by Scott Mackay
“And of course his tour’s been cancelled?”
“Yes,” said Lynn.
“And record sales are going to drop off, aren’t they?” said Gilbert.
Lynn sighed. “Phil’s a great musician,” he said, “but he’s now also a murderer. That’s not the best thing for record sales, long-term, is it?”
It was Friday, and the evening was a muggy one, with a big red sun setting beyond the Don Valley. Gilbert was driving home from headquarters. He was glad he didn’t have to work this weekend. He wanted a chance to unwind from the Boyd case.
As he drove, he kept thinking of Phil, Judy, and Boyd, icons of their time, fading into the past. They belonged to the 1970s. And now the 1970s were over. Was it hard, he wondered, when you were famous, to watch yourself go out of style? It certainly seemed to have tortured Phil for the last twenty years. When he thought of Phil, Judy, and Boyd, he thought of lava lamps, mood rings, and pet rocks. He thought of platform shoes, three-piece white suits, and yellow ribbons around old oak trees. The decade, the 1970s, now lay across his heart heavily. It had been real, so real, but now it was gone.
He remembered the polyester leisure suits he used to wear as a detective in Fraud, his long hair and sideburns, and how, when he and Regina went to parties, he’d sport a signs-of-the-zodiac medallion around his neck. In the seventies, there had been muggy summer nights like this one. There had been the smell of traffic, such as he was getting through his open window, and the promise of a July weekend, such as he had before him. There had been love, hate, and murder. But there had also been something else, a feeling that the times were different, that they had finally changed, and that the world was never going to be the same again. He mourned. As much for the decade as for the lost chance it represented.
In his driveway, he opened his glove compartment and took out Phil’s new CD. He got out of the Windstar and walked to the front door. As he opened the front door, Regina came out of the dining room and greeted him in the front hall.
“I thought we’d have a barbecue,” she said. She looked at him more closely. “What’s wrong? You look a little down.”
“I’m fine,” he said.
She hesitated. “No,” she said. “You’re not.”
He grinned a sad grin. “I’m just a little blue about this Phil thing,” he said, “that’s all.” He held up the CD. “I bought his new CD. I thought we’d have a listen before supper. Or do you want me to get the barbecue started first?”
Sympathy glimmered in her eyes. “We can order out,” she said.
He raised his eyebrows. “Swiss Chalet?” he suggested.
“Swiss Chalet,” she said.
While Regina went to order the food, Gilbert put his briefcase down and went into the living room. He opened the new CD, put it into the machine, and cued Phil Thompson’s current hit, “Old Dance Partner.”
It turned out to be a song about farewells. As Gilbert listened to the lyrics, his sadness deepened.
Say good-bye,
To that plane in Casablanca,
Say good-bye,
When Bogart walks away,
Say good-bye,
To an old dance partner…
And to our dance-floor yesterdays.
Phil sang in a mellow, easy voice, his backup singers joining him on the words “Say good-bye.” The song was lilting and nostalgic, had bongos and a washboard as its percussion instruments, used an easy shuffling rhythm. Some bridging material followed the opening chorus.
A fragment of what we felt,
A glimmer of what we knew,
And of that song we danced together,
It’s gone like morning dew.
Phil’s voice now took on an urgent quality, as if he were trying to capture something, perhaps those fleeting years when he’d been a young man.
Regina came into the living room and sat next to him.
“This is pretty good,” he said.
“It sounds good,” she said.
They both listened. Another “Say good-bye” chorus went by with slightly different words. Then more of the bridging material.
All the songs we used to sing,
And the things we used to do,
And that night we danced forever,
Is gone for me and you.
Gilbert frowned.
“There you go again,” said Regina. “What’s wrong?”
Phil Thompson played a solo on acoustic guitar. “I don’t know,” said Gilbert. “Maybe it’s the nature of my job. I brood on mortality too much.”
They listened to the final chorus.
Say good-bye,
To the ghost who lives in Graceland.
Say good-bye,
To Gene Kelly in the rain.
Say good-bye,
To an old dance partner…
My step will never be the same.
“He’s right on target,” said Gilbert. “This guy can write songs. And it’s too damn bad he’s gone and ruined his career forever. I hear a song like this, and I can’t help thinking of our old Ford Pinto, or how I was so freaking nuts about Jefferson Airplane, or how you used to wear your hair long and parted in the middle. Us boomers…we’re all growing old.”
She leaned her cheek against his shoulder. “It’s not so bad,” she said. She kissed him and smiled softly. “Growing old is fine if you have someone to do it with.”
She had a point. He’d made his pivotal life decision in the 1970s—his decision to grow old with her. And so the 1970s were always there in the background, informing his current situation. He stroked her hair. The song shuffled toward its close. She came back from France, and he stuck with her. That was his decision. The best decision he’d ever made. He felt lucky. Luckier than any rock star on the planet. He had preserved this…this magical thing he had with Regina. A fragment of what they knew. A glimmer of what they felt. It was all still here. In her soft smile, and in the tender conviction of her voice. Having nearly lost it, he knew how precious it was. The seventies were over. But he knew what he had with Regina would last forever.
More from Scott Mackay
Cold Comfort
In the midst of a record-cold winter, the stepdaughter of a government official is found dead on a snow-swept pier at the harbor. Overworked and underpaid Detective Barry Gilbert is called to investigate. The Metropolitan Toronto Police Force is already beset by political maneuverings that threaten their jobs, and the sensitive nature of this case may increase that risk to the point where detectives from Gilbert’s own squad are chopped. All of this is before the victim’s autopsy reveals a seemingly unsolvable enigma: the victim froze to death first and was shot later, after she was already dead.
So begins a treacherous trail of evidence that leads Gilbert to the coldest zones of the human heart.
As the investigation takes unexpected and baffling turns, he at last suspects an outside manipulator, and must use all his skill to untangle clues that at first defy explanation. Probing deeper in the victim’s dark past, he discovers the terrible secret she's hidden all her life. He's forced to confront his own values, and learns that even the most superlative detectives can lose their judgment at the most critical moments—often with the deadliest of consequences.
Fall Guy
Detective Barry Gilbert is called into Toronto's Chinatown to investigate the death of Edgar Lau, a man whose history and connections take the detective on a ride across continents and cultures, and deep into an immigrant family's struggle to survive against harrowing odds.
Gilbert must piece together Edgar's labyrinthine history— from his days as a Vietnamese refugee who made a deadly trek to China by boat, to his affair with a prominent member of Toronto's city government, to his dealings with a Chinese drug baron. Throughout the investigation, damaging and sensitive questions are raised—questions somebody in Toronto’s police department doesn't want answered.
It soon becomes clear to Gilbert that in addition to hunting down Edgar's killer, he must fight pol
ice corruption as well —a fight that could threaten the department’s stability and future. This tale of murder and misdoing, family and betrayal, is a riveting police procedural by a masterful mystery author.
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