Nice drug, cocaine, he told himself. A real friend of a friend of intelligent thought. A second voice in his head—the voice of the drug—tried to echo the sentiment, and wound up tripping over itself. Oh, yeah, he went on. And the booze helps, too.
He rounded the corner, proceeding down the burnt-orange and blue striped carpet to the front desk. The colors were too severe: they pulsed and vibrated like video feedback, burnt into his eyes like the sun. “Ai yi yi,” he muttered under his breath, then felt himself weaving to the left and put all his concentration behind achieving stability.
Before him, the woman who looked like Jesse was approaching the registration desk. At this point, he was virtually certain it was her. Nobody else could possibly move like that, dress like that, have an ass quite so delectable. He was half inclined to sneak up behind her and squeeze it; but the sliver of rational thought still able to squeeze through the drugs pointed out that it might not be Jesse and would he ever be embarrassed.
Worse yet, it might be Jesse, in which case she would probably smack him.
Because Jesse was going through some weird shit just now. She wouldn’t tell him what it was, and he was so far unable to guess, but it must be awfully goddamn bad, because it had her so worked up that she was gaining weight and cutting out of practice and turning very cold to him indeed. . . .
By this point, he was within five feet of her. She was leaning against the desk, a suitcase at her feet, checking in. He wavered there, his doubts reprising, his throat inadvertently clearing.
She turned and faced him.
“Pete,” she said with uncharacteristic softness. “Not now, okay?”
It was Jesse, all right. But it was not a Jesse he’d ever seen before. Her features looked as if they’d all been lowered at least an eighth of an inch; she’d been crying, that much was for sure; her whole face was sagging as a result, a subtle sort of hillside erosion.
A glimmer of intelligence, faint and fleeting, sparked somewhere deep in the folds of his brain. He felt an important revelation tickle the tip of his tongue, then vanish. “Shit,” he muttered in frustration, stumbling closer.
He wanted to understand what was wrong with her, what he could do to help. He wanted to take a stab at empathy, see if there were any way to get inside her experience.
He couldn’t.
The coke wouldn’t let him.
And that’s the great thing about Ye Olde Peruvian Marching Powder, he went on. It’s like psychic Saran Wrap: it locks in freshness so well that you can’t even feel your own soul ticking, much less anyone else’s.
The voice of the drug echoed the sentiment into oblivion.
And then said, Do another line. It’ll clear you up.
“Jess, I gotta talk with ya,” he slurred.
Her sunken features hardened, set that way. “You don’t listen very well, do you?”
“No. But I hear real good.”
“Don’t play word games with me.”
“Don’t play head games with me.”
She paused, and that gave him a second. He felt that he was doing fairly well, all things considered. “You won’t tell me what’s wrong,” he continued. “And I don’t think that’s fair. I’m your friend—”
Jesse snorted out a snatch of abrasive laughter. It hurt.
“An’ I’m your lover—”
“Oh, yeah.” Her lips curled into a pain-filled sneer. It hurt even worse.
“And I’m on your side, dammit! I’m on your goddamn team! You think I don’t wanna know what’s hurting you? You think I don’t care? Come on! If I did anything to hurt you, I wanna know what it is.”
“Will that make you happy?”
“Yes.”
“I’m pregnant.”
“I . . .” he began, and then froze.
“There.” She smiled, bitter. Her face was a mask. “Are you happy now?”
“I . . .” There were no words, no words he could say. He felt his strength, his wit, his everything spiral down and away like turds in a flushing toilet. Balance deserted him; he staggered back, grabbing for a wall when none was there and barely held himself up.
“I wasn’t going to tell you.” The mask began to redden. “You didn’t need to know, you know. I would have just taken care of it, and . . .” It was her turn to lose the words.
“You would have what?” His voice was a croak, and his eyes were wide. Like hers, they were filling with tears.
“Oh, Pete. Do I have to spell it out for you?” The first lines of clear saline dribbled down her cheeks. “Are you that fucking stupid?”
“Hey . . .”
“Hey what?” She was crying, yes, but she would not weaken. “Are you gonna try to tell me that you’re ready to be a father? You’re not even ready to be a real boyfriend! You’re not ready to commit to anything! You’re twenty-six years old and you’re a little goddamn kid, Pete!”
The lobby of the hotel was spinning now; he felt himself losing control. When the anger flared, irrational though it was, there was no way he could stop it. “And you’re all grown up, is that right?”
“No, I’m not,” she shot back. “And that’s the point. I’m not ready, either—”
He moved forward then, and took her by the shoulders. “Goddammit, Jesse,” he said, voice quavering. This is different. This is our child we’re talking about.”
“No, it isn’t.” Her eyes were dripping fire. “This is a mistake. And it’s not gonna happen.”
He shook her roughly then, and the words blurted out.
“How can you say that?”
“Read my LIPS!” she hissed.
He pushed her back violently. “THIS IS A LIFE!” he began.
“No shit,” she growled, pulling away. “In fact, it’s three lives. And I refuse to fuck up any of them.”
“No, you’re just going to kill one!”
And that was when she slapped him. Hard.
“Get away from me.”
Pete just stood there, the left side of his face on fire, his eyes stinging almost as badly. He watched her push past him, her suitcase in hand, and move to the elevators. The one on the far left was open and waiting. She closed in on it rapidly, resolutely, leaving trails of ghostly motion behind.
It wasn’t until she was inside and the door started closing that he began to move toward her.
But doors, like opportunities, are funny that way.
They open.
And then they close.
