by Rick Blechta
“Won’t you sit down?” she asked, indicating a comfortable chair in front of the desk. She looked down at the form I’d filled out. “I see we were recommended by a friend. I don’t recognize the name, so it must have been a job Rob worked on.”
“Yes, it was. A divorce case.”
Something flickered across her face, but it was too fast for me to read, other than that she looked sad. “Is your job also a divorce case?”
“No. It concerns a missing person. At least, I think she’s missing. Actually, I’m not really sure what’s going on.”
Ms O’Brien smiled again. “Sounds intriguing. Now, gather your thoughts and just tell me your story from the beginning. I find that’s the best way to start any investigation.”
Chapter 2
I had to cast my mind back four months to our steady gig at The Green Salamander Jazz Nightclub – to give its somewhat ponderous full name. The Sal (as it’s better known) has been a mainstay on the Toronto jazz scene for over four decades. Located in a basement space on Toronto’s King Street West near Portland, it is neither plush nor very spacious. Because of this, it has seldom hosted the really big names, unless it caught them on the way up – or down.
As I set up my drums that frigid Tuesday evening in the first week of December, I could see the end of the line approaching fast, an end to the steady gig we’d had for the past two years. Ronald Xavier Felton, our trio’s pianist, refused to acknowledge anything of the kind, but then he was like that. His reality was different from a normal person’s. Dom Milano, our bass player, always went with the flow – and the best payday. As long as the Sal paid, he’d play. When it didn’t, he’d move on – with or without us. He wasn’t mean-spirited, just practical. Jobbing musicians have to be like that.
I cursed under my breath. There were just about no other steady gigs in T.O. these days. Jazz was going through one of its dry periods. Two clubs had closed in the past year. Except for a few annual festivals, a handful of clubs that didn’t offer more than three-night gigs and the odd Sunday Jazz Brunch at a few restaurants, my hometown seemed to have firmly turned its back once again on the music I love.
It wasn’t as if we hadn’t had a good run at the Sal.You couldn’t sneeze at knowing where you were going to be every Tuesday through Thursday for two years. With weekend run-outs, weddings, trade shows, corporate receptions and the like, my finances had never looked rosier.
I’d been able to keep Sandra out of my hair about child support and had gotten to see a good deal of my daughter Kate. That had certainly made the aftershocks of the breakdown of my marriage much less severe on everyone involved than they might have been if I’d been on the road all the time.
Harry, the club’s owner, had begun dropping hints that if business didn’t pick up in a big way, he was going to be forced to shut the doors. Considering he was in his late seventies, that made sense, but he’d also been quoted as saying that the only way he’d ever give up his club was to be taken out feet first.
Weekends were still reasonably good, since he could book touring soloists to be backed up by all-star local pick-up groups, but it was our weekday nights that were killing him, and that meant the Ronald Felton Trio wasn’t pulling its weight.
What had been our Ronald’s brilliant solution? An open mike night. He also wanted to bring in promising local student soloists from programs like the one at Humber College, where he taught two days a week. He’d gleefully told Dom and me that we wouldn’t have to pay them, and they’d fill the place with all their friends.
Dom, his string bass swathed in its padded soft case, the fabric reminding me of a green quilted diaper, stepped onto the low bandstand and gently laid his baby down.
“Think this is going to work, Andy?” he asked.
“An open mike night for vocalists?” I yanked the strap on my trap case, pulling it tight, and shoved it behind the curtain at the back. “It’s only a step above karaoke, for Christ’s sake.”
“Should be good for a laugh, though.”
“The laugh is that Ronald is convinced this will work.”
Dom looked up with a grin splitting his face. “We both know he’s delusional.”
And so it began. That first night didn’t have too many disasters, mainly because our “delusional” pianist had salted the audience with a few capable friends, along with some of his Humber students who also sang.
The weeks went on, and as winter slowly began inching its way to spring, word spread – helped along nicely by a piece in the Toronto Star. More hopefuls than I would have imagined stepped onto the bandstand to strut their stuff. And surprisingly, more regular patrons began coming, too. I figured it was to witness the frequent train wrecks. Disasters always seem to draw a crowd.
The youthful soloists idea also worked pretty well, so I kept my mouth firmly shut. Harry began talking about wanting to be stuffed and laid out behind the bar when he eventually cashed in his chips.
Then Olivia walked in.
Outside, a February storm was blowing, hopefully one of the last gasps of a miserable three-month stretch of extreme cold and snow, but the Sal was still gratifyingly half filled.
Stepping through the door of the club, she looked like a street person. While I prefer to play with my eyes closed most of the time, floating with the groove I’m laying down, for some reason my eyes were immediately drawn to her.
Her brown hair was long, but badly cut, and her baggy clothes, toque and duffel coat looked as if they were straight out of a Salvation Army bin – which turned out to be the literal truth. The only spot of colour was a bright red scarf.
She wasn’t much over five feet, and soaking wet she would have weighed in at not much over a hundred pounds, but there was something about her. She was pretty in a conventional sense – nice lips, cute nose, sort of a heart-shaped face – but her dark eyes gazed right into my soul for a brief moment before she looked away.
