Show Business is Murder

Lah Tee Dah by ANGELA ZEMAN

HERMIONE LISTENBERGER CONTEMPLATED her name as she plucked a slow riff of perfect, clear notes from her six-string acoustical Gibson (the three-quarter size model to better fit her small frame).

The ringing tones mellowed the acrid air with a leisurely sweetness she hoped would entice the West 50th Street subway patrons to slow their mad pace. In a few moments, after the number 9 train resumed its screaming rush downtown, she’d segue into her next tune.

Just this morning she’d re-strung the guitar with all steel strings, although this type of guitar was really created for nylon. As the train sat gathering its strength, she took advantage of the relative quiet to listen hard to the steel’s sharper delineation of each note. As she had hoped, the sounds lingered longer, blending and reaching deeper into the tiled subway tunnel. The tunnel itself was her sound system.

Excellent.

Her attention returned to her name. Hermione possessed an orderly mind that trudged remorselessly down the path she had laid for herself. A new name was next on her agenda. Something memorable. Striking. Not for the first time, she marveled at her parents’ choice. Did it reflect the stultified Utica environment they adored? As soon as she had judged herself wise and strong enough to protect herself among strangers, she’d run to Manhattan with the desperation of a drowning man who knows only one place to find air. Hermione? Coupled with Listenberger it lost all hope of working as a stage name. For one thing, it was ugly. Now, ugly might have worked if it fit her musical image. However, she knew her music was strong. Also disturbing at times, an effect that delighted Hermione. But not ugly.

Also from long, detached inspections in bathroom mirrors she knew that she herself had beauty of a type. After careful consideration, she had eventually chosen to make her beauty an asset, to play it “up” onstage. Even though her current finances forced her to sluice her body as completely as possible in public facilities and to subsist mainly on juice and discarded sandwiches from overflowing trash barrels, her ivory skin was of such luminous softness that it seemed to invite touches from fascinated admirers. However, she allowed no touching. Her healthy abundant hair shimmered in any light, from bright brassy gold in the sun to a dusky red glimmer in the tunnels under fluorescent lights, even in subway air dusty with stressed steel and crumbling cement. In this July heat, tiny curls edged her peach-flushed face. In winter cold, she paled, her hair reddening by contrast, a flame in frost. Her figure had never had the leisure or the income to pad itself with baby fat. She had the lean litheness of an athlete.

Never mind. A name. Suddenly the edge of her consciousness registered that the train had left. After so many months, one learned to tune out the subway roar and thunder. So she quickly launched into a new song she’d written. With this one, she tasted success in its notes. Instinctively she knew this was going to be her signature, her door into the world of success. The song. It wasn’t yet at its peak, but with practice she’d soon polish it into the perfect gem she’d heard in her head when she first thought of it.

She launched her voice, clear and high, with a fierce push on the highest notes, a rough drawl for the low ones: “Leave me now, I’ve moved on anyhow. Lah tee dah, down the MTA highway, the next stop will be better, lah tee dah…”

To her annoyance, a tall young man in vintage bell-bottom cords and a skin-tight tee shirt with the sleeves and neckband ripped out stopped short and stared at her in shocked recognition. She was used to this. Some of these guys were twice her size and sometimes nuts from drugs, or just plain nuts. Some were musicians who recognized her talent and wanted to use her to elevate themselves. Either way, she wished-oh how she wished-she had some means to keep him and those like him away, for there had been many.

This one was a musician. She read the thoughts crossing his face as if they were the moving electric letters on the Times Square news sign: He heard the work behind the melody, the breathing techniques that gave her voice the unearthly compelling quality that, although he probably didn’t know it yet, was her trademark. He would want to hook up with her. They all did. It was a Manhattan thing, nearly half the population wanting to be a singer, an actor, an artist. A thousand competitors for each elusive “break.”

Her eyes closed, not to submerge into the heat and thrum of the song, but in irritation. Yep, he was coming closer. She felt his intent stare through her closed eyelids. She opened her eyes and glared. Oblivious, he inched closer until rage, far too familiar by now, rose in her anew, choking the words in her throat. For a few lovely seconds an image of herself transformed into a she-wolf came to mind, bringing her visceral pleasure. With little effort her imagination gave her razor teeth with which to gnaw insanely at the muscular throats of these leeches, glorying in the taste of their ruined flesh. She dreamed how, covered with blood, she would lunge at horrified spectators, making them squeal, the spectacle a warning to others to leave her alone! Her frustration had reached a pitch where mere escape from their self-serving attentions would no longer satisfy.

