Looking for Chet Baker (3 page)

I play another couple of choruses, then give it to Derek for his solo. I nod at Gordon, and we play some eight-bar exchanges, then take it home. A couple of ballads, an up blues, and I end the set with “Just Friends.” First tunes, first set, butterflies gone, and the three of us know each other a little now. The audience is with us, and the applause is genuine as we take a break.

“Hey, nice, guys,” I say to Gordon and Derek. “Let me buy you a drink.” I catch the waitress and order for the three of us.

“Two whiskeys neat also, please,” a familiar voice behind me says. I turn and find Colin Mansfield and another man. “Hello, Evan,” Mansfield says. “Come and join us. This is Mike Bailey with the
Daily Telegraph.
”

“Hi, Colin. Didn’t expect you so soon.” I shake hands with Bailey. He’s a short, stocky man in a rumpled suit and knit tie.

“Always like to catch an opening night,” Mansfield says. “Mike would like to do a piece on you for the arts section if you have time.”

“Well, sure, I guess so.”

“Don’t worry,” Bailey says with a quick, reassuring smile. “It won’t hurt much.”

“We can go in the back if you want. I’ve got about a half hour before the next set.”

“Suits me,” Bailey says.

“Good, I’ll get our drinks sent back,” Mansfield offers. He goes off to find our waitress.

Bailey and I head for the backstage dressing room. He takes out a pad and pen from his bag, and I get a cigarette going.

“Colin has filled me in on your background. This will be short, but I’d like to try and get it in tomorrow’s paper. I understand you have a new recording coming out.”

“Yes, that’s right. Quarter Tone Records. Small label in Los Angeles. We recorded it just before I came over. I don’t think there’s a release date yet, but I haven’t been in touch with them for a while.”

Bailey looks up. “Hiding out in Europe?”

Something in his tone bothers me, but maybe I’m being too sensitive. I’ve been burned by the press before—misquotes, misinterpretation, and sometimes they just make up things. “No, just getting away from the fray for a while.”

Bailey nods and scribbles on his pad. There are some more questions about music, my playing, and how I like Ronnie Scott’s. Then he shifts gears. “I imagine that episode with the serial killer in Los Angeles was quite an ordeal.”

I pause, wondering where this is going, but I can’t seem to escape it. “Well, it wasn’t fun, I guarantee you.”

“No, I’m sure,” Bailey says.

Colin joins us then, followed by the waitress with our drinks. “Well, cheers then,” Mansfield says, raising his glass, and we all drink.

“What are your plans after Ronnie’s?” Bailey asks.

“Well, they’re pretty sketchy. There’s a possibility of a gig in Amsterdam, then we’ll just see what happens from there.”

“So you might stay in Europe for a while, then?”

“Possibly. Like I say, I’ll just have to see what happens. I like to play it by ear.”

Mansfield and Bailey exchange glances, then Bailey continues. He glances briefly again at Mansfield, and some kind of signal passes between them.

“Wasn’t Amsterdam where Chet Baker died?”

“So they tell me, but that’s not why I’m going there.”

“No, of course not,” Mansfield says.

Bailey nods. His smile seems more like a smirk to me. He makes a few more notes, then closes his notebook. “Well, I guess I’ve got enough. Thanks for your time.”

“No problem. Are you staying around for another set?” I ask Mansfield.

“No, I’m afraid not. I have to be up early.”

“And I have a deadline,” Bailey says, getting to his feet. “I enjoyed your music.”

“Thanks.”

I walk them out. We shake hands again, and I watch them disappear toward the front door. Derek and Gordon are leaning on the bar, drinking beers.

“Mike Bailey, wasn’t it?” Derek asks.

“Yeah. You know him?”

“Fucking wanker,” Powell says and downs his beer.

Derek smiles. “He thought Gordon played too loud for a singer. What did he say?”

Gordon screws up his face and spits out the words like they’re something that tastes bad. “Powell’s obtrusive drumming lent little to the evening’s performance. What the fuck does he know? He’s a critic.”

Derek winks at me. “Gordon’s very sensitive.”

“Hey, that’s a good quality in a drummer.”

“See,” Gordon says. “I told you.”

I get a signal from Pete King then. It’s time for the second set.

This one gets even better. Derek’s lines are just right, and Gordon’s cymbal sizzles underneath me throughout the set. My only regret is that I know that, just when we’re really meshing, the gig will be over and I’ll be on to someplace else.

***

I’m staying at a small hotel in Bloomsbury, arranged for by Pete King. The room is so small I can hardly turn around, but it’s clean and comfortable and includes breakfast. Over bacon and eggs in the dining room, I leaf through the paper, looking for the arts section. Mike Bailey was a fast writer. The best thing about the piece is that there’s no accompanying photo.

