Felonious Jazz Page 14

  He climbed the stairs to Ashlyn’s carrying his junk, set it on the floor, then sat cross-legged on the freshly shampooed and still crunchy carpet. He pulled out Margaret’s number.

  “Hey.” There was a smile in her voice when she realized it was him. They were both quiet for a second.

  “Annie from my office said you tried to call me.”

  “Yeah. We’re playing a pops show tonight in Raleigh, and I saw your name in a newspaper that was lying around in the lobby. In a correction. ‘J. Davis Swaine is a legal investigator. A story misstated his occupation.’ Sounds like you’re in the middle of something exciting.”

  “That’s definitely been true,” he said. “This case is a lot more immediate than a bad pill that damages your heart valves or rots out your liver,” and left it at that.

  She told him she was still putting in time with the Cincy Symphony. She was already the associate concertmaster, and as soon as the concertmaster found a job with a better orchestra, she’d been told, his job was hers.

  “Until then, no second fiddle jokes. Come see the show tonight. I’ll warn you we’re on a paying-the-bills tour, as our conductor puts it. But there’s one nice Vivaldi piece on the program, plus a lot of show tunes and patriotic stuff that sells seats. I’ll leave you two tickets at the box office.”

  Jeff needed to get away from all of this for a few hours. It would be nice to hear some music, nice to see her.

  “Okay. But I just need one ticket.”

  He heard the smile in her voice. “Well. We’ll have to get a drink afterward and catch up. It’s been a long time. Meet me by the bus. I’ve missed you, Jeff.”

  And before he agreed, she ended the call.

  Thirty-five

  Jeff wore a tan linen sportcoat with a white dress shirt. He picked up his ticket at the Will Call. Margaret had scored him a box seat, and an usher led him to his perch to the right of the stage.

  He stuck his forefinger into his collar, which was pinching his throat, and leafed through the program. A few musicians milled around on stage as the timpanist ran through some licks. Ladies in evening gowns laughed loudly but with great dignity in the aisles below.

  “Margaret Samuels is a masterful violinist who began her career with the Cincinnati Symphony and rose rapidly to associate concertmaster,” her program bio said. “She holds both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in violin performance from Northwestern University.”

  She was half Italian and a quarter Japanese, which made her striking. She looked glamorous in the photo, with a serious, smug expression, magnificent cheekbones, teeth to make an orthodontist cry, wavy raven hair with a slight widow’s peak and penetrating eyes. Jeff could perfectly picture their shade of green, though the photo was black-and-white.

  Just before the program was scheduled to begin, three other men joined Jeff in Box A and sat with a nod. The smell of scotch wafted off them. Spouses of musicians, Jeff guessed.

  Orchestra members filed onto the stage. There was Margaret.

  She took her place in front of a chair that faced his box head-on, perpendicular to the floor seats. Her strapless black gown showed off porcelain shoulders, which he remembered always feeling slightly cooler than his hands. Her face was even more handsome than it had been in college. She looked directly at him while the audience applauded, smiled to reveal those beautiful teeth, then gave him a wink with her backstage eye as the conductor entered to a gale of applause.

  Then she sat, tucked the violin between her chin and collarbone and fixed her gaze on the conductor’s hovering baton.

  Electricity danced across his skin as she performed. She was more expressive, more confident than before. She closed her eyes through quiet passages, the bow delicately between her thumb and forefinger as she drew its length languorously across the strings. She jerked her whole body through staccato phrases.

  The Vivaldi piece ended, and Jeff and a few audience members stood quickly to applaud. Everyone else belatedly succumbed.

  Margaret raised her gaze to Jeff’s box, saw his reaction. A blush washed over her face, and she arched her eyebrows. It felt as intimate as being naked with her.

  As Margaret had warned, the rest of the program was fluff. But the orchestra executed each piece well and drew lots of applause. A Phantom of the Opera overture, some Rogers and Hammerstein. John Williams Olympics anthems and a little Gershwin salvaged the final half-hour.

