“Then you got the country-funk groups like Cat Stevens and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Their fans wear scruffy jeans and droopy moustaches, and couldn’t get within twenty miles of Nashville. There’s still a few folkies around — Joni Mitchell and Melanie. Their fans are usually clean, quiet, and wear flowers in their hair. The music appreciators go for Yes and Chicago. They’re a little older crowd who like to listen. Young marrieds will go to hear the Carpenters or the Fifth Dimension. They’re already into nostalgia. If you get a blockbuster like Bob Dylan or the Rolling Stones, everybody turns out.”
“Quite a spread.”
“And I didn’t even mention the bubble-gummers, the fourteen-and-under bunch that made David Cassidy a saint.”
“Where did Billy Lockett fit in?”
“I’d have to say Billy was a special case. I was building him an image as a pretty face — but straight — like Rod Stewart or Peter Frampton, but more gutsy like James Taylor or Springsteen. And it was working, too.” Fessler shook his head sadly. “We could have made it all the way. Balls!”
Hardeman sipped at the watery drink. It pleased him that he felt no urge to gulp it down. He leaned back in the chair and drew a deep breath. An air conditioner kept the room cool, but he could still detect traces of the sharp, dry smell of marijuana.
“There are only a couple of black faces in here,” Hardeman said. “How come?”
“Rock music is a white, middleclass scene. The blacks have their soul groups, and R and B.”
“R and B?”
“Rhythm and blues. More beat, more bite. Sexier than white rock. A few groups cross over — Stevie Wonder, the Bee Gees — but mostly pop music is a segregated world.”
“Hi, men, what’s the action?”
At the sound of the voice Hardeman and Fessler looked up to see Conn Driscoll standing at their table. He looked comfortable and at ease in a suede jacket and deep open collar. Hardeman reflected that Driscoll was the kind of man who could fit into any millieu. He wondered what you’d find under the PR glaze.
Fessler pulled another chair over to the tiny table and Driscoll sat down. Despite the crowd, there was no shortage of chairs. The people in Waldo’s kept on their feet and moving.
“Enjoying the show, Dean?” Driscoll asked.
“It’s an education.”
“I’ll bet.”
Driscoll waved over a waitress in mesh stockings and high-rise leotard. “How about a round?” he asked the two men.
“Not for me,” said Fessler. “A man can drink just so much soda pop.”
“I’m still working on this one,” Hardeman said.
Driscoll ordered a Scotch for himself and leaned across the table. “I talked to Rick Girodian today. He’ll be meeting us here. I figured you’d want to talk to him, Dean.”
“Yes, I do. Thanks.”
Al Fessler chewed his lip. “I don’t know if it’s such a good idea for me to be here. Me and Rick aren’t exactly best friends.”
“Don’t hang around on my account,” Hardeman told him.
“You can get back to your hotel all right?”
“No sweat.”
“Then if nobody minds, I think I will take off. Madeline gets nervous if she’s left alone too long.”
Fessler left the table and made his way to the exit through the constantly shifting crowd like a swimmer through floating debris.
Hardeman turned to the young publicity man. “Do you think Al Fessler really likes this kind of music? Do you like it?”
Driscoll shrugged. “Who knows? Al likes anything that will turn him a buck. To me all music sounds the same. It’s a living.”
“I suppose so.” Hardeman pushed his glass around the plastic top of the table. He wanted to ask whether Driscoll had talked to Joyce and what she had to say. But he did not want to sound too eager. If Driscoll saw her, he’d get around to mentioning it.
“How about a refill, honey?” Driscoll called to the waitress, holding up his empty glass. Hardeman declined another. His own glass was still half full.
While Driscoll collected his fresh drink, Hardeman pulled a folded sheet of hotel stationery from his pocket and scribbled a few quick notes — a word or two of description, a snatch of dialog overheard. On the lower level the band took a break, providing a blessed period of relative quiet as the canned music was switched on.
