He had a muffled conversation with someone in the background and then came back on the line. “Yeah, Twilliger says he’ll be here till then, he can let you in. Forty bucks in advance for the use of the place till ten A.M. tomorrow, ink and paper is extra. Don’t think about bringing any broads or booze up here. Remember I know where you’re staying.”

“Thanks, you have a good night, too,” I said. I raced down to the ballroom and barely reached the stage in time for the downbeat.

I had three tasks to deal with simultaneously: playing my part, playing Dave Wooster’s part, and deciphering the score. Each break couldn’t come soon enough for me, and I never left my seat. By the start of the third set I had sorted out this much:

A BACH ACHE OPUS 38. TOP SECRET. DECISION HAS BEEN MADE BY U.S. NAVAL DEFENSE NOT REPEAT NOT TO CONVERT STRUCTURE KNOWN AS TREASURE ISLAND LONG. 122W 22 15 LAT. 37N 49 28 TO SAN FRANCISCO AIRPORT. CONSTRUCTION INSTEAD APPROVED TO CONVERT TO PRIMARY U.S. NAVAL BASE FOR SF BAY AREA. A PRIME TARGET. ALAMEDA DEFENSE ADMINISTRATION HENCEFORTH A.D.A. HEADQUARTERS TO OCCUPY CURRENT ADMINISTRATION BUILDING AT LONG. 122W 22 20 LAT. 37N 49 09 AND WILL HOUSE SENIOR OFFICERS. A PRIME TARGET. AIRPLANE HANGARS WILL SERVICE ALL U.S. NAVAL BLIMPS BOTH RECONAISSANCE AND TARGETING. HANGARS LOCATION ON PUBLIC RECORD AND WILL NOT BE CHANGED. NEW CONSTRUCTION AS FOLLOWS. FIFTEEN PIERS FOR U.S. DESTROYERS AND CARGO SHIPS. TONNAGE OF ABOVE . . .

Chapter 47

47

The Last Set

I got that far and then the band had to play “The Music Speaks to Me.”

I felt so blockheaded as I stepped up to the mike and realized that for months I’d been singing about exactly what Gail had pulled off and still I hadn’t caught on: “A trumpet confiding in you alone, a whispered aside from a slide trombone. . . . You hear the moan of reeds who sing in rhythm, and the message they bring with ’em is that soaring speech each poem seeks to be. . . . I tell you, the music it speaks to me.”

How, how could I have missed it? The title of the song alone had been virtually screaming the truth in my ears. Gail’s composition had the power of speech.

I wanted to tap the mike and announce, “Ladies and gentlemen, you are looking at a man who has just spent a week of his life passionately creating a musical arrangement of a dossier!”

But it was serious, and I had to keep my notes away from the eyes of Frankie Pompano and Jerry Garden. I was likely the first tenor sax player who’d had top U.S. Naval Department secrets sitting on his music stand alongside “I’m Popeye the Sailor Man.”