  Jeff stopped by the restroom, then picked his way through the crowded parking lot to the stage door. A luxury motor coach painted in a purple geometric design waited to take the musicians back to their hotel. He stood near it and waited, as he often had outside Pick-Staiger Concert Hall at Northwestern. He felt nervous. He didn’t let himself think too much.

  The plain steel stage door opened several times before Margaret stepped out. She carried her violin case and a little sequined handbag. She still wore the black gown. She smiled as they closed the distance and fell into a tight hug.

  He remembered her scent as soon as he detected it, a rich vanilla that seemed to come from every square inch of her skin. He’d never known whether it was shampoo or perfume or something else. She seemed surprisingly tall, and he realized it was because she was a good six inches taller than Ashlyn. He took a step back from her and said hello.

  “You look great. I thought you’d throw on sweatpants and a T-shirt after the show.”

  She scanned him up and down with those eyes. “I knew you’d still have that on, and I didn’t want to be the slob hanging around with the sharp-dressed Southern beau. Who broke your nose?”

  Jeff fingered the little ridge. “I got this working in TV back in Pennsylvania. Just a little difference of opinion with the subject of a story.”

  “Who prevailed in the end?”

  Jeff forced a smile. “Like a lot of arguments, I think: No real winner.”

  “Too bad. But I like the scar – looks tough.” She was smirking at him. “Well, where are you taking me? Does Raleigh have anything to offer besides that one mall they keep driving us to?”

  “I’m sure we can find something decent. Have you had dinner?” As soon as he asked, he remembered she never ate before performing.

  She just looked at him and cocked her head.

  “It’s got to be The Duck and Dumpling,” Jeff said.

  She hooked her hand over his elbow in a way that could have been flirtatious or simply upper-crust Northeastern formal. He led her to the Audi, opened the passenger door for her.

  She settled into the seat, glanced around the car, and said, “You’ve done well for yourself.” He shut the door for her.

  Though neither of them had had a car at school, it felt perfectly natural to have her in the passenger seat of his now, Jeff realized as he turned the key and put his hand on the back of her seat to back out of the space.

  She said she was resisting recruiters from more prestigious orchestras because she was sure she’d get concertmaster in Cincinnati. Besides, she was pretty happy there. She had a loft condominium with a view of the Ohio River. One of the orchestra’s patrons, an old man who loved her playing, had loaned her use the of the 200-year old Cremona violin from his collection that now rested at her feet. Jeff knew that having a collector lend you a violin was a compliment reserved for the world’s best violinists.

  “You always said you’d know you’d made it when your violin had a name. Does this one?”

  She pursed her lips in an attempt to be modest, but a grin stretched across her face. “ ‘The Marquis de Savigny,’ after the Spanish nobleman who owned it for most of the 19 century.”

  He stretched out his hand so she could give him five. “How much is it worth?”

  “Depends on the mood of the market when you’re ready to sell, but at least half a million, maybe double that.”

  Jeff whistled and glanced down at the instrument’s undistinguished molded plastic case.

  “So tell me the story behind that schnoz.”

  He told her
about the gang kids. He thought about telling her how his apartment had just been forcibly furnished and how much it was bothering him because of the old experience. But he was unwilling at the moment to face that reality or burden their conversation with it.

  They parked the car in a parallel street space, and Margaret took the violin case as she stepped onto the curb.

  The downtown restaurant faced a large public park. They got a little table in a corner and spent three hours drinking wine and eating a series of appetizers but no entrees. He could still make her smile, and the tip of her nose still wrinkled whenever she had a mischievous thought. She looked fantastic. Jeff felt much better tonight.

  With a series of gentle questions, Margaret soon got Jeff talking about the Rocky Falls burglar. He told her almost every detail, including that the furniture had been placed in an empty apartment. But he left out that it was his loft. The case made her smile with fascination, and she tried to shape a theory that would explain all the oddball crimes.

