Songs in the Key of Death Read Free Page B

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