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cocktail Cole Porter from five to eight, getting the secretaries and the executives in the mood. Then she’d cover the piano keys and take her sheet music upstairs to the apartment over the Lounge.
    Also at eight the two white bartenders, who had come on at noon, went off, and two black bartenders took over. By nine, the executives and the secretaries were out of there. By ten, the clientele was solid black and the cute redheaded piano player came down without her sheet music and played soul on and off until two A.M .
    When Frank and Stick got there a little before seven, it was cocktail time and the secretaries were sitting around in the moody dimness with bosses or salesmen or waiting for live ones to come in. Walking in, Frank liked the place right away. He said, “Hey, yeah.” A few of the girls looked up and gave them a quick reading, without showing any interest. Nothing. A guy who slept in his clothes and a garage mechanic off duty—probably what they thought. It bothered Frank. He felt seedy and needed a shave and imagined he had rotten breath. He wanted to go home and change, come back later. He wasn’t disappointed at all when the bartender told them Sportree wouldn’t be in till around ten.
    They drove out to Stick’s motel, the Zanzibar, picked up the ten cocktail napkins, the can of Busch Bavarian left over, and Stick’s suitcase that looked like it had been through a lot of Greyhound bus stations and held nearly everything he owned. After that they went to Frank’s apartment on Thirteen Mile in Royal Oak.
    Frank told Stick to unpack and make himself comfortable while he took a shower. Stick looked around; it was a small place, one bedroom, not much. He didn’t unpack but took a pale-green sport coat out of the suitcase and draped it over the back of a chair. He wondered if Frank had an iron. Probably not, the place was pretty bare, a few magazines lying around and ashtrays that hadn’t been emptied. The place didn’t look lived in; it looked like a waiting room in a hospital.
    Frank put on a clean shirt, a dark-blue shiny suit, and asked Stick if he was going to change.
    â€œI already did,” Stick said, “this morning.” He had on a faded blue work shirt.
    Frank looked at the sport coat on the chair. “I guess you couldn’t wear it anyway till you had it cleaned.”
    â€œI haven’t worn it in a month,” Stick said. “What do I need to get it cleaned for?”
    â€œI mean pressed,” Frank said. “Let’s get out of here.”
    They stopped for something to eat and got back to Sportree’s a little after ten.
    As soon as they were inside the door, Stick said, “What’s going on?” He kept his voice low. “What the fuck is going on ?”
    He followed Frank over to an open space at the bar, seeing the young black guys with their hats and hairdos turning to look at them.
    Frank said to the bartender, “Bourbon and a Scotch, please. Splash of water.”
    He looked over his shoulder at the tables. There wasn’t another white person in the place. The light was off where the redheaded black girl had been playing the piano. The heavy chugging beat of West Indian reggae was coming from a hi-fi. The place seemed darker.
    Frank waited for the bartender to put their drinks down. He said, “Where’s Sportree? Tell him Frank Ryan. He knows me.”
    The bartender looked at him, didn’t say a word, and moved away.
    Stick said, “What’s going on ?”
    â€œI got an idea,” Frank said. “I don’t know, but I got an idea.”
    When Sportree approached a few minutes later, Frank saw him coming in the mirror behind the bar. He looked over his shoulder at Sportree, at his open body shirt and double string of Ashanti trading beads, and said, “Where you going, to a drag party?”
    Frank could feel the people near them watching, and felt good seeing the warm,