Phillip pulled me at the elbow. “You should’ve talked to him more, he’s the one who calls the shots.”
“What didja do, suck him off? He wasn’t interested in anything I had to say.”
“Oh c’mon, Colin, you’re overreacting.”
“Yeah, easy for you to say, you’re so good-looking.”
“Jealous, mate?” Phillip asked.
I raised my fists like I wanted the discussion to come to blows. “Yeah, Pretty Boy. See that woman I was talking to before you came over?”
He smiled. “Yeah, that was nutty—what happened there?”
“Rachel’s mum.”
“Her mum? Where the hell’s Rachel?”
“She didn’t talk much—she handed me an envelope from Rachel and ran like I had the black death. Rachel says she’s stuck as a juror on this crazy trial I heard about a few days ago. She’s not allowed to leave her motel room except to go to the courtroom.”
“Give us a squizz!” He grabbed the note from me and gave it a read. He kept squinting at her indecipherable words. I translated them: congrats, conjugal, famous. “This is odd,” Phillip said. “She could’ve phoned the hotel before. She had to send her mum?”
“Rachel likes to put on a show, Phillip. You know what she’s like.”
“Least she’s not mad at you.”
“Yeah.” I figured I’d track down the court first thing in the morning. We had another two weeks to spare in New York after the wrap-up party, for post-publicity.
“Poppies get ready,” the pretty Asian backstage coordinator named Beth announced. During soundcheck, Mick-O had chatted her up. He said he was after “a bit of wonton love.” Mick-O was from a working-class family, not as rough around the edges as Stuart’s, but compared to him my family were regular intellectuals. At least we were brought up without prejudices, and one Saturday a month my grandmum used to take me and Liam on “cultural outings,” as she put it, to places like the Museum of Victoria, where there were dinosaurs—or to the Old Melbourne Gaol to see the death masks of the convicts who couldn’t mend their ways. Mick-O’s use of wonton was in no fucking way clever wordplay on wanton. I long ago came to terms with his existence—he was good for a beer at the pub and he liked people.
Beth escorted us past electrical pipes, a Coke machine, pointed out the New York Knicks’ dressing room with the nine-foot doorways, and led us to the edge of the stage. Waiting behind the curtain, I wasn’t even thinking about Rachel anymore. This was it. A gig in New York City. Madison Square Garden. Talk about a change in fortune. The audience took their seats to Tina Turner’s “What’s Love Got to Do with It?” And then Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.” I plucked a nervous note on my fret. During soundcheck, when we’d had problems with the speakers, the supercilious arse of a production manager had assured us that everything would be working when we got on stage. My bass did sound good.
“Sounds good, huh?” Mick-O asked, testing his babies, his tom-toms, and his snare.
“This is the big time, I guess. On this level even arseholes do things right.”
Then, like in a dream: “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. MADISON SQUARE GARDEN AND FOSTER’S WELCOMES YOU TO THE DOWN UNDER TOUR WITH INXS. PLEASE WELCOME THEIR SPECIAL GUESTS, FROM MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA—THE TALL POPPIES.”
I had a stiffie from my nerves. And the eye tic was at it again. For our first song, “Red Rope Principle,” I crossed the stage a few times the way I’d been shown by the choreographer. Angus had hired her the day after we’d arrived in Manhattan. She’d gone over a few steps in her studio, and for an hour in the empty Garden. Phillip ate the charm-school stuff up, and I went along with him even though we were supposed to be a fucking rock and roll band: half the fun is standing around like a wooden board and looking like you hate the world. But Angus, without consulting us, had paid a cool thousand of our performance fee for this happy woman who’d made me walk across the rehearsal room eleven times until I was passable. “Colin! You’re not strutting,” she’d smiled. “Look like you want to rape each little girl in the audience.”
“You put up the velvet rope,” Phillip now sang—“Wouldn’t let me inside—And like all your men, I’m waiting in line—So obvious, girl—But it works every time.”
“It works every time,” I sang in harmony with Mick-O.
