Part 2 (1/2)

I thought she was a mighty good singer, but I knew Rags wasn't pleased with her. I knew because he was putting her through Stardust, having her rehea.r.s.e it when he'd always told me that no singer needed to. ”That's one they can't b.i.t.c.h up, see?” he'd told me. ”They can do it with all the others. But Stardust, huh-uh.”

He brought his hands down on the keys suddenly. With just a big crash. She stopped singing and turned toward him, her face hard and sullen-looking.

”All right,” Rags said. ”You win, baby. I'll send for Liberace. Me, I'm too old to run races.”

”I'm sorry,” she mumbled, not looking a darned bit sorry.

”Never mind that sorry stuff,” he said. ”Your name's Lee, ain't it? Danny Lee, ain't it?”

”You know what it is,” she said.

”I'm asking you,” he said. ”It's not Carmichael or Porter or Mercer, is it? This ain't your music, is it? You've got no right to b.i.t.c.h it up, have you? You're G.o.dd.a.m.ned right, you haven't! It's theirs-they made it, and the way they made it is the way it should be. So cut out the embroidery. Cut out that bar-ahead stuff. Just get with it, and stay with it!”

He picked up his cigarette from the piano, and tucked it into the corner of his mouth. He brought his hands down on the keys. He seemed to kind of stroke them-the keys, I mean. But yet there was no running together. Every note came through, clear and firm, soft but sharp. So smooth and easy and sweet.

Danny Lee took a deep breath. She held it, the bra swelled full and tight. She was nodding her head with the music, tapping one toe. Listening, and then opening her mouth and letting her breath out in the Stardust words. Soft-husky. Pus.h.i.+ng them out from down deep inside. Letting them float out with that husky softness, still warm and sweet from the place they'd been.

I looked at Rags. His eyes were closed, and there was a smile on his lips. I looked back at the girl, and I kind of frowned.

She didn't hardly have to move at all, to look like she was moving a lot. And she was moving a lot now. And if there was one thing that burned Rags McGuire up, it was that. He said it was cheap. He said singers who did that were acrobats.

Rags opened his eyes. His smile went away, and he lifted his hands from the keys and laid them in his lap. He didn't curse. He didn't yell. For a minute he hardly seemed to move, and the silence was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Then he motioned for her to come over to the piano. She hesitated, then went over, kind of dragging her feet, sullen and hard-faced, and watchful-looking.

And then Rags reamed her out-real hard. It was pretty rough.

She took her place again. Rags brought his hands down on the keys, and she began to sing. I moved in close. Rags gave me a little nod. I stood up close, drinking her voice in, drinking her in.

She finished the song. Without thinking how it might seem to Rags-like I might be b.u.t.ting in, you know-I busted out clapping. It had been so nice, I just had to.

Rags' eyes narrowed. Then he grinned and made a gesture toward me. ”Okay, baby, take off,” he said. ”You've pa.s.sed the acid test.”

I guess he meant it as kind of an insult. Just to her, of course, because he and I are good friends, and always kidding around a lot. Anyway, she started down at me-and gosh, I'd forgot all about what a mess I was. And then she whirled around, bent over and stuck out her bottom at me. Kind of wiggled at me.

Rags let out a whoop. He whooped with laughter, banging his fists down on the top of the piano. Making so much noise that you couldn't hear what she was yelling, although I guess it was mostly cuss words.

He was still whooping and pounding as she marched back across the bandstand, and down the steps to the dressing room.

I grinned, or tried to. Feeling a little funny naturally, but not at all mad.

3: RAGS MCGUIRE.

I saw her for the first time about four months ago. It was in a place in Fort Worth, far out on West Seventh Street. I wasn't looking for her or it, or anything. I'd just started walking that night, and when I'd walked as far as I could I was in front of this place. So I went inside.

There was a small bar up front. In the rear was a latticed-off, open roof area, with a lot of tables and a crowd of beer drinkers. I sat down and ordered a stein.

The waitress came with it. Another woman came right behind her, and helped herself to a chair. She was a pretty wretched-looking bag; not that it would have meant anything to me if she hadn't been. I gave her a couple bucks, and said no, thanks. She went away, and the three-piece group on the bandstand-sax, piano and drums-went back to work.

They weren't good, of course, but they were Dixieland. They played the music, and that's something. They played the music-or tried to-and these days that's really something.

They did Sugar Blues and w.a.n.g w.a.n.g, and Goofus. There was a kitty on the bandstand, a replica of a cat's hat with a PLEASE FEED THE sign. So, at intermission, I sent the waitress up with a twenty-dollar bill.

I didn't notice that it was a twenty until it was in her hand. I'd meant to make it a five-which was a h.e.l.l of a lot more than I could afford. Anything was a lot more than I could afford. But she already had it, and you don't hear the music much any more. So I let it go.

The waitress pointed me out to them. They all stood up and smiled and bowed to me, and for a moment I was stupid enough to think that they knew who I was. For, naturally, they didn't. They don't know you any more if you play the music. Only the players of c.r.a.p, the atonal clashbang off-key stuff that Saint Vitus himself couldn't dance to. To these lads I was just a big spender. That's all I was to anyone in the place.

