Tiger Rag (14 page)

Come on, Mister,
the orderly said
.

Cornish put on his hat
. Goodbye, Charles.

Bolden remained there after Cornish was gone. He strained to look far to the left, at the dormitory’s exit. A few minutes later, Cornish’s white suit flashed in the sunlight and then he was gone
.

Bolden raised the handkerchief to his face. He sniffed it. Ran it along his cheek. Held it up to the light, shifting it this way and that. There were daffodils that sprouted by the main
building, and a freshly painted rocking chair outside the showers, and a cat that walked across the lawn one day, but not on them, not anywhere for many years, had Bolden seen a yellow this bright and deep
.

He looked back at the spot where Cornish had passed and clutched the handkerchief tight
.

Willie,
he whispered
.

Ruby knew her way around Philadelphia, and they soon reached the Penn campus and turned onto Guardian Street.

“This is it,” she said, pulling up before the Anatomy-Chemistry Building and opening her door. “Let’s go.”

“Into the building?”

“Where else?”

“Mom, this isn’t a parking space.”

“Damn it, stop worrying so much.”

It was a granite building with opaque oblong windows. The glass doors opened automatically. In the vestibule a security guard was sitting beside a turnstile.

“We don’t have IDs,” Ruby said. “I’m an alumna.”

“Ma’am—”

“Call up to the dean’s office. Tell them Dr. Ruby Cardillo is here. I donated fifty thousand dollars this year.”

Eyeing her outfit, seeing his own image doubled in her sunglasses,
calculating the risks he might be running, the guard reluctantly picked up his phone.

“Is that true?” Devon whispered to Ruby.

“Of course not. But your father has given them plenty.”

The guard handed them passes and directed them to the dean’s office on the fourteenth floor.

In the elevator Ruby pressed the button for the fifth floor. “That’s where I met your father,” she said.

“Forgive me for asking, but are you really sentimental about this place?”

“Are you joking?”

“Then why are we here?” Devon asked, as they stepped onto the fifth floor.

The air smelled of ammonia and sulfur. The marble tiles shone.

“Exorcism,” Ruby replied with a grim smile. “There are places I need to revisit firsthand, not just in my head, in order to purge myself of your father. This is one of them.”

“And you figured that out an hour ago?”

“What do you mean?”

“That’s when you first said we were detouring into Philadelphia.”

“It’s not a detour. I planned it all along.”

“Really. I wish you’d told me in Washington.”

Ruby fished a comb from her purse and ran it through her hair. “What difference would it have made?”

Glass cases lined the long corridor. They were filled with specimen jars containing a variety of animal and human parts: an ox heart, a lemur’s intestines, a human eardrum, a polar bear fetus.

Devon was transfixed by the conjoined stomachs of Siamese
twins until Ruby tugged at her arm. “Not here, dear. We want the lab on the other side of the building.”

Lab No. 9 had a soundproof door with a circular window at eye level. There was a bench beside the door, where students could wait for their class to begin. The lab was a large room, gleaming with stainless steel and glass. The walls and floor were pale green. A lone student was at work, an Asian girl wearing a brown smock, a surgical mask, and latex gloves. She was bent over a dissection table under stark light.

“This is where you met Dad?” Devon said in a hushed voice.

“Early one morning. It was painted blue back then, and the equipment was clunkier.”

Ruby reached into her handbag and took out a plastic lighter and a roll of incense sticks held together with a rubber band.

“Skullcap,” she said, responding to Devon’s stare, “is a Caribbean herb that dispels evil spirits and negative energy. You have to dry it out in the sun for three days and then powder it. It cleanses a place, and the people in it.”

“Like sage,” Devon said. After all these years, she understood the true significance of her mother’s greenhouse.

“Compared to skullcap, sage is an air freshener.”

“Marielle taught you this?”

“Yes.” Ruby counted out six incense sticks and returned the others to her bag. “You wait here.”

Ruby entered the lab and strode past the Asian student to the main counter. She placed the six incense sticks in a beaker and lighted them. Wisps of smoke rose slowly. The student was startled at the sight of this middle-aged woman in garish colors and oversized sunglasses. Transfixed at the window, Devon could overhear their raised voices.

