"I am. That is I--well, I am. I----"
At that the dark young man leaned over and patted Terry"s hand that lay on the counter. He smiled. His own hand was incredibly slender, long, and tapering.
"That"s all right," he a.s.sured her, and smiled. "You two girls can have a reunion later. What I want to know is can you play by ear?"
"Yes, but----"
He leaned far over the counter. "I knew it the minute I heard you play. You"ve got the touch. Now listen. See if you can get this, and fake the ba.s.s."
He fixed his somber and hypnotic eyes on Terry. His mouth screwed up into a whistle. The tune--a tawdry but haunting little melody--came through his lips. Terry turned back to the piano. "Of course you know you flatted every note," she said.
This time it was the blonde who laughed, and the man who flushed. Terry c.o.c.ked her head just a little to one side, like a knowing bird, looked up into s.p.a.ce beyond the piano top, and played the lilting little melody with charm and fidelity. The dark young man followed her with a wagging of the head and little jerks of both outspread hands. His expression was beatific, enraptured. He hummed a little under his breath and anyone who was music-wise would have known that he was just a half beat behind her all the way.
When she had finished he sighed deeply, ecstatically. He bent his lean frame over the counter and, despite his swart coloring, seemed to glitter upon her--his eyes, his teeth, his very fingernails.
"Something led me here. I never come up on Tuesdays. But something----"
"You was going to complain," put in his lady, heavily, "about that Teddy Sykes at the Palace Gardens singing the same songs this week that you been boosting at the Inn."
He put up a vibrant, peremptory hand. "Bah! What does that matter now! What does anything matter now! Listen Miss--ah--Miss----?"
"Pl--Sheehan. Terry Sheehan."
He gazed off a moment into s.p.a.ce. "Hm. "Leon Sammett in Songs. Miss Terry Sheehan at the Piano." That doesn"t sound bad. Now listen, Miss Sheehan. I"m singing down at the University Inn. The Gottschalk song hits. I guess you know my work. But I want to talk to you, private.
It"s something to your interest. I go on down at the Inn at six. Will you come and have a little something with Ruby and me? Now?"
"Now?" faltered Terry, somewhat helplessly. Things seemed to be moving rather swiftly for her, accustomed as she was to the peaceful routine of the past four years.
"Get your hat. It"s your life chance. Wait till you see your name in two-foot electrics over the front of every big-time house in the country. You"ve got music in you. Tie to me and you"re made." He turned to the woman beside him. "Isn"t that so, Rube?"
"Sure. Look at ME!" One would not have thought there could be so much subtle vindictiveness in a fat blonde.
Sammett whipped out a watch. "Just three quarters of an hour. Come on, girlie."
His conversation had been conducted in an urgent undertone, with side glances at the fat man with the megaphone. Terry approached him now.
"I"m leaving now," she said.
"Oh, no, you"re not. Six o"clock is your quitting time."
In which he touched the Irish in Terry. "Any time I quit is my quitting time. She went in quest of hat and coat much as the girl had done whose place she had taken early in the day. The fat man followed her, protesting. Terry, putting on her hat, tried to ignore him. But he laid one plump hand on her arm and kept it there, though she tried to shake him off.
"Now, listen to me. That boy wouldn"t mind grinding his heel on your face if he thought it would bring him up a step. I know"m. See that walking stick he"s carrying? Well, compared to the yellow stripe that"s in him, that cane is a Lead pencil. He"s a song tout, that"s all he is." Then, more feverishly, as Terry tried to pull away: "Wait a minute. You"re a decent girl. I want to--Why, he can"t even sing a note without you give it to him first. He can put a song over, yes.
But how? By flashing that toothy grin of his and talking every word of it. Don"t you----"
But Terry freed herself with a final jerk and whipped around the counter. The two, who had been talking together in an undertone, turned to welcome her. "We"ve got a half-hour. Come on. It"s just over to Clark and up a block or so."
The University Inn, that gloriously intercollegiate inst.i.tution which welcomes any graduate of any school of experience, was situated in the bas.e.m.e.nt, down a flight of stairs. Into the unwonted quiet that reigns during the hour of low potentiality, between five and six, the three went, and seated themselves at a table in an obscure corner. A waiter brought them things in little gla.s.ses, though no order had been given.
