Jack of Diamonds (79 page)

I wasn’t used to hearing her swear. Clearly she was under pressure, but did she take me for a fool? ‘What are you saying, that my leaving three weeks early could affect your annual result?’ I looked at her. ‘Bridgett, that’s very hard to believe. The GAWP Bar is booked out.’

It was as if she’d read my mind. ‘No, Jack, you’re not a fool, far from it, but you
are
a male.’

‘And that means the same thing, does it?’

‘No, not at all, just that you don’t always think like a woman.’

‘Well, thank god for that.’

She looked directly at me. ‘Jack, perhaps you don’t realise, but you’re the main attraction.’

I threw back my head and laughed. ‘Give me a break, Bridgett! With respect, any good pianist could fill my role. The wives and girlfriends come to gossip and to drink and to have a good time. I just provide the background music.’

‘You’re right, playing the piano is only incidental, but
who
plays it isn’t. Jack, it’s
you
! Anyone can start a GAWP Bar, it’s not rocket science. They come for the total mix and a big part of that is you, your personality, your looks, your easy manner, modesty, talent, charm . . .’ Her smile grew as she ticked these off on her fingers.

‘Thank you, Bridgett, but that’s very hard to believe.’

She ignored me. ‘We’re booked out until the new year with America’s wealthiest gamblers and their wives. I had to turn down nearly fifty applications. Putting it bluntly, if you’re not playing in the GAWP Bar the girls will go elsewhere and take their husbands with them. They can gamble anywhere. The Desert Inn has their new ritzy curved swimming pool; Michael Solomon is doing wonders at the Flamingo – he’s got an entertainment list over the Christmas break that’s like a who’s who of American entertainers; most of the new casinos have suites bigger than ours and just as luxurious or even more so. The moment they get a whiff of this, they’ll do everything they can, legal or otherwise, to steal our business, make our high rollers an offer they can’t refuse.’ Bridgett paused. ‘It could be an absolute disaster for me. We lost a fair bit during the waitress strike, but that will be nothing compared to what could happen when people learn you’ve left town. I’d have to write and tell them – they’d never forgive me if they arrived and found you gone. The competition from the newer casinos has been fierce this year and there’s a chance I won’t make the percentage in my final year. As I said, one dollar short and the godfather will withhold my dividends and cancel my points in the Firebird. It could well be the happiest day of his life.’

‘Jesus!’ was all I could think to say. I’ll give Bridgett credit, she didn’t burst into tears the way women usually do when they desperately need something from a guy. She simply sat, looking down at her hands in her lap. Then she looked up and said, ‘Jack, if you decide to leave today I’ll understand. This is my problem, not yours, but I wanted you to have all the facts before you decided.’

What could I do? I sighed, perhaps a little melodramatically, then tried to cover it with a grin. ‘Mrs Fuller, come January the 2nd I’m outa here. It gives me time to sell up and sort out my affairs. “
Apartment for sale, brand new Yale lock fitted”
,’ I quipped.

‘Yes, I’m sorry about that, Jack. I told the man at the locksmith to send me the invoice.’

I brushed this away. ‘I paid him. And I get the Christmas bonus, three months’ salary?’ I asked cheekily, to lighten the moment.

Bridgett smiled. ‘I’ll personally see to it you get it the day after Christmas.’

I did a quick calculation – three months’ extra salary would give me a handsome sum. ‘I’m not short of money – been on a lucky streak, I guess – but I’ll give you the name and address of a friend of mine in Canada, Mac McClymont, who wants to start a small guitar factory in Toronto. Could you make the cheque out to him, please, Bridgett?’

Bridgett rose from her chair and, for a fleeting moment, I thought she was going to kiss me, but she looked me straight in the eye and extended her hand. ‘Thank you, Jack,’ she said quietly.

‘You’re welcome,’ I replied, a little embarrassed, but also pleased she hadn’t made a big deal of it. ‘Glad you’re going to get your points. I may need a loan some day.’

‘We’d have to discuss what I get in return, Jack,’ she laughed.

Christ, this lady had a lot of class. Sometimes I wanted her so much it hurt, but once she had her points she would be so far outside my league she wouldn’t look sideways at me.

I needed sleep, just a couple of hours, before I had to play, so I went straight to my dressing-room, set the alarm clock for 5.30 p.m. and passed out on the couch.

