Sneakers

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John Tell had been working at Tabori Studios just over a month when he first noticed the sneakers. Tabori Studios was in a building which had once been called Music City but wasn't much anymore.

The sneakers were white, or had been once, when they were new. From the look of them that had been a long time ago. That was all he noticed about them then: just a pair of elderly sneakers under the door of the first stall of the men's room on the third floor. Tell passed them and went into the third and last stall. He came out a few minutes later, washed and dried his hands, combed his hair, and then went back to Studio F, where Paul Janning, the man who had hired him-and just maybe the first friend Tell had ever made-was mixing an album by a heavy metal group called The Dead Beats.

Tell had met Janning, a rock producer of some note, at a party following the premiere of a concert film. They knew some of the same people, and got along. Tell, who normally had problems with ordinary conversation, found he could talk easily and naturally to Paul Janning. Janning asked for his phone number and called him a few days later to ask if he would like to be part of the three-man team mixing The Dead Beats' first album. 'I don't know if it's really possible to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear," Janning had said, "but since Atlantic's paying the bills, why not try?"

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