CHAPTER 17

There seemed to have been three or four wives, each of them with the proper credentials, each extremely attractive, so that if you had seen any one of them walking down the street with Eagle, you would have had to look twice, and each of them wanting the body for burial. But it was returned to St. Louis accompanied by Aunt Jessie and one of the wives, the one whose credentials had the earliest date on them.

Signs cropped up on the walls of buildings which read: “Eagle Lives” or “The Eagle Still Soars.” The exposé magazines tore open their files on Eagle and some of the women he’d known, and as a result two or three big names went to Rome to await assignments in films or clubwork. But the magazines didn’t know of all the women; no one did.

Friendly columnists recalled the quips Eagle had made during his life, and the unfriendly writers repeatedly underlined the cause of his death. All called him the king of “Be-bop.” A certain listlessness fell over the musicians in the city, and their wives gathered to discuss the help they could give the children. This was a thing they did when checks from Europe were late coming from their husbands, so they were well versed in action aid. A search was pressed for Eagle’s union and any other kind of insurance.

Then the legends came to the fore, just as the legends of Paul Bunyan must have developed—to fill a communal need.

But even before the headlines—BOP KING DIES OF ADDICTION—Background had been putting together a concert, the proceeds of which would go to Eagle’s children. Death being the god to whom all people forever pay tribute, hoping to escape its inevitability, the concert drew a crowd which spilled over in the mid-town street on that hot, spring evening.

Inside, in the theater wings, group after group waited to come on if only for a few minutes. They came out, one behind another, each sounding like Eagle’s 1943 combo, trumpet, sax, piano, bass, drums. But whatever the instruments, the shadow of Richie Stokes hung over the entire audience and the street too where loudspeakers had been set up. Occasionally a vocalist came on to break up the repetition. Rod Tolen served as master of ceremonies, and he interrupted his studied, low-pitched monologue once to tell the audience, with appropriate sadness, of his last conversation with Eagle about the pegs.

From the wings Yards said, “All right, man, get off and let us get on.” Rod broke into a chuckle, backed away from the mike and brought Yards’ group on, muttering as he passed, “You better cool it, Yards.”

“Eff you, man,” Yards said.

Later Kilroy got on and tried to do twenty choruses of “Eagle’s Nest” with lyrics he’d written himself just for the benefit. Background and Rod managed to get him off.

Down in the first row Della said to Keel, “They all sound the same.” Keel glanced at Hillary on the other side of Della, and at Candy next to him.

“Even the damned guitar,” Keel grunted. Paul Moss, the blind guitarist who had once asked Eagle and Keel why they called one another “niggers,” but got angry when a white person called them that, was playing. “He should drop dead,” Keel said. Della laughed; Keel had told her about it.

Up on the stage the artists came on, all very cool, very sure, very cold on the stand, acting not at all the way Keel remembered colored musicians behaving ten, fifteen years before. Maybe that too was something from Eagle. No teeth, no sambo smiles. That might have been his biggest contribution.

Applause and another group. Applause and another group, endlessly. People appeared who had not been scheduled on the program and demanded to be allowed to go on. The hall was stifling now and four hours had saturated the rows of uplifted white faces with, here and there, like foreign matter, a brown or black face accepted, anachronistic. To even his own Eagle was an enigma, thought Keel, claimed by them, deified by them and often avoided by them; they preferred steel drums and Fats Domino. The others, the whites, were dilettantes, understanding little some of them, but building nevertheless an adequate foundation for jazz. They paid its way.

“Suddenly I feel like drinking,” Keel said.

“Why?” Della asked, startled.

“I don’t know.”

“Reaction,” she said, rubbing her thumb over the knuckles of his hand. “That’s crazy. Let’s.”

“You’d better say ‘let’s.’” He paused. “God, all of a sudden I’m thirsty,” he went on. “When was the last time I had an ice cold beer, so cold you could hear bits of ice rattling against the can?”

“Two years.” Della looked at him. “Honey, are you all right?”

“Only thirsty.”

They clutched hands between the seats and turned back to the stage, where Rod Tolen, sweating profusely now, introduced another group. Background scrambled down to the first row where he knelt beside Keel and whispered, “Come backstage, man, we’re gonna split to a party later.” He walked, half-bent, back to the stage entrance.

Keel leaned over and touched Hillary on the elbow. “You want to stop in at a party before you make your bus?”

“Let’s see how the time runs,” Hillary said.

“Oh, please,” Della said, grasping his arm. She looked at Candy.

“Not me,” Candy said.

“Well?” Della said to Hillary.

“Let’s see what time we get out of here,” he said.

Della turned back to Keel, who asked, “You want to go?”

“It’s been a long time since we’ve been to a party, baby. It might be good. Let’s go, it might be good.”

“All right, but I know just about how good it’ll be.”

“We’ll stop in for just a little while, before they start shouting and punching one another around. The liquor won’t cost us anything. Better be practical now, you know, save the bread.”

“Wait,” Keel said. “You can’t take care of me if you’re gonna too.”

“Gonna what?” she said. She laughed in his ear.

“Get drunk!”

“We’ll take care of each other, love.”