But she was small and slight, and no fool. So she swallowed her fury yet again and only turned slightly to face another direction. Hoping the song and not her body had attracted him, she stopped playing to fuss with the tuning keys at the top of the guitar neck.

He howled like a wounded dog, “It’s in perfect tune now, don’t spoil it!”

“A stranger and the bastard’s ordering me around! They’re all the same,” she thought.

She sighed and glanced at the huge round clock hanging near the stairs. Jeez, nearly twelve, and she hadn’t come up with a good name yet. She’d wanted to get acquainted with her new name, live in its skin for a while, own that name before moving her act to a spot at street level she’d found near the Grand Central double doors on 42nd. Nobody there yet; she’d checked it out for several days. So in her mind it was already hers. But not Hermione Listenberger’s, it was… she didn’t know who yet.

She glanced again at the intruder. Not even one friggin’ dollar in his hand to throw into her open guitar case that she’d seeded with a few crumpled bills as a hint to the listeners. She had a pretty steady following down here, made enough to keep her in juice and toothpaste, but was still sleeping in a secretly hollowed out refuge between some boulders in Central Park. She wanted, needed, more money. She faced him squarely, hating the creep not only for his intrusion, but for his cheapness too.

“What!”

Unfazed, he said, “We should join up.”

As her head automatically began shaking side to side, he started singing her song, her song… “Leave me now, I’ve moved on anyhow…”

“Hey!” she roared.

“It’s a great song! What’s the rest of it?”

“Right, so you can steal the whole thing!”

“No, no, you misunderstand! I’m a singer too!”

“I work alone!”

He said with careful patience, “Just sing it with me and listen. I can counterpoint you. We’ll do fantastic. It’s really good, you realize that?”

“I work alone!”

“It’s got elements of jazz and blues intermingled, and with us both-”

God, they never even hear me speak. It’s like having breasts renders me insignificant. “Damn you to hell.”

He shrugged, obviously unimpressed with her hostility. “Okay. Um, do ‘Baby Jones’ instead.”

She thought a minute. It was already a favorite of the “underground entertainers,” so no big deal. And if it would make him disappear faster… grudgingly she started. As promised, he leaped in, his voice alternating between falsetto and baritone, curling around hers. They sounded good. Great, in fact. Several people threw dollar bills and coins into her case. Some stood in rapt attention, wanting the whole song before moving on.

She had to admit when they finished, although her guts revolted, that he was an asset. She scooped up the bills, ignoring the coins, and split the take with him. He squatted and dipped into the coins. “All adds up,” he grinned at her, holding up a fistful of quarters and dimes, roughly half; he didn’t cheat.

Standing again, he towered over her by at least a foot, rail-thin but not wasted. If he had a monkey, it wasn’t hurting his body or mind yet, at least visibly. He was blond, the bleached kind, with dark roots on a short but shaggy head. Doable.

“What’s your name?” he asked, reminding her of her goal for the morning.

“What’s yours,” she countered, angry again. Damn him. Sure, money was good, but the right name would improve her future quicker. He’d slowed down her professional growth.

“Sody,” he said. “Garrett.”

Sody Garrett. Original, but not worth stealing, so he could keep it. With a resigned sigh she started strumming random chords again.

“Hey. I asked you your name.”

“So?” She shrugged, again shifting slightly to face a new direction. A direction in which he wasn’t the center of her line of vision.

“You come here every day?” he asked.

Not any more, she said silently. “Oh, yeah!” she replied, her smile almost too quick to catch. Polite, but not exerting herself. He wouldn’t knife her. She knew what he wanted, and it had nothing to do with harming her. Another talent leech.

Sure enough. “I’ll meet you here tomorrow, but earlier. I play bass guitar. Perfect with your tenor. Acoustics fab down here, the steel strings work perfect without amps. Smart!” She nodded. Duh. Why else would she replace nylon strings with steel. She returned to her immediate task, in her mind running through the names of all the movie stars she could think of. Willing him to disappear.

