She pulls me backstage, holding my hand, kneading my fingers gently. “Keep them closed,” she tells me as she takes me into her dressing room. She turns me toward a wall and I hear her fidgeting around as she changes clothes. I smoke a cig, wondering what she looks like getting into her clothes—I want to see that more than I want to see her taking them off. I smoke another cig. It’s taking a real long time, but I didn’t expect anything different from Connie. “All right,” she says. “You can open your eyes now.” She presents herself to me, raising her arms. She’s changed into a tiny red minidress that comes down over her shoulders, and carries a handbag that matches the red perfectly. She’s got a rhinestone choker on, and her lipstick’s a darker shade than before. Her long earrings match her necklace. Her black hair’s pulled up in a bun, just a few strands dancing around the curves of her neck and shoulders. She looks beautiful. “We’ll go out the back. Do you have a car?”

“Afraid not,” I tell her.

She smiles at me. “All right then, we’ll walk. It’s a nice night out. I think the only place left is the Darkside.”

I shrug. “Sounds about right.”

“You think about me while I was gone, baby?”

“All the time, Jake.”

“Then how come you didn’t come visit me?”

“Jake, don’t start. You know the answer to that.”

“Yeah, I do. It was Jimmy?”

“Mmmm-hmmmmmm.”

“Things going okay for you? You making money?”

“I get by.”

The waitress comes with our drinks. Whiskey sour for me, Brandy Alexander for Connie. I tip the waitress five bucks and ask her to bring us an ashtray. Connie lights a thin, exotic cigarette and sips her Brandy Alexander, leaving an inviting lipstick kiss around the tip of the straw. I take a drink, hear the ice cubes clattering.

“How’s your drink?”

“Fine, Jake. I like them here. Nice and weak. I can’t be too careful.” She laughed.

“You got a man?”

“I got someone I see.”

“Cop?”

“Night shift at the airport. Graveyard.”

“Union man.”

“Yeah, sort of.”

“Look, baby, I can’t get you out of my head. I want you so bad, but you know I’m hot right now.”

“I know that, Jake. Word on the street is they’re digging up Frank’s body. Word is you did him.”

I stand up. “Who the fuck told you that?”

“Don’t pull that shit, Jake. I’m just telling you what you already know. I figure you did him because of what he did to me. I always wondered who had gotten him. I figured it was you. Now I know.”