He spotted them clogging the Street corners and being hustled firmly out of the lobby. Groupies, fans, hangers-on. He passed the cabbie ten bucks over fare and told him to idle. Donning a pair of steel-rimmed glasses, he heaved the case of beer out of the taxi.
The crowd was not as hairy to dance through as he had predicted. They parted at the sight of the suit, the intimations of authority. Next problem was the brigade of security guards in the floor lobby of the building housing KPPL. But the one manning the heavy glass doors admitted him, reacting automatically, his eye contact suggesting that he accepted Lucas as an adult and unconnected to the general rabble.
The guard pushed the door shut, forcing the hydraulic closure to hiss at being rushed. The crowd jabber dropped in volume. The guard was young and did not quite fill out his gray uniform shirt, which was girded by a Sam Browne belt and festooned with patches, tags, and security passes in plastic. A matte-finish .357 Magnum hung heavy off his left hip. He was a day behind in shaving, and his complexion needed sunlight. He did not need more aggravation than he already had.
“Oh, now, what the hell kinda crap is this?” He indicated the Beck’s box.
Lucas smiled. The brotherhood of the weary and put upon. “The rock stars in yonder booth have cried out for imported brew. Regardez. Any problem?”
“Problem,” the guard snorted. His embossed name strip read TRENCH. He sighed and waved his walkie-talkie toward a check-in table. Lucas set the case down. More guards braced the elevator doors. Behind the table was an older man who seemed amused by all this craziness.
“Only problem I have,” said Trench, “is that nobody bothered to tell me anything about this.”
“I hear you,” Lucas said while the guy behind the table peeked into the box. His eyebrows went up. “They never bother to do anything except give us orders. I don’t even think the KPPL guys know. Marc Tobler phoned in the order.”
“Who the hell is Marc Tobler?”
“Bass player for Electroshock. He’s up there now, doing the interview. Look, you can check out the box. It’s only beer. I’ll be in and out in five minutes. You can even pat me down if you want. No weapons and no autograph books.”
Trench snorted again, but this time it was like a laugh. Fucking rock stars thought they could walk all over anybody, go over anybody’s head.
“Hey,” Lucas said. “Escort me if you want. I know you’ve got better things to do with your time. Me too. You want me to sign something?”
At last Trench was being consulted. He eased up. “Go ahead on,” he said. “Fifth-floor suite. The booth is obvious. You can leave it with the girl at the desk. Houghton, let this gentleman go upstairs.”
KPPL’s receptionist was a gum-popping, eraser-chomping university dropout with a green streak in her Ish Kabibble haircut. She had pimples around her mouth and perpetually stiff nipples that punctuated the front of her jersey.
“Oh, Jesus,” she said when she saw the Beck’s case. She rolled gray, vacuous eyes. “I dunno if you can take that into the booth, y’know what I’m saying? I mean, we got in trouble for the jocks smoking dope and drinking during the on-air stuff, y’know, like there’s the FCC and stuff, and the jocks were sneaking in their friends who were high and they said ‘shit’ on the air and like we can’t do that, and if my boss knew I let it pass without an okay I’d get reamed out, you know what I’m saying? If he says it’s okay, then it’s okay, but Jesus, I wish to Christ they’d check with us first, I mean, everything really got fucked up last month when Giant Human Sandwich was here, and the guys were cussing on the air and one guy farted into an open mike during a call-in, and I mean the shit really flew, right? And we’re going out live right now, and I don’t think I can, y’know, say yea or nay to—”
Lucas held up both hands, as though pressing down a huge manhole cover to choke off the torrent of babble. “Look, honey, it’s no problem. I understand.”
She finally shut up. Understanding was hard enough to come by.
“Just tell me where to deliver it. That way we keep the demon alcohol out of their hands while they’re on the air, and they get it later, so nobody gets cheated…and my arm’s about to give out from lugging this thing all over the building.”
“Huh?” She actually looked at his arm. “Oh… right. Take it down to the Denver Hilton. Straight Razor and Electroshock have got most of the tenth floor, but don’t tell anybody I told you.” Then she grinned, a gamine, empty headed smile. “A case ain’t gonna be enough. They put it away like—”
“Like a trout puts down eggs,” said Lucas.