She started silently reciting a list of her high school classmates’ names. The popular ones.

“Don’t forget,” he added anxiously, interrupting her musings.

She raked one hand through her hair in frustration. “You bet. Tomorrow!” Just leave, you maggot. Briefly she considered the name “maggot.” No. Wrong image.

She considered image. What image did she want to convey? Costuming came after picking a name, but both were totally related to the issue of image. Folk song shtick? She shook her head. Her stuff was more hard-edged but yet had a ballad structure. Deep in rumination she never noticed when Sody left. Besides, folksongs had died out in the seventies and RIP. Pop ballads. She did those sometimes, earned her big bills in the 42nd and Broadway area. All the Midwest tourists loved elevator music. She grimaced. Not ever.

She loved alternative, but couldn’t do it well alone, on one guitar. Maybe with a synthesizer, but she couldn’t play one if she had it, and she didn’t have it. Hip hop wasn’t her, either. Okay. Time to play again, the foot traffic had sped up, tired of her random chords.

“Leave me alone, or take me with you, I’m the woman you wanted all your life. Not a wife. Not a child, not a ruby on a pillow, a womaaaaan…” They loved her songs. Edgy. Janis Joplin-ish… keep that in mind, she admonished herself. She could do worse for style.

Angrily she thought of Sody Garrett. Jesus, what a name. She ran through random names, still singing, but on autopilot. Auto. Ata. Atai. Alai. Alianna. Lianna. Well, think about that one.

She showed up the next day, having totally forgotten Sody Garrett’s existence. She had her new name. Lian Logan. Since it had come to her late in the night, she’d decided to devote one more day at the familiar West 50th Street stop to “live” the name before moving to Grand Central. She wasn’t Irish, but the Irish were famous for singing and writing and entertaining. Better than Listenberger. A Listenberger sounded like a manufacturer of pharmaceuticals. At best.

She considered picking up a slight Irish brogue. Clearing her throat she began, “Aye, ’tis so, me lad.” Ick. She debated different ways to pick up a true Irish voice. Movies-too expensive. And what VCR would she use to play a video, even if she could pop for the three-dollar rental fee? Sometimes she stood and watched entire programs at the Wiz before being chased off. But some of those actors couldn’t handle the brogue either without sounding like fake mish-mash. She put the thought aside for now.

The answer would come to her, like all the other answers. Luck shimmered in the air around her, it always had. She felt it. Ideas and songs-the assurance that all would come to her swam invisibly around her, nudging her in the right directions, bringing her whatever she needed. It was all there.

She started to strum, nudged her open case lid with one slender foot, moving the heavy molded-plastic case into the edges of the path of the crowd, not an obstacle, just a hint. Two crumpled dollar bills there already, her seed money. And then Sody walked up to her, shocking her into remembrance of yesterday’s intrusion. She groaned to herself, wishing she’d gone to Grand Central after all.

On one thigh, he humped his big bass guitar in a black case. Duct tape patched several splits in the cheap cardboard, holding it together. It barely covered his guitar. She grimaced. You had to protect your instrument. His looked like he kicked it around on off days.

He greeted her with excitement. “Fantastic!” he exclaimed, not specifying just what was so fantastic. She lifted the edges of her mouth in a parody of welcome. And began to sing. An old tune, from Abba.

On the second stanza, he joined in, tuning his guitar as he strummed, swiftly catching up. She rolled from one style into another, one tempo into another. She couldn’t faze him. They had to scoop up some of the money now and then and shove it out of sight, her case filled so fast. Never want the crowds to think you didn’t need their dollars. After the third hour, suddenly she stopped, drained and unable to sing another note. He let his cords drift off into the tunnel and gazed fondly down at her. “Thought you’d never wear out. I been playin’ on adrenalin the last hour. But we are so fuckin’ good!”

“My name’s Lian Logan,” she said, trying it on him out loud. Her first foray into the great world of Irish balladeers.

“Yeah? Nice to meet you, Lian,” he said, not looking at her. He was busy pulling out the dollars they’d hidden to dump them into her case. He crouched, then began making two meticulously neat piles. She watched, but he did the chore fair and honest.

