Chapter 1

Blues has been the soundtrack of my life. I sing about things, and then they happen. Take “Another Man Done Gone”—that one has happened a lot. It might even be happening tonight, because somebody’s supposed to be here and I sure don’t see him.

I’m not singing “Another Man Done Gone,” though—not yet anyway. I’m singing “Little Red Rooster.”

Belting it out in my best Big Mama Thornton voice, in fact, and the audience is really into it. Beer bottles have paused halfway to mouths, and every face is turned toward the stage. Even the guys hanging around the bar are paying attention. Or maybe they’re checking out my gold snakeskin pants and my 36C bustline, courtesy of Zazie’s Lingerie Barn.

Next to me, Stan’s bobbing dreamily over his guitar, eyes half-closed behind the wiry tendrils of dark hair escaping his ponytail. At the keyboard, Neil’s punching out chords, while behind him, Michael works the strings of his bass, and Mitzi holds everything down with a solid shuffle on the drums.

This song seems pretty safe. I don’t think I’ll ever own a rooster. “Little Red Rooster” is a great blues tune, a tune we worked up for the CD that’s going to propel Maxximum Blues to greater heights of glory. Not that we don’t appreciate gigs like this one. So what if the Basement only holds about fifty people, on an assortment of sofas and chairs that Willy collected by hitting the streets one step ahead of the garbage trucks? It’s one of the most happening clubs in the East Village.

But the festival circuit is where we’ll make our name, starting next month with CityBlues. New York will be full of blues lovers and we’ll play the gig I had to fight like crazy to get and our CD will be on sale right up there with CDs by some of the biggest blues names in the country. Besides that, once we’ve got a CD to show what we can do, I can hustle every festival organizer on the East Coast.

As Neil launches into his solo, I scan the audience more carefully, searching for the face of Rick Schneider. It’s an ordinary face—brown eyes, nondescript nose, a smile with a little gap between the front teeth. But I wasted five years of my life with Sandy Wilkins, a guy that any woman would drool over. And even though I’ll never forget Sandy, that experience taught me to appreciate somebody who’d rather look at me than in a mirror. Besides, Rick Schneider is the genius at Prowling Rooster Records who’s capturing the definitive sound of Maxximum Blues—yeah, we put “Little Red Rooster” on there as a kind of thank you. And tonight Rick’s showing up with the master for us to check out before he puts in the order to burn the CDs.

Neil is winding up his solo, so I glance over at Stan. As his gaze catches mine and his eyes widen, I nod. He snaps to attention, tosses his head back—and loses his balance. His guitar slips from the eyelet at the end of its strap and he grapples with it to keep it from hitting the floor. He’s on one knee, clambering up with a hand braced on his amp while the other hand clutches the guitar. But when he’s almost on his feet again, he stumbles, mutters, “Oh, shit,” and reels backward.

Everything that’s plugged in dies at once—guitar, bass, keyboards, vocals—and the room is suddenly pitch black, except for spots of blurry light cast by candles scattered on low tables. Mitzi keeps drumming for a few seconds, then stops, her taps replaced by a sudden burst of alarmed chatter from the audience.

I force myself to take a deep breath, trying to ignore the panicky clutch in my throat. “Stan?” I hear my voice, for some reason whispering. “Are you okay?”

No answer.

Down in the audience, candles are blotted out as dark shapes shift restlessly. Chair legs scrape the floor, the chattering becomes more intense, and it’s punctuated by nervous laughter. A woman calls, “Frank? Frank? Are you still here?”

“Hang on, everybody,” says a voice from the back. It’s Willy, the owner. A flashlight sweeps the room, revealing people clumsily poised to dash for the steps that lead up to the street. The flashlight’s beam reaches the stage, momentarily dazzling me. I blink and put a hand over my eyes.

Somewhere near where Willy’s standing, a second flashlight clicks on. Whoever’s carrying it makes his way toward the stage. As the flashlight plays over the equipment, I strain for a glimpse of Stan, notice him huddled next to his amp.

