Keeper of the Flame Page 15

“He wrote forty-four songs in 2011?”

  “Some were dogs,” Alice said. “Or I should say in David’s view, they were. Most of them he never performed. Others got to be hits. Or they were at least good enough to sing at his concerts.”

  I moved around the shelves until I got to the year when David was sixteen. Comparatively speaking, the number of songs he composed was slim, not close to the later output of 2011 and David’s other senior years.

  I took out the sheets for the entire year.

  “This is what he wrote in the year of the songs that are causing all the grief?” I said to Alice.

  “Yeah, but you won’t find those lyrics in there.”

  I flipped through the songs. Alice was right, as I expected she would be.

  “Somebody removed the lyrics we’re interested in,” I said to her. “But we don’t know when the theft took place.”

  “I’ve never made a habit of going through the pages on those shelves,” Alice said. “Except when a visitor asks me about specific songs. In that case, I dig the songs out. The whole thing makes me quite proud, like I’m aiding a scholar in his work.”

  “But nobody ever asked to look at the songs that came to be blackmail material?”

  Alice shook her head. “I guess that’s because the person who wanted the lyrics just went ahead and took them without mentioning what they were interested in.”

  “Sounds about right,” I said. “Now, tell me about keeping a list of the people who’ve been through the collection?”

  “I did that,” Alice said. She was sitting in one of the armchairs, holding a three-ringed notebook she had taken off the last shelf in the row against the wall. She motioned me to sit in the other armchair.

  “Here in this notebook is where I wrote names,” Alice said.

  “This is from the very beginning?”

  Alice nodded. “I started writing down visitors’ names when we still lived in the apartment buildings a couple of blocks from here, south of Dundas and the other side of Bathurst. Then we moved here. In all this saving of stuff, it wasn’t that I was a doting mama, though I suppose I was. But really it was more that I knew David would become a star one day.”

  “And you were going to keep a record of his ascent?”

  “That was the idea. But I had a second motive, and that was to get the addresses of all the visitors, so I could send them notice of David’s appearances in different clubs around town. What I mailed out wasn’t quite a newsletter, not as grand as that, but it kept people informed about dates and places they could hear David.”

  “How many not-quite-newsletters did you send out?”

  “Only a dozen altogether. That was because I was just getting the hang of the thing, how to write a proper notice, when Roger Carnale came along. He took over everything involved in David’s career.”

  “But you kept the museum open for business and recorded the visitors’ names just like always?”

  “I went a little overboard,” Alice said, smiling at her foolishness. “I wrote down every name of every person who came through the door. Even kids who’d be knocking on my door two, three times a week. I wrote down their names all the times on all the days they showed up. It was crazy at the start.”

  She handed me the three-ringed binder. The first pages were thick with the same names over and over.

  “Then what?” I said.

  “Then I started writing people’s names and addresses only on their first visit,” Alice said. “And since the visitors started to step up several levels in importance, it wasn’t just David’s kid friends. Musicians came here, talented people who were looking to make a mark in hip hop. Some of them became well known, not at my son’s level, but successes. Anyway, I wrote their names and addresses the first time they came, and I made a note of each person’s credentials.”

  I turned the pages in the binder. “Here’s Roger Carnale in 2004,” I said. “You describe him as ‘manager.’”

  “He was in and out of here damn near as often as I was,” Alice said. “But you’ll only find his name written down that first time he came calling. That was my system, first visit the only one I noted.”

  “Roger detected star quality from the get-go,” I said. “That much I understand.”

  “He told some fabulous stories about what he saw ahead for David. They were too flattering for David or me to resist, so we signed up with him, binding us to him for practically ever. It may sound extreme, but the thing is, Roger has backed up everything he promised.”

  “Roger still comes by your house?”

  “Only sometimes when David’s in town,” Alice said. “But Roger also takes me out to dinner alone a couple of times a year. We go to Canoe, places on that level, ritzy. Nothing but the best for Roger, which I must say I don’t mind at all.”

  “Any idea where Roger lives?”

  Alice shook her head. “Roger’s cagey about things like his address, his phone number.”

  “What do you chalk that up to?”

  “My theory is he’s avoiding people who want him to do for them what he’s done for David.”

  “You ever try the theory on Roger?”

  Alice gave another shake of her head. “Roger doesn’t encourage personal stuff of any type. The last couple of years, it’s been especially awkward dealing with the man. What I mean, he makes it awkward, the way he holds back information that maybe my son and I should know.”

  I turned again to the three-ringed binder and flipped through its pages. “Am I likely to find anybody besides Roger in the same category of frequent visitor?”

  “Jerome. Whenever business brings him up here.”

  “Who can resist Jerome?”

  “Not me,” Alice said, giving me a wink.

  “How about a man named Frederick Chamblis? He ever ask to see your archives?”

  “Who’s he?”

  “I think he’s the Reverend Alton Douglas’s killer.”

  “Oh my, Crang.” Alice raised her hand to her mouth. “You’re not fooling me?”

  “It isn’t a certainty, but let’s say he’s my suspect number one at the moment.”

  “The name means nothing to me,” Alice said. “I’ll bet money this guy’s not in my binder.”

