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.He was shot to death in a car perhaps.Something absurd like that.He didn’t have the decency to just choke on a pig’s foot.”I couldn’t help it: I let out a shriek of laughter.“Oh, I’m mean, child,” Mr.Melon said.“I’m just terrible, ain’t I?”Melon slid smoothly from his barstool, cane and all, when a party of five came barreling in, shouting their greetings at him.I had to get in just two more quick questions before he took his leave of us.“By the way,” I said, “did you happen to know any of Rube’s lady friends? One in particular called Vivian?”“Oh dear, I don’t think so.” He pursed his lips then.“The only Vivian I recall from those days was a young man, not a young lady.A British chap, and the less said about him the better.”“Last question,” I said.“Any idea if Rube Haskins was his real name? I mean, did you ever hear people call him by any other name?”He shook his head “Just ‘fool.’ You two children should have some of that St.Emilion before you leave tonight.It’s delicious.Ask Edgar to pour you some.”“He’s something, isn’t he?” Andre said when Melon was out of earshot.“He’s a stitch.But I wouldn’t want him to read me.He’s got one sharp tongue.”“What now?”“Yeah.You got that right.What now? We know for sure now this is Haskins.But where does that leave us? How did he go from Ez to Rube—or vice versa? And which one was he when Vivian went picnicking with him?”Andre began to speak, but he stopped short when Morris Melon reappeared at the bar.“Is it true what I hear, children?” he asked us excitedly.We looked at him blankly.“That’s right, play it coy, babies,” he laughed expansively.“Don’t be so modest! Some friends tell me you two are the talk of the town.They say le tout Paris is buzzing about the duets you’ve been performing.You must favor us with something.”His slow, steady clapping caught fire and before we knew it the whole restaurant was filled with coaxing applause.After a brief consult with the pianist, we started with the old Nat Cole arrangement of “Just You, Just Me.” A real up number.Everybody seemed to enjoy it.Then the old musician removed himself to a table and left us on our own.Andre’s beauty obligato for me on “Something to Live For” seemed to come out of nowhere.Gorgeous.I was inspired, and tried to return the favor for his solo work on “I Didn’t Know About You.” Someday you’ve got to hear that on the violin.We closed with “I Didn’t Know What Time It Was.”I guess we killed.Applause like thunder.The waiters began to anoint us with complimentary drinks.Andre and I recaptured our places at the bar and Morris Melon hurried over to clink his glass with mine.“You children are too beautiful to live,” he cried in delight.“I want you to promise you’ll come and play for us at least once a week.”Andre began to stutter.“I won’t take no for an answer,” Melon pressed.“We’ll feed you right, offer you our finest wines, and you can put your own tips bowl out on the piano.”Andre and I looked at each other and shrugged.We nodded okay at the old man.“Babies,” he said, grinning, “I couldn’t be happier.”If you don’t know what boulevard St.Germain looks like at four in the morning as you sit outdoors at the Deux Magots…I won’t spoil it for you by talking about it.We had received all those strokes from the fabulous Morris Melon; the street crowds had been supergenerous; we’d stopped at one of my old haunts, an all-night place, for a perfect little meal; I was actually living on rue Christine, my street of dreams; the low sky was showing Paris pink around the edges; and, not least, this beautiful man I was in love with, was in love with me, apparently to the point of stupidity.Again, heaven seemed almost within my grasp.But I couldn’t be happy.I couldn’t rest.We were no closer to finding Vivian.She was, if anything, slipping further away.“You gotta do something for me tomorrow,” I said, turning to Andre.He polished off his almond croissant.“You mean today, don’t you, sweetheart?”“Right.Here’s the thing: Vivian knew this guy Rube Haskins.“Check.”“Only he had a different name.”“Check.”“And he was murdered—maybe over a woman, maybe by a woman.”“Check—Wait a minute.You don’t think your aunt was the woman—or the woman scorned?”“The pig’s foot, so to speak.Of course I don’t know that she had anything to do with it.But at any rate, it had to be in the papers, right? There has to be some kind of investigation when anybody gets murdered.And Haskins was a public figure, even if he was a really minor celebrity—Mister Footnote.We have to find out if the police ever got the whole story.If they arrested anybody.Maybe somebody from his family came over here to claim the body.Maybe Vivian’s name turns up as just someone the cops contacted for information.”“Maybe,” he said.“So what is it you want me to do?”“The murder happened, what, almost twenty-five years ago.I’m going to make a run to the library tomorrow, and make a phone call or two to some of the newspapers.I’ll comb through the back issues.Not Le Figaro, it’s too proper and conservative.But the tabloid types.That stuff’s got to be on microfiche now, just like in the States.I’ll try to find one of those books in English—you know, those music encyclopedias—Who’s Who in American Music, or something like that—and see if Haskins’s bio is there, and maybe his real name: Ezra Something, or Something Ezekiel—or whatever.“What I need you to do is try to find back issues of the most obscure kind of music magazines you can think of.Canvass all your street player buddies and ask them if they own such things, or where to start looking.Maybe one of those music journals did a memorial piece on Haskins.Hell, maybe something a little more mainstream—like an early issue of Rolling Stone.Those shouldn’t be too hard to find.Anything you can think of, no matter how nutty it seems.It’s worth a try.”Try we did.None of the arcane, or nutty, sources panned out.But, as I had speculated, there was mention of Little Rube Haskins’s death in the police blotter sections of the conventional press.The only report of any length turned up as an ordinary news item in a Paris paper that had long ago ceased publishing.Minimal information emerged on Haskins’s career and background—not even where he was born.He was referred to as a black American folk singer who lived at a modest hotel in the 11th arrondissement.In the last report on file (the story had run for two days) Inspector Pascal Simard declared that police were still looking for the vicious killer who had left Monsieur Haskins’s mangled body in the one-way street where he resided.I kind of enjoyed playing the puppet master, dispatching Andre to do this or that spadework.While he was following up one potential lead, I gigged on the street all by myself, which was kind of scary but thrilling.But then the rest of my afternoon was shot, as I had to go hunting for pantyhose long enough for my endless legs.I finally found my size at a little lingerie store where only nuns shopped.Controlling my other operative, Gigi Lacroix, was a tad trickier.It was tough getting an appointment with him before sundown.He kept hours similar to my friend Aubrey’s—the vampire schedule.Daylight must have been rough on his sensitive skin [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]