by James Grady
Zane asked: “Can we get food?”
“Whatever’s fast and filling,” I said. “Emphasis on fast.”
“Hunger, man,” said the bartender. “It’s a bitch. The cook’s got pasta. Tomato, sausage and peppers sauce. It’s fast, but if you slop it on you, it’ll look like blood.”
She relayed our food order into her microphone headset as she walked towards empty glasses stacked in front of the back wall’s American flag.
I whispered to Zane: “What if someone goes into the BMW? Takes it?”
“Steals our stolen car?” He nodded toward singer-songwriter Terri as she walked across the room to collect hugs from three of her day-job girlfriends. “For sex?”
“We’re not a joke! Or a song!”
“Sure we are,” he said, handing me a beer. “Relax.”
Russell wedged between us: “Do you know where we are?”
“Lots of signs,” I told him.
“No, man: do you know where we are?
“There are places,” he said, “where magic percolates. Where art meets audience and both transcend. Like the Newport festival stage or Harlem’s Cotton Club or the Cavern Club in Hamburg where the Beatles fused or the Texas honky tonks that spun out Hank Williams and Buddy Holly—or Hell, the Globe Theater way back in way back.”
“Don’t stretch a beautiful theory,” I argued. “Rips apart when you compare a beer soaked bar, some colored lights, drunk college kids, bluesy factory hands and a hot rocker like what’s-her-name up there to Shakespeare.”
“Hey: America’s poets put down their pens and picked up guitars.”
“What if they can’t sing?”
“Like Bob Dylan?”
“William Carlos Williams wrote real poems after the A-bomb, TV—”
“Jersey dude, right?” said Russell. “Loved Sinatra? Rocked out around here?”
“Here, guys!” Steaming plates of red sauce spaghetti plunked on the bar.
“And this place,” whispered Russell, “this place… The blue collar sound rebelling against the suits back when I was a baby in the ’70’s… That stage… Springsteen.”
Russell shook his head. “Maybe if I hadn’t cared about the world blowing up. Maybe if I’d believed my words and music would do it instead of figuring I had to put my ass on Uncle Sam’s line. I mean, I was a good rocker—am good, and that worked out swell for Uncle, my what-I-can-do covering his higher purpose in dark alleys and…
“But maybe,” he said, his eyes full of the stage where instruments waited in front of a huge white pony. “Maybe. If.”
Zane coaxed him back from the badlands of what might have been. “Eat.”
As Russell obeyed, Zane whispered to me: “How much money we got left?”
“Not a lot,” I said. “The bus, motel, whatever you guys used at the mall…”
“Oh well. Give me a hundred dollars.”
His eyes told me just do it. He held the bills I slipped him, beckoned the bartender to us, asked: “Where’s the manager?”
The bartender pointed to a trim woman with brass hair.
Zane elbowed his way through the crowd until he reached the manager. She let him do the talking, then turned her no-bullshit eyes our way. Told him something.
Hailey whispered to me: “What’s he doing?”
Zane worked his way through the crowd, spoke to the singer Terri as she sat with her friends and band. She said something. He said more. She shrugged yes.
Zane gave her the $100 of our operational/survival money.
Walked back to us, told Russell: “OK, it’s paid for. Pick an axe. Take your shot.”
“What?” said Russell.
Zane said: “The stage at the Stone Pony is now yours.”
Russell stared at him. At me.
Words came out of my heart. I had to say: “Go for it. Time’s a wasting.”
For a frozen moment of eternity, Russell only stared at us, his eyes wet.
Then he turned and shouldered his way through the crowd toward the stage.
Off to my left, I saw the brass haired manager speak to the technician who ran the sound booth against the wall opposite the stage. Break over, he strode back to work.
Russell stood below the stage. Hesitated. Took the long high step and was up there with the guitars and drums, the keyboard and the back wall white pony.
Across the room, Terri and her band watched their costly instruments.
Russell let his fingers glide over one of the sleek, fully electric guitars. A classic wooden box guitar fitted with a mike caught his eye. He picked it up.
“What if he’s no good?” I said to Hailey.
