As she rides by

of the important play lists. Startin’ to get the picture?” He drummed his feet noisily against one of the table legs.
    I nodded.
    “Know what the record industry sales were last year?”
    I shook my head.
    “Six point three billion. That’s up from 277 million in ‘55. So you can imagine what goes on with that kind of money at stake. Alan Freed, remember him?”
    I nodded.
    “Rumors of payola were rife! Scandals emerged! He disappeared. That was back in ‘60. Payola in one form or another to get airtime never went away. Ever hear of the Network?”
    I shook my head.
    “Late seventies,” he said. “Bunch of independent pluggers got together, backed by some of the major record companies. Five years later they were working on a budget upwards of fifty million dollars a year, and the squeeze was on. No one could buck ‘em; Warner’s and CBS tried; they couldn’t even get their major artists played on Radio Greenland.” He shook his head, then gave his fingernails a close inspection.
    “So what happened?”
    “I think it was NBC,” he said, “finally blew the whistle on ‘em. Said the Network was tied up with organized crime and that they could prove it. Adios, Network.”
    “But our boy Jonesy was never involved.” I said. “According to you.”
    “According to everyone,” Dick said. “Now why don’t ‘cha take a deep breath and call on the little woman, she’ll fill you in on the rest. It’s time for my nap.”
    “Sure, sure,” I said, getting to my feet. “Guy like you probably needs twenty hours of sleep a day, at least.”
    “Through there,” he said. “Knock and enter. If she’s passed out, I don’t wanna know about it.” He hopped down, shook my hand vigorously, then gave me a push toward the door.
    “I was wondering,” I said, “what happened to the other half of the shuffleboard?”
    “Billi,” he said, “or it might have been Bunni even, was a firm believer in this state’s community property law, which, as you probably know, is half. You want it, you saw it, I told her. So she did. First honest job of work she did in the five years we were married.”
    ‘‘Lucky you didn’t have a cat,” I said.
    “You’re tellin’ me,” he said. “With my luck, I’d of gotten the half that didn’t eat Whiskas.”
    I grinned, knocked on Annie’s door, and entered. Annie was a deeply tanned woman a good foot taller than her husband; she was working away on a PC with one hand and talking on the phone with the other.
    “Down, big boy, down,” she said as soon as I’d entered, gesturing with her chin to a chair opposite her. Down I sat, like a good big boy. I looked around; her walls, too, were as blank as a zombie’s eyeballs, except for one old-fashioned needlepoint hanging that said, “Please Be Brief; I’ve Got Diarrhea.”
    When she was done shouting down the line at some hapless A&R man, whatever that was, she slammed the receiver down, peered at the computer screen, scowled, looked up at me through scraggly gray bangs, then said, “Want a drink, shorty?”
    I demurred politely, suggesting it might be a little early in the day for me, thanks.
    She snorted loudly, and poured herself out a large tumblerful of liquid from one of those huge thermoses that even have a spout on them. She took a long swig, then smacked her orange-lipsticked lips appreciatively.
    “So what did Einstein in there tell you was in this, anyway, lab alcohol?”
    “Martinis,” I said.
    “Don’t I wish,” she said. “I haven’t had a drink of anything stronger than gripewater since 1976. Hi. I’m Annie.”
    “Hi. I’m V. for Victor Daniel. What’s gripewater?”
    “Where you been?” Annie said. “It’s something they give to kids in Somerset . To stop them griping, I guess.”
    “Oh,” I said.
    “What the hell,” she said, running a hand with four-inch, frosted-pink nails through her tangled mop. “Poor old fart. Let him have his fun, says I, it’s about the only fun he gets these days. And what have you got there clutched so firmly to your manly bosom, yesterday’s lunch?”
    “From Jonesy to me to you,” I said, handing over the well-stuffed folder.
    “Be right with you,” she said, pulling down a pair of rhinestone-studded harlequin glasses from atop her head. She opened the folder, licked a thumb, leafed through the contents like a bank teller counting a stack of greenbacks, selected one, and rapidly ran her eyes over it. After fifteen seconds or so she threw