He stretched as he stood. “Jeez, never did a three-hour gig straight through. I’m wrecked. How about you?”

She was, too, but ignored the question. “Listen, I play alone.”

“Oh, c’mon! You never made that much money by yourself, don’t tell me that.”

She bristled. It was true. “I’m a lone act.”

“Lian. Am I hustling you? Am I taking a bigger share, or all of it? And I could, a bitty thing like you, I’m twice your size. Don’t you hear how great we sound together? We-we complement each other.”

Lian scowled down at her case, now tenderly cradling her Gibson in its felt-lined bed, locked for safety. She swung the case up across her shoulders and back, the woven strap tight between her breasts.

“Tomorrow,” he begged. “Just let me come tomorrow.”

She looked off down the rails as if seeking the answer written in graffiti there. Feeling her success vibes, testing the idea on her surrounding luck. She stood motionless, waiting. Then, one last glance up at his pleading, handsome face, feeling the extra dollars in her pockets. “Ok. Tomorrow. Eleven.” And she strode off toward the stairs to the streets above, melding into the crowd but alone in her thoughts.

The next day brought Sody and Lian together again, same place. Without consultation, she, leading off again, struck strongly into some vintage Dylan. He slammed into her path and, grinning, stayed with her all the way in a harmonic third, doing a fantastic job of it, too, she admitted grudgingly to herself. Then a bit of alternative that she’d picked up last week, not the whole song, but a change of pace and mood. Sody handled it well. Tall, slender, his blonde tipped hair shagged just right, he looked like a movie star. She thought about that as she watched him play. Talented, yes. And bringing in cash like a six-foot-tall ATM machine. She gazed off again down the empty track.

Maybe this was right for her at this stage of her career path. Maybe he’d been “sent” by those lucky airs that carried her to her golden goals. Suddenly she muted her voice, in effect offering him the lead. After a fleeting lift of eyebrows in surprise, he took off, letting her follow, making the decisions and taking the melody. He was excellent, she admitted. And he hadn’t followed her home yesterday, so maybe he wasn’t a creep. Finally, she nodded to herself and accepted him. This time at the end, she divided up the take and when handing over his share, looked up into his happy face and let herself really smile. “Welcome, Sody.”

He heaved a deep sigh. “Thanks, Lian. You had me worried.”

She shook her head as she wound the strap from her case around herself again. “Never worry, Sody. Bad for luck. See you tomorrow.”

He lunged quickly into her path. “Want some dinner?”

She shut her eyes for a moment and silently cursed. Had she made a mistake after all? “No,” she said shortly, then left.

The next day she and Sody were again at their post at the subway stop when a short dark young man stepped off the arriving train and walked directly toward them, the familiar stars in his determined eyes. Without pausing in her song, Lian screamed inwardly at her fate, enraged all over again. Was her life being wrenched from her control? Had she proven unworthy of her luck and had it abandoned her?

“Been hearing about you two topside, on the street. Needing a keyboard?” he asked, and Lian gasped, forgetting her lyrics. Her hands dropped useless at her sides.

Sody let his bass chords die. He gazed coolly down at the short intruder and said, “You got one?”

Lian glanced at Sody. Normally she’d be furious at him for acting as leader, but now it didn’t matter. Now she only strained to hear a distant voice come floating to her from down the presently empty track, telling her what to do.

The stranger was around five seven, a few inches taller than Lian, but his muscles strained his black jeans and tee nearly to bursting. A no-style no-neck, marveled Lian. Hadn’t shaved for days, by the look of him, and not recently bathed by the smell, either. His dark hair, though, curved clean and smooth, the ruffled edges just hitting his shoulders, but unmarred by any purple or green dye, shit that Lian hated. He also lacked the endless body piercing Lian considered childish, although tattoos could make a statement-so long as the statement wasn’t that you’d been somebody’s “partner” in prison or membership in a drug gang. Losers, that lot.

She considered her last thought. Sounded a bit Irish. Excitement shivered through her for an instant. The lilt was coming. And to help it, this chunk of powerful Irish male had arrived. Again she threw her question down the tracks, asking her luck what to do with this keyboarder with muscles and the genuine brogue she’d longed to learn. No sign came. Or was the answer standing in front of her in the form of this new musician…

Just then Sody turned to her and said, “Let’s give him a try, okay? If he sucks, I’ll throw him back on the train.” The young man glowered at that, as if his maleness had been challenged. Lian shrugged coolly, feeling anything but cool inside.

