Free Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg Page A

That’s my office number on the bottom. I wish you’d call me if you think of anything or hear of anybody having seen Johnny Favorite.”
    She smiled, but there was no warmth in it. “What’re you after him for?”
    “I’m not ‘after’ him; I just want to know where he is.”
    She stuck my card in the glass of the ornate brass cash register. “And what if he’s dead?”
    “I get paid either way.”
    It was almost a real laugh this time. “I hope you find him six feet under,” she said.
    “That would be okay with me. Please hang on to my card. You never know what might turn up.”
    “That’s true.”
    “Thanks for your time.”
    “You’re not leaving without your John the Conqueror, are you?”
    I straightened my shoulders. “Do I look like I need it?”
    “Mr. Crossroads,” she said, and her laughter was rich and full, “you look like you need all the help you can get.”

FIFTEEN
    By the time I got back to the Red Rooster I’d missed an entire set and Toots was sitting on the same stool at the bar. A glass of champagne fizzed at his elbow. I lit a cigarette as I edged through the crowd. “Find out what you were after?” Toots asked without interest.
    “Evangeline Proudfoot is dead.”
    “Dead? Now that is a for-certain shame. She was one fine lady.”
    “I talked with her daughter. She wasn’t much help.”
    “Maybe you better pick somebody else to write about, son.”
    “I don’t think so. I’m just getting interested.” The ash from my cigarette dropped onto my tie and left a smudge next to the soup stain when I brushed it off. “You seem to have known Evangeline Proudfoot pretty well. What more can you tell me about her affair with Johnny Favorite?”
    Toots Sweet lumbered to his tiny feet. “I can’t tell you nothin’, son. I’m too big to go around hiding under beds. ‘Sides, it’s time fo’ me to go back to work.”
    He flashed his star-studded grin and started for the bandstand. I tagged along like an eager newshound. “Perhaps you remember some of their other friends? People who knew them when they were together.”
    Toots settled on the piano bench and surveyed the room for his tardy sidemen. He spoke to me while his eyes darted from table to table. “S’pose I pacify my mind with some music. Maybe something will come back to me.”
    “I’m in no hurry. I can listen to you play all night.”
    “Just sit out the set, son.” Toots lifted the curved lid of the baby grand. A chicken foot lay on the keyboard. He slammed the lid shut. “Stop hangin’ over my shoulder!” he growled. “I got to play now.”
    “What was that?”
    “That was nothin’. Never you mind that.”
    But it was not nothing. It was the foot of a chicken, spanning an octave from the sharp yellow claw on the lizardlike toe to where it was cut off above the joint and bleeding. Below a remaining tuft of white feathers a length of black ribbon was tied in a bow. It was considerably more than nothing.
    “What’s going on, Toots?”
    The guitar player took his seat and switched on his amplifier. He glanced at Toots and fiddled with the volume. He was having feedback problems.
    Toots hissed. “Nothin’s going on you got to know about. Now I ain’t talking to you no mo’. Not after the set. Not never!”
    “Who’s after you, Toots?”
    “You git outta here.”
    “What does Johnny Favorite have to do with it?”
    Toots spoke very slowly, ignoring the bass player who appeared at his shoulder. “If you don’t get the hell out of here, an’ I mean clean out onto the sidewalk, yo’ gonna wish yo’ lily-white ass never was born.”
    I met the bass player’s implacable gaze and glanced around. There was a full house. I knew how Custer must have felt up on the hilltop at Little Big Horn.
    “All I got to do,” Toots said, “is say the word.”
    “You don’t need to send a telegram, Toots.” I dropped my butt onto the dance floor, ground it under my heel, and left.
    My car was parked in the