After crossing the stage once more from left to right, I tried to focus on a woman in the first row of the audience. There was a video crew because it was the final show of INXS’s four-month tour. We’d been told that an edited version of the night was going to be released on video cassette. I wondered how the members of Yothu Yindi would feel. They did a grueling eighty percent of the tour, and one of our four shows got to be immortalized. Between the cameras and the lighting system, I couldn’t see a bloody thing.
When our set was through, Beth whisked us back past the pipes to our dressing room.
“That was great, just great,” Kerri said, slipping her hand rather directly on Phillip’s arse.
I collapsed on an armchair. I sure wasn’t twenty-one anymore.
Phillip slapped me on the back. “A night for you to remember, mate,” he said.
“And you, too,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said, kind of somber.
It would have been rude to leave until INXS was through. Their manager had arranged an hour-long piss-up after the show, after which they would go their way with models and charge cards.
“Take a seat, boys,” Angus said. “And Colin, I have a surprise for you. You have a visitor in the audience! She’ll come back stage after INXS is done.”
Rachel’s mother. Yeah. I knew about her already. Maybe she’d give me more information about going to the motel.
“Maybe Rachel talked her judge into letting her see the show,” Phillip offered.
On that slight chance I took a quick shower. Brushed my teeth. Toweled my hair.
“Colin!” Mick-O called. “Come out of the toilet!”
I opened the door.
“Surprised to see me?”
“Yeah,” I said, shocked.
“Yes,” Hannah corrected. She was wearing a teal blue dress that looked insanely great with her red hair. “You haven’t picked up a new American girlfriend, have you?”
“Not when I’ve been mesmerized by Hannah Leser,” I said. I kissed her on the lips. She tasted like she’d eaten olives before coming backstage. “I thought you had a ceramics conference.”
“The event planner had a heart attack on the second day, so it got canceled. You said you wanted me in the front row of Madison Square Garden.”
“Did you know her?’
“No. Just from the phone.”
“Oh, well, it’s too bad, I guess. What did you think of the show?”
“Good. I couldn’t figure out why you were running around the stage so much, but you sang on key throughout.”
“Thanks,” I said, taking what I could get.
“INXS was driving them crazy out there.”
“Yeah,” I said. “How’s Hector?”
“My cats are full vegans now, and they were getting tempted by those tins of tuna and chicken you left for Hector. I thought it best if I separated them. So I hope you don’t mind, I brought Hector over to your mother’s. I left Marjoram and Smudgeface with a friend of mine from the food co-op.”
“You met my mother?”
“You left her number for an emergency, remember?”
“I guess that’s okay.”
“Miss Hannah,” Phillip said loudly from the couch. “How’s the press coverage for us back in Australia?”
“Haven’t paid much notice to tell the truth. I heard something on the radio once.”
“See,” Phillip said to Mick-O, “this is big news.”
One of INXS’s roadies knocked on our door. “They have some beer for you, but you better come right away. They have to go to a nightclub later.”
I thought I saw Hannah smirk.
We went into the other dressi
ng room as casually as possible. We got a round of “Good jobs.” Everyone eyed Hannah; she shrewdly kept her somewhat whiny voice silent, so she’d seem more mysterious. Kerri had no such insight. Phillip squirmed while she held his hand tightly, as if he was on a leash.
I couldn’t get an accurate reading on Hannah. She’d spent her own money to come out, and yet she kept wavering from being my devoted girlfriend to someone I needed to pick up all over again. One of the record executives wanted to know if we wanted to sniff some heroin, and she said, “No, no, Colin doesn’t do that.”
“It’s a test,” she whispered seconds later. “They want to see if you’re a serious musician.”
I wasn’t so sure he wasn’t simply a drug abuser, but I didn’t mind that Hannah declined for me. Stuart’s sorry life was enough to keep anyone clean.
“Who are you sharing a room with?” Hannah said.
“Mick-O.”
She squeezed my wrist suggestively. “Think he’s going back to the hotel right now?”
“I’ll find out.”
He was making his own suggestive comments to Beth in the corner. “Mick-O,” I interrupted, “Can you stay out tonight?”
“No problem,” Mick-O smiled. “Beth, would you deny Colin a surprise reunion with his girlfriend?”