Bridgett was right about the week leading up to Christmas – I was damn lucky if I got home before sunrise each morning. The rich had come to play – to gamble and gambol. I barely had time to think about selling my apartment and furniture. I thought about my departure in snippets, while shaving, or washing my hair under the shower, or just after my afternoon practice when I had ten minutes to relax before changing into my tux for the late afternoon session. I couldn’t see myself being content to settle down in Canada. I was pretty confident that, despite Sammy’s threat in the kitchen corridor, once I got out of Las Vegas that would be the end of the whole business. Surely even the paranoid Sammy Schischka would get on with his ugly life, and why should the Mafia worry about one lousy piano man? I couldn’t believe pursuing Johnny or me made any sense, even to a sick-head like him. After all, he would have achieved his purpose – we’d have both been sufficiently scared of him to get the hell out of town. Game over.

The point preoccupying me was where on earth I would go. Certainly a long way from Chicago. Perhaps that’s why Johnny had chosen New York. It was an excellent choice if someone wanted to get lost. I’d never quite forgotten staying at the Waldorf with Miss Frostbite, visiting the World’s Fair and, best of all, meeting the great Art Tatum with Joe. Whatever else, the USA offered plenty of excitement – maybe even a bit too much at times. But New York, well, if you made it big as a jazz musician in New York . . . then I’d stop short and not allow my mind to go past this seemingly impossible aspiration.

I longed to get back to fundamentals. New Orleans jazz, blues, the fundamentals on which all jazz is built. I was aware that even the jazz music I was playing in the GAWP Bar wasn’t what I called ‘Joe jazz’. I recall him saying once, when he heard me doing a little choppy phrasing, ‘Hey, Jazzboy, yo never gonna stop lovin’ yo mama, likewise yo never gonna start being a smart-ass wid jazz and da blues.’ There was another good reason to listen to Joe’s advice. Our black audience at the Sunday basketball stadium might dig cutting-edge modern jazz, but the GAWP patrons didn’t. The new jazz style referred to as bebop seemed to leave them cold, however much it excited the kids. The introduction of extended harmonies and highly syncopated rhythms simply didn’t seem to work for the rich folk, even though it had the coloured kids jumping. You could almost feel them starting to drift away. Besides, it wasn’t where I wanted to go. Jazz is endless innovation, but this wasn’t a direction I wanted to take. I tried to keep an open mind and I’d done a bit of bebop at The Phoenix; that is, until one afternoon one of the coloured cleaners summoned up the courage to interrupt me. ‘Mr Jack, we all done agreed that stuff you playing, it ain’t no good jazz. Nobody jumpin’ inside demself when you play dat thing. Lordy, lord, it jes don’t swing.’ I finally decided I was conning myself. ‘Esther, you’re right,’ I said, easing into a blues number I knew they especially liked. Perhaps it was a generational thing.

I guess it was presumptuous of me to spurn bebop. I admired the virtuosity and dazzling inventiveness of Charlie Parker, clearly a genius, of Charles Mingus and Miles Davis, but I thought their music was too rarefied, too esoteric, too far removed from the original jazz roots and mainly appealing to a small, trendy audience. But who was I, a piano player in a casino, to say they were wrong? Joe’s words came to me once more: ‘Jazzboy, we all got a right to do the music we love. But, likewise, iffen we gonna call ourself pro-fession-al, you gotta give the audience enough of the music dey want.’

My biggest regret was that I was often too exhausted after a Saturday-night gig to attend the Sunday morning gospel services. How very different they were from Moose Jaw and Mrs Henderson’s Pentecostals with their
‘Praise the Lord, praise His precious name!’
, its single piano and carefully syncopated hymn singing and hand clapping. Chef Napoleon Nelson had told me, ‘Jack, them Pentecostal cats, they really crazy, crazy, man. They kin really sing and holler. They go jumpin’ and praisin’ and cavortin’ for the Lord Jesus. I don’ hold wid everythin dey gone do, like speakin’ in tongues, some other things also, castin’ out the devil, evil spirits, but we da Southern Baptists, why we jes pussy-footin’ dat gospel music compare to dem lot.’

‘Don’t they worship snakes?’ I asked, perhaps stupidly.