The flashlight guy threads his way between Michael’s amp and the drumkit and fumbles with the curtains at the back of the stage. He disappears with the flashlight and we’re in the dark again. In a few seconds, he reemerges and the flashlight’s beam resumes its nervous dance over the equipment.

“It’s just a fuse,” he says. “You guys blew a fuse. Lights’ll be back on in a second.” The flashlight picks out Stan’s and Michael’s amps. “Switch those amps off though, will you?”

Suddenly, it’s bright again and we’re blinking at each other like we’ve never seen light before. The flashlight guy is kneeling next to Stan’s amp holding up a cord that looks like a dog chewed it. “You shorted out, man,” he says. “It must have been about ready to go and then you snagged your foot on it when you lost your balance.”

Stan mumbles something and reaches to switch the amp back on.

“Oh, no you don’t,” the flashlight guy says. “Want to blow everything out again?”

“But how can I play?” Stan says, tucking a stray bit of hair behind his ear.

“I guess you can’t,” the flashlight guy says. Out of the corner of my eye I notice people leaving.

“Don’t you have a backup amp stuck away somewhere?” Stan says hopefully.

“No point in hauling it out now,” the flashlight guy says. “You guys only have about ten minutes to go.”

Stan picks up his guitar and slouches dejectedly off the stage, apologizing to anybody who’ll listen. We finish the set without him, for what’s left of the audience—about five people.

And when Willy hands me a couple of folded bills, I unfold them to discover that only the one on the outside is a twenty. It’s wrapped around a couple of tens.

“What’s this?” I say. “The bar was doing great business tonight. Forty bucks for three sets?”

“Did you see how many people left when you guys fucked up the lights?”

“The third set was almost done by then,” I say. “The place was full of people drinking until nearly two a.m.”

He shrugs and walks away. I’d run after him and argue, but it wouldn’t do any good. Club owners will use any excuse they can find to beat you on a gig. This is why we need the CD.

Respect, like Aretha Franklin would say.

* * * * *

“So where is Rick, anyway?” Michael says, fastidiously pouring the rest of his beer into his glass. His bass, neatly zipped back into his gig bag, leans against his bar stool and his thin face wears an expression somewhere between annoyance and disgust. But that’s nothing new for Michael.

“He’ll show up,” I say, trying to act less bothered than I feel. “He probably hit a little traffic.”

“At two in the morning?”

“Maybe they’re doing construction on the bridge. Sometimes they wait to do it at night. Give me your cell phone and I’ll call him.”

Michael hands me his cell phone. “Where’s yours?”

“I owed them money so they turned it off. I can’t get it back till payday at the restaurant.” I punch in Rick’s cell phone number, and after four rings I get his voice mail.

“No luck,” I say, handing the phone back to Michael.

“He doesn’t leave his phone on all the time?” Michael says with a frown, his enunciation as precise as if he was giving a lecture.

“I guess not.”

“Some businessman.” He snorts. “How about the number for the studio?”

I try it but I only get the machine.

“Maybe he’s waiting for us at Stan’s place,” Michael says.

“He said he’d come here.”

I purposely look away, hoping Michael will get the hint that I don’t want to talk—at least not about that.

At the other end of the bar, Mitzi is exchanging high-fives with a couple of women that look like her—short hair combed like guys, flannel shirts, blue jeans, and sturdy boots. Just past Mitzi and her friends, Stan is sitting on the edge of the stage, noodling around on his unplugged guitar, plucking out whispery versions of his favorite licks. When he notices me looking at him, his head droops so low that all I can see is hair, and his nervous noodling speeds up. Neil is nowhere to be seen.

But Michael doesn’t get the hint. “Even if he showed up right this instant, we wouldn’t have time to listen to much.” He takes a careful sip of his beer.

“Sure we would. Stan won’t care how late we stay.”

“And even if he does show up and the master’s okay, which is unlikely, I doubt the CDs will be ready in time for the festival.”

