Written in Dead Wax (9 page)

And for some reason, from something in her reaction, I got the sense that the dolt in question, be he shyster, java jockey or Cistercian monk, would not be in the privileged position of receiving Miss N. Warren’s favours for much longer.

And I rejoiced in this.

The traffic eased once we got through Putney and we made good time to our destination in Wandsworth. Nevada paid the driver and the cab sped away into the night. She turned to me. “Our driver was rather disappointing, wasn’t he? I mean, compared to old Clean Head. I rather miss her.”

“So do I.”

She stared at the complex of buildings in front of us. They were block shaped, with white stucco walls that had over the years acquired a grey porridge colour and texture, where the surface hadn’t scabbed away entirely. The green painted trim around the doors and windows looked like it had received some more recent attention. In the last twenty years or so, say.

“So what is this place?”

“A Scout hut.”

“Like the Boy Scouts?”

“Yes. Exactly like that.”

Light shone through the opaque pebbled-glass lavatory-style windows and indistinct shadowed shapes could be seen moving around inside the building. “Why don’t we go in?”

“It doesn’t open for almost an hour,” I said.

“What? An hour? Why have you dragged us to this, this garden spot, an hour before we need to be here?”

“We want to be the first in line.”

“Do we? Why?”

“How would you like it if some guy in front of us in the queue got to the records first and found a copy of
Easy Come, Easy Go
and bought it?”

“How would I like it? I wouldn’t.” She looked at me. “I wouldn’t let it happen. And I hope you wouldn’t either.”

“And what exactly would we do about it?”

“Wrest it from his grasp. And, failing that, insist he sell it to us.”

“Why would he agree to do that?”

“He—this hypothetical interloper—wouldn’t know what it is. Or what it’s worth. He’d be bound to sell it for a reasonable price.”

“Don’t count on it,” I said.

“Then we’d just have to take it from him.”

“Steal it from him, you mean?”

“I don’t see why you have to throw around words like ‘steal’,” she said.

“Well, in any case, it’s just a lot easier to get here a bit early.”

“An
hour
early.” There was still a certain amount of vexed nostril flaring, but she seemed to reluctantly accept my logic. She stared at the shadows moving inside the hall. “Do the Boy Scouts still exist? I thought they’d all been buggered to death by evil perverted scoutmasters who had groomed them on the Internet.”

“You have a very dark view of humanity.”

“I get out more than you do.”

“Anyway, that’s the Girl Guides you’re thinking of,” I said.

She giggled.

Luckily the rain eased off and we were joined a few minutes later by other early birds who queued impatiently for the place to open. As soon as she saw these, Nevada realised I hadn’t been kidding. “My god, they’re arriving already,” she whispered. “I had no idea jumble sales were such a cut-throat business.”

“Mind some granny doesn’t put an elbow in your eye fighting over a high fashion creation.”

“Don’t be absurd,” she said. Then—“Do you think they’ll actually have some high fashion creations?”

“I’m counting on it, to keep you off my back.”

About ten minutes before the sale was due to start, the door opened and a middle-aged man and woman in matching brown and white checked sweaters set up a small table with a coin tray from an old-fashioned cash register on it. By now the line of waiting customers extended down the block, back into the darkness, and there was a certain amount of restlessness manifesting itself, not just from my companion.

Nevada looked at the coin tray and said, “They charge us to get in?”

I laughed. “I thought I was the one who didn’t get out much.”

“Not to jumble sales,” she said, “I don’t get out much to jumble sales. Why would I?”

When the door opened I went straight for the records.

There were three boxes of them. Not exactly boxes, though. They were in those purpose-built carrying cases that every self-respecting 1960s record owner had once possessed, red faux leather designs with handles on the lids and cheap tin locks. This was a good sign. It meant the albums had probably come from a decent collection and been properly looked after.

I kneeled down in front of the record cases, as though about to commence an act of worship.

I could feel Nevada standing at my back, as if to shield me from the swarm of jumble sale enthusiasts who were now pouring through the door in a flood. I lifted the first case. It was inordinately heavy and a quick glance inside confirmed my suspicions. It was full of 78s. I shoved it to one side.

“Aren’t you going to look through it?” asked Nevada.

