Death of a Tenor Man Read online

  We’re standing before a white grand piano—already a bad sign—on the lower level of the Fashion Show Mall, just off the Strip near the Frontier Hotel. A red velvet rope shields us from the steady stream of morning shoppers that troop past carrying bags with the logos of Neiman Marcus, Saks, and The Sharper Image.

  Directly opposite is the mall food court, a collection of upscale fast-food outlets—everything from gourmet coffee and muffins to baked potatoes with nacho sauce. The Fashion Show management decided piano background would soothe the shoppers, get them to linger, and give the mall some added class. They also contribute to the UNLV music department and get most of the pianists from there. I’m one of two exceptions to the graduate student pool, mainly thanks to Ace’s contacts at the university.

  “You got your own music, right?” Brent Tyler asks. He’s used to the music students who come in with a briefcase full of sheet music—show tunes, classics, and the occasional concerto to practice for a recital. Most of them probably figure this gig as paid practice. For me it’s going to be therapy.

  “I’ll fake it,” I say, running my fingers over the keyboard. No stuck keys, but I’ll be surprised if it’s in tune. I hope Brent doesn’t offer to paint it. Once when I pointed out to a club owner several stuck keys that produced no sound whatsoever on his piano, he’d said quite seriously, “Can’t you play some songs that don’t use those notes?”

  “Whatever,” Tyler says. He takes in my dark suit, white shirt, and Miles Davis print tie. “You got a tux?”

  I nod. Tyler and I met earlier in his office to sign a contract, and this is the end of the mall tour he insisted on—to give me a feel for the place, as he puts it. I told him I’d actually been to a mall before, but Brent was adamant.

  “Okay, here’s the deal. Music starts at noon. Two-hour shifts. Except today, you come on at two and relieve Roger Baldwin,” Tyler says, consulting his clipboard. “Like the piano, get it?”

  “Cute.”

  “Mary Lou relieves you.”

  Somehow I manage to avoid rolling my eyes as Tyler continues. “If she’s late or doesn’t show, you stay on, understood?” I nod my compliance.

  “Good luck,” he says, flashing me his best smile. “You have four weeks, then we’ll see. Nice to have you at the Fashion Show.” He shakes hands briefly, then his phone rings. He pulls it out of his pocket, waves at me, and heads up the mall, phone to his ear, a smile on his face, a friendly wave for the shoppers. What a guy.

  I sit down at the piano and tentatively try a few chords. Action is okay and, amazingly, it is in tune. The sound is dampened by the crowd, and I’m far enough away from the food court area that I doubt whether anyone can hear very well, which suits me fine.

  The customers are staff on their lunch break wearing name tags from their respective stores, shoppers taking a break, and weary husbands or boyfriends looking at their watches, wondering where their wives are.

  Anybody looking my way just sees someone in a suit sitting at a white piano, and once in a while think they hear a note or two over the din of conversation. It’s an illusion, a musical illusion. I glance back over my shoulder and smile at the escalator riders coming down from the upper level above me.

  I clench my fists a few times, take a deep breath, and try a few bars of a ballad I can’t even remember the name of. I have to concentrate, willing the fingers of my right hand to follow the right pattern. The rubber ball I used to squeeze for strength is behind me, but the flexibility is still not there like it should be.

  Before the accident I could play this tune, keep a cigarette, a drink, and a conversation going with no trouble at all. Hand feels okay, but this is only the first tune. Two hours to go, and I don’t know how quickly my fingers will tire.

  I start a second chorus, begin to stretch out a bit. Nothing fancy, just some easy runs. My mind is way ahead of my fingers. Going into the bridge, I falter momentarily. I haven’t forgotten the chords, but my fingers are just a hair slow. I look up and see a gray-haired woman in a warm-up suit who catches my eye, her head nodding to the music, a dreamy look in her eyes.

  “That’s really nice,” she says, clutching her shopping bag. I smile back and nod a thanks and almost lose my place.

  I’m a long way from jazz clubs and concert stages.

