Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 101, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 610 & 611, March 1993

“You don’t know the half of it,” I said, stalking to the golden soul bin, riffling through the S’s. The Sultans. Horace. DeWitt grinned up at me from the jacket, young and strong. A rock. I scanned the faces of his backup singers. Their images were barely more than grey smears, blurred by the dance step they were doing. I just couldn’t be sure.

“Have you got any other pictures of the Sultans?” I asked. “Posters? Anything?”

“The Sultans?” he echoed, eyeing me blankly, while he rapid-scanned the computer directory of his memory. “I have two playbills with the Sultans featured, but no pictures...” He crossed to a file of publicity memorabilia, and expertly riffled through it. “Aha. A program for a Warfield Theater revue. Nineteen sixty-two. Sam Cooke, The Olympics, Millie Jump and the Jacks, and... the Sultans of Soul. Be careful now, it’s a by God cherry original.”

I checked the table of contents, then leafed through the program gingerly. And found the Sultans of Soul. A standard publicity shot of Horace DeWitt ringed by four dudes in gleaming lame jackets. Except for Horace, I didn’t recognize any of them. I checked the fine print beneath the photo. Varnell Mack was last on the left. He was tall, and had a Malcolm X goatee. But he definitely was not the man who hired me.

Damn.

“What’s with you?” Cal said. “You look like you lost your best friend.”

“Worse. I think I may be losing my touch. I’m being conned by a guy who can barely walk across a room.”

“Conned out of what?”

“That’s the hell of it. I don’t know. Cal, why would anybody pretend to be a has-been soul singer? And a dead one at that?”

“Somebody’s pretending to be one of the Sultans? But why? Even in their heyday they were strictly small change.”

“It can’t be for money,” I said. “He’s already paid me more than he’s likely to get from any royalties. So what does he want?”

“You got any idea who this guy is?”

“All I know is that it has to be somebody from the old days who knew the Sultans. I’m guessing he found out Sol was looking for Varnell from Horace DeWitt, so his name could be Robinson, or maybe Jaquette.”

“Jaquette?” Cal said, blinking. “First name?”

“I don’t know. Why?”

“Because I know a few Jaquettes, but only one who would’ve known the Sultans,” Cal said, taking the program from me and flipping through it. “Could this be your guy? The one in the middle?”

“Yes,” I said slowly, “this is him. Or it was thirty years ago. But this pic isn’t of the Sultans.”

“Nope, it’s the Jacks, Millie Jump’s old group. Dexter Jaquette was their lead singer. And Millie’s husband. She dumped him after he got busted.”

“Busted for what?”

“A nickel-dime dope thing, couple of marijuana cigarettes. It’d be nothing now, but it was a hard fall back then. I think he did five years.”

“All that was a lifetime ago. What could he possibly want now?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him?”

“Maybe I will,” I said slowly, still staring at the smiling photo of Dexter Jaquette. “Can I take this with me?”

“Absolutely,” Cal said. “That’ll be twenty-four bucks plus tax, an extra ten for opening late, call it thirty-five even.”

I raised an eyebrow, but paid without carping. He’d been a huge help and we both knew it.

I left the program open on the seat as I drove back to my apartment, and my eye kept straying to it. It was a jolting contrast, the faded photo of Dexter Jaquette the singer, and the broken man who’d hired me. My God, he was so young then. Younger than I am now. But there was more to it than that. Something about that picture that I was missing.

Pictures. The guy with the videocam. What was that all about? The only thing I was sure of was that Jaquette had gone to a lot of trouble to set this up. If I confronted him, he’d probably just back off and try again later. Assuming he lived long enough.

Should I warn Sol? A double conundrum. Sol wasn’t my client, Dexter was. And if I warned Sol, he’d sic Roddy Rothstein on Jaquette. The fact that he was a cripple wouldn’t bother Roddy. He’d rough him up, run him off, or worse, and I’d still never know what I’d bought into.

Unless I played it out. Seemed to me this show had been in rehearsal for thirty years. It would be a shame to close it before the last act.

The Cadillac rolled up in front of Papa Henry’s a little after nine. I climbed out of my Buick and trotted over just as Mack’s chauffeur opened the back door.

“There’s been a change in plans,” I said. “We’ll take my car. Give your man the night off.”

Mack/Jaquette eyed me a moment, then shrugged. “My car, your car, I guess it doesn’t matter.”

“Good. And Mr. Mack, I mean give him the night off. I don’t want to see him in my rearview mirror, or the meet’s canceled. Understood?”

“Yeah,” he said, smiling faintly. “I think I understand.” He spoke briefly to the chauffeur, who started to argue, then gave it up. He looked me over slowly, memorizing my features, then helped Jaquette out of the car, and drove off.