Keel continued the game. “If you promise to look out for the old boy, we’ll go.”

“I promise, if you do.”

“Do what, baby?”

“Promise to take care of me.” Even though she understood once the words were out that they had a double meaning, Della continued to smile at him, wishing they had not been spoken.

But there was nothing demanding in her eyes, Keel saw, only a, smile as soft, as clean, and as deep in its depths as one can see down in clear water. “I promise,” he said in her ear, “to take care of you, but only if you promise to love and obey me. Obey, baby.”

Della hid her laughter behind her hand. It had been a long time since they engaged in repartee. “What about honor?”

“That’s for mothers and fathers. Save it for them.”

She took his hand and playfully dug the nail of her thumb into his palm. “Mothers” had had a double meaning.

“We’d better go see about this party,” he said. “C’mon, Prof, Candy.” They moved from their seats and through the door Background had used. As they went, Keel wondered over the absence of his usual fear for later when he would be alone with Della, for so far it hadn’t come, hadn’t slowed him up or thrown him into silence. He smiled, pleased, and he was still smiling when they came upon Paul Moss heatedly telling Background and Yards that all the money from the concert didn’t have to go to Eagle. Some of it, by law, went into the union fund.

“Eff the union,” Yards was saying.

“The union gets shit,” Background added. Hillary, watching him, suddenly could not recall ever seeing the musician sober. He smiled at Background’s demeanor.

“I’ll report the gate myself,” Moss said.

Rod Tolen stuck his head in long enough to say, “Shut your damned mouths you dumb mothers. We tryin’ to put on a show out here.”

Why, Hillary wondered, did Tolen emulate the speech of Kilroy? that ragged jargon meant to amuse, to relax, to throw one off guard with its simplicity and crudeness? Did Tolen require a smoke screen too?

Yards had shifted his horn to his left hand and had moved close to Moss. Ignoring Tolen, he said angrily, “Background, turn out these damned lights, then me and this goddamn Moss’ll be even and I’ll kick the shit outa him. I’ll outen him—everything’s gotta be by the book, by the book, the paddy cat’s book. This man is dead and left his kids nuthin’!” Yards jostled Moss with his shoulders. Della gasped. Candy said, “Oh, Yards—”

“Kids, man,” Yards bellowed, trying to get above the sound of music from onstage. “Let the kids live. I’ll blow all damn night myself to pay the damned union, and I won’t need none of you mothers to help me. Gotdamn!”

Yards turned away from Moss, his anger was so intense, and Keel noted with satisfaction that Yards was aware of it. “Gotdamn,” Yards said again, then quietly, bitterly, “Eagle ain’t even cold yet and you cats are effin’ over him already.” He turned back to Moss. “Gotdamn you, Moss.”

Moss had stood with his sightless eyes, his body braced against the attack. Now he said, “Don’t talk to me that way, Yards. I’m not one of your boys, y’ dig.”

Yards flipped the trumpet back into his right hand and his words were cold and hard. “You goddamn right you ain’t one of my boys, you with your ricky-tick-ass guitar playin’—ought to put your ass on the street with a damned dog—”

“That’s enough, Yards!” Keel took a step forward and grasped Yards’ elbow. The trumpeter spun away. Out on the stage another group started playing as the one that had just finished came into the wings, looked at them curiously, and filed out. Applause rolled up. The new group had vibes: a welcome change, Hillary thought.

Keel watched Yards and wondered why all his emotions came out as anger.

“I don’t want to go to the party, baby,” Della said.

“Neither do I,” Keel said. “Let’s just eat and have a drink, drop Prof off.”

“I’ll get him.”

Hillary was across the floor talking to Candy.

“We’re getting ready to leave. Like split,” Della said, and laughed. “Drop you off?”

“I’ll join you out front,” Hillary said.

“Bye, Candy,” Della said. She had a feeling she wouldn’t be seeing her any more.

Candy shook her hand, then brushed past it and kissed Della on the cheek. “Take care of Keel.”

“I will,” Della said softly, moved by Candy’s kiss. Candy had always been cold. “I will,” she said again. “I’m sorry, Candy,” she said, thinking suddenly that the musician’s death meant more to the blonde than any of them had realized.

Candy turned away.

“Be out front,” Della said to Hillary.

As she and Keel left, she said: “All those people, squares or not, just for Eagle.” She glanced at Keel. “You know, Keel, I liked him only because you did.”

“Oh,” he said. He had taken her affection for Eagle for granted. “Didn’t you like him just a little?”

“Sometimes. But he scared me a little, and sometimes he disgusted me.” She glanced at him again. “I’m being too honest.”

“No,” he said.

They were beneath the marquee now and Keel said, looking at the sky, “It always seems to be night when we do anything, like it isn’t for real, any of it. It’d be nice, just for the hell of it, to see what it’s like to go to a movie on a Saturday afternoon.”

“Honey?”

“What?”

“I didn’t mean anything by that.”

“By wha—oh!” He grinned. “It didn’t upset me.”

“I didn’t want it to.”

