Spiral

alone.”
    ”Okay.”
    ”Second, though, and more to your question, there’s got to be that magic of luck. Something special in a song, somebody like me hearing her sing it in a local place like Coconuts, with the right connections to launch her regionally and nationwide.”
    ”And even you haven’t made that happen for her?”
    A glance over at me. ”Cuddy, I don’t represent the lady. I know what I do best, and unfortunately, her sound isn’t it.”
    ”But Spiral’s is?”
    ”Let you know later.”

    The second place Eisen brought me was decorated in dark woods and brass, elegant yet comfortable. As we took seats at the nearly full bar, he said, ”Kitty Ryan started O’Hara’s on Las Olas about twelve, fifteen years ago. We’re in Hollywood—the name of the town, I mean. Kitty and her partner, Rich, just opened this branch, but once they’re finished, there’ll be a three-hundred-seat venue upstairs, big enough to attract national jazz acts.”
    As a bartender named Mary brought us glasses of Merlot, I looked toward the stage. A diverse group of men and women started taking their places by different instruments, including a fiddle.
    I said to Eisen, ”Jazz, not Irish?”
    ”Actually, the Pamala Stanley Band’s not really jazz, even. But despite not having an Irish person in the group— they’re Italian, Greek, Puerto Rican, Jewish—Kitty had them for her St. Patrick’s Day party in Lauderdale last year. You’ll see why in a minute.”
    The group began to play, and after five terrific renditions, I hadn’t heard what I’d have called the same category of material twice. Blues to rock to folk to jazz, including some riffs by a woman named Randi on the fiddle that brought down the house.
    At the band break, Eisen set his empty glass next to my half-full one. ”You up for another ‘lesson’?”
    ”Only if it’s on the way home.”
    ”It is.” He pulled out a tiny cellular phone. ”Lemme just make a call first while you finish your drink, be sure they got the right act there.”
    I watched as Mitch Eisen walked out onto a fringe patio that bled into the sidewalk.

    ”Here, the valet makes sense,” he said, exiting the Corvette at our third stop.
    Inside the main entrance, a tuxedoed doorman nodded to Eisen and said, ”Welcome to ‘September’s.” My eyes took some time adjusting to the cavernous space, a huge stage spotlit at a distance of at least a hundred feet, six or eight musicians and singers performing bombastically on it.
    Moving toward them, we passed an oval, multitiered bar with female ‘tenders in black Eisenhower jackets and fishnet stockings. The ceiling rose twenty feet, with dark, rough-hewn beams and a jungle of plants trailing leafy vines. A lot of people held lit cigarettes, though, and the air was pretty thick with smoke under the kind of revolving glitter-globe I’ve always associated with Saturday Night Fever.
    Just as we ordered brandies, a slim black man in a double-breasted suit moved to the microphone at center stage, and the room grew quiet, even the people on the stainless steel dance floor stopping to watch.
    ”He’s why we’re here,” said Eisen into my ear.
    The man began to sing, but with just murmurs of accompaniment from a keyboard and guitar. I'd heard the song before but never thought of the tune as a hit.
    Until this guy began singing it.
    The precision and control he had over his voice and mannerisms was astonishing, his range at the high end enough to shatter crystal. When he finished five or six minutes later, the stage went suddenly dark, and everybody stood and applauded wildly, including waitresses and bartenders who must have heard him in the past.
    I turned to Eisen. ”Wow.”
    ”Johnny Mathis and AI Jarreau, rolled into one.” Recorded music came on, a guy in the raised booth taking over from the live entertainment.
    Eisen said, ”You want to ask somebody to dance, go ahead.”
    ”Not tonight, thanks.”
    He nodded before downing the last of his drink. ”We about ready, then?”
    ”To go, yes.”

    The night’s breeze felt good after all the smoke inside September’s. Eisen drove the Corvette carefully, constantly checking his speed and slowing down for significant stretches on the fairly empty streets.
    I said, ”Worried about a ticket?”
    He didn’t glance over. ”Hot car like this, the cops expect you to be going over the limit. And after a brandy, you can get stuck by the Breathalyzer even if your blood’s