He studied the notes. “Not to look at it. An interesting theme, but it’s not Johann Sebastian. This leap here of a major seventh is not his style. I would remember such a thing. Are you sure she meant Johann Sebastian Bach? Not, say, the son, Carl Philipp Emanuel? The grandson, Wilhelm Friedrich Ernst?”

I had no idea and said I’d have to ask her. The bell on the entrance door gave a little ring as a customer entered behind me.

I went through the parts one last time to make sure they were all there. He’d gotten each part onto four hinged pages, except for the piano-conductor part, which was naturally longer. It did not contain the full chart by any means, but it would be helpful to whoever was leading the band, whether at a podium or from the piano.

I slid the parts into a large manila envelope Haffner gave me that bore the name RC COPYING.

Haffner picked up my thirty-eight-page orchestral chart, from which he had extracted each individual part. “Is this the only copy of your orchestration?” he asked. I told him it was. He made that little popping sound of his with a grave look on his face. “I don’t like that you have only the one copy. It is a fine arrangement. Even the best musical mind would not be able to re-create this orchestration if it was lost—the voicing is too unusual. We should have a Photostatic copy made. I have preserved my last two works this way. It is an expense but also a reassurance.”

He turned to Gil. He was settling up some business with a blonde, who was looking at a chart from his side of the counter and had her back to me.

Haffner asked, “Gilbert, my friend, how much would we have to charge my former student here to make a Photostatic copy of his arrangement? Reduced in size, of course.”

Gil, who was reluctant to tear himself away from the blonde, turned to face us. “No way to really know,” he said.

Haffner pouted. “This would be for my friend,” he said, indicating me.

Gil said, “Forty dollars?”

Haffner silently mouthed the words “My friend.”

Gil said, “Twenty bucks will cover it,” and turned back to the blonde. He seemed much more interested in the way her green serge dress draped over her rear than in the transaction with me.

Haffner winked at me and urged, “You should have it done. This may be that rare case where the orchestrator is more talented than the composer, and we certainly know the copyist is better than the composer and orchestrator combined. Take the parts themselves and I shall have delivered a Photostatic copy of the orchestration to your hotel tomorrow morning. You said you were at the Claremont, yes?”