“Eleven tomorrow,” she agreed. “Make an impression or Sody will help you fuck off.”

The young man looked her over with black eyes melting into black liquid. “Him? Small chance. Bugger you, more likely!”

She listened to this, lips parted and breathless. His voice slid like cream into her ears!

“What’s your name?” she demanded.

“Joseph Francis Urban O’Rourke, then. Joe. And you?”

“Lian Logan,” she said and his gaze changed. She saw the shrewdness in his lightning assessment of her. She knew he’d seen through her and out the other side. He knew it all. Her fake Irishness, her ambition, her dreams. Maybe even her luck. His eyes glittered but with a powerful maleness that Sody could never have summoned, despite his height. Lian doubted Sody would ever be able to throw this one onto a train. Or anywhere.

“Keyboard.” She repeated stiffly, as if considering, and felt heat rise in her face.

She looked around for an electrical plug. As if he read her mind, he said, “I bring my own re-charge battery pack, if I need it, an’ I usually do. Not a problem. Why ye got to sing b’neath God’s good earth, though?” He looked around uneasily. “What’s wrong with the open air?”

Lian’s face hardened. “Not negotiable.”

“Tomorrow then.” They all nodded to each other and O’Rourke jumped down onto the track, and strolled along the narrow ledge where the trainmen usually walked to get to a needed repair down the line. Lian shivered to watch his carelessness of the massive trains and wondered if this was a stupid male display to impress her. It did.

In the coming days, O’Rourke became an asset, as Lian had guessed he would, since her luck must have summoned him to her. He seemed to live in an aura of confidence. He didn’t know as many songs as Sody, but he could plug in spots as he caught on to the progression of chords and fill out the music until he quickly learned it.

Lian’s voice soared like an angel borne up on the talents of these two, but she was careful to practice the song in private. Over the next weeks, they made a lot of money, enabling Lian to dress more and more to fit the image she had chosen, rather than to just cover her body. She sublet a closet of an apartment, one room with several doors, each of which opened to a murphy bed, the toilet, and a sink next to a two burner stove, so she finally had somewhere relatively clean-and safe-to sleep. And she carefully gave no hint of its location to Sody, Joe, or anyone.

Then it happened. Lian moved the trio to “her” place outside Grand Central’s double doors on 42nd Street. Joe, relieved to leave the dank underground behind, bloomed in the bright sun and his performances sharpened, to Sody and Lian’s delight. Within a week, a portly man dressed in all black stopped to hear not just one song, but several. He stood close by for nearly an hour, reminding Lian of a Catholic priest in his black three-button suit hanging open over the black silk mock-turtleneck tee. His head nodded to the beat of their music, obviously enjoying himself. Then a sudden realization caused Lian to drop out of the performance of “Baby Jones,” too breathless to sing. It was him! Her “luck” had brought him!

Sody glanced at her in concern, but after a deep gasp for breath, she rejoined the chorus, her voice energized and full of new emotion.

At the finish, the man gave her his card, as she’d known he would. “I represent Krim Recordings. How about a meet tomorrow? Four-ish good for you? Bring your instruments.” Lian nodded with as much coolness as she could muster. Sody and Joe gaped. As soon as the man turned the corner, disappearing from sight, Sody snatched the card from Lian’s fingers.

“Krim! Omigod!”

“Aye! We got to-what do we got to do?” For the first time, Joe looked flummoxed.

Lian gazed at her partners in disgust. She thought Sody might cry, from the look on his face. “Well what did ye expect!” she shrieked at them both. Staying in her Irish persona was more important now than ever before. “What’s the point of this if not to step up?”

Joe stared at her, blinking. “Oh, aye. Sure!”

Sody swallowed hard. “I can’t sing anymore today. I can’t.”

Lian said, “And why should ye? We’ll be superstars after tomorrow!”

Sody froze, absorbing that thought. After a long moment, he glanced at Lian and nodded. “Right.” He packed his bass guitar into the battered case. “Go home, Joe. Get some rest. You too,” he ordered Lian. “Go on.” He gave them each a paternal wave, permission to leave. Joe, hugging his keyboard to his chest in excitement, nearly ran down 42nd street.

