Snake Face

by Amber Foxx

  On the way upstairs to their rooms, Mae explained, “I want to look some things up about Sylvie Wainwright. I can’t figure her out. Like why she’d pick Jamie, if she’s into Joe Wayne. They’re total opposites.”

  “Pick him for what?” Stamos asked. “It sounds like she’s harassing him. She’s not chasing him like she wants him.”

  “She’s doing both. There’s something really off about it all. The only way she found that cat was if she was right there. You should see it, it’s this big old fat thing, so it sure didn’t run far when it got out. She had to be following Jamie, not just aiming for where he’d be on his tour, because he was lost when he got to Oklahoma. If she was following him, she’d have to know it was his cat. Isn’t that crazy to take it and ship it, rather than give it back to him?”

  “You’ve jumped to a conclusion.” Stamos stopped at his door and slid his card key into the lock. “Yes, Sylvie is following Jamie. No doubt, and that’s not good.” He used his bag to prop the door open. “But when the cat gets out, suppose Sylvie is in the restroom, or out stretching like you do on a long drive, and it’s dark. She then sees a lost cat. She rescues it and sends it home.”

  “Maybe.” Mae unlocked her door. “I wonder if Jamie put it in his tour blog that he had his cat with him. Sylvie would follow that if she’s stalking.”

  “Is that what you need to look up? If you want to stay up late I can give you a much better way to spend your time.”

  “You’re not taking this seriously.”

  “I’m tired, and I don’t want to think about these people. Jamie knows her name now, and that she has done something strange. If she’s stalking him, he’s a grown man and can call the police and get a restraining order. You’ve done all you need to, to help him. The rest, he should do for himself.”

  Mae set her bag down inside her room and turned on the light. She wanted to argue with Stamos, but he was right. “He should, I know. But he won’t.”

  Stamos paused in her doorway. “Of course not, when he has you as his mother.”

  Torn between defending Jamie and protecting his privacy, Mae said nothing. She didn’t want to say, Jamie can’t think straight, but when she’d called him he seemed to be in a kind of fog or slump that could signal a downturn into depression. He’d seemed to be better in Mesilla, but real healing would take therapy, and therapy would take money, and money would come from success on this tour. Sylvie’s stalking could threaten that.

  “I won’t stay up long,” Mae said finally. “I’ll make sure I’m rested up for my share of the driving.”

  “It’s not that. Mae, I would drive the next thirteen hours if you needed me to, though I know that is not your nature to expect it of me.” Stamos opened his hands to her, then let them slowly fall. “I will tell you what bothers me. What he is taking away from you, that you don’t even realize you are losing.”

  Stamos went into his room, and his door closed as if he’d tried not to let it slam with that heavy fall of hotel doors. Mae had the uncharitable thought that when he urged her to take care of herself instead of Jamie, Stamos really wanted her to stop paying attention to someone other than himself. No, that was petty. He was a mature man. But he’d lost his wife to a musician’s charms. It might not be Mae’s maternal ways that bothered him so much as the profession of the friend she was helping.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Bad Sweetheart” played in the background of Joe Wayne’s web site while a montage of concert videos rotated across the screen. His tour schedule was listed on a side bar. He was in Charlottesville, Virginia tonight, on his way to Washington, DC. Convenient for Sylvie if she planned to use him as a cover for stalking Jamie.

  Mae clicked on a link to pictures. Like his liner note images, these all showed Joe Wayne alone or with a horse or his basenjis. No women. She opened a short bio that described him as a native Texan who began performing while he was in high school and had his first big hit while he was still in college. No women here either. He ought to acknowledge Sylvie somewhere other than the song-writing credits, if she was his wife.

  Unless he really treated her like “Bad Sweetheart” suggested. If so, did she like that kind of behavior? Mae couldn’t imagine putting up with it for a second, but Sylvie had stayed with Joe Wayne. She might have even co-written his song about seducing and abandoning Diana.

  A Google search for Sylvie Wainwright brought up a link to a “selected lyrics” section of Joe Wayne’s web site, her name as a songwriter in some music reviews, and nothing else. No personal web page, no bio, no social media presence. Either she wanted to be invisible—or Joe Wayne wanted her to be. He’d said in the concert that she liked her privacy. The most visible thing she did was work at that brewpub. Did she get a kick out of serving drinks? Maybe she got song ideas from watching people in a bar. She couldn’t need the money.

