Keeper of the Flame. Jack Batten

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      I played the YouTube again, this time concentrating on the visual. It showed Flame as he sang the song, a very young Flame in a tuxedo, and the figure of this boyish version of the man was superimposed over four people acting out the song’s lyrics. Three males and one female gathered around a table, all of them dressed in evening wear, tuxs for the men, though they were really boys, and a long gown for the girl. The four of them held champagne flutes in their hands, and they affected a languid air. As an actor, Flame was absolutely convincing in his world-weary pose.

      This was all surprising, Flame’s voice and his play-acting. Just his choice of “Lush Life” as a song to perform was persuasive for me. I turned off the MacBook, and leaned back in my chair, feeling warm and fuzzy about representing the guy.

      Five minutes later, Gloria came through the door carrying her familiar red leather bag and smiling her familiar smile. She began the ritual of unpacking the bag. Then she stopped to give me closer inspection.

      “You’re looking blissed out,” she said.

      “I think I’m a little crazy for our client.”

      “Flame?”

      “Don’t get the wrong idea.”

      “I haven’t got any ideas.”

      “Put it this way, kiddo. Listening to some of his music, I feel more involved in acting on behalf of Flame’s interests.”

      “Glad to hear it,” Gloria said. “Now what’s with the coffee? I don’t smell anything brewing.”

      I got out of my chair, and took charge of the coffee-making. In ten minutes, I set full cups in front of each of us.

      “Okay, shoot,” I said to Gloria,“tell me what I don’t already know about the Reverend Al.”

      Gloria opened her iPad and began scrolling through the pages.

      “Not much on him personally,” Gloria said. “I concentrated more on Heaven’s Philosophers and the origin of the building they’re in.”

      “You still got a little about the Reverend?”

      “His annual income is sixty-two thousand bucks plus a clothing allowance.”

      “Not bad for a disgraced clergyman,” I said. “Who’s his employer?”

      “A numbered company,” Gloria said. “The same one that owns the church building.”

      “No names that go with the numbers?”

      “For pete’s sake, Crang,” Gloria said. “Give me a little more time.”

      I held up my hands in a peace gesture.

      “Care to hear the background of the church’s building?” Gloria said. “Probably doesn’t pertain to your problem, but it’s kind of entertaining.”

      “Go ahead,” I said, “Entertain me.”

      “Another conceivably unorthodox religious bunch put the place up twelve years ago,” Gloria said. “It went by the name Steady for Jesus. Apparently made up of stout Protestants who regretted the way Anglicans and Presbyterians and such like were drifting. So they formed their own church.”

      “This group later morphed into Heaven’s Philosophers?”

      Gloria waved both arms in a gesture that let me know I’d wandered way off track. “Different personnel entirely. Steady for Jesus was funded 100 percent by Stewart Sclanders. That name ring a bell?”

      “Sclanders Lumber?”

      “You got it in one,” Gloria said. “Sclanders is still Canada’s number one supplier of two-by-fours and whatever in wood products. Young Stewart is third generation and the scion of the family fortune.”

      “Steady for Jesus was his hobby?”

      Gloria shook her head. “It was his commitment until he fell hard for a lovely girl named Julie Fineberg.”

      “Love trumped all?

      “Stewart converted to Judaism, married Julie, and left Steady for Jesus to wither on the financial vine.”

      “That’s the end of those guys?”

      “More or less,” Gloria said. “The Steady for Jesus property sat vacant until three years ago when the numbered company I mentioned scooped it up at a bargain price and began operations.”

      “What’s with them financially?”

      “The question gets us right to the crooked flim-flammery.”

      “You base this on what?”

      “First, a question of my own. You’ve been out to the Heaven’s Philosophers? The physical operation?”

      “Studied it intimately.”

      “Do I gather there are three other businesses on the premises in addition to the religious component?”

      “After a fashion, yeah, three others.”

      “In the last taxation year,” Gloria said, her eyes on the iPad screen, “the numbered company shows income of four-point-four million bucks from an international travel agency, six million from a dining lounge, and five million from an IT centre.”

      “Jesus, the gall,” I said. “The international travel agency consists of a guy and his computer. The dining lounge is good for a cup of coffee and a week-old doughnut. And the IT centre features a kid and a computer with an over-sized screen. Where’d you get these numbers?”

      “Don’t you want to know how much income the church shows all by itself?”

      “How much?”

      “Twenty-nine million,” Gloria said. “And where I got the numbers was from their income tax returns.”

      “But if it’s a numbered company, ipso facto its tax records aren’t public.”

      “Right, for ordinary people,” Gloria said. “But I’ve mentioned my friend Nikki to you from time to time?”

      “She comes to town from the Maritimes and stays with you for a couple of weeks every summer, your oldest friend since school days.”

      “Since good old Allenby Public School up on Avenue Road,” Gloria said. “Nikki, I once told you this, she moved down to Prince Edward Island because of a guy from there she was seeing. The guy didn’t last, but her job in the Revenue Canada offices did. Nikki’s department — now, get this — it’s called the Taxpayer Relief Intake Centre. That’s the one where taxpayers go begging permission to pay late because of serious physical or mental illness and, please, can they be excused from paying a penalty on top of the tax.”

      “A department like that really exists?”

      “Nikki works night and day to keep up with the sob stories.”

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