And _suddenly_ it was all fine again. The sound was there, only a lot richer than it had ever been.

Davey's piano was throttled up and spitting out sadness again, throwing that iron frame around all of us.

Keeping us level.

Parnelli tapped me and I went cold. I looked at Davey--he was gone; out of it-- and I looked into the audience, and the chick was gone too. I mean she wasn't there. And Max was picking those strings, eyes squinched, happy as a pig in September.

We swung into "Deep Sh.o.r.es" and I think--I'm not sure, but I think--that's when it all got clear to me. After six years.

I played it out, though. Then I started for Davey, but Max stopped me.

"Better leave the kid alone," he whispered. "He's had a rough one."

"What do you mean?"

"The chick was n.g., Deek."

"I don't believe it."

"She was n.g. I knew it right along, but I didn't want to say anything. But--listen, I've been around. She would have counted the kid out."

"What'd you do?" I asked.

"I proved it," he said. His voice was dripping with sympathy. "Chicks are all the same, Deek.

Hard lesson to learn." He shrugged his shoulders. "So leave the kid alone. He'll tell you all about it--with his hands. You've just been bothered with those dreams of yours. Why don't you drop by tonight and--"

"What'd you do, Max?"

"I laid her, Deek. And it was easy."

I jerked my shoulder away and started up the stairs, but the box was empty. Davey was gone.

"Where does the doll hang out?" I said.

Max gave with the hands. "Forget it, will you? It's all over now. The kid was _grateful_ to me!"

"At 45 Gardens Road," a voice said. "Apartment Five." It was Parnelli.

"You want some, too, Deek?" Max asked. He laughed: it was the nastiest sound I'd ever heard."Coo," Parnelli said. "The cold touch of the master."

I studied the man I'd loved for six years. He said, "She doesn't deny it," and I thought, this is the ax between the eyes for Davey. He'll never get up now. Never.

I grabbed Max's arm. He smiled. "I know how you like the kid," he said, "and believe me, I do, too. But it's better he found out now than later, isn't it? Don't you see--I had to do it, for his sake."

Some of the crowd was inching up to get a hear. I didn't care. "Dailey," I said, "listen good. I got an idea in me. If it turns out right, if it turns out that idea is right, I'm going to come back here and kill you.

Dig?"

He was big, but I had wings. I shoved him out of the way, hard, ran outside and grabbed a taxi.

I sat in the back, praying to G.o.d she was home, wishing I had a horn to blow-- _something!_ I skipped the elevator, took the stairs by threes.

I knocked on Apartment Five. No answer. I felt the ice on my hide and pounded again.

The chick opened up. Her eyes were red. "h.e.l.lo, Deacon."

I kicked the door shut and stood there, trying to find the right words. Everything seemed urgent.

Everything was right now. "I want the truth," I said. "I'm talking about the truth. If you lie, I'll know it." I took a breath. "Did you sleep with Max Dailey?"

She nodded yes. I grabbed her, swung her around. "The truth, G.o.ddammit!" My voice surprised me: it was a man talking. I dug my fingers hard into her skin. "Think about Davey. Put him in your mind.

Then tell me that you and Max slept together, tell me that you took off all your clothes and let Max Dailey lay you! Tell me that!"

She tried to get away; then she started to cry. "I didn't," she said, and I let go. "I didn't . . ."

"You love the kid?"

"Yes."

"Want to marry him?"

"Yes. But you don't understand. Mr. Dailey--"

"I'll understand in a hurry. There isn't any time now."

I let the tears bubble up good and hot.

"Come on."

She hesitated a beat, but there wasn't any fooling around and she knew it. She got a coat on and we got back into the taxi.

Neither of us said a word the whole trip to Birdland.

By now it was closing time; the joint was empty, dark. Some slow blues were rolling out from the stand.

First guy I saw was Parnelli. He was blowing his trombone. The rest of the boys-- all but two--were there, jamming.

Parnelli quit and came over. He was shaking good now.

"Where's Davey?" I asked.

He looked at me, then at Lorraine.

"Where is he?"

"You're too late," Parnelli said. "It looks like the Big M pushed a mite too far, Just a mite."

Lorraine started to tremble, I could feel her arm; and somebody was slicing into my guts. The blues were still rolling "Deep Sh.o.r.es." The kid's tune.

Parnelli shook his head. "I went out after him the minute you left," he said. "But I was too late, too."

"Where's Davey?" Lorraine said, like she was about to scream.

"In his room. Or maybe they've got him out by now--" Parnelli stared at me with those eyes. "He didn't have a gun so he used a razor. Good clean job. Fine job. Doubt if I'll be able to do any better myself . . ."

Lorraine didn't say a word. She took it in, then she turned around slow and walked out. Her heels. .h.i.t the dance floor like daggers.

"You figured it out now?" Parnelli said.I nodded. I was hollow for a second, but it was all getting filled up with hate now. "Where is he?"

"In his room, I guess."

"You want to come along?"

"I might just do that," he said. He blew a sour note and the session stopped. Bud Parker came down, so did Hughie and Rollo and Sig.

"They know?" I asked.

"Uh-huh. But, Deek, knowin' isn't enough sometimes. We've been waiting for you."

"Let's go then."