“What? Oh, yeah—like a fish.”
When the burnished aluminum elevator doors parted to admit Lucas back to the lobby, case in hand, he immediately sought out Trench.
“Say, Trench. Do you have someplace to stash this?”
Trench turned his attention from the milling fans outside. Some fair-looking young heartbreakers were pressing up against the glass. “You mean hold it for the band?” Hostility lurked in his voice.
“No, I mean hold it for yourself and your buddies here.”
Guard conversation in the foyer stopped, and all eyes fell to the Beck’s case. It was the correct answer.
“To hell with those bozos in the band. All they have to do is snap their fingers, and alcohol condenses from the very air. You guys look like you could use some refreshment.”
“Jesus…uh, thanks, I mean.”
“No prob,” said Lucas, tipping an imaginary topper. “You boys take it real slow, now. Enjoy.”
Trench returned a mock salute as Lucas made his way back out to the waiting cab.
What a decent dude, he thought. Should be more like him.
Lucas had known the utter futility of phoning up hotels and asking outright for Electroshock’s room numbers. Trying to penetrate the tenth floor of the Denver Hilton would require James Bond. Neither Straight Razor nor Electroshock would even exist, according to any registration desk in town. It was another groupie/fan deterrent mechanism. The exits, the elevators, all access to the tenth floor would be strictly monitored and regulated.
What was required was an audacious ploy. Out-grandstand the grandstanders. Shoes off, Lucas sat on his Holiday Inn bed and phoned the Denver Hilton. When the switchboard operator at the desk answered, he requested a random tenth-floor room number.
There was an official hesitation. “Who is calling, please?” There would be a screening list to consult.
Lucas made sure the man heard him sigh. “Mark Fawcett of Wolf and Rissmiller, okay? And I’m in a hurry, pal—we got a concert to put on, and I don’t like having my time wasted.”
“Oh. Oh. Just a moment, please.” Lucas was put on hold. He knew that the operator would be scanning the list. There would be no Mark Fawcett. But there would be Wolf and Rissmiller—the firm that had booked the show. The deskman would assume, like Trench, like the KPPL receptionist, that no one had bothered to tell him. He would check the expressions of his fellow workers on the desk, making sure no one had noticed his little faux pas. Wolf and Rissmiller, of course. The firm was familiar to Lucas from his PR experience.
The voice came back online. “That was Room 1015, yes?”
“Thank you.”
A line burred once, twice, with that blatting ring apparently reserved for business office systems and hotels. It sounded like a wet electronic fart.
The receiver was jerked off the other end on the third ring and dropped to the floor with a clunk. There was a loud, moist sniffle. “Starbase Six, come in?”
Lucas was out of the gate and running. “Yeah. Is Brion in there with you guys?”
“Brion? Shit, I don’t think—” There was a brief gabbing, off phone. “Nah. I think he’s still shacked up or crashed out or sleeping, still, in his room. You try 1021?” Another muffled consultation. Rapid, speed-injected talk cut through several other voices. Somebody giggled. “Yeah. 1021. Give him a buzz there.”
Lucas cut the connection and punched in the
Hilton desk again. A different clerk answered, and he asked if it would be any trouble to reserve a single room for one night. He gave his name as Cal Westbrook and explained that the TWA strike was forcing him to lay over in Denver till six A.M. The clerk explained that reservations were tight, but that Mr. Westbrook could be accommodated for one day only. He would have to check out the next day, though. The next day was the day of the concert, Lucas knew, and that was when the rooms would go at a premium.
Several hours later that evening, late enough to appear travel weary, Calvin Westbrook checked into his room on the seventh floor of the Hilton. He had little luggage. Just a sling bag.
It took twelve rings for Brion Hardin to answer his phone, in room 1021.
“Ahum. Yeah.”
“Brion?” Pause. “We got major trouble with some of the equipment, specifically your computer. The guy who was backing the truck up to Currigan did it with the tailgate open. Guess what fell out.”
“Aw, shiiiit.” There was a rustling; Brion was either in the rack, or dressing, or undressing. “Does Van know about this? Where the hell is Marc?”