“They will,” I say. “Rick’s been doing this forever and he knows how long things take. Burning the CDs is nothing. Getting the master the way you want it is the hard part.”

I look away again, tap my fingers in time to the taped music as if I’m really into it. Michael stays where he is, but at least he doesn’t say anything else.

Minutes pass, lots of minutes. The few remaining people wander out. Willy turns off the taped music and turns on the overhead lights. The barmaid roams around collecting glasses and empty bottles. Mitzi’s friends take off. Neil drifts back from wherever he was hiding out, probably smoking a joint.

Stan scoots off the stage and edges toward me, nervously, like a dog that expects to be scolded, head bowed and bony shoulders slumped.

“I’m really sorry,” he says from under the cloud of shaggy hair that hides most of his face. “You won’t fire me again, will you?”

He looks so pitiful that I grab his hand. “No,” I say. “Our destinies seem to be interwoven, for better or worse.”

“I consider you a friend, Maxx.”

I nod and pat him on the shoulder. Being friends can be a complicated thing. Maybe there’s a song about that.

We’re the last people left in the place and Rick’s still not here. Everyone in the band is looking at me—everyone except Stan, that is. He’s gone back to his noodling, busy with some complicated pattern he’s repeating up and down the fretboard, one fret at a time. But everyone else is looking at me. And I don’t know what to say.

In my mind I’m revisiting the last time I saw Rick, our clothes in a pile on the studio floor, except for the T-shirt that he wouldn’t take off even though I asked him to, sinking back onto the sofa whose leathery smell mixed with the smell of Rick’s skin.

Michael holds out his cell phone. “Here. Try him again,” he says. “This is ridiculous.”

But there’s still no answer on the other end, except for an impersonal voice telling me I can leave a message. Michael nods, not at anybody in particular, but kind of smugly to himself, like he’s confirming something he suspected all along. “I told you this was a bad idea,” he says.

“You think everything’s a bad idea,” I say. “So what’s new?”

“This involves money.”

“You have to spend money to make money,” I say. “Bands without CDs almost never get booked at festivals. We only got into CityBlues because I knew somebody who could pull strings. And besides, we can sell copies of the CD and make all our money back and then some.”

“There isn’t going to be a CD. Your friend took our money and vanished.”

The “your friend” part comes out as sarcastic as Michael can make it.

“Oh, come on,” I say. “You think he left behind his house and his studio and all his gear to make off with a thousand bucks?” I pull on my fake leopardskin jacket. Usually the jacket cheers me up but it’s not working tonight. I try to summon a smile anyway. “Everything will be fine. I’ll get in touch with him tomorrow and find out what the story is. See you at rehearsal Thursday night?” I head for the stairs and the band follows me. I try to stay far enough ahead that Michael’s voice is only an unintelligible whine.

Out on the street, an East Village street of six-floor walkups with narrow stoops angling from the sidewalk, Mitzi hangs back as the guys troop off.

She’s about a head shorter than me, a sturdy woman with a fresh, makeup-free face, straight dark brows, a well-shaped mouth. “How come you let Michael give you such a rough time?” she says.

“Ever looked for a bass player?” I say.

“Hard?”

“Almost impossible.”

“What do you think happened to Rick?” The worry in her face makes her look kind of gentle, despite the careful toughness of her image.

“There’s probably a message on my machine at home,” I say.

“Why wouldn’t he call the club?”

I shrug.

* * * * *

My car—an ancient Bonneville, seafoam green like the classic old Strat color, but with one dark green door—isn’t as out of place down here in the East Village as it is, say, in my parents’ rich North Jersey suburb, not that I visit them all that often. The car’s waiting right where I left it, in front of the vintage records shop, snugged up close enough to a big Harley to clear the yellow curb that marks a hydrant.

I open the passenger side door and slide across the seat. The lock on the driver’s side got messed up a long time ago when somebody broke in while I was parked outside the place where we rehearse.

I drive back to New Jersey trying to convince myself that everything is going to be fine, but somehow deep inside I know it isn’t.