“That’s your notes for the night?” Driscoll said when Hardeman folded the sheet and put it away.
“Memory joggers. When I get back to the hotel I’ll type them out to three or four pages.”
“I wrote a novel once,” Driscoll said. “Never sent it to a publisher.”
“I hope you’re not going to ask me to read it,” Hardeman said. “I never read anybody’s manuscript.”
“Don’t worry,” Driscoll said. “This one is long gone. I burned it a page at a time after reading it a year later and realizing it was a piece of crap.”
“You’ve got more sense than most ‘aspiring writers.’ God, how I hate that term. Aspiring, my ass. You write or you don’t. The curse of this profession is that it’s so much more fun being a writer than it is writing.”
Hardeman saw the younger man hanging on his words and relaxed into a grin. “I’m a hell of a guy to give lectures on writing.”
Driscoll took a thoughtful pull at his Scotch. “Can I ask you something, Dean?”
“Try me.”
“Why did you stop? Writing?”
That was twice he had been asked that tonight. One time too many. “It’s none of your business.”
The PR man nodded, and seemed to take no offense. Maybe there was something under the veneer.
“I saw your wife,” Driscoll said suddenly.
“Joyce?” Now that was stupid. What other wife would he be talking about?
“She wasn’t sure she was ready to talk to you. Said she’d think it over.”
“Better than nothing, I guess. Thanks for trying.”
“It might work out yet. She didn’t say no.”
Hardeman moved reflexively to finish his drink, then remembered the work he wanted to do tonight, and set the glass down.
He said, “Have you ever been so much in love with a woman it made your teeth ache?”
“Not my teeth.”
“I’m not talking about horny, I’m talking about in love. Where you could be sitting right in the middle of all the best things in the world and they don’t mean crap if the woman’s not there to share them.”
“No, I’ve never been in love like that.”
“You’re probably better off.”
“Is that the way you loved Joyce?”
“Yeah, that’s the way. In between the fights. Oh, we did fight in the last years. With our fists, but worse, with our mouths. A mouth is a terrible weapon. It can wound like a bullet and leave a scar like acid. But between the fights, my God, how we did love.”
Driscoll said nothing, peered down into his drink.
“I quit because I couldn’t stand the idea of losing,” Hardeman said.
The younger man looked up, puzzled. “What’s that? Quit what?”
“Writing, that’s what you asked, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“I wrote a bad book, and they sent it back and told me it was bad. I’d never lost at anything before, and I couldn’t handle it. Hell, I didn’t need that book. I had three big ones going for me. I had people around all the time telling me I was the new Mailer or the new Hemingway or the new somebody else. People fell all over each other to hear me talk about writing. I didn’t have to write anything. I was more interesting than any book.
“Then after a while the people weren’t coming around so much. I found myself standing alone at cocktail parties. So I quit going to the parties. I holed up in the house in Great Neck and waited for them to come around and beg me to do the Big Book. Nobody came. I tried going to parties again, but it was all different now. I wasn’t pointed out as the new anybody. I was known as the drunk who st
arts fights. Finally Joyce moved out, and I’d lost everything.”
“Did the two of you try to get back together?” Driscoll asked.
“Oh, yeah. At least I did. Made an ass of myself while I was at it. Joyce came to California to get away from me. She even quit answering my letters.”
Driscoll looked away, embarassed, and Hardeman caught it. He changed the subject. “How well do you know Rick Girodian?”
“Not very. He’s three or four years older than Billy, kicked around quite a while in the business before Al Fessler teamed him with Billy and he had a few good paydays.”
Driscoll broke off and peered through the haze and flickering lights toward the entrance. “But Rick can tell you about it himself. He’s here now.”
CHAPTER 12
Dean Hardeman followed Driscoll’s gaze and saw a black-haired, fierce looking young man standing just inside the entrance of Waldo’s. At his side was a girl with the same shade of blue-black hair and a gentler version of the young man’s dark good looks.
