Straight No Chaser Page 8

  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

  THE 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.”

  “Well, maybe just some criminals.”

  “Which ones?”

  “Ones who are guilty.”

  “According to the latest statistics from the courtrooms of the nation,” I said, “that would be most of them.”

  The main courses came. Annie’s cannelloni looked as other cannelloni does but smelled better than most. My chicken Taipei had the same two ingredients that elevated the mussels to gourmet class— ginger and honey. There was also some peanut and soy in there. A little corner of Thai paradise.

  “That man you’re defending who did the terribly clever things with the apartment building,” Annie said. “He’s got the money, he and his partner, and what they did was illegal, and I don’t understand why you have to defend their illegal acts.”

  “First,” I said, “a quote.”

  “Lawyers are always quoting somebody or other.”

  “From a playwright.”

  “Playwright doesn’t necessarily make it gospel.”

  “Robert Bolt wrote this in his play about Thomas More,” I said. “A Man For All Seasons.”

  “Right, I saw the movie,” Annie said. “Paul Scofield played More. Got an Oscar.”

  I said, “More was the Lord Chancellor, and in one scene he’s having a conversation with this very idealistic guy, More’s son-in-law, I think. More says to the son-in-law something like, ‘I know what’s legal, not what’s right, and I’ll stick to what’s legal.’ So the son-in-law thinks he’s got More in a corner, and he says,‘Then you set man’s law above God’s.’ More comes right back. ‘Not far below,’ he says, ‘but let me draw your attention to a fact. I’m not God.’”

  Annie worked some cannelloni on her fork. I drank from my glass of Vouvray. Nothing like a few lines from the theatre to dry a man’s throat.

  “Where’s this Robert Bolt stuff taking us?” Annie said. “I already know you’re not God.”

  “You don’t have to say it so emphatically.”

  Annie patted my arm. It was a pat that meant state the point.

  I said, “A guy in my job can’t think about idealism, playing God, or anything in that vein. That’s what Bolt was talking about. A criminal lawyer deals with facts and law and the system.”

  “This is beginning to sound familiar from past lectures,” Annie said. “The adversarial system. Presumption of innocence. Da-dah. Da-dah. Da-dah. What am I leaving out?”

  “No fair sneering. It’s a nifty system. Only one thing wrong with it.”

  “Yeah,” Annie said. “You’re in it. Which I think is why we’re having this little heart-to-heart.”

  I took a bite of my chicken, drank some more wine, and pressed on.

  “The thing wrong,” I said, “is the system is tilted badly against the people accused of the crimes.”

  “Your noble clients.”

  “Noble doesn’t come into it.”

  “Right there we agree.”

  I said, “Stick with me a minute. All the machinery gears up to put the accused guy on trial. There’s the cops and the crown attorney, medical experts, forensic scientists, court officials, God knows who else, dozens of people all lined up on the same side. That’s one tilt. Okay? But something else works against the accused guy, more fundamental even.”

  I stopped talking. Annie chewed away on her cannelloni. When Cam Charles paused for dramatic effect, people sucked in their breath and made sounds of awe and exclamation. I couldn’t get a rise out of the woman in my life. I was also developing a dose of Cam Charles envy.

  “The something else more fundamental,” I said, “is a bias.”

  Annie nodded. It looked to me like the nod of someone who’s turned out the inside lights.

  I said, “The defendant is protected by what you mentioned earlier, the presumption of innocence. The court has to presume he didn’t do what he’s charged with until the crown proves it.”

  “Beyond a reasonable doubt,” Annie said.

  “Neat. You’ve been listening.”

  “Like I said, I’ve heard some of this before.”

  “But even with the presumption of innocence, there’s this bias built into the system.” I was talking slowly, like a lecturer addressing a class of jerks. I stepped up the pace. “It’s a bias to get a guilty verdict. That’s why everybody’s sleuthing and investigating and questioning and keeping files and policing and prosecuting. To convict the guy.”

  Annie waited until her mouth was free of cannelloni.

  “I’m in favour of that,” she said. “Especially where the guy’s ripped off a company for two million or so with a dishonest scheme. Arkansas?”

  “Oklahoma,” I said. “But you’re leaving something out. There has to be a voice speaking against the bias I just told you about.”

  “A mouthpiece. Is that where the odious term came from?”

  “It isn’t odious,” I said. “Listen, someone has to argue for the accused guy, one single voice that tries to make sure all that massive machinery on the other side doesn’t screw up. That’s where the defence lawyer comes in. He speaks against the bias. It’s his duty.”

  “Duty to whom?” Annie said. “A bunch of guys you admitted yourself were more than likely guilty?”

  “Not just to the clients,” I said. “To society.”

  That rang pompous.

  “A duty to everybody who might some time get pulled into court,” I said.

  That rang lame.

  “A duty to the system,” I said.

  “You make it sound like the garbageman,” Annie said.

  “It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s got to do it?”

  Annie took a little wine.

  She said, “I suppose the part that really bugs me about you acting for these terrible people, you like it.”

&nbs
p; Annie had her hand up as a signal I shouldn’t interrupt.

  “Even if you are right about the bias and the lonely voice of the defence lawyer and all that romantic stuff,” she said, “it seems, ah, unseemly you should get such a kick out of being on the side of crime.”

  “First,” I said, “I don’t defend crime. I defend people, and all of them happen to be innocent at the time they retain me.”

  “What’s second?”

  “You’re right,” I said. “It gives me a boot, the whole courtroom process, me and my client against the machinery.”

  “Hopeless.”

  “That’s your rebuttal?”

  “I’m regrouping my forces for a return engagement.”

  Annie had polished off the dish of cannelloni. My own plate was strewn with chicken debris. On the other hand, I’d made the larger dent in the Vouvray.

  Annie said, “One thing in favour of your current client the musician, from what you say, he doesn’t seem to be a threat to society or its money.”

  “On the contrary, Dave’s the victim of the piece.”

  “That’s novel for you,” Annie said. “What’re you going to do for him?”

  “Make a call or two.”

  “Who on? The porn mogul, right?”

  “Yeah, my sparring partner, Raymond Fenk. Just a small matter of a pickup from him is all.”

  Did dissembling come that easy to everyone? Or was I in the upper brackets of dissemblers, up there with Richard Nixon, Uriah Heep, all-time greats like them? If I revealed all to Annie about the planned covert operation at the Silverdore, our dinner date might turn flat. Better to get the job done, restore Dave Goddard’s tenor saxophone to its rightful blower, make everybody happy, with the possible exception of Fenk, and when all was wrapped and packaged, tell Annie the story. That wasn’t dissembling. That was postponing.

  “I wouldn’t mess with that Fenk,” Annie said. “Mean face on him and built like a house.”

  “The dealings are going to be what you might call arm’s length.”

  The waitress picked up our plates, and Annie asked for dessert.

  “Bananas au rhum,” she said, reading from the menu.

  “With two forks,” I said.

  Emilio’s had a Friday-night SRO crowd. The standees lined the wooden bar at the front. But the room was open and airy, and nobody’s conversation spilled over onto Annie’s and mine. It felt cozy in the crowd.