and intricate, and quite obviously required great technical skill. Joleen’s voice hit notes on an incredible range. There were no lyrics (unless they were in some language spoken off planet), but her wild mix of syllables and sounds was clearly not sloppy or accidental.

The rest of the band equaled her intensity. As Mack and Buzz played, their fingers flew along the frets; Gordon drummed to complex and changing time signatures. But at the end of the first song and Frank’s second scotch, he leaned over and whispered, “Five bucks if you can hum any of that back to me.”

He was right, of course, but out of loyalty to Buzz, I said, “They just aren’t confined by the need to be melodic.”

Frank gave an emperor’s new clothes sort of snort and stood up. “I’m going to get another drink. I’ll pay cab fare for all three of us if you want to join me.”

Figuring it would hurt Buzz’s feelings if we were both drunk by the end of his gig, I said, “No thanks.”

Q: What do you call someone who hangs out with musicians?

A: A guitar player.

By the end of the set, I was seriously considering hurting Buzz’s feelings. “Get outside!” one member of the audience yelled in encouragement to the band, and when the sound man muttered, “And stay there,” I found myself in agreement. The crowd applauded wildly after every piece (I could no longer think of them as songs, nor remember which one was “Jar of Jam” and which was “Hangman’s Slip Knot”), but long before the set ended, I had a headache that could drive nails.

Buzz grabbed a bottle of beer at the bar and came back to our table, smiling. Frank surprised me by offering the first compliment.

“You’re one hell of a player, Buzz.”

“Thanks, man.”

They proceeded to go through an elaborate handshaking ritual that left me staring at my husband in wonder. I was spared any comment on music or male ceremonial greetings when Gordon grabbed the seat next to Buzz.

“Excuse us,” Gordon said, turning his shoulders away from us and toward Buzz. “You never told me-did you listen to that tape?”

“Keep your voice down,” Buzz said, glancing back toward the stage, where Joleen was apparently complaining about something to Mack. He turned back to Gordon. “Yeah, I listened. Your friend’s got great keyboard chops.”

“Yeah, and you have to admit, Susan’s also got a better voice than Joleen’s. Great bod, too.”

Buzz glanced back at the stage. “Joleen’s bod isn’t so bad.”

“No, just her attitude. Think of how much better off our band would be with Susan.”

“But Joleen started this band-”

“And she’s about to finish it, man. She rags on all of us all of the time. I’m getting tired of it. This band would be better off without her.”

“But they’re her songs.”

“Hers and Mack’s. He has as much right to them as she does.”

Buzz frowned, toyed with his beer. “What does Mack say?”

Gordon shrugged. “I’m working on him. I know he was knocked out by Susan’s tape. If you say you’re up for making the change, I know he will be, too.”

“I don’t know…”

“Look, Buzz, I really love playing with you. Same with Mack. But I can’t take much more of Joleen.”

“But Europe…”

“Exactly. Think of spending ten weeks traveling with that bitch. You want to be in a car with her for more than ten minutes?”

I looked up and saw Joleen walking toward us with purpose in every angry stride. “Uh, Buzz-” I tried to warn, but she was already shouting toward our table.

“I know exactly what you’re up to, asshole!”

Gordon and Buzz looked up guiltily, but in the next moment it became clear that she was talking to the sound man. He didn’t seem impressed by her fury.

“You’re screwing around with the monitors, aren’t you?”

The sound man just laughed.

Joleen stood between Frank and me and pointed at the sound man. “You won’t be laughing long, mother-”

“Joleen,” Buzz said, trying to intercede.

“Shut up, you little twerp! You don’t know shit about music. If you did, you’d understand what this jerk is doing. You try singing while some clown is fooling around with your monitor, making it play back a half-step off.”

The effect the sound man had created must have been maddening; the notes she heard back through the speaker at her feet on stage would be just slightly off the notes she sang into the mike. Still, I couldn’t help but bristle at her comments to Buzz.

Instead of being angry with her, though, Buzz turned to the sound man and said, “Dude, that’s a pretty awful thing to do to her. She’s singing some really elaborate stuff, music that takes all kinds of concentration, and you’re messing with her head.”

The sound man broke eye contact with him, shrugged one shoulder.

