Free Written in Dead Wax by Andrew Cartmel Page A

him. They’d evidently been a couple of young hustlers, a man and a woman with a peculiar relationship that, it was rumoured, veered into the incestuous, or whatever you’d call sex between cousins. And they managed to get their hooks into some of the great jazz composers.
    And, as was all too often the custom in those days, they got their names on the compositions by these jazz men. It was reminiscent of what had happened with Irving Mills and Duke Ellington. The Duke was a musical genius. Mills was just his business manager. But Mills ended up being credited as co-composer on many of Ellington’s masterpieces, even though he didn’t write a note of the music.
    This meant of course that he also ended up with a permanent share of the revenues.
    The Davenport cousins, also referred to in Jerry’s letter as “those young parasites”, had performed a similar scam with the music written by another jazz great, Burns Hobartt. They had taken—or if you prefer, stolen—a credit on everything he wrote, for the privilege of publishing his music.
    Which meant that whenever anyone recorded a Burns Hobartt composition, it was supposed to be credited as being written by “Hobartt, Davenport and Davenport”, even though the malevolent cousins had nothing to do with it.
    The injustice of this had apparently been too much for Easy Geary. On his album of Hobartt classics, the credits just read “Hobartt”. No one else. Just the man who had really written the music.
    Which was the strict truth of it.
    But the Davenports’ lawyers didn’t see it that way.
    Of course, they didn’t deserve any credit, but contractually they were entitled to it. And even though the cousins were long since dead, AMI, the corporate entity that represented them, was still thriving and promptly launched a lawsuit.
    And, much worse, they unleashed Ox on the owner of the offending record label, poor Bobby Schoolcraft.
    It’s not clear what he did to Bobby Schoolcraft, but in the past Ox had not been above blackmail, beatings and even death threats. Perhaps it’s not surprising that Bobby Schoolcraft took the way out he did. There was evidently a suicide note specifically naming Ox and detailing his campaign of persecution, but it was suppressed by the police.
    Fanny ceased her frightened pacing and jumped back up onto the sofa with me. She had provisionally concluded she wasn’t about to be devoured by a large carnivore. She settled against me again, warm and solid, as I resumed my reading.
    The last Hathor album, the much sought-after
Easy Come, Easy Go
, was recorded knowing that it would be the last album the company ever released, knowing that Bobby Schoolcraft was dead, and knowing that it was all over.
    Perhaps that’s why Geary and Miss Pollini put their autographs in the dead wax when the record was pressed. As a kind of memorial.
    There is a legend that Ox stopped by at this recording session to gloat. That apparently didn’t stop it being a stupendous album, musically speaking, by all accounts. If you find a copy perhaps you will play it for me. (I do listen to the occasional bit of jazz!) Good luck in your quest to find it.
    Well, that’s all I’ve got for now. I’ll let you know if my research turns up anything further. I’ll pass it along when I next see you in the shop.
    I have to go out later tonight and I shall drop this in the postbox on the way.
    See you soon.
All the best,
Jerry
    I folded the letter up neatly and put it back in the envelope. I was obscurely grateful that I had taken such care opening it. When he had gone out later that night he had met the person who’d killed him. Dropping the letter in the postbox had been just about the last thing Jerry ever did.

6. JUMBLE
    I didn’t see Nevada until the following evening.
    It was raining when she arrived. Once again she was wearing her white knit hat with the strawberry embroidered on it.
    “Nice hat.”
    “Oh, get stuffed.”
    “No, really, I like it. It looks very