Bird Lives! Read online

  Jeff doesn’t say anything, and heads for the kitchen. I take the phone, go outside for a smoke, and call Andie Lawrence. She answers on the first ring.

  “Evan?”

  “Yeah, it’s me. Just checking in.” We both know it’s more than that. I still haven’t had a chance to talk to her alone.

  “Gillian’s profile is filling out, but there’s still so much we don’t know.”

  “There’s a lot I don’t know, Andie,” I say. “Can we get together, somewhere besides your office?”

  “Sure,” Andie says. “I think I know what you want.”

  “All right. My place? I’m rehearsing now, but we’ll be through in a couple of hours.”

  “Okay, I can do that.” She pauses, then says, “What about Natalie?”

  “Don’t worry about it. She won’t be there.”

  “Okay, see you then.”

  Just as I press the off button, Paul Westbrook pulls into the driveway. He gets out and comes over smiling.

  “Good news, Evan. The Chadney’s gig came through, next Friday and Saturday.”

  We shake hands. “That’s great, Paul. Great. The rehearsal is going well. I’m glad you could stop by.”

  He shrugs. “Afraid I can’t stay. Something else has come up, but I wanted to tell you about Chadney’s.” He turns around as Gene drives up and parks his station wagon alongside Westbrook’s Lexus.

  “Gene Sherman, my drummer,” I say, as Gene gets out of the car carrying a sandwich and a couple of bottles of beer.

  “Oh, yes, I remember, from the Bakery.”

  They shake hands while Gene balances the beer bottles under his arm and holds the sandwich with one hand. We go inside and find Jeff noodling at the piano. I introduce Jeff and Westbrook.

  “I’ve got a few minutes,” Westbrook says, glancing at his watch. “Want to give me a sample?”

  “Sure. Guys?”

  Gene sits at his drums, his mouth stuffed with a bite of sandwich. Jeff picks up his bass, and we launch into one of the tunes we’d rehearsed earlier while Westbrook pulls up a chair.

  I feel his eyes on me. I’m conscious of the glove, but the wrist is still warm, and when I comp for Jeff’s solo, Westbrook comes over and says in my ear, “Sounds good, Evan.”

  I nod and keep playing as he taps me on the shoulder and goes out. We finish the tune, and I give the guys the thumbs-up.

  “Chadney’s Friday night,” I say.

  On the drive back to Venice I replay the rehearsal in my mind and look ahead to the date at Chadney’s, allowing myself to feel some sense of normality, as if I were just driving back from a rehearsal, bitching to myself at the traffic on the 405. Then, just near Sunset, a cluster of brightening taillights in front of me, my phone rings.

  “Hello.” I’m thinking it’s Andie putting off our meeting, but it’s Miles Davis from Kind of Blue and Gillian. I jerk the wheel, look over my shoulder, and cut off two cars as I pull over into the emergency lane and stop. Horns honk at me, but the blues “Freddie Freeloader” has my ear.

  “Did you think I’d forgotten you, Evan?” Gillian says.

  I glance at the traffic lanes to my left and glimpse a pretty blond passing in a BMW convertible, a phone to her ear, her hair blowing in the wind, a broad smile on her face.

  “No, I knew you’d call.”

  “I can’t talk long, Evan. I’m busy today. Just wanted to let you know you’ll be receiving something later.”

  “What? How?” I press the phone to my ear, try to pick up any background sounds that will tell me something about where she is, but there’s nothing but the music.

  Gillian laughs. “Don’t you like surprises, Evan?”

  I get a few bars of Miles’s mournful trumpet solo, then Gillian is gone.

  I sit for a few minutes watching traffic go by. I throw the phone on the seat beside me and pound the steering wheel. Why now? I keep asking myself. Why now?

  I jump when there’s a tap on my window. I look up to see a motorcycle cop in helmet and mirrored sunglasses, gloves in his hand. I hadn’t even seen him pull up. I roll down the window and look at him. He leans in, one hand on top of the Camaro.

  “You okay?”

  “What? Oh, yeah. Just got a call.” I point to the cell phone. “Thought it would be better to pull over.”

