More miles. Texaco road maps, flat tires, bad coffee, farts. But things were looking up, moods improving. They were seeing their country. And they were getting better. Acts began to sharpen during the night-in-night-out lounge march east, Tempe, Tucson, Tombstone. “Any cliff dwellers in the audience tonight? I got a joke for you…” Albuquerque, Carlsbad, Roswell, Lubbock, Abilene, the landscape slowly transforming, cattle ranches and oil derricks replacing the mesas and buttes and UFO people. San Antonio, Austin, Corpus Christi, the Alamo Room, the Lone Star Supper Club, the downtown Galveston Skate-O-Rama, which they would be discussing with their agent.
“Here’s a good one,” said Preston. “This is what got me interested in hypnosis in the first place, and it’s definitely true, completely documented. All the scholars know the details. In the late 1800s, another hypnotist in Europe had regularly been hypnotizing an assistant for stage demonstrations. He usually instructed her mind to leave her body and enter another hypnotized subject, in order to cure ailments. Then she’d leave that person’s body and take the ailment with her.”
“Did it work?”
“The medical part is hocus-pocus, but the power of suggestion is very real. One night, the guy got sloppy or something and instead of telling her mind to leave her body, he told her
“What happened?”
“Heart attack. Died.”
“No!”
“Yes.”
“Bullshit!”
“We only find it amazing because we’re cynical Americans. We’ve never really accepted hypnosis over here,” said Preston. “The French know all about this.”
“The French?”
“If it can be used for sex, the French are all over it. A hundred years ago, stage hypnotists were screwing everything that moved in Paris. It got out of control. Everybody knew what was going on. The subject dominated French publishing. De Maupassant wrote about it. So did Alexandre Dumas, author of
“A hypnotist who exploits his subject?” said Spider. “What a shock.”
Onward, turning north, heavier coats, autumn leaves changing. Knoxville, Lexington, Akron, Wilkes-Barre, Schenectady. The regional accents and politics morphing, but not the clubs, which even had the same names, repeating over and over in a neon Möbius strip: the Flamingo, the Satin Club, the Stardust Room, the Horseshoe Lounge, Fast Eddie’s, the Sands, the Surf, the Algiers, the Copa, the Aladdin, the Riviera, the Flamingo…These were the good times, barnstorming Vegas Nation, laughter again filling their lives, even if it was at someone’s expense from another hypnosis prank. None of them would admit it, but they genuinely began enjoying hanging out together, encouraging each other, going to movies at old Main Street theaters. They went to see
With such a heavy schedule, it was bound to happen. Casualties. In Poughkeepsie, they lost Saul Horowitz and his vaudeville tribute to varicose veins, replacing him with Dee Dee Lowenstein “as Carmen Miranda.” Then, in the Tango Room in Scranton, Bad Company was served a footlocker of lawsuits for trademark infringement.
But they were professionals now, no looking back, pressing forward, toward the final prize. The odometer turned over. Spider dialed their agent in New York. “When do we get the replacement musical act for Bad Company?…But they were our anchor on the marquee…. You said to be patient last time….”
The DeVille pulled into their Thursday-night engagement.
Dee Dee Lowenstein finished her Carmen Miranda set. She returned to the corner booth in the restaurant and set her fruit hat on the table.
Spider lit her cigarette. “How’d it go?”
She exhaled. “Fuckin’ morgue.”
Frankie reached for her hat. “Can I have a banana?”
“No, you can’t have a banana! What are you, fuckin’ simple?”
“But you got a whole bunch.”
She pointed at his hand. “Move it or lose it!”
A stranger approached the table wearing a tuxedo and carrying a small musical case. He took a piece of paper from his pocket and read something.
“Can we help you?” asked Andy.
“I’m supposed to meet some people. I’m not sure I have the right place.” He reread the piece of paper.
Andy reached. “Let me see that.”
Spider finished his juggling set and came back to the table.
“How’d it go?”
“Fuckin’ granite. Gimme a cigarette.”
Andy handed the paper back to the new guy. “Yep, you’re in the right place. What’s your name?”
“Bob. Bob Kowolski.”
Andy motioned back and forth. “Bob — the gang…. The gang — Bob.”
“What’s your act, Bob?”
Bob told them.
Frankie lit a cigarette. “Better than nothing.”
