Chapter 13

Well I’m now in the IGBI. Not a full operative, just a simple foot soldier, and they want me to go back to the Fish Fry, and play it again. As before as Fats. They want to tweek history. This time the scene has to be played out slightly differently. All the players will be there, but subtle differences in the way the night pans out will make all the difference to the future. If you ask me Doil and Veronika, want to alter their history. Maybe Officer Getz has to live and, hold on, fuck it, maybe Fats gets it. I panic and Brian picks up the vibe. He places a quadruple Dark Star coffee on the table. He can do this by some sort of internal invisible dumb waiter. Don’t ask me how it works. I bought it as a package with him as he had no physical form. I down it. My body starts to leave me and I am just a brain. This stuff is grown without sunlight in deep caves, and it tastes of menthol with Mocca coffee overtones. In this divorced state, I can just be.

When I come down from the high, I get ready for the Fish Fry gig. I sit at the Beckstien and rattle though a few stride piano exercises . The warmth of Fats flows through me and I feel better about the way the day will pan out.

The tab for Prosthetics and the transport are being picked up by the IGBI, so I just walk through the process and stand on the black dot.

                                                            *************

The night is hot and wet. The neon sign flashes its coded message in to the room and reflects off the surfaces. Getz leans against the wall smoking a cherute and scans the room. He walks over to the window and aims a glob of mucas in to the night. Stands there watching the rain fall with big splashes onto the side walk. There is an agitation about him, as if he is waiting for something to happen.  The Smith and Western is visible on his hip, the white bone butt jutting out from the shiny leather holdster. The acid haired blond is shooting up in the corner, her scared arm bent at the elbow, and a man’s tie around the bicep. Her dancing partner, a zoot suited black man leans over her with possessive calmness. There is no sign of Doil or Veronica. There is a shout from the kitchen, and the hiss of steam. The smell of fried fish is all pervasive. I play with my back to this scene, but I can see all from a mirror above the piano top. My drinks are lined up on this top. Mostly burbon, and glass of red biddy. The room is beginning to fill up. A bunch of crew cut sailors roll in and start horsing around. Some white kids in Tuxes with clear eyed girls arrive, all good teeth and slinky dresses. They bring with them bottles of Champagne and good Cogniac. I tip my hat and give them my best lear.

‘Hey Fats play, Honey Suckle Rose. I oblige but just to throw them I do it Errol Garner style. They don’t notice. Smucks!

By now the party has spilled into the hallway and the apartment opposite. The rugs have been rolled back and the punters are jiving and kicking, rocking the tenement to its foundations. I play harder on the keys, no amplification here, but the black cats are helping in the choruses. ‘The joint is really Jumpin’

Suddenly at my side is Veronica.

‘Hi Fats,’ she says. This time she is wearing a red dress to match her lips. Red nails too and a diamond choker, that if it was real and not paste must come to years wages.

‘Where’s Doil?’

‘Oh he’ll be along, just keep playing you’re doing fine.’

‘I need a pee break, my bladder is fit to bust.’

‘Just hold it for a few minutes, or piss where you are, use a jug, we need  you to stay put.’

So something was on the cards. I looked around for Getz, but couldn’t spot him in my mirror. I turned from the piano still playing and gave the room my best grin. Nope no sign of him. The acid blond was as before now on the sofa completely zonked. Her pimp sat on the arm above her head, back ramrod straight like a Massai warrier eyes working the room. It’s now or never I thought.

Blam, then another Blam. Blam Blam. Two more. Hysterical screams. Then silence just the smell of cordite and fish. The smoke cleared, and there was claret everywhere. Plus a prone Veronica by the door.  Doil stood over her with a smoking gun. The room quickly cleared leaving Me, as Fats, Getz, Doil and the zonked hooker on the sofa. Plus of course the very dead Veronica.

‘Did you get him’, asked Getz.

‘I winged him maybe, but he got the choker.’

There was no sign of the pimp.

Doil bent down to feel for a pulse in Veronica’s neck. Hey call 911 she is still with us.’

Someone already had, the medics were on the scene within seconds. It must have been pre planned, no medic gets here that fast. And they were no ordinary medics either. The equipment was futuristic, wrist heart monitors, blood patches that leak straight into the victims circulation. Drug pumps.

Doil looked at me, and gave me don’t worry look everything is under control.

But it wasn’t my return button didn’t work. Then the lights went out