Saturday she went to the audition, expecting a piano player, but they gave her the entire band, which had come in early. The manager, Johnson Oliver, obviously hands-on in the right way, presented her with arrangements for the three songs they wanted her to sing and gave her plenty of time to look them over in a quiet corner. “Just get the sense of how we approach the music. The boys will adjust to the way you sing.”
She sang, and they adjusted, and she thought she had never been better. By the time she got to “Boogie-Woogie Bugle Boy,” at least a dozen guys on the kitchen staff came out to listen, and they cheered her when she wound it up, and even the members of the band applauded.
The agent hadn’t mentioned that he would be there, but he was, and after he conferred with Johnson Oliver, he astonished my mother by bringing her an offer, right then, more than she’d ever imagined they would pay.
Her only remaining concern was that the owner might have ideas like those of others whom she’d had to fend off. She asked when she might meet the big boss, and Johnson Oliver, with whom she felt comfortable, said, “Young lady, I’m the new owner and manager—and with you on board, this place is going to be a great investment.”
Saturday night at dinner, Mom regaled us with the story, and I swear we could have put out the four candles on the table and just dined by her glow.
With so many rotten things recently behind us, I was happy for her, happier than I can put into words. If when I went to bed that Saturday night you had told me that I’d be walking in the morning, I might have believed you.
89
Sunday night, twenty-four hours after returning to the city, Fiona Cassidy sat on the edge of her motel bed, picked up the phone on the nightstand, and placed an out-of-state call.
With her long hair cut short and styled funky and dyed blond, with her peaches-and-cream complexion now bronze from hours under a sun lamp and then under the sun itself, she was confident that no one would recognize her as the bomb-maker in the photo that the police had released to the media. Using one of the three sets of false ID that Lucas had given her a month earlier, she’d rented a car and taken a room in a nondescript motel.
When Lucas picked up his phone three hundred miles away, she said, “They’re watching, sure enough.”
“How’s it work?”
She told him about the Ford vans.
90
Monday morning, Grandpa Teddy drove my mother to Woolworth’s to turn in her uniforms. She didn’t need that job anymore.
Shortly after Mrs. Lorenzo put me through my daily exercises, Malcolm arrived with his axe. If he knew about the modifications to the Steinway, he convincingly pretended to be surprised by them.
I wanted him to listen to a few numbers and watch me. I started with Fats Domino’s “Walking to New Orleans,” which moves easy, and then did Fats’s “Whole Lotta Loving,” which truly, righteously rocks. Neither of them called for that much pedal work, but then I finished with a swing piece, “Easy Does It.”
When I wrapped it, I didn’t look at him when I said, “Now let’s do a couple numbers together.” He named a piece, and we rode through it well, and I named a piece, and that one went all right, too.
After the last chords faded in the heart of the Steinway, I dared to look at him. “So how did I do?”
“You did great, fantastic.”
“Don’t blow smoke up my butt, Malcolm Pomerantz.”
“No, you were really good. I mean, you’ve been through hell and away from the keyboard, so it’s going to take time. I wouldn’t think you’d be this good, this soon, especially with those grab knobs to pull and poke.”
I nodded. “You want to go in the kitchen, grab us a couple of Cokes, and meet me on the porch?”
He shook his head. “Let’s do some more here.”
“We will. We’ll do more together. But right now, meet me on the porch with those Cokes.”
I wheeled myself through the front door. The Ford van wasn’t parked to the west near the Jaruzelski place, but to the east, near the Rakowskis’ house.
Malcolm brought two ice-cold Cokes, almost dropped one, snared it before it hit the floor, gave me the other one, sat down, and said, “I think my old man hit her.”
“Who—your mom?”
“She has this bruise along her jaw. But then I think she hit him back or first, or whatever, ’cause he has a black eye.”
“When did this happen?”
“Sunday, when I was in the garage. I’m always in the garage anymore. I’d be there all the time if they’d just move the car out and give me more space.”
“This ever happen before?”
“Not that I know about. But things change, things are always changing, and not for the better.”
The day was a repeat of Friday, so hot that the birds stayed in the trees or walked around in the yard in the shade of the big maple, pecking at things in the grass as if they didn’t really want to eat but felt they had to go through the motions.
“I can still play,” I said, “and I’ll get better, but I’m never going to perform in public.”
“Sure you will. That’s what it’s all about.”
“It better not be what it’s all about, because if it is, then I’m through.”