PART ONE
Chapter One
A black model Z3 BMW made its way along Lake Michigan on Chicago’s Outer Drive. Inside, two over-sized young toughs sat crumpling their lanky forms into the bucket seats, staring in stony silence at the gridlock, ignoring the cold winter weather that kept the city dwellers off the pathways along the lake. Moist frost still clung to the back window where the defogger failed to warm the glass. Cursing every stall in the heavy, late Wednesday afternoon traffic from the Field Museum northward, the driver pulled the car west on Congress, and then north again on Michigan Avenue. No one in Rita’s Bar a few blocks away suspected the next few minutes might be their last.
As always, a motley crew of has-beens and wanna-be professionals were crowding around the tables in Rita’s Bar to indulge in a few hours of easy amnesia, forgetting the pain of the daily grind over an average repast, watered down booze and generally good music. Rita carried herself like the once-upon-a-time dancer she was and still wore the flamboyant theatrical clothing and makeup of her abandoned passion to camouflage her true identity. She wore her adopted alias, Rita Dumas, like a badge of protection from her past and the people who knew her only as Ruthann Mahoney.
“I want you to stay to meet the singer I have coming in tonight,” Rita said, as she handed Dan Barton another Irish whiskey with a flourish worthy of a Gilbert and Sullivan character or a vaudeville play. He looked at the intricate designs lacquered onto her artificially long nails. He studied her fiery red-dyed hair and noticed the stars and moons sparkling at the outer corners of her eyes.
Dan spoke with little enthusiasm. “No, I can’t stay. I’ve got to get home to my kids. If I stay here into the night, they’ll worry.”
“Hungry? I’ll get you a sandwich.” Rita smiled. She had her own motives to press him into a stall to keep him there. He was, after all, just a male easily made all the more malleable with food and drink. “Running this club isn’t easy, but sometimes you’ve got to bring things together. Thanks for setting up my computer. If only I knew how to work it.” Rita constructed a triple-decker deluxe club, flipping salad, tomatoes, bacon, and turkey from the storage bin with the accuracy of a sharp shooter and slathering mayonnaise onto the whole-wheat toast.
“Try the tutorial. Then, I’ll show you some computer tricks.”
She placed the plate before him and retrieved a couple of napkins from the other end of the bar. “Mangea!”
He wolfed down the meal in a couple of silent minutes, and lit up a cigarette for dessert. Mellowed by the late-afternoon haze of his chain smoking and the warmth of the whiskey he was drinking too much and too often, Dan sat back in his chair and watched Rita work between the brass trimmed bar and the turn of the century mahogany mirrored back bar, where bottles stood like sentinels watching over the ongoing war of life. He knew she felt a generous streak for the men she liked in her bar. She certainly never poured short. She kept her liquor flowing, especially for the itinerant piano players like him, who played with his soul and in turn kept the barflies happy. That he was down and out, or a computer genius seemed to mean nothing to her. What did matter was his ability to numb the pain of the customers. He figured Rita didn’t mind that there were a few songs he didn’t know. If a particular request was unfamiliar to his fingers, he would play another that could resonate in nearly the same way for the audience. Husky, forty-something with somewhat receding salt and pepper hair, a convincing smile and come-to-me blue eyes, she let on that she liked how Dan’s magnetism spoke to the other women, as much as it spoke to her. He was good for business. His music, slapdash and unbridled though it was, could make hearts momentarily forget their pain, a rare talent that brought in the lingering drinkers. So what if she paid him less from the drawer and poured him a couple of extra drinks? The patrons kept his tip bowl filled to overflowing every Friday night.
The Z3 reached the Art Institute and stalled again in the choking gridlock. The occupants rocked the small car in bursts of explosive irritability, slamming fists against the dash and twisting in their seats to find relief from leg cramps and frustration. Other motorists were taking notice, honking and shouting at the Z3 to get out of the way. This only inflamed the already raging tempers trapped inside the car. The engine roared at the driver’s stomping on the accelerator and jumped forward, only far enough to stop just short of the rear bumper of the SUV that blocked the view down the immovable line of traffic.
