Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 137, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 835 & 836, March/April 2011

One-Hit Wonder by John Morgan Wilson

Edgar Allan Poe Award winner John Morgan Wilson has been called, by Booklist, “[Graham] Greene’s heir apparent and the savior of the mystery as morality play.” His latest novel in the award-winning Benjamin Justice series, Spider Season, was published in late 2008 and acclaimed by Mystery Scene magazine as an “exquisite novel... the finest in a powerful series.” He returns to EQMM with his shortest story for us to date, but one that lingers in the mind.

Frankie Daytona sits in a bar across the street from his appointment, drinking some courage, when somebody slips a quarter in and “The Letter” starts playing.

Gimme a ticket for an aeroplane,

Ain’t got time to take a fast train...

Frankie looks up from his empty shot glass, shaken. Thinking, why this song, at this moment? Like whoever selected it knows something about him and is trying to mock him. Like they want to crush his confidence just when he needs it most.

Lonely days are gone, I’m a-goin’ home,

’Cause my baby just a-wrote me a letter.

Frankie knows “The Letter” backward and forward, inside and out. 1967, four weeks at number one on Billboard’s Hot 100. Penned by a Nashville tunesmith, Wayne Carson Thompson. Performed by the Box Tops, blue-eyed soul group out of Memphis. Catchy, commercial, but with real feeling to it, thanks to Alex Chilton’s lead vocal. Still around on some jukeboxes, especially in retro joints like this one, at the end of a SoHo side street the artsy New York crowd forgot to revive. Frankie was only a kid back when “The Letter” rode the airwaves, but he knows his pop musicology. His old man was a song plugger, always jawing about the music business, how great it can be, and how cruel. That’s how Frankie first heard about the Box Tops, one of those legendary groups that had one smash single, and that was it. One-hit wonders, that’s the term you hear, which makes Frankie’s skin crawl.

Jolted from his groove, Frankie orders another bourbon. He’s never been able to get those lyrics and that driving rhythm out of his head. Not just for the obvious reason, that he digs the song. But even more because of what happened to the Box Tops. It isn’t fair, Frankie thinks, the one-hit wonder label they got stuck with. Fact is, they had a few more. Maybe not chart toppers, but damn close, solid Top Forty. “Cry Like a Baby,” “Neon Rainbow.” And don’t forget “Soul Deep” — that one puts a lump in Frankie’s throat every time he hears it. Which isn’t so often anymore, not after he smashed the Box Tops’ Super Hits album late one night when he was up alone with a bottle, thinking about what might have been. Broke plenty of his old LPs that night, platters by so-called one-hit wonders he’d inherited from the old man. Splintered vinyl everywhere, just like all those shattered dreams. Frankie understands. He had big plans, too — plans that went nowhere, faster than you can say Vanilla Ice. At least he’s managed to stay close to the music biz, running errands for the big shots, waiting for one more break. A comeback, just around the corner — that’s what’s kept him going all these years. Until recently, anyway, when he hit his late forties like a brick wall and realized time was running out on his dreams.

I don’t care how much money I gotta spend,

Got to get back to my baby again...

The truth is, Frankie himself is a one-hit wonder. It’s what people call him behind his back, what they whisper when he walks into a bar in the old neighborhood, causing laughter to ripple through the place like a tremolo from a golden oldies doo-wop group. It’s the reason “The Letter” rattles him every time he hears it, like an unwelcome blast from the past, reminding him what a loser he is. If the Box Tops couldn’t shake the one-hit wonder tag, he thinks, what chance do I have?

One hit, nearly thirty years ago, and then the nosedive. Only now he’s been given another shot at making it, if his five p.m. appointment across the street works out. Abe Leventhal, veteran record producer. Not the most successful guy in the business, but he’s got a small label and knows how to work the download market, or so he says. He’s in the game, and that’s all that matters to Frankie. I got prospects again, Frankie thinks, nearly thirty years after I flamed out. Age forty-nine, second chance, who would have thought? It was never about his ambition, or even his talent, those weren’t the issues. It was always about the pressure, stage fright when the big moment arrived. Frankie swears he won’t choke this time, now that fate has smiled again. What’s that old saying about luck and success? Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. Well, this time I’m prepared, he tells himself. I’ve had years to get ready for this. He glances at his fake Rolex, trembles a little, orders another shot.

Well, she wrote me a letter

Said she couldn’t live without me no mo’...

Frankie Daytona, the one-hit wonder. It caroms around in his head like a cue ball with too much action on it. Could anybody be left with a more pathetic legacy, the guy who got his break and blew it? Not the Box Tops, though. Maybe their run was brief, Frankie admits, but it was memorable. A couple of good years, two Grammy nods, a handful of worthy tunes, fans who don’t forget. At least they have that.

And where am I? Sitting in a dead-end bar in lower Manhattan, watching the second hand tick closer to five p.m. Time to take a leak, check my hair and jacket in the mirror, then cross the street to what is surely my final chance at the big time.

Listen mister can’t you see I got to get back

To my baby once a-mo’ — any way, yeah...

The song ends. One minute, fifty-eight seconds, one of the shortest pop numbers ever recorded. The bar’s quiet for a moment, then a new cut starts playing. “Elusive Butterfly” by Bob Lind. 1966, his only Top Twenty hit. Frankie winces at the irony.

