Master, with his usual suavity and charm, says, “Charter members of your fan club, kid. Hope ya don’t mind.”
This gets a bashful smile out of Sarge, though at the same time he looks a little puzzled and maybe a tiny bit suspicious about all this attention and what the hell is going on. “Nah, I don’t mind at all,” he says. “Slightly cramped quarters though.” And he steps aside to invite us in.
Well, it’s not for me to say if this kid has the makings of a rock star, but it’s safe to point out he isn’t living like one yet. His room is your basic shithole. Laundry on doorknobs. Dust balls in the corners, down around my eye level. One chair with a torn straw seat. Respectful of his elders or at least not wanting them to keel over, Sarge motions Master to sit down. He offers Pete the bed, which has a stained spread and rumpled pillow on it, but Pete says he prefers to stand, which, considering the general level of hygiene and possibility of fleas or bedbugs, I don’t blame him. So Sarge sits on the bed, arms propped behind him for support, and asks what’s up.
Pete doesn’t quite seem to know how to start. He looks at the floor. He scratches his nose. “Well,” he finally says, “it’s about your song.”
“What about it?”
“It’s a really good song. Maybe even a great song.”
“Thank you.”
“But the thing is…Well, the thing is…Now, listen Sarge, none of this needs to go beyond this room. There’s no one else who needs to know. But I need to ask you something.”
Well, with all this beating around the bush and stalling, Sarge starts looking a little bit uneasy, and frankly, who wouldn’t? What makes it worse is that Pete is standing in front of this crummy Venetian blind that’s letting in these glary slivers of brightness with sprinkles of dust in them and making the whole scene look a little…a little noir, I guess the word would be. Anyway, the kid’s squirming by the time Pete sucks it up and asks his question.
“Sarge, did you write that song?”
There’s a pause. The kid looks from Pete to Master and back again. “Says so on the copyright.”
“I didn’t ask what’s on the copyright. I asked if you wrote the song.”
The kid starts looking a little more like, well, a kid. A little bit surly maybe, a little bit defiant. “What do you care?”
“I’ll explain after. Or try to, at least. But, please, answer the question. Did you write the song?”
Sarge rocks forward on the bed and flexes his wrists to loosen them up after leaning back on them. He looks down between his knees, quickly licks his lips, and says, “Yeah. I did. Okay?”
Now, I don’t know if it’s clear to the humans in the room that the poor kid has just told a lie, but it’s obvious as hell to me. There’s a certain scent that goes with lying, just slightly different from other bad smells. It’s a sour kind of scent with a tinge of rot in it, like something going soft and starting to decay. It smells similar to fear but without the bleachy purity of honest terror.
Anyway, after the lie, a moment passes. Pete half turns toward the Venetian blinds, then swivels back again. Master, who I guess has been biding his time as he is known to do, finally speaks up, but it’s like he’s talking only to Pete. “Well, okay,” he says, “if Sarge here says he wrote the song, then I guess I was wrong from the beginning and I guess we’re finished here.”
He starts to get up from the chair. It doesn’t happen quickly. He gets to the point where his legs are roughly halfway straight and he’s bracing against the chair back with the hand that isn’t holding my leash. That’s when Sarge’s curiosity kicks in and he suddenly says, “Wrong about what?”
Master gingerly eases down again. The chair squeaks. So do Master’s knees. “Wrong about this crazy notion I had, totally crazy, like from a million years ago and who the hell could remember for so long, that I heard that song before, only once, in a swimmin’ pool. And that the reason I heard it is maybe it was written by The Beatles.”
“The Beatles?” says Sarge, and his tone, it’s like he’s saying the forbidden name of a family of gods or something.
“Yeah. 1964. But what the hell. My mistake. Sorry. Only…only there’s also one more reason that we come up here to talk to ya.”
The kid stares at Master, waiting to hear what the other reason is, but it’s Pete, still standing in those rather creepy stripes of dusty light, who speaks up. “Sarge,” he says, “you ever hear of a singer named Eddie Ricketts?”
“Ricketts. Ricketts. No, I don’t think so.”