  I had a VW when I was in college, but it’s been years since I’ve driven one. This one is in excellent condition—I’m sure Janey Buffington never drove it more than to the store or short trips around town. She and Ace had installed an add-on air conditioner, but it does little more than turn down the blow-dryer heat to low. I keep one of the wing windows open to create some air flow.

  Jacket off and tie loosened, I leave the Fashion Show parking lot and head west on Spring Mountain, across the railroad tracks—after a slow freight holds things up for ten minutes—and on to Decatur, where I turn right. With the rest of the afternoon still ahead of me, I can’t resist taking a look at the Moulin Rouge, the site of Wardell Gray’s last gig.

  Bypassing downtown and the freeway, I turn east on Bonanza. I pull up to a warehouse parking lot across the street from the casino and get my first look at the Moulin Rouge. In its neglected state the large red-and-white structure looks like a small transplanted Strip hotel that’s been abandoned. From what Ace has told me, the inside is worse.

  Opening in 1955, the Moulin Rouge quickly became a celebrity hangout, packed nightly. I try to imagine opening night. A jammed parking lot, limos pulling up to deposit the likes of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis, Jr. Benny Carter’s band onstage, a line of show girls, celebrities, and skinny Wardell, the thin man of the tenor, standing up to solo. A gig for Wardell that was his last; a dream of an interracial hotel-casino that was over in six months. Ace tells me there’s a move under way to raise money, renovate, and try again.

  All I can think of is, what happened to Wardell Gray?

  Time for some research. I leave the warehouse lot and continue east on Bonanza, all the way to Maryland Parkway, then south to the UNLV campus. The summer-school rush is on, but thanks to Ace’s temporary faculty permit hanging from the rearview mirror, I manage to find a parking spot near the library.

  I’ve visited Ace at the campus several times in the past, so I generally know my way around. It’s a short but hot walk to the library. The students, male and female, are dressed mostly in shorts and T-shirts, and many of them carry water bottles or Big Gulp drinks from the 7-Eleven. Something I’ll have to look into.

  At the library building I make my way to the elevator, where, following Ace’s instructions, I got to the fourth floor, Special Collections. A thin blond man I take for a graduate student looks up from his computer when I walk in. There are no other takers.

  “Hi,” he says, as if glad for the interruption. “Can I help you?”

  “My name is Evan Horne,” I say. “Professor Buffington in English may have called you.”

  “Oh yeah, right,” he says, consulting a pad in front of him. “You’re looking for stuff on the Moulin Rouge.” He shakes hands and gives me a file folder. “Ted Rollings,” he says. “I pulled what we have. You can look at it over there,” he says, indicating a row of tables. “Anything you want copied, I’ll do it for you.”

  “Thanks,” I say, taking the file. While Rollings goes back to his computer, I sit down and flip through the clippings, newspaper stories and photos documenting the brief history of the Moulin Rouge.

  Halfway into the pile, after a number of articles about the building of the hotel-casino and its opening, I find the first mention of the saxophonist’s death in a series of newspaper articles.

  NOTED JAZZ SAXOPHONIST WARDELL GRAY FOUND SLAIN

  The body of one of the nation’s leading Negro jazz musicians, Wardell Carl Gray, was found in a weed patch at the side of the road in Vegas Heights yesterday. Sheriff’s deputies said the well-dressed man apparently had been slain.

  The story goes on to say that robbery was ruled out, since Gray’s watch, w
allet, and ring were still on his person. According to the testimony of another musician, Gray owed someone in Los Angeles nine hundred dollars. Investigators theorized that that person might have followed Gray to Las Vegas to collect.

  Would someone murder Gray for nine hundred dollars? Today it happens all the time for much lesser amounts, and if Gray was involved with drug dealers, it’s certainly a possibility.

  Another story cites dancer Theodore Haley, professional name Teddy Hale, member of the Moulin Rouge show, as a suspect. Hale’s story was that he met Gray after the second show, and the two of them went to Hale’s apartment for a “joy pop” of heroin. Both passed out. When Hale regained consciousness, he tried to revive Gray, but the saxophonist fell off the bed and hit his head on the floor. Hale panicked, fearful he would be prosecuted for narcotics possession, and drove Gray to the desert, where he left the saxophonist’s body. Hale sticks to his story even with a lie detector test, which he apparently passes. Another headline:

  DANCER CLEARS SELF IN DEATH OF SAX PLAYER.