I hate to even read the rest of the article. Bailey has dug up all the details and implies that I might be heading to Amsterdam to investigate Chet Baker’s death. He makes playing piano seem a sideline, the music secondary. I try to get angry, but I’m beginning to realize stories like this one are something I can’t escape, perhaps ever. There’s nothing inaccurate, it’s just the slant he takes. Bailey ends on a brief, albeit positive note.

I finish breakfast and go for a walk, thinking about Bailey’s story and wondering how much Mansfield was in the background on it, and what Pete King will think. But, as they say, any publicity is good; if it puts more people in the seats, who’s going to complain?

Ace Buffington, on the other hand, does worry me. He doesn’t seem at all like his old self. That cloud of desperation around him isn’t normal. I’m not surprised that he tried to enlist me once again, but I am at the pleading way he did it. I know that wasn’t easy for Ace, and I feel a little guilty about refusing. There is something else going on, something he isn’t telling me. I can sense it, and I don’t like the feeling.

Until Colin Mansfield brought up Chet Baker—and then Ace and Mike Bailey—I hadn’t even thought about how he’d died. It was just there, somewhere in the recesses of my mind, another of those jazz legends that gets embellished in the retelling, but nothing more.

I left Los Angeles in what now seems a permanent move. I left my car and a few belongings in storage with Danny Cooper and gave notice on my Venice apartment. I simply hopped a plane to New York and points east with a vague idea of going to Europe.

But now, walking through the narrow streets of the Mayfair district of London, past Rolls Royce and Jaguar showrooms, expensive boutiques, and trendy restaurants, L.A. doesn’t seem so far away after all. It’s always just there, just over my shoulder, with people like Mike Bailey ready to take up the thread and question my motives for being here. There are going to be more questions to answer to bring it all back, and that’s something I don’t want to do, not now.

I’ve done that already.

Chapter Two

After it was all over, after I was out of Los Angeles, I wandered around New York trying to get some perspective on what I’d been through—days and days spent walking as you can only in that city, going with whims, spur-of-the-moment ideas that took me to areas I’d never been to before, enjoying the anonymous, out-of-touch-with-everyone feeling. I spent long aimless afternoons strolling through Central Park, watching kids play, couples holding hands, runners, walkers, bicyclists, and many people like myself, judging from their expressions, just getting lost for a few hours away from the din of the city.

True, I could rationalize, easily point to the facts. Gillian Payne was in prison, Danny Cooper had fully recovered, and Gillian’s brother could now perhaps resume a fairly normal life. But there had been a price for all this. Natalie and I were probably over, and I still didn’t know how I felt about that. Maybe our breakup would have happened anyway. Maybe the whole awful nightmare was only the catalyst. I hadn’t called her, and she hadn’t tried to contact me, so there was that to consider and add to the equation.

On the plus side, the recording had been finished and would be released soon. My hand was fine, I was playing well. It remained now for me to pick up the pieces and get on with my life. All things considered, there was every reason to believe in the future. That’s how it should have been, but it wasn’t working. I couldn’t erase those images from my mind.

I forced myself to keep busy, looking up old friends, listening to music, even sitting in a couple of times at sessions. Cindy Fuller, my old stewardess girlfriend, had been on the flight. We’d gotten together for dinner, but Cindy had her own life now, and there was nothing to rekindle there. I’d even made a trip up to Boston to visit some of my former teachers at Berklee. I actually thought about visiting my parents, but we’d been out of touch for so long, what was the point? They had their life, and I had mine. Short, civil visits were all either of us wanted or could endure, and it had been that way for years.

It all came back to the slip of paper in my wallet, a scribbled phone number and a name, constantly dragging me back to the past like an unpaid bill.

It was part of my debriefing from the FBI, the complimentary counseling they not only offered but recommended. I could still hear Wendell Cook, the senior agent, trying to convince me, the day before I left L.A.

“Evan, at least take the number. You’re going to be in New York. You’ve been through quite an experience. It might help to talk about it to someone who can view it objectively, and Dr. Hammond is one of the best.” I dutifully took down the number, but I was convinced I’d never use it.

But after only a few aimless, unsettled days in New York, I was still unfocused, restless, disconnected from the few friends I knew there, much less the people I passed on the crowded streets.

It was worse at night. The images continued to haunt me—Gillian Payne’s twisted smile behind the glass partition in jail, the phone conversations when she taunted me, the crime scenes, her brother’s look of surprise and shock as her blade caught him in the throat. I caught myself looking at the faces I passed, trying to see if they knew what I knew, if they’d seen what I’d seen. But there were no answers there.