“Can’t say, Brion, they’re MIA. It’s not their stuff, anyway. You were the guy I needed to find. I just got the call myself.”
“Who is this?”
“Murray Banner.” Lucas played it fast, leaving no gaps for Hardin to jump in with questions. “I’m with Currigan, and I stopped by the hotel to see Bob Callahan, and I got the news.… Can we keep a low profile on this, please? I don’t necessarily want anyone else to know. Not yet. You hear what I’m saying? I need you to go over to Currigan with me, pronto. Can you do it?”
“God, I don’t…” The information raced through Hardin’s head. “Yeah. Yeah, of course. Lemme get my pants on. Where do I find you, uh—”
“Murray.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“Seventh floor, room 704. Bob Callahan is with me. You probably don’t know Bob.”
Misdirect him from the fact he probably doesn’t know Murray Banner, either.
It all blew smoothly past Hardin. It was glossy and fast, without bumps to get stuck on. Lucas heard the keyboard man kibbutzing with his bedmate, whose name was Cheryl or Cheri.
“I’m on my way. Look, if I see Marc, should I tell him that—”
“No. Not yet. Let’s not panic anybody. If the world needs to know, you and I will tell ’em. But after you’ve had a look.”
Hardin appreciated the special attention. “Room 704. Five minutes.”
“Gotcha. Bye.”
The ensuing five minutes spilled more acid into Lucas’ gut than a bad seven-course Italian dinner.
Hardin might encounter a familiar face in the hallway and stop to repeat the lie. He might drag along someone else from Electroshock. He might show up with Crystal or Cheryl or Cheri in tow. Lucas had gambled, to draw the man off the tenth floor. It was rather like the chances Cass had taken with her life. Close your eyes and jump. But the options were worse. There was no way to mountaineer down to Hardin’s room from the exterior of the hotel. That was sheer fantasy. Bluffing past the guards on the elevators and exits was even stupider; he would be cutting off escape if anyone made a wrong noise. Why give a full floor of concert operatives a face to remember?
Room 704 was pristine, untouched. Ever since taking the elevator up, Lucas had been wearing surgical gloves. They had crinkled in his ear while he made the phone call to Hardin’s room. And they crinkled now, as he wrung his hands together, wishing Brion Hardin would hurry the hell up so this could all be over with.
He turned on the television, for cover noise.
Four solid knocks on the door.
The sound snapped Lucas’s head around, involuntarily. The blade of the Randall made a small ringing sound as he drew it from the heavy leather sheath. He threw the sheath, lightly underhanded, to the dark bathroom counter as he made for the door.
“Brion?”
The image, fisheye-distorted in the peephole lens of the door, was of a long face, framed entirely in woolly black hair. Hardin had grown a lavish beard since the photo session for The Crash of ’86. Two blazing blue eyes helped unify the riot of hair into a face. They were nearly colorless in shade, bright and piercing as the high beams of a truck. He was glancing impatiently up and down the empty hallway on the seventh floor. He was alone.
“Yeah. It’s me.” He shifted from foot to foot, worried about his equipment.
Lucas slid the Randall blade-down into the waistband of his pants, beneath the gray suit jacket. He prayed the jacket would not cramp his reach or tear. He had decided against wearing the glasses. They might fall off or go askew, or drop to the floor and get stomped on, leaving fragments, evidence of a hundred kinds. No.
He opened the door. “Come on in.”
Hardin lumbered through. He was taller, wider than Lucas expected. A big man, a mountain man, former member of the Moonshine Express, topping six four. He smelled like beer.
“Brion, I want you to meet Bob Callahan.” Lucas crushed down a jab of fear at seeing his intended victim’s size.
Hardin stopped dead still in the center of the room, his eyes on the nonsense burbling from the TV. He was in the process of turning around, to ask whose joke this was, to wearily acknowledge more rock ‘n’ roll tour horseplay and bullshit, when Lucas shut the door and reduced the distance separating them to nothing.
“I don’t see no Bob Ca—”
Lucas clamped his left hand over Hardin’s mouth and shoved the Randall upward into his chest cavity from behind, driving hard from the renal area, perforating the right kidney, the pancreas, and puncturing a lung. He twisted the knife and ripped it out, stepping back for the follow-through.
