Buddy Larkin

Buddy Larkin is 20 and plays trumpet in Joey Mulvaney's band. Born in Pasadena, the son of a high school music teacher, he has known the singer since they were twelve, when the two rehearsed in the garage. He earns ninety dollars a week to play behind the famous son, and says it has always been this way: Joey sings, he plays.

When not on tour, he shares a wooden house with his widowed mother in a quiet neighborhood, in a slanted-ceiling room full of school pennants, a record player, a stack of jazz records and a band contest trophy. He practices scales every morning, dines with his mother, follows baseball games on the radio and writes long, cheerful letters to his classmates.

He is tall and thin, with a boyish face, pimples on his chin, short brown hair with a quiff and restless light eyes. He wears the band's black tuxedo, the bow tie undone, a white shirt with rumpled cuffs and an expression that shifts from laughter to worry in a second. He is friendly, jokey, speaks of his friend with exaggerated fondness and loves being the center of the conversation.

About the dressing room, his account is that of a frightened kid: he was eating a sandwich and talking about girls with Joey, like in school, when it all happened. He says his friend was tired, with two shows a night and his father charging by phone for every misplaced note, and that he wanted a weekend without being anybody's son. He points to the indebted manager as the man to watch.

Buddy knows the childhood friend, the only person in the room when the singer was taken, is the first one asked about everything. When the detective accuses him of opening the door, he recalls that he was tied up with a gun in his face and asks to speak with a union lawyer. It could be the honest fear of someone who came close to death. It could be someone using the victim's role as a shield. The detective will have to decide which.