Chapter 2

“Didn’t you hear me say I wanted it unbuttered?” The woman has hair the color of well-polished brass and a face as lean as her well-exercised thighs.

“No, actually,” I say. “I didn’t.”

“Well, I do.” She hands me the plate of toast. “Please take this away.” I nod. She looks suspiciously at the omelet I’ve set down in front of her. “Are you sure this is whites only?”

“That’s how I put the order in.” I gaze at the mural on the opposite wall. It shows a group of cowboys lounging around a campfire while their ponies munch grass in the background.

She squints and leans closer to the plate. “It looks so yellow.”

I shrug. “That’s what came out.”

She looks up at me with a frown. “Why isn’t Martha here?”

“She had to take some time off,” I say. “I’m filling in on her shift.”

Usually I don’t serve breakfast. I show up late in the afternoon and work till closing time, serving the shrimp scampi and fried calamari that give Aldo’s Seafood Chalet its name. The cowboys and ponies date from when it used to be a barbecue place, before Aldo bought it.

Many omelets and waffles and short stacks and tall stacks and coffee refills later, Susanne tells me I can have a break. I help myself to a mug of coffee at the coffee station, take a few hot sips, and make my way to the pay phone, where I punch the number of Rick’s studio—which also happens to be his house—into the keypad. Needless to say, there was no message from him on my machine when I got home from the city last night.

The phone responds with a series of variously pitched chirps, and a voice tells me to deposit a dollar fifty. I dip in my apron pocket for some tip change.

Now I’ve got the receiver to my ear. It’s ringing, and, hoping for the best, I’m phrasing some kind of a casual greeting like, “Hey! I guess we got our signals crossed about last night,” though what I’m afraid of is that something bad happened with the CD master and he’s embarrassed to face me.

All I get is his machine again, and when I try his cell phone number I get the voice mail. Disgusted, I drop the receiver back into its cradle and head for the break room, where I work the combination on my locker and pull out my bag.

Slipped between the pages of my address book I find the card Rick gave me the first time we discussed the CD. “Prowling Rooster Records,” it says, in a flamboyant scrawl that shadows each letter’s shape with a red outline. Prowling Rooster Records has some pretty heavy bands on its roster, and Maxximum Blues wasn’t an official project. Rick was producing and recording our CD on the side, for money, yeah, but also because he’s a friend of a friend—Nathan Danzig—and an all-around nice guy. At least I used to think he was an all-around nice guy.

Further down on the card three names appear: Rick Schneider, Ben Darling, and Steve Bernier. But there’s only one number, Rick’s home number, and only one address, Rick’s address. In a way, that’s Steve Bernier’s address too, because he lives in an old trailer parked on Rick’s property. Though he’s supposedly a partner in Prowling Rooster Records, I’ve never met him. He doesn’t seem to do much, and Rick gets embarrassed when his name comes up.

I flip through my address book till I find Nathan’s number and pull another handful of change out of my apron pocket. Maybe Nathan knows how to track down Ben, or has a separate number for Steve—though Steve might not be all that helpful. But all I get is Nathan’s machine, and his recorded voice, as raspy as if his vocal cords were made out of old bicycle chains, telling me he can’t come to the phone right now.

Later, at home, I try Rick and get the machine and the voice mail again.

He could be there, though. He could be there and trying to avoid me. I head back down to my car.

* * * * *

Too bad what’s taking me up to Nyack isn’t a pleasanter errand, because the ride up the Parkway is gorgeous on this bright fall day. Patches of the Hudson, smooth and blue, gleam between stands of reddening trees, and on the opposite bank, Yonkers is far enough away for the random buildings that dot the shore to look romantic.

I take Route 303. Then, just past the Day’n’Nite Limo Service I make a sharp right onto a narrow road of pitted asphalt that climbs a gentle hill. After a quarter of a mile, I come to a wooden sign with Rick’s address on it. My car sways and creaks as I turn off the asphalt onto rutted dirt.