  “Must have been bad news,” he says. “Saw you pounding on the wheel.” He looks over his shoulder at the traffic, then back to me, studying my face, deciding I’m no threat to southern California traffic “Well, let’s move it along. This is the breakdown lane.”

  “Oh, sure, sorry.” I start the car. The officer walks back to his motorcycle but waits till I pull out into traffic. I watch him in the mirror as he follows me till I exit at Washington Boulevard, and wonder what he’d say if I told him I was assisting the FBI.

  I pull into my parking space, turn off the engine, and sit for a moment listening to traffic noise, the distant surf. Gillian has already been in my car once, so I start looking there, but my car has only been at Jeff’s today, so it’s a halfhearted attempt. I check the mailbox, look under the mat, but there’s nothing. Inside, I throw my keys and cell phone on the counter. No phone messages either. The green light glows steadily.

  I stand in front of the refrigerator for a couple of minutes, trying to decide if I’m hungry. There’s not much choice, so I settle on some leftover tuna and make myself a sandwich. I open a beer and eat half the sandwich before Andie shows up.

  She comes in carrying a file folder. Today she’s in a short, pleated skirt, white blouse, and a light jacket.

  “Gillian just called me,” I say. “Andie, I was in the car. The call forwarding was turned off.”

  Andie nods and sits down on the couch, smooths her skirt over her legs. She seems distracted, resigned, troubled about something. “She’s got your number. Like we said, it’s easy to clone a cell phone.”

  “She sure does.”

  We look at each other and almost laugh, realizing what we’ve just said. I remember the blond who passed me on the freeway. Gillian could have been that woman or anybody in any of those cars.

  “She said I’d be getting something today.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. We only talked a minute or so.” I sit down opposite Andie and take a swig of my beer. “I hate this, Andie. I can’t handle it.”

  “I know, but you have to, Evan.” She holds up the file folder. “Look, Wendell doesn’t know I’ve done this, but I want you to see what we’re dealing with, why you have to handle it. This isn’t the official report, but I’ve summarized things.”

  I get a cigarette going and open the file. There are three printout pages clipped inside. I read through it quickly, a queasiness rising inside me. The background of the four murder victims, the autopsy reports, the profile of Gillian, none of it seems real. I glance up at Andie, see her watching me.

  I look back at the file. “What’s this about semen samples?” There are two: one for Cochise and one for Ty Rodman.

  “I think you’re right about Gillian. Both of them had sex before they were killed. We have to allow that it might have been with Gillian. I think she is somebody who could get close; maybe she even knew them.”

  I take a drag on my cigarette, put it out, and think that over. Jesus, like a black widow. For all four victims, the cause of death is listed as the same: stabbing, not slashed or cut up but clean, concise wounds.

  “She knows what she’s doing,” Andie says. “The entry wounds were precise in all cases. That suggests some medical knowledge. I wanted you to know how she works, what you’re up against.”

  I look at the file again. Hearing that someone has been stabbed is one thing. It’s in the paper, on the news, every day. But seeing it in black and white, having seen Rodman’s body, even briefly, is something else again, especially when I’ve talked to the person responsible.

  Did she look into their surprised eyes? Did she smile? Did she say something to them? Wha
t were the last words they heard?

  I walk over to the window and look out toward the beach. The glare of the late-afternoon sun slashes through the glass like a spotlight. Dust particles swirl in the air.

  I’m turning back to Andie when there’s a loud knock on the door. I flinch, but Andie simply stands up and looks at me. “Natalie?”

  “No, she has her own key.” I go to the door and look through the peephole. There’s a man in a uniform and cap, chewing gum, looking toward the beach. I open the door.

  “Evan Horne?”

  “Yeah.”

  He nods, pops his gum. “Sign right here, please.” He hands me a clipboard and a pen. I sign, trade him the clipboard for a flat, cardboard FedEx envelope. “Have a nice day,” he says, touching the bill of his cap with his fingers.

  I shut the door and hold up the envelope for Andie.

  “Here, let me,” she says. She rips back the perforated strip on the envelope, then stops. “If Wendell ever asks, you got this and called me.”

