Songs in the Key of Death

by William Bankier

  Latchford frowned at the hiss of the bottlecap. “Could you manage to be sober if I did?”

  “I can’t remember the last time you took me somewhere.”

  “That’s where you have the advantage. I can remember.”

  “Loosen up then. Have a drink with me—we’ll have some fun.”

  “You call this fun?”

  Steve Pullman was setting out a meager bar in Inch’s hotel room: a bottle of Scotch, a bottle of gin, some tonic, four glasses, and a bucket of ice. “Why couldn’t they ask us up to their place?” he whined. He felt poor, as if he was back in his parents’ shabby house near the bay.

  “His wife probably wanted to come out,” Inch said. He was accustomed to pacifying his partner. Writers were all the same—if they weren’t bitching about how terrible everything was, they were going over the top with enthusiasm over some minor success.

  “I don’t think he likes our idea,” Pullman said.

  “Then we’ll sell it to him.”

  “Maybe we should line up another singer.”

  “Latchford’s the best. We agreed we’d start with the best.”

  “I’m worried about how we finish,” Pullman said grimly.

  The Latchfords arrived in a mood of manufactured euphoria. Carol was wearing a crimson-silk jersey dress and charcoal nylons above plastic shoes without backs. Pullman fell in love with her legs immediately. He ordered the beer she requested and, when it came and he had opened one, placed himself where he could see every one of the frequent crossings of those smooth, shiny legs.

  Everybody except Latchford drank a lot and the party was a reasonable success. By midnight when they were devouring room-service sandwiches and Carol was into her seventh pint of beer, Pullman was referring to her as the small-town girl. She was like the girls he remembered from the tea dances in the gymnasium at Baytown High School. Carol was flattered. “Let this guy write your lyrics, Barry,” she said. “He’s a magician with words.”

  Latchford tossed his head back, pretending to laugh without actually producing any sound.

  In the taxi on the way home he grumbled, “I should go see a psychiatrist, agreeing to do this.”

  “We’ll go to Montreal. We’ll have some fun for a few days,” Carol said. Her head was back on the upholstery, her eyes closed. “What can you lose?”

  “You’ll have fun. I saw you encouraging that bush-league lover. I should put you across my knee.”

  “Right now, I’d be grateful for even that.”

  Flora Inch, Norman’s wife, selected the song that Latchford would record. She came out of her study in the bungalow across the river in St. Lambert with the portable cassette player in one hand and a page of notes in the other. “Here’s my choice,” she said.

  “ ‘Summer Silence,’ ” Norman read from the list. He tried not to look too pleased. “I like that one too.”

  Flora moved a flower pot so she could perch on a window ledge. Her broad shape obscured most of the view of the Montreal highrise panorama in the distance. Richelieu, a tiny dog of indeterminate breed, limped from the kitchen, saw the woman he loved, took a skittering run, and leaped onto a lap that barely existed. Flora saved the dog from falling and cuddled it to her tank-topped bosom. She had the shoulders of a Channel swimmer, the cropped hair of a woman who wants a rest. Her face was as pretty as a doll’s.

  “Richie, Richie,” she crooned. Then, after a pause in which her eyes went out of focus, “The lyric could use a little fixing. Would you like me to do it?”

  “I don’t want a hassle with Steve.”

  “You want a good lyric. Steve Pullman has blind spots. I know—I wrote copy in the next office for three years.”

  “You may be right, but leave it alone. We have a delicate operation here. Stay home and write your novel.”

  “God help me, I’ve written it three times. Let me up.”

  “You’re the one who cried out for artistic freedom. Write the book.”

  “I’m coming to that recording session. I’m not going to miss the rematch between Latchford’s wife and our little Stevie!”

  Carlo’s Recording Center was a compact set of rooms engineered and hand-built by the owner. Carlo sat at the console, straight-backed, Spanish eyes alert, watching Barry Latchford through the glass partition as if the singer might fly at any minute and it would be his responsibility to trap him in a net. Norman Inch lounged beside Carlo in the producer’s chair.

