on the plain white cardboard sleeves.
The secretary was watching me. “You’ll want to get copies pressed, and there’s a card in the box for that too. Connor doesn’t do big orders, but he’s quick and reliable. If you need,” she said quietly.
I nodded numbly and left.
I didn’t give myself time to think. I followed the address on the card to the vinyl press. It was a warehouse in Brooklyn, not too far from the docks on the Upper Bay. I checked the address twice and decided I was in the right place. It took me another ten minutes to find Connor. There was simply a vinyl record stuck to the outside door, but it was open, and Connor was inside. He was a wiry man in a dirty white undershirt, a pair of gloves on his hands and a cigarette in his mouth, but he nodded when I told him what I wanted.
“You got a reference copy?”
I nodded.
“Let’s hear what you got there. Just to make sure it’s your stuff. You don’t know how many times people jack that up,” he said around his cigarette. He had a hint of a brogue on his Brooklyn tongue, a combination I’d heard a lot of growing up.
I walked to the record player, which was perfectly pristine, unlike its owner, and turned it on, settling the needle into the track of the first reference lacquer. We listened all the way through, to everything in the box. Connor didn’t stop moving; he fed his machines and ran his press as I stood there, hands in my pockets, considering my options. There were recordings of “Beware” and “I Don’t Need Any Man” containing both the piano version and the version we’d layered with the rest of the band. “Itty Bitty” sounded better than I remembered, and the simple run-through of “The Bomb Johnson” was on the final master. I marked the white sleeves with the ID numbers stamped into the masters and placed them back into the box.
“That’s some good shit,” Connor said. “Sounds like Tom’s work.”
I didn’t say anything. I’d been told to keep Atlantic out of it.
“What about your label?” Connor asked. I frowned at him. He walked to his counter and pushed a sheet of white circles toward me. “For the 45s. How do you want them labeled? Write them out. I’ll make it look good, but I gotta know how you want it.”
I ended up writing LAMENT RECORDS presents on the top and MINEFIELD on the bottom, with the name of the song written below that. I was making stuff up as I went along, but Lament Records felt right and it looked more official. And part of me just wanted to be contrary. I was putting my name on my act of rebellion.
I paid for a hundred discs to be pressed and packaged, with the band version of “I Don’t Need Any Man” on the A side and “Beware” on the B side. “Itty Bitty” wasn’t quite as strong as the other two, and “The Bomb Johnson” wasn’t finished. I decided to wait on those. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself. I was already pissing in the wind.
Terrence called me Thursday afternoon and asked if I would fill in for him at La Vita. Half the house band was sick with the flu, including Terrence, and he knew I could handle a few sets on my own.
“Chuck will still be there. He’ll take care of sound. But you would be doing me and the whole crew a favor. The night off will go a long way to getting everyone on the mend. And I know you aren’t hurting for business, but Thursday’s crowd tends to be locals. Scott Muni from WABC has a reservation for nine. Never hurts to impress a disc jockey.”
I told Terrence I would be there. It occurred to me that it was a perfect opportunity for Minefield to perform, but I pushed the thought away. Minefield already had a gig on Thursday nights. Plus word would get back to Sal, Terrence would kill me, and I might never play at La Vita again.
I’d left a message with Lee Otis for Esther to give me a call, but I hadn’t heard from her. Either I’d just missed her or she hadn’t called. There wasn’t much I could tell her, and I thought maybe I could get the vinyls back—something tangible—before I talked to the band.
It was after eight o’clock, and I was nearing the end