  The police evidently bought Hale’s version of what happened; he describes in detail the events leading up to the discovery of Gray’s body. The police reported that they discovered several needles and spoons in Hale’s home but did not find any actual heroin.

  In still another article, a different theory is offered by the deputy coroner. The headline stops me cold.

  HINT JAZZ MUSICIAN STILL ALIVE WHEN BODY DUMPED BY DOPED DANCER

  The possibility that jazz musician Wardell Gray was still alive when his body was dumped in a weed patch near a remote ranch Thursday is being considered by police here.

  The coroner explains that a heavy shot of heroin sometimes produces a coma like state resembling death in a human body, with hardly detectable breathing and heartbeat.

  Hale, however, claims he checked for a heartbeat and even put a mirror against Gray’s nose and mouth to see if he was breathing. Murder or manslaughter charges would not be filed against Hale unless there was some new development in the case. Apparently there was none. Hale was released with the possibility that he could only face charges of illegal use of narcotics and illegally disposing of a body.

  There are subsequent articles with background on Gray and quotes from friends and other musicians, but the story ends on that note.

  Like most musicians, I’ve heard the stories of Gray’s death that get passed around the music world, embellished in the retelling until they reach mythic proportions, but I’d never seen anything in print, nor had I ever heard this theory that Gray might have been alive when Hale dumped the body. The coroner’s report citing head wounds consistent with blows from a blunt instrument also pops off the page. Blunt instrument? Head wounds? Caused by the floor when Gray fell?

  There are several more follow-up articles, which I gather up and ask Ted Rollings to photocopy for me. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  I find the stairs exit, step into the hall, and light a cigarette, musing over the clippings. “Did Gray and Hale have an argument? Had Hale accidentally killed Gray? You don’t get head wounds from a blunt instrument by falling out of bed, do you? This sounds as improbable as trumpeter Chet Baker’s alleged suicide, caused, some theorized, by Baker jumping off the second-floor balcony of an Amsterdam hotel.

  Did someone else kill Gray and dump his body in the desert? Who, if not Teddy Hale? Junkies can get into trouble with all kinds of people. Or maybe it was because of something at the Moulin Rouge. That was a different time and place.

  I go back inside and find Ted finishing up the photocopying. He puts the copies in a manila envelope. “Come back any time,” he says.

  “Thanks for your help,” I say.

  I take the agonizingly slow elevator back to the first floor and walk across campus to the student union, where I’m to meet Ace before his late-afternoon class. The heat is relentless, and I envy the students in shorts. The coolness of the student union is welcome, and after fighting the lines of students and faculty, I get a giant Coke, filling the paper cup with ice.

  A few minutes later Ace joins me. No tennis gear today. He’s in sandals, chinos, and a golf shirt, with a pile of books under his arm. He takes in my tie and smiles. “Better watch it, you’ll be taken for faculty,” he says, sitting down, “or worse yet, an administrator.”

  “Not if you all dress like that. How’s the molding of young minds coming?”

  Ace shakes his head in disgust. “The students are fine, it’s the new idiot department chair that’s the problem. The man is determined to get even for all the slights he’s felt over the years, at the expense of some damned good programs and people.” Ace shakes his head in disgust. “And we teach the humanities. What a joke.” He takes a long drink and glances at his watch. “So how did it go with you?”

  “My wrist is aching, Brent Tyler’s certainly interesting, but I got through the set okay.”

  Ace nods. “Did you get to the library?”

  I tap the envelope of clippings on the table. “Yeah, Rollings was very helpful.”

  “And?”

  It’s hard to talk over the din of students. “I think you may be onto something. According to several newspaper accounts, it sounds like Wardell might have done more than fall out of bed.”

