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maybe,” he was really getting into it, “we can call the Showroom the Crawdaddy and make it like a night in swinging London in the ’60s. Get a Stones band, somebody doing the Yardbirds, the Animals, Cream — the whole blues thing. The boomers’ll love it. Dress up the staff in minis and leather jackets.”
    Okay, Angie had to admit it wasn’t the dumbest idea she’d ever heard, just the wrong decade, so she said, “Might get more interest with ’80s nostalgia these days,” and then she was worried Frank would be pissed off, thinking she was trying to make him feel old but he just said, “Yeah, ’80 s, but good ’80s.”
    Angie said, “The waitresses with big hair and shoulder pads, the waiters in pastel jacket with the sleeves pushed up, no socks?”
    Frank said, you’re making fun, and Angie said no. He said, “Yeah, but the ’80s had some style. Yeah, there must be a Springsteen impersonator, doing all that ‘Born in the USA,’ none of that ‘Tom Joad’ depressing shit. U2, somebody’s got to be doing that prick Bono, or Phil Collins.”
    Angie said, “Madonna, Tina Turner, Cyndi Lauper.”
    â€œYou see,” Frank said, “lots of cool shit in the ’80s. Just no hair metal, shit. Maybe the Police. Be funny if the imitator had the same ego as Sting, eh?”
    Angie couldn’t help but smile, say yeah, and wait for Frank to smile, too. He could still have some fun with the Showroom, still pretend to like music, standing there looking out the window at the boring trees and lake and sky.
    Then he stopped smiling, looked at Angie, and said, “Okay, that it?”
    She said yeah, and got up to leave, but Frank called her back, held up a hand for her to wait, turned around, and said something on the phone, like he was reassuring this Danny Mac-something, then he turned around and said, “You’re going to have to meet Felix.”
    She said, I am? And Frank said, yeah, “He’ll be here about nine. I have to go into town.”
    She couldn’t even tell if he was still on the phone, this stupid headset thing, but he was waving her to go and she was getting a bad feeling. Shit, Frank pawning off Felix Alfano and the Philly Mob to go into Toronto and meet some guy named Danny Mac.
    Out of the office she was thinking it was too bad Frank was giving up on showbiz, he was actually pretty good at it. But here he was, walking around like somebody out of a Scorsese movie, blowing off a big-time Philly mobster to meet with Danny Mac. She just knew when Frank’s true nature got the better of him and he started ripping these guys off they wouldn’t sulk and pout the way the High did, fight with each other and break up.
    Then what she was wondering was if it made her a stone cold bitch that all she thought was if she’d take over as Entertainment Director with a line on being Casino Director.
    Well, hell, she was starting to feel like she really did want to see Ritchie. He could always make her feel better, for a little while anyway.
    â€¢ • •
    Looking at the porno on the flat screen in the living room of the townhouse Frank said, “I remember when chicks had a full bush,” and Burroughs, cell against his ear, said, “Everything else down there is the same.”
    Frank said, “We used to say, ‘By a cunt hair,’ remember? Something was really close, but we’d make it by a cunt hair. What’re these kids gonna say now when they’ve never seen a cunt hair?”
    Burroughs was listening to the phone, smiling and nodding, a good story.
    Frank said, “You remember when guys said the Chinese chicks had sideways twats,” and Burroughs said, “Fuck, man, how old are you?”
    Julie Qin came down the stairs saying, “Our vags have magic power, too. You heard that?”
    Frank said, yeah, I hear that, and all the weird Oriental Kama