Neil Tollefson had installed the line in 1984 at a cost of forty dollars, over Augie's objections, and Augie had never once answered it. He answered it now only because it kept ringing, through an entire Big Black song and into the next, the little red light blinking on the console like an accusation.
"KHLC."
"Hi!" It was a woman's voice, very bright, very Minnesotan, the vowels as long and flat as a frozen lake. "This is Patty from Columbia Heights? I'd like to request 'Lake Street Moon' by the Vestibules? For Wanda Szymanski at St. Casimir's? It's her birthday coming up in March?"
Augie hung up.
At 1:31 it rang again. A man this time, gruff, with a Range accent. "Yeah, this is Duane, I drive plow for the county, I got the radio on in the cab here, I'd like to hear that 'Lake Street Moon.'"
At 1:48: an elderly woman who said she was calling on behalf of the Tuesday night bowling league at Bev's Lanes.
At 2:05: a man with an accent so outrageously Italian that Augie could hear him trying not to laugh. At 2:20: someone who claimed to be the pizza guy on Central and asked if the Vestibules had any songs about breadsticks. At 2:41: a voice so deep and wobbly that it could only belong to a woman with a towel over the receiver.
"Frankie," Augie said into the phone.
"This is Gertrude," said the voice, wobbling. "I'm ninety-four."
"Frankie, I can hear Dolores laughing in the background."
There was a pause and a muffled snort and a sound like someone being hit with a pillow. Then Frankie's real voice, unrepentant: "Dolores is on her break."
"How many people have you got calling me?"
"Not that many. Dolores. Rhonda from the Gopher State office. My friend Patty. The Tuesday league, they called on their own, I just mentioned it. Duane was real. I don't know Duane." She paused. "You've got fans, Augie."
"I have listeners. Six of them. Who are now very confused."
"Play the song and they won't be confused."
He hung up again. He put on a Wipers record and sat with his head in his hands and the boiler groaning next door. And at 3:15, when someone knocked on the basement door of Ingeborg Hall, he knew who it was before he opened it.