  Steve Pullman and the two women were crowded onto the visitors’ settee. Flora Inch had always been like a sister to Steve, taking him under her wing on his first day at the ad agency. She sat on his left now, bending occasionally to feed a chocolate tidbit to the carpet remnant she called a dog. “This is your best work, Steve,” she commented after the first take. “Be proud of this song.”

  On his right, Carol Latchford crossed her legs, bringing a stiletto heel down across Pullman’s trousers. “Sorry,” she said, brushing her hand firmly and repeatedly over his calf.

  By the third take, everybody agreed Latchford had done his best. Carlo had a paying client coming in, so the session had to end. “Everybody come over to St. Lambert,” Flora said briskly, scooping up Richelieu. “Can we all squeeze into my car?”

  They straggled out of the control room. “Looks like you’re on my lap, Carol,” Pullman said.

  Inch directed a weak grin at Barry Latchford, who looked right through him as he unwrapped two sticks of gum and stuffed them into his mouth.

  Flora Inch’s food was late but meanwhile the wine flowed and the house filled with the aroma of roasting beef and salad dressing spiked with garlic and dry mustard. When the inebriated guests sat down at the table and fell on the meal, they all told the hostess it was the most delicious they had ever eaten.

  “Have some more beef, Steve,” Flora said. She was drifting to and from the kitchen beyond a waist-high divider lined with a cherry cheesecake and a pecan pie. “I don’t want to end up feeding sirloin to that piggy Richelieu.”

  “You aren’t eating, Barry,” Inch scolded the singer.

  “I’m always down after a session,” Latchford mumbled, looking into space. “Don’t mind me.”

  “Don’t mind him,” Carol echoed. “Barry-baby will retire to the wilderness shortly and communicate with his inner spirit. One Magnificat, two Te Deums, and a fast chorus of Panis Angelicus, and he’ll be as good as new.”

  “Don’t give that lady any more to drink,” Latchford said with a false smile.

  “Are you a choirboy?” Flora asked. “I used to pipe away with the altos at St. James the Apostle on Ste. Catherine Street. If this was Saturday night, we could drive over tomorrow morning for matins.”

  “I wouldn’t mind that,” Latchford said, his pale eyes staring through the window into the twinkling black mass of the Montreal skyline.

  In the weeks that followed, after the Barry Latchford recording of “Summer Silence” was released, some of the euphoria began to wear off. They had a good song, but pessimism arose as they listened to it for the 150th time. Inch lifted the tone arm. “Where do we go from here?” he said. They were using the agency studio for their private business.

  “To church,” Pullman said drily, “like your wife keeps saying. Only we go to pray, not to sing.”

  “Pray, hell. The whole idea, your idea, is that we don’t leave things to chance.”

  “It’s in the lap of the gods.”

  “You were going to rig the charts. Line up a crowd of little girls to phone the stations all day asking for Barry Latchford’s new single.”

  “It isn’t that easy. Latchford’s nobody to these kids. They only request what everybody else is requesting—Michael Jackson, the Bee Gees.”

  “Pay them then.”

  “It gets complicated. What if some parents wonder where the kids are getting the money? Our involvement comes out, Latchford looks terrible, and so do Inch and Pullman.”

  “Why didn’t you think of this in the beginning?”<
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  “I was being optimistic. Forgive me.”

  The telephone rang beside Inch. He picked it up. “Studio.”

  “A call from Toronto, Mr. Inch. Barry Latchford.”

  “Put him on.” He said to Pullman, “It’s Russ Columbo. Our troubles are just beginning.”

  Pullman closed his eyes and sighed.

  “We were just talking about you, Barry. Did you get the record I sent you?” Inch listened for half a minute. “Feel free to do whatever you can to promote it up there. Meanwhile, we’re going ahead as discussed.” When the call was finished, Inch let the telephone drop into its cradle as if it was something wet.

  “He’s over the moon,” he said. “We’d better produce some evidence that we’re trying to sell his song.”

