Callie’s Last Dance

15.

GEEK CITY TURNS out to be six bedrooms, seven bathrooms, a conference room, kitchen, workshop, laundry room, and a computer room that defies explanation. They’re music nerds, each possessing a private collection of more than ten thousand songs that blare constantly from breakfast to dinner, at the highest possible volume.

“Do you ever play the same song at the same time?” I ask.

They look at each other and smile. C.H. says, “What a perfect question to ask! Every afternoon at precisely two-forty-six, we play Dream Merchant, by Gee Gee Shinn.”

Not that I give a shit, but because of the way they’re looking at me, I ask, “Why that particular song?”

“The four of us programmed our individual music into our peripheral computers,” Larry says. “Day after day for years no two computers ever played the same song at the same time.”

C.H. says, “Until eighteen months ago. One afternoon, at two-forty-six, two computers played Dream Merchant at the same time.”

“Do you know what the odds are of that happening?” C.H. says.

“A million to one?” I say.

Curly yells, “Jimmy Charles! Nineteen sixty!”

Larry shouts, “Patterson, New Jersey!”

C.H. says, “That’s nothing. Nothing! Who sang backup?” While the others struggle to answer, he yells “The Revellettes!”

“Ah, but who were in the Revellettes?” I say.

They look at each other and do a double-take. Then grab their cell phones and punch the keys furiously.

Larry gets there first.

“Jackie and Evelyn Kline-”

Curly and C.H. shout in unison, “And Dottie Hailstock!”

They slap each other on the back, do a high-five, and some sort of strange victory dance.

Then C.H. says, “The odds of two of our lists playing a single song at the same time are impossible to calculate because our lists were pre-programmed to constantly shuffle, and each computer has a different random sequence. We’ve been working on the calculation for years. I can show you the algorithm flow chart if you’d like.”

“Another time,” I say, which sets them to laughing.

The biggest surprise comes when they show me Moe’s room and I happen to open the closet door and see his corpse hanging from a hook, wrapped in plastic.

“This can’t stay here,” I say.

“Okay,” Curly says.

I supervise as they carry the body to the antechamber.

“How long will you need to keep my laptop?” I ask.

“For what?” Larry says.

“To program it the way I outlined.”

“We can do it remotely. We’ll send you a link when it’s ready.”

“We should exchange phone numbers,” I say.

They laugh.

“Right,” I say. “You’ve got my number.”

“And you’ve got ours,” Larry says. “All you have to do is press the star key twice. We’ll answer.”

“How will you hear my call over the music?”

“All phone calls mute the music.”

We say our goodbyes. When they’re out of sight I look at Moe’s body, at my feet. A man so broken up by Lou’s sudden death, he killed himself. A man so alone in the world there was no one to contact about his death.

Unless the others killed him and made up the story.

I shake my head, call Tommy Cooper, and tell him to bring a friend.