Angel City

by Jon Steele

  “In the name of God, kill them! Kill them all! For He will know his own!”

  So blessed, the Crusaders smashed through the doors of the churches and put to the sword more than twenty thousand innocents in a single afternoon. The flow of blood only fueled the slaughter, and the Crusaders ran amok through the town. Women were raped in their beds as their throats were cut open. Children were forced to run through the streets and used as target practice by archers. Hundreds had their noses cut off and eyes gouged out. They were banished to wander the earth like the living dead as a warning to any and all who would defy the infallibility of the Church. When the Crusaders had sated their lust, they sacked the town and burned it to the ground. And that was the end of the first Cathédrale Saint-Nazaire.

  Harper blinked, focused back out the window. The cathedral and Béziers were well out of sight. And now, watching the land of vines and maquis scrub whip by, Harper flashed one more map from geography studies at St. Andrews, matched it to the History Channel. The train wasn’t just carrying him to Toulouse on a wild hunch to check out some Finnish rock band; it was carrying him close to Bernard de Saint-Martin’s last stand at Montségur in 1244. Odds there was a connection: 325,747,053 to 1.

  “What have you got yourself into this time, boyo?”

  No idea was his response to himself. But it was a long way there. He settled back in his seat, eased into hibernation mode. Slow breaths, stillness, until the train stopped at Gare de Toulouse Matabiau. Harper snapped to, checked his watch: 15:00 hours on the nose. He followed the crowd through the station. Outside, on the square, he took in the view. Like any big-town train station. At least the ones he could recall, which would be Gare de Lyon in Paris, Simplon and Montreux in Switzerland. Cafés and two-star hotels across the boulevard, people in a state of perpetual motion. Except for those who stopped the world to have a smoke after being cooped up in a train for hours.

  He pulled his cigarette case from his coat and lit up, considering the great unknown; id est, where does one go in Toulouse to find a merry band of Finnish rock-and-rollers? He puffed on his smoke, walking to the left; turning around and walking to the right to see if he could pick up a vibe in the air. Not that it was some wizardly technique at discovering the great unknown, but it’s how he found Café du Grütli in the old quarter of Lausanne after his memory scrub a few days ago. This way, that way. Pace, pace, pace . . . An hour later, “Oh, yeah, it’s that way.”

  While smoking and pacing, he dug through his pockets looking for his mobile. Found it. Took some effort to open the flip-top and push the buttons with his bandaged hands, but he managed. No messages, no missed calls.

  “Fine then.”

  He closed his phone, dropped it in his pocket. Saw a drawing on the pavement. It’d been done with a stencil and blue chalk. He watched the locals passing by. None of them noticed it. It was the angel falling through the sky in Paris. Lettering under the form:

  OTDT

  21:00, ce soir

  La Dynamo

  Harper flashed lettering on the T-shirt of the woman on the train. Locomotora. Older Than Dreams Tour. La Dynamo had to be the venue. He looked for a taxi stand; it was ten meters away. He walked over, saw the same stencil drawing on the pavement outside each of the station exits. The taxis were parked in a long line with no takers at the moment. Harper approached the lead car, a Renault Vel Statis with a Capitole Taxi sign on top. The driver’s window was down, and the man inside, North African–looking, was sleeping. Harper stood there, waited for the man to become aware of his presence. The man opened one eye.

  “Qu’est-ce que vous voulez?”

  “Excusez-moi. Connaissez-vous un club appelé La Dynamo?”

  The driver sat up, rubbed his eyes, looked at Harper. Saw an English man speaking French with a very bad accent and looking much too old and dressed completely out of step with anyone wanting to know the way to such a place.

  “You want to go to La Dynamo?”

  “That’s right.”

  The driver shrugged.

  “It’s in the Colombette Quarter of the city.”

  “And where might that be?”

  The driver pointed through the windshield.

  “Walk to the canal, by the trees over there. It runs down the middle of the boulevard. Cross over the canal, go left, and walk along the embankment. Keep walking till you come to the second bridge, go right. The next block, go left. That’s Rue Amélie. There’s no sign for it, but it’s there. Number Six.”

  “Actually, I thought you might drive me there.”

  “You want me to drive you there?”

  “That is the general idea of a taxi, isn’t it?”

  The driver returned to his sleeping position, waved Harper away.

  “Lâchez-moi.”

  Harper saw the next taxi. The driver behind the wheel was sleeping, too, and the next one. Must be bloody siesta time at the taxi ranks in Toulouse.

  “Cheers for the help.”

  The driver snored.

  Harper followed the crosswalks through the boulevard till he got to the trees. He saw the canal hemmed in between stone embankments. It was like a small river. There was a barge going upstream, one going downstream. Harper had another shot of geography studies. Canal du Midi. Two hundred forty kilometers up and over the mountains and down to the Mediterranean Sea after working through ninety-one locks. Going the other way it hooked up with the Garonne River, and from there it was a winding trip to the Atlantic Ocean. Someone, somewhere, had called it one of the technical wonders of the world. That’s all Harper could dig up about it. His eyes caught the graffiti job on the sign pointing to the footbridge. Canal du Midi had been squiggled out with yellow paint and replaced with Canal de las Doas Mars. Harper ran the words. Wasn’t Spanish, wasn’t French. It was Occitan, and it meant Canal of the Two Seas.