Driscoll got up from the table and went over to meet the couple. He guided them back to the table and made the introductions.
“Dean Hardeman, this is Rick Girodian, and Rick’s sister …”
“Kitty,” the girl supplied.
Chairs were provided for Rick and his sister, but before anyone could speak, the musicians began a new set and conversation became a painful shouting match.
Girodian scowled around at the patrons of Waldo’s. “What a sewer.”
“You’re not a regular here?” Hardeman asked.
“Are you kidding?”
Kitty watched the ongoing action with wide, intelligent eyes. Hardeman could not tell if she approved or not.
“These really aren’t the best conditions for talking,” Hardeman said loudly.
Girodian nodded toward Driscoll. “It was his idea.”
Driscoll spread his palms in a sorry-about-that gesture.
“Is there someplace else we could go?” Hardeman asked.
“I don’t have a whole lot of time. My sister has to be up early to go to work.”
“No, you go ahead,” said Kitty Girodian. “This is my first time in a private club on the famous Sunset Strip. I’m enjoying it. Mr. Driscoll will keep me entertained. Won’t you Mr. Driscoll?”
“Be glad to,” Driscoll said without a lot of enthusiasm.
“You’re sure it’s all right?” Rick said.
Kitty laughed and touched his cheek. “Yes, big brother, it’s all right. You two go ahead and find a quiet place to talk. Don’t worry about me.”
Rick switched his gaze from Kitty to Driscoll. To Hardeman he said, “We could go downstairs to the coffee shop.”
“That’s fine with me,” said Hardeman. He left what remained of his drink and followed Rick Girodian out of the club and down the stairs to Sunset Boulevard.
The coffee shop on the street level was swarming with people who looked like the overflow from Waldo’s. The clash of silverware and heavy china provided a constant background. Still, it was a relief after the crush of sound and bodies upstairs. Hardeman and Rick Girodian found a small booth and ordered coffee.
“So you’re writing a book about Billy Lockett,” Rick said.
“That’s the plan.”
“I don’t know how much I can tell you about him. We only worked together two years, then we split up. Then Billy got famous and I got lost. Now Billy’s dead and I’m alive. What else do you want to know?”
“Tell me about you, Rick.”
“For instance?”
“Your family, for instance.”
The young man’s mouth turned down in a hard line. “My father was a pool hustler, my mother worked in a supermarket when her back wasn’t hurting her too much. I was in and out of juvenile court until I finally got the guts to leave home. The only one of the family worth anything was my sister Kitty.”
Rick paused and studied Hardeman for a reaction. The author’s face showed nothing, and Rick continued.
“This was back in New Jersey.” Rick’s tone softened and his expression became less challenging. “And it wasn’t always so bad. Sometimes, when he wasn’t down at the pool hall or in a card game somewhere, my old man would stay home and play the piano for us. He played like a dream, those pool-shooter’s fingers of his just flying over the keys. The family used to gather around him and sing. Real Norman Rockwell, right?
“I wanted to play the piano like the old man, but he never had time to teach me. So I bought a fifteen-dollar guitar and taught myself to strum chords. I’d carry it around with me, strumming and singing anywhere they’d let me. I couldn’t afford sheet music, so I started writing my own songs. I was making a few bucks then, playing in little clubs and coffee shops around Atlantic City. It was a time of change in music. The Beatles had just been discovered over here, and the new style was pushing out all the Presley imitators.
“I could see Atlantic City was a dead end for my kind of music, so I moved on to New York. There were a hundred little clubs around Greenwich Village then, and I must have played all of them. Everybody had a band then. The names changed everyday, and we jumped from one to another without thinking about it. It was a frantic time, but it was kicks. No money, but kicks.
“It couldn’t last. I was serious about my music, and wanted to go somewhere with it. I was also a better musician than the dudes I was playing with. They’d juice it up all day or turn on, then go out and try to play a gig. I didn’t hang around with any of them. I spent my days listening to records — The Beatles, Chuck Berry, Roy Orbison. I knew I had to get out of that Village scene if I wanted to make it, so one day I packed up my guitar and came to California.”