“See?” Buzz said to Joleen. “He’s sorry. I’m sure it won’t happen next set.” Before Joleen could protest, Buzz turned to us and asked, “How’s it sounding out here?”

Picking up my cue, I said, “Wonderful. He’s doing a great job for you guys.”

“And what the hell would you know about it?” she asked.

“Joleen,” Buzz said, “this is my friend from the paper.”

She stopped mid-tantrum and looked at me with new interest. “A reviewer?”

“No,” I admitted.

“Well, I was right, then. You don’t know what you’re talking about.” She eyed Frank and said, “You or this cop.”

“How did you know he’s a cop?” Buzz asked, but before she could answer, Frank took hold of her wrist and turned it out, so that the inside of her arm was facing Buzz.

“Oh,” he said, “junkies just seem to have a sixth sense about these things.”

She pulled her arm away. “They’re old tracks and you know it. I haven’t used in years.”

Frank shrugged. “If you say so. I really don’t want to check out the places I’d have to look if I wanted to be sure.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, but stomped away without another word.

“Shit,” Gordon said. “You need anything else to convince you about what I said, Buzz?”

“She brought me into the band, man. It just doesn’t seem right.”

“If another guitar player came along, she’d do this to you in a minute,” Gordon said. “You know she would.”

Buzz sighed. “We’ve got three more nights here. Let’s at least wait until we finish out this gig to make a decision.” Gordon seemed ready to say more, but then excused himself and walked backstage.

The minute Gordon was out of earshot, Buzz turned to Frank. “Were they old tracks?”

“Yes.”

“I feel stupid not noticing. Not that it matters. If they’re old, I mean.” His face turned red. “What I mean is, she can really sing.”

I watched him for a moment, then said, “You like her.”

“Yeah,” Buzz said, and forced a laugh. “It’s obviously not mutual.” He looked toward the stage, then rubbed his hand over his chest, as if easing an ache. “Well, I better get ready for the next set.” Frank watched him walk off, then looked over at me. He pushed his drink aside, moved his chair closer to mine.

Q: What do you call a guitarist without a girlfriend?

A: Homeless.

Buzz seemed to recover his good humor by the time he was on stage. There was an air of anticipation in the audience now. It seemed that most of them had heard the band before, and were eagerly awaiting the beginning of this set.

As the band members took their places, I sat wondering what Buzz saw in Joleen. My question was soon answered, though not in words.

Buzz and Joleen stood at opposite ends of the stage, facing straight ahead, not so much as glancing at one another. She sang three notes, clear and sweet, and then Buzz began to sing with her, his voice blending perfectly with hers. It was a slow, melodic passage, sung a cappella. The audience was absolutely silent-even Frank sat forward and listened closely.

They sang with their eyes closed, as if they would brook no interference from other senses. But they were meeting, somewhere out in the smoky haze above the room, above us all, touching one another with nothing more than sound.

The song’s pace began to quicken and quicken, the voices dividing and yet echoing one another again and again until at last their voices came together, holding one note, letting it ring out over us, ending only as the instruments joined in.

The crowd cheered, but the musicians were in a world of their own. Buzz turned to Gordon and Mack, all three of them smiling as they played increasingly difficult variations on a theme. I watched Joleen; she was standing back now, letting the instrumentalists take center stage, her eyes still closed. But as Buzz took a solo, I saw her smile to herself. It was the only time she smiled all evening.

The song ended and the crowd came to its feet, shouting in acclaim.

Q: Did you hear about the time the bass player locked his keys in the car?

A: It took two hours to get the drummer out.

Mack joined us during the second break between sets. With Buzz’s encouragement, he told us about the years he studied at Berkeley, where he met Joleen, and about some of the odd day jobs and strange gigs he had taken while trying to make headway with his music career-including once being hired by a Washington socialite to play piano for her dog’s birthday party.

We spent more time talking to Mack than to Buzz, whose attentions were taken by another guitar player, a young man who had stopped by to hear the band and now had questions about Buzz’s “rig”-which Mack explained was not just equipment, but the ways in which the guitar had been modified, the set-up for the synthesizer, and all the other mechanical and electronic aspects of Buzz’s playing.