  I look at her for a moment. She meets my eyes, and I realize our relationship just changed.

  She presses the two end edges toward each other so the envelope bows and looks inside. “Wait a minute,” she says. She puts the envelope down and digs in her purse, pulling things out, laying them on the coffee table.

  Most women carry a wallet, keys, tissue packs, lipstick in their purse. Andie carries all those things plus a gun and a small dispenser of latex gloves. “There probably won’t be any prints,” she says, handing me a pair, “but just in case.”

  The gloves are tricky to get on. They’re tight, and the elastic pops as I struggle to stretch them over my fingers. For a moment I flash on the Simpson trial, O. J. in court, giving his best performance for the jury. Andie has hers on in seconds, and she helps me pull the top of the glove over my wrist.

  She opens the envelope again and lays the contents, one typed sheet of paper, on the coffee table. She looks inside again and pulls out something else—another white feather. She glances at me and lays it aside. The note is addressed to me. At the top is another poem.

  All Blues and All Hues

  Freddie Was a Freeloader

  So What?

  Andie leans in for a closer look. “Who’s Freddie?”

  “Miles Davis. That’s what she was playing when she called today. Those are all Miles tunes—‘All Blues,’ ‘Freddie Freeloader,’ and ‘So What?’”

  “And the ‘all hues’?”

  “Somebody wrote lyrics to ‘All Blues,’—the singer, Mark Murphy, I think.”

  “Was Freddie a musician?”

  “No, I don’t think so. There are lyrics to ‘Freddie’ too. Jon Hendricks recorded it a few years ago. The lyrics are on the liner notes. I think Freddie was some kind of legendary bartender in Philadelphia.”

  “Have you got the CD?” Andie asks.

  “Yeah, it’s around here somewhere.”

  “Okay, I want to hear the music and see those lyrics later.”

  I nod, and we look at the text of the note.

  Evan,

  My brother died. His name was Greg Sims. He played saxophone. The police say it was suicide. I don’t believe it. You find the truth; I’ll be still. Remember our bargain. Don’t fail me.

  Gillian

  Andie and I both stare at the page for several minutes, not speaking. I don’t know what Andie is thinking, but I can’t shake the cloud of disbelief and apprehension that begins to envelop me.

  “What am I supposed to do with that?” I lean back on the couch and shut my eyes.

  “This is interesting,” Andie says.

  “Interesting? Jesus, it’s scary.”

  “No, look. This is a woman who writes haiku—she’s three syllables short on this one, by the way—and carefully selects music to play when she calls you. Now she writes like this, these short sentences.”

  I look at Andie, then pick up the page and stare at it. “I don’t get it. So what?”

  “She’s not only typed on paper that probably can be found anywhere, she’s also disguising her writing style. Have you ever heard of Greg Sims?”

  “No, never.”

  Andie takes out her cell phone and picks up the FedEx envelope. She calls, identifies herself as FBI, and asks for a trace on the delivery, then gives them her number and hangs up.

  “This will be a dead end too, but I’ve got to follow through.” She reads the page again and looks at me. “Anything else you can think of?”

  “No.” I strip off my gloves and go into the kitchen, get a bottle of water out of the refrigerator. “Want some?” I ask Andie, holding up the bottle.

  “Sure, thanks.”

  I bring back two bottles. We both take a long drink while looking at the page again.

  “What does she expect me to do with this?”

  Andie puts her bottle down. “There’s going to be more. Another delivery, a call. She’ll give you more details. This is just to let you know what it’s about.”

  “And to let me know she knows where I live.”

  Andie nods. “I’m not worried about that. She knows we would have your place under surveillance, and anyway she wants your help. I’ve called that off already. She doesn’t want to harm you.”

  Unless I don’t do what she wants. “Well, that certainly makes me feel better.”

  Andie kicks off her shoes and looks at me. “Do you mind?”

  I shrug. “Make yourself at home.”

  She leans back and rubs her forehead, pushes her hair back. “God, I’m so tired,” she says. She closes her eyes, crosses her arms across her body. “I’ll get this back to the office and run the usual tests.”

  “But you won’t find anything, will you?”