“Excuse me,” the student said, “you cannot do that.”

“You can’t smoke tobacco here,” Ruby replied. “But this is skullcap. It’s far safer than the fumes from the Bunsen burners.”

“No, you cannot burn it here.”

As the argument escalated, Devon was about to go in when she heard rapid footsteps approaching. It was another security guard.

After escorting Devon and Ruby downstairs, the guard threatened to call the Philadelphia police.

“Go ahead,” Ruby retorted. “Is that supposed to scare me?”

“There’s no need to call anyone,” Devon said. “We’re leaving as soon as we hit the lobby.”

“Devon!”

“We’re
leaving
, Mom.”

The guards stood behind the glass doors watching the two women walk to the Mercedes. Ruby snatched the parking ticket from beneath the windshield wiper, crumpled it, and tossed it in the gutter.

“Why did you undercut me?” she said angrily, making a fast U-turn.

“I was trying to keep you out of jail.”

“You can’t even keep yourself out of jail.”

“Wow. You know what, this is bullshit. You’re out of control.”

“You’re no judge of that.”

“That does it. Let me out. I’ll catch the first bus, train, anything, back to Miami.”

Ruby accelerated through a red light. “Devon—”

“Slow down! Look, you invited me on this trip. I had some
idea of what I was getting into. But I didn’t sign on for these weird detours.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just let me out.”

They were approaching the cloverleaf that fed back onto the interstate. Ruby pulled onto the shoulder. She cried out as if she’d been struck and, dropping her chin, began sobbing. “I’m sorry, honey.”

“Mom.”

“I really am.”

Devon squeezed her shoulder.

“There’s so much shit coming down on me,” Ruby said. “You don’t know.”

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay.”

“You’ll get through it. Just try to be cool.”

Ruby wiped her tears. “Devon, don’t go. If you really want to, I’ll take you to the airport. But don’t, please.”

“I’m staying. Just let me take the wheel, okay? And let’s not talk for a while.”

They drove about ten miles in silence. Ruby was quiet, toying with the tanzanite ring that had replaced the wedding band she had flung into Biscayne Bay. Then she sat up with a rueful smile and slid the Joan Jett CD into the stereo. “That girl was dissecting a parrot,” she said. “Beautiful feathers, orange and green. The girl’s karma was so grim. I told her she needed all the skullcap she could get.”

The night he returned from visiting the asylum in Jackson, Willie Cornish sat in his living room and poured himself a shot of rye and lighted an Upmann cigar he bought on the train. Bella was putting the children to bed. Walking home from the station, Cornish had stopped in briefly at the Fayette Bar. He ran into Jimmy Moore, who played with him in the Tuxedo Band. They had steady work, making good money, but Cornish didn’t think much of their sound. Frank Lewis, from the old band, was in the bar too, but Cornish didn’t have the heart to tell him where he’d been or what he’d seen. Frank was among those who assumed Bolden would come back sometime and play again
.

After pouring himself another shot, Cornish unlocked Bella’s Indian chest and dug out the Edison cylinder of “Tiger Rag.” He uncapped the gold tube and slid the cylinder out, turning it in his hand, examining the hair-thin grooves. He and
Frank and the others were in there. They were on fire that day, Bolden as close to perfection as he would ever get
.

Bella came downstairs in her nightdress and sat down. She was a fine-featured Creole woman, tall, with small hands. Her eyes were sharp and she wore her hair long, pulled back in a bun
.

Cornish held up the cylinder
. This ain’t going nowhere anytime soon. Not for the fifty dollars National offered. Not for a hundred. Not until there’s real money to get Charles out of that place.

She was surprised
. What are you saying?

You heard me.

Honey, I’m sorry, nothin’s gonna get him out of there. Including that,
she added, pointing at the cylinder
.

You don’t know that.

I do know, she thought. The moment her husband had arrived home, his suit rumpled, his boots caked with dust, and took that cornet out of his suitcase and laid it down beside his trombones without a word, Bella saw how much frustration he was holding in
.

