Well, it was this Candy Caldwell I mentioned, and she sang these little songs that weren’t dirty in exactly what they said but were damn sure dirty in what they meant, especially the way she sang them, and everyone in the place just ate it up, including me. As a matter of fact, I never had a doll get to me the way she did, not even old Marsha, and I sat there and watched her for all the half hour she was on and wished it was longer. When she’d finished and gone, a waitress came up to my table and asked me if I wanted another drink, which I did, and I asked her the name of the doll who sang the songs, and she said, “Why, that’s Candy Caldwell,” and she said it with this snotty look like she thought anyone would have to be pretty damn ignorant not to know who Candy Caldwell was, and I said, “Well, I’d sure like to have her sing some of those songs to me personally,” and she said, “You and a million others, sonny. Give it up. She’s got connections, and she comes high,” and that just showed how damn ignorant this snotty waitress was herself, because she didn’t even know that I was a big basketball star with connections of my own, which was just as bad in its way as not knowing who Candy Caldwell was. Anyhow, I asked her if Candy Caldwell was going to sing any more songs later, and she said yes, a hell of a lot later, about nine o’clock that night as a matter of fact, and I made up my mind right then and there that I’d be back at nine o’clock to see her do it, and I was.
The second time was even better than the first time, and she was dressed in a white dress that came all the way to the floor at the bottom, instead of just below her knees, but came down to about the same place as the black one at the top, which was about as far down as it could go without being nothing but a skirt. She sang for a half hour again, all these little songs that meant more than they really said, and when she quit I decided I might as well take the God-damn bull by the horns and called a waitress over and told her to go tell Candy Caldwell that Skimmer Scaggs would like to meet her, and it cost me a lousy fin to get the waitress to go. I sat there and waited for a while, and pretty soon someone came up to my table, but it wasn’t Candy Caldwell. It was a tall guy with blond hair brushed straight back over his head with the scalp showing through, it was so God-damn thin, and he had a kind of narrow, mean face with a little smile on it that didn’t help much. I thought at first maybe he was going to throw me out on my ass for trying to get to meet Candy Caldwell, but it turned out he was friendly and said, “Are you Skimmer Scaggs, the basketball star?”
I said I was, and he said, “Sure glad to meet you, Scaggs. I’m Hershell Goans. I manage this place,” and I said I was glad to meet him, too, which was just a way of speaking and not particularly true because the only person I really wanted to meet was Candy Caldwell, and he must have read my mind because he said, “I understand you’d like to meet our little singer.”
I said I sure as hell would, and he laughed and said, “Well, a lot of guys would like to do that, and she usually doesn’t give any house to strangers, but I’m pretty sure she’d be willing to make an exception of a famous athlete like you. I’ll tell you what. You just sit here and take it easy, and I’ll go back and see if she won’t come out and have a drink with you.”
He went away to get her, and I sat there waiting, and they didn’t come for so long that I’d just about decided they were only making a God-damn monkey out of me, but then they came, and this guy Goans said, “Skimmer, meet Candy Caldwell. You’re in luck, boy. It just happens Candy’s quite a fan of yours,” and I stood up and said, “No bull?” and she laughed and said, “That’s right, Skimmer. I was just too excited when Hersh told me you were out here and wanted to meet me.”
She sat down, and I did, too, and Hershell Goans called a waitress over and said anything we wanted was on the house, and I couldn’t help wishing it was the snotty bitch who’d waited on me in the afternoon, but it wasn’t. Candy ordered a martini, and I said I’d have the same, and Goans said, “You kids have fun,” and went away, which was the best thing he could have done as far as I was concerned. I tried to think of something fancy to say, but damned if I could think of a thing, and to tell the truth, I was too busy looking things over right at first, anyhow, and it seemed to be all right with her. She was still wearing the white dress she’d worn to sing in, and she sat there smiling a little and fiddling with the stem of her martini glass, and pretty soon she said, “Well, you like it?” and I said, “What?” and she said, “What you’re looking at,” and I said, “What you mean, it? There are two of them,” and as a matter of fact, it just slipped out, and I was afraid at first that I’d fouled the nest, but she thought it was funny and said, “My God, you’re really a fast worker, aren’t you?”
After that I felt as loose as ashes, and I started talking about basketball and asking her questions, because this Hershell Goans who managed the place had said she was a fan and I thought she’d be interested, but the truth is, she didn’t seem to know a damn thing about basketball, and I decided that maybe she wasn’t exactly a fan of the game but was just a fan of mine personally. The way it turned out, though, she wasn’t really any kind of fan at all, and after a while she laughed and said, “Look, honey, don’t get sore about it, but I don’t know a damn thing about basketball and care less and I’ve never seen a game in my life. The way it was, I looked out and saw you sitting here, and I thought you were cute, and all that stuff about being a fan was just an angle. You know how it is.”
I said sure, I knew how it was, and as a matter of fact I wouldn’t have been a fan of the God-damn crazy game myself if I hadn’t got to playing it by accident. She asked me how I got started, and I told her about the time old Bugs bet me his lousy two-bits that I couldn’t hit two out of ten, and how I went on after that and became the best player in the state and got an athletic scholarship to Pipskill, and how I was thinking about going ahead and getting on a pro team after college, because I’d heard that was a good racket, too. She said I must really be good, and I said I sure as hell was, and she said she liked men who were good at things, no matter what they were, and I said she might be surprised how good I was at certain things besides basketball, and she laughed and patted my hand and said, “Jesus Christ, what a busy little man you are. Always in there trying.”
We had a couple more drinks after the first one, and I asked her if she’d like to go somewhere in my Crosley, and she said, “In your what?” and I said, “In my Crosley, God-damn it,” and she said, “You mean one of these little tiny cars?” and I said, “Well, it’s pretty small, all right, but it’s a red one-seater, a kind of sports car, and all sports cars are supposed to be small,” and she said, “Oh, a sports car! I love sports cars. I’ll tell you what. I’ve got to go on for another half hour spot at eleven, but if you’ll hang around until after that, I’ll let you take me home.”