Part 48 (1/2)

Now he just looked--sad.

”How you makin' it?”

The kid looked up. ”The hard way,” he said. ”I've been talking to Mr. Dailey. He's--quite a guy.”

I pulled up a chair. My back was sweating. Cold sweat. ”How you mean?”

”I don't know, exactly. I never met anyone like him before. The way he has of, well, of knowing what's wrong and how it's wrong, and pulling it out of you--”

”You got troubles, kid?” The sweat was getting colder.

He smiled. He was d.a.m.ned young, maybe only twenty-five; handsome, in a Krupa kind of way.

It wasn't junk. It wasn't booze. ”Tell the Deacon.”

”No troubles,” he said. ”Just a dead wife.”

I sat there, getting scared and sick and wondering why. ”How far back?”

”A year,” he said, like he still didn't believe it. ”Funny thing, too. I never used to be able to talk about it. But Mr. Dailey seemed to understand. I told him everything. How Sal and I met, when we got married and went to live in the development, and--” He shoved his face against the wall quick.

”If you talk about it, kid, you get rid of it,” I said.

”That's what Mr. Dailey told me.”

”Yeah.” I know. It was exactly what Mr. Dailey had told me, six years ago, after the accident.

Except, I was still dreaming about that little girl, as if it had happened yesterday...

”You think I'll fit in, Deek?” the kid asked.

I looked at him and remembered what Parnelli had said; and I remembered Max, his voice, tow, always low; and it got too much.

”Cinch,” I said, and blew back to my room on the second floor.

I don't bug easy, never did, but I had a crawly kind of a thing inside me and it wouldn't move.

They have a word for it: premonition.

”. . . _tell him to cut out, Deek. For the love of Christ, tell him that_ . . .”

Next night the kid showed up on time in one of Rollo's extra suits. He looked very hip but also very skunked, and you could see that he hadn't had much sack time.

Max gave him a little introduction to the crowd and he sat down at the box.

Things were pretty tense. A one. A two.

We did ”Night Ride,” our trademark and the kid did everything he was supposed to. Very fine backing, but nothing spectacular, which was good. Then we broke and he got the nod from Max and started in on some sad little dancing on ”Jada.” It isn't easy to make that tune sad. He did it.

And the crowd loved it.

He minored ”Lady Be Good,” and then threw a whole lot of sparks oven ”The A Train;” and the Peac.o.c.k Room began to jam. I mean, we were always able to get them to listen, and all that foot-stomping routine, but this was finally it.

Davey Green wasn't good. He was great. He Brubecked the h.e.l.l out of ”Sentimental Lady”--keeping to Max's arrangement enough so we could tag along, but putting in five minutes more--and it was real reflective, indeed. Then, with everything cool and brainy, he turned right around and there was Jelly Roll, up from the dead, doing ”Wolverine” the way it hadn't been done.

And all the hearing aids were turned to ”loud” when he rode out a solo marked Personal.

Almighty sad stuff; bluesy; you knew--I knew--what he was thinking about. Him and his wife in bed on a hot morning, with the sun screaming in, them half-awake, and the air bright and everything new. Red ice.Warm blues.

Max listened with his eyes tight shut. He was saying: Don't touch a thing, boys; don't make a move. You might break it. Leave the kid alone.

Davey stopped, suddenly. Ten beat pause. And we thought it was over, but it wasn't. He was remembering something else now, and I knew that that first was just the beginning.

He started a melody, no life in it, no feeling: Just the notes: ”If You Were the Only Girl in the World”--Then he smeared his fist down the keys and began to improvise. It was wicked. It was brilliant.

And the cats all swallowed their ties.

But I got his message. It came into me like private needles: There's a girl in a box, Deacon Jones, Deacon Jones, And that girl in a box Is nothin' but bones . . .

Which girl you talking about? I wondered. But there wasn't any time to figure it out, because he was all done. The Peac.o.c.k Room was exploding and Davey Green was sitting there, sitting there, looking at his hands.

”A one. A two,” softly from Max.

We all took off on ”St. Louis Blues,” every one of us throwing in something of his own, and I blew my horn and it was break time.

Max put on his blinkers and went over to the kid. I could barely hear him: ”Very clean, Mr.

Green.” The kid was still with it, though: he didn't seem to be listening. Max whispered a few things and came on down off the stand. He was ten feet tall.

”We've got it, Deek,” he said. There was a light in back of his forehead. ”It's ours now.”

I knocked the spit out of my trumpet and tried a grin. It was a falsie.

Max put a hand on my shoulder. ”Deek,” he said, ”that was a sanitary solo you blew, but I'm worried. You've been thinking about the accident. Right?”

”No.”

”I don't blame you a lot. But we're _complete_ now, you dig, and we're going high. So forget about the G.o.dd.a.m.n thing--or talk it over with me after the show. I'm available.” He smiled. ”You know that, don't you, Deek?”

I'd been praying to G.o.d he wouldn't say it. Now it was said. ”Sure, Max,” I told him. ”Thanks.”

”Nothing,” he said, and went over to Bud Parker. Bud was hooked and Max kept him supplied.

It always seemed okay because otherwise he'd be out stealing, or maybe killing, for the stuff.

Now I wasn't so sure. Parnelli leaned over and blew a sour note out of his valve bone. ”Nice kid,” he said. ”I think Max'll want to keep him.”

So right. With ten hot fingers, we started doing business in a great big way. I don't know why.

Why did Woody Herman die for weeks in a Chicago pad and then move two blocks away and hit like a mother bomb? It just happens.