she’s different. From the sound of her voice, she must’ve grown up in Rosedale. But speaking of high school, Sal probably went to Branksome Hall.”
“Got the Rosedale honk, has she?”
I nodded. “So there’s the Rosedale background and the Richard Russo thesis,” I said. “You’ll find her interesting and kind of amusing. We all go out together, you might get a more balanced slant on Maury.”
“Nice try, fella,” Annie said, She got up and refilled her wine glass from the Chardonnay in the fridge.
She sat down again. “Tell me how far you got with the Reverend on St. Clair.”
“You’re going to think about the double date?”
Annie hesitated for a minute. “If you’re really serious, I promise I’ll think about it,” she said. “Now, what about the Reverend?”
I patted my jacket pocket. “I obtained irrefutable evidence that Reverend Alton Douglas was in possession of the blackmail document.”
“‘Obtained?’ That’s a weasel verb if I ever heard one.”
“Further,” I said, plowing ahead, “I have an appointment on Saturday morning with a man who has contacts inside the Reverend’s operation that he wishes to share with me.”
“More weasel words. ‘Inside contacts’? That must mean the guy with the contacts has his own criminal status.”
“That was before his stroke.”
“I bet this guy’s a friend of Maury’s.”
“Good bet there, sweetie,” I said. “But bear in mind, I’m merely at the information gathering stage.”
“I wish no ill to the man with the stroke,” Annie said, “but you’re skirting dangerous territory.”
“That’s the trick,” I said. “I stay on the edges, getting all the dope that’s available, then make my move on behalf of the client who is paying me.”
“Do I gather you weren’t actually in the Reverend’s presence today?”
“Not that anybody would notice,” I said.
“You know, sweetie,” Annie said, “it’d be a comfort to me if you spoke to Reverend Alton Douglas before we go to New York. Get it out of the way. Put my mind at ease for when I’m not around to keep an eye on you.”
“That’s exactly my intention,” I said. “I’ll have a sit-down with him after church on Sunday.”
“He gives sermons? This part is on the up and up?”
“Just like ordinary clergymen, which proves my point,” I said. “The guy’s harmless.”
“Maybe this isn’t going to be the disaster I’ve been thinking it’ll be.”
“My opinion entirely.”
Annie stood up. “I’m going back to the speech,” she said.
“After two glasses of Chardonnay? Won’t your memory be impaired?”
Annie shook her head. “I’m just going to read it out loud for timing. The aim is not to exceed twelve minutes.”
“That’s the same way a defence lawyer thinks in a jury address,” I said. “Nothing to be gained from boring the folks with too many words.”
Annie carried her glass to the office. I transferred some of each salad on to a dinner plate, and started to eat.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” I head Annie say from her office, “courage is not a quality…”
Courage? Edward Everett Horton?
This was sounding like a speech I needed to hear.
Chapter Eleven
Early Friday afternoon, waiting for Gloria to get to the office, I got launched on a research project. If I was representing Flame in a legal matter, shouldn’t I get myself halfway up to speed on the kind of music he was famous for? It might help in making strategic decisions. On the other hand, the music stood a better chance of boring the pants off me.
I Googled hip hop. In no time, I was semi-immersed in Jay-Z. Naturally, he pronounced his name the American way. Jay-Zee. It sounded sleek. Pronounce it the Canadian way, Jay-Zed, it was about as sleek as Diefenbaker. I read on my screen that Jay-Z was a singing, composing, and producing hip hop billionaire. He was married to Beyoncé, though the latest rumours on the couple suggested that they were separated. Her I knew a thing or two about. She was the one who sang “At Last” to Obama and Michelle when they danced at the inaugural ball in 2009. That was as close as I could place Jay-Z to a real song.
I played a YouTube video of Jay-Z singing his anthem, “Empire State of Mind.” Macho guy Jay-Z rapped while Alicia Keys sang the soprano part. His style was insistent, like a kid saying, “Pay attention to me!” What he sang was more a chant than a melody. The guy was arrogant. Just like Sinatra, except not one ounce as musical.
I checked out more Jay-Z YouTubes. Did he write love songs? I played a number of his titled “99 Problems.” It seemed to make the point that whatever problems Jay-Z had, a girlfriend wasn’t among them. Only he referred to them as “bitches.” Jay-Z was no latter day Cole Porter. I played a little more of the number. Girlfriends were also “hoes” with “pussies.” Jay-Z’s concept of romance reached dimensions unknown to square parties like me.
I stood up from my computer, stretched my arms, and sat down again, turning to the business of checking out Flame. I learned right off the bat, listening to the first Flame YouTube, that Flame’s voice was the opposite of Jay-Z’s — a baritone rather than a tenor. On recordings and YouTubes, Flame worked to the usual staccato background of beats and vocal groups. Almost all his numbers were love songs. Nothing profound that I could hear, lyrically speaking, but the words took a more generous attitude to women than Jay-Z’s “pussy.” “Tender” and “soft” kept turning up when Flame sang of his girlfriends. He got “crushes” on women and asked them to be “huggable.” He came across as the earnest guy where Jay-Z played the cynic. Did that make Flame unique? I couldn’t tell. Jay-Z was my only source of comparison so far, and I wasn’t in the mood for sounding out Kanye West or any of the other hip hop guys I had sort-of heard of.
Me, a fifty-year-old white guy who grew up on rhapsodic Bill Evans records, I’m hardly hip hop’s target audience. My interests could branch out from jazz, but it would be more in the direction of something orderly, Bach for instance, rather than something unruly by people with names like Snoop Dogg.
Another Flame YouTube came up on my screen. It joined Flame’s name with Billy Strayhorn’s. What was this? Billy Strayhorn was from my world of music. He’d been Duke Ellington’s right-hand man for years, a composer of memorable songs. I punched up the YouTube. The film quality was terrible, but the sound was clear, and I had no trouble recognizing the baritone voice. It belonged to my client.
Flame was singing Billy Strayhorn’s great ballad “Lush Life.” The song went back almost eighty years, all the way to a time when “gay” meant light-hearted