The woman who had been Ruby Watson was so silent as to be almost wordless. But the man talked rapidly. He talked well, too. The same quality that enabled him, voiceless though he was, to boost a song to success was making his plea sound plausible in Terry"s ears now.
"I"ve got to go and make up in a few minutes. So get this. I"m not going to stick down in this bas.e.m.e.nt eating house forever. I"ve got too much talent. If I only had a voice--I mean a singing voice. But I haven"t. But then, neither had Georgie Cohan, and I can"t see that it wrecked his life any. Now listen. I"ve got a song. It"s my own. That bit you played for me up at Gottschalk"s is part of the chorus. But it"s the words that"ll go big. They"re great. It"s an aviation song, see? Airplane stuff. They"re yelling that it"s the airyoplanes that"re going to win this war. Well, I"ll help "em. This song is going to put the aviator where he belongs. It"s going to be the big song of the war. It"s going to make "Tipperary" sound like a Moody and Sankey hymn. It"s the----"
Ruby lifted her heavy-lidded eyes and sent him a meaning look. "Get down to business, Leon. I"ll tell her how good you are while you"re making up."
He shot her a malignant glance, but took her advice. "Now what I"ve been looking for for years is somebody who has got the music knack to give me the accompaniment just a quarter of a jump ahead of my voice, see? I can follow like a lamb, but I"ve got to have that feeler first.
It"s more than a knack. It"s a gift. And you"ve got it. I know it when I see it. I want to get away from this night-club thing. There"s nothing in it for a man of my talent. I"m gunning for bigger game.
But they won"t sign me without a tryout. And when they hear my voice they---- Well, if me and you work together we can fool "em. The song"s great. And my make-up"s one of these aviation costumes to go with the song, see? Pants tight in the knee and baggy on the hips. And a coat with one of those full-skirt whaddyoucall-"ems----"
"Peplums," put in Ruby, placidly.
"Sure. And the girls"ll be wild about it. And the words!" He began to sing, gratingly off key:
Put on your sky clothes, Put on your fly clothes, And take a trip with me.
We"ll sail so high Up in the sky We"ll drop a bomb from Mercury.
"Why, that"s awfully cute!" exclaimed Terry. Until now her opinion of Mr. Sammett"s talents had not been on a level with his.
"Yeah, but wait till you hear the second verse. That"s only part of the chorus. You see, he"s supposed to be talking to a French girl. He says:
"I"ll parlez-vous in Francais plain You"ll answer, "Cher Americain,"
We"ll both ...""
The six-o"clock lights blazed up suddenly. A sad-looking group of men trailed in and made for a corner where certain bulky, shapeless bundles were soon revealed as those glittering and tortuous instruments which go to make a jazz band.
"You better go, Lee. The crowd comes in awful early now, with all these buyers in town."
Both hands on the table, he half rose, reluctantly, still talking.
"I"ve got three other songs. They make Gottschalk"s stuff look sick.
All I want"s a chance. What I want you to do is accompaniment. On the stage, see? Grand piano. And a swell set. I haven"t quite made up my mind to it. But a kind of an army camp room, see? And maybe you dressed as Liberty. Anyway, it"ll be new, and a knockout. If only we can get away with the voice thing. Say, if Eddie Foy, all those years never had a----"
The band opened with a terrifying clash of cymbal and thump of drum.
"Back at the end of my first turn," he said as he Red. Terry followed his lithe, electric figure. She turned to meet the heavy-lidded gaze of the woman seated opposite. She relaxed, then, and sat back with a little sigh. "Well! If he talks that way to the managers I don"t see----"
Ruby laughed a mirthless little laugh. "Talk doesn"t get it over with the managers, honey. You"ve got to deliver."
"Well, but he"s--that song is a good one. I don"t say it"s as good as he thinks it is, but it"s good."
"Yes," admitted the woman, grudgingly, "it"s good."
"Well, then?"
The woman beckoned a waiter; he nodded and vanished, and reappeared with a gla.s.s that was twin to the one she had just emptied. "Does he look like he knew French? Or could make a rhyme?"
"But didn"t he? Doesn"t he?"
"The words were written by a little French girl who used to skate down here last winter, when the craze was on. She was stuck on a Chicago kid who went over to fly for the French."