Straight No Chaser (10 page)

“This is rush, James, if you're telling me yes. I don't mean next week or two days from now. It has to be right away.”

“Tonight I got something on.”

“Make it tomorrow in the daylight. The guy, Fenk's his name, we aren't going in there and tiptoe around his room while he's in bed. Some time before noon tomorrow ought to be right. That suit you? Fenk'll be out and moving by then. Away from the room.”

“You the lookout or you mean you're going in with me all the way?”

“Never send a man on a mission you wouldn't go on yourself, James, or something along those lines.”

“What's coming out?”

“One portable object dearly beloved by its true and long-time owner.”

“How much is my end?”

“Payment of two hundred dollars on completion of the operation.”

James's face remained as immobile as usual. But I gathered the price met his standards, unless it was the idea of an addition to his résumé that attracted him. He agreed to meet me on Charles Street near the Silverdore at eleven on Saturday morning.

I said, “You're not likely to get detoured, are you, by whatever's on tonight, to the slammer maybe?”

“It's a beginners' class for dips. I'm the teacher.”

I got the bill from the waiter for my espresso and James's coffee, and paid at the cashier's desk.

“You want to practise on me?” I said to James on the street. “I'll tell you if any bells go off. The wallet's in my rear pocket.”

“No, it isn't.”

I touched my pocket and felt nothing except a small wave of panic in my stomach.

“Here you go,” James said.

He was holding my wallet out to me.

“When you were going out the door,” James said, “I lifted it then.”

“That was scary, James. Not even a tinkle.”

12

I
F IT WAS SIX-FIFTEEN
in my apartment, it was three-fifteen at the Alley Cat Bistro. I got its number from California directory assistance and spoke to a man with an Hispanic accent who said the boss wouldn't be in for an hour. He called me
señor
.

The focal point of my living room, I tell myself when I'm thinking decor, is a sofa covered in greyish-brown fabric that has enough of a satiny sheen to make a luxury statement. Jackie O. would willingly sit on my sofa. It faces the front window and is set about ten feet into the room. In the mornings, the early sun hits the sofa. Sometimes, if duty doesn't summon me to office or court, I carry my breakfast coffee into the sofa and sun, and think of the Côte d'Azur. The fantasy doesn't work in the evenings. I poured a Wyborowa on the rocks and sat on the sofa in the semi-gloom.

What the hell was so precious about Dave Goddard's saxophone case? Not the old one. It was out of the picture. The new case. Raymond Fenk couldn't have been after the tenor saxophone. He didn't strike me as a guy who wanted to rehearse the John Coltrane songbook. He struck me as someone shifty who knew the saxophone case had value. Someone shifty and violent. Impatient too. And maybe kind of stupid. Couldn't he have displayed a more subtle touch in relieving Dave of the case? An act of grab and assault, Fenk's act, was a trifle obvious. Arrogant even. That was a possibility. Combine arrogance and impatience and you might have Raymond Fenk.

I went into the kitchen and phoned Annie's answering machine to remind it of my dinner date with Annie. The machine was indifferent. I freshened my drink, two ice cubes and the same number of ounces of vodka, and got comfy on the sofa.

The saxophone case couldn't have value all by itself. The value was whatever was in the case. The saxophone was in the case. Scratch the saxophone. If something else was in there, Dave Goddard would have noticed it. Well, maybe scratch that supposition. Dave, for all his other fine qualities, mostly his honest-to-God musical artistry, might not be the planet's most observant occupant.

What if something was concealed in the case? Something Dave wouldn't notice no matter how observant he was. Whatever was concealed, if anything, would have to be light. Otherwise the extra weight would tip off Dave. On the other hand, the case was new and unfamiliar to Dave, and he wouldn't recognize anything out of sync about the case's balance.

I reached back of the sofa and turned on the lamp at its least bright level. The lamp sat on a dark wood table that Annie and I discovered on a foray into the antique-shop country up near Shelburne. Beside the lamp I kept a stack of magazines—
Vanity Fair
,
Jazz Monthly
,
Saturday Night
. James Turkin might have fun underlining the Mixed Media guy's column in
Vanity Fair
, James Wolcott. He was always good for a “palpable” and a “semiotics”.