‘Hell, no. That white hillbilly nonsense. Some, not all, done do dat. Coloured folk know better than doin’ somethin’ blas-phee-mous like bringin’ a snake into church. Everbody know da serpent, he come to Eve wid a nice big, shiny red apple. He da devil’s chile turn serpent hissin’ in her ear, makin’ promises and causin’ mischeef.’ He threw back his head and laughed a big, hearty Chef Napoleon Nelson laugh. ‘All the problem men dey have wid women, for sure dat serpent in dat Garden of Eden, he gotta be the one we done have to blame. Why, before he come hissin’ with his fork tongue, women dey just a piece of Adam rib – dey know der place. Like good barbecue spare rib, dey gotta stay juicy an’ tender.’

But somehow the visit to the Assembly of God prayer meeting never happened. What I learned about church music – Negro gospel music – from The Resurrection Brothers nevertheless gave me new ways of seeing into the heart of things. Jazz, gospel and blues can’t be separated if you are serious about playing American music. It was time to get back into something real, back to the fundamentals. The GAWP Bar had taken my eye off the ball, and I’d let poker interfere with my musical life. If it wasn’t for The Resurrection Brothers, I guess I’d have eventually ended up a casino entertainer with a cummerbund to flatten my gut, dyed hair and a capped-tooth smile.

Christmas came and went and I barely had time to notice. Bridgett gave me a gold Rolex watch inscribed with
Jack Spayd, the piano man. Thanks, Bridgett.
Like her, it wasn’t in the least sloppy or sentimental, but I could read between the lines. She also told me she’d had the bank send off the cheque to Mac. To my eternal shame, it hadn’t even occurred to me to buy her a Christmas gift.

Until 30th of December, everything was fine. I’d finished early, an hour into New Year’s Eve, explaining to the ladies in the piano bar that we’d be open from 6 p.m. until sunrise on New Year’s Day. I intended sleeping in until after lunch to prepare myself for the long musical night to come. They’d taken the news well. There comes a stage in a night of drinking and carousing when music isn’t strictly necessary and may even get in the way of lively inebriated conversation. I always played soft sentimental numbers towards the end of the evening. When you work a piano bar, you learn to go with the flow; it’s no place for a prima donna.

I changed into my street clothes and shrugged on an overcoat for the chilly walk home. As usual I strolled through the regular casino to check the action before leaving via the kitchen corridor. As I passed the snack and drinks bar, I heard Lenny call out to me. He was still up, having a drink and a bite with a couple of men, probably pit gamblers. I was tired and the last thing I felt like was a meet and greet, but with only two days before I left Las Vegas for good, it would have been churlish to refuse, so I approached their table. To my surprise, Lenny rose and met me halfway.

‘Jack, glad I saw you before you left.’ He nodded his head towards the two guys at the table. ‘Doctor says Sammy is well enough to travel, and these two guys have been sent from Chicago to take him back on the company Convair in the morning.’

‘Are they medics?’ I asked, looking them over more carefully.

‘Yeah, one is trained, but both are in the Chicago Family.’ He clapped me on the back. ‘Just thought you’d like to know, Jack. Sort’a like a New Year’s gift from your uncle Lenny.’ He laughed. ‘Sammy is finally away and out of our life, our lives, for fuckin’ good! How about that, buddy?’

‘Great for you, Lenny, but I thought he’d need at least another two or three weeks in hospital, and his offsider even more.’

‘Sammy can walk and sort’a talk. As for the other guy, who the fuck cares? He’s goin’ anyway.’ He shrugged. ‘If he dies on the plane, so what. Life’s short. Doc says he can walk and is strong enough, just a little nuts. Got his head bandaged like one’a them Egyptian mummies. We’ll put them both back into hospital in Chicago.’ He paused and chuckled, head to one side. ‘You wouldn’t consider changing ya mind and stayin’, would ya, Jack?’

I shrugged, then patted him on the shoulder. ‘My time’s up, Lenny, but we’re always going to be buddies. I’ll stay in touch. I intended to come around and see you New Year’s Day, have a drink. I’m off on the early train the next day. By the way, thanks for the generous bonus.’

‘Jack, you earned it, every red cent, buddy. Call around, say goodbye, we’ll have that drink together. Walking home as usual, are you?’

‘Yeah, nice and brisk.’