“None of which will ever help that poor bastard play like Buzz does,” he said. “Buzz has the gift.”

“He feels lucky to be in this band,” I said. “He has great respect for the other players.”

Mack smiled. “He’s a generous guy.” As Joleen walked over to Buzz and handed him a beer, Mack added softly, “He’s a little young yet, and I worry that maybe he has a few hard lessons to learn. Hope it won’t discourage him.”

“How do you two manage to work together?” I asked.

He didn’t mistake my meaning. “You mean because of Joleen’s temper? Or because we used to be together?”

“Both.”

“As far as the temper goes, I’m used to her. Over the years we’ve played with a lot of different people; I’ve outlasted a lot of guys who just couldn’t take her attitude. Great thing about Buzz is that he’s not just talented, he’s easy to get along with. He’s able to just let her tantrums and insults roll off of him.”

“And Gordon?” Frank asked.

“Oh, I don’t think Gordon is going to put up with it much longer. The musician’s lot in life, I guess. Bands are hard to hold together. Talk to anybody who’s played in them for more than a couple of years, he’ll have more than a few stories about band fights and breakups.”

“But from what Buzz tells us, you’ve worked hard to reach this point-the CD, the tour, the gig in the Netherlands-”

“Yeah, I’m hoping Joleen and Gordon will come to their senses and see that we can’t let petty differences blow this chance. And I think they will.” He paused, took a sip of beer. “You were also asking about how Joleen and I manage to work together after being in a relationship, right?”

I nodded.

“Well, she and I have always had something special. We write songs together. Musically, we’re a good fit. When we were younger, when we first discovered that we could compose together, there was a sort of passion in the experience, and we just assumed that meant we’d be a good fit in every other way. But we weren’t.”

“Still,” I said, “I’d think it would be painful to have to work with someone after a breakup.”

He smiled. “I won’t lie. At first, it was horrible. But what was happening musically was just too good to give up. The hurt was forgotten. Over the years, we each found other people to be with. And like I said, we have something special of our own, and we’ll always have that.”

He glanced at his watch. “Better get ready for the last set. You two want to come out to dinner with us afterwards?”

“Thanks for the invitation,” Frank said, “but I’m wearing down. Irene, if you want to stay-”

I shook my head. “Thanks, but I’ll have to take a raincheck, too, Mack.”

“Sure, another time. I forget that other people aren’t as wired after a gig as the band is. I’ll check with Buzz-I can give him a lift home if he wants to join us.”

I toyed with the idea of heading home early if Buzz should decide to go out to dinner with the band. But my mental rehearsal of the excuses I’d make on my way out the door was cut short when Buzz stopped by the table and said, “They asked me if I wanted to go to dinner with them, but they’re just going to argue, so I’d rather go home after this last set. Is that okay?”

“Of course,” I said, hoping my smile didn’t look as phony as it felt.

Q: Why did God give drummers 10% more brains than horses?

A: So they wouldn’t crap during the parade.

“What was the name of the first song in the second set?” Frank asked Buzz as we drove him home. He was being uncharacteristically quiet, staring out the car window. But at Frank’s question, he smiled.

“It’s called ‘Draid Bhreá Fiacla.’ That’s Irish for ‘a fine set of teeth.’ ”

“How romantic,” I said.

“It is, really. Joleen rarely smiles, but once I said something that made her laugh, and she had this beautiful grin on her face after. When I saw it, I said, ‘Well, look there! You’ve a fine set of teeth. I wonder why you hide them?’

“Did she have an answer?”

He laughed. “In a way. She bit me. Not hard, just a playful little bite. So the next time I saw her, I gave her the song, and told her its name, and got to see the smile again.”

“You wrote that song?” Frank asked.

“She worked on it some after I gave it to her, made it better. It belongs to both of us now, I suppose.”

“Of all the ones we heard tonight, that one’s easily my favorite,” I said.

“Mine, too,” Frank said.

“Joleen says it’s too melodic,” he said. “But I don’t think she means it. She just doesn’t want me to think too highly of myself.”

Q: What’s the difference between a viola and an onion?

A: Nobody cries when you chop up a viola.

“Well, thanks again for the ride,” he said when we pulled up in front of his apartment.

