Chapter 6 and 7

The sirens are getting louder. Heading for the fish fry. The cops can’t know about the shooting. Can they?  I get into my stride.

Stride is descended from ragtime, but incorporates a much more elaborate and decorative approach to the music, and is considerably more demanding to play in terms of technique. Its core is found in a standard left hand pattern, the beat-by-beat alternation between the interval of a tenth struck deep in the bass register of the keyboard and a complex, three- or four-pitch chord struck in the tenor or alto range (the center of the keyboard). Simultaneously, the right hand plays a highly embellished and syncopated version of the melody, often so completely altered as to be lost amidst the complex cascade of notes.

Are you still with me? I thought I’d throw that piece of information in to show that I know the theory as well. I tell al lie I couldn’t describe it if I tried. This passage was downloaded from Wikipedia circa 2013 when I was there last.

Well the cops are definitely heading this way I find it difficult to make myself heard over the racket. People are beginning to exit the gaff. The rain has started again but the heat is intensified, or am I in a sweat? Great swathes of water cascade down the side of the building. The neon sign is blurred by the rain making the light from it ethereal. I am tempted to press the return button on my wrist piece, but I would lose some of my fee, and I can’t afford that as I have a very expensive habit called Xeno Jane. A big cop with a red face dripping water on the blood stain aims a look at me meaning stop playing or I’ll arrest you for noise nuisance. I ignore the fat fuck, I’m getting paid to play. I seguay into Sweet Georgia Brown. Maceo Pinkard was a friend of mine, so I can give him a credit.

‘Hey Fatso hold the ivories’, shouts the cop.

‘Name’s Fats’

‘Fatso, Fats, Smats’, hold the noise.

The problem is I don’t know whether this gig is just an extended charade to give some high roller a kick and all will be well in the end. Or a real situation where my life will be ended by a chance bullet aimed at some other sucker.

I hit the last high note on the deck, above the hearing of some, who have sat in front of the drummer and brass section for most of their life.

Two other cops join red face just as wet and just as ugly. The room has more water than the Roman baths on Italiana, a planet I know well. But that is another story.

They block the exit.

‘No one leaves’, says the red face.

It’s a bit late. All have fled except me, the cook, and the fainted broad on the couch. She must be on something. No one except a cat at deaths door is out for that long unless they are on something. A bit of Avir moon dust will be my guess.

‘We had a call from detective Getz that there was some heavy drugs here.’

We who are left look innocent. By that I mean me, ‘cos the fainted broad is still flat out and the cook is still frying fish. I suddenly catch on that that detective Getz is the dead man in the rug. And being dead can’t refute any story I think up.

‘Just me and the wife’. I point to the fainted broad. ‘And my cook. No law against that is there? A happy family having a fish supper.’

Red face looks down and rubs his boot on the blood, stirring it up into tomato soup. Getting a little froth around his toe.

‘I know blood when I see it.

‘Yes officer it is blood’, I offer no more information. Enough is enough.

I play a few quiet chords down the bottom end of the keys.

‘And?’

‘Rabbit’, I answer. ‘The dog killed the pet rabbit’ Ate the lot head an’ all’.

‘Where’s the dog?’

Fuck why did I say that. Now I have to make up more lies. I’m a piano player for God’s sake not an arch criminal. Some gigs are not worth the money. Don’t get me wrong, I like being Fats Waller, he’s fun, a life and soul guy. Usually it’s.

‘High Fats, Great to see you Fats, but this malarkey is a definite downer.

‘Suddenly a fourth cop dashes in.

‘A call from the station, Getz has been washed up in the river by the bridge’.

‘Don’t leave town’, says red face. ‘I’ve got your number.’

I Play them off with a rag from New Orleans.

Just when I think I am in the clear, Red Face returns

‘Fancy a ride Fats? A little cosy ride down to the East side’

‘No thanks officer, I’m quite happy here.’

‘That wasn’t a request. Get off your fat ass and follow me, or shall I use alternative persuasion.’

What the hell I have a get out of jail free card on my wrist. I button up my waistcoat and take my Derby from the piano top.

The car is one of those snub nosed Buick’s with running boards and chrome bumpers. From the outside a monster of a car. But inside it is a crush. I am no skinny snake and Red Face is no midget so we are cheek to cheek on the leather. The two other cops occupy the front bucket seats. We scythe through soaked streets sirens going. The rain is now a persistent drum beat on the roof and the wipers just wave at the rain. I toy with pressing the return button. I could be dry and safe in my own bunk. Admittedly a few thou credits short of a decent bunk up, but alive to play another day. Maybe Oscar Peterson next. He did a session with dead cop Getz’s namesake Stan. Stan Getz Oscar Peterson, Herb Ellis and Ray Brown. What a line up.

Suddenly I get an elbow in the ribs. Red Face is trying to get my attention.

‘What I don’t get is how you can be in two places at once.’

‘How come’

‘You tell me. I have a cousin over in the Fith Precinct, a Sergeant. He tells me that you are appearing at the Reno night club there all month. Unlike me he is a jazz lover and he has been to see you every night this week. In fact he is there tonight and when I find a pay phone that works I will call him to see if you are sitting at the piano putting out the shit you play.’

What can I say I am  doppleganger, an exact double, who does not in fact exist outside the little playlet that the agency have set up. How have I escaped into reality?

How have I been placed into the time when Fats actually lived? There by goes madness. It is all a mistake and time to take my leave. I press the return button. I expect the nano second of mind boggling expansion, before I materialize into the white room.

Nothing.

Red Face is still digging me in the ribs. The rain is still drumming on the roof. I press the button again with the same result. I can feel panic. Did I stand exactly on the black spot, this can not be a black hole.

The Buick stops and the headlights beam lights up the slanting rods of rain hitting the pavement with multiple splashes, and Detective Doil

I realize what has happened I am really on Earth in 1937 not Mars 40037, someone in the agency has cocked up. Or deliberately sent me on a failed mission.

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

Doil beckons  me over, and whispers to me out of the side of his mouth.

‘Stum.’

I have no intension of spilling the beans. Doil is my only hope without the transporter working. Red face waddles over. ‘Are you sure it’s Getz? He puts a thin cheroot into his mouth but it is too wet to light, and throws it into the river. He should follow it.

‘Yeh it’s him alright’, says Doil. There is only one in the force who dresses like a grease ball, and he has his shield on him. Doil hands the shield to Red face.

‘His face is a bit of a mess, but he wasn’t that pretty in the foist place.

‘Why did you bring Fats all the way out here?’

‘I think he had something to do with the murder’ Red face thought about it for a moment. Or maybe he has the best alibi ever’

‘How come?’ If he was at the Reno club, over on Fith, at the time of death, then he is in the clear’.

Doil looked at Red Face, ‘and that is why you brought him all the way over to the East River, just in case he wasn’t at the Reno Club two hours ago. How long do you think in a, yellow, can you get from the top of 5^th Ave to Harlem? Have a think shmuck. Red Face shrugged.

‘OK Fats you can go.’

‘How about some cab fare?’

‘Don’t push it Fats, or I’ll run you in for possession.’

Doil gave me the get out of here stare, and I hailed a passing Yellow, which was a miracle in itself considering the location and the rain.