There was a cassette in the pocket of Harper's parka, which hung on the back of the door, and she was aware of it all afternoon the way you are aware of a sore tooth. It was a TDK D90 with a label she had typed at the library on Grant Street, using one of the coin-operated typewriters, a quarter for fifteen minutes. HARPER MAZUR — OVERNIGHT AUDITION — WJNY 1400 AM. She had recorded it at the kitchen table on her Panasonic portable at one in the morning, with a bath towel draped over her head and the microphone to keep out the hum of the refrigerator, and she had done it eleven times, and she still hated every version. The deadline was December 28th. The job was overnight host, midnight to five, Monday through Friday, playing records and reading the weather and talking to whoever was awake in Buffalo at three in the morning. The ad in the Courier-Express had said: Warm voice. Steady nerves. Must like the dark.
She liked the dark fine. It was everything else that worried her.
The door from the garage banged open and Gino Pietrangeli came in with snow on his shoulders and a box of sfogliatelle from Balistreri's under one arm. He was a short, wide man of sixty in a camel coat that had been expensive in 1965, and he had owned Niagara Checker Cab since his father died, and his father had owned it since the days when the cabs were Packards. He put the pastry box on the console, carefully, the way you'd set down a baby.
"For the girl who runs my whole company," he said.
"I don't run your company. I run your radio."
"Same thing. Without the radio, I got eighteen Chevys sitting in the snow." He took off his gloves finger by finger. He did not look at her. Harper had worked for Gino Pietrangeli for four years and two months, and she knew that when he did not look at a person, he was about to say something he'd practiced in the car.
"Gino," she said.
"Eat a pastry first."
"Gino."
He sighed and sat on the edge of the desk where the trip sheets were stacked. "The Yellow people," he said. "The lawyers signed Tuesday. After New Year's, it's done. I keep the name for a while, maybe a year, they keep the cars, the drivers keep driving. That part's good. The drivers are fine."
"And dispatch?"