with me and she said no. I suggested that she wouldn’t get anyplace here, if I walked out and left word to ignore her, and she said, “I had a notion you might be pretty important in this place.”
“Yes mam,” said Herbie, the idiot. “Mister Conrad listens to him.”
She came with me, as far as the restaurant downstairs, after I left word for Conrad to come down when he was done taping.
Pat looked gorgeous and sharp. She looked gorgeous because she couldn’t help it and she looked sharp because she was. We sat in the booth and had iced tea and neither of us bothered to play dumb any more.
“How much of the place do you own?” she asked.
“Some of it.”
“Enough to cut me a very good disc?”
“Listen, Pat…”
“I’ve been. The time on the couch, the time at the party, just now in the office, and one other thing. I walked into the wrong place at first. Downstairs here, where they boil all that black stuff and press the records. They said, no, Mister St. Louis rarely comes down here. But try Blue Beat, upstairs.”
“You could have walked into the restaurant here and they might have told you the same thing.”
“You own the restaurant, too?”
She was guessing. I told her that and sipped iced tea.
“Of course,” she said. “Would you like me to ask Walter to come help me guess? The way business is going, he might just be interested enough. The downstairs and the upstairs might just tickle his fancy.”
“I don’t see why.”
“I don’t either, Jack. Maybe a pressing plant and a recording plant can’t do him any good whatsoever. But it’s worth the question, don’t you think?”
I couldn’t think of a single glib thing to say and she had me. She had me because she was sharp. She had me because it was clear I didn’t want Lippit to know about any of this.
“So, the reason I’m here,” she said, “is to get a big, healthy boost and get a start as a singer.”
“You’re making ready to sing pretty good without anyone’s help.”
“I’d rather sing pretty. Not nasty.”
I looked at my iced tea-I didn’t like iced tea-and thought, why not let her sing. The only reason I had tried to keep her away wasn’t a good one any more. She just about knew what I owned in this building. And if I didn’t let her sing pretty, she’d do it nasty and Lippit would know what I owned.
At first, I had just kept it from him as a matter of principle, because Lippit would have wanted in. Next stage, I kept it from him because I had kept it from him, which would have made him sore. And he would want in. Last stage, he would want in for sure. I had a notion how it could save his skin with the Benotti trouble.
I said, “All right, Patty. You called it.”
“You’ll make me sound pretty?”
“So you won’t talk to Lippit nasty.”
She was a charmer. She had one sweet smile and a frank little squeeze of my hand, reaching over the table, and what did she want, after all, but to be a singer. When over a barrel, I got this rule: Trust ‘em. It’s simpler, for the time being.
I checked the time and thought Conrad ought to show pretty soon. I told Pat not to drink any more tea for the moment, because it would make her throat too insensitive. She liked hearing that, since it showed my solicitude and because it sounded like professionals’ lore. We felt almost friendly.
“Jacky,” she said, “I don’t want you to think that time on the couch-you remember that time-I don’t want you to think that was all for just this.”
“Oh, no.”
“Just to prove it to you, Jacky, we can do it again sometime.”
The logic stunned me and I almost said, oh no, again. Instead I said nothing. I sat and felt nervous with the unreal sense of peace and accord. Conrad should show about now. There would be trouble with Conrad and that would take care of the unreal feeling. Or I could call up Lippit. He should be done at the jobbers. Call Lippit and let him take care of the sense of peace. It would either turn out a joke, or who knows, maybe he had been solving things, while I hadn’t.
I went out to the lobby and called upstairs. Conrad was still in his fiberglass sanctum but would wrap things up in a minute or so.
I called the club and got Davy on the phone. No, Lippit hadn’t finished, but had called about something. He had wanted somebody to bring down the folder on last month’s deliveries.
He was still talking to Bascot He hadn’t been thrown out, driven off to the hospital, or anything like that. He was still talking and maybe it looked good.
I saw Conrad come down the lobby and I hung up the phone. Maybe he wouldn’t argue too much. Maybe that, and Pat, would turn out good, too.
He looked sweaty and rumpled and when he saw me he also looked annoyed.
“So. What is this?”
“Conrad,” I said, “due to several reasons which are none of your business…”
“What is this? You running this outfit to procure females or something?”
“I don’t know what you mean by ‘or something’, but I…”
“All right Females. I’ve seen her.”
“It isn’t that simple, Conrad.”
“You’re damn right it won’t be that simple, Jack-boy, because if you think I’m going to twiddle those dials for any non-musical purpose…”
“Of course not, Conrad. I wouldn’t dream…”
“Not dream, maybe, but you’d do it.”
I made a pause to break his rhythm, and then I said, “She’s going to record and you’ve got to make her sound good.”
“You’ve got it that bad?”
“No, damn it.”
“You mean she’s that bad?”
“I don’t know. All I know is, she’s got to sound good on the first try.”
“Don’t threaten me.”
“I’m not. I was going…”
“And you can’t bribe me, if that’s next.”
“You artists,” I said.
“Take her someplace else.”
“If she doesn’t sound good,” I said, “and to make a long story short, we lose B. B. and the works.”
He looked out to the street, mean and rumpled. “All right,” he said. “I’ll do it.”
“You artists,” and I took his arm to lead him to the restaurant.
“For the challenge,” he said. “I’ll do it for that.”
“Okay. You’re a craftsman. Not an artist.”
We went to the booth where Pat was waiting and on the way I told Conrad to be polite. “I’m not a sore loser,” he said and when we got to Pat he said, “Hello.” I bumped him and he said, “Hello, and how do you do?”
Pat did it much better, playing it with charm and a pretty shyness and I had to explain to her about Conrad’s manner.
“An artist all the time,” I told her, “and no room left for anything else.”
“Oh?” she said.
“He’s studying your voice and projection and so on right now. All the time like that.”
“I haven’t said anything.”
“You said ‘oh’ and before that it was the carriage of your head, the size of your neck, that kind of thing.”
She smiled as before, though less shy this time.
“Did you explain to him that this has got to sound good, first try, Jacky?”
“Sure he did,” said Conrad. “What can you sing?”