“Then he goes down rocking. Better than not trying. Everybody goes down.”
But we each drained our beers.
The sound tech turned the white spot on Russell. Set the mike live.
“Wooo!” yelled the bartender behind us and she clapped. “Go old guy!”
I told Zane: “That’s for you.”
Got back: “That’s for all of us.”
On stage, Russell plucked a jangling, off-key string of notes out of the guitar.
Embarrassment hushed the crowd. People shuffled on the dance floor, hoping the guy on stage would go away if they all kept quiet.
Then, oh then, Russell hijacked their dreams.
Heartbeat strumming the guitar, leaning in and giving them something they’d never heard, his acoustic guitar rapid fire slammed a Richard Thompson classic:
“Feel so good I’m gonna break somebody’s heart tonight,
“Feel so good I’m gonna take someone apart tonight…”
Third line in, he owned them as his fingers flew on strings, a crescendo of poetry.
Zane drifted to the brass haired manager. I saw her laugh, hold up her left hand, point to her fourth finger and shake her head sorry.
Zane! I thought with happy awe. ’Xactly! Ride that breakthrough! Take a shot.
Russell ripped out a last strum. Stepped back from the mike to catch his breath.
The crowd went wild—screaming, clapping, hooting.
Across the crowded room I saw Terri and her band standing and cheering.
Russell plucked a waterfall of notes. Announced the well-known “All For You” by a group named Sister Hazel. But instead of singing it, he kept plucking Waterfall notes, repeating and building that chorus into a rhythm he rode as if waiting for something to happen. I wondered why, of all the songs he knew, Russell picked that one to play.
Terri ran from her band, charged across the bar to stuff our cash in Zane’s shirt pocket, bound on stage and grab a mike. Russell smiled to the night, didn’t look at her, leaned towards his microphone, sang the first line of the song, fell silent as Terri chimed in singing the second line. Then he looked at her. And she realized this was a perfect song for a call-response duet, each of them alternating singing lines of love and time lost.
Her band was on stage, a second guitar strumming behind Russell as her keyboard player handed Terri a guitar while the drummer picked up his sticks, marked time—
And all of them came in together with a joyous song as the crowd roared.
Our bartender behind us yelled: “Rock out!”
Eric jumped into the crowd to obey her order.
Hailey jumped after him, commanding: “Stay with me! Obey only me!”
And they were both rocking, Eric waving his arms in absolute ecstasy as the best woman he could ever love danced with him, laughing in spite of dying.
Two hundred people jammed the dance floor. Opposite the stage was the sound booth, a rear wall platform with a low bank of sound and light boards, dials and switches. The tech jerked his head for me to join him up there for the best view.
On stage, the band frazzled through the ending of “All For You.�
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Russell cut loose with the dun-dun, dah dah dun opening electric guitar riff that came to Keith Richards in a dream for The Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.”
Terri glowed at Russell. Her ebony curls cascaded. She arched her hips toward the man in a noir leather jacket as they ground out the song about what they couldn’t get.
On the club floor, Zane and Hailey and Eric rocked out.
On the sound booth platform, I glanced beyond the crowd to the front door where—just like Derya—a woman I’d never met walked in and rocked my world.
That night was The Stone Pony, not Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia before 9/11.
That woman was Cari, not Derya.
Cari flowed into the Stone Pony. Two men in long coats flanked her. A familiar magic crackled around her from her cropped blond hair to her hunter’s face to her dark jacket and black shoes. Then the cosmos brushed open her dark jacket so I saw her holstered gun and I stone certain knew she was Agency. Knew that she and her crew were our perfect assassins.
33
“… sa—tis—faction!” sang Russell on stage at the Stone Pony. Terri’s black hair swayed as she stroked her electric guitar and her band rocked the song.
Cari and her two gunmen paused just inside the door to let their hunters’ eyes adjust to the spotlit blue glow of the bar. Both of her killers wore long coats. The one in brown leather was bald, the hulk in black space-age fiber sported a crew cut.
“Hey hey, hey!” sang Russell.
The crowd on the dance floor surged with the song.