Lian didn’t move. She gazed at Sody, her eyes interested.

“Go on, Lian,” he repeated. “You need rest, too. See you tomorrow.” He patted her shoulder, not noticing how she jerked her shoulder from beneath his hand. He jaywalked across the street to enter the small coffee shop he liked to frequent. Lian, still not moving, watched him through the shop window until he began giving his order to a waitress.

Then Lian turned and descended the stairs to the subways, took a train back to her old spot, the West 50th Street stop. When she got out, she opened her case again, seeded it with the two crumpled dollars, and began to sing alone: ‘Leave me now, I’ve moved on anyhow. Lah tee dah, down the MTA highway, the next stop will be better, Lah tee dah…’ Her song. The song. Her voice lifted and the tunnel seized it to send it soaring. Passengers paused to hear the whole song before moving on.

And “Baby Jones.” The two gits hadn’t realized she’d written that song herself. It had caught on too fast to keep other street groups from stealing it, but it was hers. She’d registered that and the “Lah Tee Dah” song, and over twenty others she’d written, with the copyright office, the real one in Washington DC at the Library of Congress. She’d gotten a guy over at a Staples store to help her find and then fill out the papers. It had taken a few flattering lies, a few evenings of flirtation, but no sex, to get it done. Lian had no intention of sleeping her way to anywhere.

Her grandmother had taught her, promise anything, but give them nothing. Lian, a very young Hermione Listenberger at that time, had taken this advice to heart. Her bubbe was smart. She’d survived exceedingly well in a male-dominated world, with much worse circumstances to deal with back then, Lian knew. Bless you, thank you, Lian sent her gratitude floating through the air to her bubbe. Bubbe was her “luck.” Her bubbe’s was the voice she’d listened to all her life, her mother having proven to be of no help in any way-well, except to show the stupidity of trying to use sex to get ahead. Although Lian supposed that knowledge was useful, too.

All afternoon Lian sang only her own songs, no Abba, no Dylan, no anybody else but herself. And the crowds paused, entranced, and left dollar bills in their wake. After every song, Lian nodded her gratitude at her “luck,” her beloved ‘bubbe’ watching over her from farther down the empty track. Then she went home.

The next day, she didn’t show up at the Grand Central entrance doors. Like lost sheep, the two men split up to look for her, figuring she must be in trouble. She’d never missed a day, and certainly wouldn’t miss today, their last rehearsal together to hone them for the afternoon meeting with the recording executive. They split up. Joe, by choice, set off to cruise the streets around Grand Central and Sody took the tunnels.

About an hour later, Joe reluctantly descended into the tunnels himself. They’d all three almost exclusively ridden the 9 train, so he anticipated finding both Sody and Lian with little trouble. At the 59th Street station, he heard an unusual commotion. Not that the tunnels weren’t always echoing one racket or another, but this was different. These sounds were of terror, like animals trapped in a burning pen. As he threaded his way to the front of the crowd, Joe glimpsed a body being strapped onto a gurney in preparation to be lifted up the steep stairs to street level.

“What happened?” he asked a plump fiftyish Hispanic woman near him whose frozen expression reflected his own.

“He fell,” she whispered, fear stark in her creamy brown eyes.

Just before the medic pulled the covering over the body’s face, Joe recognized the corpse. He stifled a sharp cry and stumbled backward to nearly fall over the Hispanic woman, who hadn’t moved.

“He-Madre de Dios, he fell!” she whispered again to herself. She shuddered, then suddenly retreated to huddle against the gate, far from the edge of the track platform and began mouthing words only she could hear.

Prayers, Joe guessed, and from a youthful habit, himself shakily began, “Holy Mary, Mother of God…”

Then Joe’s mouth couldn’t quite close and he suddenly felt claustrophobic in the tunnel. Grimy oil-slick stairs going down to lower, filthier tunnels, and more stairs to other dark exits and entrances taunted and closed in on him like living threats. He hoisted his keyboard in his arms like a long heavy baby and darted for the stairs to the street.