  Her eyes blink open. She sees me watching her but doesn’t move. “Probably not, but it’s one more piece of the puzzle.”

  She closes her eyes again. A blur of emotions and thoughts race through me as I watch her. This is Andie’s job, it has a fascination for her; but it’s objective, another case that will go into the computer to be drawn on later.

  Thrown together by necessity, we’ve somehow connected in a way I don’t yet understand, something beyond Gillian, the urgency of stopping her. Does Gillian know that too? But it’s on hold, and it’s in my power to let it go or stop it. And of course there’s Natalie, who knows what I’ve gone through to get back to the piano and wants to protect me from something she doesn’t understand.

  “What about that CD? You want to hear it now?”

  Andie opens her eyes again and sits up. She finishes off her water and clasps her hands on her knees, notices the gloves, and peels them off. “Yeah. Sorry, I almost went out for a minute there.”

  “Okay, a brief jazz lesson.” I find the Miles Kind of Blue CD and the Jon Hendricks one of Freddie Freeloader, recorded forty years later. “You want to hear where the lyrics came from first?”

  “Sure,” Andie says.

  I put the Miles on. “This is what Gillian played on the phone today.” I let it go all the way through Wynton Kelly’s solo and half of Miles before I switch discs. “Okay, there are two more solos—Cannonball Adderly and John Coltrane. What Hendricks did was write lyrics not only to the melody line but to the solos as well, and he had some help. Bobby McFerrin, George Benson, and Al Jarreau.”

  “I know them,” Andie says, “but not Jon Hendricks.”

  “Yeah, well they’ve all gone pretty commercial, but they did this date for Jon, I’d bet on it. Try to keep the Miles CD in mind while you listen to this, and follow along with the lyrics.” I hand her the CD jewel case.

  She unfolds the notes. “Okay, I got it.”

  I put the Hendricks CD on and play the title track. I’d forgotten how good this is. The voices blend well on the head, and then Bobby McFerrin sings the Wynton Kelly solo; Al Jarreau for Miles. Hendricks has captured all the nuance of the original solos in such a way that the story of Freddie Freeloader is told from four points of view,
and the voices are a perfect match. No wonder it almost won a Grammy.

  I watch Andie listen and read along with the printed lyrics. She looks up when Jarreau finishes and George Benson is suddenly Cannonball Adderly. “That’s amazing,” Andie says. “I don’t understand how Hendricks could do that, how they can all sing that fast.”

  “Well, you have the idea.” I get up to stop the CD, but she holds up her hand.

  “No, wait. I want to hear all of it.”

  We both listen as George Benson tackles Hendricks’s lyrics to the more intricate lines of Cannonball. We’re halfway through Jon Hendricks, somehow managing to perfectly catch Coltrane’s sound, when we hear a key in the door.

  Natalie comes in, carrying a small plastic supermarket bag. She sees me first. “Hi, I—” She stiffens and takes in Andie, her shoes on the floor, then glances at the CD player, listens for a moment. “Well, this is cozy.”

  Andie drops the liner notes on the coffee table and stands up. “Hello, Natalie. We’re just going over some things on the case.”

  “Yeah, right,” Natalie says.

  “Natalie, I—” I don’t finish. For a few moments the three of us stand in silence. The tension hangs over the room like smoke.

  “Hey, it’s okay,” Natalie says, but her voice is shaky. “I don’t want to interrupt anything.” She absently sets the bag on the floor, gives me one probing look, then turns and goes back out, pulling the door shut behind her.

  I glance at Andie. She says, “Okay.” Her head is bowed.

  I follow Natalie out and catch up with her at her car. She’s fumbling with the keys, trying to get the door unlocked.

  “Natalie, come on.” I turn her around, holding her by the shoulders. She looks up at me. Her eyes glisten. She looks away, swallows, then looks back at me.

  “I don’t know what’s going on, Evan. You haven’t told me anything.”

  “Every time I try, you either shut down or run away. Let’s talk about it. There’s a good reason I’m trying to keep you out of this.”

  “Yeah,” Natalie says. “One of them is sitting in your apartment in a short skirt, her shoes off, listening to music. Is that official FBI procedure?”