“You have a way over to the club tomorrow night?” Frank asked. “I could give you a ride if you need one.”

“Oh thanks, but the Chevette is supposed to be ready by late afternoon. I’m kind of glad it broke down. It was great to meet you, man.”

“You, too. Stay in touch.”

“I will. You take care, too, Irene.”

After Buzz closed the car door, Frank said, “Let’s wait until he’s inside the building.”

Having noticed the three young toughs standing not far down the sidewalk, I had already planned to wait. But Buzz waved to them, they waved back, and he made his way to the door without harm.

It was about three in the morning when we got to bed. When Buzz called at ten o’clock, we figured we had managed to have almost a full-night’s sleep. Still, at first I was too drowsy to figure out what he was saying. Then again, fully awake I might not have understood the words that came between hard sobs. There were only a few of them.

“She’s dead, Irene. My God, she’s dead.”

“Buzz? Who’s dead?” I asked. Frank sat up in bed. “Joleen.”

“Joleen? Oh, Buzz…”

“She… she killed herself. Can you come over here? You and Frank?”

“Sure,” I said. “We’ll be right over.”

By the time we got there, he was a little calmer. Not much, but enough to be able to tell us that Gordon had found her that morning, that she had hanged herself.

“It’s his fault, the bastard!” He drew a hiccuping breath. “Last night, when they went out to dinner, he told Joleen he was quitting the band. Mack tried to talk him out of it, but I guess Gordon wouldn’t give in.”

“Gordon called you?”

“No, Mack. He told me she made some angry remark, said we’d just find a new drummer. Mack was upset, and said he didn’t want to try to break in a new drummer in three weeks’ time, that he was going to cancel the tour. He told her he was tired of her tantrums, tired of working for months with people only to have her run them off. It must have just crushed her-she worked so hard-”

I held him, let him cry, as Frank went into the kitchen. I could hear him opening cupboards. Finally he asked, “Any coffee, Buzz?”

Buzz straightened. “Just tea, sorry. I’ll make it.”

He regained some of his composure as he went through the ritual of making tea. As the water heated, he turned to Frank and asked, “The police will be there, won’t they?”

“Yes. It’s not my case, but I’ll find out what I can for you. The detectives on the case will want to talk to you-”

“To me? Why?”

“Standard procedure. They’ll talk to the people closest to her, try to get a picture of what was going on in her life.”

“Do you think she-I mean, hanging, is it quick?”

“Yes, it’s quick,” Frank said firmly. I admired the authority in it, knowing that he was probably lying. Suicide by hanging is seldom an efficient matter-most victims slowly suffocate. But if Joleen’s suffering hadn’t been over quickly, at least some small part of Buzz’s was.

“Thanks,” Buzz said. “I thought you would know.” He sighed and went back to working at making tea. I straightened the small living room, made it a little more tidy before Buzz brought the tea in and set it on the coffee table. We sat on the floor, although Buzz offered us the mattress-couch.

He took two or three sips from the cup, set it down, then went to stand by the window. The phone rang, but he didn’t answer it. “Let the machine get it,” he said in a strained voice. “I can’t talk to anybody else right now.”

The answering machine picked up on the fourth ring. We heard Buzz’s happy-go-lucky outgoing message, then the beep, then, “This is Parker’s Garage. The part we were waiting for didn’t come in, so the Chevette won’t be ready today. Sorry about that.”

“Aw, Christ, it only needed that!”

“Look, Buzz,” I said, “if you need a ride anywhere, we’ll take you.”

“I’ve imposed enough on you. And after the last twenty-four hours, Frank has undoubtedly had his fill of Buzz Sullivan.”

“No. Not at all,” Frank said.

The phone rang again. This time he answered it.

“Hi Mack.” He swallowed hard. “Not too good. You?” After a moment he said, “Already?… Yeah, all right.”

He hung up and shook his head. “The club wants us to have our stuff out of there before tonight. They’ve already asked another band to play. Guess it’s the guys who were going to start there when we went to Europe.”

“You need a ride?” Frank asked.

“Yeah. I hate to ruin your weekend-”

“We’re with a friend,” I said. “It isn’t ruined. What time do you need to be down there?”