As I approach Rick’s house, I feel myself leaning forward, straining to see—what? But there’s only the dusty road, tree trunks, and patchy grass dotted with a rusty fall of autumn leaves. The car sways over a few deep ruts and the road curves to the left. I pass Steve’s trailer, looking like a giant silver jelly bean, and soon the screened porch that forms the back of Rick’s rambling wood frame house comes into view.

Usually Rick’s pickup truck is parked a few yards from the back door. Now there’s only an empty spot, bare dirt strewn with a few recently fallen leaves.

He’s not here now. But I am. I decide to leave a note.

As I drive into the cleared area around Rick’s house and pull up to park where the truck is usually parked, I notice something. It’s a black truck, Rick’s truck, but parked in a different place, over near a thin stand of trees at the edge of the thicker forest.

So he is home. Now while one part of me is matter-of-factly shifting into PARK, twisting the key in the ignition, and listening to the engine shut down with a whining moan, another part of me feels like I’m about to go onstage. My heart has expanded up into my throat while a busy little drumbeat clicks away in my chest.

Am I a pissed-off customer or a jilted girlfriend? And do I have to decide that before I pound on the door and ask the son-of-a-bitch why he didn’t show up last night?

I take a deep breath and climb out of the car. A gust of wind makes my hands reach for the pockets of my jacket even though I’m wearing gloves. By the time I expel the breath, I’ve climbed the steps to the door that leads into the screened porch. The breath disappears in a frosty wisp and I replace it with one that’s a sudden lung-chilling shock.

* * * * *

The flimsy screen door squeaks on its hinges as I pull it toward me. The door is never locked, because the porch holds only a daybed covered with an Indian-print bedspread, a few old wooden chairs, and a small table with music catalogues scattered here and there.

A low moan makes me catch my breath, but when it’s followed by the rushing sound of leaves heaving in the wind I realize it’s a branch rubbing another branch.

I step toward the door that opens into Rick’s kitchen, and I begin to knock, lightly at first, then harder and harder and harder, till I almost forget that I’m trying to rouse Rick, that it somehow isn’t the door’s fault that we might not have our CD in time for the festival and that when I finally trusted a guy again, he let me down.

When I finally unclench my fist and let my hand fall slowly to my side, my knuckles are throbbing. Is he in there or not?

I turn, push back through the screen door, and make my way down the steps. Out in the yard, I wander along the side of the house, standing on tiptoe to look in each window, tapping and calling, listening for any faint response. My steps stir up dark mossy smells as I kick leaves out of my way. On the front porch, long windows look into the old living room, now the studio, but they’re masked with heavy drapes, never opened.

Finally, I’ve circled the house and I’m standing in the backyard again, staring at the truck. I wander over to it, kicking leaves out of my way, asking myself why it’s parked here and not in its usual spot.

I peer in the windows. Everything looks normal, like it always looked—except the seats aren’t aligned. Either the passenger’s seat has been slid way back or the driver’s seat has been slid way forward.

I open the driver’s side door and start to ease myself into the seat, but I can barely fit behind the steering wheel—and I’m a skinny chick. I’d be a total beanpole if not for the Zazie’s Lingerie Barn bra. Some tiny person with really short legs has been driving Rick’s car.

I finally get myself wedged into the seat and I’m squirming around trying to figure out if anybody could actually drive with the seat like this, when I feel something underfoot. I bend over and twist my head around the steering wheel to see what it is and realize that it’s dirt. Lots and lots of dirt.

Rick’s not the tidiest guy in the world, but he loves this truck. Could he possibly have climbed in with shoes so muddy that they left big clumps of dirt like what I see now?

I ease myself out of the seat and lower my feet onto the ground. Then I bend over and scrape up a handful of the dirt. In my hand it almost looks like some weird kind of pasta, super-healthy because it’s made out of whatever they make that dark-brown health bread out of. The parts that didn’t get squashed because I didn’t step on them look like little squiggles carefully molded in squiggle-shaped molds—or like bits of mud that dried in the treads of some very heavy-duty boots and then popped out.