  Frustrated by getting more questions than answers on Sylvie, Mae opened up Jamie’s tour blog to see if he mentioned Gasser. The blog was coherent and professional, obviously written by Wendy. Jamie scrambled letters so badly it would take him hours to put it together, and he wouldn’t have the patience. The blog was free not only of typos, but of the random jokes and chaotic rambling that would mark it as Jamie’s own work. The first entry had a fuzzy picture of the fat cat spread softly on the passenger seat of the van, captioned My Traveling Friend. Another picture showed Gasser sunbathing on a rock, a comic juxtaposition with a shot of Jamie free climbing solo, taking his own picture, glorious if reckless. They’d still been in New Mexico from the look of the rocks and the fact that Jamie knew his way around enough to find a place to climb. He looked so happy and healthy. Today he’d sounded low and confused.

  Mae clicked a link to a review to see if he’d started to slip onstage as well as off. She picked the Durham show. It had just been updated an hour ago with a link to a Raleigh-Durham music blog. Wendy must be awake and working. God, she was dedicated.

  Caught an unexpected version of Jangarrai tonight. No drums, no didgeridoo. But he pulled it off. Think of a hybrid of Art Garfunkel, both of the Righteous Brothers, and Bobby McFerrin, for vocal power and passion and range. Then think of the way a chant takes an idea and turns it into an experience using the same simple words again and again. Think of the simplicity of McCartney singing ‘Yesterday,’ but without the orchestra. Imagine a pub in Ireland where suddenly out of the crowd this amazing tenor shares a song a cappella, silencing the room and sweeping away all the hearts that hear it. That gives you the idea of what he can do with his voice.

  Jangarrai still hasn’t figured out how to sequence his new material, though. He’ll go from a bare-hearted contemplation of loneliness to a high-flying celebration of joy, to a soundscape of vocal tones orchestrating the audience, and on to rhythmic inspiration and dancing. Once he settles down and steers the rollercoaster a little more smoothly, this will be masterful. Jangarrai has added an extraordinary new facet to his already impressive repertory of musical styles and accomplishments.

  Never heard of him? You will. Downloads available on his site. Keep your ears peeled. This is good.

  Relieved, Mae refocused on her original question. The blog post announcing Gasser’s disappearance asked the reader to look for him. Mae suspected that Wendy’s only editing of Jamie’s heartfelt plea had been to correct the typos. If Sylvie was using this site to access his schedule, she had to know she’d found Jamie’s cat, and that he missed him deeply. A stalker might make use of this somehow. But why?

  Did Sylvie want to love Jamie, or hurt him? Or both?

  No one should want to harm him. He avoided conflict unless he lost his temper, and then he’d apologize until you asked him to stop. He only had one ex-girlfriend, and she’d liked him enough to stay on as his manager for a few months after they broke up, on top of doing her regular job. Jamie at his worst was only annoying, more likely to wear people out than make enemies. It was more likely that Sylvie had a crush on him than a vendetta.

  Mae re
membered she’d said she would talk to Jamie tonight, and she should keep her word, though she had little of value to tell him. It was late, but he didn’t sleep much or well, and was probably wide awake for the lack of Gasser. Talking with her might even help him relax, and she wanted to know how the van had turned out. Hubert could have called her about that, but on a date with Jen he wouldn’t, and Mae understood.

  To her surprise Jamie sounded dozy and drifty, mumbling with half a voice when he answered. “Hm ... uh?”

  “Hey sugar, did I wake you up?”

  “It’s all right ... Woke up a few minutes ago.”

  She could hear rain. Why could she hear rain over the phone? “Jamie, where are you?”

  “The magic fairy apple. Jen’s car. I’m at a rest stop on 85 North. Having a little hurricane or something.”

  “Oh my god. Hubert took the van? In the storm?”

  “Yeah. Sorry. Didn’t know it was coming.”

