Death Notes

car after.’
    He led me to a red Pontiac two-door and I asked him about Hank as soon as we were inside.
    ‘Yeah, Hank. Good old Hank. You know, Hank’s all right.’ Les was laboring clumsily to fasten his seatbelt, and I was starting to feel optimistic about how much information I was going to get out of him. Booze was the best thing I’d found to get people to spill their beans. He kept talking. ‘We gigged together a while back, you know, before Match.
    Two, maybe three years. Yeah. We played some fine stuff back then. You heard of the Jazz Beaus? That was us. Fine stuff, fine stuff.’
    ‘Yeah?’ I’d heard them. They were mediocre, at best. ‘Sure.’ He was still fumbling with the seatbelt.
    ‘Look,’ I said. ‘Let’s take my car. It’s over there.’ My brain was a little foggy but I was positive I could do better than he was doing.
    ‘I got it,’ he announced, finally giving up on the seatbelt and sticking the key into the ignition. ‘I got it.’
    I kept waiting for him to start the car but he just sat there and stared straight ahead. He was talking, though, and that’s what mattered. Unfortunately, he seemed to be sobering up while he talked.
    ‘I can understand how Hank would be loyal about being in Match’s band. I was there, too, you know. But hell, we’d only been together a couple of months, since Match hired us all in. You know how long me and Hank played together before? A year and a half. Match’s band only did one real gig and that was last Saturday night.’
    He snorted. ‘We hardly even finished.’
    Les started the engine, then let it die. He tried again and gunned the motor once the spark caught. We rolled out of the parking lot, going about three miles an hour, and headed south on Third Street.
    ‘So... I forget. What was the question? Oh, yeah, the band. Every band’s got politics, you know what I mean? Everybody wants play time up on stage, solo breaks and all that, you understand what I’m saying?’
    ‘Sure.’ He was rambling, but I decided to be patient. ‘Same went for Match’s band. Inside, we’re all fighting for the best spot, but to you, to the public, we were like this.’ He held up his first two fingers intertwined.
    ‘Inside, we’d eat each other alive for two extra minutes with Match. That’s why Hank did Sharon. Thought it’d get him an in. Hell, I did her myself and look at me. It didn’t do shit for me. Not even after he croaked.’
    Les sped up to ten miles an hour and coasted through a stop sign.
    ‘About Rochelle...?’ I prompted.
    From what I’d heard so far, I could easily picture her carving up a rat.
    ‘Oh, yeah. She’s one bad apple with a hard-on, you know? Pulling that knife on me. She never should have done that.’
    ‘What kind of knife was it?’
    ‘Girl knife.’
    I wasn’t quite sure what a ‘girl knife’ was, but it turned out that he meant a stiletto.
    ‘But, man, a knife’s a knife, you know what I mean?’
    ‘What set her off?’
    ‘Got me.That crazy bitch. We’re talkin’ one minute, next minute, I’m almost dead.’
    Somehow, I didn’t think I was getting the whole story.
    I said, ‘Hank thinks she’s okay.’
    ‘That’s ’cause she put out for him. He’s still grateful, I guess.’
    I looked out my window and noticed we were heading deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of warehouses down around China Basin. We hadn’t gone far, maybe five blocks. Like most drunks, Les was driving slower than he needed to and every movement of the car was exaggerated.
    ‘Where’s this cafe?’ I asked.
    ‘We’re getting there,’ he said. ‘You never been to the Put Out before?’
    ‘No.’
    Les chuckled. ‘Hang on, then, and I’ll show you. I guarantee you’re going to love it.’
    He pulled into a warehouse yard and circled the car to park it with the passenger side - my side - boxed in up against a wall.
    It all happened so fast it took me a couple of seconds to realize what had happened. By then, I was stuck. I couldn’t open my door even if I tried. The only way out was through the windshield - or over Les.
     

49
     
    ‘ W hat is this?’
    Every drop of booze I’d ingested evaporated from my veins - I was instantly sober.
    Les smiled and unzipped his denim jacket. He didn’t seem so wobbly any more.
    ‘It’s a date,’ he said. ‘Don’t act so innocent. I know you’ve been on a date before.’
    ‘This isn’t a date, Les. It’s an interview. I want you to cut the shit. Now. Let’s get