About a half-hour before dusk, Ronnie Ivory set up his electric piano.
Sleptwit didn’t expect to see Ronnie at all, because there were heat advisories all over the news.
But Ronnie put the keys on the collapsible stand, aimed his little amplifier toward the exit doors of the Hazel Creek Foodstar, set his plastic tip jar with a seed dollar in it on two stacked milk crates Ronnie must have borrowed from the same damn Foodstar years ago.
Sleptwit leaned out of the valet booth at Nuphysique Fitness.
Foodstar was slow as hell, parking lot three quarters empty and most of the cars that were there were employees.
Sleptwit was never busy. His cousin’s gym did okay, but it was always meant to be a money rinser for Dante’s dope operation.
A valet parking attendant was more of a conceit than a necessity, but Sleptwit didn’t mind. His cousin paid him a good hourly, he saw a lot of pretty women in yoga pants who parked their own cars, and Ronnie Ivory played some decent songs on his Yamaha P515, which was cool because Dante wouldn’t let Sleptwit wear earbuds on the job.
Sleptwit decided he was gonna walk over and ask Ronnie Ivory his real name.
Ronnie wasn’t very talkative, his between-song banter with exiting shoppers wasn’t very good, and Sleptwit had never really had a long conversation with him about anything but soccer, but Sleptwit knew that “Ivory” was some bullshit stage name for a guy whose stage was a square of cement under an awning next to a BOGO Iceberg Lettuce banner.
Sleptwit was sure everyone in Hazel Creek over the age of 40 knew the origin of his nickname.
Ronnie did for sure.
Ronnie claimed he used to be in the house band at Garshor’s Rock n Dock in St. Clair Shores.
Allan Johnson, Jr was parking cars at the Mystique, in the warehouse district in the late 80’s when some older dude with hair plugs and two Tag Heuers on one too tan left wrist pulled up in a Corvette convertible and asked the three valets if they had seen Holly Garshor.
Drew and Nathan immediately looked over at Al, and Al stepped up to the guy.
“I know Holly,“ he said, “but I ain’t seen her in days.”
And the guy got too close to Al, smelling of some kinda cologne you could get at fucking Rite Aid, utterly incongruous with the 60k whip and the timepieces, and said “How you know Holly?”
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