2 a.m. at the Cat's Pajamas (7 page)

“Like who tells you that?” Vince says.

“Like everyone.”

Jodi says, “You should put Louisa in your novel. Ex-dancer who bakes delicious cookies.”

Darla considers it. “Louisa would be a good, what do they call it, background character. Not the main one. Main characters are more … I don’t want to say interesting, but more, dynamic? You can be the main character’s friend, Louisa.”

Louisa concentrates on the magazine in her lap.

“Maybe I’ll put you in my novel, Jodi.”

“Give me hair like Louisa’s,” Jodi says, “and a husband who doesn’t speak English.”

“I will if I can,” Darla says, “but the creative process is tricky. I’m at the mercy of the muse.”

“I get that,” Jodi says.

C
assidy, the new bartender, sweeps the floor. Cigarettes, dirt, stray earrings, a pick, glimmer in the dustpan. When she told Lorca during their brief interview that she was named after the song, Lorca asked what song, and she rolled her eyes and said, “ ‘Cassidy’? By the Grateful Dead?”

“I don’t know new music,” Lorca said.

“It’s like forty years old!”

Cassidy lines up stuffed trash bags by the door. Her hair is brick-colored and she has a way of making every word sound like a curse. “You guys set a fire in here last night?”

Lorca passes her a bucket of soapy water and a pile of dry towels. “You start there, I’ll start here.” He lowers himself onto his knees. The hammering in his shins begins in earnest, but if he supports himself on one fist, he can manage. He plunges the rag into the water and works it over the corner of floor. The heat feels good on his hands. He moves the rag over the unseen parts of the bar, gathering clots of dust and debris. The work satisfies him and he likes that he can see the result, the wood returning to near its original color. He and Cassidy back toward each other until they meet in the center of the room and he can no longer ignore his humming knees. “You got it from here?” He chucks the rag into the pail.

Cassidy surveys the floor and nods, content. “Only way to clean a floor is on your hands and knees,” she says.

In the back room, Gray Gus uses a magnifying glass to
paint orderly stripes on the wings of his plane. Sonny reads on his cot in the walk-in freezer, slippered feet pulsing to the jazz coming from an old radio. The very day he and the guys returned from Chicago to help Lorca run the club, Sonny claimed the walk-in for his bedroom. He removed the bottom row of shelves to fit his cot and a night table that held a slim pair of reading glasses and whatever he was reading, these days Chekhov’s collected stories. Sonny is particular in his solos and in his sock drawer. His pants make prim stacks on the shelves; his shirts line the meat racks on hangers. A Dopp kit of soaps for when he half-showers in the kitchen’s industrial sink.

When Lorca enters, Gus looks up, eyes still narrowed in focus. “Can we talk?”

Lorca detects a note of gravity unusual for the easygoing drummer.

“He guessed,” Sonny says.

Gus replaces the cap to the bottle of paint and wheels his chair up to Lorca’s desk. “I can help,” he says. “I have money.”

“You have thirty thousand dollars?” Lorca says.

“Jesus.” Gus pushes himself away from the desk. “I don’t have that much.”

Sonny marks the page in his book. “I told you it was a ridiculous amount.”

“I thought you meant, like, a couple hundred.” Gus brushes excess filings from the plane’s body, the remnants from sanding a wing or a door.

“A couple hundred could not be classified as ‘ridiculous.’ ”

“Depends on who you ask,” Gus says.

Lorca leaves them to debate. He hoists two trash bags from the line and carries them outside. By the Dumpster, a dog the size of a standard amp wrestles a milk carton.

“Dog,” he says. “Come here.”

The dog abandons the battle and runs over. It throws itself onto the ground to announce its belly. “I know you.” Lorca fishes around its neck to find the tag.

Ciao! I’m Pedro
.

I have a case of wanderlust
.

If found, please call …

Cassidy stands behind him holding two more bags. “What’s that?” she says. “A dog?”

A
lready evening is blotting out the city. Shadows web in the alleys on Ninth Street. The illuminated crew houses of Boathouse Row reflect in the unimpressed Schuylkill. The factory near Palmer belches filth toward New Jersey. Clouds flinch across the mackerel sky, bottoms silvered by the retreating sun.

Vince and Darla smoke in front of Beauty Land while inside, Jodi throws the switch. The sign ignites in pink and gold bulbs. “Should we sing?” Darla says.