  In Toronto, Barry Latchford went through the house looking for Carol. He found her in the television room. The set was playing with the sound off. She was placed in a chair in viewing position, trying to read a newspaper by the light from the screen. Her knitting rested on the carpet. Beside it was an ashtray full of cigarette ends and an empty beer bottle.

  “Your trouble is you don’t have anything to do,” he said.

  “Wrong,” she said. “It says here Imperial Tobacco and Molson’s Brewery have increased production. I’ll never catch up.”

  He sat on the floor. “That sounds like an unhappy woman.”

  “You always had a good ear.”

  He took the newspaper from her and snapped off the television, leaving only one source of light—the lamp in the hall outside the open door. “I really don’t like to see you unhappy.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t please you with satisfaction I don’t possess.” She lit another cigarette. “It probably isn’t your fault. Different things make us happy. I like dance halls—they call them discos now—and I hardly ever see the inside of one. I’d like to wear some of those wild leather clothes the kids are into, but you’d think I was crazy.”

  He looked away, hoping she wouldn’t go on. If she turned herself into one of those freaks he couldn’t imagine how he’d react.

  “You fooled me. First time I saw you singing in the club I thought you were a swinger. We should never have got married.” She blew a fierce shaft of smoke.

  “Are you in love with that writer character?”

  Carol picked up her knitting, held the needles poised, and stared at the particle of space between their tips. “Steve Pullman? Am I in love with him? Not quite.”

  “He never takes his eyes off you.”

  “Better not say that. You’re making me all excited.”

  “He wants to take you away to Baytown or wherever the hell he comes from.”

  “Small-town bliss. Now there’s a dream.”

  Latchford put a firm hand on his wife’s knee. “Don’t leave me, Carol.”

  “Message noted,” she said, and the knitting needles began to click like a machine.

  The Montreal promotion never did get off the ground. But as things turned out Pullman’s failure to deliver didn’t matter. Latchford took his copy of “Summer Silence” to a DJ friend at the top station in Toronto. He loved it, played it three times on one morning show, and the telephone began to ring. The process didn’t stop for two months as the song reached the top of the charts and stayed there. The distributor told the factory to press another 50,000, and began spreading the word to radio stations and dealers across Canada. He also telephoned a connection in New York. They had a phenomenon on their hands—a song that couldn’t fail to make it big.

  Indian summer is always a special time in Montreal. Bonfires send pungent smoke trailing upward into hazy blue skies. The bittersweet afternoons are silent in memory of the days of warmth and comfort that are gone forever.

  Barry and Carol Latchford came down for the celebration at the Inch residence on the south shore. It was clearly time to open the champagne; the record was now the top-selling single in the history of Canadian pop music. Better still, a deal was set for distribution in the States. Latchford’s dream had come true.

  The party was one of those Saturday affairs where the few people not invited turn up anyway, bringing bottles as admission. Every room was crowded, as were the back garden, the front lawn, the stairs, the garage, even the cars parked in the driveway. All the doors were open, the music system was on full volume; the sophisticated party dominated the entire neighborhood.

  Norman Inch finally managed to manoeuvre his wife out of the kitchen and into a quiet corner. “I’m worried about Steve,” he said.

  “I told him not to follow wine with beer.”

  “I mean the way he keeps after Carol Latchford. Barry’s starting to look at him.”

  Flora’s eyes grew large and innocent. “So?”

  “So all we need is a fistfight between the guest of honor and the lyricist.”

  “It might be just what the party needs.”

  “I don’t know why I bother talking to you.”

  “People should be allowed to go where their actions take them. It helps the plot develop.”

  “These are not characters in your bloody novel.”

  “Real people can live or die just like fictional characters.” Flora blinked at her husband. “And I don’t like your tone of voice. My novel one day will surpass any of your so-called successes with chintzy songs about summer love.”

  By two o’clock on Sunday morning the police had paid two polite visits, the music was now turned low, most of the guests had gone home, and those few who remained were caged inside the house. The Latchfords had come with luggage for a long weekend. Barry had removed his turtleneck sweater and suede jacket some time after midnight and was now wearing his pajama top. He was sitting on a couch beside his hostess, swallowing cognac from a tumbler.

