Perfect Sax Read Free Page A

know.
    Sincerely,
    Dr. Stan Bradley, M.D.
    “You have some guy’s psychiatric files?”
    “Apparently,” I said, unable to resist paging quickly through a document that was clearly none of my business.
    “And you’re standing out in the street reading them?”
    I looked back at Wes without a trace of guilt. “Hey, how am I supposed to know what all this stuff is? It was littered all over my property. Littering is a crime. I am simply investigating, aren’t I?”
    “Maybe you can put off your CSI inquiry until after we finish with the party tonight?”
    I looked up from the thick psychiatrist’s report on themany issues that had been vexing Mr. Grasso and nodded. Wes was right. I had to get my focus back. “Aye aye,” I said, snapping to attention. “Do you think I should try to find this guy’s phone number? He’d want his stuff back, I’d imagine.”
    “Can we do that tomorrow? We are under the gun here, timetable-wise.”
    “You’re right. You’re always right.” I put the last of the papers back into the carton and hauled it up the stairs. “But, Wes, how do you think all these personal photos and documents ended up on my lawn?”
    Wes relieved me of the box as I reached the top of the steps. “I’m sure you’ll find out all about it. After the Jazz Ball.”

“Between Black & White”
    F rankly, fund-raising is social warfare and the gentle ladies who volunteer to run the show are its generals. I had worked on several such events in the past, and I had the battle scars to prove it.
    The committee in charge of this year’s Jazz Ball was aiming to outdo all other elite L.A. fund-raisers in the cutthroat art of separating dollars from donors. To this end, each party decision was argued over by the Jazz Ball planning committee. Endlessly. Luckily, Wes and I have steady nerves. The theme had been changed up and back and up again a halfdozen times. But in the end, the newspaper design theme of black and white, with a touch of red, captured the final vote, and judging simply by the number of guests paying five hundred dollars a ticket, the gala appeared to be a hit. This was the largest turnout in the event’s forty-two-year history.
    No detail of the party was too small to delight one faction of volunteer women and cause an uproar of seething disapproval in another. Victory in such details took on way too much importance to be healthy, but this was not my call. For instance, one group heavily favored a traditional engraved invitation. Formal. Black on heavy cream stock. However, the chairs of this year’s event were bored silly by the memories of too many staid and stuffy charity dinners. Theywanted people to talk about this party. In a good way. And despite the disapproval of some of the older members of the committee, the distinctive invitations to the “Headliner’s” Jazz Ball had gone out eight weeks ago.
    The invitations had been written up in a parody of the style of newspaper articles, printed on authentic newsprint under the banner the Woodburn Daily Jazz, rolled up like the morning paper, tied with red grosgrain ribbon, and tossed onto the pool-table-perfect lawns of the city’s most generous: those heads of private foundations and leaders of civic-minded corporations and individual donors who kept L.A.’s cultural wheels turning. Naturally, the families of the Woodburn’s young musicians and the staff of the school were also invited.
    In my role as creative consultant and caterer to the Jazz Ball, I had made many suggestions to Dilly Swinden and Zenya Knight, the cochairs of the fund-raising gala. I have found that timing suggestions is crucial. As an event draws closer, decisions must be made. I have learned to wait for just the right moment to bring up many items in order to prevent committee-itis from draining the energy out of every last creative impulse. It had gotten to the stage where we had to have some final decisions on the look of the event. We were discussing how much of