Seaweed on the Street by Stanley Evans

Boeing.”
    The hard hats had gone home. Now the tv was running a videotape of the Hollywood Greats playing “Calico.” A starlet with a cigarette in one hand and a microphone in the other was enthusiastically belting out the lyrics.
    Barb nodded toward the entrance and said, “Here comes Ray.”
    An elderly black man wearing a black derby hat, starched white shirt and black pants limped in slowly, favouring his right leg. He carried a clarinet case and lowered himself carefully into a seat at the back of the room. He mopped his face with a large red handkerchief. He looked tired, old.
    â€œWhat’s Ray’s drink?” I asked.
    â€œDiet Pepsi,” said Barb, pouring one. “Take this over to him and introduce yourself before the place is too full. You won’t be able to hear yourself speak in here soon.”
    â‰ˆÂ â‰ˆÂ â‰ˆ
    Ray Smith took his time before answering my question, lighting a cigarette and leaning back in his chair with a thoughtful expression. “Sure, I remember Marcia,” he said at last. “She was the sort of girl you don’t forget.” He smiled. “You ain’t the first guy been looking. There was another detective came after her, a long time ago.”
    â€œPatrick Coulton?”
    Smith’s gaze turned inward to the past. “Yeah, that’s it. Coulton said Marcia’s daddy wanted to see her.”
    â€œMarcia’s daddy still wants to see her. If he doesn’t get his wish soon, it’ll be too late.”
    â€œThat right?” said Smith, giving me a hard but not unfriendly look.
    I said, “I’d be grateful if you could help me find her.”
    Absently, he stroked the swollen knuckle joints on his left hand. “What if she don’t want to be found? Marcia deliberately turned her back on her family, didn’t want no part of it. That’s what I told the Coulton guy.”
    â€œI can promise you this. It wouldn’t hurt Marcia to be found.”
    â€œMaybe, but like I said, I ain’t talking.”
    I handed over a photograph. It showed Marcia Hunt posed for the camera with Frank Harkness. When Smith saw it, he nodded. “That’s her. How a nice girl like Marcia ever got tied in with that biker is one of nature’s mysteries.”
    â€œMarcia’s family didn’t think much of Frank either.”
    â€œThat figures. But for some reason, Marcia was in love with Frank, crazy about the bastard.” Ray shook his head. “That girl, she was something. She could play the piano, sing like Peggy Lee.”
    â€œDid she ever sing in a band?”
    â€œYou kidding? She sang . She played piano with me and my orchestra. The RayBeams we called ourselves. Before she came along we were nowhere. Just five guys hustling weekend gigs in taverns, high-school dances. Marcia filled in one night when our regular piano player took sick. Soon as we heard her, the other guy was history. Afterwards, the band took off like a rocket. We were in demand, played all the fancy lounges, the lodges.” Ray smiled, forgetting his arthritis as he remembered old times. “I trimmed the band down to a quartet. Marcia on piano and vocals, me on tenor sax and clarinet, Tubby Brown on drums. Bob Kessler played bass. Yeah, we were a team, all right. Marcia was a dream come true for an old hacker like me, but it was too good to last. If she’d stayed, we could have gone straight to the top, to Hollywood even.”
    â€œWhat happened?”
    â€œWhat happened was that Frank Harkness had this formula for speed,” said the old man bitterly. “He used to brew the stuff in his bathroom and sell it on the street or trade it for smack. Also, he was feeding smack to Marcia.” Ray scowled. “Goddam tragedy. Another Janis Joplin, see? It was cool to be high all the time, and she was also doing this rebellion number on her parents. She got so wired that she couldn’t play