“Soon as possible. He said the detectives want to talk to us down there. Club owner, too-he told Mack, ‘I’m not too happy about any of this!’-like anybody is!”

Q: What’s the difference between a bull and an orchestra?

A: An orchestra has the horns in the back and the ass in front.

We arrived before the others, and found the door locked. We walked around to the narrow alley, reaching the back door just as the owner pulled up-the bartender from the night before. He looked like he wanted to give Buzz a piece of his mind, but thought better of it when he took a look at Frank. Frank is six-four, but I don’t think it’s just his height that causes this kind of reaction among certain two-legged weasels. (I asked him about it once and he told me he got straight A’s in intimidation at the police academy; I stopped trying to get a straight answer out of him after that.)

The owner grumbled under his breath as he unlocked the door and punched in the alarm code, then turned on the lights. I walked in behind him. I had only taken a couple of steps when I realized that Buzz was still outside; without being able to see him, I could hear him sobbing again. Frank stepped into the doorway, motioned me to go on in. I heard him talking in low, consoling tones to Buzz, heard Buzz talking to him.

I squelched an unattractive little flare up of jealousy I felt then; a moment’s dismay that someone who had only known Buzz for a few hours was comforting him, when I had been his friend for several years. How stupid to insist that the provision of solace would be on the basis of seniority.

My anger at myself must have shown on my face in some fierce expression, because the owner said, “Look, I’m sorry. I just didn’t get much sleep. This place don’t close itself, and now at eleven o’clock, I’ve already had a busy morning. But I really am sorry about that kid out there. He’s the nicest one of the bunch. And I think he had eyes for the little spitfire.” He shook his head. “I never would have figured her for the type to off herself, you know?”

“I didn’t really know her,” I said. “I just met her last night.”

“She had troubles,” he said. “But she had always been the type to get more mad than sad.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. She was complicated-like that music she sang.”

He started moving around the club, taking chairs off table tops. I helped him, unable to stand around while he worked. In full light, the club seemed even smaller and shabbier than it had in the dark.

Soon Buzz and Frank came in. Frank started helping Buzz to pack away his equipment. Within a few moments other people arrived: the detectives, then Mack and Gordon.

None of the band members seemed to be in great shape. The detectives recognized Frank and pulled him aside, then asked the owner if they could borrow his office.

They asked to talk to Mack first. He went with them. Gordon climbed the stage steps and began to put away his cymbals.

Frank surreptitiously positioned himself between Buzz and Gordon. They worked quietly for a while, then Gordon said, “I’m sorry, Buzz. I-I never would have said anything to her if I thought…”

“It’s not your fault,” Buzz said wearily, contradicting his earlier outburst. He finished closing the last of his cases and began helping Gordon.

Mack came out, and told the bar owner that the detectives wanted to talk to him next. By then, most of the equipment had been carried into the backstage room. All that was left was a single mike stand-Joleen’s.

I walked onto the stage and stood where she had stood during “A Fine Set of Teeth.” I thought of her voice, clear and sweet on those first notes, her smile as she listened to Buzz’s solo. I looked out and wondered how she saw that small sea of adoring faces that must have been looking back at her; wondered if she had known of Buzz’s loyalty to her; remembered the bite and figured she had. I thought of her giving the sound man hell; she had both bark and bite.

I saw Mack, standing at the bar, at about the same moment he saw me. He stared at me, making me wonder if I was causing him to see ghosts.

Feeling like an interloper, I stepped away from the empty mike stand, then paused. I had the nagging feeling that something about the stage wasn’t right. When I figured out what it was, I called my husband over to my side.

“Tell your friends in the office not to let Mack leave,” I whispered. “There’s something he needs to explain.”

“Are you going to tell me about it, or has being on this stage gone to your head?”

“Both. Where is Mack’s equipment?” I asked.

Frank looked around, then smiled. “I’ll be right back. And maybe you should try to stand close to Buzz. This will be hard on him.” He took a step away, then turned back. “How did you know it was murder?” he whispered.

“I didn’t. Not until just now. Ligature marks?”

He nodded.