“How about a song called ‘Make Me Real’?”
“Yeah, sure. Everybody knows that song. Been covered a lot. I think they even used it a movie.”
“Hold that thought,” said Pete. “How about a singer named Jason Schuyler. Ever hear of him?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“What about a song called ‘Too Much Nighttime’?”
“Yeah, of course. Every band plays that.”
“Okay,” says Pete. “Two famous songs. Two unknown singers. We clear so far?”
Sarge just nods.
Pete paces a few steps, though it’s a dinky room and there isn’t far to go. The bright stripes sort of slither against him as he moves. The linoleum makes little crunching groans beneath his feet. “Listen, Sarge, I don’t want to scare you, and this whole notion might be off the wall, but I stayed up pretty much all night last night, searching out songs, Googling this and that, old news clips, copyrights, cross-referencing stuff every which way, and I came across some things I found pretty upsetting.”
“Oh yeah?” says Sarge. “Like what?” There’s something maybe just a little bit snotty in how he says it, like he’s curious, sure, but also getting annoyed with these guys, practically strangers to him, barging in and messing with his business.
“These singers you never heard of,” Pete goes on. “Ricketts and Schuyler. Turns out they have surprisingly a lot in common. They each had exactly one song published in their name. Both songs went on to be big hits in other versions. Oh, and by the way, both guys happen to be dead.”
“Dead?”
“Dead. Killed in fluky accidents within a day of the release of their songs. Two singers, two songs, two deaths. Maybe just coincidence.”
Sarge says nothing.
Master reaches down, grabs me underneath the belly, and sweeps me up into his lap. Then he says, “Plus one more thing they had in common. Wanna guess what that is?”
The young man leans back on his wrists again. His face says he has zero interest in guessing games right now.
“Their producer,” Master goes on. “Your boy Mondesi. Who by all accounts is quite a piece a work and who among other things keeps a pair of thugs around to do his errands for him. So, bottom line, we’re concerned about ya, kid, not to mention that we’re tryin’ ta figure out what this guy’s deal is and how he operates.”
Sarge swallows so that his whole neck moves. His eyes flick around from Master to Pete to the ceiling to the window. His mouth twitches at the corners, he looks confused and trapped, and in that moment I am thanking God I wasn’t born a human. Everything’s so fucking complicated for humans. Ambitions. Motives. Two strangers messing with your mind just as maybe your big dream is coming true. They ask you questions you’d rather not answer. Are they trying to help you or just scare you? Trying to save you or just ruin your chance? Finally he says, “Look, I don’t know what the hell you guys want from me. And maybe I don’t need to hear this stuff. Maybe I don’t care how Marco operates. All I know is that he’s giving me my shot.”
“And it’s worth the risk of maybe dying for?” says Pete.
The question seems to put the poor kid over the edge, either from fear or being ticked off or maybe just cooped up in that nasty room too long. He suddenly springs up off the bed. Being young, he does it smoothly and without apparent strain, but once he’s on his feet he’s really got no place to go, since Pete already has the pacing lane and Master’s chair is glutting up the rest. So he just
stands there with his calves against the bedframe, which rattles slightly because he can’t quite hide it that he’s trembling. His voice comes out all pinched and raspy. “Listen, I don’t know why you’re getting in my face with all this shit, and I don’t even know who the fuck you are other than a guy who used to date my Mom back when she was just a messed-up and pathetic drunk—”
What happens next happens almost too fast to see. Pete, not usually what you’d call a man of action or gut impulse, dashes over from the window, plants himself in front of Sarge, slaps him a crisp backhand across the cheek, and pushes him down on the bed. The kid bounces once then lies there looking up. Pete stands there looking down. It’s tough to say which one of them looks more surprised. Pete points a finger and says, “Don’t you ever talk that way about your mother. Ever again. Never. You hear me?”
Sarge is rubbing his cheek. He’s bigger and stronger but it’s clear he doesn’t want to fight, maybe doesn’t feel he has the right to. “So you really care about her,” he says.
Pete is still a little winded, a little flushed, but he manages a quiet answer. “Yeah, I do. And I care about you too, Sarge. I can’t believe I hit you. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I deserved it.” He sits up.