I watched her find a perch on one of the tall stools lining the wall in a back corner, places set out for those who wander in alone to catch a set or two. She spent the evening nursing two soft drinks that she paid for from a fistful of small change.
Loraine, the waitress, gave Olivia dirty looks as the level of her drinks got very slowly lower. Tuesdays were generally not good nights for tips, and a couple of colas over the course of an entire evening would hardly pay the rent.
I don’t think anyone but me noticed the waif-like woman as she listened to us accompany hopefuls and drunks with equal equanimity, and even I didn’t catch Olivia as she slipped off her stool and out the door at the end of the evening.
That would never happen again.
I next came across her in a totally unexpected place on a Saturday afternoon a week or so later.
My elderly car was again in the shop, this time for a new transmission. Since I had missed visiting my daughter Kate the previous weekend because of an out-of-town gig, I’d decided to catch the train out to Oakville, where my ex-wife Sandra was living with her new guy in his three-thousand-plus-square-foot house.
Knowing that yet again that bastard Jeremy would look down his long nose at me, my mind was on other things, so I nearly knocked Olivia down as she panhandled for change in between the subway exit and the lower level entrance to Union Station. The Tim Hortons coffee cup in her hand went flying, the coins tinkling as they bounced all over the concrete. Immediately, two other street people appeared from nowhere, stooped and began snatching them up.
“Oh, damn! I’m sorry!” I said.
The poor girl looked as if she might start crying. It took me a moment to realize who she was. She just stared at me, then stooped to pick up her cup and two nickels and a dime that had fallen nearby.
Turning around, I saw the two interlopers scurrying off with their booty. No honour among thieves.
I pulled a handful of coins out of my pocket and dumped them in her cup. “It’s the least I can do.”
Big eyes looked at me, and a shy smile lit up her
face. “Thanks.”
Feeling embarrassed, I hurried off with a muttered,“Well, take care,” and went in search of my train.
The whole way out to Oakville, I couldn’t get her out of my mind.
She puzzled me. Had the girl wandered into the Sal simply to get warm? It had been a frighteningly cold night, but you didn’t often see street people in a jazz club – unless they were on the stage playing...
My daughter kept me busy all afternoon, first at a movie then at one of those indoor putting places. The cab fare to and from the big complex out on Winston Churchill Drive where both were located, along with the cost of lunch, movie and putting set me back more than what I made in one night at the Sal, but it was worth it. I’d missed Kate dreadfully since Sandra had taken up with Jeremy, and we’d had a great afternoon.
Eleven-year-old Kate had begun to remind me of my own mother, all dark, curly hair and a broad, pleasant face. She’d never be a beauty like own mom, but her sense of humour and fierce creativity would stand her in good stead. I’d gotten her interested in music, and she showed some talent on the piano. Sandra pushed her hard in school because Kate was very bright. I had no idea how she’d turn out, but I knew she’d be very good at everything she took up.
Whenever I saw Kate, I tried to show her the best time possible. I’m sure a lot of divorced dads do the same. You have to. Jeremy probably made more in three months than I made in a whole year and could give her just about anything.
There was no question that Kate should live with Sandra. With the hours I kept, it couldn’t be any other way – certainly not at her age. Perhaps later that might change, but for now, we had to be satisfied with what felt like stolen moments. Unless I went out of town for a gig, I tried my level best to see her every weekend. We’d share email during the week and talk on the phone. Kate was also after me to get a game system like the one Jeremy had given her so we could both play online. I’d reluctantly promised that I’d get one, not because I wanted to, but because I wasn’t about to let the interloper have one more thing that my daughter could share with him and not with me.
So that Sunday it was a bad movie (we agreed on that), pizza and a game of mini-putt, where we both cheated as much as possible. We also laughed a lot, and I forgot for minutes at a time how hollow the whole thing felt. Kate was just as aware as I how we had to fit a whole week of being together into a few short hours.
On the cab ride back to Jeremy’s, she cuddled up to me and whispered in my ear how she thought he was a “dork”. I squeezed her tight and didn’t say a word, mainly because her words hit me so hard. That was the first time she’d said anything on the subject.
“I love you, honey,” I managed to say as we pulled up in front of her new home.
“And I love you too, Daddy.You take care of yourself this week.You’re beginning to look pretty skinny!”
She kissed my cheek, and I kissed her forehead. Then she ran for the house without another word. Sandra was at the door to let Kate in, and her expression, as she closed it, was as devoid of emotion as ever.
On the train ride back into the city, I worked on my electronic agenda, lining up all the gigs the trio had over the next three months.
Just before the axe had fallen on our marriage, Sandra, Kate and I had discussed going to Disney World. That afternoon, I decided that if I could talk Sandra into allowing it, I’d take Kate there for a week in April. The plane tickets would cost a fortune, let alone rooms, food and Disney World admission, but gigs had been plentiful in the six months since Sandra had split, and I could just afford the trip.
I’d be damned if I was going to let Jeremy get there first with my daughter.