“Fair enough.” Rita picked up his plate. “You’ve gotta hear this singer. She needs a piano player for her songs.” Rita poured a third whiskey. “She needs you,” she whispered. Dan headed for the pay phone to call his two sons at the sitter’s.
Five rings … six … seven. “Hi, Angelie? This is Dan. Are Ian and Patrick there?”
“Hi Dan. Yes, they are. Well, no, they’re not. They’re outside playing with the other kids. Is there something you want me to tell them for you?” Angelie played on his guilt with coquettish humor. Used to these last minute calls, Angelie could hear in the tone of his voice that he was going to be late again. Dan worked as a part time computer trainer besides playing piano, doing all he could to earn enough to pay childcare expenses and keep life afloat. He used the fact that she wondered how he managed to keep going, out of regular work as he was, and he played on her sympathies to regularly stay out later than most would consider normal for a single father of two.
“Well, just let them know I’ll be late. Is it all right with you if I wait till after the rush hour to leave the city? You know I hate the traffic.”
“Sure, Dan, I’ll feed them dinner, and if you’re really late, I’ll …” she paused, knowing he actually wanted not to come back till morning, as he so often did. The pattern was set in stone - call, ask to talk with the boys, complain about traffic, see if he can be late, end up coming back in the morning. She simply played by his rules a game of saving face. “Why not just plan to pick them up in the morning? It’ll be easier for both of us that way.”
“Okay. You convinced me. But tell them I love them.” Dan let his breath escape with a silent puff, releasing himself for the moment from his guilt as an absentee father freed to just be a man on his own for a few more hours. Angelie’s cheerful “Sure will. Bye,” simply made Dan feel better. Maybe he’d pay a price in the future, but for the present he suppressed his fear of failure as a father into his deep emotional well of regret.
“She’s something else,” he muttered as he walked to the last booth at the rear of the club to nurse the drink Rita had moved there for him from the bar.
Emily Sanders pulled into the lone parking place in front of the crumbling red brick building and wedged the car between the plowed banks of snow, already gray and dirty like shadows mocking the forgotten pristine white of the previous day’s blizzard. Her breath hung like a cloud as she stepped from the car and locked the frosty door with her key. A locally known singer-songwriter, Emily performed at Rita’s Bar once a week, trying to get her chops up and perfect her sets. She was not the first to move up the line of aspiring performers moving from one dive club to the next in Chicago’s small but loyal cabaret-cum-coffeehouse night life. Rita’s Bar paid next to nothing but provided a steady venue, a sense of security and safety. Emily liked that.
“Shit!” Her feet slid on a patch of ice as she squeezed between the snow bank and the car to get to the trunk. She unloaded her guitar case and tape equipment, slammed the lid, and lugged her dreams through the narrow, two-door vestibule front entrance of the bar. “Where is a helping hand when you need one?” She grunted as she bumped her way through the chairs and tables toward the front window stage. Catching Rita’s eye she smiled the way a person smiles at the hand that feeds and said, “Hi! Gonna have a good crowd for dinner?” Rita nodded as if she had hardly noticed Emily’s arrival.
“I’m staying,” called out Marlin, weaving from his barstool as he waved a bit too broadly and nearly falling onto a nearby table. A regular casualty from overwork at an underpaid laborer’s job, he routinely drowned his sorrows in beer and sad songs before falling asleep at the bar half an hour before his wife would come to take him home. Other regulars were filling the barstools and tables near the stage earlier than usual. Both Emily and Rita mentally tallied the count against the last week’s turnout.
“Great! I’ll sing just for you,” Emily chuckled as she tweaked Marlin’s ear. Quickly setting up her equipment and singing a couple of bars to begin to test the microphone mix, the routine had become nearly automatic over the last couple of months. A plug here, a wire there, and she could play her backup tapes as she played her guitar live to the music she’d written.