  Not bad, Harper thought, questioning if it was himself knowing it or if he was getting a boost from Bernard de Saint-Martin, who probably roamed the town nine hundred years ago. He stopped on the bridge to finish his smoke, forgetting the question immediately. In its place he watched another barge coming up the canal. It was packed with Japanese tourists. All of them wearing the same colored hats and windbreakers. All of them with a camera of some sort in their hands. And as they passed under the footbridge, all of them looked up at Harper. Some of them connected with his eyes. Those ones waved. He waved back. Why not? He dropped his fag into the canal. It dissolved into nothing.

  He walked to the embankment path, went left, as instructed by the cabbie. Ten minutes later he was making the turn onto Rue Amélie. It was a narrow street with the right side lined with flats, circa 1970s. Left side was what must have been a factory row from the nineteenth century. Solid-looking buildings made of brick. From somewhere, Harper recalled that was typical in Toulouse. Same sort of bricks were used all over the city back then. The local soil gave the bricks a tint of pink. The bricks gave the city its nickname, La Ville Rose. He stood a moment, taking note of the fact there was no one about noticing the bricks, or anything else that might happen at the moment.

  He walked ahead, passing the doors of the factory row. He passed a joint called Le Rest’Ô Jazz. That was Number 8. At Number 6, no sign on or above the door. Harper heard a guitar. Strumming a progression of descending chords built around a tonic note. The sound hung in the air, then repeated. He flashed back to the train from Paris to Lausanne: Karoliina from Tampere, busily swinging her japa mala beads, her mobile rings. It was the same damn riff coming from behind the door. And as the guitar finished the riff, drums and bass kicked in with a slow 4/4 beat. Down on the pavement, another blue chalk stencil job of an angel falling from the sky. This time the words under the drawing read, This must be the place.

  “Sure. But for what?” Harper said.

  He checked his watch: 15:45 hours. Five hours, fifteen minutes to showtime. Maybe it w
as a matinee behind the doors. He pulled open the door, entered a small vestibule; the ticket window was closed. He walked ahead through a set of heavy curtains. There was a very large man standing there to greet him. Well over two hundred kilos. Black sneakers, black trousers, black shirt, black leather vest over the shirt. Badge on vest: SÉCURITÉ. The man had already seen Harper’s eyes, so there was no getting around him without negotiating safe passage. Harper watched the man’s lips move, which was about the best there was for communication, as the music nearly drowned the spoken word.

  “May I help you?”

  “Sure, where’s the bar?”

  “Apologies, monsieur, the bar does not open till eight.”

  “But the band is playing now.”

  “Sound and light check.”

  “What?”

  “Sound. Light. Check.”

  Harper wasn’t sure what it meant, but it sounded very much like fuck off.

  “How about Karoliina?”

  The man did a visual recon of Harper from head to toe and back again.

  “You know Karoliina?”

  “Sure.”

  “And she’s expecting you?”

  Harper waved the bandaged palm of his right hand before the man’s eyes.

  “Mate, can you think of another reason why I’d be here? And if you can’t, you should just step aside and let me pass, then forget all about it.”

  The man stepped aside, and Harper squeezed by.

  It was a huge, dimly lit space of old wooden floors and ceilings, supported by the original iron crossbeams and pillars. Far end of the space, five young men on a stage. Four with guitars, one on drums. They had their eyes to the floor as they played. All of them dressed in clothing off the racks of a Salvation Army thrift store. Their hair looking like it didn’t know what a comb was. And there were a couple men in overalls walking around the open floor with tall stepladders. They parked the ladders under spotlights, climbed up, and adjusted the color filters and direction of light. Seems the band likes the color blue, Harper thought. Harper saw the bar to the right. He walked over. No bartender, and the bottles were locked up behind a cage.

  He settled into the shadows, watched the band.

  There wasn’t a singer, just the instrumentalists playing the same riff over and over. The two guitarists at either end of the lineup were overlaying the progression of drums, bass, and rhythm guitar with riffs that sang and clashed and wailed. And all together the sound seemed to rise above the sum of its parts and into a slow hypnotic drone, circling the space and bouncing off the walls. Harper felt sound resonate in his chest. He knew it . . . from somewhere . . . a chant. Then it stopped cold. The guitarist moved around the stage, plucking notes or striking chords quietly. One of them passed a ciggie around and they all had a puff. Looked hand-rolled. The drummer yelled to someone.

  “I still need more kick drum in the monitors!”

  Harper made a mental note for future reference. Sound and light check. Got it.

  Someone tapped Harper’s shoulder from behind. That’s when he realized how hypnotic the sound had been. For a moment, he’d lost concentration on the now. He turned around, saw Karoliina from Tampere. She was in her sheepskin coat and swinging her beads.