Eric ‘rocked out,’ as ordered, a pudgy, bespectacled white boy jumping up and down completely off beat, waving his arms above his head like he was stirring the stars.
Dancing with Hailey shot joy into Eric’s obedience. Shepherding him justified Hailey being on the dance floor, but her grin said that she was also having a great time.
They made an extraordinary couple: white boy geek, classy ebony woman.
Cari spotted them from clear across the jam-packed club.
I fled the sound booth platform. A busboy stacked empty pasta bowls on a tray. I stuffed dollars in his shirt pocket, slid his heavy tray onto the palm of my right hand.
Holding the tray level with my face let hunters see only a busboy.
Zane stood beside the manager. His gun held three bullets, one for each assassin, though he couldn’t see them across the crowded room. He sensed my intense motion and turned to see me, tray balanced on my right palm while my left forefinger cut my throat.
On stage, Russell and Terri improvised a chorus of alternating ‘I tried’s, leaning back to back, sharing a mike. They only saw their own world.
I flashed Zane three fingers. My forefinger pointed up, then my hand swept out to signify breasts: one woman. My fingers V-ed like scissors, pointed down: two men.
Zane’s nod told me got it, his clenched fist said GO!
On stage, guitar man Russell dropped to one knee in front of Terri. Her hips kept hunters from seeing him and him from seeing them.
The tech in the sound booth killed the house lights and bathed the guitar couple on stage with blue and red spots. I pushed my way through the mesmerized crowd of civilians. The tray hid my face as I circled for position, praying that no one realized busboys don’t wear leather jackets or carry dirty dishes away from the kitchen.
Thirty, twenty-five feet away, Cari cupped the ear of her crew cut hulk to shout her command. He fumbled in his trenchcoat, turned towards the front exit.
Cell phone: too loud in here so he’s going outside to call the cavalry!
I bumped a guy who yelled ‘Watch it!’ Bee-lined through tables, around the display cases with T-shirts, hurried towards the front door.
Crew Cut’s trenchcoat floated behind him as he swooped towards the night. He ignored the busboy bearing in on him from his right.
The bar tech flipped on white strobe lights. We became stuttered images in a movie with a soundtrack blaring rage and sex. Life revealed itself in strobing white flashes punctuated by blinding blackness.
White flash Crew Cut raises his cell phone from his side.
Black flash blind can’t see.
White flash Crew Cut has his cell phone near his face.
“Oops!” I cried, staging a stumble towards Crew Cut.
I dumped the tray from in front of my face. Dirty dishes flipped towards him. He jumped back as bowls and bottles clattered near his shoes.
My knuckles jabbed his throat.
His eyes rolled. My palm smacked his temple. His brain sloshed. I spun his unconscious weight to a chair at an empty table. Chopped his neck to be sure.
On stage, on both knees, Russell leaned back like an opening jackknife.
On the floor: find cell phone! Got it, thumb it off!
Crew Cut slumped in the chair. I unsnapped a holstered automatic from his belt and clipped it on mine, tucked a pistol from his shoulder holster near my spine. Two ammo mags from the shoulder holster went into my jacket chest pockets, a pouch of mags went from his belt to mine. One trenchcoat pocket held a grenade, the other a pronged stun gun: they bulged my jacket. His three ID folders, wallet and wad of cash stretched my pants. I felt body armor under his shirt: Can’t get that.
I crossed his arms on the table, buried his face on them alongside pasta bowls and beer bottles. He looked like a guy having a bad night in a good bar.
Pushing through the crowd, I saw the backs of the bald killer and Cari. Hailey danced with her back to them. Eric’s eyes held only joy.
Hailey glanced to the crowd beyond Eric. Saw Zane’s gun hand pressed against his thigh. Realized. She danced to Eric, shouted in his ear. His face churned.
Closer, I was closer, ten feet behind Bald Killer’s back.
The bar tech flicked from strobes to spinning colored lights. Hailey whirled in a solo dance as on the stage, Terri straddled Russell. She ground lower each time they shouted the song’s ‘Tried!’ The crowd watched only them.
Cari and her partner locked on Hailey.
In the spinning colored lights, Hailey shot the assassins her middle finger.
