Jazz Funeral

Central.”
    “I’ve already pulled your file, officer. You’d be wanting Brocato lore, I suppose.”
    “Allison, you’re amazing. If the city’d let me, I’d pay you handsomely.”
    “Oh, you will, Skippy, you’ll definitely pay, quid pro quo. And we might as well start now. Who did it?”
    Allison knew perfectly well Skip wasn’t going to spew out details of this or any case, but as the world’s greatest gossip, she had to try. “You haven’t given me anything yet. Besides, you’re more likely to know than I do.”
    “I only know where the bodies are buried. I don’t know who buried them. Well, not always, anyhow. But I’ve known the Brocatos forever—or anyway, I know their next door neighbor, which is just as good. Do you know the whole story of George and Poor Boys?”
    “No, but I’d love to.” Skip took off her right earring and settled in.
    “Well, George is a true self-made man. The story goes that he was cooking in a restaurant when he got the idea for Poor Boys—and I mean short-order type cooking, by the way, not exactly cordon bleu stuff. He got his two brothers to go in with him—hence the name—and they somehow managed to drum up enough investors to make it work. It took them five years to get the first one started, with George going to night school while the thing gestated; getting a business degree. Charming story of family solidarity, except for one thing.”
    “Let me guess. They’ve done nothing but fight ever since.”
    “Ain’t it the way, as my mama’s cook used to say. He was married to a woman named Dorothy—Ham’s mom. Nice woman, stuck by him through thick and thin. But the sad part is, she never got to enjoy the thick. Died about the time he got the thing going. Well, that was about the time people started knowing him, and so after this, the story’s a little more reliable. Apparently, he was crazy about Dorothy, although this pretty much came as a shock to everybody because he just seemed like your basic stone-cold workaholic. When she died, he went into what I guess could only be called despair—unless you want to say it was a drunken stupor. Good thing his brothers were around to take care of the business—he didn’t draw a sober breath until the day he woke up married to Patty.”
    “Wait a minute. He got drunk and married her?”
    “Well, I don’t think it was quite like that. He got drunk after Dorothy died and stayed that way about six months; somewhere in that period, he married Patty. She was a real stunner, I gather.”
    “Still is.”
    “But the question is, what did they have in common—I mean with the age difference and Patty’s abiding interest in her own appearance and very little else? When he sobered up, which he quite soon did, George was said to be a little confused about the matter. Of course I was too young to know them then, but I’d say now it looks like Patty’s the one who drinks too much—and I’m not alone in that assessment either.
    “But if the marriage was shaky, nature came along and settled the matter, in the form of Melody, whom George adores, by all accounts. Always has. So I guess the marriage turned out okay after all. It’s still extant.” She paused, thinking about it. “I don’t know. George is pretty cold, so maybe he didn’t much care what she was like—she was female, she was gorgeous, she was his kid’s mother. That’s enough for some guys.”
    “Most of them, it seems like.”
    “Yeah, the only problem is, we end up pissing them off by having personalities.”
    “And Patty’s got to have one. I didn’t get much sense of her, though.”
    “She seems like a hard bitch to me—pretty much somebody who saw a good thing and went after it. But what do I know? Lately, she’s been going to a lot of weird doctors for Chinese herbs and stuff. Maybe she’s sick or something.”
    “What’s her background?”
    “Skippy, with women like Patty, that’s the sort of thing one doesn’t ask. Let’s put it this way, whatever it is, it’s not Uptown. She’s a self-made woman as much as George is a self-made man. Only she made herself by latching onto George.”
    Skip’s sense of democracy was slightly offended. “Well, it’d be the same thing if she did come from Uptown.”
    “No, because that’s where she’s living now. If she was a poor girl from Uptown and married a rich guy in another town, that might be analogous. But if you’re from here and you stay here, you’re already made,