Extreme Vinyl Café Read Online Free Page A

only halfway to Kingston, two hours behind schedule. The four of them were in Bert’s Volvo, their luggage in the trunk, Dave and Morley in the backseat and Mary in a state.
    The cooler, with the cake, was wedged onto the armrest between Dave and Morley. They could barely see each other.
    As they roared past Kingston, Dave said, “There’s a great burger joint up ahead. If anyone felt like—”
    “No stopping,” snapped Mary. “There’s no time for stopping.”
    At Iroquois, Dave, who was completely famished, made a lame joke that if he could have his cake now , he wouldn’t eat any at the party. Mary whirled around and said if Dave as much as breathed on her cake, he could start walking.
    There is no doubt Mary was wound up. The cake was iced with the fondant, but she still had to add the decorations, and it had to chill after that. And Mary had told Harold they would be at the club early, to help with the set-up.
    They were two and a half hours behind schedule when they pulled up in front of Rene Gallivan’s limestone house on Upper Walnut Crescent, a little-known cul-de-sac near the top of Westmount Mountain.
    “Holy crow,” said Dave as he unfolded himself from the backseat.
    He was staring at the huge red oak doors, at the mahogany fluting around the lintel and the maple rosettes on the door’s frame, at the lead-paned windows, at the thick stone walls.
    “My,” said Mary. They were all standing on the sidewalk staring now.
    “Wow,” said Bert.
    “Oh dear,” said Morley.
    “Remember everyone,” said Mary. “We have to leave everything exactly the way we found it.”
    She was staring at Dave.
    “Oh dear,” said Morley, again.
    As Dave stepped through the threshold and into the marble foyer, Morley put her arm on his elbow and whispered, “ Don’ttouch-anything .”
    T he kitchen turned out to be in the basement. It was the kind of a kitchen where help, rather than family, worked.
    It had a fireplace.
    “Holy crow,” said Dave. “You could roast an ox in there.”
    It also had a walk-in cooler.
    “Look at this,” said Dave.
    Mary was decorating her cake, sticking little marzipan flags carefully into the centre of the little greens. Morley was standing beside her, holding a bowl of brown icing for the sand traps. Bert was wiping down the counters.
    Everyone was tiptoeing around—trying not to disturb a thing, trying not to make a mess. And no one was trying harder than Dave.
    “I’ll take the luggage to the bedrooms,” said Dave.
    S oon enough the cake was decorated and in the fridge, and everyone was ready to go. The cake, however, was not. The cake had to chill for at least an hour, or better, two. “As long as possible,” said Mary.
    But Mary was already supposed to be at the party.
    Dave said, “You guys should go.”
    Dave said, “I’ll stay here. I’ll bring the cake when it’s ready.”
    Someone had to.
    Morley wrote down the address of the banquet hall so Dave could take a taxi. Beneath the address she wrote: Please don’ttouch anything . Then Morley and Bert and Mary left in Bert’s car. Once they were gone, Dave set off to see if he could find something to eat.
    O n any other day he might have slid down the majestically curving banister from the second floor to the foyer. Or gone for a dip in the indoor saltwater pool. He might have had a steam or toured the wine cellar. But this wasn’t any other day. He peeked in the wine cellar and stuck a finger in the pool. He touched one of the decanters of whisky and then fetched a towel and rubbed off his fingerprints. Dave was trying his best. Really.
    The house had everything. Everything, that is, except a morsel of food. It was while he was looking for anything even remotely edible that Dave found the most amazing feature of the mansion: a wood-panelled elevator. It was the kind you might see in an old British hotel, about the size of a phone booth.
    He opened what he thought was a cupboard door and there it was. It had brass