Free Bluebottle by James Sallis Page B

awhile, a damned good one. Then
     he heard Dolphy and Parker and his life changed again. He knew he couldn't play like that, no way, and he put his trombone
     down for good, but he couldn't leave the music alone.
    "What can I say, Bo? Don't get out much anymore."
    "I had someone like LaVerne at home, I wouldn't get out at all. Speaking of which." He shoved a napkin across the bar, number
     scrawled on it. "She says call her."
    "How long ago?"
    "I don't know. Hour maybe."
    "You seen Doo-Wop?"
    "Not for a day or so. Couple of conventions downtown, Ifigure he's staying busy."
    The skinniest young black man I'd ever seen—he looked like an ambulatory twig—climbed onstage. Stage was definitely a euphemism for this inch-high flatof rough lumber we'd have used back home to stack feed bags. He plucked
     a soprano sax out from behind a chair. Held it vertical in his lap as he disengaged the reed from the mouthpiece and put it
     in his mouth to soak. Another musician took his seat behind the piano. He hit several chords, ran scales and arpeggios off
     higher intervals of them, pawed at a few jagged, Monklike phrases, then sat with hands in lap waiting.
    "Stick around. These guys are unbelievable. I don't know where it all comesfrom," Bo said. "Drink?"
    "When'd you last make coffee?"
    "What's today?" He poured a cup and pushed it towards me on the bar. "Just kidding. Hey, you're still in New Orleans. I don't
     keep good coffee, they take away my license, deport me to Algiers, Chalmette. Rip the towel off my shoulder." He angled one
     longfinger towards the napkin. "Phone's still where it was, you get ready."
    I turned around on the stool, turned back.
    "Seems to be in use."
    "Nah. That's just Crazy Jane. Comes in here every night, has a few drinks, spends the next hour or so having imaginary conversations
     with old lovers."
    Grasping the receiver in a death grip at least a foot from her head and shouting into it, Crazy Jane gave way without comment
     when I tapped on the booth. She replaced the receiver as though setting down an eggshell. I dialed the number on the napkin.
     The phone rang twice.
    "LaVerne there?" Never knew who might be at the other end of one of LaVerne's numbers.
    "Who's this?"
    "This is the guy who's calling for LaVerne."
    "Yeah? Sounds like just another turkey to me."
    'Tou took your head out of your ass, you might hear better."
    "You got a definite point there."
    He backed the phone off a few inches and shouted: "Hey, CNeil! Walsh up there? Well, he's for damn sure around here somewhere. Yeah you do that." Moments passed. "Griffin's on the line, boss." A staccato exchange of words. "Who else's it gonna be, mouth
     like that? Hey, always a pleasure talking to you, Griffin." He handed the phone over.
    "Lew."
    "I got a messagefrom LaVerne to call her at this number. She okay?"
    "She's fine. Took her statement myself and sent her home in a black and white almost an hour ago. I asked her to call you."
    Crazy Jane stood outside the booth patiendy waiting. When I smiled, she smiled back, then ducked her head shyly like a schoolgirl.
    "Verne said she was trying to help youfindthis Esmay woman, from the shooting. So she talked it up on the street—'just like
     setting out trot lines back home,' she said. Got her firstbite around dinnertime, second one not long after. Hell of a lot
     better than we ever did, or were gonna do. 'Lew says you always hang back,' she told me, 'see what the traffic looks like,
     give the landscape a chance to become familiar.' She had a couple of coffees at the cafe on the corner and kept her eyes open,
     came up here and walked into this."
    T HIS WAS THE messy anteroom of an apartment in a cul-de-sac off Jane Street.
    Built in 1890 as a private home, the building persisted as such, various families moving in and out like hermit crabs, until
     1954, at which time it came onto its first abandonment. The Sixties saw its irregular stories and multiple courtyards reincarnated
     as luxury