Rick Girodian broke off his narrative with a scowl, and Hardeman turned to see Conn Driscoll and Kitty enter the coffee shop.
“Don’t let me interrupt,” Kitty said. “I just wanted to let you know Conn will take me home, so you don’t have to hurry.”
“He’s taking you home?” Rick repeated, frowning at Driscoll.
“For heaven’s sake, Rick, I’m twenty-four years old and a certified woman,” Kitty said.
“And I’m practically harmless,” Driscoll put in.
Rick did not smile. “Okay, I’ll call you tomorrow, Kitty.”
Driscoll and the girl went out. Rick followed them with his eyes.
“You say you came out to California,” Hardeman said to get Rick back on the subject. “When was that?”
Reluctantly Rick pulled his attention back to the booth. “Seven years ago. I tried San Francisco first. That’s where the real action was supposed to be. Shit, the action in Frisco was all flower children and dopers. Psychedelic horseshit. Unreal. I got out of there and came to L.A.”
“It was different here?”
“For one thing, it was warmer. Frisco has a wet, cold wind that will chill your insides. L.A. didn’t look much better at first, with all the plastic hippies from Encino cruising the Strip on Friday night. There was more variety in the music being played, though. I played gigs here and there with pickup bands, but I was still hungry.
“Then I signed with Al Fessler. Things got a little better. Al got me steady work for a couple of years — small clubs, but clean. Then he teamed me with Billy Lockett. We clicked right away, and the good money started to come in. Man, I’d been so long on the outside lookin’ in, I felt like Cinderella. Like they say, I was an overnight success after nine years.”
“How did you and Billy get along personally?” Hardeman asked.
“At first it was okay. We were both getting our first taste of being famous, and it was great. Of course, I worked a lot harder to get that far, but I didn’t begrudge Billy anything. We got along all right, but we didn’t pal around off the job. Different wave lengths.”
“What about musically?”
“Billy was never much more than a four-chord guitar player. He did have a nice clear voice, and something about him made people shut up and listen. I
wrote all our songs, sang harmony, and covered him with my guitar. The combination worked, and we were on our way. Simon and Garfunkle had just split up, Lockett and Girodian were set to move in.” Rick stopped talking and let the breath hiss angrily out between his teeth.
“What happened?” Hardeman asked quietly.
“What’s the use of talking about it? Billy’s dead, so why bad-mouth him now?”
Hardeman said nothing.
“He didn’t want to share the stage any more,” Rick continued. “Billy was a performer. I was just a musician. He got to thinking the people out front were paying just to see him. Hell, maybe he was right, but they paid to see him do my songs. Anyway, he wanted to break up the team. Al Fessler tried to talk him out of it at first, but Billy wasn’t having any. He told Al to book him as a single, or he’d find a new manager. The argument didn’t last long.”
“So then you and Billy each went out on your own,” Hardeman said.
“Yeah. I could have stayed on with Fessler, but I could see he was more interested in pushing Billy, so I said to hell with him.” Rick took a drink of his cold coffee and banged the cup down in the heavy saucer. “After that Billy went straight up in the charts, and I went back to playing Downey. End of Cinderella story.”
“Are your feelings about Billy any different now?”
Rick’s dark eyes flashed. “No. Why should I be a hypocrite? Billy Lockett was a self-centered son of a bitch. He used me to get into the big money, then dumped me. It’s ironic that by dying he got me a shot at the Forum. It’s the only unselfish thing he ever did.”
CHAPTER 13
Conn Driscoll sat with Kitty at the table in Waldo’s, sipping at his drink and pretending to listen to the music. They had said little to each other since Rick Girodian and Dean Hardeman went downstairs to the coffee shop. Conversation was near impossible in the din from the amplified band. Driscoll did not really mind. He did not feel much like talking.
Billy Lives Page 10
