Hardcase

CHAPTER 20

Blue Franklin was an old blues bar that had only gotten better with age. Young up-and-coming blues stars had played in the smoke haze and platter rattle of the little place on Franklin Street for six decades, gone on to national prominence, and then come back to play to packed houses in their prime and old age. The two playing this night were in their prime: Pearl Wilson, a vocalist in her late thirties who combined a Billie Holiday-like poignancy with a growing Koko Taylor rough edge, and Big Beau Turner, one of the best tenor-sax men since Warne Marsh.

Kurtz came for the late set, nursed a beer, and enjoyed Pearl's interpretation of "Hell Hound on My Trail," "Sweet Home Chicago," "Come in My Kitchen," "Willow, Weep for Me," "Big-Legged Mamas Are Back in Style," and "Run the Voodoo Down," followed by Big Beau doing solo riffs on a series of Billy Strayhorn pieces: "Blood Count," "Lush Life," "Drawing-Room Blues," and "U.M.M.G."

Kurtz could not remember a time, even as a boy, when he had not loved jazz and blues. It was the closest thing to religion he knew. In jail, even when he'd been allowed access to a Discman or cassette player, which wasn't that much of the time, even a perfect recorded performance such as Miles Davis's remastered "Kind of Blue" had been no substitute for a live performance with its ebb and flow of tidal forces, like a well-played baseball game gone deep into extra innings, now all lethargy and distance, transformed in an instant into a blur of motion and purposefulness, and with its cocaine glow of unlimited, interlocked, immortal energy. Kurtz loved jazz and the blues.

After the last set, Pearl, Beau, and the pianist—a white kid named Coe Pierce—came over to join him for a drink before closing. Kurtz had known Beau and Pearl years ago. He wanted to buy them a drink, but he barely had enough money to pay for his beer. They chatted about old music, new jobs, and old times—tactfully ignoring the past decade or so of Kurtz's absence, since even the piano kid seemed cued in on that—and eventually Blue Franklin's owner, Daddy Bruce Woles, a hearty, heavyset man so black that his skin glowed almost eggplant in the smoke-hazy spotlights, came over to join them. Kurtz had never seen Woles without the stub of a cigar in his mouth, and had never seen the cigar lighted.

"Joe, you got an admirer," said Daddy Bruce. He waved over more drinks for everyone, on the house.

Kurtz sipped his fresh beer and waited.

"Little runty guy in a grubby raincoat came in here three nights ago and again last night. Didn't pay any attention to the music. First time, Ruby was tending bar, and this dwarf lugs this big, like legal briefcase over and props it on the bar, asks about you. Ruby, she knows you're out, of course, and doesn't say anything. Says she never heard of you. The dwarf leaves. Ruby tells me. Last night, same dwarf in a dirty raincoat, same battered briefcase, only I'm at the bar. I never heard of you, either. I tried to get the dwarfs name, but he just left his beer and went out. Haven't seen him tonight. Friend of yours?"

Kurtz shrugged. "Does he look something like Danny DeVito?"

"Yeah," said Daddy Bruce. "Only not cute and cuddly like that, you know? Just turd-ugly all the way down."

"Someone told me that Sammy Levine's brother Manny's looking for me," said Kurtz. "Probably him."

"Oh, God," said Pearl. "Sammy Levine was a mean little dwarf, too."

"Used to use wood blocks on the pedals to drive that damn giant Pontiac he and Eddie Falco bombed around in," said Big Beau. Then, "Sorry, Joe, didn't mean to bring up sad times."

"That's okay," said Kurtz. "Anything sad, I got out of my system a long time ago."

"Doesn't sound like this Manny Levine dwarf has," said Daddy Bruce.

Kurtz nodded.

Pearl took his hand. "It seems like just yesterday that you and Sam were in here every night, all of us catching a late dinner and drinks after the last set, and then Sam not drinking because…"

"Because she was pregnant," finished Kurtz. "Yeah. Only I guess it seems like a while ago to me."

The vocalist and the tenor sax player glanced at each other and nodded.

"Rachel?" Beau said.

"With Sam's ex-husband," said Kurtz.

"She must be… what—eleven, twelve now?"

"Almost fourteen," said Kurtz.

"To good times again," said Pearl in that wonderful smoke-and-whiskey voice of hers. She lifted her glass.

They all lifted their glasses.

It was getting cold at night. As Kurtz walked back through alleys and parking lots to his warehouse, wearing the corduroy trousers and denim shirt Sophia Farino had given him—the shirt worn untucked to conceal the little.38 in his waistband—he briefly considered heading back to the office to sleep. At least the basement of the porno shop was heated. But he decided not to. What was the old maxim? Don't shit where you eat? Something like that. He wanted to keep business and business separate.

He was taking a shortcut down a long alley between warehouses, less than six blocks from his own warehouse, when a car pulled in at the end of the alley behind him. Headlights threw his shadow ahead of him on the potholed lane.

Kurtz glanced around. No doorways deep enough to hide in. A loading dock, but solid concrete—he could roll up onto it if the car accelerated toward him, but he could not slip under it. No fire escapes. Too far to run to me next street if the car came at him.

Not looking back, staggering slightly as if drunk, Kurtz pulled the.38 from his belt and palmed it.

The car moved slowly down the long alley behind him. From the sound of the V-8 engine, the thing was big—at least a Lincoln Town Car, possibly a real limo—and it was in no hurry. It stopped about fifty feet behind him.

Kurtz stepped into the corner where the loading dock met brick wall and let the pistol drop into his fingers. He cocked the hammer.

It was a limo. The headlights went out and in the dimmer glow of the parking lights, Kurtz could see the huge mass of the black car silhouetted against distant streetlights, its exhaust swirling around it like fog. A big man got out of the front passenger side and another big man stepped out of the rear left door. Both men reached under their blazer jackets to touch guns.

Kurtz set the hammer back in place, slid the small pistol back up into his palm, and walked toward the limousine. Neither of the bodyguards drew weapons or moved to frisk him.

Kurtz walked past the man holding the rear door open, glanced into the rear seat—illuminated by several halogen spots—and got into the car.

"Mr. Kurtz," said the old man seated there. He was wearing a tuxedo and had a Stewart-plaid lap robe over his legs.

Kurtz dropped into the jump seat opposite him. "Mr. Farino." He uncocked the pistol and slipped it back in his waistband.

The bodyguards closed the doors and remained outside in the cold.