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Bandolier, but he
was known as Fee until he was eighteen; after that he had many names,
at least one for each town where he lived. Under one of these names, he
has already appeared in this story.
    I was in Singapore and Bangkok, and Fee Bandolier's various lives
were connected to mine only by the name of a record, Blue Rose,
recorded by the tenor saxophonist Glenroy Breakstone in 1955 as a
memorial to his pianist, James Treadwell, who had been murdered.
Glenroy Breakstone was Millhaven's only great jazz musician, the only
one worthy of being mentioned with Lester Young and Wardell Grey and
Ben Webster. Glenroy Breakstone could make you see musical phrases
turning over in the air. Passionate radiance illuminated those phrases,
and as they revolved they endured in.the air, like architecture.
    I could remember Blue Rose note for note from my boyhood, as I demonstrated to myself when I found
a copy in Bangkok in 1981, and listened to it again after twenty-one
years in my room upstairs over the flower market. It was on the
Prestige label. Tommy Flanagan replaced James Treadwell, the murdered
piano player. Side One: "These Foolish Things"; "But Not for Me";
"Someone to Watch Over Me"; "Star Dust." Side Two: "It's You or No
One"; "Skylark"; "My Ideal"; '"Tis Autumn"; "My Romance"; "Blues for
James."
4
    When I emerged from the trance induced by Li Ly's cigarettes, I
found myself seated on the floor of the shed beside the desk, facing
the open loading bay. Di Maestro was standing in the middle of the
room, staring with great concentration at nothing at all, like a cat.
His right index finger was upraised, as if he were listening to a
complicated bit of music. Pirate was seated against the opposite wall,
holding another 100 in one hand and a dark brown drink in the other.
    "Enjoy the trip?"
    "What's in there besides grass?" My mouth was full of glue.
    "Opium."
    "Aha," I said. "Any left?"
    He inhaled and nodded toward the desk. I craned my neck and saw two
long cigarettes lying loose between the typewriter and the bottle. I
took them from the desk and put them in my shirt pocket.
    Pirate made a tsk, tsk sound against his teeth with his tongue.
    I squinted into the sunlight on the other side of the bay and saw
Picklock lying in the bed of the truck, either asleep or in a daze. He
looked like an oversized dog. If you got too close he would bristle and
woof. Di Maestro attended to his imperious music. Scoot was ranging
back and forth over the body bags, humming to himself as he looked at
the tags. Attica was gone. Ratman, at first glance also missing,
finally appeared as a pair of boots protruding from beneath the body of
the truck. One of the bottles of Jack Daniel's had disappeared,
probably with Attica, and the other was three-fourths empty.
    I discovered the glass in my hand. All the ice had melted. I drank
some of the warm watery liquid, and it cut through the glue in my mouth.
    "Who lives outside the camp?" I asked.
    "Where you were? That's inside the camp."
    "But who are they?"
    "We have won their hearts and minds," Pirate said.
    "Where do the kids come from?"
    "Benny's from heaven," Pirate said, obscurely.
    Di Maestro lowered his finger. "I believe I'd accept another
cocktail."
    To my surprise, Pirate got to his feet, walked in my direction
across the shed, and put his hand around a glass left on the desk. He
poured an inch of whiskey into it and gave the glass to di Maestro.
Then he went back to his old place.
    "When first I came to this fucking paradise," di Maestro said, still
carefully regarding his invisible point in space, "there must have been
no more than two-three kids out there. Now there's almost ten." He
drank about half of what was in his glass. "I think all of 'em kinda
look like Red Dog Atwater." This was the name of our CO.
    Scoot stopped humming. "Oh, shit," he said. "Oh, sweet Jesus on a
pole."
    "Listen to that hillbilly," di Maestro said.
    Scoot was so excited that he was pulling on his ponytail. "They
finally got