TIL MORNING

Chapter Three

Johnnie
            The five-story townhouse was located on East Sixty-Eighth, between Madison and Park—final neighborhood on the Monopoly board. I told the cabby to drop me, then counted out his fee and tip from the bar change in my suit pocket.

            He whistled through his teeth. “Thanks, pal.” I showed him my Hollywood choppers. His eyes got big. “Hey, ain’t you the Cry guy?”

I dashed for the steps. The air smelled ashy and felt cold against my throat. As usual, I began to worry about the vocal chords. An uptight butler answered my ring and cooled on me like he was bored to death. I took a swipe at the egg crumbs and salt on my upper lip and gathered my record albums to my chest.

            “Johnnie Ray to see Dorothy Kilgallen,” I told the guy. With his white hair and chocolate skin, he looked like the butler straight out of Gone with the Wind.

“Is she expecting you?”

“Tell her I’m an errand boy running over some records she requested for her daughter’s birthday bash.”

This got me a ride up an elevator that groaned like an old man. The butler ushered me down a hall that reflected our walk off every surface. Cold, man.

Doors opened, and I stepped into a sea of teenage pastel. In the bright parlor, lots of jailbait moved around in rustling taffeta. Young boys stood in stiff poses, afraid to flare their acne. A white Steinway baby grand sat in the center of the action, its lid agape.

Before I actually saw her, I sensed her coming near me. The honest-to-god delight in her voice rang in my hearing aid. She mumbled something to the butler, then took hold of my sack of record albums.

“I had no idea you’d come in person.”

She spun in front of me in simple black, kind of a noir look with her dark hair and Betty Boop eyes. Her skin was alabaster but soft-looking. Standing still, she seemed to be confident on her own turf, and she sent little sex waves. She looked different from the Dorothy Kilgallen in the CBS dressing room, whose rank fan mail had been strewn all over her table. Don’t tell me about rank fan mail. I’d been buried in it for months.

I headed straight for the Steinway. The kids were in shock. With my name on their whispers, I tried the keys, and it was in tune enough for me.

“Ready to raise a little hell?” I asked louder than I meant to.

Kilgallen looked tiny and pale among these teen animals as she sent me a brave smile.

I gave them a crash course in boogie woogie, and don’t tell me about boogie woogie.  Then I settled down and gave them some Louis Armstrong. I’d always had him down pat. I put him with Jack Teagarden on St. James Infirmary, a duet, but I doubted the kids knew that. I felt like I was dragging them down, so I gave them some Edith Piaf to punish them more. Then I figured, hell, why not, since I invented the motherfucker? I stood up and gave them Elvis, complete with bumps and grinds.

“My favorite,” shouted the lady’s daughter.

Later I chatted with her and the rest of the kids. Then for a while I watched them dance to my records. Kilgallen brought me a spiked punch, and for some reason I didn’t ask her to dance, though I knew she would’ve liked an invite.

Finally it was time for me to go. “I got a show downtown,” I started to explain.

“I’ll drive you,” she insisted. “After your kindness, it’s the least I can do.”

Kindness or no kindness, women like her didn’t play chauffeur to guys like me. I had nothing to add to that, so I just stood there. Then I thought of some smart-ass answers but stayed buttoned up. She looked at me with those huge, soft eyes, and I couldn’t hold back what I did next. I reached out and touched her bare shoulder, then her cheek with the backs of my fingers.