“I’ve thought about it half the night. I should be upset, but I’m not.” He moved quickly into the street, sliding out of her arm. “Let’s get this cab.” He looked around for Hillary who was just coming out. The cab cruised up, slowed; the driver threw his arm in disgust at Keel and sped away. “Goddamn them,” Keel said, trembling suddenly because there was nothing there to attack, “they never forget to remind you—”

“Of how frightened they are,” Della said, taking his arm again, thrusting back his lunging emotions by use of that single emphasized pronoun “they.” Hillary came up and Keel waved another cab to the curb.

“I’d better make it to the station,” Hillary said. “50th Street.”

“50th Street?” the cabby asked.

The cab shot forward. The three sat in silence until the car got to the station. “I’ll take care of the tab,” Keel said. Hillary bent to look in on them. “Good-bye.”

Della said: “Good luck.” Keel waved.

Hillary swung the door shut.

The driver turned to Keel.

Keel said, “Move!” and he and Della settled back in their seats. The cab hurtled down Broadway, moved through the nighttime with its perpetually moving people. “I want to stop here,” Keel said, talking easily, “and tell all these squares: that one,” he said, pointing, “with the great big Texas hat, and that one with the pinched face, and that lady over there—see her, baby?—the one with the big buns, and that cat with the derby and the skinny blonde broad, and the cops out there fighting traffic: I want to tell them how much I dig you, and that they’ve got to go, that there’s no place here for them any longer. Together, we’re too much for them. I’ll go up to the Times Tower and press the buttons that’ll spell it out: I dig you and war is declared on squares. Shall I do that?”

“No, baby. Just tell me again.”

“What do you want, a novel?”

“Don’t be funny. Just tell me again.”

He told her again. “Please believe me.”

“I do. But don’t ever stop believing in yourself again, because when you do it all becomes sick.”

“I won’t, I promise you.” He drew her close to him and felt, upon contact with her body, the weight in his loins dropping away. Whatever it was that had oppressed him was far, far away, losing itself somewhere back in the road to be trampled on, walked on by the thousands who crossed the streets every day and every night. Not even the driver’s uneasy stiffness altered the feeling.

They had finally threaded the traffic across that ugly patch of light at Times Square and now they were traveling down the shadows of Seventh Avenue. The cabby’s cigarette glowed like a red nipple in the darkness. Keel felt tears against his cheek. So, he thought, she knew what he was feeling. He stroked her hair. “Baby, baby,” he said.

After a while he said to her: “Let’s go home.” His voice seemed suddenly crisp and clear, as though after years of speaking deep within his throat, he finally learned to use his mouth. He spoke to the driver and then felt Della’s fingers searching with infinite tenderness the innermost reaches of his neck, and her mouth came warm and open upon his; she moved slightly to nestle her body closer to his.

Thirty minutes later the bus moved with a series of jerks and growls down to the 34th Street Station. David Hillary peered through the green-tinted windows and watched the new passengers queue up to get on. In another hour, when the bus emerged from the tunnel, most of the passengers would be nodding in ugly sleep. But he would be awake, staring up at the green moon and at the green-black world outside. He watched the people come aboard, peer quickly up and down the aisle for empty seats, then shuffle forward, sit, and promptly shrink away from the other passengers, indicating by their postures how grateful they would be if the seats next to theirs remained empty.

Hillary felt like a spy. Could one of these people have been the killer the musicians discussed, half-believingly? That man? Or that? Perhaps the woman who was now settling in the seat beside Hillary resembled the club owner’s wife. If there had been a killer, a man who killed smoothly, perfectly, leaving no cause for investigation, then Hillary could only feel a cold, chilling sorrow for him. If he did exist the musicians would find him; they would talk and smile and watch and whisper. They would find him, if he were to be found, and later someone would find him, dead and alone, like Eagle. The battle would be joined again; but it was never really unjoined, this quiet warfare that raged in the clubs and bedrooms, in smiles and language. If there were a killer, yes, he would be found; the musicians would measure out their revenge; that was as sure as the night through which the bus was now rolling, tires singing on the pavement. Keel would approve and so would his wife—she would become his wife—Della. All other courses being exhausted, violence or the approval of it, had its virtues, its dignity-giving graces. Love had grown out of it for Keel and Della, like daisies out of soil putrefied by death.

Hillary rejected this thought: he could not understand it. If he had, he might also have had to understand how Eagle might have rejoiced at a man’s thinking so much of his wife that he would calculatingly kill for her. That kind of love was better than none.

But then no one was sure a killer existed, not in the sense of a single man creeping up the stairs to enter Eagle’s apartment, to administer the overdose. What none of them had ever discussed was, had Eagle done it himself? Hillary could not help thinking it now and neither could he return the idea to the limbo where it had lain. If Eagle had, there was no need to ask why; Hillary knew why, and knew also that the second killer was worse, far worse, than the mere presence of a single man intent upon destroying another. This killer was formless. Hillary looked down the aisle and felt its presence; he looked at the woman beside him and saw its vague shape. He felt the killer inside himself and grew frightened. He had been, if Eagle had done it, as one with the killer.

Someday Hillary would understand. Maybe. The bus edged through the tollbooths, down the bricked road into the gaping mouth of the tunnel.