The Frumious Bandersnatch

“You really want me to call your girl adiva? ”

“That’s what she’s gonna be after tonight,” Binkie said. “Once ‘Bandersnatch’ hits the charts…”

“Why’d she choose a Lewis Carroll poem?”

“Ask her, why don’t you?”

“I will. Is she smart?”

“Smarter than most of them,” he said, which said it all.

Honey looked at her watch.

“Where’s the Ladies’?” she asked. “I want to touch up my makeup.”

It was twenty minutes to ten.

BECAUSE PATRICIAhad been leaving directly from work earlier tonight, she’d changed in the precinct swing room and met Ollie at the restaurant. Now, at a quarter to ten that Saturday, she sat beside Ollie on the front seat of his Chevy Impala, driving uptown on the River Harb Highway, watching the lights of a yacht that had stopped dead out there on the water, and was now apparently riding her anchor. Music from a station that played what it called “Smoothjazz” flooded the automobile.

“By the way,” Ollie said, “have you thought of a song you want me to learn for you?”

“I’ve been trying to think of one all week,” Patricia said.

“Have you come up with anything?”

“Yes. ‘Spanish Eyes.’ ”

“I don’t think I know that one.”

“Not the one the Backstreet Boys did onMillennium, ” Patricia said. “The one I’m talking about is an older one. It was a hit when my mother was a teenager.”

“The Backstreet Boys, huh?” Ollie said.

He had no idea who she meant.

“Even they’re on the way out,” Patricia said. “In fact, who knows how long ’NSync’s gonna last. These boy bands come and go, you know.”

“Oh, I know,” Ollie said.

“But I’m talking about theold ‘Spanish Eyes,’ ” she said, and sang the first line for him. “ ‘Blue Spanish eyes…teardrops are falling from your Spanish eyes…’ That one.”

“I’ll ask Helen.”

“Who’s Helen?”

“My piano teacher. Helen Hobson. Any song I tell her I want to learn, she finds the sheet music for me. I’ll ask her to get ‘Spanish Eyes.’ ”

“But not the one the Backstreet Boys did.”

“Who did the other one? The one you want me to learn?”

“Al Martino. He recorded it in 1966, I wasn’t even born yet, my mother was still a teenager. She still plays it day and night, that’s how I happen to know it.”

“Al Martino, huh?” Ollie said.

He’d never heard of him, either.

“Yeah, he was a big recording star. Well, I think he’s still around, in fact.”

“1966, that’s a long time ago,” Ollie said. “I hope she can still find the sheet music. Lots of these people who were big hits in the fifties and sixties, they just disappear, you know.”

“But lots of them are still around,” Patricia said.

“Oh sure.”

“And better than ever.”

“Oh, I know.”

“The older they get, the better they get. Look at Tony Bennett.”

“You want me to learn a Tony Bennett song for you?”

“No, I want you to learn ‘Spanish Eyes.’ Just for me. So you can play it for me when you come up the house.”

“You got a piano?”

“Oh sure. My brother plays piano.”

“I’ll be happy to learn ‘Spanish Eyes’ for you.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

“You’ll like it. It’s a very lovely love song.”

“I like lovely love songs,” Ollie said.

“It’s the next exit, you know,” she said.

“Pardon?”

“You get off at the next exit.”

“Oh. Right, right.”

The next exit was Hampton Boulevard, and Hampton Boulevard was one of the worst sections in Riverhead. The population on Hamp Bull, as it was familiarly called, was largely Puerto Rican and Dominican; the local cops joked that around hereEnglish was the second language. The Hamp Bull Precinct was nicknamed The Dead Zone, and for good reason; it was worth your life to walk around here after dark, even if you were a policeman. Drug-infested and crime-ridden, the ten square blocks encompassed by the precinct were at the very top of the Commissioner’s list of Red Alert Areas. Ollie swung the car off at the exit sign, and drove up the ramp.

He said nothing for several moments.

At last, he said, “So this is where you live, huh?”

“1113 Purcell,” she said, and nodded.

“How long you been living here?”

“I was born here.”

“Your folks, too?”

“No, my parents were born in Puerto Rico. Mayaguez. You make the next left.”

Ollie nodded.

Young men were standing on every street corner.

“My brother and my sisters were born here, though,” Patricia said.

“1113, you said?”

“The project up ahead.”

“Got it.”

He pulled the Impala next to the curb. Some young guys wearing gang bandannas were playing basketball under the lights in the playground. They turned to watch as Ollie came around to let Patricia out on the curb side. In a seemingly casual move, he unbuttoned his jacket and flipped it open to show the holstered Glock. Patricia caught this, but said nothing. She watched as he locked the car.

“No wonder you worried about getting raped all the time,” he said.

“Kept me on my toes, that’s for sure,” Patricia said, and smiled. “But I’ve got Josie now,” she said, and patted the tote bag hanging at her side.

“Can I give you some advice?” Ollie asked. “Man to man?”

“Man to man, sure,” she said.

“There used to be a time when the shield and the gun meant something. You flashed the tin, you pulled the gun, it meant something. Which building?” he asked, and offered his arm.

“You gonna walk me home?” she asked, looking surprised. “Gee.”

“If I lived here,” Ollie said, “I’d even walkmyself home.”

Patricia laughed.

“I’m used to it,” she said.

“That’s because you still think the shield and the gun mean something. They don’t, Patricia. You flash the buzzer nowadays, it’s an invitation for some punk to shoot you. You pull your Glock, that’s only telling some punk to show you his bigger AK-47. We’re outnumbered and outgunned, Patricia, and there’s too much money to be made