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if he was sometimes selfish, untrustworthy, there was something about him, that sweet nature that made people welcome him back.
    The band reassembles in the studio. The audience takes their seats. Chet, aware now of the musicians sneaking glances at him, wondering, he guesses, if he’s going to make it, but he’s never doubted himself. He’s been through too much for that now. It’s just these goddamned teeth. Then a man carrying a small paper bag comes in quietly, holds it up to Chet.
    “I need five minutes, okay?” Chet says to the conductor.
    “Of course, Mr. Baker.”
    Chet goes out, taking the paper bag from the man, going to the men’s room, squeezing the gel out of the tube and quickly applying it, resetting the teeth, testing, biting down while sixty-one musicians and the audience wait. After all this time the teeth still give him trouble, but there’s nothing he can do about it.
    He splashes water on his face, raises his head slowly, and gazes in the mirror, seeing an old man, a man older than his years, staring back at him. That face, perhaps once destined for Hollywood, is now lined, wrinkled, the cheeks sunken, the eyes sad and dark. The face of an old Indian. It’s a face he knows well, but occasionally he still sees the young man in the old man’s reflection. “You ain’t no movie idol now, are you?” he asks the mirror.
    Drying his face and hands with a paper towel, he heads back to the studio, nodding to the musicians and conductor that he’s ready now. He looks for Herb Geller in the saxophone section and winks. “Okay, let’s do it,” he says to the conductor.
    He’s chosen all the tunes. They’re going to call the album
My Favorite Songs
. He’s comfortable with these tunes, and no matter how many times he’s played them before, he finds something new, some new way to approach a phrase, hold or bend a note. He still doesn’t know how he does it, but that doesn’t matter. Doing it, playing, is all that matters.
    The conductor raises his baton, begins a count: a lazy three-four tempo for “All Blues.” Chet nods his approval, and the orchestra starts the vamp figure. He holds the horn casually as always, feels one twinge of pain when he puts the mouthpiece to his lips, but it passes quickly. He picks his spot and blows that first long tone, simple and pure, letting it settle over everyone there like satin, easy, relaxed, slipping into the tune. In that moment the missed rehearsals, the late arrival, the interruptions, are all forgotten, unimportant now. All will be forgiven when everyone hears the playback.
    Chet, eyes closed, breathes life into the horn, playing, already seeing Paris in his mind.

Chapter Three
    I wake up as the train slows and rumbles into Amsterdam’s Central Station. I’ve dozed on and off all the way from London, glad now that I chose to go by train instead of flying. Part of it is the novelty. I can’t remember the last time I was on a train. Just sitting there watching the countryside fly by has been soothing, a breather from London and hassling with the airport and the confines of a jet.
    The week at Ronnie Scott’s couldn’t have gone better, and the Dutch promoter who’d visited the club twice confirmed the Amsterdam gig near the end of the week before he headed back to Amsterdam. I gave him Ace’s hotel, and he’s promised to relay the message that I am on the way. I’m not sure whether the gig is because of or in spite of Mike Bailey’s story, but the end result is more work. I’m keeping the string going. It means a chance to see some of Europe, and I can have that drink with Ace, so I don’t feel so guilty.
    I get my bags together as the train enters the station and clanks to a halt. I follow the other passengers toward the exit, come out into a bright spring sun, and stand for a moment on the steps, taking in the bustle of people hurrying in every direction. Then my eye catches the bicycles. Hundreds of them, maybe more, most of them basic