  I thought about her answer for a moment, then I pulled a folded piece of paper out of my inside jacket pocket and handed it to Alice. “Anybody on the list ring a bell?”

  “What’s the story with these guys?” Alice asked.

  “The entire eleven of them were associated with the Reverend in a place called Heaven’s Philosophers.”

  “I know for sure this Reverend Douglas never came here,” Alice said. “Nobody who even dressed like a church minister dropped by.”

  “What about the people on my list?”

  Alice ran her finger down the names, “I see you got that guy Frederick Chamblis written on here,” she said.

  “The man gets around.”

  Alice took her time reading through the names.

  When she finished, she gave the paper back to me. “I’m sorry to say none of these guys crossed the entrance to my house, at least not under these names,” Alice said. She paused for a moment before she went on. “You know, Crang, as far as suspects go, if somebody was going to steal something, they could always give a fake name, and it would fool me.”

  “You never ask for ID?”

  “My little museum, why should I check on the identity of anybody who wants to visit?”

  I reached into the side pocket in my jacket and took out my cellphone. “One more item for your eyes, Alice,” I said. “Look at the ten photographs on here. They show ten of the guys in Heaven’s Philosophers, all except Chamblis.”

  Alice flipped through the photos, needing no more than a glance at each guy.

  “Not a single soul looks the least
bit familiar,” she said. “But they look like kind of a thuggist group, you know what I mean?”

  I switched my own attention to the names of people in the binder who had visited Alice’s house in the previous year. One name I recognized, a Toronto Star reporter. I gave her a pass. Journalists in my experience, Annie being a prime example in such matters, are honest souls. No other name made me pause and reflect. I thought about all the visitors whose names Alice had collected over the years. Was it worth my time getting Gloria to run a check on the whole lot? I didn’t need much thought to answer my question in the negative. I already had a list of prospective villains. It was better to concentrate my time and energy, and Gloria’s, on them. If none of them panned out, then I might turn to the grind of tracking the visitors to the Flame museum.

  “You look like you’re done here,” Alice said.

  “Coffee was nice though,” I said.

  “Come out on the porch,” Alice said. “We’ll have another cup.”

  The coffee was losing its heat, but it was pleasant sitting on the porch with Alice watching the passing parade. Many of the people moving slowly down the street in cars were looking for a parking space while they visited the hospital two blocks east on Bathurst.

  “I’ve been working over there for almost thirty-five years,” Alice said. “Toronto Western Hospital.”

  “A nurse, right?”

  Alice nodded. “I went all the way up the ladder to the operating room in the cardiac department.”

  “Cardiac must be tough.”

  “Long hours,” Alice said. “And sometimes patients’ hearts give in. They die.”

  “And you’re still over there?”

  “Part-time. But I tell you, Crang, if some other interesting job comes along, outside of nursing I mean, I’ll snap it up.”

  “You like me to keep my eyes open? Positions come open in my line of business all the time. You’d be game for that?”

  “Do I look like a woman who’s finished with the working life?”

  “You look like a woman in the prime, Alice.”

  Both of us smiled.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  At home, I made two chopped-egg sandwiches for lunch, and ate them while I finished Old Filth. The novel was so good I was already working up a taste for the next Jane Gardam book in Annie’s pile upstairs. The slip of paper I used for a page marker in Old Filth was the Toronto Public Library notice with the date for the book’s return. It was three days overdue.

  I wiped the chopped-egg remnants off my chin, put the book under my arm, and walked up Spadina to the library branch half a block north of Bloor. Inside, it smelled of books. Had the digital age produced a distinct odour for its own forms of communicating words and sentences? Not that I was aware of. Maybe the warm smell of pages and glue and bindings from real books would survive into a future when books existed only in Kindle and other e-forms.

  I paid Old Filth’s late fine, and stepped outside. At the same time, an SUV pulled up at the curb. A tall, slim guy in a cap got out of the driver’s seat, and walked around the car to the door at the right rear. He opened the door, and made a motion indicating I should climb in. The SUV was Roger Carnale’s brand new Cadillac Escalade. The tall, slim guy was Roger’s chauffeur.

  “I’m here to drive you to your meeting with Mr. Carnale,” the chauffeur said. It was the first time I’d seen him up close. He wasn’t a bad looking guy, maybe trying a little too hard to come across as more authoritative than he was capable of conveying.

  “Didn’t know I had a meeting scheduled,” I said.

  “Mr. Carnale says so. That good enough for you, smart guy?”

  “You talked me into it.”

  I slid onto the rear seat.

  Before the chauffeur shut the door, he leaned closer to me, and said, “First we’re making a stop at your office for a little pick up.”

  “Let me make a stab at this,” I said. “Roger wants me to return the sheets of Flame’s lyrics, the copy that Jerome entrusted to me.”

  “I’ll let you off at your place, and wait for you in the car while you get them.”

  “Good man.”

  The chauffeur leaned closer to me and put his hand on my shoulder, gripping it as hard as he could manage. “Don’t make me come in after you,” he said.

  “You think you can take me, big guy?” I said, faking a show of bravado.

  For an instant, the chauffeur looked puzzled.

