From his perch near the back of the room he looked down the bar. The bar girls were hustling. It was a good night. Maybe fifty percent of the men were in uniform. Now he knew why the owners fought so hard to keep off the armed services’ banned list. Without servicemen there was no business.
“Fred.” He turned and saw Licia standing behind him. She was a big honey-colored girl with a lustrous Nancy Wilson wig. The unofficial chief bar girl, she had a quiet air about her that belied her inner toughness. And for whatever reason, nobody fooled with her, neither the girls nor the customers. She talked with them, had drinks with them, but when the bar closed she left alone.
“Got a request for the piano player?” he asked, hitting an opening chord.
“Yeah. The man wants you to stay on till four o’clock.”
“Shit,” he said, continuing with the song. “I’m beat. I been up here for five solid hours.”
“You get double for the extra hour,” she said.
That was ten dollars. He was getting twenty-five dollars for the five hours of regular work. “How come the man’s suddenly so big?”
“Look at that crowd,” Licia said. “He knows they see you get down from that piano they figure the night’s over and begin to leave.”
Fred wondered if JeriLee was waiting up for him. Chances were that she had already gone to bed. “Okay,” he said. The extra ten dollars looked good. It was his first gig in more than three weeks.
***
JeriLee looked up at the clock. It was half past three. He should have been home by now. She began to feel the tightness gather inside her again.
It was stupid. She would have to get a better grip on herself. There was nothing to be nervous about. She’d finished the play.
A joint would help. She went into the bedroom and took the small cellophane bag full of grass from the table next to the bed. They liked having a joint before sex. A few tokes made everything easy.
Sitting on the couch concentrating intently on rolling the joint gave her something to do. She licked the paper carefully and looked at her handwork. The joint was smooth and neat, the ends tightly rolled. She struck a match and lit up.
She took the first toke deep into her lungs and held it there. There was something reassuring about its smarting sweetness. She took another hit and could feel the tension ease. This was better. She looked up at the clock again. Three forty-five. It wasn’t so bad.
Suddenly she felt dry and thirsty. Grass always did that to her. She took the wine from the refrigerator and poured a glass. She was beginning to feel a little high. Fred would be surprised when he came in and saw her like this.
Usually she was either sleeping fitfully or hunched tensed over the typewriter. It couldn’t have been that good for him but only once had he complained. “Baby, looks like you forgot how to have fun. You can’t always live uptight like this.”
It had been a bad day. “What the hell do you know?” she had shouted. “You get a gig, you don’t get a gig, you don’t get a gig, you don’t have to dig something out of yourself when you don’t even know whether it’s worth anything or not, whether it’s good or bad, right or wrong. You go to work if you have a job. If you don’t, you sit around here drinking beer and smoking grass and staring at me night and day. Fuck it. Nothing bothers you.”
He stared at her for a moment, then went into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. A little while later she heard the sound of the shower. By the time he came out, her temper had gone and she felt contrite.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to yell like that.”
He nodded and without speaking went into the bedroom and came out with a joint already rolled. He lit it and passed it to her. “You’ll be okay,” he said. “Once you’ve finished the play.”
Well now it was finished and she was feeling good. She took another toke and chased it down with some wine. Feeling good and free for the first time in a long while. She felt the warmth growing inside and touched herself with a sense of excitement. She was wet. This hadn’t happened for a long time. God, she was horny. She couldn’t wait for him to come home. He didn’t know it but he was about to get the most mind-blowing sex he had ever had.
Chapter 3
At four o’clock the bar closed. In less than ten minutes all the customers and most of the bar girls had gone. The bartenders wasted no motions. Any customer that showed signs of lingering over his drink suddenly found it missing from the bar in front of him.
Fred wearily gathered up his sheet music and placed it in his leather folder, then made his way to the front cash register to collect his pay. The bartender had his back toward him, counting out the cash. Fred stood patiently, waiting until he was finished. He knew better than to interrupt him.
Licia suddenly appeared at his shoulder. “The man wants to buy you a drink,” she said.
“Okay, bourbon and water,” Fred said gratefully.
“Jack Daniel’s and water,” she called out. “The bar whiskey is piss,” she said. “It’s cut by fifty percent.”
“Thanks.”
The bartender put the drink in front of him and went back to the register. “Right on,” he said, taking a sip.
“The man likes you,” she said. “He says you know your music.”
“Thank him for me,” Fred said. It had been a long time since anyone had said something nice to him about his music.
“What are your plans?” she asked suddenly.
“What do you mean?”
“Work,” she said.
“Find another gig.”
“You don’t have a job during the day?”
“No, there’s only my music. I don’t know anything else.”
“How do you keep busy?”
“Lookin’ for gigs,” he said. “And there’s some songs I been workin’ on.”
“You write songs?”
He nodded. “Only trouble is I can’t get anyone to listen to them. The publishing companies are all locked up with big names an’ the only thing they’re interested in is rock. Shove a guitar on some kid dressed in hippie clothes an’ a beard an’ they fall all over themselves to sign him.”
