He widens his angle, takes in the full body, wonders if there’s any significance to the fact that she’s in his barber chair, tilted back, almost the same angle he falls into when listening to her show. He likes the way she’s dressed, the short black suede skirt and the white silk blouse. It’s a style he’s pictured, sensual and hip and completely fitting.
“Some nights,” he says, “you just can’t get on track.”
She reaches over, pats the seat of an empty chair next to her. The pilgrim’s chair. He hesitates, then climbs in, lets his hand fall down to touch the tilt lever, but refrains from pulling, stays upright.
“So,” she says, “know where I can get a secure annuity? Maybe some exceptional life with a reducing premium? I’m a nonsmoker.”
It works. He’s caught off guard and he lets his face show it. He recovers with a forced laugh and says, “I’m at a disadvantage here—”
She cuts him off. “C’mon, G.T. I thought we’d save some time by not lying to each other. This place closes in less than an hour.”
He shrugs. “Yeah, well, the inner core can stay as long as they want.”
“The inner core? Is that what you are?”
“One of many. Can I ask how you know me?”
“I don’t want to get too specific. I’ve got a lot of fans, you know? Lot of teenage boys, little hackers, up all night in their bedrooms, just my voice and the light from their P.C.’s. It’s weird. It gets so there’s this language, this verbal shorthand between you and your hard-core listeners. You just refer to something, ask a question, and bang — they’re calling the station with more than you want to know.”
“You asked about me? On the air? I’m a pretty constant listener, you know—”
“Oh, I can imagine.”
“And I never heard any mention—”
“I’ve got an inner core, too. Lots of ways to communicate in this town.”
“You know, Ronnie, you wanted to buy life insurance, all you had to do was look in the yellow pages.”
“And if I want to find out who’s been knocking my station off the air? What directory do I look in then?”
He flinches, genuinely surprised by the comment. “That’s how I came up? You think I’ve been jamming QSG? Some kid gave you my name as the jammer?”
“So, this would be a denial?”
“Who told you this? Who gave you my name?”
“Oh, c’mon, please, Mr. Flynn—”
He lets his head fall back in the chair till he’s looking at the tin-plated ceiling. He lets out a low whistle, shakes his head slightly.
“I’ve wanted to meet you for a year now. You know that?”
“Yeah, you fit the fan demographics.”
“I’m not a fan—”
“You say it like it’s an insult …”
“There’s a certain mentality—”
“As opposed to jammers?”
“Mizz, I don’t know what you’re referring to. I don’t know the meaning of that word.”
“You come here for the ambience? You’re into nuclear deco?”
“I’m just another blues fan.”
“Oh, a music lover—”
“Exactly.”
“But my show’s all-talk.”
“I make exceptions. And you’ve sort of got a bluesy style.”
“You know, Flynn, I’m not a radio cop or something. I just wanted to ask why, see if we could work out an arrangement.”
“An arrangement?”
“I’m not here to nail you or something. You know that, right?”
“I’m not the guy. I’m not the person you’re interested in.”
“Would there be any chance you’d know who I should talk to?”
He stares at her for a while until she breaks a nervous smile, then he gets out of the chair, takes a step away, and says, “This figures.”
She leans forward, reaches out, and takes his coat sleeve.
“You’re leaving?”
He stops, bounces slightly on the balls of his feet, steps back in toward her.
“I wait a year, keep myself from finding out about you. Concentrate on the voice—”
“You and fifty thousand others. According to last week’s book, anyway.”
“—keep you in the dream. But it won’t work. My luck. The dream has to mug me. From behind. In my own bar.” He takes a breath, lowers his voice, but retains the testiness. “I didn’t knock out your pathetic station. And I don’t know who did. And if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you. End of story.”
“Honor among thieves. How trite.”
“Who’s a thief?” Flynn asks. “What was stolen?”
“Airtime.”
“How do you own airtime?”
“What do you mean, how do you own it? You purchase it. You buy a license. You sign a contract. Hey, Mr. Life Insurance, you familiar with these terms?”
“See, you can’t trust the voice. It never works. I took you to be smarter than this.”
“Moving right along. Is this the part where we start to insult each other? Tell me when to throw my drink.”
“Okay, fine. What can I say? I’m not your man. You got bad information. Hazard of our age.”
“I’m just curious, you know,” Ronnie says. “I mean, what’s the big attraction? Why would someone want to waste their time jamming radio stations?”
Flynn shrugs and shakes his head. “I can only speculate.”
“Please do.”
“My guess is there’s probably a lot of different motivations. Some of them probably feel powerless and frustrated and somehow they stumbled on this little hobby to compensate. You know, hit the big boys. Others are probably just old-time practical jokers. And then I’d guess there are the egos, right? They do it ’cause they can. ’Cause it’s complicated and technical, and they know how. I don’t know.”
She nods, lifts her drink to mock-toast him, gulps down the rest of the mescal, hands him the empty glass.
“Last question. I’ll frame it hypothetically since you’re not familiar with the people involved. If you were a jammer, why would you spare my show? What’s so special about Libido Liveline?”
“You’ve got an army of horny adolescents at your heels and you’re asking me that question?”
“I need a more worldly opinion, someone closer to my own perceptions. A peer.”
“You’re making a lot of assumptions there—”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just answer the question. Take a stab.”
Flynn shrugs. “For Christ sake, you heard the guy yourself. I’d take what he said at face value. He finds everything else on your station babble. That means he must find some value to your show.”
“I guess,” Ronnie says, “that’s what I’m looking for. How he defines that value.”
“You’d have to find the guy and ask him. And I can’t help you in that department, whether you believe me or not.”
Ronnie lifts her arms up over her head in a slow stretch. Flynn wishes he had a drink, then wishes that he’d never left the house tonight, that he’d told Wallace and Hazel to settle their own differences.
Her hands come down, run through her hair. She gives a smile and says, “Forget it,” and then adds, “Want to go for a ride?”
They end up at the airport, the old one, abandoned but undemolished for a decade now. They sit in Ronnie’s Jeep, passing her flask of mescal back and forth like a slow-motion Ping-Pong game. As they talk, they stare out at the ghosttown terminal, every window shattered, all doors missing. The landing strips are a gritty museum of frost heaves and potholes, brown weed shooting up through every cracked parcel of cement. In the deserted section of parking lot where they drink, dozens of giant spikish halogen lamps have all been dented in near the base, like someone with a drivable wreck and a lot of undirected hostility has rammed them at cruising speed, caused them to bend over as if eternally racked by shooting ulcer pain.