He’s safe there, isn’t he?
she said gently
. You must’ve seen that he’s safe.

I seen that he’s near dead.

And you think money’s gonna bring him back?

Cornish set down the cigar
. What I know is that no one’s gonna get his music for nothin’ just because he’s locked away.

You call fifty dollars nothin’?

Indestructible gave fifty to Mutt Carey. He couldn’t stand up to Charles.

You think Buddy would want it this way—holdin’ out?

Damn right. I promised him.
He tossed back the rye
. And you’re gonna promise me, in case it comes to that.

Me?

Something happens to me, I want you to carry on my promise.

It took her a moment to take this in
. Willie, you talk like you’ve got a gold brick in your hands.

I do.
He leaned in to her
. Listen, the bands are recording left and right—the Imperial, the Onward Brass—hell, even the Tuxedo next month. But if—if—you’re right, and he don’t get out, and get his health back, this will be the only complete recording by the Bolden Band. By Charles. Maybe that don’t mean much now, but someday it will. You understand?

She looked hard at him
. All right, then, I promise.

Ruby had called in their hotel reservation from the J. Fenimore Cooper rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike: a two-bedroom suite on the sixteenth floor of the Pierre that went for $4,200 per night. When the gold lamé drapes were drawn, there was a spectacular view of Central Park. The Jacuzzi was Carrara marble, the wet bar was stocked with four kinds of champagne, there were three flatscreen televisions, Bose speakers in every room, and the beds had Tempur-Pedic mattresses.

“Best sleep I’ve had in weeks,” Ruby observed, gazing out at the mist rising from the trees in the park.

Maybe so, Devon thought, but by her calculations Ruby could not have slept more than three hours.

They had garaged the car and checked in late the previous night, and after the obligatory order of a porterhouse steak and a bottle of 1988 Chateau Latour, Ruby planted herself at the
marble-topped desk in the sitting room, switched on her iPod, and tapped away at her laptop until four
A.M
. When Devon awoke at seven-thirty, Ruby had already showered and returned to the desk in a plush robe. She had a pot of coffee beside her and a large bowl of raspberries that she was popping like mints.

“How’s the speech coming?” Devon asked, still wary about the prospect of Ruby’s public speaking.

“Almost done.”

“Can you read me some of it?”

“Here’s what I just wrote: ‘After surgeries requiring general anesthesia, forty percent of patients experience long-term memory loss. Most of you attribute this to factors beyond our control: low body temperature in the OR, postoperative inflammation, trauma. I’m in the minority who believe we might solve this problem by eliminating certain substances from our procedures.’ ” She looked up. “How’s that?”

“Couldn’t be clearer.” How was it that this particular part of her mind remained so lucid? Devon wondered. No matter how upset she was, or how great the distractions she generated, did her professional knowledge simply remain off-limits?

“The technical stuff is secondary,” Ruby went on. “What I’m getting at is a moral issue: knowingly destroying someone’s memories.”

“But it’s a side effect, right?”

“Loss of appetite, dizziness, blurred vision: those are side effects. We’re talking about erasing a chunk of someone’s life.”

“The memories never return?”

“Rarely. Amnesia by Anesthesia, I’m calling it.” She glanced at her watch. “Anyway, who knows, I may chuck this speech
and write a whole new one. I’m just spouting what most of these other doctors don’t want to hear and a few others already agree with.”

“You’re joking about writing a new speech.”

“I’m not. There’s still time.” She picked up the house phone. “I’m going to reserve a sauna. Apparently the saunas here are constructed of Sumatran teak, with polished stones from Swedish fjords. The toxins just flow from your pores.”

For a few minutes there, Devon thought, we were moving along a straight line together—we were conversing—but we’re veering again.

“Sounds relaxing,” Devon said, flipping open her cellphone. “I’m going to call this guy Browne again.”

Ruby shrugged.

“You’re not even curious?” Devon said.

“About Valentine Owen? Why would I be?”

“But it’s more than that.”

“I know. ‘Musical rarities.’ So call him.”

Another man answered this time. “Emmett Browne Company,” he said in a gravelly voice.

“Mr. Browne, please. This is Devon Sheresky.”