Dagger Key and Other Stories

  Applause erupted, and it was as idiosyncratic as the dancing had been. This one guy was baying like a hound; a blond girl bounced up and down, clapping gleefully like a six-year-old. I didn’t catch much of the set, other than to note the audience’s positive response, in particular to the songs “Average Joe” and “Can I Get A Waitress?” and “The Sunset Side of You”—I was working the room, gathering opinions, trying to learn if any of the industry people I’d invited had come, and it wasn’t until twenty minutes after the encore that I saw Stanky at the bar, talking to a girl, surrounded by a group of drunken admirers. I heard another girl say how cute he was and that gave me pause to wonder at the terrible power of music. The hooker I had hired to guarantee my guarantee, a long-legged brunette named Carol, dish-faced, but with a spectacular body, was biding her time, waiting for the crowd around Stanky to disperse. He was in competent hands. I felt relief, mental fatigue, the desire to be alone with Andrea. There was no pressing reason to stay. I said a couple of good-byes, accepted congratulations, and we drove home, Andrea and I, along the Polozny.

  “He’s amazing,” she said. “I have to admit, you may be right about him.”

  “Yep,” I said proudly.

  “Watch yourself, Sparky. You know you get when these things start to go south.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “When one of your problem children runs off the tracks, you take it hard. That’s all I’m saying.” Andrea rubbed my shoulder. “You may want to think about speeding things up with Stanky. Walk him a shorter distance and let someone else deal with him. It might save you some wear and tear.”

  We drove in silence; the river widened, slowed its race, flowing in under the concrete lees of the mill; the first row house came up on the right. I was tempted to respond as usually I did to her advice, to say it’s all good, I’ve got it under control, but for some reason I listened that night and thought about everything that could go wrong.

  Carol was waiting for me in the office when I came downstairs at eight o’clock the following morning. She was sitting in my swivel chair, going through my Rolodex. She looked weary, her hair mussed, and displeased. “That guy’s a freak,” she said flatly. “I want two hundred more. And in the future, I want to meet the guys you set me up with before I commit.”

  “What’d he do?” I asked.

  “Do you really want to know?”

  “I’m kind of curious…yeah.”

  She began to recite a list of Stanky-esque perversions, and I cut her off.

  “Okay,” I said, and reached for my checkbook. “He didn’t get rough, did he?”

  “Au contraire.” She crossed her legs. “He wanted me to…”

  “Please,” I said. “Enough.”

  “I don’t do that sort of work,” she said primly.

  I told her I’d written the check for three hundred and she was somewhat mollified. I apologized for Stanky and told her I hadn’t realized he was so twisted.

  “We’re okay,” she said. “I’ve had…hi, sweetie!”

  She directed this greeting to a point above my shoulder as Andrea, sleepily scratching her head, wearing her sweats, entered the office. “Hi, Carol,” she said, bewildered.

  Carol hugged her, then turned to me and waved good-bye with my check. “Call me.”

  “Pretty early for hookers,” Andrea said, perching of the edge of the desk.

  “Let me guess. You defended her.”

  “Nope. One of her clients died and left her a little money. I helped her invest. But that begs the question, what was she doing here?”

  “I got her for Stanky.”

  “A reward?”

  “Something like that.”

  She nodded and idly kicked the back of her heel against the side of the desk. “How come you never were interested in the men I dated after we broke up?”

  I was used to her sudden conversational U-turns, but I had expected her to interrogate me about Carol and this caught me off-guard. “I don’t know. I suppose I didn’t want to think about who you were sleeping with.”

  “Must be a guy thing. I always checked out your girlfriends. Even the ones you had when I was mad at you.” She slipped off the desk and padded toward the door. “See you upstairs.”

  I spent the next two days between the phone and the studio, recording a good take of “The Sunset Side Of You”—it was the closest thing Stanky had to a ballad, and I thought, with its easy, Dr. John-ish feel, it might get some play on college radio:

“I’m gonna crack open my Venetian blind
  and let that last bit of old orange glory shine,
  so I can catch an eyeful
  of my favorite trifle,
  my absolutely perfect point of view…
  That’s an eastbound look,
  six inches from the crook
  of my little finger,
  at the sunset side of you…”