“I guess not,” Beth giggled.
We hailed a taxi back to the hotel.
“I’m on the pill now,” Hannah whispered. “And my AIDS test came back negative.” Hannah had once told me that she’d had a test every six months since she heard about AIDS. She’d been slipped a mickey once by a surfer from Geelong, and was never sure what happened.
“Well, if you’re game, I am,” I said. “I had an AIDS test two months ago when Phillip panicked over a heroin-abusing bedmate he’d boffed after too many beers. He wanted a mate to go through the test with him.” The taxi driver was too preoccupied with a baseball game on the radio to hear us.
I whistled as Hannah came out in a new satin teddy. She did look unbelievable. She peeled back the bottom of the sheet and caressed my legs. “I’ve missed your exquisite toes, darling.”
The sex was good for a change, a state punctured only by Hannah immediately leaping out of bed to remove her smeared mascara.
“Condomless sex—one of the benefits of a real relationship. You could have come in me,” Hannah chided.
I almost drifted off to sleep when I remembered I had to go to Rachel’s hotel the next day, or forever piss her off.
“This is so nice,” Hannah said, gripping my elbow.
Angus knocked on the door. The alarm clock said one A.M.
“Come next door. I got some raw footage from the video tape crew. I have to give it back tomorrow morning before INXS’s people find out about it.”
“I’m busy, Angus,” I said.
“That’s okay,” Hannah said. “Let’s go watch.”
It was just the three of us in Angus and Phillip’s room. Angus handed me a beer. Hannah passed. “I only drink champagne or mineral water,” she said. I glanced at the mirror over the sideboard and caught Angus mocking her words as he rewound the video. About ten minutes into the tape, we could see that I’d mistakenly thrown a sexy stare at a big puffy man with a mustache in the front row.
“I couldn’t see much with those lights,” I tried to protest, but Angus and Hannah were too busy laughing. I felt very small.
“Oh, Colin,” Hannah said. “Have a sense of humor.”
12
Rachel: THE HALFIES
The assistant DA’s hunky junior associate was going to play the first cassette tape for us, one of three conversations recorded by the FBI after Mrs. De Meglio’s arrest. He handed out fourteen headsets to the jurors and two remaining alternates. I hadn’t legally made up my mind yet, but you’d have to be a dolt to think Grandma Vigilante hadn’t shot her grandson’s dealer dead. Her fingerprints covered the gun. As far as I was concerned, the only thing that could get her off at this point was if it turned out that there had been a police violation, like Miranda rights not being read. But in that case, how the hell would the case have gotten past the indictment stage? No, granny was guilty.
A year or so back, I’d bought a week-old copy of The New York Times at an Australian newsstand. The dead drug dealer was fourteen years old, from a broken home.
While the prosecution had my sympathy, they were now losing it a bit by “testing” the audio levels for the upcoming confession tape with a convenient snippet of Pavarotti; was that a coincidence, considering Grandma Maria was Italian? I imagined that the jury pro in the DA’s office had instructed them to get it subliminally in our minds that the murderer is Italian, like ice cubes that read sex in a liquor ad. Hunky Assistant then took the even more obvious opportunity to connect with his jurors, as his senior partner studied her notes for the next round of questioning. One by one he asked us if we could hear okay, a time to repeat our names and make legal eye contact. “Mr. Kaluzny can you hear?” Fred nodded. “Mr. De Jesus can you hear?” Louis nodded. “Rachel, oh pardon me, Ms. Ganelli, can you hear okay?”
Now that was going to keep me in his camp, saying my first name like that. Was he thinking I was adorable, too? This was like Bonfire of the Vanities, when the schmucky Bronx assistant district attorney fumbles every time he sees a classy fox of a juror from upscale Riverdale. Except this lawyer was a catch; he was polite and trés cute. And while I wasn’t social register or soap opera–siren material, he could think I was spunky and attractive, crazier things had happened, it was possible. And he worked in the same office as John F. Kennedy Jr., how pop-culture cool was that? What a trip it would be to grab a beer with JFK Jr. when Legal Boy and I finished up on the trial. We could double date with Darryl Hannah, or whoever the Prince of Camelot was screwing at the moment.