Lorca walks Pedro down South Street, a lightweight rope improvised for a leash, grateful for the errand. There is a phone call he needs to make in private. Even on citation-less days, Sonny has a preternatural interest in Lorca’s schedule, but the cop’s visit has triggered the full breadth of his anxiety.
Where are you going? When will you be back?
Sonny asked three times before Lorca left.

Pedro jockeys sideways, hoping to trick the leash off. He tries contrary directions. He darts through parted legs, leaving Lorca to apologize around the last-minute shoppers. At a
Don’t Walk
light, the dog whines, pleads.

“You’re not the only one trying to escape.” Lorca points to a cedar-colored Rottweiler across the street, also trying to rid itself of a leash while its owner is distracted on a phone call. The collar slips off after another thrust and the dog freezes, stunned by success. Then, as if realizing the temporary nature
of its fortune, the dog unlocks and gallops down South Street. Muscles beaming, it cuts such a figure that Lorca forgets what he’s watching is dangerous. A little girl points mutely. “That dog is running,” she reports to her mother. The Rottweiler’s agenda is a pit bull puppy waiting at a corner with its owner. Before Lorca can cross, because by now he, Pedro, and the rest of the street have realized the impending danger, the Rottweiler clamps onto the puppy’s neck and lifts it over the holiday scene.

The pit bull’s owner blinks at the two-canine altercation, unable to speak. The Rottweiler thrashes the puppy with elation. Its owner arrives, bringing new information, that the dog is a she, and her name is—“Grace!” she says. “Drop it.” A police officer is urged through the crowd by worried shoppers. He raises his gun, which has the desired effect of widening his working circle.

Lorca becomes light-headed. He can’t get clear which dogs are fighting and which are trying to take his club. The dogs in the fight. The dog by his side. The cop with a gun. The cop at the door. These dogs will be okay, he thinks, because they are not real. He is some way making this happen. Isn’t he? These aren’t real onlookers. That isn’t real blood. They will find the money. He won’t lose his club. Louisa will get over whatever mortal sin he committed and call him back. Suddenly, he feels hopeful, helpful.

“You can’t pull a dog from a dog,” he offers.

“I know that,” the officer says. “Don’t you think I know that?” He fires a nervous shot into the sky. Someone near
Lorca screams. The Rottweiler drops the puppy, which takes a few foggy steps before being collected by its owner.

The officer replaces his gun in the holster. “Yes,” he says to the puppy being tended by its owner. “Yes,” he says to the Rottweiler being recollared. “Yes,” he says to the sky where he deposited the bullet. He bats at perspiration on his neck. He is coming to terms. “I wasn’t sure for a second, guys,” he says. “But that will just about do it.”

A
lex Lorca uses his key to let himself into his father’s apartment. The oniony smell of old drapes and carpet. The mail heaped against the door. In the bedroom’s honeyed light, Louisa folds clothes into suitcases. “You scared me,” she says, not looking scared. “I forgot you have a lesson.”

Alex perches in the doorway. “You colored your hair.”

“It’s too much.” She swats at it. “Do you think so?”

“It’s beautiful.” His voice is flat, unbiased. “You’re leaving.”

“What happened to my geranium?” She points to a weary plant on the sill. “It was healthy and strong three days ago. I told your father, don’t forget to water her. The one thing I asked. There’s no talking to that man.” She crosses to Alex and takes his chin in her hand. The immediacy of her never fails to please him. He can tell she’s been crying, but Louisa’s expression is always that of someone looking at some meaningful, tragic thing. Even when she’s chewing out a distributor for overcharging them. Even when she’s looking at him. “I’m leaving,” she says.

“That fat jag made you leave.”

“Don’t call your father names. One day he’ll be dead.”

“One day we’ll all be dead,” Alex says.

“Him first, though, because he eats like a farm animal.”

Alex doesn’t smile. He feels his life fast-forwarding,
thwip-thwipping
quicker than he can handle. “Where are you going?” he says.

“My brother’s for now. When I find a place, I’ll have a key made for you so you can crash when you come in from your mother’s house, instead of here. This place isn’t healthy. Nothing can grow.” She zips the suitcases. “Least of all future famous guitarists.”

Alex fidgets in the doorway. He doesn’t know what to do when she speaks like this. She is always telling him to watch his hands, or bringing home brochures from the city’s best music schools. But how would he ever get his father to approve? Lorca’s rule is no guitar. No matter how much Alex or Louisa pleads. From age six, however, Sonny and the guys had sneaked lessons whenever Lorca was at the club. Sometimes it was Sonny, sometimes Max, depending on who could get away. The last place Lorca would ever suspect, his own apartment.

