“Never mind,” I said. “Can you just tell me, do you know Mother Foyer to see him?”
“That’s him over there,” he said pointing to the bars end. “Are you the press lady he said he was here to impress?”
“Yeah, probably; unless he called for the consumer protection reporter that polices price gouging on the TV news.”
“You’re a funny lady,” he said. “Do you want something to drink or not?”
“How much for a glass of water?”
“That would be free,” he said which gave me inspiration.
“How much for a shot of bourbon?”
“A shot is four-fifty,” he said, and he shrugged. “Don’t ask me why, I just work here. We charge eight dollars for mixed drinks on band nights.”
“I don’t get it,” I said. “It’s more expensive if I only dirty one glass. Whatever. I’ll take a glass of water with a lime twist, and I’ll take a shot of bourbon.”
After getting my drinks (plural not by choice,) I moved to Foyer’s end of the bar. “Mr. Foyer,” I said, “Hello, I’m Cat Hoskin.” That was when I realized that I didn’t have a free hand to extend to him. He, however, hadn’t realized this yet, and his hand was waiting. I looked blankly at his palm for a moment then took a deep draught from the water glass and poured the bourbon into the vacated space. After setting down the empty shot glass, I shook Mother’s hand.
“Wow,” he said, “Do all magazine people drink like that? If they do, I’m definitely the man for this job.”
After laughing politely, I said, “Thanks for coming. Um, I’m sure the article won’t make tomorrow’s paper since it’s Sunday’s, so when will the piece run?”
“It’ll be in Monday’s paper. When will your editor get to see the article?”
“I’ll ship it to him on Tuesday.”
“Great, can I ask you a question?”
“I’ll send it no matter whether the piece is favorable or not. I have no intention of trying to dictate your copy. Is that what you were wondering?”
“Actually, yes. Also, what’s your interest in this band?”
“I’m sort of a friend of the clarinet player. But I really do think they’re very good.”
“Well, let’s hope so. Of course, it’s not just a matter of how good they are. How the crowd takes to them is important too. Have you seen the audience?”
“I haven’t been in to the stage area yet, no, but how bad can it be? Stevie Ray Vaughn and Bruce Springstein are featured on the marquee outside.”
“That’s because the owner is proud of the fact that they played here, and he’s at least sixty. Well, it was nice meeting you. I’m going in to stake out my area.”
We shook hands again, and he gathered his steno pad and tape recorder and strolled off for the show while I took a sip from my four dollar bourbon and set off to rejoin my own group. They’d found a table where they seemed huddled uncomfortably like a self-preserving island of normalcy in a sea of Goths, pierced thugs, and other freaks. At least that’s how it seemed to my mid-western mind. Once I’d had a chance to assess the situation, I realized that our group was comprised of a middle aged Irish-Catholic woman in love with a Jewish atheist, a genius who had a compulsion to flatten the tires of minor traffic offenders, a female auto mechanic who oozed both sex and chastity, and myself, a reporter for a national magazine dressed up like a parochial school principal’s fantasy hooker to impress a clarinet playing homicide detective. Freak, it seemed to me, was a relative term.
Chapter 16
It was still early, and the crowd was still sparse when Humpback and the Blues Whailers took the stage. Schwartz, Mia and Beverly had staked out a table far back enough that the stage lights didn't illuminate it. We could see the band, but (while the lights were up) the band couldn't see us. Apparently, the boys in FdP had given some guidance as to what numbers to open with, since their first two tunes (the instrumental Can't Turn You Loose and Hey, Bartender) seemed to meet with some favor. The audience was at least politely civil if not overly enthusiastic. The pieces were delivered fast, loud and almost seemed contemporary. Then came the third song, and the mood shift was palpable in the by-now growing crowd as the band began Europa.
Smooth, rhythmic, ethereal guitar tones rode a cresting wave of unearthly beauty. The hush that fell over the crowd was partly the result of the harmonious strains and partly the result of the invisible guitarist. The musician was absent from the stage. The Whailers had no electric guitarist. So where was the music coming from? Softly, gradually, one by one, the instruments joined in; first the drums, then the bass, next the horns and keyboard almost imperceptibly until finally the singer joined in wordless vocalization. So where was the guitar music coming from? Soon, Jimmy stood from behind the drums. He came forward and stood center stage. A spot fell on him, and he began to sing. He'd written lyrics — well — he or somebody had. Lyrics to an until-now instrumental melody.
