Do or Die: A Mali Anderson Mystery - Softcover

Buch 4 von 4: Mali Anderson

Edwards, Grace F.

 
9780553580587: Do or Die: A Mali Anderson Mystery
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0553580582 ISBN 13: 9780553580587
Verlag: Crimeline, 2001

Inhaltsangabe

A songbird is silenced ... by murder.

With her soulful voice and delicate beauty, Starr Hendrix seemed destined to live up to her name and hit it big as a jazz singer. But her career ended before it began, and Mali's father offered Starr a second chance by giving her top billing as singer for his popular jazz band's latest show. Mali isn't surprised when Starr doesn't show — but everyone is shocked when the troubled woman is found savagely murdered....

The prime suspect is a low-life pimp with a grudge against Starr. But then the pimp stops a bullet — and everyone suspects Starr's devastated father of exacting his own revenge. Mali vows to use her experience as a former cop to find the real killer. Her search will take her in and out of the "three B's" of Harlem: the beauty shops, barbershops, and the bars. But it will also lead Mali directly into the path of a killer — one who, if not stopped, will almost surely strike again....

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Grace F. Edwards was born and raised in Harlem and now lives in Brooklyn. She is the author of the novel In the Shadow of the Peacock, and of three previous Mali Anderson mysteries, If I Should Die, A Toast Before Dying (a featured alternate selection of the Mystery Guild), and No Time to Die.

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bird is silenced ... by murder.

With her soulful voice and delicate beauty, Starr Hendrix seemed destined to live up to her name and hit it big as a jazz singer. But her career ended before it began, and Mali's father offered Starr a second chance by giving her top billing as singer for his popular jazz band's latest show. Mali isn't surprised when Starr doesn't show — but everyone is shocked when the troubled woman is found savagely murdered....

The prime suspect is a low-life pimp with a grudge against Starr. But then the pimp stops a bullet — and everyone suspects Starr's devastated father of exacting his own revenge. Mali vows to use her experience as a former cop to find the real killer. Her search will take her in and out of the "three B's" of Harlem: the beauty shops, barbershops, and the bars. But it will also lead Mali directly into the path of a killer — one who, if not stopped, will almost surely strike again....

Aus dem Klappentext

bird is silenced ... by murder.

With her soulful voice and delicate beauty, Starr Hendrix seemed destined to live up to her name and hit it big as a jazz singer. But her career ended before it began, and Mali's father offered Starr a second chance by giving her top billing as singer for his popular jazz band's latest show. Mali isn't surprised when Starr doesn't show but everyone is shocked when the troubled woman is found savagely murdered....

The prime suspect is a low-life pimp with a grudge against Starr. But then the pimp stops a bullet and everyone suspects Starr's devastated father of exacting his own revenge. Mali vows to use her experience as a former cop to find the real killer. Her search will take her in and out of the "three B's" of Harlem: the beauty shops, barbershops, and the bars. But it will also lead Mali directly into the path of a killer one who, if not stopped, will almost surely strike again....

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1

Dad could have taken the limo home as he sometimes does after a gig but since I was with him, he wanted to walk. And since he was so angry, he needed to talk.

The air at 4 a.m. held a close, almost sweet smell, not like the salty mist that had bathed us yesterday when we'd leaned over the port-side railing of the QE2. I usually noticed this sweet fragrance after a heavy downpour but it had not rained, at least not since we'd returned to New York.

Late yesterday afternoon we'd stepped from the gangway of a jazz cruise and Dad, after jamming on board and at the Newport Jazz Festival for the last seven days, had grabbed a few hours sleep, then showered, dressed, and left for his regular gig at the Club Harlem.

Music is my father's life but I don't want it to be the death of him. He's in his sixties and I see small nicks of fatigue cutting into the smoothness of his dark handsome face. Lines that weren't there yesterday seemed to have incubated overnight around the edge of his smile. I once suggested (and only once) that he try to slow down, and he huffed and puffed and nearly blew me through the wall.

"Slow down? Hell no. Lionel Hampton's old as water and still moving. Cecil Payne's still blowing baritone and Max Roach's still on the skins. Give me a break, Mali!"

Which I did. And said nothing when he left for the gig, but an hour later, I showed up at the club just to keep an eye on him. At the first hint of exhaustion, I had intended to drag him off stage, even if he killed me when we got home, but he and his guys sailed through both sets, smiled through the applause, and afterward moved easily through the crowd.

"Good show, Anderson," someone called. "You keepin' it real."

"Thanks, man."

"Glad you guys are back, Jeffrey. Now we can hear what jazz is all about."

Dad smiled at this, genuinely pleased. I followed in his wake as he pushed his bass toward the door. Outside the club, the lights lining the canopy dimmed and then went out, bathing the corner of Lenox Avenue and 133rd Street in a mottled gray.

The crowd, reluctant to give up the night, hung tight, looking for other places to greet the dawn. There was more handshaking. And some questions.

