Calypso (19 page)

    Looking at it, Carella thought it resembled some sort of gift box from one of the city's larger department stores. In fact, the box looked instantly recognizable to him, though he couldn't yet pinpoint the name of the department store. The box was perhaps five inches long by three inches wide by four inches deep. It was imprinted with an overall fleur-de-lis design in blue against a green field. The corsage inside the box was a pink orchid.

    "Why does it scare you?" Carella asked.

    "Because first of all," Harding said, "who the fuck would want to send me an orchid?"

    He was sitting in an easy chair in his own living room, the window behind him lashed now with rain that seemed determined to set the city afloat. The time was only a little past noon, but the sky outside looked more like the 5:00 p.m. sky of a winter's day. The pink orchid sat on the coffee table in front of him, inside the box with the blue and green fleur-de-lis design. It looked innocuous enough. Carella could not understand why it seemed to terrify Harding.

    "Any number of people might want to send you flowers," Carella said. "You were hurt, after all, they knew you were in the hospital…"

    
"Flowers,
yeah," Harding said, "a
bouquet of
flowers.
But not a corsage. I'm a
man.
Why would anyone want to send me a corsage?"

    "Well, maybe… well, I don't know," Carella said. "Maybe the florist made a mistake."

    "Which is another thing," Harding said. "If somebody's gone to all the trouble of buying me a corsage-an
orchid,
no less-how come it's delivered by somebody who vanishes before I can open the door? How come it isn't in a florist's box? How come there's no card with it? How come the corsage just arrives like that-knock, knock on the door, 'Who is it?' and no answer, and there's the box sitting outside the door. How come is what I'd like to know."

    "Well… what do you
think
it is?" Carella asked.

    "A warning," Harding said.

    "How do you read a warning into… a… well… a… a corsage?"

    "There's a pin stuck in it," Harding said. "Maybe somebody's tryin to tell me I'm gonna get somethin stuck in
me,
too, man. Maybe somebody's tryin to tell me I'm gonna end up like Georgie did."

    "I can understand how you might feel that way-"

    "You're damn right, considerin somebody tried to empty a
pistol
in my head…"

    "But a flower," Carella said, "a corsage…" and let the sentence trail, and shrugged.

    "You take that thing with you," Harding said.

    "What for?"

    "Give it to your lab people. See if it's poisoned or anything."

    "I'll do that, sure," Carella said, "but I really don't think-"

    "Somebody tried damn hard to kill me, Mr. Carella," Harding said. "And missed out. Cause the gun was empty. Okay. Maybe that same party is sendin me flowers before the funeral, Mr. Carella, you understand me? I'm scared. I'm out of the hospital now, where I ain't protected no more by nurses and doctors and people all around me. I'm home now, all by my little lonesome, and all at once I get a pink orchid left outside my door, and I can tell you it scares the shit out of me."

    "Let me talk to the lieutenant," Carella said. "Maybe we can get a man up here."

    "I'd appreciate that," Harding said. "And have somebody look at that flower."

    "I will," Carella said. "Meanwhile, there are some questions I want to ask you."

    "Go ahead," Harding said.

    "Do you know anyone named Clara Jean Hawkins?"

    "No. Who is she?"

    "Someone who knew George Chadderton. Did you know all of his business associates?"

    "I did."

    "But not Clara Jean Hawkins."

    "Is she a business associate?"

    "Apparently she was talking to George about doing some kind of album."

    "Is she in the record business?"

    "No, she was a hooker."

    "A hooker? And she was talking to George about doing an album?"

    "George never mentioned it to you?"

    "Never. What kind of an album?"

    "Based on her experiences as a prostitute," Carella said.

    "I can just see that in the top forty, can't you?" Harding said, and shook his head.

    "The girl seemed convinced the album would be made."

    "By who?"

    "By someone who was going to charge her three thousand dollars for the privilege."

    "Ah," Harding said, and nodded. "Vanity recording."

    "What's that?" Carella asked.

    "It's where a company charges you anywhere from two to three hundred dollars for what they call a test pressing, or some such bullshit. After that, they-"

    "A
test
pressing, did you say?"

    "Yeah. If the company's so-called
judges
like what they hear, they'll recommend a major pressing."

    "For more money?"

    "No, no, all included in the fee. There's still plenty of profit, believe me. The
major
pressing is usually an album, okay? Eight or nine songs on each side of it, all by suckers like yourself. That's eighteen songs at two, sometimes three hundred bucks a throw, that comes to four, five thousand dollars. So they'll press fifteen hundred albums-which in a legit operation might cost you twenty-five hundred bucks-and they'll give ten each to the eighteen 'songwriters' on the album, and the rest they'll send to disc jockeys, who'll throw them in the garbage, or to record stores around the country, who won't even open the package. A racket, pure and simple. This was sposed to be an album, huh?"

    "Yes."

    "And George was involved in it? I can't believe George would've got himself involved in a vanity operation. Lots of these houses supply the suckers with lyricists or composers free of charge, all part of the hype. But George? Are you sure about this?"

    "He met with the girl four times in the past month. The words 'In the Life' were doodled in his notebook. It's our guess they planned to use that as the title."

    "Well, I don't know what to tell you. He never mentioned it to me. I know he was itchin for bigger money than he'd been gettin lately, be a way for him to get Chloe to quit that job of hers. So maybe he got this girl involved with some vanity label, and maybe… I just don't know. If George was gettin a kickback, it might
still
have been worth the company's while. Stead of havin to scrounge around for eighteen
separate
suckers, they'd have
one
sucker puttin up a full three grand, give

    George some of that, still make a profit. Yeah, maybe. I just can't say for sure."

    Carella took out his notebook, and opened it to the page of names he had copied from Chadderton's appointment calendar. "I've got two names here that Chloe couldn't identify," he said. "Would either of them be connected with vanity labels?"

