Inside the tower, a lone guard doubled as ticket vendor. He requested twenty-five cents, “not for the view, for the elevator.” He also served as the elevator’s operator. We didn’t talk on the way up because the bells grew ever more deafening as we ascended. Reaching the elevator’s only stop, he pointed me to stairs leading to the observation platform. I took the steps two at a time until I realized there were five flights’ worth of them. Short of breath, I arrived at the observation platform and saw an open door leading to a small mahogany-paneled cabin. The sun slashed bright bands across its walls.

Inside the small room, a woman with her back to me was assaulting a bizarre keyboard. The closest thing I could liken it to were the rows of billy clubs found in Spanish galleons, their handles protruding.

Between the din of the bells above us and the grunting and heavy breathing of her exertions, the young woman didn’t hear my footsteps. Her wild thick hair (certainly now I knew it was Gail) flew about as she gasped little phrases of the song: “Oh, that St. Louis woman . . . with her diamond rings . . . she pulls my man around . . . by her apron strings!”

I could see she was wearing dark, thick gloves that made her look like a falconer, and she slapped the carillon’s leather-padded handles a beat ahead of the tune because of the inherent delay in the cable-and-pulley system at which she was thrashing away.

She brought the song to a finish, slamming a last peg on her left, which caused the deepest bell to sound, and raised a gloved fist. “Try and make vinegar out of them grapes,” she said aloud, pleased with her performance.

“Gail?”

She spun around. “Ray! Boy, I thought maybe the police sent you up the river.” She was wearing denim overalls, the legs rolled up above her ankles, and a flannel work shirt unbuttoned devil-may-care at the neck. Her brow was dappled with droplets of sweat, making her face sweetly glossy in the sunlight. “Hey, can I gut-bucket them spots?”

“A clambake,” I verified.

“Not too lollypop?” she asked, a might concerned.

“It was solid dillinger.”

She took off her gloves. “Okay, well I guess that’s quite enough of that kind of talk, don’t you think?”

“Thank merciful heaven,” I sighed, much relieved.

Producing a red bandanna from her front overalls pocket, she began to mop her brow with it. She asked, “Do jazz musicians really talk like that?”

“Sure they do. Don’t you go to the movies?”

She collected her various music folios and wrapped a book strap around them. “I didn’t know if you could hear me when I was calling out to you. I’m sorry I didn’t wait around, but I had to clean myself up after that accident. I had some blood and . . . stuff on me—you know what I mean, right?”