When he emerged, he raised his face to the sun and breathed until he could calm himself. A small hand touched his elbow, and he jumped, choking back a fearful cry. When his vision cleared he discovered Lian gazing at him in astonishment. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Sody!” Joe’s voice cracked. He coughed, then tried again. “It’s Sody, lass. He’s gone.”

“Gone? What?” Lian suddenly huddled against his hard-muscled arm as if frightened. “You mean he’s dead, don’t you! How?” she demanded, but her voice was soft, trembling. “He was awfully tense about the audition. Did he…?

Joe’s testosterone kicked in and he straightened his shoulders. “Nay, lass,” he began, “He had no reason to-the crowds… he fell. It was an accident.” He shook his head. “He was looking for you. We both were. Where’ve ye been?”

Lian looked at him strangely. “Resting. For our audition today. Weren’t you?”

“Nah. We came to play as always. Like a rehearsal. If ye wanted to rest today, why didn’t ye say so yesterday? We worried! If we hadn’t, then maybe Sody might still be… might not’ve…”

Lian shuddered. “You mean it’s my fault, then? I’m sorr-“

“Nah. Didn’t mean that. Forgive me. No fault to yersel’. He slipped, is all. It’s so dark down there, and crowded, the floors coated with grease from the trains. I hate the tunnels, truth be known.”

He put one arm around her and she leaned against him and they stood entwined in silence. “I’m scared, Joe,” Lian finally said, her voice small. Joe’s arm tightened around her and he let his keyboard slide to the sidewalk.

He kissed the top of her head and swallowed hard. “Lian, my angel, no reason to fear wi’ me around. Ye must know how I’ve felt about ye since the first day… doesn’t seem right to say so now with Sody gone… but…” He shook his head. “I’m here for ye, Lian. Always. I think ye know that, don’t ye.”

Lian lifted her head at that and sang softly to him, “Always, and forever, in darkness of night, in darkness of daytime, in darkness of sight…”

Joe’s eyebrows lifted and he gazed tenderly at her soft mouth as it moved, digging words out of her brain, making a new song.

“Yer lovely, my Lian. A nightingale.”

She backed away. “Joe, we have to go back down there right now.”

“What! To the tunnels? Why?”

“It’s my place. My luck. I must go! I can’t let Sody’s ghost keep me away. Joe, take me. Be with me. I need this, or I can’t succeed at the audition! But I can’t go down there alone!”

At the balky look on Joe’s face, she said softly, “We’ll pick a different station. A lighter one, cleaner. Where isn’t important. It’s that-I can’t sing without my luck. And my luck lives in the tunnels. We have only an hour before our appointment with fame. Fame we deserve!”

Joe stared at her, then at his feet, then away. “Yer daft, lass. No good going down there again. Make your luck come up to you!”

She jerked herself away from him. “Forget it, then. No appointment.”

Joe exhaled sharply as if she’d punched him in the stomach. “Audition alone? Me? I’m a keyboarder who can sing some, but not like you! Ye’d ruin me chances by leaving!”

“I have no choice. I can’t go without my luck! And it’s down there!”

Joe breathed heavily, lips pale.

Lian said, “Are you afraid of Sody’s ghost? He loved us! He wouldn’t hurt anybody, let alone you. I’m not afraid.”

“Okay, okay!” Joe turned, then stopped. “Not here, for God’s sake.”

“I said so, didn’t I? Our old place. 50th Street. Let’s go there. And we’ll walk, not take a train. Can you carry the keyboard that far?”

Joe nodded wordlessly and they walked side by side, Joe unhappy but unable to stop his Lian. “My Lian,” he murmured to himself, as if comforting himself that she was “his” and so worth facing the tunnels. Worth facing the fright the tunnels had always held for him, but he’d kept concealed. As he walked on, gradually he relaxed and eased nearly all the way back into his normal cocky self.

AT FOUR, LIAN Logan appeared at Krim Recordings. When she stepped into the office of the man who’d worn all black when he’d first heard her sing, she saw that he was again dressed in all black. She idly wondered if he had four or five identical outfits like that.

Buoyed by this opportunity that her luck had brought, she stood straight and as tall as her small frame allowed. Krim Recordings was the top studio in Manhattan. Probably the Western Hemisphere, she speculated.

