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any length of time. He’s a truly gifted photographer who had a few of his photos printed in major magazines. Unfortunately, most of the steady jobs in photography involve working with journalists, babies, mommies and numerous others who are immediately incensed by the symptoms of Cory’s affliction. When I worked with him at the mental health center, I helped him get a job with a National Geographic journalist I had dated briefly. To make a long story short, apparently there is a lot more English fluency in Ecuador than you might imagine. When they got unofficially deported Cory got officially sacked.
    Since most of the obscenities Cory spews are not germane to the conversation, I’ll spare you as much of it as I can. I laid out his assignment and sent him on his way.
    At 10:30 AM I rang the doorbell of Doberman’s Stub bassist, Jack Pascal. He lives in a large old house in a lower-middle class neighborhood. On the outside, it looked like most of the other houses on the block, in need of a paint job and some minor repairs. Inside was a very different story. A small entranceway was kept to match the outside; undoubtedly to lead pop-in neighbors, girl scouts and delivery people to believe he was just like them. However, once we walked into the living room it was obvious that Jack had an artist’s eye for detail, and excellent taste.  The furnishings were modern, but not trendy. The art was phenomenal and his use of electronics to conceal computer, sound system and TV was inspired.
    “I’ll bet the neighbors think you’re a regular Joe Lunchbucket,” I said.
    “That’s the idea,” he said.
    “Don’t they get curious when the bass riffs rattle their windows?” I asked.
    “Check this out,” he said and led me out of the living room and into a room where all of the walls and ceiling were completely covered by one-foot square cubes, designed to absorb and dissipate sound. The soundboard, amplifier, speakers and cased guitars were all laid out and arranged as if he had prepped for an MTV Cribs photo shoot.
    “If I had a set-up like this, my Dad could have actually spent time at home during my teenage years,” I said.
    “You play?” he asked. I explained a bit of my background and he selected a gray suede case that housed a 1959 Gibson Les Paul. The neck was as straight as any new top-of-the-line guitar you could buy at a quality shop. Jack got us plugged in and we jammed for about 20 minutes.
    “You sound familiar. Did you play the club scene?” Jack asked.
    “Yeah. I played rhythm guitar and sang for a band called Tsunami Rush until three years ago,” I said.
    “I heard you a few times. Good stuff. So, what do you want to know about Terry?” he asked.
    “Could you take me through what happened the day he died?” I asked.
    “OK. We all met at the Denny’s on Broadway, near the studio. I got there first and read the paper while I waited for the others. We ordered before Ian arrived, since he’s not very punctual. But, he was only about 15 minutes late, which is as close to on time as he gets,” Jack said.
    “What did you talk about?” I asked.
    “We covered the two songs we were going to be working on that day. We planned on finishing one up by early afternoon and starting on the other. Terry was excited about the second song. We had played it several times over the past month and Terry felt it had potential to be big. But, he also couldn’t get comfortable with Ian’s drum line. To me, it seemed like Terry was blaming Ian’s lifestyle for why it wasn’t coming out like he wanted it. But Ian was playing it like Terry was telling him. Terry was just having a time making it measure up to his standards. Ian had about two bites of his breakfast before he and Terry got into it. The argument accelerated quickly and Ian left with most of his breakfast still on his plate.”
    “Did Nigel take sides?” I asked.
    “No. We usually tried not to do anything that would get Terry pissed at us. Terry was a