Things that could be tucked out of sight in a saxophone case. Not gold bricks. Money, though it'd have to be in bills of very large denomination to make the trouble and effort of concealment worth while. Jewellery, though we'd be thinking small and prized diamonds, rubies, and so forth for the same reasons of effort and trouble.

Or, oh shit, drugs.

“Crang, we know you're up there.”

It was Ian from downstairs.

“You want to come down for a drinkee?”

I got off the sofa and walked to the top of the stairs. Ian was standing at the foot, a short, compact man, bald, a moustache, wearing white shorts and a Diana Ross T-shirt.

“Ian, how many times have I told you, drinkee's a dead giveaway.”

“Who cares? It's Friday. I never watch my language on weekends.”

Ian was the swishier member of Ian and Alex. He sold real estate, Alex was a civil servant. Ian was joking. He didn't care if he sounded like a queen. People buying houses preferred gay agents. Better taste in realty. Ian told me that, and I believed him.

“Thanks anyway,” I said. “I'm out for dinner, and until then I got to ratiocinate up here.”

“Get
you
. Ratiocinate.”

“The mental equivalent of weightlifting.”

“If you change your mind, Alex has done something super. It's got brandy in it and honey and lime and champers. Pitchers of it, I promise.”

“Save me some for breakfast.”

“Oh well, give our love to Anniepoo.”

“Ian, I'll send someone around to wash out your tongue.”

“
Please
do.”

It was four-fifteen at the Alley Cat, and the manager was on the premises. He sounded friendly. Why do Americans get into all their wars? Most Americans I run into are too friendly for warmongers. The friendly American at the Alley Cat had practically total recall of the Dave Goddard saxophone episode. A guy came in with the new case early in the evening before Dave arrived for the first set, and said it was a gift of appreciation. He heard Dave lost his old case. Didn't want to meet Dave. Just a present from an admirer to show Dave not everyone in Culver City was a ratfink thief. I asked the manager what the man bearing gifts looked like. Big, strapping guy, the manager said on the phone. That was Fenk to a T. Claimed he was a fan, but the manager didn't remember seeing him around the Alley Cat. Still on stream for Fenk. The guy smiled a lot. Well, Fenk could fake it. The guy was black. Oops. Not Fenk. I thanked the manager, who said to come by next time I was out their way.

I gave my glass a small snap of Wyborowa, a dressing drink, and sipped at it in the bedroom while I considered my wardrobe. The black guy who left the case for Dave could have connections with Fenk. He ran the delivery errand, and Fenk completed the arrangement by picking up the case in Toronto. Yanking the case out of Dave's hands and slamming him with a two-by-four wasn't precisely synonymous with “picking up”, but it rounded out the enterprise that began at the Alley Cat. Say the black guy snitched Dave's old case, substituted the new, which had something hidden in it, and Fenk took delivery when the case reached Toronto with Dave.

Should I congratulate myself on this marvel of deduction? Definitely premature. The whole house of cards hinged on the presence of something concealed in the case, and until James and I checked out Fenk's room at the Silverdore, I wouldn't know about the case or concealment. If Fenk still had the case. If the concealed goods existed. If they existed and Fenk hadn't disposed of them. If you were the only girl in the world and I were the only boy. I got out the clothes for my date with Annie and put them on.

13

T
HE WAY I WAS DRESSED
, someone would have asked for my autograph at the Belair Café. I had on a white linen jacket, a dark-red silk tie against a light-grey broadcloth shirt, and grey flannels fresh from the dry cleaner's hot press. Instead, I took Annie to Emilio's.

Our waitress brought us menus, and I ordered a bottle of Vouvray. The waitress looked like Cher's younger sister. Same pile of black hair, same lean curves, same expression that said attitude.

I said to Annie, “You don't suppose that girl's got a tattoo in a very private place?”

“Don't bother asking her.”

“Not till we're better acquainted,” I said. “Around dessert time.”

