“The Java Jive” is episode eight of season five of Sliders.
A man is paying piano in the currently shut Hippo Club. He tucks a piece of paper in his music book and a woman comes over and kisses him. His phone rings and the man, Harrell, says he has to go. Outside, he meets the caller. Rembrandt. Who shoots the man, so probably Rembrandt’s double. The woman hears the shots. Rembrandt Two searches Harrell’s body, then leaves. And the Sliders arrive.
Rembrandt says they need jobs as they’re almost out of cash. Then they hear a scream and find the woman by Harrell’s dead body.
Harrell is taken away and the police arrive. Maggie heads to speak to the detective, Wells. She explains they heard a woman scream and ran to help, but didn’t hear anyone shot. They didn’t catch the name of the woman, but she’s a nightclub singer. Angie Morgan, pretty big around here according to Wells. Harrell was her piano player. Maggie says Angie is inside lying down. Wells won’t bother her now but tells Maggie to call him if he remembers anything else. Maggie tells Mallory and Diana that that was rather casual. Almost as if he knew everything already. Or didn’t want to know.
Rembrandt is inside talking to Maggie about music and musicians. Two dancers and the barman tell her it’s too hot; they’re quitting. Angie asks Rembrandt to play the piano. The other three enter and Maggie says that Angie has hooked Rembrandt.
A man is complaining to his men that even with everything they got they can’t mix a little synthetic caffeine. The other Rembrandt is there and it seems he’s a police officer. Rembrandt Two says Harrell didn’t have it on him. The first, Dropper, doesn’t think Harrell even had a contact. Rembrandt Two had to kill Harrell; he was going to tell their boss about the arrangement. Currently, he just suspects. Rembrandt Two hasn’t tossed Harrell’s place yet. Dropper tells him to do so.
That night at the Hippo Club Rembrandt asks Mallory, now tending bar, for a scotch and soda. All Mallory has is 300 different kinds of coffee. Maggie and Diana are dressed as dancers; Diana asks why they can’t hit the ATMs like normal. Rembrandt says it’s just for the night.
Angie comes over and hands Mallory the key to the sugar box. She hands out ten sugar packets; they are worth $50. It’s not sugar, but caffeine. It turns out they’re in a speakeasy. A caffeine speakeasy. The Sliders claim they’re from Canada. In the US, caffeine, tobacco, alcohol and red meat are banned for the public health.
Angie and Rembrandt head to perform and Rembrandt finds the paper Harrell tucked away. Angie is singing, about her man; she seems to be overcome at one point – Harrell was her boyfriend – and Rembrandt sings too. Afterwards, Maggie says she will be the one to tell Maggie that they will be moving on. Diana stirs some not-sugar into a coffee, then starts choking and collapses. Tainted caff, according to Angie.
Rembrandt Two is tossing Harrell’s apartment when he hears voices and ducks out the window. The Sliders and Maggie enter and find the place tossed. Maggie asks if Harrell had anything valuable or important enough to leave through a 4th floor window. Angie doesn’t think so.
The note Harrell left turns out to be the name of Angie’s new source for caffeine, and a meeting time. It also turns out that Harrell was an undercover cop. And Dropper is a gangster dealing in caffeine, and he wants details on Angie’s source. It’s all very 1920s, but with caffeine, not alcohol.