He sang with eyes closed and heart open; his energy building as the constituents of the band were deconstructed. One by one the instruments fell off in the same sequence they had first joined in. Then, when finally the only instruments remaining were the unseen guitar and Jimmy's voice, the spot left Jimmy and found the guitarist standing in the wings. It was a kid in baggy pants with a metal stud in his lower lip, the guitarist for FdP.
All heads turned to watch and cheer the Young Turk. All heads save one, that is. Mia was apparently unphased by the absent spotlight. She continued to watch Jimmy as though he emitted his own glow. Gradually, as my eyes acclimated to the darkness, I could see that he was watching her too. I doubted that he could see her, but he was watching her.
As the song ended, the crowd cheered. The band began again. The keyboard kicked up, and the horns joined in as the song Crossroads abruptly overtook the moment. Jimmy had returned to the drums before the cheers had died and before the spotlight had returned to the stage. When the light did return, it found a young man standing center stage. He was handsome, tall and lean. He wore a sleeveless T-shirt and carpenter shorts, and he held the microphone close to his mouth as he sang, transfixing the crowd in their seats. But as good as he was, as good as he sounded, as good as he looked, the song was mostly built on the music.
Progressively, the audience forgot about the handsome young man, the lead singer from FdP, as the horns and bass and keyboard championed the song. After the bridge, when the lyrics began anew, the young man was gone from the stage. In his place stood the woman who belonged there, the singer for Humpback and the Blues Whailers. The band was playing Roll With Me, Henry for a crowd that had mostly never even heard of Etta James, and they were playing it well. The anti-climax was distinct, though well timed. As the song was completed, the singer thanked the crowd, and announced that they were taking a break.
Then, as if a saboteur had been planted in the sound booth, the house DJ put on a rap record. All of the hard work, the scheming, the teamwork between the Whailers and FdP was being undone by an injudicious segue. If this was allowed to continue, by the time the band retook the stage, their well-meant collusion of blues and swing would be once again as foreign to this audience as a meatloaf in India.
I noticed Jimmy and Trevor headed toward us from the stage, but I couldn't stay for chit-chat. I wanted to get to the tin-eared DJ before he could do any further damage. "Mr. Schwartz," I said, "Did I tell you that Detective Johns feels that Fr. Coneely may have been coerced into going to Philadelphia?"
"Not in so many words, no," Schwartz said. "Do you think I should discuss it with him?"
"Here he comes now. What better time than the present?" Schwartz stood and met Trevor about two feet before he made it to the table. As he brow-beat my date, I excused myself and went in search of the DJ. Soon, I spotted a twenty-ish man with ridiculous sideburns in an oversized headset biting his lower lip and shifting his shoulders rhythmically to a different tune than the one playing over the speakers. I tapped him on the shoulder and he jumped. As the headset ca
me off, a look of confusion came on. "Hello, beautiful," he said. "Do you have a request?"
"Yes," I said. "I was wondering, since the band is so blues influenced, can't you play something a little more key-of-C?"
"KFC, like the chicken?"
"No," I said, "key of C." This time I put more emphasis on the word of.
"Like the Knights of Columbus?"
"I'm not saying K. Never mind. Can you play Foghat or Stevie Ray Vaughan?"
"Oh, no, I don't think so. Not for this crowd. They wouldn't appreciate it?"
"Didn't you see them during that last set? They were loving it."
"Sorry, I have to play what the boss says."
"Do you know Mother Foyer?" I asked.
"I've seen him around, why?"
"Did you know he's here tonight to write a review of this show?"
"I heard a rumor. Why?"
"You're part of the show," I said. "An important part."
"I'm just here to spin CDs between sets. He's not paying attention to me." I'd pulled my press pass from my purse while he spoke. I showed it to him.
"Foyer's review is going to go to my editor. He may want to put it in the next issue of Gamut. Here's a preview of how I see it reading:
"The bands performed admirably to an appreciative audience who might have appreciated the show even more if not for an inept house DJ who seemed more concerned with collecting his payola than in maintaining a cohesive program.