“Maybe the man can help you,” she said. “He’s got connections with a few music companies.”
“I’d appreciate it,” he said.
“Let me to talk to him,” she said.
He watched her walk to the back and disappear into the office between the men’s and the ladies’ toilets. He was sure that nothing would come of it but he was grateful that she’d shown an interest. In all the time he had been with JeriLee, the subject of his writing had never come up. She was too into her own work. There was no room in her head for anything else.
When Licia came back, she said, “He told me to tell you he has a piano up at his place. If you want to come up there, he’ll listen to your songs.”
“Now?” he asked. “It’s after four o’clock.”
“The man is night people,” she said. “This is the middle of the afternoon for him. He don’t get out of bed until seven o’clock.”
Fred thought for a moment. JeriLee was certainly asleep by now. He didn’t expect anything, but any chance was better than no chance at all. “Okay,” he said.
“Give Fred thirty-five dollars,” she said.
The bartender quickly counted out the money and Fred put it in his pocket. “Thanks,” he said.
“Come on then,” she said. “I got my car parked up at the Radio City garage. The man tol’ me to bring you up to his place.”
***
The car was a silver Cadillac convertible with black leather and a black top. He sank back into the seat beside her and took a deep breath. Two things always turned him on. The smell of a new car or a new pussy. Somehow they always came together in his head, and this car smelled new.
She hit the tape deck as they moved onto Forty-ninth Street. It was Nat King Cole singing “Too Young”—one of his biggest hits. “There’ll never be another like the King,
” he said.
“The King is dead,” she said quietly.
She cut expertly into the Avenue of the Americas going uptown. She had the lights timed perfectly. They were in the park before he knew it.
“Nice car,” he said.
“I like it,” she said tonelessly.
They left the Park at Seventy-second and Fifth and went across town to York Avenue. She turned in at one of the new buildings on the corner of York and went down the ramp into the garage. She pulled to a stop and got out without waiting for an attendant. “The elevator’s over there,” she said.
The elevator operator seemed to know her. He touched his hand to his forehead. “Good morning,” he said.
“Good morning,” she answered.
He knew where they were going. The car stopped at the seventeenth floor without her saying a word. Fred followed her down the carpeted corridor. She had to be pretty thick with the man. They hadn’t even called up to announce her the way they usually did in this kind of building. He watched her come to a stop in front of one of the doors and take a key out of her purse. He nodded to himself. Yeah. She was thick with the man. Real thick. She even had her own key.
The lights in the apartment were already on and he followed her through a large entrance hall into an even larger living room. Windows surrounded the room, allowing a view of the East River, the Triborough Bridge uptown and the Queensboro Bridge at Fifty-ninth Street. A white baby grand piano stood in an alcove near the corner windows. He stood in silent admiration. The only time he had ever seen anything like this was in the movies.
“Quite a place the man has here,” he said.
She glanced at him without comment. “Jack Daniel’s and water?” she asked.
He nodded.
She fixed his drink and waited while he tasted it. “Okay?” she asked.
“Fine.” He nodded, then turned in response to the sound of footsteps.
A white girl with long brown hair and blue eyes came into the room wearing a white dressing gown. “I was asleep,” she said to Licia, “but I heard voices.”
“Sorry we woke you, honey. But Fred here came to play for us.” She turned to him. “Fred, this is Sam. Short for Samantha. Sam, this is Fred—” She looked at him questioningly.
“Lafayette,” he said quickly.
“Fred Lafayette,” Licia repeated.
The girl held out her hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you,” he said. Her touch was cool. He turned back to Licia. “The man here yet? I can start anytime he’s ready.”
Licia looked at him steadily. “You can start now.”
He stared at her. Suddenly it all made sense. He had worked the bar at least four times and had never seen the man.
“You?” There was a note of wonder in his voice.
She nodded.
He put his drink down on a small coffee table. “I think I better go,” he said. “I don’t like being put on.”
Licia’s voice was steady. “Nobody’s putting you on. You said you can’t get anybody to listen to your music. Well, I can, if I think it’s worth a shot.”
He met her eyes. “You do this often?”
“First time.”
“Why me?”
“I studied music in college,” she said. “But I have no talent. I can fake it but that’s not the real thing. And I know the real thing when I hear it. I heard some of the things you did in the bar. You have a style all your own. You made those songs sound like you wrote them.”
He was silent for a moment. “You manage the Green Bar?”
“I own it,” she said simply. “An’ just in case you have any wrong ideas about my being interested in your fat black dick, get them out of your head. I’m happy the way I am. I just happen to dig your music, an’ if you got what I think you have we can all make a buck out of it.”
He looked first at her, then at the girl, and realized he had been very slow on the uptake tonight. “What do you like?” he asked. “Fast, slow, ballad, pop, country or blues?”
“You just play what comes into your head,” she said. “I’ll listen.”