“Are you paying attention, Ms. Ganelli?” Judge Berliner asked. He looked asinine with remote headphones dangling around his neck.
“Of course, Your Honor,” I said. Did I say the words Your Honor in a courtroom? Do we learn etiquette for life’s oddest moments from our parents, or TV? I tried to make eye contact with Assistant Hunk. “Yes, I can hear it perfectly.”
“Mr. Cohen,” the judge said, “I don’t think you need to go down the line. Is there anyone on the jury who cannot not hear the tape clearly?” No one raised their hand. “Proceed with the case then, Mr. Cohen.”
The senior ADA asked for extra minutes to move the evidence from her cart onto the prosecution table in an orderly fashion. Young Mr. Cohen still looked a bit shaken up by the judge’s admonition, and busied himself with a notepad, checking off each confession tape as it went on the table. Cute indeed. And Jewish. Mom’s side of the family would love him. My niece met her mensch while she was on the De Meglio murder trial.
The jurors and the courtroom took the opportunity to chat, not a legal worry if we kept it to meaningless banter, like asking around for a hard candy to soothe a sore throat. “I think the junior district attorney likes you,” Louis whispered. He sat directly to my left.
“Oh please, stop,” I said. “He made a mistake. You think so?”
“Unless he said your name in a calculated move to get you to convict, like their playing opera music on the tape levels.”
“Can you believe that?”
“What do they think, we’re idiots? By the way, I’ll take him if you don’t want him.” Louis licked his lips.
“You’re gay?” I formed a mock-shock letter O with my mouth.
“Half.”
“Bi and Catholic?”
“The Pope would have a heart attack, but I still believe in God.”
A little sniff of laughter came out of my nose. “The halfies—the Italian Jew and the bisexual bartender jurors from hell,” I said. “Outsmarting all of them.”
“They might want us to have this conversation—then they’re smarter than the two of us.”
“Okay. Jurors we are going to resume. Mr. De Jesus and Ms. Ganelli, I trust you weren’t
discussing the trial.”
Eagle-eye Berliner.
“No, Judge, I was admiring her unusual brooch.” Louis’s reply struck the entire courtroom as a particularly odd response, and there was a collective snicker. Berliner let out an unguarded grin, which made him seem more human.
“Your Honor, I’m afraid we are still waiting for the one last essential tape from the DA’s office,” said Ms. Gorsham after we quieted down. “Can we take a short break?”
“Please come forward to the bench to discuss this matter.” The lawyers approached the judge.
“I won’t object,” I heard the schlumpy defense attorney agree.
“Very well, we’ll take a half hour break.” He addressed the full courtroom. “I want to remind the lawyers, and the jury for that matter, the more breaks, the longer the trial.” We were escorted back to the jury room.
“Is it Wednesday?” I asked, grabbing my favorite seat.
“Thursday,” Louis said, reaching for the two-pound bag of M&M’s Bailiff Kevin had brought us. “Hey, did you hear that Berliner is sixty-four?”
“Please,” I rolled my eyes. “Try again. He’s about forty-five.”
“Nope, sixty-four. Kevin told me when I was out by the water fountain.”
“The legal system is probably what keeps him young. If he left his dictatorship, he’d probably shrink up like the heroine in Lost Horizon.”
“It’s hot in here,” Mrs. Ricasio protested. She went over and opened the window, getting soot on her yellow sundress. “Nobody gives a damn in here except me.”
Leslie, the Rockette who had replaced the pregnant woman in seat one, was now our foreperson. She leaned over to me and Louis. “Do you think Mrs. Ricasio is okay? Should I ask the judge to send us back to the hotel?”
“Mr. Nessenbaum doesn’t look so well either,” I said. Mr. Nessenbaum’s face was flushed, and he was resting his head on a copy of the Times with trial references cut out of it.
“I need a shower,” Louis said. “That fan’s a joke.”
“The woman’s seventy-five,” Mrs. Ricasio said. “How come we only have the choice of murder in the first degree?”
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