"How do you think your boss would like reading that in a national magazine?"
"So," he said smiling through gritted teeth, "what is it you wanted to hear?"
***
Lynyrd Skynyrd's Curtis Blow may seem like a strange follow up to a rap song, but it's a much better lead-in to the music of the Delta than anything by Eminem. I stopped off at the bar for another free water and four-and-a-half dollar bourbon before crossing back to the table. Schwartz and Johns were deep in conversation. Jimmy, Mia and Beverly had formed their own fellowship. As I took my seat, Schwartz called me over to relay some information to Trevor.
"What are you men discussing?" I said playing the coquette.
"Schwartz tells me that you two were at the church hall digging little holes this morning," Trevor said.
"He tells you true," I said. "Did he tell you what he found?"
"No," Trevor said. "All he'll say is that I should ask you to fill in the holes."
"So to speak," Schwartz said with a foolish grin. For a smart guy, this fellow was one poor student to his comedy mentors.
I told Trevor about the St. Christopher's medal and the conversation we'd had with Brother Devlin. He had the same questions I'd had. Finally he understood. "So," he said, "if there's no Chlordane in the soil, it means what? Do you have evidence that the church bought Chlordane to use on the hall?" Schwartz put his finger to his lips indicating that he had nothing to offer, so Trevor tried to work it out verbally. "Coneely — or whoever killed Hanson — got the Chlordane somewhere. There's no reason to test the soil for evidence of Chlordane unless you want to prove that the toxin is either there or not there. If you prove that it's there, it doesn't prove that the murder-poison came from that source. It only proves that they had termites once prior to the ban. If you prove that it isn't there, it serves no purpose unless you have evidence that it was bought at one time specifically for use on the hall. Absence of poison would mean that somebody saved the poison for some other purpose. But even that doesn't make sense, since Coneely wasn't the priest back then. Unless you're suggesting that he found the poison and took advantage of his find to kill Hanson. Is that it? You know for a fact that somebody got Chlordane to use on termites in the hall, but you suspect that they never used it until Coneely found it and used it to kill Hanson. If that's it, then it's a damn lucky thing you found that medal, and it's a damn lucky thing you had a witness. Otherwise the evidence would have never held up in court."
"I'm not concerned with my evidence holding up in court," Schwartz said. "You could easily get more soil gathered with proper forensic technique. In this instance, my concern is the court of public opinion alone."
"What are you saying?" Trevor asked.
"I wish to spur someone to action. Could you let it slip to a certain party what you've just worked out here tonight?"
"You want me to let it slip that you took a soil sample from the church hall, and that you found a St. Christopher's medal that dates the sample to at least ten years ago, and that you think it might implicate Coneely in the murder," Trevor said.
"Could you do that?" Schwartz asked.
"Well, that kind of depends on who you want me to let it slip to."
"Matthew Hanson, the victim's youngest son."
"The insurance guy?"
"That's correct."
"Well, yeah, I guess I could let it slip to him," Trevor said. "So you don't think Coneely did it then?"
"I didn't say that."
"Well, why else would I be letting it slip to Matthew? Oh, you think he did it, don't you?"
"I didn't say that either."
"You're a cagey bastard, you know that?" Trevor said with an appreciative smirk. "Well, okay, I'll work it in. I'm supposed to meet with some of them tomorrow afternoon. I'll slip it in then."
"Which ones are you meeting with?" Schwartz asked.
"All of them except for Peggy and the ag writer."
Schwartz turned with a cocky smirk to me. “Satisfactory," he said.
Chapter 17
As the evening proceeded, The Whailers played one more set, during which Jimmy stayed put behind his drums. However, after the set ended, as the band left the stage, before anybody had said "goodnight" on behalf of the band, Jimmy came forward and without benefit of musical accompaniment sang Bird On a Wire. As he sang, Mia smiled, listened and sighed. At the end of his number, he thanked us all and left the stage. There was a brief moment of silence, and then Schwartz began to clap. Soon cheers, hoots and whistles joined in the ovation for both the Whailers and for Jimmy's a capela moment. The house D. J. played the Ramones Hey Ho, Let's Go, which was as good a transition piece as any; and soon the crowd was ready for the next band to assume the stage.