  “We’ve got to do it, Barry,” Flora said. She crossed her legs and Richelieu repositioned himself on her lap without opening his eyes.

  “Do what?” Latchford was looking through a doorway at his wife dancing with Pullman in the next room. Carol was a lot shorter than Steve; her cheek was pressed against his chest, her skirt riding up in back, showing plenty of rounded calf. Pullman’s chin rested on the top of her curly head. He saw Latchford watching them and gave him a sleepy grin.

  “We have to go to St. James the Apostle tomorrow morning,” Flora said. “We have to show them how to sing.”

  “I haven’t been to church in ten years,” he said.

  Latchford and his brothers had been the foundation of the choir for a long time. When they matured and went professional, their gospel quartet was good enough to hold a radio series on the Dominion Network. They even did a summer series on television. His chance to go single, to do club dates, had seemed like the beginning of a fabulous career. Now, even with the U.S. hit in the pipeline, he found himself longing for the uncomplicated delight of standing around the piano with his brothers rehearsing “This Little Light of Mine.”

  “You haven’t been to church in ten years? I haven’t been in twenty. I’d say we’re both overdue.” Flora followed Barry’s gaze to see what was distracting him. She raised her glass and her voice. “Yoo-hoo, Stevie! Here’s to young love!”

  Later, Inch was unloading a tray of glasses in the kitchen. The party had gone quiet. Suddenly Latchford’s voice rang out in a tone heavy with warning. “Steve!”

  The command was so threatening Inch’s heart began to pound. He moved quickly from the kitchen into the room that had been cleared for dancing. Nobody was there. Through the door way he could see a tableau at the couch in the front room. Latchford had risen, his glass in one hand, his eyes focused on the French doors leading to the garden. Flora was holding a restraining hand on his wrist while she pressed Richelieu down on her lap. The dog’s ears were up—he was tense, alert.

  After this frozen moment, things began to move quickly. Latchford broke away, dropping the glass on the carpet and vanishing swiftly through the French doors. Flora struggled up and the dog went scampering.


  “What’s happening?”

  “Steve and Carol stopped dancing and went out back.”

  Inch showed his wife a hopeless face. “I’m not happy stopping fights.”

  “Steve has it coming. He’s been socking it in with that little slut all evening.”

  Carol Latchford’s voice rang out in the garden. “Don’t you start, Barry—I’m warning you!” Then she screamed “Stop! Somebody stop him!”

  When Inch reached the end of the garden he could hardly see in the darkness. He could faintly make out Latchford’s pajama clad arm rising and falling as he knelt across Steve Pullman. Forcing himself to intervene, he put a hand on Barry’s shoulder. It was like touching a button on a machine. The beating ended abruptly and Latchford sat back on his haunches.

  “Call the police,” Carol said. Her voice was outraged, like that of a parent who has seen a child go too far.

  Inch’s eyes were accustomed to the darkness now. He leaned down and looked at what had been Steve Pullman’s face. “We need an ambulance,” he said.

  Latchford got up and walked away. He discovered he was holding a rock in his hand. He let it fall. Behind him he could hear the panic, the excitement, people running into each other, voices shouting, somebody trying to start a car and calling a girl to come on because he wanted to get going.

  His arms ached. He remembered the day when he was ten years old and he tried to walk home from the supermarket carrying two paper bags of groceries against this chest. The bags seemed light enough at the start but before he was halfway home he knew he couldn’t support them longer than another few seconds. There was no place to set them down and he felt such a sense of failure and embarrassment he began to cry. When he finally made it to the house, after spilling the contents of one of the bags in the gutter, his arms throbbed for the rest of the afternoon.

  The lights of Inch’s house were getting farther away. Latchford turned and blundered back through a low hedge, across a flower bed. He went inside and hurried up the stairs to the guest room, where he stripped off the blood-spattered pajama top and changed into a shirt. He paused, then felt impelled to put on a necktie and his suede jacket.