But if his truck is here, he’s here. There’s no place around here that you can go on foot. Maybe he’s sick or hurt. Even if he’s trying to avoid me, he doesn’t seem like the kind of guy to cower inside while somebody pounds on his back door.

I head back to the house and check the window that opens from the screened porch into the kitchen. I could climb up on the daybed and squeeze through, but the latch looks pretty secure and I don’t want to break any glass unless I have to. So I circle the house again, hurrying, because the sun is already near the horizon, staining the sky the color of a mango smoothie. The side windows are too high, even if one of them happened to be open, and the windows that look out onto the front porch are tightly latched.

But as I cruise along the other side of the house, I notice a pair of old cellar doors, almost flush with the ground, butting up against the rough stone that forms the house’s foundation. I bend down and grab the handle on one of them, give an experimental tug, and the door opens a few inches then falls closed again when I release my grip.

I brace myself against the side of the house and pull harder. The door swings all the way back and flops onto the ground. I peer into the darkness then run back to the car for my flashlight.

Wooden steps lead down into the basement. I take a deep breath and creep slowly down them, balancing myself by holding onto the edge of the other door. Once I’ve reached the bottom, I let the flashlight’s beam wander here and there, trying not to inhale the musty dampness, cringing as the basement’s clammy air chills my skin.

I follow the flashlight’s beam across the floor till it picks up another set of stairs. In a few seconds, I’m pushing open a door and stepping into Rick’s kitchen. It’s chilly too, and shadowy, with the blinds on its one small window closed against the fading afternoon light.

“Rick?” I call. “Hello? Rick? Anybody here?”

A soft scratching pulls my attention to the table against the right-hand wall. A wire mesh cage about the height of a laundry hamper but wider sits on top of it, and inside the cage a rooster with a sleek dark-feathered body and a bright red comb shifts uneasily. The whole rest of the table’s surface is taken up with a phone, a bag of something called “Farlo Boonton Chicken Feed,” and a pile of mail, some opened, some not.

The rooster is Red, Rick’s pet and the mascot of Prowling Rooster Records. Usually he roams around in the yard during the day, wandering in and out of an old chicken coop the earlier owners of Rick’s house left behind, and he only comes in at night.

“Awrk?” Red cocks his head to stare at me. I look back at him. His stare seems somehow aggrieved. I look closer and notice that his food and water cups are empty.

“Okay,” I say. “I’ll feed you. Just let me look around for a minute.”

I continue through the kitchen and into the dim hall that leads past what was once a dining room but is now an office, though the tall windows with their ornate Victorian moldings are still curtained in heavy rose brocade, somewhat the worse for wear.

“Rick?” I call softly, stopping in the doorway. No answer.

I continue on till I come to the studio, once the living room, its walls hung with spongy gray soundproofing. An old upright piano stands against one wall, an assortment of guitar and bass amps are pushed against another wall, and a jumble of mikes on mike stands fill the corner like a thicket of bare metallic trees.

I flip another switch, and brightness bathes the piano, the amps, the mikes in the corner, the monitors, and the table where the 32-track sits, cables snaking out from it and drooping to the floor like coils of rubbery rope.

“Rick?” I call. “Rick? Are you here?”

No answer.

I’ve never been upstairs before. Rick was all business until those last few sessions, when I stayed behind after the band left and Rick and I wound up on that leather sofa.

One hand on the banister, I creep up the steps, feeling as breathless as if I’d already climbed twenty flights. Old houses make strange noises—a gurgling clank that could be a radiator, a creak that could be the wind buffeting an ill-fitting window.

At the head of the stairs I face the bathroom, door ajar, white tile walls shimmering with an inner ghostly glow. I step inside, easing the door further open till it bumps the end of the tub. The shower curtain, with a jaunty pattern of musical notes in every shade of the rainbow, is drawn closed, just skimming the lip of the old claw-footed tub.

