Songs in the Key of Death by William Bankier Page A

brother Alvin. He had always suspected there was a trace of Indian in the Hopkins genetic pool. Now those Iroquois eyes watched him from beyond the front desk. Did Alvin know? How could he know? Should Dolan give him a smile?
    “I’m on my way,” Carmen said, leaving her desk at the back of the room, passing Dolan’s chair, letting her fingers brush the back of his neck. “Any problems with continuity, talk to my lawyer.” That was a laugh. In six months, she had mastered the job better than anybody the radio station had ever employed. She was good. Too good for such routine work, Dolan kept telling her. “You take it easy now, young lady,” he said in an avuncular tone. It was the voice he had used when he was catching for the Redmen and a young pitcher needed reassurance out there on the mound.
    “I always try,” she said, riveting him with her mischievous stare, “though I don’t always succeed.” She swaggered away to join her brother. Dolan feasted his eyes on her. She still carried some babyfat he had discovered. Heart-shaped face, lips a bit on the heavy side but perfectly shaped, cheeks forever blushing. Her hair was glossy toffee, tied in twin braids with green ribbons. She had skin that drove Dolan mad, arms, legs, shoulders—she was packaged in this slightly textured, almost café-au-lait material and keeping his hands off it was for the over-the-hill but lately reborn athlete a severe exercise in self-discipline.
    “Let’s go, Carmen,” Alvin said as he opened the door, towering over her, pretending to be out of patience with her instead of her slave, as even Dolan with his deteriorating vision could see. “I want to pick up some beer before the store closes.”
    “If you’re getting drunk tonight,” she said, “I’m going out.”
    Dolan got the message and the typewriter keys jammed. His heart was still pounding like a teenager’s when he went on the air ten minutes later. “Good evening, sports fans. First place changed hands last night in the Baytown Fastball League as—”
    After he signed off, Dolan drove home and showered and washed what was left of his hair. He was still using Anna’s shampoo. A few drops was all he needed, so three months after his wife’s departure for Centralia the big plastic bottle was holding out. The smell still reminded him of her. So did the bath itself, oddly and sadly. In early years, when David was still a baby, they sometimes performed what seemed in those days an adventurous act—they got into the shower together. Soaping each other, they laughed a lot and he called her his seal. Now—it seemed no more than a few weeks later—David was in charge of the science department at Centralia Polytechnic while his mother had opened a shop in the same city selling coordinated paints and wallpapers. And Dad was making it on his own.
    Dolan rubbed himself dry with a rough towel. He faced the mirror at an angle that showed the least paunch, the fewest veins. Carmen seemed to like him. Mind you, it was always lights off and after a couple of drinks. He got dressed in the coordinated green-and-grey outfit, a modified track suit. The store manager had said he looked twenty years younger. Anna would laugh. She had forever been after Dolan to smarten himself up, buy new clothes. All she had to do to get her wish was leave him.
    She hasn’t really left me, Dolan said to himself as he pock-eted money and keys and went outside into a balmy summer night. After twenty-six years together, we’re trying it apart. A little freedom, room to move.
    He knew he’d find Carmen in the back lounge of the Coronet Hotel. It was her idea to conduct their meetings in the public eye. “If we sneak around and drive out to The Cedars like you’re suggesting, somebody is bound to see us and say those two are up to something. But here in the heart of town, how bad can it be? We’re fellow employees having a drink together.”
    “My problem will be keeping my hands off you,” he