“Hey, Emily,” Rita said, holding up a clipping from the paper. “Look! You got a good review!”
“Really,” Emily said, not as a question, but more as the statement of a fact that she hadn’t anticipated.
“Listen to this, and I quote, ‘As a songwriter, Emily Sanders is talented, among the most refined in her craft. Her personal losses appear in her lyrics, pleasing the crowd of mostly women, who love the visceral pain of the lovelorn and wronged women who populate her lyrics. The men mostly just liked to look at her slender body in action while pretending to listen to her melodies.”
“So true, so true,” Marlin warbled to the heavens, clearly eavesdropping on the none too private conversation.
Glaring at him with feigned displeasure, Rita continued her reading. “The sarcastic humor in some of her songs makes everyone laugh. The universal sorrows make all but the hardest hearts cry. If you are looking for musical risk-taking tinged with talent and a bit of passion, Emily Sanders provides what you want Wednesday nights at Rita’s Bar in her not quite country, not quite folk style.’ Not bad for a newcomer,” Rita said through the clatter of chairs being rearranged by incoming clientele.
Emily strained to smile at the good news while struggling to set the microphone stand at the right height and resuming the ritual of setting the sound levels so she could be heard above the traffic outside and the clatter of dishes inside. She began her opening song, listening for the balance of voice to guitar, when the phone rang, briefly interrupting her concentration. She looked toward the intruding buzz with a mocking half-frown and then began to sing again as Rita picked it up, silencing the noise.
The sports car turned west on Wacker.
A man’s voice crackled through the static laden connection. Rita felt her pulse double as she listened. She smiled, acting as if she were still listening to Emily’s song, trying to draw no attention to herself. She reached under the bar to find a vial of small white pills. Tapping four into her palm, she dropped two of the tablets into each of two mugs and poured them full with the aromatic Colombian coffee she characteristically served topped with a dollop of sweet whipped cream and nutmeg.
From the back booth, Dan felt himself floating on Emily’s voice, unmindful of the trembling of Rita’s hand as she brought the coffee mugs to his table. Emily ducked downstairs to the less than hygienic ladies room stall to change into her slinky royal blue sequined dress. Light-years from the dowdy gray and brown woolens she had worn for so many years as a public school teacher, the royal blue sequins were fast becoming her trademark show rags.
Emily stared at her reflection in the mirror. How long will you be dressing and undressing in basement bathrooms, getting ready for the show, paying your dues to buy your chance at discovery? A strong rush of liberation flushed through her as the sparkling sequins showered her with a burst of optimism. She was a new woman, unbound by convention and unrestricted in her possibilities. She had only to choose which dress to wear, which songs to sing, which heart to break. Her renewal as a free spirit promised each night could bring her success. Emily had begun to live her long ignored dreams to the fullest, throwing all conventional caution to the wind and risking her financial security, her personal sanity and the futures of her two young daughters to invent the new person she knew she had to become if she were to survive her demons.
“You’re beautiful. You sing like an angel. You’re still in control. You’re the best you’ve got. Go give it all away to them.” Repeating aloud her private mantra every night allowed her to believe again and again that she could do her set and mean every word, every note, every tear at least one more time. Then, with a last check of her makeup, she headed up the stairs.
Rita’s eyes glanced toward Emily as she reached the top of the stairs. “Dan, I want you to play a few songs at the end of her set. See if you can get her to sing with you,” Rita whispered into his ear and kissing it in a teasing manner. “She’d be good for you – you’d be good for her. Try it for me,” she said.
“You’re kidding, right?” the whiskey slurred his speech. Rita’s raised eyebrow and squinted eyes told him she meant it.
Dan stared at Emily’s sparkling dress the way a child stares a candy offered as a treat. Rita motioned to her to join them in the back booth.
“Emily . . . this is Dan, the piano man. Dan . . . Emily, the singer.”
