Deep music fills the night ...

Tonight ...

     It started six months ago, on a sweltering summer night. And it continued. Nonstop. Twenty hours a day, seven days a week. Without variation. We'd asked him to stop, he didn't. We'd asked him to play something else -- anything else -- he wouldn't. But it would end tonight. I would end it, and although witnesses there would be, not a soul would talk to the police. In our line of work, down these mean streets a man must walk, but there is only so much a man must take.

     There he was, again, without fail. Right under my office in the Spade, Marlowe and Hammer Detective Agency.  He set up a stool on the corner under a pool of tired light from the same streetlight. Six months ago, it had been summer, now snow swirled around him. He set down his saxophone case and a part of my soul died again. He assembled his instrument, moistened the reed, looped the strap over his neck, greased the cork, tightened the ligature, lined it all up. The anticipation was bad, beyond nails-on-a-chalkboard bad, worse than wood-chippers on a holiday BBQ, worse than ... . Then came the infamous six notes that introduced the song he'd play for the next 20 hours straight, unless ... .

     I rummaged through the office collection of throw-down guns: police models, chief's specials, army models, navy models, top-break bulldogs, .32s, .38s, government .45s, Saturday night specials, gats for cheap hoods and guns for G-men. I chose a reproduction Army Dragoon we took off a round heeled blonde client who was unsuccessfully using it as a purse gun.

     I put on a pair of cotton gloves, wiped down the Dragoon, rode the birdcage elevator to the street. The operator looked like he'd been mentally beaten flat, all nervous-tense and resigned as everyone else hiding behind office doors or cringing in hallways. He saw the pistol and gratitude flooded his eyes. He nodded, a grim shadow of a smile.

     One final check: the Dragoon was loaded and capped. I'd need only one bullet, but I had five more. I stepped into the street, thumbed the pistol to half-c**k and walked towards him. The infamous descending fifths riff began and the hammer clicked to full.


Six months ago ...

     A melody drifted on the hot breeze through my office window. I noticed someone below.

     "Hey, Sam, dig this. There's a guy on the street corner playing the sax. What's the tune?"

     "That's Harlem Nocturne, by Earle Hagen. Perfect advertising for our line of work."