  The waiter came to clear dessert. Jeff set down his empty coffee cup. When he looked up from the saucer, she’d already pulled out a credit card and was sliding it into the leather folder. She shook her head to pre-empt his challenge.

  “You make this Rocky Falls sound like the most generic place in the world. It can’t be that bad. Give me the grand tour.”

  She was extending the evening, and Jeff wondered how Margaret expected it to end. He read her as being open to going to bed with him. That brought back his chronic guilt about Ashlyn, whom he hadn’t mentioned, and made him determined to salvage some small sense of personal morality by not sleeping with a second woman until he could speak with Ashlyn.

  So an uncomfortable moment potentially lay ahead tonight with Margaret, but he wasn’t quite ready yet to ruin the connection they were sharing. Or to be alone.

  He took her back to the car. They drove north on Glenwood Avenue. They picked up Rocky Falls Boulevard just south of I-540, and when they crossed the freeway, he started pointing out landmarks, mostly shopping centers, he realized. They passed the newspaper bureau, and when they came to The Rocky Falls Brewery & Grille, she pointed. “Let’s get another drink.”

  That seemed a safe enough idea.

  She brought the violin inside again, and the hostess led them to a cocktail table.

  When the bartender spotted the instrument, he grabbed a bottle of wine and two crystal stems, ducked under the bar and came to their table. “The band is late, and the crowd’s getting antsy. I’m afraid they’ll start to leave. This is on the house if you’ll play for 10 or 15 minutes.”

  The bottle was a nice Burgundy, and Margaret looked at it and raised an eyebrow. “Pretty nice. How’d you know we were red wine drinkers? And how do you know I’m good enough to play in public?”

  “Two questions; one answer: The dress.”

  She grinned and shrugged. “What kind of thing do they like to hear?”

  Jeff checked out the crowd, lots of couples in their 30s and up wearing sweaters, polo shirts or Tommy Bahama button-ups with khakis or dress slacks.

  “Band plays jazz, but I’m sure you’ll be a hit with whatever.”

  She looked at Jeff, and he nodded and leaned against the cushion of the booth. Margaret unlatched the case. The instrument’s worn, bourbon-colored wood glowed under the pendant light.

  The bartender smiled, set the glasses upright on the table and pulled a wine key from his back pocket. “I really appreciate it.”

  Margaret stood with the violin before he poured, and Jeff realized she was protecting it from a potential spill. Jeff tried a sip. It was velvety; Ashlyn would like it, he realized, again feeling guilty.

  Margaret took a quick gulp, waved to Jeff and mounted the little stage near the bar. The televisions switched off and people quieted down and looked her way as she tuned.

  She launched into an Irish reel. The last voices fell away. She closed her eyes and swayed as she moved from the microphone so that people would hear the instrument’s pure tone acoustically. She captured each eye in the room until no one touched a drink. When she finished the piece with a flourish, the people stood and hollered.

  Margaret bowed from the waist, then held her bow ready until they quieted again. She started a bluegrass tune that got them clapping along. When they applauded that, she said, “This next one is an old one, something a little different. I hope you like it.”

  Tears collecting along Jeff’s his eyelids at the first notes. She was playing the Bartok solo piece she’d worked to master her senior year while she and Jeff were together. He refrained from blinking and was glad she didn’t look at him. The sonorous vibrations of the fine violin were other-worldly, and her playing amazingly better than when he’d last heard her.

  When it ended, the audience didn’t clap. It didn’t move. The room was still, as if people hoped to experience just one more sound wave.

  Margaret quietly stepped from the stage and returned to the table. People watched her. A guy with red hair started an awestruck round of applause. Jeff lifted his glass and mouthed, “To you.” She tapped her glass to his, gave a slightly sad smile and took a sip.

  A three-piece jazz combo hustled onto the stage from some corner where they’d assembled. Margaret smiled at Jeff and refilled his glass. The tangle of conversations resumed, and people stopped by the table and left tips for Margaret.

  “I have to remember to supplement my income with bar gigs next time we go on strike at the CSO.” She grinned, smoothing a five-dollar bill and adding it to a discreet stack near the wine bottle.