    "Let me hear them," Harding said.

    "Jimmy Talbot?"

    "Nope, he's a bass player. Damn good one, too."

    "Harry Caine."

    "You got it, mister. Owns a label called Hurricane. He's a crook if
ever
there was one."

    "Thanks," Carella said, and closed the notebook.

    "Don't forget to talk to your lieutenant about sendin a man up here."

    "I won't," Carella said.

    "And get that flower tested," Harding said.

    

    

    The round-the-clock on Ambrose Harding's apartment did not go into effect until 3:45 p.m. that afternoon. The reasons for the almost four-hour delay were many, and all of them authentic. To begin with, Carella did not go directly back to the office but instead went all the way downtown to Crescent Oval, where the offices of Hurricane Records were located. Crescent Oval was in that section of the city known as The Quarter, and number 17 Crescent Oval was a three-story brownstone set between a sandal maker's shop and a store selling health foods. A brass escutcheon to the right of the doorbell carried only the engraved legend hurricane records. Carella rang the bell and waited. An answering buzz sounded within seconds. He opened the door, and moved into a paneled ground-floor landing, a flight of stairs angling upward dead ahead, a narrow corridor on the right of the steps, a door almost immediately to his right. On the door, another brass escutcheon engraved with the words hurricane records. No bell. Carella knocked on the door, and a woman's voice said, "Come in."

    The door opened onto an informal reception room painted in varying shades of purple, all of them muted, complementary, and rather soothing to the eye. The girl sitting behind a white Formica-topped desk was eighteen or nineteen, he supposed, a good-looking black girl wearing a plum-colored suit that further complemented the coloring of the walls and the carpet. She smiled warmly and said, "May I help you, sir?"

    "I'm a police officer," Carella said, and immediately showed his shield.

    "Oh," the girl said, and smiled. "And here I thought you were a rock singer."

    "Is Mr. Caine in?" Carella asked.

    "Let me check," she said, and picked up the phone receiver. She punched a button in the base of the instrument, waited, and then said, "A police officer to see you, Mr. Caine." She listened, laughed, said, "I don't think so," listened again, and then said, "I'll send him right in."

    "What'd he say that was funny?" Carella asked.

    "He wanted to know if you were tagging his car. He found a space up the block, but it's alternate side of the street parking, and today is the
other
side of the street. But it's raining and he didn't want to go shlepping all the way over to the garage on Chauncey. I told him I didn't think you were tagging the car. You're not, are you?"

    "I'm not," Carella said.

    "Okay, friend, pass," the girl said, and smiled and indicated a door just beyond her desk. "Make a right when you're inside," she said. "It's the second door in the corridor."

    Harry Caine was perhaps twenty-three years old, a dark-skinned black man wearing pearl gray trousers and a pink shirt, the sleeves rolled up over narrow wrists and slender forearms. He rose and extended his hand as Carella came into the room. Carella estimated his height at about five eleven. Thin, with narrow hips and shoulders, he could easily have passed for a teen-age boy. The rock and roll album sleeves that decorated the walls all around his desk enlarged the initial impression-Carella might have been in some kid's room someplace; all that was missing was the blare of a stereo.

    "I'm sorry," Caine said, "my secretary didn't tell me your name. I'm Harry Caine."

    "Detective Carella," he said, and took Caine's hand.

    "I'm illegally parked," Caine said, and smiled. "I know it."

    "I'm here about another matter."

    "Phew!" Caine said, and wiped his hand across his brow in exaggerated relief. His eyes, Carella noticed for the first time, were almost yellow. Extraordinary eyes. He had never seen anyone with eyes like that in his life. "Sit down, please," Caine said. "Would you like some coffee?"

    "No, thank you," Carella said.

    "What can I do for you?"

    "You had lunch with George Chadderton last Thursday," Carella said.

    "Yes?" Caine said. "Yes, at one p.m."

    "Yes?"

    "Did you?"

    "I did," Caine said.

    "What'd you talk about?"

    "Why do you want to know?" Caine said, looking extremely puzzled.

    Carella looked back at him. "Don't you know he's dead?" he asked.

    "Dead? No. George?"

    "He was killed Friday night."

    "I've been out of town, I just got home last night. I didn't know, I'm sorry." He hesitated. "What happened to him?"

    "Someone shot him."

    "Who?"

    "We don't know yet."

    "Well, I'm… I'm shocked," Caine said. "I can't say I feel any real grief-George wasn't the sort of person one felt much affection for. But I respected him as an artist and-I'm genuinely shocked."

    "How long had you known him, Mr. Caine?"

    "Oh, six months, I would say. We've talked record possibilities on and off for the past six months."

    "Is that what you talked about this past Thursday?"

    "Yes, as a matter of fact. George called me last week sometime, said he had an album idea he wanted to discuss. Well," Caine said, and smiled, "George
always
had an album idea to discuss. The problem, of course, was that he wanted to do
calypso,
which is about as vital to the record industry as buggy whips are to transportation."

    "Was this in
fact
another calypso album he wanted to discuss?"

    "Yes. But with a twist."

    "What was the twist?"

    "Well, to begin with…" Caine hesitated. "I'm not sure I should mention this. I wouldn't want you to think Hurricane Records is a vanity label. It isn't."

    "Uh-huh," Carella said.

    "Although from time to time, in order to help launch the careers of individuals who might not otherwise be granted a forum…"

    "Uh-huh…"

    "… we
will
charge a fee. But only in order to defray the cost of recording, packaging, and distribution."

    "I see," Carella said.

    "But even in those instances, we pay royalties the same as Motown or RCA or Arista or any other label you might care to mention."

    "It's just every now and then…"

    "Yes, every so often…"

    "… that you'll accept a fee."