Jazz Funeral

the street and shout.
    “Well, aren’t you the pushy one.”
    “Don’t whine, Andy. Do you have a courtyard? We can talk there.”
    “Oh, butch, butch, butch.” But he started downstairs, no doubt delighted not to have to rush around hiding his drugs. He opened a gate that led to an unkempt courtyard. “I was having a beautiful dream too.”
    “Andy, how long have you been loaded?”
    “Why would that be your business?” He led her to a round table, plopped down in one of two Kmart chairs pulled up to it. Skip remained standing.
    “I thought maybe you hadn’t heard about Ham, that’s all.”
    For the first time, his drug-induced bravado slipped. “Ham?” He spoke in a high-pitched quaver. “Ham’s my brother. What about Ham?”
    “You haven’t had the TV on the last couple of days?”
    “I haven’t done shit, lady, except lie around blasted. So arrest me, okay?” He offered his wrists for cuffing.
    “Did you see Ham on Tuesday?”
    “Yeah, I saw him. I cleaned his house, like a good little fairy. Like I do every Tuesday. And then I get paid and I buy myself some rock and that’s all she wrote. Is there some law against that?”
    He sounded so outraged—just Joe Citizen fighting the gestapo—that she had to wrestle an incipient laugh. But she figured he needed a quick sobering up. “That and murder,” she said.
    She thought he lost color, but he had none to lose; it must have been an illusion. “Ham’s dead?”
    She nodded, waiting.
    “But I just saw him—he paid me ten bucks extra, the crazy fool.”
    “What time did you leave him?”
    “I don’t know. Two, I guess. Three, maybe.”
    “Did he have any visitors?”
    “No, but he—” Fike stopped himself.
    “What?”
    “Nothing.” He looked down, wouldn’t meet her eyes.
    “He was expecting somebody? Was that it?”
    “Ham didn’t tell me everything.”
    “Andy, pay attention. This is a murder investigation; you know as well as I do that if I went in your house right now I’d find plenty of good reasons to arrest you. And I don’t even need that. I could take you down to Homicide right now and ask you the same questions over and over, keep you there till you got very uncomfortable. Already you don’t feel too good, do you? You want to spend the rest of the day with me?”
    “You bitch.”
    “Don’t mess with me, Andy, or I’m going to make your life a living hell.”
    “Oh, go to it, officer. Make my life a living hell. Things have been way too great lately. I need some variety.”
    Obviously, threats weren’t working. She was going to be in this weedy old courtyard all day if she didn’t get something out of the sorry heap in the plastic chair. She sat herself down in the other one.
    “What happened to you, Andy? You weren’t always this big a mess, were you?”
    A faraway look came into his eyes, as if he could barely remember. “I’m a musician,” he said, whispering.
    “Uh-huh, and you got depressed, didn’t you? Your friends started dying on you.”
    “The plague, man. I can’t handle it anymore.”
    “But Ham gave you a job, kept you in rock.”
    “He never knew. He wouldn’t have let me in the house.”
    “But he was pretty nice to you, and he’s dead.”
    “Oh, shit.” It was beginning to sink in.
    “So just tell me, who he was expecting?”
    “Oh, hell. Ariel. Why should I protect the bitch? He didn’t have any goddamn tasso for his gumbo.” He shrugged. “I could have gone to get it, but I told him I was in a hurry. Shit! A hurry for what? This shit? The bitch killed him! Fuck!”
    “Are you telling me Ariel killed him?”
    “I thought that’s what you were telling me.”
    “Let’s start over. Did you leave before Ariel got there?”
    He looked away for a long time before answering. “Yeah. Shit! I don’t believe what I’m doing with my life.”
    “Can you think of any reason Ariel would have to kill him?”
    “No. He was good to his employees. Nice as pie to me.” He paused and stared into the distance. “He was a real good guy,” he said after a while, still staring straight ahead, not looking at Skip and not, she thought, speaking to her.
    She thanked him and left.
    She went to Mama Rosa’s, ordered a meatball sandwich to go, and phoned the Jazz Festival office. A polite young man said Ariel had gone to the fairgrounds.
    “You mean the festival’s happening?” She hadn’t thought to wonder whether it had been canceled.
    “Well, Ham would have killed us if we