Death Notes

the stand.’
    ‘But when he laughed, what did he say?’
    ‘I don’t know. They brought the house lights up and we got off the stage.’
    ‘All of you? The whole band?’
    ‘Not Sharon and not Hank. They were picking up scores.’
    ‘Who was the first to leave? Match?’
    ‘Uh-huh.’
    ‘And then who went after Match?’
    ‘Uh, I don’t know.’ He squinted at me with one eye. ‘Is it important?’
    Just then my cell phone rang. I grabbed it out of my jacket pocket and said, ‘Hello.’
    A voice on the other end started talking but because of the music, I couldn’t make out the words.
    ‘Hold on,’ I shouted into the receiver, then slipped off the bar stool and signaled to Dickie that I was headed for the door. Outside, on the street, the reception was better and the night was clear and quiet.
    ‘It’s Danilo Ruben,’ the voice said. ‘I just want to let you know I got called off the scene right when you left so I don’t have anything for you. I’ll ask around though, when I get back to the station. I’ll call you tomorrow. Okay?’
    ‘The sooner the better, Danilo.’
    I closed the connection and looked up into the dark city sky. Stars sparkled valiantly through the night-time glare of the streetlights overhead and the brightness of headlights from
    passing cars. I thought about what Dickie had said about the impossibility of a just and fair world. Somewhere in the city, under this same glorious night sky, Match’s killer watched the same stars I did.
     

34
     
    I took the long way home - via the Riff Club.
    The squad cars were all gone. Not a cop in sight. I drove down the alley to where the cops had been, left my headlights on and looked around. Nothing. Through the back door, the faint sound of jazz filtered into the alley. I pulled the car back on to the street, parked and went inside.
    Lucius, the Riff Club’s barman, was an average sort of guy, except for his eyes. They burned hot and black at you like he was on fire from the inside. A lot of people thought he was crazy just from the way he looked - dreadlocks and wild eyes - but if they took a minute to talk to him, they’d find out the only nutty part about him was that he was crazy about his three-year-old daughter.
    ‘... so she says to me, “Daddy, I want to come, too!” Heh, heh, heh. What a girl! Is that kid smart, or what!’
    I sat a few stools down from the man he was talking to, close enough for Lucius to see me, but far enough not to get sucked into the young genius stories. The music wasn’t live tonight but it was hot. The group was into a horn solo and the trumpet player’s licks burned the air.
    Lucius finally excused himself from the guy whose eyes had glazed over by now, and came to my end just as the number ended.
    ‘Howz about an Anchor Steam, Miz Ventana?’ He plopped a chilled glass in front of me, no foam. ‘Sharon Margolis get you?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes. As a matter of fact, in a roundabout way, that’s why I’m here. I heard the police were by earlier.’
    He tossed his dreadlocks towards the back door. ‘They found something out in the alley, some kind of trash or something. I don’t know what it was.’
    ‘Did you get a look at it?’
    ‘Nope. The pigs covered it up. I asked around, but nobody got a bead on it. Sporty said it could’ve been a body, maybe a body part, but I guess they got outta here too fast for that.’ He trained his wild gaze on me. ‘You sayin’ you know what it was?’
    ‘No. I think it could be tied to Match’s murder, but who knows? I could be wrong. Let’s talk last Saturday night. Tell me what you remember from that night.’
    ‘Saturday? Shee-yut, what don’t I remember? Man, that was grim. I seen fights in here before, but this was the first time I ever seen something like that - cold-blooded murder. Just like that!’ He snapped his long, dark fingers with a pop. ‘Dead. Nothing like it, man.’
    His eyes wandered automatically over his domain while he talked. At the opposite end of the bar, one of the waitresses signaled to him.
    ‘Back in a sec.’
    He came back a few minutes later and picked up a towel to polish the empty glass in his hand.
    ‘I’ll tell you what I told the pigs. I was mixing drinks, see? Everybody always sets up another round after the show, so I was too busy mixing to be watching the crowd. I looked up when people spread out around you and Match. That’s the first thing I seen that something was off. Match on the ground, Sharon