Trevor came over to our table and asked to join us again, as Jimmy went to the bar and sat alone. Mia smiled knowingly and decided that sure — the game was worth playing, and she excused herself to join Jimmy at the bar.
"That was amazing," I said to Trevor. "Who thought up that plan to incorporate members of FdP?"
"Well," he began in explanation, "we didn't want to ask Penelope, the singer, to let Jimmy sing without some leverage, so her son came up with the idea of her singing the vocals over his guitar solo. Her son wrote the lyric, and it was out of her key, so she had to agree to give that part to Jimmy."
"So that was her son playing the guitar?"
"Yeah, he's pretty good, don't you think?"
"Really," I said. "And that singer of theirs is really good too. By any chance...?" I began.
"Yep, that's my boy," Trevor said. "That's Jason. He gets his voice from his mother. Which makes sense, I guess. She's Jimmy's sister."
We stayed to listen to one set of the FdP boys' concert, but the show was nowhere near as charming as what had proceeded, though you'd never know that from the behavior of the young audience. They cheered and danced (well, maybe danced is too strong a word) and had a simply wonderful time. Of course they were mostly newly-legal drinkers with unlimited access to alcohol — albeit over-priced alcohol.
At the conclusion of the set, we gathered our things and settled our bill as the members of The Whailers bade the boys of FdP goodnight. When The Whailers had gathered their equipment and gone out the back exit, Schwartz, Bev, Mia and I headed for the car we'd come in. There sat Schwartz’s Impala, blocked in by a second row of cars; trapped by selfish double-parkers. I felt an air letting coming on.
Schwartz walked slowly up to his car. "Lupa," Bev said, "are you all right?"
"Miss Hoskin,
" Schwartz said, "could you go find Detective Johns, please, and tell him that we need a ride home? Please, ask him if we can have a lift."
Mia broke into a grin and chuckled. "We can't all fit in Johns' car. I'll see if Jimmy can take me to my grandmother's. You guys have a fun night." She walked with me to the van that the members of the Whailers were loading with their gear. We explained to Trevor and Jimmy about our situation, and they agreed to be our chauffeurs. We stayed with them as they and the other band members finished loading their van. Then as Mia and Jimmy departed for his car, Trevor and I went to pick up Schwartz and Beverly.
There they stood next to the car that had pinned him in, it's four tires as flat as flounders and holding as much air. He was jotting down the license number when he saw us approach. "Can you believe this?" Schwartz asked. "Vandals." That's when I noticed that Schwartz’s tires had been flattened as well. "I've taken down the license of this other afflicted car," Schwartz said. "Look here," he said pointing to his tail light. "The vandal wasn't satisfied simply to flatten tires. He broke my tail light as well."
"Vandalism?" Trevor said to me. "I thought you said you were pinned in."
"We are pinned in," Schwartz said handing Trevor the page with the license number. "I'll need this person's address. Can you get it for me?"
"What do you need this for?" Trevor asked.
"There are several reasons I might want the address," Schwartz said. "For a witness in a lawsuit against the nightclub, or against the vandal perhaps should you catch them. To inquire if he knew anybody who might have wanted to do harm to his car. To offer my assistance with any repairs he might need."
To cuss him out for blocking you in — I thought.
"Okay, give it to me," Trevor said taking the slip. "Stay here. I'll go make a phone call, and I'll be right back with the address." Trevor walked back into the Century Club, and Beverly walked in with him to tell the management that we'd have to leave the Impala in the lot until Monday, since we were leaving and couldn't move our car until the blocking car was towed out.
"When did the vandals attack your car?" I asked.
Schwartz smirked. "If I had let the air out of their tires but left mine alone, the owner of this car would have easily surmised that I was the culprit, therefore I had to do it this way. Making the damage to my own car more severe, makes it even less likely that the owner of this car will blame me. Now you may consider that cowardice. However, there's no knowing what animus the owner of this car might express toward my property, and I am the innocent. Why should I leave my vehicle to the whims of this scofflaw?"
Extreme Unction: A Lupa Schwartz Mystery Page 11