I walked into the backstage room. Gordon sat on the couch. Buzz was sitting at the piano bench. I sat down next to Buzz and lifted the keyboard cover. “You play?” he asked.

“Sure.” I tapped out the melody line of “Heart and Soul.” “It’s one of two pieces I can play,” I said.

One corner of his mouth quirked up. “The other being ‘Chopsticks’?”

“How did you know?”

“People just seem to know those two,” he said, reminding me about the missing sarcasm gene.

“Come on,” I said. “Play the other half.”

“Half?” he said, filling in the chords.

“Okay, three-quarters.”

Gordon laughed.

“Come on,” Buzz said, “there’s room for you, too.”

“I’ll pass,” he said, “I don’t even know ‘Chopsticks.’ ”

We stopped when we heard Gordon shout, “What are you doing to Mack?”

We turned to see Mack being led out in handcuffs.

“They’re arresting him,” Frank said as they left. “For Joleen’s murder.”

“So tell me again how you figured this out,” Buzz asked later, when we were back at his apartment. We were sitting on the floor, around the coffee table.

“Okay,” I said. “We were the first ones at the club this morning, right?”

He nodded.

“You and Gordon both had equipment to pack up. Your equipment was still on the stage, because when you left Club Ninety-nine last night, you had every intention of coming back the next night. But one band member knew he wouldn’t be back. He packed up his equipment and took it home last night.”

“You figured that out just standing there?”

“I was thinking about that dirty trick the sound man pulled on her-making her hear her own voice a half-step off through the monitor. But the mike and monitor were gone. I knew you didn’t pack them up, neither did Gordon. You had only worked on your part of the stage, or to help Gordon. So Mack must have taken Joleen’s mike and monitor-but he hadn’t been up on the stage this morning. I looked around and noticed his equipment was gone. It’s not as elaborate as your rig, or Gordon’s kit.”

“And the marks you were talking about?” he asked Frank.

“You’re sure you want to hear about this?”

“Yeah.”

“There were two sets of marks on her neck-the one horizontal, across her neck-the other V-shaped, from her chin to behind her ear. The second marks would be typical of a suicide by hanging, but they were made by the rope sometime after she was killed. The first were the ones that marked the pull of the rope when someone stood behind her and strangled her.”

He was silent for a long time, then asked. “Why?”

“He probably told her the truth at the restaurant,” Frank said. “He had lost a lot of good players because of her attitude. Just as it looks like things have stabilized and The Waste Land’s big break is coming along, she starts making trouble with Gordon.”

“But she was the heart of the group! Her voice.”

“Gordon was going to offer him a new singer,” Frank reminded him.

“Susan?”

“I suppose he would have worked with Susan on the songs he had already written with Joleen, then taken Susan with the band to Europe.”

Buzz frowned. “You’re right. He had already given her a couple of them to learn. Susan sang them on the tape Gordon brought last night.”

“Mack wanted to make sure he had sole rights to the songs.”

“Oh, and then what?” Buzz asked angrily. “What did he think would happen down the road? Have you ever heard one of Mack’s songs? Dull stuff. Technically passable, but nothing more. He just provided the wood. She set it on fire. With her dead, who would have provided that fire?”

“Now,” I said, “I think you’re getting closer.”

They both stared at me.

“Buzz,” I asked, “until you wrote ‘A Fine Set of Teeth-’ ”

“You mean, ‘Draid Bhreá Fiacla’?”

“Yes. Until then, had anyone other than Mack written a song with her?”

“No, but he didn’t understand that either, did he?” he said, and looked away. “No, he couldn’t.”

I didn’t contradict him, but I wondered if he was right. Perhaps Mack understood exactly what it meant, and perhaps Joleen, who had known Mack better than the others, also believed that the safest course was to hide any affection she felt for Buzz. I kept these thoughts to myself; bad enough to second guess the dead, worse if the theory might bring further pain to the living.

When we were fairly sure he’d be all right, and had obtained promises from him that he’d call us whenever he needed us, we left Buzz’s apartment.

We were in the stairwell of the old building when we heard it-the first few notes of ‘Draid Bhreá Fiacla,’ the notes a woman with a fine set of teeth used to sing with eyes closed.

The notes were being played on an Irish harp, and a young man’s voice answered them.