Emily sat down across from him. Dan’s hand combed through his hair in two quick movements, as he thought about trying to talk with this shimmering person smiling across the table at him.
Rita slipped away leaving them alone. Unnoticed, she took her purse from the desk in the back office, turned off the computer and as silent as a shadow, disappeared out the back door.
The sports car turned north on LaSalle.
An embarrassed silence hung heavy over the booth.
“So, who are you, piano man?” Emily said as she scooped out the whipped cream, licked it from the spoon and blew on the steaming coffee. She took several cautious sips, testing the hot liquid for its intent to burn the tongue.
“Just an out of work corporate vice-president, who lost his fat paycheck and his way up the ladder of success. Just trying to make ends meet in the big city. And, who are you, songbird?” He took a gulp of the coffee forgetting it was hot and sputtered as the liquid burned on the way down. A blob of cream balanced on his mustache. Emily pointed at it.
“Just a once upon a time school teacher turned singer because of some crazy idea she can make it in the music scene. Basically, I’m a dreamer. Are you?”
He wiped the cream away with his hand. “I don’t think so. My life in recent years has left me pretty cynical and judgmental. But, I do have two sons, Patrick and Ian,” he sipped the coffee again, “fifteen and nine . . . from my first marriage . . . they keep me in the game.”
Dan’s inflection left the impression he had more to say. Speaking rapidly, his defenses reduced by the booze and her voice, he let naked honesty get the best of him. “I . . . uh, I can tell you that I’m not quite sure what I’m doing here talking with you. And you?”
Emily’s response came easily, naïvely, as if she had no fear of being misjudged. “Well, as a dreamer, I believed I could be perfect, twice. The first husband fathered my children, but he turned out to be a sneaky, unfaithful guy. My second was a rich son of a bitch, who couldn’t keep his hands in his own financial pockets. When I figured it all out, I got out. For better or for worse, I’m on my own with my two daughters - sixteen and eight. We make for quite a feminist trio on good days.” Emily paused to think. “Are you from around here?”
“No . . .” Dan said. “Chicago is my . . . adopted city. I’m really just a dressed up hillbilly from Tennessee. My mother still lives in the hills with my little sister and her kids. But that’s another subject for another time.”
“You don’t have any southern accent to give you away.” She drank a draught of the rapidly cooling java .
The sports car swung back east on Illinois and then south on Clark.
“No, I really never fit the mold. They even used to say somebody must have left me on the porch in a basket.” He laughed to lighten the mood, but Emily’s quizzical expression made him feel compelled to explain further than her wanted to. “When my Dad left, I was surrounded by females and raised by nothing but women - mostly my grandmother.” He looked down, as if ashamed about his upbringing.
“I’m the youngest of three - the accidental baby,” Emily said to offer him some comfort. She stopped mid-sentence, distracted by a siren passing in the street. “Now, I’m making my own glory,” she said absentmindedly. “I’ve done all right. I come here on Wednesdays just to help Rita out a little. Are you playing now?” She tried to focus on Dan’s face, but instead looked toward the front of the bar.
“Yeah, right here on Fridays,” he said lighting another cigarette. “Rita wanted me to hear you. She thinks we could work up a few songs after your set.”
Dan gulped the rest of his coffee and reached for his whiskey. Emily tried to ignore his smoking, his alcoholic demeanor, and the curious sadness in his eyes. She finished her coffee in a couple of swallows without passing judgment.
The sports car sped up as it reached a break in the traffic at the corner just north of Rita’s Bar.
“Gotta go entertain the paying customers,” Emily whispered as she stood up and turned toward the makeshift stage in the front window. “See you when I’m done?” she glanced back at him and smiled.
“Sure.”
The car smashed through the front window just as the gas tank detonated. The room ignited instantly. White-hot flames incinerated the front half of Rita’s Bar, while black smoke choked life from the air. The front super-structure of the building collapsed in seconds, leaving only the back half gaping at the world.
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