We went upstairs. Max's door was open. He was sitting in a chair, his collar loose, a bottle in his hand.

"Et tu, Deck?"

I grabbed a handful of shirt. "Davey's dead," I said.

He said, "I've been told." He lifted the bottle and I slapped the left side of his face, praying to G.o.d he'd want to fight. He didn't.

"You did it," I said.

"Yes ."

I wanted to put my hands around his neck and squeeze until his eyes ran down his face, I wanted to give him back the pain. But all of a sudden I couldn't. "Why?" I said.

Max tilted the bottle and let a lot of the stuff run down his throat. Then, very slowly, and in that soft voice, he said: "I wanted to make music. I wanted to make the best music that ever was."

"That's why you lied to Davey about the girl?"

"That's why," Max said.

Parnelli took away the bottle and killed it. He was shaking, scared. "See, Deck, you thought you were in a band," he said. "But you weren't. You were in a traveling morgue."

"Tell me more, Parnelli. Tell me how in the name of the sweet Lord this has anything to do with Davey and Lorraine."

"It had everything to do with it. Dailey went over to the chick's place and gave her one of his high-voltage snow jobs. Got her to go along with the lie and stay away from Green."

I tried to grab some light; it wouldn't come. My head was pounding. "_Why?_"

"Simple. She'd be taking the kid's talent and tossing it in the crud-heap. He'd be telling things to _her_, not to the box. And she didn't want to rob the world of a Great Genius, did she?"

Parnelli sucked a few more drops out of the bottle and tossed it in a corner.

"Here's the thing, Deck--our boss has quite a unique little approach to Jazz. He believes you've got to be brought down before you can play. The worse off you are, and the longer you stay that way, the better the music is. Right, Max?"

Max had his face in his hands. He didn't answer.

"Look around you. You: ten years ago--it was ten, wasn't it, Deek?--you got drunk one night and got in a car and hit a little girl. Killed her. Rollo, over there--he's queer and doesn't like it. Hughie, what's your cross?"

Hughie stayed quiet.

"Oh, yeah: cancer. Hughie's gonna die one of these days soon. Bud Parker and Sig, poor babies: hooked. Main stream. And me--a bottle hound. Max picked me out of Bellevue. Shall I go on?"

"Go on," I said, I wanted to get it all straight.

"But for some reason Max couldn't find a real brought-down piano man. They pretended to be miserable, but h.e.l.l, it turned out they only had a stomach ache or something. Then--he found David Green. Or you did, Deck. So we were complete, at last. Eight miserable b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. See?" Parnelli patted Max's head, and hiccupped. "But you don't get bugged because you didn't catch on. Ol' Dailey's smart.

You might have pulled out of your wing-ding years ago, only ke kept the knife in. Every now and then he'd give it a twist--like winding us up, so we'd cry about it out loud, for the public."

Hughie Wilson said. "Bull. It's all bull. I can play just as good happy as--"

Max brought his hands down on the chair, and that was the last time he ever looked powerfuland strong. "No," he said. He was trembling and red. "Look back, Deacon Jones. Who were the great pianos? I mean the great ones. I'll tell you. Jelly Roll--who they said belonged in a wh.o.r.ehouse. Lingle--a hermit. Tatum--a blind man. Who blew the horns that got under your skin and into your bones and wouldn't let you be? I'll tell you that, too. A rum-dum boozie named Biederbecke and a lonely old man named Johnson. And Buddy Bolden--he went mad in the middle of a parade. Look back, I'm telling you, find the great ones. Show them to me. And I'll show you the loneliest, most miserable, beat and gone-to-h.e.l.l b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who ever lived. But they're remembered, Deacon Jones. They're remembered."

Max glared at us with those steady eyes of his.

"Davey Green was a nice kid," he said. "But the world is full of nice kids. I made him a great piano--and that's something the world isn't full of. He made music that reached in and touched you. He made music that only G.o.d could hear. And it took the trouble out of the hearts of everybody who heard him and everybody who will hear him--"

His hands were fists now. The sweat was pouring off him.

"There never was a great band," he said, "until this one. Never a bunch of musicians who could play anything under the G.o.dd.a.m.n sun and play it right and true. And there won't be another one. You were all great and I kept you great."

He got to his feet unsteadily. "Okay, it's all ripped now. It's over. I've screwed up every life in this room and made you prisoners and cheated and lied to you--okay. Who hits me first?"

n.o.body moved.

"Come on," he said, only not in the soft voice. "Come on, you chicken-hearted sons of a b.i.t.c.hes!

Let's go! I just murdered a fine clean kid, didn't I? What about you, Parnelli? You've been on to me for a long time. Why don't you start things off?"

Parnelli met his eyes for a while; then he turned and picked up his horn and went to the door.

Sig Shulman followed him. One by one the others left, n.o.body looking back. And they were gone, and Max Dailey and I were alone.

"You told me something early tonight," he said. "You told me you were going to come back and kill me. What's holding you up?" He went over to the bureau, opened a drawer, took out an old .38. He handed it to me. "Go on," he said. "Kill me."

"I just did," I said, and laid the gun down on the table where he could get at it. Max looked at me. "Blow out of here, Deck," he said, whispering. "Be free." I went outside and it was pretty cool. I started walking. But there wasn't any place to go.