  I smiled. “Relax, fella. I’m as keen to talk to Roger as he is to talk to me.”

  The chauffeur climbed behind the wheel, drove a block south, parked, and let me out.

  It took only a couple of minutes up in my office to make sure my two copies of the song lyrics were identical. I hadn’t thought before to check for marks, secret or otherwise, that might tell someone which pages were the authentic Flame originals and which were the copies made by the blackmailer, whoever that may have been, the Reverend or some as yet unidentified party.

  Detecting no marks of any partcular indication on either set of the sheets, I put those intended for return to Carnale in a large brown envelope, and placed the other sheets back in my files. I was supposing the second sheets were the ones I’d retrieved from the Reverend’s desk. But, wait, I thought to myself, if the two sets of sheets were identical, how could I tell the version Jerome gave me from the ones I’d retrieved? And did it matter? I had no time to waste on questions. My ride was waiting. I locked the office door, and hustled down to the car and chauffeur.

  “Now we’re off to Roger’s office?” I said. “Or maybe his abode?”

  “Dream on, if you think I’m gonna tell you where his house is,” the chauffeur said.

  He drove south on Spadina, made a left turn at Harbord, and headed east toward Queen’s Park.

  ”I’ve heard of guys keeping a low profile,” I said. “But Roger’s going for complete invisibility.”

  The chauffeur said nothing. He looped part way around Queen’s Park until he was pointed north. We passed the Royal Ontario Museum on the left and the Gardiner Ceramics Museum on the right. The Escalade stopped for a red light at Bloor.

  “Throw me a tiny scrap,” I said to the close-mouthed driver. “Does your boss live in a grand neighbourhood? I’m guessing, say, Forest Hill?”

  “Give it a rest,” the driver said. He turned around and directed at me one of those looks you see in crime movies, the old hard-and-silent stare. With the driver, the look didn’t quite come off, but he continued with the tough guy chatter. “You don’t want to push me too far. What I might do, believe me on this, I wouldn’t want to predict.”

  I decided not to say a word for the rest of the trip.

  The traffic light turned green, and the driver returned to his driving business. He signalled for a right turn off Avenue Road at Cumberland, drove down the block to Bellair, a left turn, then a short block up to Yorkville. We were in very pricey territory. Forty years earlier, long before my time, Yorkville was synonymous with hippies and dope and folk music. Neil Young came from out of the neighbourhood. Now it was couture boutiques and three-million-dollar condos.

  The Escalade looked right at home in these surroundings. The driver stopped the car beside the Four Seasons Hotel patio. Roger Carnale was sitting at a table with a bucket of ice holding a bottle of something that looked to me from a distance to be Veuve Clicquot. The chauffeur opened my door, and I stepped out.

  Roger was equipped with what I was now thinking of as his sartorial trademarks. He wore a beautifully creased fedora, this one a shade of dark blue to match his summer suit. Beside his chair, a walking stick leaned against a briefcase. Both the stick and briefcase were different from the ones I’d seen in my office. The stick was an ivory colour, and the briefcase had no metal fittings.

  Roger rose from his chair and shook hands.

  “Crang,�
�� he said, “nice of you to make time.”

  Since I had no choice in the matter short of a donnybrook with the chauffeur I might conceivably lose, I let the remark go. Besides, I had questions of my own to ask good old Roger.

  “Some champagne?” he said to me.

  “You ever try a brand called Armand de Brignac?” I said. “Very chic in some circles.”

  “Ace of Spades?” Roger said, suave about it. “An expensive but vulgar choice, Crang.”

  He made a motion to the waiter who had been standing by during my arrival. The waiter lifted the bottle from the ice bucket and poured me a glass. It was the Veuve Clicquot. I took a sip, showed the waiter my expression of pleasure, and turned to Roger.

  I said, “Jerome has already told me I should lay off the Reverend’s murder and everything else untoward that followed.”

  “Poor Jerome,” Carnale said, “you and I insist on putting him in awkward positions.”

  “I’m assuming he told you that he told me you didn’t want me to know about the second blackmailing?”

  “Jerome has warmed to you and your friend Ms. Cooke,” Carnale said. “So has Flame for that matter.”

  “One more name you might put on the list,” I said. “Alice Desmond. She was most accommodating this morning.”

  This revelation got a narrowing of the eyes from Carnale.

  “Listen, Roger,” I said. “I know you want me to go away. What I don’t understand is, how come? If you allow me to hang around a little longer, I might find the answer to big questions. Who killed the Reverend? Who’s the second blackmailer? Are they the same guy?”

  “I don’t expect you to just go away, in your phrase,” Carnale said. “I’m prepared to pay you handsomely for the excellent work you’ve done on my behalf. Then I expect you to retire from the field, and let me get on with Flame’s business.”

  As he spoke, Carnale reached into his jacket’s inner pocket. He pulled out a long white envelope out of the pocket, and placed it on the table beside my champagne glass.

  Throughout this small display of Carnale’s riches and power, I’d been holding the brown envelope containing the song lyrics in the hand that wasn’t engaged with the glass of Veuve Clicquot. I held out the brown envelope to Carnale.