Black House

But they don’t have a deal, and Henry isn’t sure he wants to make one. Going national with George Rathbun as part of the ESPN radio package should be attractive, and he doesn’t have any serious problem with changing the name of the show from Badger Barrage to ESPN Sports Barrage — it would still focus primarily on the central and northern areas of the country — but . . .

But what?

Before he can even get to work on the question, he smells it again: My Sin, the perfume his wife used to wear on certain evenings, when she wanted to send a certain signal. Lark was what he used to call her on those certain evenings, when the room was dark and they were both blind to everything but scents and textures and each other.

Lark.

"You know, I think I’m going to pass on that drink," Henry says. "Got some work to do at home. But I’m going to think over your offer. And I mean seriously."

"Ah-ah-ah," Penniman says, and Henry can tell from certain minute disturbances in the air that the man is shaking a finger beneath his nose. Henry wonders how Penniman would react if Henry suddenly darted his head forward and bit off the offending digit at the second knuckle. If Henry showed him a little Coulee Country hospitality Fisherman-style. How loud would Penniman yell? As loud as Little Richard before the instrumental break of "Tutti Frutti," perhaps? Or not quite as loud as that?

"Can’t go till I’m ready to take you," Mr. I’m Fat But It No Longer Matters tells him. "I’m your ride, y’know." He’s on his fourth gimlet, and his words are slightly slurred. My friend, Henry thinks, I’d poke a ferret up my ass before I’d get into a car with you at the wheel.

"Actually, I can," Henry says pleasantly. Nick Avery, the bartender, is having a kick-ass afternoon: the fat guy slipped him five to change the TV channel, and the blind guy slipped him five to call Skeeter’s Taxi while the fat guy was in the bathroom, making a little room.

"Huh?"

"I said, ‘Actually, I can.’ Bartender?"

"He’s outside, sir," Avery tells him. "Pulled up two minutes ago."

There is a hefty creak as Penniman turns on his bar stool. Henry can’t see the man’s frown as he takes in the taxi now idling in the hotel turnaround, but he can sense it.

"Listen, Henry," Penniman says. "I think you may lack a certain understanding of your current situation. There are stars in the firmament of sports radio, damned right there are — people like the Fabulous Sports Babe and Tony Kornheiser make six figures a year just in speaking fees, six figures easy — but you ain’t there yet. That door is currently closed to you. But I, my friend, am one helluva doorman. The upshot is that if I say we ought to have one more drink, then — "

"Bartender," Henry says quietly, then shakes his head. "I can’t just call you bartender; it might work for Humphrey Bogart but it doesn’t work for me. What’s your name?"

"Nick Avery, sir." The last word comes out automatically, but Avery never would have used it when speaking to the other one, never in a million years. Both guys tipped him five, but the one in the dark glasses is the gent. It’s got nothing to do with him being blind, it’s just something he is.

"Nick, who else is at the bar?"

Avery looks around. In one of the back booths, two men are drinking beer. In the hall, a bellman is on the phone. At the bar itself, no one at all except for these two guys — one slim, cool, and blind, the other fat, sweaty, and starting to be pissed off.

"No one, sir."

"There’s not a . . . lady?" Lark, he’s almost said. There’s not a lark?

"No."

"Listen here," Penniman says, and Henry thinks he’s never heard anyone so unlike "Little Richard" Penniman in his entire life. This guy is whiter than Moby Dick . . . and probably about the same size. "We’ve got a lot more to discuss here." Loh more t’dishcush is how it comes out. "Unless, that is" — Unlesh — "you’re trying to let me know you’re not interested." Never in a million years, Penniman’s voice says to Henry Leyden’s educated ears. We’re talking about putting a money machine in your living room, sweetheart, your very own private ATM, and there ain’t no way in hell you’re going to turn that down.

"Nick, you don’t smell perfume? Something very light and old-fashioned? My Sin, perhaps?"

A flabby hand falls on Henry’s shoulder like a hot-water bottle. "The sin, old buddy, would be for you to refuse to have another drink with me. Even a blindman could see th — "

"Suggest you get your hand off him," Avery says, and perhaps Penniman’s ears aren’t entirely deaf to nuance, because the hand leaves Henry’s shoulder at once.

Then another hand comes in its place, higher up. It touches the back of Henry’s neck in a cold caress that’s there and then gone. Henry draws in breath. The smell of perfume comes with it. Usually scents fade after a period of exposure, as the receptors that caught them temporarily deaden. Not this time, though. Not this smell.

"No perfume?" Henry almost pleads. The touch of her hand on his neck he can dismiss as a tactile hallucination. But his nose never betrays him.

Never until now, anyway.

"I’m sorry," Avery says. "I can smell beer . . . peanuts . . . this man’s gin and his aftershave . . ."

Henry nods. The lights above the backbar slide across the dark lenses of his shades as he slips gracefully off his stool.

"I think you want another drink, my friend," Penniman says in what he no doubt believes to be a tone of polite menace. "One more drink, just to celebrate, and then I’ll take you home in my Lexus."

Henry smells his wife’s perfume. He’s sure of it. And he seemed to feel the touch of his wife’s hand on the back of his neck. Yet suddenly it’s skinny little Morris Rosen he finds himself thinking about — Morris, who wanted him to listen to "Where Did Our Love Go" as done by Dirtysperm. And of course for Henry to play it in his Wisconsin Rat persona. Morris Rosen, who has more integrity in one of his nail-chewed little fingers than this bozo has got in his entire body.