Read Straight No Chaser for Free Online Page B

finger on the microphone and got back a satisfying bump on the sound system.
    â€œWelcome to the first annual Alternate Film Festival,” he said into the mike. “I’m Cameron Charles.”
    The guys with the TV cameras switched on their lights, and the radio people held their tape recorders in the air.
    â€œI’m only going to take a few minutes of your valuable time,” Cam said.“The young ladies will have printed material for you as you leave, schedules and so on. What I have for you in my short time is an announcement of a purpose.”
    Cam paused. It was for one of his dramatic effects. I’d seen him do it a hundred times in court. I hated it all one hundred times.
    â€œAnd an announcement of a very important surprise,” Cam said.
    The sophisticated press got scribbling. Cam the silver-tongued devil had done it again.
    â€œAs many of you will know,” Cam said, “I chose to leave the other film festival in town”—that drew a small snicker, Cam’s emphasis on “other”—“and my reason had to do with purpose. The Festival of Festivals has no purpose beyond simple entertainment. Mindless entertainment in too many instances of the films they choose to offer the public. At the Alternate Festival, my associates and I do have a purpose, and it is this: simply put, we will show films that, through theme or story line or character, through attitude, through the intent of the filmmakers themselves, make a statement about the reality of power and politics in the world today.”
    More people were filtering quietly through the door on the right side of the room. There were twelve or fourteen men and women, mostly men, and they gathered congenially a few steps back of Cam. They must have been the associates he was talking about in his speech. The man immediately behind Cam made an odd associate. He was Harp Manley, veteran bebop trumpet player and recent movie actor.
    â€œWe have secured a film from South America that I assure you is stunning,” Cam was saying into the mike. “It was made inside Chile, unknown to the Pinochet regime, and smuggled out of the country and into our hands. And I tell you, ladies and gentlemen, it is a devastating delineation of oppression under a military government.”
    One more man joined the clump of associates ranged back of Cam. I recognized him too. It was Beige Jacket. Different jacket, something in lightweight plaid this time, but it was the same moustache, same thinning hair, same Perry Mason build.
    â€œThat guy over there,” I said to Annie in a low voice. “In the plaid jacket. He mean anything to you?”
    â€œFrom the neck down, he could stand in for Raymond Burr.”
    â€œIt’s said if people spend long enough in one another’s company, they begin to think alike.”
    â€œI’ve heard that.”
    â€œWith us,” I said, “I think the process is in an advanced stage.”
    â€œI still don’t know who the man in the plaid jacket is.”
    â€œExcuse me,” I said. “I have business to attend to.”
    Annie and I were standing about dead centre of the crowd of reporters in front of Cam. I edged to the back of the pack, circled one of the TV cameramen who was shooting from an outer angle, and approached the man in the plaid jacket on his right side.
    â€œHi, there,” I said. “I believe we share a mutual affection for jazz.”
    The man kept his face a blank, but his eyes shifted over me and opened fractionally wider. He remembered.
    â€œGet lost, Jack,” he said. He had a rumble for a voice.
    I said, “More specifically, a mutual affection for one jazz musician. Who could forget Dave Goddard?”
    â€œYou deaf or what?” the man said. His hair and moustache were dark-brown, and his face had a Slavic cast. “Take a hike.”
    A pair of festival associates made shushing noises at us, and I could hear Cam