Death Notes

homicide, the one last weekend. I think they found something, you know, some piece of evidence or something.’
    ‘Like what?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    I held his eyes, smiling encouragement, but he just shook his head and laughed.
    ‘I’m serious. Like I said, I just got here. Really. I’d tell you if I knew. Honest.’
    ‘Are you going back there?’
    He laughed again. ‘As soon as you leave, I am.’
    ‘Okay, I’ll take the hint.’ I reached into my back pocket and handed him my card.
    ‘Will you let me know what’s back there?’
    He glanced down at the card, then looked at me.
    ‘One condition,’ he said. ‘Come by and see my old man sometime. He retired last year and spends a lot of time in the garden. He’d probably get a kick out of talking to you.’
    ‘That’s the best offer I’ve had all week,’ I said, then jumped in my car and left the scene of the crime.
     

33
     
    I was back at Match’s tribute concert twenty minutes later. There were about a hundred more people there than when I’d left with Philly Post over an hour ago. And the band was really hot now.
    It wasn’t just Match’s guys up there anymore. Some of them
    were still playing, but now Slocum was on deck with his alto sax, Neal Reams and Johnny Bonaventure were working their horns, and Julia Puliko was belting out answers to the calls of the brass and reeds with the voice of a dove.
    All the reporters, including Abby Stark and Glen Faddis, had put away their little notebooks. They were as spellbound by the jam session as the rest of the crowd. Everybody in the room was mesmerized by the magic they were making up there: hard bop, scat singing, mellow, big band. They even got some electronics up there and got around to some fusion before they finally broke off the set.
    Then I remembered business and scouted around for the band. If Rochelle had talked to me alone, maybe the others would, too.
    Hank Nesbitt and Cheese Herman were still onstage, tinkering with their instruments and shooting the breeze with the old-timers from Match’s first time around. I approached them but they cold-shouldered me in spite of my most polite and charming smile. Les Barton and Dickie Almaviva were nowhere to be found. I scanned the room for Malone, DuPont and Teagues and realized they were gone. So was Clark. Sharon’s head was bobbing in the crowd, but I didn’t want to speak to her anymore. Just the sight of her made my blood boil. Abby Stark tried to talk to me, but I sneered threats at her and she went away.
    Feeling defeated, I made my way to the bar and tried to catch the bartender’s attention.
    As I waited, I heard somebody behind me say, ‘You a friend of Sharon’s or Clark’s?’
    I turned from the bar and found myself face to face with Dickie Almaviva. His smile was tentative.
    ‘I know you can’t be both,’ he said.
    ‘Does it matter?’
    I still hadn’t forgiven him for blowing things for me earlier with the band.
    ‘Ronnie - can I call you Ronnie?’
    I turned back to wait for the bartender. Dickie slid into the seat beside me.
    ‘You’re angry with me because of what I said in front of the others.’
    He held my business card in his hand and flicked the fleshy part of his thumb back and forth across the edge of it.
    ‘They wouldn’t talk to you anyway, Ronnie. They’re too scared.’
    ‘Of what?’
    ‘Jazz is a small world. People talk. Someone said the Mafia killed Match.’
    ‘That was you, wasn’t it?’
    He laughed glibly. ‘I only said his friends were gangsters.’
    ‘I guess that’s all it takes. Why aren’t you afraid?’
    ‘What happens, happens, eh? Why live in fear?’
    He watched an anorexic-looking woman in her forties sidle by. ‘How is your investigation coming?’
    The bartender suddenly appeared, so I ordered. Dickie ordered the same.
    While we watched the bartender fetch our bottles, Dickie said, ‘If I was investigating, do you know who I’d look into very, very closely?’
    The bartender set the open bottles in front of us. I picked mine up and drank.
    Dickie said, ‘Sharon, that’s who.’
    Naturally. I was talking to the man she’d tried to get fired. Dickie went on.
    ‘She was an embarrassment to Match. Do you know why? She tried to seduce everybody in the band. Did you know that? Everybody. Even Rochelle.’
    ‘Any success?’
    ‘Nah. We all had too much respect for Match. But do you understand what I am saying? This Sharon, she wasn’t happy in the matrimony. She