Looking for Chet Baker by Bill Moody Read Free Book Online Page A

goes down, and you not in demand so much.” He smiles again, kind of wistfully. “Hell, when I first got over here, it was like Lockjaw Davis used to tell me. All I had to do was tune up to get applause.”
    “Well, I don’t have that kind of reputation to build on.”
    “You’d be surprised. You got your own kind of reputation, least with some folks.” He stubs out his cigarette and signals the waiter for coffee. “I know all about you,” he says, grinning slyly.
    “How?”
    “The Web, man, the Internet. My brother’s a computer geek. On his last visit he got me a computer, hooked me up. Wanted a way for me to stay in touch easier. I have to admit it’s cool, hear that voice say, ‘You’ve got mail.’”
    “I’m on the Internet?”
    “All over, baby. Sherlock Holmes got nothin’ on you. I read about Wardell Gray—I knew him slightly—those tapes of Clifford Brown you proved were bogus, and that serial killer thing in L.A. You had your hands full on that. What was she like, that Gillian character?”
    I spend a lot of time putting cream and sugar in my coffee, stirring slowly. “Not something I really want to think or talk about, if you don’t mind.”
    “That’s cool, I can dig it.” Fletcher watches me for a moment. “Maybe sometime, though. Might be good to talk about it.”
    I smile at him. “You a counselor too?”
    “I’m a man of many talents,” he says, grinning.
    Fletcher Paige is one of those kind of people you like instantly, and I know we’re going to hit it off. “So you’ve never been back?”
    “Oh yeah, short visits, recorded a few times, but mostly I stay here. I can work all the jazz festivals, club dates, recordings, but I think about going back once in a while, when I remember Ben Webster dying here, living in a room with that woman who took care of him. Ben was lonely and depressed at the end. I don’t want to end up like that, but shit…” He spreads his hands and shrugs. “Gotta be where the work is, man. Maybe I’ll get lucky, get in a movie like Dexter Gordon and go back for the Academy Awards.” He laughs out loud then.
    After fifteen years in Europe, Dexter Gordon had starred in
Round Midnight
and been nominated for best actor. His career took off all over again—gigs, records, discovered by America from Europe.
    “Chet Baker died here too,” Fletcher says. “Course, you know that already. Walter got you in that hotel down by the station?”
    “Uh-huh. Nice plaque they put up for him.”
    “Another one nobody is going to figure out, but it ain’t no mystery. Motherfucker just nodded out, went out that window. Probably thought he could fly.”
    “Has anybody been around asking about that? I have a friend who was supposed to be coming here. They told me at the hotel he’d already checked out. Not like him to just disappear like that.”
    “Big tall professor dude? Yeah, he was around asking a lot of questions. Only saw him one time.”
    “Did you talk to him?”
    “Little. Cat made me nervous, almost like an interrogation. Got out his tape recorder and shit.”
    I could imagine Ace being thrown by Fletcher, trying to be respectful but wanting to quote him accurately and thrilled to have found a genuine jazz hero.
    Fletcher looks at his watch. “Come on, man, it’s almost show time.” He pulls some money out. “I got this one. Welcome to Amsterdam.”
    ***
    The Bimhuis is full when we get back. Even the bar is crowded as we push our way through to the stage. The drummer and bassist are already there, talking, laughing with friends, ready to play. Fletcher introduces us, and we talk briefly about tunes. I sit down at the piano and flex my fingers, feeling the anticipation as Walter Offen appears and makes the introductions in a flurry of Dutch. All I can make out is Fletcher’s name and my own, then we’re off, on a blues line of Fletcher’s.
    I feed him the changes for half a dozen choruses, then he bows and steps back to a round of applause