The Dig You Later, Alligator Blues
A Lars Lindstrom Zen-Jazz Mystery
by
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I was having trouble keeping my peeps on the sheet of music in front of me. Large green eyes, framed by coffee-colored stockings, lavender panties and a garter belt, gave me a come-hither stare. The face was upside-down, long blonde hair, straight as a horse’s tail, hangin’ behind the oak bar top, pendulous breast partially concealing her lips and lower face. Her hair and bosom swung gently one direction as her elevated bottom moved the opposite way to the heavy, bumping rhythm my band was pulsing out. The lady stood suddenly, shaking her tail feathers and rotating her head, her hair fanning out and circling over her. She turned, thrust her chest forward and smiled directly at me, then strutted down the bar in front of more than a dozen assembled police officers of very high rank. At the other end of the bar, a portly cop with silver bars on his collar pushed a chair up close, then gave the lady a helping hand as she stepped from her makeshift runway. The heavy lieutenant then took her hand and led her between booths and tables, stopping at the red suede bench closest to the bandstand. I’m not a great sight-reader. Like, I can read music, and I can play fast licks, but I’m not accustomed to doing both at the same time. I’m a jazz cat. Improvisation is my forte, and I’m known to be good at both playin’ brass instruments and singing. It’s the same with most the cats in my band. We form the house band here at Blondy’s Waterfront Dive, a small, wigged-out jazz club on 7th Street, three blocks from the main channel of the Los Angeles Harbor complex. We usually play our own music here six-nights-a-week, but tonight we’d been handed charts. Blondy’s guests wanted some special tunes rendered, and they had brought their own, poorly written arrangements; no improvising until all their requests had been played! I glanced over at the nearest booth, the one Blondy usually reserved for herself. The dancer was moving her three-inch heels carefully around the Formica tabletop, close enough that I could almost reach out and touch her, thrusting her most intimate female parts in the face of my friend Tom Cheatham. Across the booth from Tom, sat his good buddy and co-worker Lieutenant Rich Moen, the women’s
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About the Book
Could it be just a cosmic coincidence that exotic dancers begin disappearing around the South Bay area in record numbers just after a well-fed, 6-foot alligator is spotted in the San Pedro’s Machado Lake? Alto saxophonist Loose Bezich, whose topless terpsichorean girlfriend is terrified, doesn’t believe in such concurrences. Loose calls on bandleader and fellow-jazzman Lars Lindstrom to help him check out the scene. Lars sets their suspicions before jazz fan and friend Captain Tom Cheatham of the L.A.P.D. Tom tells them he suspects that a rogue former cop with a penchant for collecting poisonous reptiles and other creepy crawlies might be the man responsible for both the missing strippers and "Reggie" the alligator’s appearance in the city park’s large lagoon. When their suspect stages a daring daylight bank hold-up then does his own disappearing act, police departments on two continents begin a serious manhunt for former Los Angeles detective Louis Muñoz. Both the bad man and the ‘gator elude capture. Then a second coincidence brings Loose, Lars and the band on a performing tour of the French Riviera just as Louis Muñoz is sighted trying to cross the Spanish border. Lars Lindstrom, musician turned detective faces is biggest challenge to date as California’s "Reggie-gator" serial killer becomes obsessed with the trumpet man’s beautiful Norwegian lady.
About the Author
Skoot Larson is a native Los Angelino, a musician, music critic and a Viet Nam veteran. He has also worked as a disc jockey, actor, speech therapist, stand-up comedian, behavioral counselor and streetcar conductor. His previous works include the Lars Lindstrom Zen-Jazz Mystery series: “The No News is Bad News Blues,” and “The Real Gone, Horn Gone Blues. He has also written a black-humor novel about health care in America entitled “Apollo Issue.” Skoot lives between San Pedro and Murrieta, California with his two cats.