  “He would have, though.” Carolinians followed hurricanes the way they did college basketball. “He’s—” Mae stopped herself. Could she say Hubert was too nice, too generous? He’d made sure Jamie didn’t drive the broken-down van in bad weather when he didn’t even know him. It would make Jamie feel guilty if she mentioned it. “He’s a careful driver, and he’s been through a lot of storms. He’ll be all right.” Hubert was a native of the hurricane zone. Any decisions he’d made, he’d made rationally as well as kindly. Still, she worried. A tree could fall, roads could flood. “I’ll call him in a minute and make sure, though.”

  “Yeah. Jesus. He and Jen, they saved me, y’know?” Jamie’s voice cracked. “They’re good people.”

  “Are you crying, sugar?”

  “Yeah. Every time I think about what they’re doing for me, I cry. I’m ... dunno ... off. I was all right. Now I’m not.” A big sniff. “Fuck. Snot. And there are no fucking tissues.” Mae smothered a laugh in spite of her concern, and heard Jamie laugh at himself. “Jeezus. I have to swallow it. Is mucus protein? Sorry, that’s disgusting. Don’t have any food, though. Jen gave away my chocolate.” Jamie shifted from joking his way out of crying into a different kind of unsteadiness, high-speed and urgent. “See, the poisoner struck and—it’s sabotage—like stealing my grundies. Unless Sylvie’s taking them to Joe Wayne to show off her trophies.” He stopped, like a car skidding off the road from the speed of his thoughts. “Fuck. Had it all figured out and then—Jeezus, just thought of this—what if she’s trying to make him jealous?”

  “That’d be crazy. With Joe Wayne’s reputation, he’s not a man you’d want to piss off on purpose.”

  “I know. Read a tabloid about him. Why would she try to do it with some halfway unknown bloke she’d never heard of before? Wendy called Sylvie’s boss, did I tell you that?”

  “No.”

  “Anyway, Sylvie didn’t know who I was before I played there.”

  “This is making less sense all the time. What did you have all figured out?”

  “That she’s the thief and the poisoner.”

  “Are you sure?”

  She listened to his fragmented explanation of the possessive underminer, tying together the drinks and the gifts, the thefts of everything from his sound system to his toothbrush and room key, and the nature of a stalker.

  “You could be right,” she said, “but it sure is peculiar. Why go to all that trouble if she not only doesn’t know you but just heard your music for the first time? Was she there tonight?”

  “Didn’t see her. But she could hide behind a beer bottle. Her arse is the size of a nickel and twice as flat.”

  “You don’t see her car at that rest stop, do you?”

  “Not unless she drove in with her lights off, no. Fuck.” He made a shuddering noise. “That would be evil.”

  “No one would do that in a storm. She may be weird but I don’t think she’s stupid. Stay put until it’s light out, okay? Go in the building if the wind gets worse. And call the police if she bothers you more.”

  “Can’t.” He sighed heavily. “She’s got my stuff. And Gasser.”

  Mae lay awake worrying about him after they said goodnight. Was this normal Jamie mood-swinging, or was he heading off some sort of cliff? Saying he was “off” bothered her more than his crying. It hadn’t been a big breakdown, and he could be kind of emotional. Sleeping in a car in a hurricane because he’d accidentally checked out of his hotel and didn’t want to check back in wasn’t normal. He was off. If he felt he had to let Sylvie have her way, as if Gasser was some kind of hostage, he might end up enduring her harassment for the rest of his tour.

  How crazy was she? His insight about Sylvie sounded disturbingly right. The patterns fit together. What if she was following the van?

  Mae called Hubert. A light tap sounded on her door before he picked up. “Stamos?”

  “Yes. I am sorry I was rude. May I come in?”

  The phone kept ringing. Of course Hubert wouldn’t talk while he drove in a storm, but she hoped Jen would answer for him. “Of course. Thanks for apologizing. I appreciate it.”

  She let Stamos in, and was treated to the sight of him in a lightweight burgundy bathrobe open to the waist. His muscles were sculpted without being excessive like a body builder’s, and like Hubert, he had a little thatch of chest hair. Stamos’s was salted with gray. She had an urge to run her hand through it, but only gave him a light kiss. The physical attraction mixed with a nagging disappointment. Her feelings about him were uncertain now. He smiled without losing the thoughtful look in his eyes.