  “Nice to see you again,” she said.

  “And you, too, I think.”

  “You saw the blue angel, didn’t you?”

  Harper flashed the chalk drawing on the pavement outside the train station.

  “I did. There were a few of them.”

  “That’s how it works. Most people are coming by train for this gig. Krinkle made the signs so people will know where to go.”

  “Krinkle?”

  “The roadie for the band. You know, the guy who moves the amps and speakers and instruments, and the band, from one place to the other. Gets it all set up for the gig, then takes it down, takes it someplace else.”

  “Krinkle the roadie. Right. Tell me something, mademoiselle, can everyone see them?”

  “See what?”

  “The signs on the ground.”

  She smiled.

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On whether you’re looking for them or not.”

  Harper looked at the band. The guitarists were still plucking softly at their strings, and the drummer was slamming at his kick drum whilst puffing on the hand-rolled ciggie.

  “What are they smoking up there?”

  “Some Toulouse homegrown. You want some?”

  He looked at Karoliina.

  “No thanks, I’ve got my own.”

  She gave her beads a happy twirl.

  “What did you think of the music?”

  “It’s loud.”

  “Compared to what?” she said.

  Only music he could flash up was from a program on the History Channel. The Greatest Arias of Opera. There was one song, “Nessun Dorma” from Turandot. Something about a man not being able to sleep. It gave Harper the chills.

  “Compared to everything I know about music,” Harper said.

  He stared at her.

  “Krinkle is backstage,” she said. “He’s the one you’re looking for. He’s waiting for you.”

  “Krinkle.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Is there more to his name, or is that it?”

  “Yeah, some people call him Little Buddha, but Krinkle is what most people call him.”

  “And how do you know he’s the one I’m looking for?”

  “Because he told me.”

  “Sorry?”

  “I was standing with him and we saw you come in. Krinkle said, ‘Tell that guy with the bandages on his hands that I’m the one he’s looking for, and I’ll meet him backstage.’”

  Harper checked the room. The stage was pressed up against a brick wall.

  “Where’s backstage?”

  Karoliina pointed to the fire exit sign to the left of the stage.

  “You go out that door, down the alley, and you’ll see a big black bus. It’s his. He’s there.”

  Harper nodded, walked that way. He stopped, turned around. Karoliina was leaning against the bar, swinging her beads, watching him.

  “You’re not coming with me?”

  “No. I need to be here when the band finishes the sound and light check. I restring and tune the guitars before every gig. That’s what I do. That’s why I had to be here.”

  Harper walked back to her.

  “By the way, if it’s not a trade secret, how the hell did you get here?”

  “To Toulouse?”

  “I checked the train, twice. You were nowhere to be seen.”

  “You were looking for me?”

  “Yes.”

  She smiled, chuffed at the thought. Harper flashed the sentiment in Finnish: Tyytyväinen.

  “No secret,” she said. “I ran into a friend at the Dijon station. Turns out he was heading to Lausanne, too. He writes game programs for the Internet. Sells billions and billions of them, so he’s loaded with billions. He had a private jet fly down from Paris, pick us up at Dijon airport, and fly us here.”

  Harper thought about it.

  “You flew here.”

  “I told you, I had to be here to restring and tune the guitars.”

  “Right. That’s what you do. Cheers.”

  “Ei kestä.”

  Harper stared at her, working the words in his head: My pleasure. She reminded him of someone just then. She was a shadow on his timeline; she was in LP’s Bar at the Palace Hotel. The hippocampus region of his brain snapped him back to now. He turned away, crossed the wooden floor, headed for the fire exit. He walked by the stage. The musicians watched him pass. The lot of them with that Karoliina-on-the-train gaze. I know who you are.

  Out the door.r />
  Down the alley.

  Parked in the shade of a very old plane tree was a Mercedes-Benz Travego. It fit the bill. It was big, it was black. And a bit more stylish than the number 16 bus Harper rode often through the old quarter of Lausanne. Looked like a custom job. The black metallic paint almost sparkled, the wheels were polished chrome, the windows running down the side were tinted to keep whomever was inside from prying eyes. Harper looked around. Nobody. He dug out his fags, lit up, giving someone a chance to show up. He checked the bus’s license plate; it was registered in Germany. No other markings. Just then, a hydraulic pump went shhhhh, and the one door at the front of the bus opened. A set of stairs slid out and down to the ground. The stairs were chrome, like the wheels. And there were small blue lights along the edge of the steps.

  Harper drew on his smoke.

  “Must be my stop.”

  He walked over.

  A disembodied voice said “Please mind the gap” in German, Spanish, Italian, English, and French. Harper dropped his smoke and climbed on the bus. He saw the driver’s cockpit. Had a lot more bells and whistles than the number 16 in Lausanne. Thing looked like it could drive itself and explain Minkowski’s space-time theory at the same time. Top of the steps there was a door to the passenger compartment. Harper looked at the empty driver’s seat.