Pete sits down next to him on the edge of the bed. They’re almost shoulder to shoulder, almost hip to hip. “Listen, I suck at helping people. I really do. But I’m trying here. Please believe me that I’m trying at least.”
The kid nods then leaves his chin resting on his chest. His voice is soft and damp now, like it’s being pushed out not by breath but held-back tears. “I do,” he says. “I do believe you. But this chance I have, this break…Look, it’s everything I’ve worked for. Now it’s here. And now you’re telling me…Christ, I can’t even let myself think what you’re telling me. I can’t even tell which way is up right now.”
The kid gives one quick sniffle. Pete raises an arm like he wants to hug him but isn’t sure if he’s allowed. The arm falls back to his side. And that’s when Master speaks up in his lowest, softest voice, gruff but tender, a lullaby of gravel. “Listen, kid, it’s a helluva lot to take in all at once. Sure it is. It’s like, whaddyacallit, overwhelming. So how about we call it a day and you take some time to think things through, consider what we’ve talked about. Would that be okay with you?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Thank you. But can I ask you just one more thing for now? Your song. D’ya know when it’s gonna be released?”
“Tomorrow night. There’ll be a big announcement. Debut on the streaming services. And a party.”
When he says that word, party, for a second he almost sounds like just a happy kid again, like there’ll be balloons and cake and presents.
“A party,” says Master. He’s been rubbing me between the ears, and now the rubbing gets a little firmer, more a scratch than a rub. He shoots a quick look at Pete then goes on. “Nice. A party. Fun. But Sarge, can we agree on something? Will you promise? Promise we’ll talk again before then?”
The kid just nods, and Master starts the gradual process of rising from the chair. Pete and Sarge shake hands. This strikes me as kind of a tepid gesture after everything that’s gone on, but that’s how humans are, I guess, human guys especially. Master gently puts me down on the floor and we leave. And I have to say that the outside world looks wonderfully big and bright when we finally get out of that stifling, crummy room.
22
T he ride back toward Key West was a somber one. Pete was wrung out, plus his hand felt bruised from the completely shocking slap he’d given Sarge. Bert, having missed his customary nap, was exhausted from the driving and the hard work of tracking a fraught and complicated conversation. Even the dog seemed played out; instead of standing poised and alert on the window frame, it just nestled in its Master’s lap, yawning now and then and licking its nose.
The afternoon was well advanced, and the sun was right in Bert’s eyes as he headed south and west on U.S. 1. He fiddled with the El Dorado’s brittle old visor and craned his neck this way and that like an Egyptian dancer, but he couldn’t quite seem to block the glare. He said to Pete, “Y’ever notice, no matter where y’are, no matter what time a day it is, no matter how ya yank the fucking visor, the sun always misses it by half an inch? Never a whole inch. Always a half.”
A couple more silent miles passed. Cars and even RVs left them in the dust. Then, when they were opposite the Lower Sugarloaf firehouse, the old man suddenly resumed. “What if we just did all that for nothin’?”
“For nothing?”
“I mean, what if I’m just full a shit about the song? The whole memory thing, what if I just got it all bollixed up?”
“I doubt you did, Bert. I mean, you sounded so sure.”
“Yeah, that’s the part that scares me. Bein’ sure don’t mean you’re right. Just means ya thought a somethin’ in a certain way, and now you’re stuck with it. Funny how the mind works. Or doesn’t, sometimes. Like wit’ memories. I don’t know if this is gonna sound familiar. Maybe it only happens wit’ real old guys. But sometimes, how the hell can I explain this, ya call up a memory, it’s almost like you’re takin’ down a book from a really crowded shelf. Ya look at the book, by which I mean ya remember the memory, then, when ya go to put it back, all the other books have moved and squished together, so the one ya just took down don’t fit no more. Capeesh? It can’t go back onna shelf. Which means it’s not really a memory no more. It’s somethin’ else. I don’t know exactly what you’d call it. It’s just like a story ya told yourself sometime, and that’s the version you’re stuck wit’ now. Maybe that’s what happened wit’ the song.”