“You got anything new on that jukebox?” he asks the bartender.

“We like the oldies,” the bartender says.

“ ‘Elusive Butterfly.’ ” Frankie smirks. “Talk about your one-hit wonders.”

The bartender says nothing, just turns away to dump ashtrays.

Frankie’s bogus smile evaporates. It’s time. He leaves a few singles on the bar and slides off the stool, his forehead glistening with sweat.

In his glory days, Abe Leventhal had offices in the legendary Brill Building on Broadway, just off Times Square. The hub of the music business decades ago. But the changing marketplace left Leventhal behind about the time “Rico Suave” came and went like MC Hammer pants. That’s what Frankie’s heard, anyway, although a gambling habit might have figured in Leventhal’s slide. Now the old guy’s in a three-story walkup with buckling linoleum in the lobby, no security guard or surveillance video, and more vacancies than tenants. The kind of office building for people on their way up or their way down, but not many in between.

Disheartening, Frankie thinks, that I’ve sunk this low. He climbs the creaky stairs to Leventhal’s second-floor office, working up his nerve. But beggars can’t be choosers, can they? If this works out, Frankie reminds himself, if he can just believe in himself this time, there’s no telling how far he might go.

As he exits the stairwell onto the second floor, he sees Leventhal emerge from his office at the end of the hallway and turn into an adjacent restroom. A geezer in shirtsleeves and suspenders, wizened, hunched-over, frail. Otherwise, the hallway’s empty, the building quiet. Leventhal doesn’t even have staff anymore; he answers his own phone, hustling his second-rate clients, shuffling his debts, trying to find a way back, or just out. It doesn’t help that he still plays the horses, the only thrill he’s got left.

Frankie knows a couple of the tenants up here. That’s how he met Leventhal. Running errands for the boss, handling payola transactions, debt collections, the usual stuff. But Frankie doesn’t expect to run into anyone else who knows him, not this late on a Friday in a dump that sees about as much foot traffic as a mausoleum. Leventhal always works late, though. Frankie’s done his homework. Widower, no kids, not much to do at this hour but bet the ponies and work the phones to the West Coast, where the lunch hour is just ending. Desperate for a second act, just like Frankie.

He decides to follow Leventhal into the john, rather than meet him in his office. He doesn’t see what difference it makes. He takes a deep breath and strides down the hallway, hitching up his sharkskin slacks. As he reaches the restroom, he slips his right hand inside his jacket and draws a semiautomatic from his waistband. He feels his heart pounding, hard enough to make his gold chain jump. He carefully turns the doorknob and opens the door a crack to peek in.

Across the checkerboard tile floor, Leventhal faces a urinal, coaxing a weak stream. Frankie shuts the door soundlessly behind him, starts to turn back on the old man, then decides to lock it. Better safe than sorry. As he turns the lock, the click sounds like a sonic boom in the tiled bathroom. He knows instantly that he’s made a mistake.

He whirls to find Leventhal standing with his back to the porcelain, facing Frankie with a handgun of his own. Leventhal fires four times before Frankie can even raise his weapon. Frankie doubles over, clutching his chest and gut. His gun clatters to the floor, beyond his reach. Leventhal kicks it across the cracked tile, under a stall door.

“They pick a schmuck like you for a job like this?” Leventhal says. “It’s an insult, they send the one-hit wonder to take me out. I deserve better.”

Leventhal spits in Frankie’s direction, which hurts worse in its own way than the slugs searing his insides. He slides down to the cool tile, his back against the door. Another gunshot booms within the close walls. He flinches but doesn’t look up. He hears Leventhal’s body hit the floor and knows the old guy got out while he could, on his own terms. Preparation meets opportunity, Frankie figures. We should all be so lucky.

As he sits there dying, he drifts back to his one and only hit, all those years ago. Just turned twenty-two, plenty of moxie, everything ahead of him. Take out a low-level wiseguy, that was all he had to do. A bullet to the back of the head at the top of a dark stairwell in a neighborhood where witnesses never remember a face. A test, about as easy as a rookie could hope for. But even that one Frankie botched. Came time to pull the trigger and he hesitated, froze up. His mark broke free, ran for his life. Fortunately for Frankie, the guy tripped and tumbled down the stairs, breaking his neck, expiring in the minutes after Frankie bolted in a panic. If only Frankie hadn’t tried to claim credit for the hit, he might have been okay. But he did, and the truth got out, and word got around. Frankie Daytona, demoted back to errand boy, known forever as the one-hit wonder.

He hears “The Letter” again, the final refrain, only it’s deep in the background now. Fading slowing down, like an old forty-five on a turntable set at the wrong speed.

Lonely days are gone, I’m a-goin’ home,

’Cause my baby just a-wrote me a letter.

’Cause my baby just a-wrote me a letter.

It isn’t fair, Frankie thinks, as the light dims and his pulse grows faint. It isn’t fair, what happened to the Box Tops.

“The Letter,” written by Wayne Carson Thompson, copyright 1967 Budde Songs, Inc. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Reprinted by permission.

Copyright © 2011 by John Morgan Wilson.