The man backhanded a flaccid wave at her in greeting, not rising from his black leather chair, rather leaning back and swiveling as he wordlessly examined her like a doctor preparing to give her a physical. She made a mental note that when she rose to the top she’d make sure every man in every room she entered would rise in respect. Soon.

“Where’re your partners?” he asked.

“They weren’t my partners. I work alone.”

“And the music…?”

“Twenty-seven of the songs are mine. I wrote them and own the copyrights to them all.” Her assurance carried her through the long moment during which the man stared at her.

Suddenly she said, “Listen to my signature song. I don’t believe you’ve heard it. It would be the showpiece of my first CD.” And without permission, she lifted the Gibson from its case, slipped the strap over her shoulder and began, “Leave me now, I’ve moved on anyhow. Lah tee dah, down the MTA highway, the next stop will be better, lah tee dah…”

At the end, the man sighed. “Totally. Totally.”

She nodded, taking the compliment as her due.

Then he rose from his chair, opened the heavy oak paneled door to his outer office, stuck his head through and shouted, “Get Bobby in here. And Frank-no, I don’t care what they’re in the middle of, get them now.”

He shut the door again, smiled into her perplexed face and sat. “It’ll only be a minute.”

“What will-”

But just then the door opened and in strolled two young men. The blond one with very long hair had that emaciated, bad facial-skin look of chronic drug use, although his eyes were clear. Fresh from rehab, Lian guessed. The other looked like an ex-beach bum, sun-streaked curly mop of dark hair, dark tan, lean and muscled, his shirt unbuttoned to display sixpack abs and an outie belly-button ring. The ring had a large stone in it, all too obviously a cubic zirconium-if it had been a diamond, he’d have needed a body guard, she thought scornfully. The rings in his ears were too numerous to count, ending in one large stud in his right earlobe. Shmuck, thought Lian to herself. Both men gazed at her expectantly.

Then she got it. Lian exhaled deeply. She turned to the man in the chair. “They sing.”

The man nodded enthusiastically. “You need partners. You three will blend like sons of bitches. And if not,” he shrugged. “We have technology that will-“

“I work alone,” said Lian, her voice deeper and clearly full of anger held in only tenuous check.

She repeated, in case he hadn’t gotten the idea. “I work a-“

“You sing for us, we handle things the way we want. Only deal you’ll get.”

“And my songs?”

“Oh, you’ll be the headliner, no question. Songs and all. We’ll fix you up with some backup instruments.”

Lian listened as the man in black outlined the next years of her life. The two “singers” bobbed their heads like plastic dogs in a back window of a vintage car. First Lian examined one, then the other. She nodded to herself, as if agreeing with a voice inside her head.

She turned her attention back to the black-clothed manager from Krim Recording Studios. He was digging in his drawer for a contract form. She read it over twice, crossed out one paragraph outlining a few rules about her so-called “band,” then altered the three-year length of the agreement to one year. She raised her eyebrows to see if the man would object.

He waved away the rejected paragraph, but then looked up in disbelief. “One year? Most performers would give their mother’s arm to increase their time with Krim!” He pronounced the agency name as if speaking of the pope.

“We’ll see how you do,” she only said.

He gave a short laugh, shrugged, initialed the changes, then signed and initialed three more copies. She did the same. He gave her a copy that she tucked into her deepest jeans pocket.

As he carefully recapped his burgundy Mont Blanc pen, she said, “I like to spend time underground.”

The man’s brow furrowed. “Under-“

“In the subway tunnels. The action there inspires my songs. I can’t write them anywhere else.”

The man waved a magnanimous hand at the two male “singers.” “Hey! I understand art. You guys go with her, practice down there. You might even pick up her style better down there. Worth the effort.”

The two men shrugged, obviously under total control of the man in black.

Lian placed her guitar carefully back into its case, hefted it up over her shoulders. She nodded at the two. “Bobbie?” she asked the ex-druggie.

He shook his head. “Frank. This here’s Bobbie.” He thumbed in the other singer’s direction.

Lian ignored Frank’s outthrust hand. “Meet me eleven A.M. tomorrow at…” she considered. “The East 34th Street entrance to the downtown tunnel. Right?” She felt she’d worn out the usefulness of the West 50th Street station.

The two nodded.