Free The Waiting Game (Garvey Fields) by RA Chandler

the gun fell free from his hands, firing a shot into the glass of a parked car as it did so.
    By the time I reached him he was gone.
    A silver colored coupe was moving down the street quickly, it had a shot out window too. I ran after it but I lost it.
    I slowed to a walking pace.
    I watched a man park up his Ducati and cross the street and go into an organic café, I took off my Tuskegee motorcycle jacket and followed suit. As I stood at the counter and order my English breakfast tea and apple Danish I could hear sirens encroaching. I drank my tea and ate my pastry and order another tea.
    After a while I walked back to my Triumph Triple Speed R, I rode past a scene in which an EMT was in attendance and few patrol cars and a weeping mother. I rode out to Great Neck, I liked to think out there, and I needed a plan of action.
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    2
     
     
    A doorman let me into the foyer area of the Hummingbird club which was a nice but somewhat ironic touch for an establishment like this. The clientele were main black, sometimes high rollers brought Hispanic girlfriends long because they could and no one would question it.
    If you’d asked the cliental about history they would have waxed lyrical about past and present oppression and lack of opportunities and subjugation and so on and so forth. But put a Negro in a hat to open doors for other black people and they flocked to the place after dark.
    I stood in the foyer and looked around it as though I were an art critic, I hadn’t made myself familiar with what the place was before it was the Hummingbird club but I was guessing an old ballroom or swanky cinema. There were etchings or moulds or friezes I was never sure of the right term, on the white walls. They had sailing ships, African animals, scenes from expeditions and original light fixtures. The lights, furniture and even the doors were art deco interpretations. It was a classy place for most occasions with a large auditorium that seated a few thousand, especially the newly rich who hadn’t quite migrated their music tastes to Bach and Chapin.
    The faint smell of Davidoff Spice bomb wafted towards me.
    “Can I help you?” said a man with the look of Morris Chestnut.
    I assumed he was some kind of manager. The handsome man was dressed in silver dinner jacket with a white shirt and silver tie. His hair had recently been barbed and his face had been shaved by someone with a cut throat razor and a steady hand. He had the kind of face that would lead a drunk man to overconfidence and mistimed attempts to hit him.
    “I'm her to see Marley One, he around?”
    “The show is opening tomorrow, you need tickets?”
    “I thought he might be practicing, you know rehearing.”
    “You don’t look like one of his friends.”
    “It’s okay, I know him. I'm not trying to get in his band, I don’t have a crush on him and I don’t have a demo tape.”
    The manager didn’t come across as the kind of guy who revelled in rap music, I had him down as a more R’n’B type cat.
    “He was in the bar lounge an hour ago, you might catch him. If not he’ll be in his guest room and you’ll have to call him.”
    “Okay,” I said.
    He pointed be towards the casual day restaurant and wondered off uninterested in me.
    The room seated about two hundred people and was about a third full, but was still nice and warm in a cosy way and was well lit despite the approaching darkness outside. In keeping with the buildings theme it was art deco with prints of jazz musicians on the walls and piano on a slightly raised platform The music of the sound system was soft jazz and nineteen-thirties blues. I wasn’t sure if it was Billie holiday singing but it sounded an awful lot like her. While I think the lady sang the blues I looked around the room for Marley One. The room was set out with small round tables, not too close together. A couple of waiters flitted in between them.
    I was wondering if this service was in place before the