Songs in the Key of Death Read Free Page A

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?”
    “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