“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 teenage 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.”
“Yes, to reduce our risk.”
“It’s our understanding that C.J. Hawkins... does that name mean anything to you?”
“Yes, that’s the girl George and I discussed.”
“...was ready to put up three thousand dollars...”
“Yes.”
“...to have an album made by your company.”
“Yes.”
“Was George Chadderton supposed to get any of that money?”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“A thousand.”
“And Hurricane Records was to get the remaining two thousand, is that it?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t that low? It’s my understanding that most companies charging fees will get somewhere between two and three hundred dollars a song.”
“That’s right,” Caine said.
“What does Hurricane charge per song?”
“Two fifty.”
“And how many songs do you normally put on an LP?”
“Eight or nine on each side.”
“Which would come to, oh, four thousand dollars an album, isn’t that right?”
“More or less.”