A Last Act of Charity (Killing Sisters Book 1) by Frank Westworth Page B
Authors: Frank Westworth
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unfamiliar, but easy for any chess player or careful observer.
‘It’s time.’
The Chimp looked back, leaned back, said nothing. He was entirely familiar with Stoner’s self-indulgent word games. And there was always a time to talk back.
‘Time, my simian friend, for the triangle. It can’t make a comeback, because it’s never been away nor indeed come into its time in the first place, but it is time for a new prominence. Mark my words. The future of music is the triangle, an instrument of unplumbed excellence.
‘Imagine it. Purity. The single note. Timing, pitch and perfect placement replacing all that hysterical jangling.’
Stoner was warming to his thoughts. Across the stage from them, Stretch ran a neat chromatic scale into an otherwise unremarkable – if entirely competent – rendition of something familiar but too easily forgotten. The small audience looked up, nodded knowingly, stored applause for the end, for no reason any musician could appreciate. A scale, after all, is simply that; a scale. There are lots of scales. School kids learn scales.
‘Do you enjoy it when pals talk through your best efforts?’
Chimp spoke softly, no facial posturing to distract the amused pianist.
Stoner smiled at Stretch, replied to Chimp; ‘You’ve not heard my best efforts, and neither have I. And if this is the best Stretch can manage, then maybe he should consider a switch to the triangle.’
Both men relaxed. The piano played on, as pianos do. The bottle drained away, as bottles do. The evening promised to distract, as evenings always should.
Stoner glanced through his glass. Glanced around the club. Bili was there, sitting like a silent stack of golden curls in her favoured corner by the stairway. In front of her, facing her from her table’s top, stood her trademark two-litre bottle of gassy water. When life was without sparkle, she would say, from the depth of melancholy known only to bassists and public executioners, then it isa soul’s duty to replenish, to revive, to add a little fizz. Her bottle may have been half full; it was hard to tell.
Bili sat alone, which suggested that she was yet to perform. By the time she had left the stage, by the time she had once again beaten black and blue music from her bright red bass, she would sit surrounded by the inevitable acolytes. They would slip secret shillings to the bar to learn of her favourite drink, and send bottles of slosh most expensive to her table. They would line up, the bottles, phalanxes of attention-seeking trophy drinks, and at the evening’s end they would return undrunk to their station behind and above the bar. Bili was of the firm opinion that she had owned some of those bottles more than just a few times. It was certainly possible. The bottle which the Chimp at the bar would reluctantly reveal to be her top tipple? Whichever he considered to be the most lonesome. If the bar was down to its last bottle of Stolichnaya, then Bili drank nothing else. If there had been a mysterious run on Cockburns Special Reserve, then her life was incomplete without a bottle by her side. Prices rise with rarity. It is a law of nature. Profit is the name of the only game that matters.
Bili would claim that she rarely drank. That is a demonstrable untruth. Her music was intoxicant enough, she would claim. And that was certainly true, but despite her denials, the brilliance of her playing could not suppress her appetite for alcohol’s clouding confusions. She was an almost unique mistress of her instrument, the only sadness being that her chosen vice was the bass guitar, and although studiedly poor six-string guitarists could always stand up and volunteer to crucify another singer’s song for the edification of the punting masses, it was rarely considered appropriate for an impromptu half-hour burst of jazz extemporisation on a four-string theme. If a bluesman’s lot is to cheer the dank lives of others by sharing their own pain with strangers, the lot of
‘It’s time.’
The Chimp looked back, leaned back, said nothing. He was entirely familiar with Stoner’s self-indulgent word games. And there was always a time to talk back.
‘Time, my simian friend, for the triangle. It can’t make a comeback, because it’s never been away nor indeed come into its time in the first place, but it is time for a new prominence. Mark my words. The future of music is the triangle, an instrument of unplumbed excellence.
‘Imagine it. Purity. The single note. Timing, pitch and perfect placement replacing all that hysterical jangling.’
Stoner was warming to his thoughts. Across the stage from them, Stretch ran a neat chromatic scale into an otherwise unremarkable – if entirely competent – rendition of something familiar but too easily forgotten. The small audience looked up, nodded knowingly, stored applause for the end, for no reason any musician could appreciate. A scale, after all, is simply that; a scale. There are lots of scales. School kids learn scales.
‘Do you enjoy it when pals talk through your best efforts?’
Chimp spoke softly, no facial posturing to distract the amused pianist.
Stoner smiled at Stretch, replied to Chimp; ‘You’ve not heard my best efforts, and neither have I. And if this is the best Stretch can manage, then maybe he should consider a switch to the triangle.’
Both men relaxed. The piano played on, as pianos do. The bottle drained away, as bottles do. The evening promised to distract, as evenings always should.
Stoner glanced through his glass. Glanced around the club. Bili was there, sitting like a silent stack of golden curls in her favoured corner by the stairway. In front of her, facing her from her table’s top, stood her trademark two-litre bottle of gassy water. When life was without sparkle, she would say, from the depth of melancholy known only to bassists and public executioners, then it isa soul’s duty to replenish, to revive, to add a little fizz. Her bottle may have been half full; it was hard to tell.
Bili sat alone, which suggested that she was yet to perform. By the time she had left the stage, by the time she had once again beaten black and blue music from her bright red bass, she would sit surrounded by the inevitable acolytes. They would slip secret shillings to the bar to learn of her favourite drink, and send bottles of slosh most expensive to her table. They would line up, the bottles, phalanxes of attention-seeking trophy drinks, and at the evening’s end they would return undrunk to their station behind and above the bar. Bili was of the firm opinion that she had owned some of those bottles more than just a few times. It was certainly possible. The bottle which the Chimp at the bar would reluctantly reveal to be her top tipple? Whichever he considered to be the most lonesome. If the bar was down to its last bottle of Stolichnaya, then Bili drank nothing else. If there had been a mysterious run on Cockburns Special Reserve, then her life was incomplete without a bottle by her side. Prices rise with rarity. It is a law of nature. Profit is the name of the only game that matters.
Bili would claim that she rarely drank. That is a demonstrable untruth. Her music was intoxicant enough, she would claim. And that was certainly true, but despite her denials, the brilliance of her playing could not suppress her appetite for alcohol’s clouding confusions. She was an almost unique mistress of her instrument, the only sadness being that her chosen vice was the bass guitar, and although studiedly poor six-string guitarists could always stand up and volunteer to crucify another singer’s song for the edification of the punting masses, it was rarely considered appropriate for an impromptu half-hour burst of jazz extemporisation on a four-string theme. If a bluesman’s lot is to cheer the dank lives of others by sharing their own pain with strangers, the lot of
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