Part 19 (1/2)

”Before I tell you your story,” he said, ”I want to tell you something else.”

”I don't want to hear anything else, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d.”

”But I will tell you anyway,” he p.r.o.nounced calmly. ”I know how angry you are. But how many times can you kill me?”

He had me there. I fell silent.

”It is true that I used you in an inexcusable way. It is true I have no right to even hope for your forgiveness-in this world or any other. But it is also true that I fell in love with you ... Yes!” he shouted as I began to smirk. ”No matter what you do to me and no matter how terribly I betrayed you, I won't have you say I didn't love you.”

”Okay. Fine. That's out of the way. Now tell me about Rhode Island Red.”

”In a moment. I will in a moment.”

With some effort, he rose off the floor then, my weapon trained on him, and regathered the flowers into a bouquet. ”Will you allow me to put these in water?”

”For G.o.dsakes, man!”

But he was already at the small tin sink.

The roses gave off a brilliantly sad light in their empty stewed tomatoes tin.

Henry called over his shoulder, the tap still running, ”How old are you, Nanette? I never thought to ask.”

”What are you-kidding?”

”No, my love. I want to know.”

”Don't call me that again,” I threatened.

He shrugged.

”I'm twenty-eight. How old are you-were you?”

”And so I am already dead for you?”

”What do you think, Henry?”

”Yes. I know. Well, at least you see why it doesn't matter so much to me that you may kill me. I suppose that is the way it was always meant to be-that someone would kill me. What difference does it make who does it? Coffee, my-I mean, Nanette?”

I could see that he'd filled a cheap tin espresso pot with water and was scooping out coffee grounds from a brightly colored can.

I strode over to him, plucked the can from the kitchen counter, and threw it against the nearest wall.

That did me in. That was my last little explosion of bile.

I sat down heavily in one of the ugly tufted barrel chairs and shook my head. ”Listen, Henry, do you have an Uzi hidden in the milk or something? I mean, are you going to catch me off guard and blow me away before I can get you?”

”Don't be insane! I love you!”

”Whatever. Because if you are, I guess I don't really give too much of a f.u.c.k either. Just make the coffee and get back over here and talk. And do something about your mother-f.u.c.king head! You're bleeding all over the stove.”

Henry had changed into a dark brown turtleneck and black trousers. On the fake wood coffee table, the ice cubes inside the hotel wash cloth he had used to staunch the blood dripping from his wound melted one by one.

I sat smoking one of the Dunhills, not speaking, watching his lips move, refusing to cry, wanting his mouth on me, hating myself.

”You know almost as much as I do now,” he said. ”But you don't know the history. The story, as you say.

”As you can see, I do not have the thing called Rhode Island Red. I will never have it. I know that now. I don't know where it is. I just know that it's gone. Gone-again.

”It is so much like you to think you could go to the library and find out what you need to know about criminals. You cannot, Nanette. Any more than I could expect to absorb this-what?-this essence of a great black musician by listening to his music and wors.h.i.+pping his image.”

Henry looked depleted, sick around the edges. His eyes were swollen from the two-way crying jag we'd had in the bathroom.

”And when you could find nothing from the books, to think that you walked into the lair of this lieutenant ... Tom ...”

”Justin Thorn,” I corrected, no life whatsoever in my voice. ”And he's hardly a lieutenant.”

Suddenly he was rus.h.i.+ng over to my chair, eyes wet again. He tried to take my hand, kiss it.

”Don't!” I pulled my fingers out of his grasp, shaking my head violently. ”Just don't.”

Slowly, he backed away from me and onto his own seat again.

He continued. ”In your research did you read of a man called Tonio Abbracante?”

”I don't know. Perhaps.”

”He was a hard man. A mafioso. As bad as they come. Long ago, it was he who controlled everything in Providence. In the late 1940s and early 1950s.

”He may have been a vicious criminal, but first he was a man. And one day he fell in love with a woman. A different kind of pa.s.sion than he had known before. For a different kind of woman. She was a rich and beautiful lady from Newport who had fancy horses and fancy ancestors.

”Abbracante was not content to have an affair with her. He wanted to marry her. To this woman he probably represented excitement, adventure. Or perhaps the only reason she ever gave him the time of day was to scandalize her family. To rebel. Who knows what she really thought of Tonio? He may have been nothing but a clown in her eyes.

”One thing about this lady, though: she was absolutely fearless. Fearless enough to play with Tonio Abbracante as if he was no more than a college boy suitor. Tonio never stopped asking her to marry him. And finally she relented. It was a very foolhardy thing to do. In a way she set her own doom in motion with that acceptance. She said she would marry him if he could get the great Charlie Parker to play at their wedding.

”Can you imagine it? She'd marry him if he persuaded Bird to play at the wedding! As if he were on the same level as the caterer or the seamstress who sewed her veil.

”She may have been mad, but she was interesting, this woman. She made Tonio understand that Parker would have to come-or be enticed to come-of his own free will. That Tonio must not threaten him in any way. For if he did, not only was the wedding off but their relations.h.i.+p would end. Period. He must persuade Bird. She must have known it was an impossible task.

”Abbracante was an ignoramus about music. He likely had never heard of Parker and could not have cared less about his genius. But he wanted that woman. He did what had to be done.

”From his ranks he chose a trusted underling to be sent as an emissary to Parker. It could only help that this underling loved music and had been an amateur guitarist.

”That man was my father.

”Needless to say, Bird laughed in his face-the first time. But Abbracante was persistent. He would buy Bird or die in the effort. After all, he was a criminal, and he knew that every man has his price. After trying just about everything else, he sent my father to a p.a.w.n shop to buy an ordinary saxophone. Then he filled the saxophone with pure heroin and soldered the top shut, and all the stops, with gold. He offered it to Parker as the fee for one night's work.