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of protest, and a burly, shirt-sleeved character who had been lurking in the vicinity, grabbed him by the collar and hustled him out.
    The girl started toward the bandstand. There was a small burst of hand-clapping and stein-thumping. And my eyes snapped open and my heart pounded, and I half rose out of my chair. And then I settled back down again. Because, of course, it wasn’t Janie. Janie wouldn’t be in a joint like this, she wouldn’t be hanging around with barflies. Anyway, I knew where Janie was, at home looking after the boys, whoring and guzzling and…
    Janie was back in New York. I’d talked to her long-distance that night—had her sing to me over the telephone. It was Melancholy Baby, one of our all-time hit recordings, one of the dozen-odd which still sell considerably—and thank God they do. Although I don’t know who the hell buys them. Probably they all go to insane asylums, the patients there. It must be that way, the poor devils must all be locked up, since there seems to be nothing on the outside any more but tone-deaf morons.
    Why, goddammit, I talked to a man a while back, one of those pseudo-erudite bastards who is mopping up with articles about modern “music,” the so-called up-beat, “cool” crap. I said, let me ask you something. Suppose the printer started “interpreting” your articles. Suppose he started leaving out lines and putting in his own, suppose he threw away your punctuation and put in his own. How would you feel if he did that, an “interpretation” of your stuff?
    I shouldn’t have wasted my time on him, of course. I shouldn’t even have spit on him. He called himself a music critic—a critic, by God!—and he’d never heard of Blue Steele!
    The girl didn’t look like Janie. Not the slightest. I’d only thought she did at the time.
    She sang. It was Don’t Get Around Much Any More, another old hit of Janie’s and mine. And she bitched it up. Brother, did she bitch it! But when I closed my eyes…
    She had a voice. She had what it took, raw and undeveloped as it was. And she hit you. That’s the only way I can say it—she hit you. She brought out the goosebumps, like that first blast of air when you step into an air-conditioned room.
    And God knows I don’t expect much. I work for something good, I do my best to get it. But I don’t really expect it.
    I began to get a little excited. I did some fast mental calculations. I was working single at the moment, doing a series of club dates. And I was just squeaking by. But the resort season wasn’t too far off, and I had some recording checks due; and it would be easy enough to whip together another band. I could just about swing it, I thought. A five man combo, including myself, and this girl. I couldn’t make any money with it, not playing the music. I’d be very lucky, in fact, if I could break even. But I could do it—do something, by God, that needed to be done. Give this mixed-up world something that it ought to have, regardless of whether it knew it or wanted it.
    She finished the song. She was at my table before I could motion to her. I was still wrapped up in my calculations. I heard her pitch, but it was a minute or two before it sank in on me. And perhaps I should have expected it; and perhaps, by God, I should not have. From some girls, yes. From any other girl. But not her, not someone with the music in them.
    I wanted to spit on her. I wanted to break my stein, slash her throat with it so that she would never sing another word. Instead, I said, fine: I hated sleeping by myself.
    I suppose my expression had startled her. At any rate, she drew back a little. She didn’t mean that, she said. All she meant was that maybe I could buy her dinner some place and we could have a nice visit, since she was alone, too, and maybe I could help her buy a new dress because a drunk had spilt some beer on this one, and—
    She was really a nice girl. She told me so herself. She was just doing this (temporarily, of