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words lacked enthusiasm, but he did feel some considerable satisfaction, and why not? It was no secret in the office that Mr. Waterson had a lot more interest in cards and ponies than in music, and Niederhoffer had just given Tabor solid evidence that Waterson was regularly raking money off the top, probably to pay gambling debts. That should be worth something, somewhere, to someone. He’d keep his ears open.
    ***
    By five o’clock, Scott Joplin’s locked room was a pressure cooker. The composer pushed away from the piano, wiped his face with a handkerchief, filled a dirty glass from a pitcher of luke-warm water, took a long swallow. He gazed at the music rack on his piano, ground his teeth. This symphony was harder going than he’d anticipated. He’d learned symphonic music, form and structure, first from Mr. Weiss in Texarkana, then at General Smith’s College in Sedalia, but the minute he sat at the piano and tried to write down his
Symphony Number One
, his knowledge seemed to drain out of his head. The notes he put down on paper didn’t hang together the way he wanted. He walked to the window, stared into the street, where a bunch of kids had opened a hydrant and were running around, screaming and laughing, under the cascades of water. “The Cascades”…St. Louis World’s Fair. That rag came to him so easily, it practically wrote itself. They all did back then, but no more. The composer felt panic grip his heart as he remembered his friend, Louis Chauvin, shortly before he died, when his disease had filled his mind with garbage.
    He forced himself back to the piano, played a few notes, but then heard Lottie’s voice. “Scott…
Scott!
Come on, now, Scott, open up. He ain’t gonna wait forever.”
    Who’s
not gonna wait forever? Then he realized he’d only thought it, hadn’t said it out loud. “Who’s not gonna wait forever, Lottie?”
    “Irving Berlin. He’s on the phone for you. Now, would you come on out of there and talk to the man.”
    Joplin was through the doorway in a flash, up the stairs, into the hall. The telephone receiver hung from its cord like a lifeless thing. The composer snatched it up. “Hello, yes. Mr. Berlin?”
    “That’s right. How you doing, Scott?”
    “Fine, just fine. I’m working at my
Symphony Number One
. It’s going to be good. Really good.”
    “Glad to hear that. Look, I’m calling about your musical.”
    Joplin couldn’t talk. His muscles froze; he couldn’t draw breath.
    “You there, Scott?”
    He managed a choked, “Yes.”
    “All right then, listen. I think it’s got some possibilities, I want to talk to you about it. Can you come on down?”
    “Now?”
    “Yeah, now. Is that a problem?”
    “No. No problem at all. I’ll be right there.”
    “Good. See you soon. Just come on in, I’ll keep an ear out for you.”
    Joplin hung up the receiver, dashed back into the apartment. Lottie gave him a curious look. He took hold of her by the shoulders.
    “Hey, easy, Scott, you hurtin’ me.”
    He let go, then grasped her again, this time as if she might have been made of glass. “Berlin
likes
it, Lottie. He says he thinks it’s got real possibilities, and he wants to talk to me about it.”
    Lottie’s smile was cautious. “Well, that does sound good, all right. When you goin’?”
    “Now. He says come on down right now.”
    “
Now?
You sure that what he say?”
    “Lottie, my ears still work all right. He says he wants to see me now.”
    “It’s past five. Don’t you think maybe you ought to wait till tomorrow, so Martin’ll be there? Or maybe—”
    “What am I supposed to do, woman? Tell Irving Berlin I can’t come and talk to him without having his bookkeeper there in the room? Now, let me be. Time’s wasting.”
    She sighed, then took him by the arm, motioned him toward the bathroom. “All right, Scott, if that’s what you want. But you’re
not
going down there looking like a colored beggar off the street. You are going to let me