The Gutter and the Grave by Ed McBain Read Free Book Online Page A

weren’t
any
investigatory considerations involved at all. I was digressing. I admit it. Shoot me.
    The rehearsal was held in the basement of an apartment building on 116th Street, just off Third Avenue. The rain had washed the sidewalks and the asphalt, and water rushed in the gutters toward the sewers. It was only eight-thirty or so, still not dark, but a few lights had come on, and the sky westward was already washed with a soft duskiness. Laraine was a fast walker. She had long legs and a good stride, and I hadtrouble keeping up with her. She walked as if she knew exactly where she was going, and Christ help anyone who happened to step into her path.
    “You’ll find this very dull,” she said. “Rehearsals always are. People come to rehearsals expecting a finished product, and they’re always disappointed.”
    “I’ll take my chances,” I said.
    The basement was in a building that housed a doctor’s office on street level, and a dentist’s office above that. I was wondering about how rehearsals sounded to a man being examined for cancer until we stepped into the room. There was, to be fair, the boiler in one corner, and the usual tenants’ junk in another. But the ceiling pipes had been covered with acoustical tile, and the cement floor had been painted with grey paint, and there was a piano over against one wall, and the place looked very clean and neat. It wasn’t Nola Studios, but it would do for a local bunch of musicians.
    “The band fixed the room,” Laraine explained. “That’s why we get to rehearse here free. Come meet the boys.” The boys, of which there were loosely seven or eight, had all glanced up when we came down the steps. They had been blowing their horns and warming up on snare and piano, and here I was; the horns stopped blowing and the piano stopped tinkling and the drummer sat up on his high wooden box with his sticks in mid-air. A fellow with a trumpet in his hands looked at Laraine inquiringly. In fact, there was more than inquiry in his brown eyes. There was something close to accusation.
    “This is Matt Cordell,” Laraine said to the assemblage. “A friend of mine.”
    The guy with the trumpet said, “I don’t like outsiders at rehearsals, Laraine.”
    “That’s too bad, Dave,” she said. “He’s a friend of mine.”
    He walked over to us. His walk was very hip, a sort of side-swinging walk, the trumpet dangling from his hand casually. He couldn’t have been any older than twenty. He sported a Dizzy kick just beneath his lower lip, the beard allegedly designed to cushion a trumpet mouthpiece. His upper lip sported a white ring of muscle smack in the center, the badge of the trumpet player, the imprint of metal against flesh. He was a tall boy, with bright red hair and a narrow nose, the cheekbones of an Indian scout. Broad-shouldered, loose-hipped, he snaked his way across the room and said, “I’m Dave Ryan. I didn’t mean to be rude, but I don’t dig critics when we’re blowing for free.”
    “You weren’t rude,” I said, “and I’m not a critic. But I’ll leave if it makes you nervous.”
    “It don’t make me nervous, Dad,” Ryan said. “Pull up a chair. Don’t applaud when we’re good or boo when we’re lousy. We’ll get along fine.”
    “Are you the presser in Johnny Bridges’ tailor shop?” I asked.
    “Huh? Yeah. How’d you know?”
    “Johnny mentioned your name.”
    “Oh yeah?” He studied me with careful brown eyes for a moment. Then he said, “The pressing buys sheetmusic. It’s the horn I love.” He was silent for a moment. “Anything else?”
    “Nothing right now.”
    “Later?”
    “If you feel like chatting.”
    “Right now, I feel like blowing. You mind?”
    “Not at all.”
    “Gone. How’s the throat, thrush?” he asked Laraine.
    “It’s fine.”
    “Want to take a swing at ‘The Man’?”
    “Sure,” Laraine said.
    Ryan turned to the other musicians. “Number fourteen,” he said. “That mike set up,