“Rick?” I whisper. I fumble for the curtain’s edge and, quickly, before my brain can summon up an image of what might be lurking behind it, besides an expanse of porcelain that would be whiter if a guy didn’t live here by himself, sweep it open. The sound of the shower curtain rings scraping along the rod sets my teeth on edge.

Nothing’s behind the curtain but an empty tub.

I back out of the bathroom, feeling strangely relieved, and advance along the hallway. The sun has sunk so low that inside the house, shadows like grayish gauze soften the angles where wall meets wall and wall meets floor. For some reason I’m tiptoeing.

I reach the door to Rick’s room and step onto the threshold. I can make out a double bed covered in something dark, with a pale rectangle at the head. A shape against the wall, a shade between dark and pale, is probably a bureau. A tall stripe of paleness adjacent to a dark rectangle is probably a closet with the door half open.

I feel along the wall till my fingers encounter a light switch and suddenly detail replaces shapes softened by shadow. The bed is covered with a puffy dark-green comforter that’s pulled up far enough to partly hide a pillow in a white case. The surface of the dresser is a jumble of clock, magazines, a sock, a baseball cap. A T-shirt dangles from the closet doorknob, and the half-open door reveals a few flannel shirts, a few pairs of jeans on hangers, and a pile of sneakers.

Yeah, Rick always wore sneakers. It occurs to me that even if he didn’t mind getting his truck dirty, sneaker bottoms wouldn’t produce anything like those curlicues of dried mud on the pickup’s floor. Just to make sure, I step into the room and grab a sneaker off the pile. I run my finger over the sole. It’s nearly smooth. Somebody else has been driving the truck for sure.

As I turn to head back downstairs, my gaze sweeps the walls but stops when it encounters a photograph hanging over the bed. It’s a photograph of a woman, a beautiful woman. Maybe that’s the reason Rick never invited me up here. Maybe there’s another woman in his life. But she looks much too young to want to be with a guy Rick’s age—though maybe she’s not young now. Her hair and makeup suggest the photo dates from at least twenty years ago, maybe more.

I certainly hope she’s not a current love interest because she’d be stiff competition, and then some. Nobody could look at that face and not be fascinated, drawn to the haunting dark eyes, the perfect sculptured cheekbones, and most of all the soft mouth made so human by the tiny asymmetry of its upper bow.

* * * * *

“Awrk?” Red blinks at me in the sudden wash of light as I flip the switch inside the kitchen door. His glossy feathers ripple as he twitches his wings. “Awrk?” His head with its gaudy comb darts toward his empty food cup, darts back up, and his bright eyes look at me accusingly.

Poor guy. He must really be hungry.

“Okay, okay,” I murmur. “I said I’d feed you, and it looks like you need some water too.” I reach for the bag of Farlo Boonton Chicken Feed, and as I pull it toward me, it skims the untidy stack of mail, knocking about half of it to the floor.

I stoop to collect it, and as I’m retrieving junk mail and bills and catalogues, my attention is caught by a letter scrawled in careless writing across a dog-eared sheet of paper. Above me, Red is pacing in his cage and my eyes are drifting over the scribbled words while my heart is sinking.

“Sweetheart,” the letter reads. “I’m doing a show in Westchester Nov. 7th. Call me Friday a.m.” The letter goes on to give the phone number then says, “Let’s get it back like it was,” and it’s signed “B.”

Today’s the 9th. I stand up, feeling kind of sick. Red shifts in his cage and fixes me with a beady eye. I turn the page over and see what looks like a tour schedule: the Westchester gig, something in Chicago on the 9th—today—some other stuff all over the place, and another local gig—the Last Chance on the 14th.

I sink into one of the kitchen chairs and punch the Friday a.m. number into the phone. After four rings, a chirpy voice says, “Sleepy Time Motel. How may I help you?”

I ask for Rick Schneider.

“Is he a guest, ma’am?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what he is. He’s staying with somebody, somebody named—” I reach for the letter. “Somebody named B.”