One night I took the subway downtown. I’d planned on going to the Village Vanguard, but once there, I stood in front of the club, staring at the marquee, hearing the music filtering out to the street, wondering why I was there and no longer interested in going inside. I think it was at that moment I knew it was time to do something about it.

The next morning I gave in and dialed the number, but I hung up the first two times when somebody answered, not sure I wanted to relive the experience. Maybe I didn’t want to hear some of the answers I knew were there, buried somewhere I wanted to keep them; getting them out would be a struggle, and carry consequences. Looking at them would perhaps be worse than keeping them hidden.

Realistically, I knew the whole counseling idea was no more than the FBI’s way of protecting themselves from future litigation, an exercise in covering their ass. They didn’t want me to turn up on a talk show a year or two or three from now, claiming I’d been coerced into cooperating with them and had suffered anguish or trauma, or whatever the label might be, from assisting them with the apprehension of a serial killer. Yet I didn’t doubt Cook’s claim that even seasoned agents are required to undergo counseling, particularly when they have witnessed crime scenes of what Cook called “such a violent nature.”

When I called the third time and stayed on the line, they almost seemed to be expecting me. Somebody, probably Wendell Cook, had told them to be ready. I was given an appointment the next afternoon at an address on Riverside Drive.

The office was done in restful pastels, soft lighting, and I sat apprehensively in one of the two comfortable chairs, opposite the psychologist, Rosemary Hammond, a pleasant, fortyish woman in a long, flowing dress and glasses on a chain. She had me sign a document stating that I was there voluntarily, but once that formality for the FBI was covered, she assured me she was there mainly to listen objectively and possibly offer some suggestions.

“Relax, Evan. I’m not a dentist. You look like you’re about to have a root canal.” She smiled and leaned forward to reassure me, “I promise not to use words like ‘issues,’ ‘relate,’ or phrases like ‘Feel good about yourself.’ I’ve read your file, I know all about your background, what happened, all the players.” I could see it right there on her desk, a dark green folder probably faxed from Los Angeles. “You went through quite a lot in a very short time. More than most field agents experience in their entire careers. It’s understandable that you wanted to get away from where it happened. That is why you’re in New York, isn’t it?”

I knew how counselors worked. I’d been through a number of sessions after my accident, trying to come to terms with the idea that I might not ever play the piano again. They were earnest, their recommendations were well meaning, but to me, not much help. How could anyone understand, and why would Rosemary Hammond be any different? I was cautious at first, trying to get a read on Hammond.

“I don’t know. I suppose it is, but I’m not staying here. I plan on going to Europe if I can get some work.”

She didn’t say, Oh, running farther away, huh? She just smiled again and said, “Tell me about it.” She didn’t take notes, and I saw no tape recorder. She just leaned back in her chair and focused her attention in a way that made me want to tell her everything. Maybe I could leave it all right here in her office and be on my way.

“There was Andrea Lawrence, one of your agents. That got to be more than a working relationship, or at least I felt it could have been.”

“Ah, that’s not in the file,” Hammond said, “but it doesn’t matter, this is all confidential.”

“Okay, I’ll get to that later.”

Hammond shrugged as if to say, However you want to do it.

“I was just getting my career back together after years of physical therapy, not being able to play, when Danny Cooper called, asking for my help. Just look around the crime scene, he said, help us understand this. The killer had written ‘Bird Lives!’ in blood on the mirror in one of the victims’ dressing rooms, referring to Charlie Parker, the saxophonist. The victim was still there on the floor, blood everywhere, his horn smashed, and there was a Bird CD playing when they found him, and a white feather in the saxophone case. The police didn’t know what to make of it, but I knew what it all meant immediately. The killer was sending a message. That room was filled with rage.”

“And you saw all this.”

“Yes. Saw it, smelled it, felt it. It made me sick. I just wanted to get out of there so I could breathe. But I felt obligated to Cooper. We’re old friends, from high school, and he’d helped me in the past, so I stuck with it. When they were sure it was a serial killer, and the FBI got involved, I explained more clues for them—saved them time, so they said, and I was okay with that.”

“And then what happened?” Hammond asked.

“Somebody leaked it to the press that I was involved. The story trotted out my past, my involvement with similar things. Then I got personally involved with Gillian, the killer, through phone calls, tapes, mail, even poems. She was very clever. I became the go-between. There was no way out, nothing to do but see it through to the end. To be truthful, I resented the intrusion. On my personal and professional life. I’d just signed a recording contract, work was coming in, and things with Natalie were fine. Then Lawrence—Andie, everybody called her—got involved. I had to help her create a profile of Gillian. Natalie didn’t understand all the time I spent with Andie or why I was so involved in the first place, and I couldn’t tell her everything.”

“And did she have any cause to be worried, jealous even?”