Hardin’s air whooshed out in a strangled cough as his body stiffened. He lurched forward, spinning the TV on its pedestal and slamming headlong into the window. He grabbed the drawn drapes to support him. The glass rattled thunderously when he hit. A ghastly retching noise escaped him, sounding like some grotesque Slavic jabber. His right hand pawed uselessly at the gushing crater gouted out of his back. Fresh blood slopped down to streak the legs of his pants. He spun and teetered back against the window, gasping, his eyes seeking Lucas, tipping over into shock trauma. The blue in them shone like comet coals as Brion Hardin recorded the image of his murderer.
He was still standing up.
His fists were tight around the curtains, and his eyes were still open, still seeing him.
“Come on, dammit!” Lucas lunged forward, sacrificing aim for thrust, and sank the blade into the middle of Hardin’s wiry beard. He twisted, ripped, withdrew.
The blade had gone in to the haft. Lucas was ready to strike again if this did not prove fatal.
It did.
Hardin’s tongue bulged out, rimmed with saliva bubbles. More blood coursed out. His eyes went wide with impact, then dimmed in death. His hand tried to reach up to his throat, to close the breach there, but never made it. He tumbled, top-heavy, like a tipped-over china cabinet, knees cracking on the carpeting, and fell on his face with a huge, muted thump. He was still. The carpet began to darken around his bearish, inert form.
Lucas stepped over him to check the window. The knife point had come out of the back of Hardin’s neck and starred the glass. Too much force. He had nearly gotten sloppy with panic.
He leapt for the door to check the corridor via the peephole. No activity. Yet.
Spatters of Hardin’s oral blood had shot across the room to decorate the front of Lucas’ gray jacket. He hurried to the bathroom and filled the basin with cold water.
The body on the floor remained unmoving. Not even a residual twitch.
Blood scattered away from the blade to stain the pure whiteness of the sink. The stream from the faucet diluted it to nothingness. Down the drain and gone. He rinsed the gloves, leaving them on and drying his hands with a fresh Hilton towel. Behind him, the TV pressed onward with its uncaring, lunatic natter, filling the room with useless images, filling
the brain with dazzling noise. He daubed at his jacket, not eliminating the stains, but at least neutralizing them to the cursory eye.
He looked out of the bathroom. Brion Hardin’s body was still there, still unmoving, not breathing, heart stopped like a busted railroad watch.
Lucas unfurled the wastebasket liner from his sling bag. He wrapped the Randall in it, sheath and all. He stashed the towel. There was nothing abnormal in the room.
Except for.
Lucas waited a few moments. Time to meditate his racing heartbeat down to normal speed, to stop sweating, to insure that Hardin was history. Boil everything else away to a sequence of mechanical events. Into the elevator. Strip off the gloves after you punch the button. Stuff them in the bag. Don’t touch anything on the way out of the hotel. Cut through the parking lot. Take Court Place to Fourteenth Street and get back to the Holiday Inn. Lay low in the room. Behind the door of that room, you do not exist—like Calvin Westbrook doesn’t exist, like Kirk Moore and Dave Klein and Phil Longley and Mark Fawcett and good old Bobby Callahan don’t exist. They would all vanish, like 150,000 other people who vanished every year in the United States, leaving no earthly trace. A name on a computer reservation, a cash-paid bill, would be all that was left.
There was one more thing to do.
Lucas had thought of it while sitting around the Holiday Inn, waiting for the KPPL interview. He kept thinking back to his conversation with Garris, the guy in charge of On the Brink Records in San Francisco. Any diversionary tactic, however small, might buy breathing space later if it was needed.
So, on his way to the Hilton, he had stopped at a twenty-four-hour drugstore and bought a can of red spray paint from the hardware section.
He pulled the can out of the sling bag and shook it. The stirring ball inside clattered around. On the blank wall behind the TV set, next to Hardin’s corpse, he sprayed a large cross, starting near the ceiling. Half of it extended to the mirror over the desk. He watched himself paint it, and his face was blocked out by a swath of wet red. He made his cross several strokes bold, about seven inches thick. Next to it, he added his message in equally large lettering.
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