I saw the waitress go over to a table in the corner. There was a man seated at it, facing me, a guy with a beer-bleared face and a suit that must have cost all of eighteen dollars. There was also a girl, her back turned my way. The waitress whispered to her, and the girl got up. Her companion made noises of protest, and a burly, s.h.i.+rt-sleeved character who had been lurking in the vicinity, grabbed him by the collar and hustled him out.

The girl started toward the bandstand. There was a small burst of hand-clapping and stein-thumping. And my eyes snapped open and my heart pounded, and I half rose out of my chair. And then I settled back down again. Because, of course, it wasn't Janie. Janie wouldn't be in a joint like this, she wouldn't be hanging around with barflies. Anyway, I knew where Janie was, at home looking after the boys, whoring and guzzling and . . .

Janie was back in New York. I'd talked to her longdistance that night-had her sing to me over the telephone. It was Melancholy Baby, one of our all-time hit recordings, one of the dozen-odd which still sell considerably-and thank G.o.d they do. Although I don't know who the h.e.l.l buys them. Probably they all go to insane asylums, the patients there. It must be that way, the poor devils must all be locked up, since there seems to be nothing on the outside any more but tone-deaf morons.

Why, G.o.ddammit, I talked to a man a while back, one of those pseudo-erudite b.a.s.t.a.r.ds who is mopping up with articles about modern ”music,” the so-called up-beat, ”cool” c.r.a.p. I said, let me ask you something. Suppose the printer started ”interpreting” your articles. Suppose he started leaving out lines and putting in his own, suppose he threw away your punctuation and put in his own. How would you feel if he did that, an ”interpretation” of your stuff?

I shouldn't have wasted my time on him, of course. I shouldn't even have spit on him. He called himself a music critic-a critic, by G.o.d!-and he'd never heard of Blue Steele!

The girl didn't look like Janie. Not the slightest. I'd only thought she did at the time.

She sang. It was Don't Get Around Much Any More, another old hit of Janie's and mine. And she b.i.t.c.hed it up. Brother, did she b.i.t.c.h it! But when I closed my eyes...

She had a voice. She had what it took, raw and undeveloped as it was. And she hit you. That's the only way I can say it-she hit you. She brought out the gooseb.u.mps, like that first blast of air when you step into an air-conditioned room.

And G.o.d knows I don't expect much. I work for something good, I do my best to get it. But I don't really expect it.

I began to get a little excited. I did some fast mental calculations. I was working single at the moment, doing a series of club dates. And I was just squeaking by. But the resort season wasn't too far off, and I had some recording checks due; and it would be easy enough to whip together another band. I could just about swing it, I thought. A five man combo, including myself, and this girl. I couldn't make any money with it, not playing the music. I'd be very lucky, in fact, if I could break even. But I could do it-do something, by G.o.d, that needed to be done. Give this mixed-up world something that it ought to have, regardless of whether it knew it or wanted it.

She finished the song. She was at my table before I could motion to her. I was still wrapped up in my calculations. I heard her pitch, but it was a minute or two before it sank in on me. And perhaps I should have expected it; and perhaps, by G.o.d, I should not have. From some girls, yes. From any other girl. But not her, not someone with the music in them.

I wanted to spit on her. I wanted to break my stein, slash her throat with it so that she would never sing another word. Instead, I said, fine: I hated sleeping by myself.

I suppose my expression had startled her. At any rate, she drew back a little. She didn't mean that, she said. All she meant was that maybe I could buy her dinner some place and we could have a nice visit, since she was alone, too, and maybe I could help her buy a new dress because a drunk had spilt some beer on this one, and- She was really a nice girl. She told me so herself. She was just doing this (temporarily, of course!) because her mother was awfully sick-a sick mother, no less!-and she had a couple of younger brothers to support, and her father was dead and crops had been awfully bad on this farm she came from. And so on, ad infinitum, ad nauseam. The only thing she spared me was the fine-old-Southern-family routine. If she'd pulled that I think I would have killed her.

I took a couple of twenties out of my wallet and riffled them.

She simpered around a little more, and then she went back to my hotel with me.

I looked at her, and suddenly I turned and ducked into the bathroom. I hunched over, hugging my stomach, feeling my guts twist and knot themselves, wanting to scream with the pain. I puked, and wept silently. And it was better, then. I washed my face, and went back into the bedroom.

I told her to get her clothes on. I told her what I could and would do for her.

All the clothes she'd need; good clothes. A year's contract at two hundred dollars a week. Yes, two hundred dollars a week. And a chance to make something of herself, a chance eventually to make two thousand, five thousand, ten thousand. More than a chance, an absolute certainty. Because I would make something of her; I would not let her fail.

She believed me. People usually do believe me if I care to make the effort. Still, she hung back, apparently too shocked by the break I was offering her to immediately accept it. I gave her twenty dollars, promised her another twenty to meet me at the club in the morning. She did so- we had the place to ourselves except for the cleaning people-and I gave her a sample of what I could do for her.

A good sample, because I wanted her firmly hooked. With what I had in mind, the two hundred a week might not be enough to hold her. That invalid mother and two brothers et cetera, notwithstanding. I wanted to give her a glimpse of the mint, boost her high enough up the wall so that even a whoring moron such as she could see it.

And I did.

I worked with her a couple hours. At the end of that time, she was no longer terrible, but merely bad. Which to her, of course, seemed nothing less than wonderful.