"Your man Hendrix was a no-show. So was his daughter. What's up with that? Too much QE2?"

"Tired, I guess," my father replied. "Ozzie went to cop some zee's and probably overslept. You know how that is."

His voice was steady but I watched the knot of annoyance taking shape in his lower jaw and I stepped up quickly.

"It was a great trip." I smiled. "Now Dad's gonna lay low for a few days."

"I hear what you sayin'. Gotta git your moves back. Check you on the weekend and hopefully your piano man, too."

Dad smiled wider, a genial, professional, crowd-pleasing beam, but inside, I knew he was steaming.

Ozzie Hendrix, whom Dad had known for nearly forty years, through the blues, bop, and jazz scenes, was the pianist. He and Dad had crisscrossed at cabarets in the Village, studio sessions, Fifty-second Street clubs, one-night stands, and every after-hours joint that had room for a combo. A few years ago, they hooked up seriously when Dad put the ensemble together for the club. Ozzie had amazing technical skill and his fingers on the keys transported a listener to the very soul and center of his music. Dad with his bass set the rhythm and kept the pace, but it was Ozzie with his artistry, his virtuoso technique, who usually brought the crowd to its feet.

We turned off Malcolm X Boulevard and into the quiet of 133rd Street, heading toward Powell Boulevard. We walked slow. Dad talked fast. I tried not to interrupt, preferring to concentrate instead on the delicate 4 a.m. stillness and the wheel of his bass as it rolled over the sidewalk's pebbly surface. At the corner, the silence was fractured by a riff leaping from a passing car radio, muted somewhat because the driver had no one to impress. A transient interruption that instantly faded. Then from behind a fence somewhere came the long, low howl of a dog.

"...When puppy cry, somebody die," Mom used to say, falling into the Charleston-Bajan cadence of her grandmother. My mom died years ago and so had my sister, Benin. After the initial shock and loneliness of losing someone you really love, you learn to listen in the silence and somehow they come back. They come back. Right now I missed Mom more than ever. She could've calmed Dad with a smile.

When I tuned in again, his anger had risen above everything.

"Never again, dammit! That's the last time I do anybody a favor. Don't care how tight we are. Give 'em a break and get screwed every damn time. And his daughter was supposed to be there tonight. The featured singer. Damn picture plastered on every poster in every store window in Harlem. And not only didn't she show but neither did he. And not a word. Least they coulda done was get on the drum. This way, the rest of us woulda known what we had to do!"

I breathed deeply and offered no comment as we turned into 139th Street, between Adam Clayton Powell Boulevard and Frederick Douglass Boulevard. Strivers Row, as folks called it. A block of three- and four-story neo-Italianate and Colonial revival rowhouses adorned with wrought-iron balconies and French windows that were now closed against the humid night air and, hopefully, the sound of Dad's anger.

We walked past 221, home of Vertner Tandy, the African-American architect who designed St. Phillips Episcopal Church and Madame C. J. Walker's mansion in Irvington-On-Hudson. I counted the doors until we passed number 228, where Fletcher Henderson, the bandleader, once lived. While living here he was able to walk to his gigs at the jazz clubs just as Dad does now when he doesn't feel like calling for the limo.

Exhaustion hit me like a brick. Suddenly, seven days of tapping my foot to the beat of Aretha, Lou Rawls, Branford Marsalis, and Ruth Brown, and lounging in deck chairs until my skin was fried two shades past midnight, and each night wrapped in Tad's arms and rolling to his private and indescribable rhythm, and then rising to jog around the deck with him in a 5 a.m. fog, all had finally caught up with me. My eyelids felt like a sandpit. I was ready to tell Dad but he was still swimming in a current of anger.

"The last thing Ozzie said when we left the ship was 'See you tonight. Starr'll be there. I really appreciate what you doin' for her.' And neither one of 'em bothered to show. What the hell is that about? At this stage of the game, I damn sure don't need no half-steppers!"

I knew how Dad felt. If he was able to drag himself out of the house, then everyone else should've done it also. Or at least call. Luckily, a jazz pianist from Brooklyn was in the audience and was more than happy to sit in. And he was damn good. I listened and wondered how a musician -- who had never played or practiced with a particular group -- could simply walk on, take a seat, and blend so seamlessly with the rhythm, strike the notes as cleanly as if he'd gigged with the band for years.

I heard the ringing above Ruffin's bark as I put the key in the door.

"Maybe it's Alvin," I said. "You know we promised to call as soon as we got back."

"Or could be Ozzie," Dad said as he propped his bass against the sofa and rushed to the phone before the machine kicked in. "If it is, he better have a damn good--"

A second later, I watched the annoyance drain away and his face change to blank surprise. His hand shook violently and he tried twice before finally hitting the speakerphone button.

Ozzie's voice cracked through the silence...

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Verlag
Crimeline
Erscheinungsdatum
2001
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0553580582
ISBN 13 
9780553580587
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
272
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

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Vorgestellte Ausgabe

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Hardcover