I paused a moment before answering. “Worried? Yes, it was more dangerous than anything I’d ever done. Jealous? I don’t know. Not at first, but there was chemistry between Andie and me, strong sexual tension. I admit that. I thought I was committed to Natalie, but maybe not as much as I thought. It didn’t help that Andie was very attractive. She made it very clear she was available and interested.”

“Did you think that was unprofessional of her?”

I shrugged. “I didn’t connect it like that. I knew she was testing the waters, but under the circumstances, it was different. We were thrown together, we traveled together to San Francisco. People can’t help their feelings, even if it means being unprofessional. It happens all the time, and I suppose I was flattered by the attention.”

“And did you act on those feelings?”

“No, I didn’t, but Natalie wasn’t convinced, and that in turn made me doubt her, wonder why she couldn’t trust me. I was just doing a job I didn’t want to be doing. I could tell her less and less as they closed in on Gillian, but it was in part for her own protection as well. Nobody knew what Gillian was going to do. I was juggling Gillian, the FBI, Natalie, Andie Lawrence, and trying to keep my music together, all at the same time.

“In San Francisco, Andie and I were staying at the same hotel, in adjoining rooms, but something kept me from opening that door, even though I knew it wasn’t locked. Natalie, of course, didn’t see it that way. She suspected the worst, and nothing I could tell her would make it go away. But there was something else as well.”

This was the real problem, and I’d been working up to it gradually by talking about Andie Lawrence and Natalie. Now it was time.

“What?”

“Gillian. Her phone calls. I never knew when they were coming, but she was playing with my head, seducing me in a way, mentally. I wanted…to know. It became an obsession to know why she was doing this, what would make anybody do what she did, and if I could stop her.” I smiled at Hammond. “Makes me sound weird, huh?”

“Not at all. It was a natural feeling. You had too many opposing forces closing in on you all at once, that’s all.”

“I always thought music was the only thing for me, but I got caught up in those other things the same way, just on a different level. I had to know the answers once the questions were put before me. Wardell Gray’s death—how did it happen? The Clifford Brown recordings—were they real or not? I wanted to know, even though I should have stopped long before I did.”

“And when you found the answers, was there satisfaction?”

“Yes, there was satisfaction, even though all the questions weren’t answered.” I got up and walked around the office, glancing at Hammond’s certificates on the wall, the art posters.

“Can I smoke?” I asked Hammond. She nodded yes. I lit up and sat down again while she poured us both some coffee. “It’s hard to explain, but yes, I got satisfaction from tracking down people, finding the answers, resolving things. Sometimes maybe even as much as I get from music. And that scared me.”

Hammond said, “No reason it should. You were perhaps transferring the frustration from your accident to something you had some control over. Finding those answers was up to you.”

“But that doesn’t explain it all, how I feel now.”

“No, it doesn’t. Your loyalty to Cooper and Natalie was rewarded by one, rejected by the other. Your resistance to Lawrence was not acknowledged by Natalie, at least not to your satisfaction, so your feelings for her changed.”

“Yes, they did.” And in that moment, I was suddenly clear about it.

Hammond paused then, considering. “When you left Los Angeles, who came to see you off? Anybody?”

It was the first time I’d thought about it. “Cooper drove me to the airport. Andie was there at the gate. I didn’t see Natalie after the last time we talked, a few days before I left.”

“And the case was over,” Hammond said. “Lawrence had no reason to be there other than she wanted to see you.”

I looked away then, replaying the airport scene in my mind, remembering Andie’s words:
You know how much I’d like to get on this plane with you?
Things might have been different if I hadn’t already been involved with Natalie.

Hammond looked at me then. We both knew I was avoiding what was really bothering me, however gradually I was easing into it.

“I still see Gillian, that last meeting when she was already in jail. I still see her slashing her brother’s throat.”

Hammond nods. “Those images are hard to erase. What you’re experiencing is similar to what combat veterans go through. You know the term. Post-traumatic stress disorder. You may never be free of those horrific images, but over time, they will fade. It was because of you that a killer was stopped. The file is very clear about that, and you should be too. If you were an agent, you’d be on mandatory leave now until we thought you were able to return to the field.”

“But I’m not an agent. Am I ready to return to the field?”

“To life, you mean?” Hammond smiled then and stood up. “Perhaps that’s enough for today.”

“How do you know I’ll come back?”

“You’ll come back,” Hammond said, and showed me to the door.

***

Dr. Hammond was right. I did go back. For three afternoons in succession. It was like I wanted to get it all out and over with as soon as possible. I drank coffee with Hammond, smoked and talked, and answered her occasional question. It seemed easy, like telling your life story to a stranger you’ll never see again, not caring what they think of you. It was thinking out loud, getting nonjudgmental feedback. It felt damn good.