“Possible, I guess,” said Pete. “But—”
“Onnee other hand,” Bert rolled along, “even if I got it all screwed up about the song, that dirt you dug up about Marco and the dead singers, that seems really solid.”
Pete nodded, but it was an uneasy nod because he suddenly was not so sure himself. Like Bert said, it was funny how the mind worked. During the long, sleepless hours that Pete had devoted to connecting the dots between Marco Mondesi and the dead one-hit wonders, it had seemed that all the evidence, if not exactly clear, was at least pointing in the same direction. But why did it seem that way? Could it be because Pete wanted it to? A search was only as good as the searcher, and searchers usually had biases. Pete certainly did, though it galled him to admit it. He just couldn’t quite shake his silly jealousy of Mondesi. Mondesi, with his fancy estate and glitzy parties, had been close with Callie, and maybe their celibate intimacy had given her something that Pete had failed to give her. The thought hurt. But did it justify the leap from noting a couple of freak deaths to presuming that Mondesi was a murderer? Maybe Pete, too, had just been telling himself a certain story he now was stuck with…
They were crossing Big Coppitt Key when an old beater of a Toyota pulled up close behind them and started flashing its headlights. Bert was used to this. It happened all the time. He responded as he always did, sticking his arm out the window, making a kind of looping gesture with his hand, and saying to the empty air, “So go around. Go around.”
The Toyota didn’t.
Still talking to no one on particular, he said more emphatically, “Come on, asshole, go around. Where the hell ya want me to go?”
The trailing car kept flashing its headlights. Pete finally swiveled in the passenger seat, squinted back through the tangled hardware of the convertible roof and past the sun glare on the Toyota’s windshield, and said, “It’s Sarge. Let’s pull off.”
Bert nosed the El Dorado off the highway at the soonest opportunity, which happened to be the unpaved parking lot of an open-air souvenir store. Rickety wooden tables held ranks of polished conch shells brought in from places where there still were conchs. There were scallop shells you could use as ashtrays and cloudy glass balls with netting on them. Lattice panels held pastel-painted boards with witty sayings about how life was a beach and such-like. Bert
’s old tires crunched over coral nubs and gravel to a patch of shade next to a huge rack full of flip-flops. There were flip-flops with pink plastic flowers on them; there were flip-flops with rhinestones.
Sarge pulled in nearby. Everyone got out of their cars. Pete and Bert leaned back against the Caddy’s bulbous hood. The dog sniffed around and peed on a ragged tuft of grass that had stubbornly sprouted through the gravel. Sarge walked over quickly and when he was still a step or two away, he blurted, “Look, there’s something I need to tell you guys.”
Bert said, “Lemme take a wild guess. Just a shot inna dark. My guess is that ya didn’t write that song.”
The young man pressed his lips together. “No. I didn’t. You knew?”
“I don’t know nothin’, kid. Let’s say I strongly suspected. It showed in your face. You’re a lousy liar, my friend. I like that in a person. Means ya haven’t had much practice. So do yourself a favor and don’t get good at it. Long run, it’ll make ya feel like shit.”
“I feel like shit already.”
“You’ll get over it,” the old man assured him. “Ya came clean, ya got it off your chest. But if ya don’t mind my askin’, why’d ya do it inna first place? Lie, I mean.”
Sarge gave a sheepish little shrug. “To build my brand.”
“Build your brand,” Bert said. “Ya know, I hear that phrase a lot these days. One a those whaddyacallits, buzzwords. But what the fuck is it supposed to mean?”
Another shrug from Sarge. “It’s how Marco put it when he gave me the song. I should take credit as a way to build my brand.”
Pete his lifted his butt from the warm metal of the hood and said, “Wait a sec. So the song came from Marco?”
“Yeah. Right. He gave it to me.”
“Gave it to you,” Pete murmured. “Okay. And how did he happen to have it?”
The question seemed to puzzle Sarge, if only because, to him, the answer was so obvious. “He had it because it was written by a guy he works with.”
The Paradise Gig Page 14
