Read Online I'll See You in My Dreams: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel by William Deverell - Free Book Online

huddled in a darkened doorway sharing a bottle; the Beanery was a no-booze zone, and Ira’s window sign made that clear, particularly to the licensing inspectors who often harassed him. Other signs promoted coming attractions: a jazz trio called the Alley Cats, a sitar player from Calcutta, and the Melodians, a smiling, stomping, singing threesome. But those were the class acts, justifying cover charges. Most nights featured raspy, off-key protest singers who played to thin houses and afterwards passed the hat.
    Ira wasn’t losing his shirt, but he was having trouble keeping it on. Competition was tough in those days, with live acts – Liberace, Tony Bennett, Sophie Tucker – at the Cave and Isy’s and the infamous Penthouse, a BYOB club frequented by hookers, gangsters, gamblers, and lawyers.
    Ira had scrounged scores of oddball movie and art posters, and they added to the Dada-esque decor of this narrow rectangle of candle-topped tables. Maximum seating was forty-five but only eight were in there, plus Lawonda, an impossibly exotic Ghanaian in charge of coffee, chili, and the till – she was Ira’s entire workforce. A chess game was underway at one table, Chinese checkers at another.
    Ira jumped on the small stage to do a sound check while I signalled Lawonda to bring me a bowl of the best and a coffee. Thebusker wandered in, cigarette dangling from his lips. He vaulted onto the stage, knocked the spit from his harmonica, and did some tuning licks on his guitar. A young aspirant marking time before returning to college or his dad’s insurance business. Straddling a stool, he began to sing with an unforgiving nasal twang: “Corrina, Corrina.”
    Lawonda came with a tray and placed before me a bowl of chili that brought impatient groans from my stomach. “I made it special for you, Stretch.” She leaned toward my ear. “Ira told me you like it hot.”
    She was in her thirties, wise, salty, and sexy. Body by Botticelli in charcoal, stunning beyond my dreams, therefore untouchable. She was swathed in a multicoloured wrap, something West African and dramatic. A worldly woman, rumoured to have enjoyed a sinful past, she’d bounced from Accra to the Canaries, then Barcelona and London. Lovers galore, I supposed.
    â€œWho’s that kid up there?”
    â€œDylan – like the poet.”
    Only nineteen, his first album was out … and I can’t remember what else she said because I’d been turned to stone, spoon suspended six inches from my mouth as I zoomed in on Ophelia Moore. She had just entered, arm in arm with Jordan Geraldson, the prince of torts.
    As he pulled back her chair, she gave him a smooch. I rose unsteadily, my appetite in powerful remission. Lawonda stepped back, startled.
    Outside by the curb, I retched, but nothing came out.

    On 23/4/62 at 1120 hours, U/S Cst Jettles attended home of Benjamin Joseph, near Cheekye, Cheakamus Reserve, in company of Cst Borachuk. Benjamin, who everyone on the force calls Ben, is hereditary chief here. Also present was his common-law wife Anna and their youngest daughter, Monique, 16, who is in high school. Ben
advised Monique was home all afternoon of Saturday, 21/4/62, and was never in the company of Gabriel Swift on that particular day. Monique also signed a statement to same effect
.
    This was a photocopied scrap of lined paper titled “unsworn affidavit.” One sentence:
I, Monique Joseph, full-time student at Squamish Secondary, state as a fact that on Saturday last I was never in the company of Gabriel Swift, of this reserve
. Dated, signed, and witnessed by its author, Brad Jettles.
    Though these words smacked of artificiality –
Saturday last
sounded of cop talk – they came as a blow. So much for the prospect of bail. I blinked away a vision of Gabriel walking morosely to the gallows, betrayed by his lover – for surely she had bent to others’ wills. I couldn’t