“It’s all shellac,” I said. “We’re looking for vinyl.”

“I’ll take your word for it.”

The hall was now packed with people, going at the goods heaped on the tables like a swarm of locusts. You could feel the heat in the place rising. The second case was stuffed with LPs, so many that I couldn’t flip through them, they were that tightly packed. I lifted out a wedge of records and set it to one side. There was now enough clearance for me to flip through the rest. “Shall I look at those?” said Nevada. She indicated the records I’d removed.

“Help yourself.” I was already halfway through the first case. It was all classical, by the look of it, mostly Deutsche Grammophon. Nevada finished flipping through her pile and set them down beside me again. I could sense she was bored already. “Why don’t you go and check out the other merchandise?” I said. “I saw some shoes over there.”

“Shoes?” she said. “Second-hand?”

“Second foot,” I said.

“Won’t they give me verrucas or planar warts or something?”

“
Plantar
warts,” I said. “A small price to pay for a pair of Jimmy Choos, surely?”

“Do you really suppose they’ve got…” she said, but she was already moving away, into the crowd. I double-checked the pile she’d looked through—all classical—and set it aside. I reached for the third case. It was full of LPs. I took out a handful to give myself manoeuvring room, glancing through them. Jazz; all Dixieland, but jazz nonetheless. Not my cup of tea, but they looked immaculate and would no doubt make some New Orleans fan very happy. I delved into the crate, flipping through the albums. There was enough late Louis Armstrong to choke a horse. Some Acker Bilk. Some Chris Barber.

And suddenly, there it was, in my hands.

Easy Come, Easy Go.

* * *

I stood up, the blood abruptly rushing to my head, and experienced a strange dreamlike swaying. There must have been something in the expression on my face because Nevada saw me from across the room and immediately fought her way back through the crowd to join me. “What is it? What is it? Have you got it?”

I held the album up. The cover was heavy cardboard, the kind they printed in the 1950s, and I could feel the weight of the record inside. It definitely was not a flimsy piece of modern vinyl. It had to be the real thing. Nevada was staring at me. My hands were shaking as I lifted the sleeve and slid the record out.

Two pieces of paper came with it. One was dense with Japanese text. I said, “Shit, shit, shit.”

“What’s the matter? What’s wrong?”

The record itself was in a rice paper inner sleeve. This also was not a good sign. I carefully eased the vinyl out. It was nice and heavy all right, and the label was the proper red and white Hathor design. But in the fine print on it, just barely discernible, was the Jasrac logo.

“What is it?” said Nevada. She could see from my face that something was wrong.

“It’s a reissue,” I said.

She stared at me as if I’d let her down. In a funny way, I felt that I had. I made myself get back down on the floor and go through the rest of the records, but my heart wasn’t in it. I bought the replica album and left the hall with Nevada walking along, uncharacteristically subdued, at my side.

“Why did you buy it?” she said finally.

“It may not be what we’re looking for, but it’s still a nice record.”

“What is it, exactly?”

“A reissue. A replica. A Japanese release from the 1970s.”

“Japanese?” she said. “Then he definitely wouldn’t be interested.”

“Who?”

“My boss.” She looked at me. “I feel utterly drained.”

“A jumble sale will do that,” I said. But I knew exactly what she meant. The adrenalin flood of discovery followed by the bitter and abrupt let-down of utter disappointment.

“And I’m famished,” she said. “I want something to eat.”

“We could go back to my place and I could cook you something.”

“I want something to eat now.”

I looked around. It was starting to rain again. “We could find a restaurant.”

“Did you hear the word
now
?”

“Well, we could get something and drop in on Tinkler. He lives nearby.”

“Won’t he mind us just dropping in?”

“Tinkler’s life is such that any interruption is welcome.”

* * *

We ended up buying a selection of pizzas from a minuscule late-night supermarket, with Nevada carefully vetting the ingredients before she put them in the shopping trolley, along with her shoulder bag and a bottle of wine she’d spent ten minutes choosing from the shop’s tiny selection. When we got to the checkout I went to take her bag out of the trolley but she snatched it away from me for the second time that evening.