“Excuse me?”

“Never mind. I’m sorry.”

I hang up, but I don’t stand up. I call Manhattan information and ask for the number of the Last Chance. For an extra 75 cents, I let them connect me.

The “B.” who signed the letter to “Sweetheart,” who wants to get it back like it was, who’s playing at the Last Chance November 14, turns out to be none other than Brenda Honeycut, one of the most happening singer-songwriters on the current scene. I jam the letter into my bag.

If Rick was going to hang out with his old girlfriend for a few days, couldn’t he at least keep me posted on what was happening with the CD? And leave enough food for his rooster? So the pickup is still here because she came for him. And she’ll probably be delivering him back home soon, unless he’s going to Chicago with her. According to the tour schedule, she should be on her way there about now.

Red’s sudden “Awrk?” brings me back to reality

“It’s okay, Red,” I say. “Here’s your food. Coming right up.”

I scoop a cup of feed out of the Farlo Boonton bag and unlatch the door of the cage. “Awrk! Squirk!” In a flurry of distress, Red flings himself into the air, hanging suspended inside the cage for a minute, wings flapping frantically as they churn up bits of shredded newspaper. Landing on his feet again, he bustles back and forth until, suddenly, he’s pecking my fingers. His beak is like a sharp thorn lodging itself in my flesh and tearing away, again and again.

I jerk my hand away, but I can’t dislodge my fingers from the latch on the door of the cage, and the cage comes along as I try to pull loose.

Now it’s hanging over the table’s edge, and as I free my fingers, the cage lands on the floor with a crash, another flurry of newspaper bits, and an irritated burst of squawking from Red.

The next thing I know, Red is scurrying down the hall toward the studio.

“Wait, wait,” I call, running after him. “I’m trying to help you.”

He looks back at me and suddenly swerves into the first doorway he comes to, Rick’s office, the house’s former dining room. I bolt past him, almost tripping over Rick’s desk chair, grab the door that leads into the studio, and slam it shut. I run back the other direction and slam the door that leads to the hallway.

So where is he? A soft cluck and the sighing sound of wings settling into place draws my attention to Rick’s desk. Red is lurking underneath, seemingly content to stay put now that he thinks he’s found a safe haven.

If I can throw something over him, bundle him up, and stick him back in his cage, everything will be fine. I scan the room and see nothing promising. I could rip down one of the drapes—but they’re so long and wide, they’d be too unwieldy to wrap a rooster in. Half a pair is already missing from one of the windows though. I wonder what that’s all about.

I don’t see anything else that would work to wrap a rooster in, so, okay, it’s got to be done. I shrug my way out of my silver thrift-store trenchcoat. Red regards me with his beady eye, clucking quietly to himself, as I come near, holding the coat in front of me like a bullfighter confronting a bull.

“Okay, fellow.” I try to sound soothing. “I’m just trying to help you.”

I kneel and swoop toward him with the coat. He clucks, louder now, and backs further under the desk. I creep forward on my knees, and as I look into the shadows, something catches my eye, something that doesn’t have anything to do with Red.

I’m distracted long enough for him to squeeze past me, half-running, half-flying. But I let him go, for the moment at least, because I’m looking at one of Rick’s prize possessions, and it doesn’t belong down here on the floor.

I pull it toward me, carefully because the glass is broken. It’s a framed album cover that used to occupy a special spot on the opposite wall. I remember asking Rick about it once and he said it was the only thing in the whole place he’d ever care about losing.

“Why?” I asked.

“That music was what my youth was all about,” he said.

I study the picture on the front. Four guys, their faces shaded by jaunty fedoras, are lined up against a brick wall. Above them, the word “MEAL” is spelled out in heavy, droopy letters that look like they’re melting.

I lift it up and put it on the desk. When I turn my attention back to Red, he’s crouched between the side of the desk and the wall. As I swoop toward him and bundle him into my coat, I notice that on the floor in the corner is a big stain that looks like dried blood.