  “I’ve seen some of that stuff,” Ace says, his eyes lighting up, “but I’m more interested in what, if anything, you find out from some of the old musicians in town. I’ve got a couple of jazz history books you can look through. There’s not much. There are a couple of accounts of Wardell’s time at the Moulin Rouge.”

  I watch Ace for a moment until he catches my expression. “I know, I know, it was nearly forty years ago, but you’ve got to admit it’s damned intriguing.”

  The safest kind of thing to investigate—the past. That other voice I hear keeps trying to get in. After the Lonnie Cole case, the past suits me fine.

  “So how about we grab something to eat tonight, and you have a relaxing weekend. You can check out the Four Queens on Monday. Alan Grant should be able to give you some leads.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I say. “I’m going home, get out of this suit and soak in your pool.”

  Ace stands up to go. “Just imagine how it was before air conditioning. See you later.” I watch him shoulder his way through the crowd of students, wondering how anyone can keep his mind on nineteenth-century literature when it’s one hundred ten degrees.

  I finish my drink and look through the clippings again. Most of it is background stuff about the construction and later the casino’s demise, when the owners of the three million dollar resort filed for bankruptcy. Bad management, financial troubles, or even pressure from competing resorts are possible reasons given for the closing.

  Bandleader Benny Carter’s statement is ambiguous at best, calling Gray one of the most dependable musicians he’s ever employed. Benny is still around, still blowing at eighty-four. I wonder what he remembers. Gray, the story said, was replaced by a local musician. Who was that, and is he still around? One more lead to check for the ace detective.

  Reluctantly I leave the coolness of the student union and head for my car. It’s all I can do to resist running through the sprinklers, but then that wouldn’t do if someone took me for faculty.

  CHAPTER THREE

  After a restless night of tossing and turning, worrying over the gig, listening to music, and wondering whether I should invest in another rubber ball, I sleep in on Saturday morning. I decide to pass on Ace’s offer of using his piano to practice and save my strength for the Fashion Show Mall and Brent Tyler. If I’ve read Tyler right, he’ll be around to check me out.

  Cindy Fuller is also much on my mind. We didn’t exactly break up, but after the Lonnie Cole thing was wrapped up, we kind of drifted apart, saw less of each other, even though our apartments are in the same building in Los Angeles. We had gotten pretty intense for a while, but one or both of us was scared off, at least temporarily.

  We still saw each other occ
asionally for dinner, but there was a tension neither of us could ease. Maybe we both knew we had crossed a line. Cindy was looking for commitment. I didn’t know what I wanted. Still, with all this time on my hands it would be nice to see her.

  I try her number. She’s still got Sinatra’s “Come Fly with Me” on her answering machine, but she’s not picking up. I leave her my number and a short message. She’s probably on a flight, but I’m hopeful she might be back on the Las Vegas run.

  Ace’s Jeep is gone when I check the driveway, so I decide on breakfast at a nearby coffee shop I’d seen earlier while I sample the local paper. It’s a short walk, but the heat is already more intense, beating down on me without mercy. Vic’s Coffee Shop looks like it might be a hard-hat breakfast stop most mornings, but there are only a couple of tables occupied today. I get a paper from the rack out front, settle into a booth, and order ham and eggs.

  The Las Vegas Review Journal is not exactly the Los Angeles Times. From a quick scan it looks to be made up mostly of news-wire releases, right-wing editorials, some syndicated columns, and a very slim entertainment section dominated by hotel casino ads, with the biggest spreads given to Wayne Newton and Tom Jones.

  The food is good, the waitress friendly. I drag things out with two cups of coffee too many until almost noon, then wander back to the apartment. Still no sign of Ace. I try the number for the woman he mentioned who had been a dancer at the Moulin Rouge, but there’s no answer and no machine. How refreshing.

  The pool looks too good to resist, so I bake awhile, swim, and skim through the jazz reference books Ace has left. They mostly give one version or another of the highlights of Wardell Gray’s career, listing dates and who he played with, stuff I already know, but all the bios end simply with “died Las Vegas, May 1955.” Two months after Charlie Parker, and both were the same age.