  Jeff felt unsure what to say, so he was glad when the bassist started into “Gloria’s Step,” a tune he recognized from Bill Evans Trio Sunday at the Village Vanguard.

  They sipped their wine and chatted, pouring the last few drops from the bottle as the first set closed with the pianist introducing the band.

  “Leonard Noblac on bass, everybody.” There was more applause, but the bassist didn’t step out of the shadow at the back of the stage. “And folks, you can hear all of us plus a couple of other local musicians on Leonard’s forthcoming CD, ‘Everything Comes Due At Once.’ We’ve been in the studio all day. When’s that coming out, Leonard?”

  The bassist with the porkpie hat was too far from the microphone, so when he mumbled something, Jeff couldn’t hear. The pianist said, “To be announced, everyone. We’ll be back after the break, and we’re back here again next weekend. Stay tuned. And how about another hand for our opening act.”

  The people clapped, and a minute later, Jeff and Margaret stood to leave. She left one of the five-dollar bills she’d earned in the band’s tip jar as she passed the stage.

  Thirty-six

  Leonard pushed out through the side door of Rocky Falls Brewery & Grille into the parking lot, unlocked the door to his station wagon and sat behind the wheel. It was a small damned world. J. Davis Swaine, his nemesis, had come to his steady Saturday night gig in Burbland. Leonard paused in a shadow and watched Jeff and the girl laugh their way across the parking lot.

  And that wasn’t enough. No. Davis Swaine had upstaged him times two. He had brought in some brilliant violin player to make his band look like crap, some girl who could play like that without even trying, and who would be famous with those looks even if she sucked. And that was the other thing: Jeff had rubbed it in Leonard’s face that he could get with such a fine looking lady. And damn! It was a different babe than the one in the picture he’d found on the floor at the kid’s apartment.

  The sarcastic bitch had tipped him five bucks like he was the hired help, like you’d pat a dumb little kid on the head for trying his hardest. Insult!

  Maybe Davis Swaine had figured him out! Maybe this was payback for the furniture thing. Leonard chastised himself for letting Davis Swaine fall off his radar just because Track Five was finished. Just because the name hadn’t been in the last couple stories in the paper.

  Leonard had a moment of panic when the light reflected o
ff the girl’s teeth as she smiled at the investigator. Directed at Leonard, it would have been enough to paralyze him. Then she folded herself into the hot little sports car.

  Leonard looked at his watch. The set break would last another 12 minutes, but he was the band leader, so he could stretch it if he needed to. He slumped in the seat to straighten out his hips so he could reach into his pants pocket for the car keys. He took off the hat and set it on the seat but kept on the chick shades, which weren’t too dark brown, especially with all these street lights.

  He pulled onto Rocky Falls Boulevard behind the little convertible. He followed it for about ten minutes, the Audi seeming to hug the right edge of the lane, until it suddenly turned into the driveway for Laurel Lake Apartment Homes. He passed the driveway, made a quick U-turn, then entered the apartment parking lot in time to spot Davis Swaine’s taillights going dark. He killed his own headlights and parked in a handicap spot.

  Fury burned in his chest. This gorgeous brunette, this musician, this string player – the type of girl who should be all over Leonard – sashayed down the sidewalk, moving that great little butt for Jeff, pressing her violin case against her tight little tits.

  Leonard started with the naked shoulders he could see and mentally extended the idea downward until he could picture those tits. Feel his tongue bump over each one of her lower ribs, then slide smoothly up the little hill to her nipple, which he imagined small and pointy, like a man’s, then up her sternum to her magnificent neck. Man, she was a perfect musical instrument. Leonard immediately heard the beat for a new composition. Throbbing, hungry percussive notes in a quick tempo…

  He watched Jeff walk around her, lead her to the door in no hurry. And why should he hurry? He knew he was about to get some.

  Yeah, he would get some. Leonard took a deep breath and glanced at his watch. They were expecting him back at the restaurant to start his second set.