Back at Union Station, the mysterious girl I’d seen at the Sal was still standing outside the subway entrance with her pathetic coffee cup. Snow had begun falling, and that short stretch between the two stations was alive with flakes, dancing as they descended out of the darkness into the light. Even though completely fed up with winter at this point, the sight caught my attention.
It had apparently caught the girl’s, too, because she was standing there, head upturned, watching the big flakes descend. From the amazed expression on her face, you’d think she’d never seen snow before.
Noticing that her attention was elsewhere, a punk made a snatch for her cup.
Reaching out, I grabbed his wrist. Although I’m not the bulkiest guy around, drumming has made my forearms pretty strong, and he couldn’t shake me off.
“Hey, man! Leggo! What do you think you’re doing?”
I leaned forward and said quietly, “Why don’t you just hand the girl back her cup?”
“Man, you’re some kind of psycho!” the little rat said, rubbing his wrist after he’d done what I’d asked.
“Get lost!”
He did, and when I turned to look at her, the girl was staring back with those deep eyes. “You’re the man who was here this afternoon.”
“Yes, I was.”
“That’s twice you’ve done something nice for me. Thank you.”
“My name’s Andy. What’s yours?”
“Ummm...Olivia.”
“Are you always out here, Olivia?”
“Most days. People in Toronto aren’t as generous as they like to make out they are.”
I laughed. “Don’t I know it.”
She laughed, too, a nice sound, then her expression changed. “I have to go now.”
Without another word, she turned and hurried away. What had I done to spook her?
The episodes with Olivia at Union Station fell out of my mind over the next week. The car wound up costing a lot more than I’d been led to believe, and when I began seriously looking into taking Kate to Disney World, the cost of that little excursion was absolutely staggering.
I knew what Sandra would have told me. “Sell the damn house. You know you need the money.”
Fortunately for me, it was my house – completely. When my parents had both died within a year of each other, it had been left to me as the only child, and by a stroke of good fortune, I had inherited their estate three weeks before my marriage to Sandra.
But she was right; I could get a good price for it in Toronto’s superheated real estate market. Houses like mine in Riverdale often went for upwards of a million bucks, a stunning figure, considering what my dad had paid for it nearly forty years earlier. With that money (pure profit), I could buy a condo and put the rest in a retirement plan. I’d be set for my golden years, right?
But I just couldn’t bear the thought of giving it up. It had a soundproof basement studio where I gave lessons to a few students and where I could also rehearse a pretty decent-sized band if I wanted, but it was more than those obvious needs. The place had become part of my psyche, and in my present circumstances, that was a very important thing. Except for a few months at various times over the years, I’d never lived anywhere else.
With a ton of things weighing on my mind, I headed off to the Sal that fateful Tuesday evening, not even really thinking about the gig, let alone a girl I’d only seen three times and had barely spoken to.
Of course, it was raining. It’s always raining or snowing or doing something miserable when I have to move my drums. With a steady gig, I could leave them in place for a few nights, but once we finished on Thursday night, I had to horse them out again. That’s the lot of a gigging musician, something you put up with, but it can be a drag – especially if you’re a drummer. There are a number of parts to a drum set.
Pulling to the curb in a no-parking zone, I put the blinkers on and opened up the hatchback on my old Honda. Take out the trap case, lay the bass drum on top of it, close the trunk and head for the door to the club. Once inside, take the bass drum off the trap case and take each down the steep stairs. By the time I went back to the car to retrieve the two tom-toms, the rain was really coming down.
Normally I would have parked my heap at the lot down the street and carried the two toms back with me, but I decided to take them
in first so I could run from the lot to the club more easily.
I had just stuck my key into the hatchback’s lock when a cab swerved to avoid God knows what. It went right down the centre of a puddle next to the car, totally drenching the left leg of my pants.
Cursing, I stared laser beams at the rapidly disappearing cab. A flash of red in a doorway across King Street caught my eye.
It was her – the girl I’d seen at the Sal and Union Station. A streetlight thirty feet away illuminated her face and that red scarf only for a moment before she stepped back, disappearing into the shadows.
If she was here again to listen to the music, why was she waiting outside on such a miserable night?
I thought about going across to say something, but looking down at the sodden condition of my pant leg, I decided against it.
Reaching into the car, I grabbed the two tom cases and took my second load into the club. When I came out again, the doorway opposite was empty.
Ronald was in fine form that night, mainly because a couple of local pianists were in the house. He felt that interlopers (as he referred to them) were always after his gigs. So we defended our turf with a couple of fast opening numbers courtesy of Duke Ellington’s fertile imagination. That got the evening’s festivities off to a good start.
The way the open mike thing had evolved was that interested singers would speak with Ronald before each set. When he found out what they wanted to perform, he’d arrange the song choices in such a way that we didn’t wind up with five ballads in a row, or two people singing the same tune back to back.
The first sets each week were generally the best for two reasons: the people who had come specifically to sing most often wanted to sing early. The third set featured more of the sort of performances that relied on “Dutch courage”, the half-drunken person saying, “I can sing better than that clown!” followed by his or her equally drunk acquaintances goading the poor soul on. Those were our “train wrecks” – frightening, pathetic and comical all at the same time.