Ran towards a neon red FIRE EXIT sign above a corridor door.
Cari and Baldy bolted after her.
Behind them, I struggled through the bouncing, whooping crowd.
Eric rumbled toward the two hellhounds chasing Hailey.
Baldy spun to meet Eric’s charge. Zapped Eric with a pronged stun gun and whirled to run after his leader and Target Two.
Zane and I caught Eric. I shoved the pistol from my spine into Zane’s hand and left him holding our stunned but used-to-it engineer as I charged towards the fire exit.
Through the exit door—bright kitchen, giant freezer, cool night breeze from around that corner…
Satisfaction blared as I flew into the night. Solid wood fence walls made a half-block square outdoor arena. A stage rose from the asphalt, a stage with stairs Hailey ran up, Cari on her heels. Behind Cari ran Baldy.
Who sensed danger and whirled to face me.
Inside the bar, on that bandstand, Russell and Terri chorused: “can’t get no!” She jumped back from straddling him, he flipped to his feet better than in our gung fu practice. The roaring crowd pulled his eyes from her—
And Russell saw Eric slumped in a chair.
Terri and her band hit the last chord of “Satisfaction.”
Applause thundered out the back door to the starlit auditorium pen where no one in the audience could see Baldy explode towards me with a flying front snap kick.
Back/block it—block his follow-through punch, grab—Missed!
Baldy swooped an ankle kick but my empty foot took his strike like a tetherball and flipped up. My foot came down before his, lined up with his leg and I flowed forward, my shin wedging into his leg. He yelled in pa
in but whirled away from my crunch before I could do major damage. His hands disappeared inside his coat.
Weapons! I jumped on his back to grab his coat lapels, pull them over his shoulders and down, pinning his arms with his own garment.
Rather than fight the brown leather coat and give me the second I’d need to slam his head, he leapt forward, his arms straightening and sliding free of its sleeves.
He didn’t waste a beat to cross-draw pistols from the double shoulder holster harness on his weapons vest. His hands jabbed towards me. I arced hooks at him, more to keep his hands away from the guns than to hit him. He counter—
Zane slammed him from behind with an aluminum garbage can.
Baldy crashed face down on the concrete. His hands flexed.
Zane canned him again.
As I ran up the stairs of the outside stage.
To an awe inspiring sight. Black seashore night. A billion white stars overhead. A rolling dark horizon of icy ocean. Condo buildings three blocks inland where lights glowed in windows of retirees. A chilly breeze. Two extraordinary women kicking the shit out of each other on a bare wooden stage.
Hailey’s standard Agent Training course in hand-to-hand combat taught her enough to stun Christophe before she hacked him to death with maniacal fury.
But Cari was an artistic warrior. She’d backed Hailey to the edge of a ten-foot drop from that bare wooden stage. Hailey’s hands snapped to guard-up as she lunged with two-straight kicks followed by the textbook punch. Blonde Cari simply wasn’t there for the kicks to hit. She blocked Hailey’s punch and slammed a back-fist into her ebony face. Hailey fell to the boards like a sack of sand.
My ambush palm strike between Cari’s shoulder blades would have knocked the wind out of her and snapped her hands out away from her gun like a crucifixion.
If she hadn’t spun and blocked and kicked me in the crotch.
Except I twisted her target off line so her foot slammed my right hip.
I struck to her face so she’d block/not draw her gun. She hooked a punch I deflected as I dodged a kick to my kneecap. I feinted, she didn’t buy it and rocketed a right jab I stuck to my left palm & flowed back/forward in T’ai Chi’s kao, my shoulder slamming her centerline. She blasted backwards off the stage. I grabbed her hand. We hung suspended in time. Linked hand-to-hand and splayed out like a 1950’s jitterbug couple. I jerked her arm and she flew back to me, her feet tripping across the stage as I pulled her to o-goshi, judo’s hip throw that spun her over my back—again like a jitterbugger—and slammed her back on the bare wood stage. I saw her dazed green eyes, the soft pink of her cheeks. Before she sucked air back into her lungs I flipped her face down on the wood, pushed her hands out and dug my knee into her spine.