Alex carries the suitcases. Louisa scoops up the plant and follows him into the main room.

“You and I,” she says, “are always going to be family.”

“Family,” he spits.

“Kid.” She only uses this word when she wants to remind him that she is older and, at least for another year, taller. “We’ll still talk every day. I’m still coming to hear you play tonight.”

“He won’t let me,” Alex says. “He said things changed.”

“That fat jag.” She slumps into a chair. “He’s blaming you for me. I’ll talk to him.”

“There’s no talking to that man,” he says.

A sound at the door startles them. Sonny enters the kitchen, holding the Snakehead guitar. “Louisa,” he says. “What a fun surprise. Haven’t seen you around.”

“I’m not here to disrupt your lesson,” she says. “Good to see you, Sonny.”

Sonny registers the suitcases. “Anything you want to talk about?”

She halts in the doorway. “I’d like to talk about why Lorca isn’t letting Alex play tonight.”

A bead of perspiration wends down Sonny’s forehead. “Things changed.”

“What changed?”

“Is that a geranium?” Sonny says. “They need indirect sunlight. Otherwise they get ashy.”

“Sonny.”

“I’m not at liberty to discuss club business, Louisa. He’ll kill me.”

“On second thought”—Louisa releases the suitcases with two sharp slaps against the linoleum—“maybe I’ll stay. You guys want eggs? Sonny? You love omelets.”

“I could go for some eggs,” Alex says.

“You guys will practice,” Louisa says. “And I will make eggs. And then, we’ll have a nice chat.”

“This is entrapment,” Sonny says. “I’m being entrapped.”

“If you feel trapped, Sonny,” Louisa gives Alex a barely perceptible wink, “it’s probably because you are.”

M
adeleine careens through the Ninth Street Market, pulse tremoring.

Her city has a jazz club and it is called The Cat’s Pajamas and why hasn’t she ever heard of it and how can she get there? It is as if everyone in her life has conspired to hide this from her. Now the only thing that matters is that Madeleine finds it, soon.

This is what Madeleine does not notice because she is distracted: the spice shop’s jars of marzipan, kookaburra, Chinese five-spice, mace and coriander, the punching bags of provolone hanging at the cheese shop, the extended yowls of the dried stock fish, hanging in bunches of dead. Normally Madeleine would yowl back at them but she is replaying exactly what they said about The Cat’s Pajamas, so she is too busy to notice the crates of pecans pinned by brass shovels, two pounds for five dollars, the curling snakes of apple sausages, dollar-a-bag candy, gossiping vendors, so and so, and so and so. Madeleine passes the barrels of fire, the grocer weighing spinach on a tipsy scale. She accelerates at the store with the ducks, meadow green avocados, a bluster of brooms, a fire hydrant, the pears, more ducks, she is running, statues, soda, birds, nuts, she turns into Santiago’s alley, upsetting a cart of Virgin Mary statuettes. She keeps running, toward the blue carousel horse to whom she forgets to say a proper hello. Madeleine wrests open the café’s door to come face to Harlequin
romance with Sandra Frankford who has been, for the previous hour, blocking the entrance with the enormous brass flanks of her wheelchair. She grabs hold of Madeleine’s wrist.

“Slow it down.”

Mrs. Santiago sets the table for lunch. “Look who’s back.” By the counter, tied to a wine barrel, Pedro sulks. “Jack Lorca found him in Fishtown. Fishtown! That’s half a city away. Until he can control his wandering, it’s a leash for him.”

“I need to use the phone!” Madeleine says.

“Eat your lunch, then you can do whatever you want,” Mrs. Santiago says. Then, to Pedro: “No more people food. No more wandering.”

Madeleine sits. Sandra can’t do anything but sit. Mrs. Santiago sets out plates and silverware and a platter of meats and cheeses. She sits.

“What is The Cat’s Pajamas?” Madeleine says.

Sandra bows her head. “Let us pray.”

“Amen.” Mrs. Santiago hands a basket of bread to Madeleine.

“What is The Cat’s Pajamas?” Madeleine says.

Mrs. Santiago stirs sugar into an espresso and watches Pedro, who sniffs the canine food in his bowl. “The Cat’s what?”

“Pajamas.”

“It’s the club Jack Lorca owns. Pedro was eating from the trash like a criminal!”