  “I’m trying to reach my ex and his girlfriend,” Mae said. “That hurricane came ashore and—”

  Just then, Jen finally answered. “Hey, Mae. Hubert’s driving. Sorry it took so long to answer. I had to see where the phone fell in this crazy van.”

  Stamos hugged Mae with one arm, and then sat on the edge of her bed. She paced away from him to stand by the table at the window and focused on Jen.

  “Hey. I’m glad you picked up. Are y’all okay in that storm?”

  “So far. It’s kind of heavy wind and rain, but—what’d you say, honey?”

  Hubert’s voice spoke over the engine noise and the rain. Jen translated, “He says the van’s ticklish. But we’ll be fine. It goes so slow, it’s the way you’d have to drive in this weather anyway. We have to keep going, it’ll only be floodier in the morning.”

  Floodier. Jen could be a little cutesy. Mae hoped Brook and Stream didn’t pick that up from her. “Be safe. Thanks for loaning Jamie your car. He's really touched by it.”

  “I’m glad to. He’s such a sweetie. And so brilliant. Doesn’t he remind of you of Shawn?”

  Shawn Richardson, Mae’s high school boyfriend. Tall and black, but otherwise different. “Not really.”

  “Think about it.”

  Mae turned to her computer and clicked on the link from Jamie’s blog to his web site. Looking at Jamie’s pictures, she imagined him with Shawn’s wire-rimmed glasses, short black hair, and no beard. Shawn had been about the same milk chocolate shade of brown. They did both have those pretty eyes, and the picture of Jamie playing his didgeridoo reminded her of Shawn playing the tuba. He’d been a band geek with Jen. The way it made the player puff his cheeks out was so funny looking, Mae had teased Shawn about that tuba face. He had been sweet, awkward, and super smart, not one of the cool kids. Her first real love. Two years together. “Okay. I can see a little similarity, yeah.”

  “More than a little. He’s a lot like Shawn. He’s your type.”

  Mae had seen Stamos as the same type as Hubert, a sort of pattern in her romantic behavior. Jen saw Jamie as the same type as Shawn, an imprinting of an early relationship that should attract Mae. What if Sylvie had some guy in her past that could have triggered an attraction to Jamie? “Is anyone following you?”

  “You mean Jamie’s chocolate giver? There’s been a car behind us all the way, same distance back.”

  Would Sylvie get detoured all the way to Tyl
erton? It seemed unlikely, since she’d know Jamie’s tour schedule. But in the heavy rain, she might miss road signs or think he’d had a change of plans. If she’d followed the van, it would give him a reprieve, but give Jen and Hubert a stalker. “I hope she’s harmless.”

  “To us, she would be.”

  Not a very reassuring way to put it, but Mae knew what Jen meant. “If it’s her, you may have done him another favor. Even though she could find him again, any time off from her will do him good.”

  “What she really needs is to see him with you. That’d put a nail in her stalker coffin.”

  “He needs to stop her legally, not by looking like he has a girlfriend. Anyway, I’m with Stamos. He’s here. I gotta go.” She’d ignored him long enough, and he’d been patient about it. “Stay safe, and tell Hubert I said thanks again. Let me know you get home okay.”

  Mae set down the phone and looked again at Jamie’s picture on his site, wishing him a safe night. When she closed that window, she found she still had Joe Wayne’s site open. Jamie with his old straw fedora and his little tuft of a goatee was replaced by Joe Wayne with his cowboy hat and tough-guy, unshaven look. No one could ever do to Joe Wayne what Sylvie had done to Jamie, and not just because of money and fame.

  Stamos came up behind her and kissed the back of her neck. “I thought you hung up so you could be with me, and you’re looking at Brazos?”

  “Sorry.” Mae minimized the window. “I just figured something out. No—made it more confusing.”

  “What?”

  “Sylvie.” If Sylvie was all three—poisoner, thief, and stalker—the choice of victim perfectly fit the crime. “She’d have to know Jamie to pull this off. She couldn’t do what she’s done to most people.”

  Stamos let her go and sat in the chair on the other side of the table. “Is this going to take up your whole night? You need to relax and sleep.”