I waited while the sleepy clerk scanned our pizzas and the wine and Nevada counted out the cash to pay him. She let me carry the bag of groceries without protest as we searched for a taxi. Once we found one it took five minutes to reach Tinkler’s house, where we stuck the pizzas in the oven and retired upstairs to his listening room. Nevada bundled onto the sofa and sat hunched up with her knees tucked under her chin, her shoulder bag beside her. She looked small, sad, and a little beaten. Tinkler was on fine form, though. He studied our acquisition, chuckling. “So near and yet so far, huh?”

“Why isn’t it good enough?” said Nevada.

I looked at her. “What?”

She gestured exhaustedly at the album. “That. Why isn’t it good enough? Why does it have to be the original?”

“Ah well, now,” said Tinkler. “That’s a question that cuts right to the heart of being a collector. If it’s not the original it’s just not the original and that’s that.”

“It’s crazy,” she said.

“It’s not entirely crazy,” I said. “This is a Japanese pressing, so it will be as good as they could make it, but there are limiting factors. They may not have had access to first-generation master tapes. And for the last track, the vocal with Rita Mae, they wouldn’t have had any tapes at all. Because the originals were destroyed. So they must have remastered that from a vinyl copy.”

“So someone, somewhere, must have a copy of the record.”

“Or a tape of the record,” said Tinkler helpfully.

I said, “And then there’s the physical aspect.”

“Ah, the physical aspect,” said Nevada, staring at the ceiling.

“The original pressing had the signatures of Easy Geary and Rita Mae Pollini in the dead wax,” I said.

“Really?” said Tinkler. “That would make it a collector’s item, all right.” He took out the Japanese insert, looked at it briefly, then shoved it back in the sleeve and took out the other piece of paper. “Do you reckon this came from the Unknown Jazz Fan’s collection?”

“Actually I do,” I said. “Why?”

“Because this is an invoice with his name and address on it.” Tinkler looked at me, shaking his head and smiling wistfully. “It’s a bit of a shame, isn’t it? He isn’t unknown anymore. It’s the end of an era. It’s the end of an enigma. It’s the end of an enigma era.”

I was about to ask what the guy’s name and address was—not that it would mean anything to me—when Tinkler took his dragon box down from the mantelpiece and said, “Shall we?” Nevada suddenly looked up with the first real sign of interest since we’d arrived.

“Shall we what?”

“Nothing,” I said hastily, moving towards Tinkler.

But she was alert now, sitting up straight on the sofa. “Nothing what?”

“Put the box back, Tinkler,” I said.

He waved a hand at me. “Oh, he’s such a prude.”

“What is it?” said Nevada. “Is it dope? Here, let me see.” Tinkler handed her the box and she opened it. “My god,” she said. “Smell that!”

“It’s good stuff, all right,” said Tinkler proudly. He took the box back and started rolling a joint. “Would you like some?”

“Does the Pope shit in the woods?” said Nevada.

Tinkler chuckled and looked at me. “You’re outnumbered,” he said. He licked the cigarette papers and sealed the joint.

“Fine,” I said. “Just remember when you’re rolling around drooling in your padded cell that I warned you.”

“He is so conservative,” said Nevada. She accepted the joint from Tinkler, and a light, taking a deep inhalation. After a moment she let the smoke out and said, in a small croaky voice, “My word, that really is something.”

Tinkler chuckled again. “Isn’t it just?” They swapped it back and forth and the room was soon so full of smoke that any abstention on my part was highly theoretical. After an indeterminate interval Tinkler said, “Hey, what about those pizzas? They must be ready by now.”

“Christ yes,” said Nevada. “I’m famished.”

“I’ll go down and serve them up.” Tinkler headed for the door.

“I’d better accompany you,” said Nevada. “For health and safety reasons.” She followed him out and I heard them giggling as they went down the stairs.

Nevada had left her shoulder bag on the sofa. I went over and picked it up. It was strangely heavy. I looked inside and found out why. I took it out.

It sat oddly comfortably in my hand.

But then it
was
a handgun.

Jerry’s funeral was two days later.

I had phoned Nevada the night before and told her I wouldn’t be available for record hunting. To my surprise, she not only accepted this immediately, without any argument or complaint, but also insisted on attending the ceremony herself.