sounded in the booth; she would have been alerted to the incoming call
solely by a flashing blue light on the wall that she faced when at her
microphone. She answered it by pushing a hold button, and while I
waited, I could hear her program over the phone line.
Orson began to sniff out squirrels again.
Shapes of fog drifted like lost spirits among the gravestones.
I listened to Sasha run a pair of twenty-second “doughnut” spots-which
are not ads for doughnuts but commercials with recorded beginnings and
endings that leave a hole for live material in the center. She
followed these with some way smooth historical patter about Elton John,
and then brought up “Japanese Hands” with a silky six-bar talk-over.
Evidently the Chris Isaak festival had ended.
Taking me off hold, she said , I’m doing back -to-back tracks, so
You’ve got just over five minutes, baby.”
“How’d You know it was me?” my a handful of people have this number,
and most of them are asleep at this hour. Besides, when it comes to
You, I’ve got great intuition. The moment I saw the phone light flash,
my nether parts started to tingle.”
Your nether parts?”
“My female nether parts. Can’t wait to see You, Snowman.”
“Seeing would be a good start. Listen, who else is working tonight? ”
“Doogie Sassman.” He was her production engineer, operating the
board.
“Just the two of You there alone?” I worried.
“You’re jealous all of a sudden? How sweet. But You don’t have to
worry. I don’t measure up to Doogie’s standards.”
When Doogie wasn’t parked in a command chair at an audio control panel,
he spent most of his time with his massive legs wrapped around a
Harley-Davidson. He was five feet eleven and weighed three hundred
pounds. His wealth of untamed blond hair and his naturally wavy beard
were so lush and silky that You had to resist the urge to pet him, and
the colorful mural that covered virtually every inch of his arms and
torso had put some tattooist’s child through college. Yet Sasha wasn’t
entirely joking when she said that she didn’t measure up to Doogie’s
standards. With the opposite sex, he had more bearish charm than Pooh
to the tenth power. Since I’d met him six years ago, each of the four
women with whom he’d enjoyed a relationship had been stunning enough to
attend the Academy Awards in blue jeans and a flannel shirt, sans
makeup, and outshine every dazzling starlet at the ceremony.
Bobby says that Doogie Sassman (pick one) has sold his soul to the
devil, is the secret master of the universe, has the most astonishingly
proportioned genitalia in the history of the planet, or produces sexual
pheromones that are more powerful than Earth’s gravity.
I was glad Doogie was working the night, because I had no doubt that he
was a lot tougher than any of the other engineers at KBAY.
“But I thought there’d be someone besides the two of You,” I said.
Sasha knew I wasn’t jealous of Doogie, and now she heard the concern in
my voice. “You know how things have tightened up here since Fort
Wyvern closed and we lost the military audience at night. We’re barely
making money on this airshift even with a skeleton staff. What’s
wrong, Chris?”
“You keep the station doors locked, don’t You?”
“Yeah. All us late-night jocks and jockettes are required to watch
Play Misty for Me and take it to heart.”
“Even though it’ll be after dawn when You leave, promise me You’ll have
Doogie or someone from the morning shift walk You out to your
Explorer.”
“What’s on the loose-Dracula?”
“Promise me.”
“Chris, what the hell-” “I’ll tell You later. Just promise me,” I
insisted.
She sighed. “All right. But are You in some kind of trouble? Are
“I’m all right, Sasha. Really. Don’t worry. Just, damn it, promise
me.”
“I did promise-” “You didn’t use the word.”
“Jesus. Okay, okay. I promise. Cross my heart and hope to die.
But now I’m expecting a great story later, at least as spooky as the
ones I used to hear around Girl Scout campfires. You’ll be waiting for