“I’m going back to bed,” the girl said suddenly.
Lucia’s voice was easy. “Okay, honey.”
The girl left the room without saying good night. “I can come back tomorrow if you like,” Fred said.
“No reason to. I brought you up here to play. You play.”
Licia followed him to the piano. He smiled, responding to his charged-up feelings. It had been such a long time since all he had to do was play the music that was in his own head.
He hadn’t gone more than eight bars into his first song when Licia knew that her hunch had been right. It was magic. Sheer magic.
Chapter 4
JeriLee had fallen asleep on the couch but the sound of his key in the lock woke her up quickly. The room, now flooded with sunlight, reeled for a moment and she had a buzzing sensation behind her temples.
She looked at the empty wine bottle standing between the two burned-out candles. She couldn’t believe she had drunk the whole bottle of wine herself.
Fred stood in the open doorway, surprised to see her on the couch. “I didn’t think you’d be awake,” he said.
“I tried waiting up for you but I fell asleep. What time is it?”
“Almost nine o’clock,” he answered. He saw the wine bottle and the candles. “You’ve been celebratin’. What’s the occasion?”
“I finished the play.”
He was silent for a moment digesting the news, then he smiled suddenly. “Congratulations, honey. That’s worth a celebration.”
“You didn’t tell me you’d be out all night.” She didn’t mean it to sound reproachful but it did.
“I didn’t know. It was unexpected.”
“You could have called me.”
“I thought you might be asleep.” He bent over the couch to kiss her. “I got some good news too.”
She caught the scent of Jack Daniel’s on his breath. “You’ve been drinking.”
“A little,” he admitted.
“What’s the good news?”
“I auditioned for the lady that owns the Green Bar. She’s goin’ to help me find a publisher and record company for my songs.”
“What songs?”
“I got a few numbers I been doodlin’ with for years,” he said.
“You never said anything to me.”
“You never asked me. Besides you always had so much on your mind. And nothin’ was happening anyway. At least not until tonight.”
She felt a twinge of jealous. “A lady owns the Green Bar?”
He nodded.
“You stayed down there and played for her?”
“No. She took me up to her place. She had a baby grand up there.”
“Oh.” She got to her feet. There was a sour taste in her mouth. Suddenly she was depressed. The excitement of finishing the play had disappeared. “I’m going to brush my teeth and go to bed.”
He followed her to the bathroom door. “Ain’t nothin’ like you’re thinkin’,” he said.
She looked at him in the bathroom mirror. “How do you know what I’m thinking?”
“It was straight.”
“Sure,” she said sarcastically. “You spent six hours after work in her apartment just playing the piano.”
“That’s right.”
She squeezed the toothpaste carefully from the tube. “You don’t have to lie to me. You don’t owe me any explanations.”
“I’m not lying.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” she said and began brushing her teeth.
“What do you do now?” he asked when she returned to the bedroom.
“Take a copy of the play over to Fannon.” She got into bed, reached for the alarm clock and set it for noon. “But first I want to get over to the beauty parlor and get my hair washed and cut.”
“It looks okay to me.”
“It’s not. It’s been months
since I had it cut.” She leaned back against the pillows. “I have to get some sleep.”
He left the room, closing the door behind him. The heavily draped room was suddenly dark and she lay in the bed staring at the wall. She didn’t like the way she was acting but she couldn’t seem to help it. He had no idea how uptight she was, how important her writing was to her. He had never seemed curious enough to want to read what she had written, and she had the feeling that as far as he was concerned her work had nothing at all to do with him. The only communication they had between them was sex.
***
The alarm aroused her from a deep sleep. The sound jangled her nerves and she groped with shaking hands to turn it off. After putting on the bedside lamp, she lit a cigarette and took a few drags. She was feeling somewhat calmer when the telephone began to ring.
It was a woman’s voice. “May I talk to Fred, please?”
“Just a moment.”
Fred was asleep on the couch. She touched his shoulder. “Phone call for you,” she said.
“Who is it?”
“I didn’t ask.”
He picked up the telephone beside the couch as she went back into the bedroom. She closed the door behind her and hung up the extension. In the bathroom she stared at herself in the mirror and didn’t like what she saw. Her face had an indoor pallor and there were tension lines around her mouth and eyes that she had never noticed before.
She thought about the sound of the voice of the woman on the telephone. Whoever she was, there was no doubt that the lady was in control. She wondered what the woman looked like, how old she was, then suppressed an impulse to eavesdrop on the extension.
What was the matter with her? These were not her kind of thoughts, that was not the kind of thing she would do. There were no strings between her and Fred; he didn’t own her, she didn’t own him. They were together only because they wanted to be. Anytime either one wanted to leave, they were free to do so. But for six months they had been cooped up with each other, and that kind of togetherness sometimes played funny numbers on your head.
She wished now that she hadn’t answered the telephone. But then Fred wouldn’t have answered it either. He never did—because of her mother.
The Lonely Lady Page 28