Emilio's made me feel cosmopolitan and funky. It looked like it belonged in SoHo, the one in Manhattan. Which, in Emilio's case, didn't mean it had done a copycat act. The guy who owned it was a New Yorker who used to live in SoHo. I retained that bulletin of news from one of my intensive readings of
Toronto Life
's restaurant reviews. Annie and I were at a table under a Canadian Opera Company poster for a 1986 production of
Un Ballo in Maschera
. Beside it was a black-and-white photograph of Emilio's staff softball team, and in my sightline I could contemplate a metal sculpture of a white pineapple. Annie had on a black silk shirt and black cotton pants. Both were loose and billowy. Nat Cole was singing “Lush Life” on Emilio's tape, and when he finished, a Latin group began a rendition of a Beatles song whose title I couldn't remember.

“Hear that?” I said to Annie. “I've eliminated it from my thought processes.”

“If ‘Norwegian Wood' was clogging your thought processes, you were in serious trouble.”

“Not just the song,” I said. “The whole of Beatle lore. John, Paul, George, and Ringo are right out of my head.”

“That's a laugh. I've never noticed
Sergeant Pepper
in your record collection anyway.”

“I'm not talking music, kid,” I said, “I'm talking information overload.” Cher's Younger Sister arrived with the Vouvray. It was sweeter than I liked in my wine, but the fruitiness and acidity were close to the mark. I think I read that in
Toronto Life
's wine column.

I said to Annie, “What I'm trying to deal with here, it's the bane of life in the 1980s.”

“That's easy. The bane of the 1980s is shoulder pads.”

“I'm serious.”

“So am I. You realize how many jackets and blouses I haven't bought because they looked like they were made for some guy on the Pittsburgh Steelers?”

“You going to listen to my theory or shall we just order?”

“Both,” Annie said. Her face wore about as much makeup as Annie permits—a touch of blusher on the cheeks, even less lipstick, and a hint of black eye-liner. For some people, perfection requires little elaboration.

We ordered. Annie wanted cannelloni that came with ricotta, spinach, and tomato. I asked for chicken Taipei, and we said we'd split a starter of mussels that were steamed in ginger and honey.

“Actually it's more than a theory,” I said. “It's a route to sanity.”

Annie started to say something and stopped.

“Yeah?” I said.

“Nothing. I'm all ears.”

“It's about the bombardment of facts,” I said. The Vouvray wasn't too sweet after all. “We get so many of the little suckers beaming in from radio, TV, printed page, wherever, our poor brains can't absorb and compartmentalize and recall as required. Makes for muddy thinking. But I got the solution. Eliminate. Get rid of whole topics.”

“But, honestly, the Beatles?”

“Newspaper story pops up about a Beatles reunion, about the latest tally on Yoko Ono's fortune, George plagiarizing a song from Motown. Any of those, I can give them a pass.”

“How 'bout another example?” Annie said. “Something with more muscle?”

“Red China.”

“Nobody calls it Red China any more. Plain China will do.”

“My point entirely,” I said. “I've been so successful at blocking the subject I missed the change in name.”

“Get out of here.”

“China ruled out, that makes a couple of billion potential stories I don't have to account for.”

The waitress brought the mussels. Little pockets of steam hovered over each open shell, and I could sniff the ginger in the air.

“Evangelists,” I said. “On or off television.”

I began to divide the mussels on the plate. One for Annie, one for me, another for Annie, another for me. Annie reached over and put her hand on top of mine.

“It's okay, sweetie,” she said. “I trust you not to take more than your share.”

I ate the first mussel and tried to come up with an adjective that went beyond delicious.

“Evangelists you were saying?” Annie said.

“Exclude them, and think of the
Newsweek
cover stories I don't have to read.”

Annie said, “Now and then I really can't tell when you're putting me on.”

A moment of quiet of the pensive sort came from Annie.

She said, “Another topic occurs to me you might jettison.”

I can tell when Annie isn't putting me on.

“Criminals,” she said.

My glass was empty. I poured more Vouvray into it and topped up Annie's glass. We'd finished the mussels.

I said, “That might involve a career change of large proportions.”