* * *
SEVENTEEN
At seven-thirty, the ramp rats were gathered in force around the loading dock at the back of the Spectrum Sports Arena, banners and beer bottles in hand, spandex clinging tight. They had come in the ludicrous hope that, when The Scream’s limo came rolling in, they would somehow be chosen from the flock: to come backstage and party with the band, to do quality drugs, to get balled by a star.
Walker’s main man, Hook, paused by the police-style barricades, watching them dispassionately. It was a sight that he was more than used to; at this point, bored contempt was the best that he could whip up.
“Vermin.” He muttered the nickname sarcastically. “Even if the band wasn’t here already, what do you think the odds would really be?”
Ramp rats and vermin were always there, of course, at every show, in every town. They were staples of the heavy metal scene. They swarmed over the parking lot in denim-and-leather-jacketed droves, hooting and howling and shattering glass, scenting the air with thick sweet smoke and exhaust, partying till they puked or passed out.
In their faces, Hook saw an alarming continuity, a numbing repetitiveness of attitude grafted to features. There was the lumphead, the rock slut, the would-be tramp; there was the handsome young rebel and his tag-along idiot friend, and the hopeless fat feeb in the too-new leather. There were the three good buddies who gawked and guffawed; there was the tat chick with the sad eyes lined in thick black Maybelline.
They were the vermin, the scuttling hordes.
&nbs
p; They were the teenaged dispossessed.
They were the life blood of The Scream.
They were the Chosen Ones.
Hook watched them, dragging one finger idly across the unshaved stubble at his chin. He was short and stocky, powerful-looking. His long, dark, thin and thinning hair was pasted to his head. His legs were thick and stiff at the knees, where decades-old masses of scar tissue lay over the joints like wax drippings on a candlestick. They were forever hidden in the baggy green cargo pants that he wore, as always, with his battered, blasted field jacket. Its sleeves and left breast-pocket bristled with insignia and the awards he’d earned in the days before his return to The World. The back was painstakingly embroidered with The Scream’s logo: a bright red slit-eyed baby in a flaming pentagram, with a banner that read, Your Mother Should Know. He had done it himself: fingers dancing with needle and thread, making something both fearsome and wondrous. Hook’s fingers were magic.
All five of them.
His second most prominent features were his oddly bulging eyes. They were pale blue and watery, and they gave him a look somewhere between Peter Lorre and an ill-tempered mackerel. One could not help but be drawn, albeit reluctantly, to those eyes.
Until one noticed his missing left hand.
Tonight, he was wearing the prosthetic claw; it was, to beg the pun, the handiest of the twenty-odd appliances he’d designed to adorn his otherwise-useless stump. It was stronger than the real thing, with a grip that rivaled a pit bull’s jaws in pounds of pressure per square inch.
It could crush a man’s skull.
It had done so before. It would do so again.
With any luck at all.
He was proud of it, proud to have made it reality. He was proud, most of all, to Serve: to have his talents, at long last, put to their proper use.
And Tuesday night would be the piece de resistance. Tuesday night, the world would learn just exactly how brilliant he actually was.
And there would be no more pissing on that bum John Hook.
Not ever again.
A lone figure moved through the ramp rat cotillion, emerged on the near side, and strolled up to the barricades. He had on a nominal Screamer uniform—black leather pants, black canvas duster, black cycle gloves, and shiny Mylar Band-Its—but his T-shirt brightly proclaimed I ♥ TOXIC WASTE. He was a little taller than Hook, maybe 5’9”, and his blond good looks were more than vaguely familiar. One thing was for certain: he was not your basic ramp rat. He carried a leather shoulder bag that marked him as either press—which were practically crawling out of the woodwork on account of the big gig assembling just across the boulevard—or a freelancer trying to weasel in for some behind-the-scenes dope on the band.
Which was strictly. Strictly.
Forbidden.
Who is this guy? Hook heard himself wonder. Where do I know him from?
And what does he think he’s doing?
The guy walked over to Lloyd, the asshole Spectrum security guard. To Hook’s surprise, they shook hands with annoying enthusiasm. Evidently they were buddies; Lloyd had not seemed to be a friendly type. But there they were, talking. Hook couldn’t hear the words, but it had the tenor of a long-time-no-see rap.
A bad feeling swept over Hook. A very bad feeling. It came as a knot of coarse terror in his belly and a searing phantom twinge in his absent left hand that predicted trouble like a bunion foretold the weather.
Oh, shit, he thought, clutching his prosthetic limb instinctively, as if he could massage away the pain. Lloyd’s gonna let him in, his mind said, and his mind was just telling the truth.
He started moving toward them, just as the guy swatted Lloyd on the back and started moving down the ramp.
Hook muttered “Damn” and shifted to intercept course, cursing his knees, cursing the fact that they made him move so goddamn slow. There was no way that he could keep pace; there was no way that he could even achieve it. The guy was ahead of him already, and gaining ground.
“Hey!” he yelled.
The guy ignored him.
“Asshole!”
The guy looked back.
“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
“Inside!” the guy yelled back. “What does it look like?”
“You just hold it right there!”
“Oh, Jesus,” the guy muttered, but he stayed where he was. It gave Hook a couple of seconds to catch up, which he did, despite the fact that it made his knees ache like crazy.
“You can’t go back there,” he asserted, standing now face-to-face.
“You’re with the road crew?”
“That’s right.”
“Hi.” He smiled and extended his hand. He looked half-fried. “I’m Pete Stewart. I play lead guitar with the Jacob Hamer Band, and—”
Hook ignored the hand, stared straight into Stewart’s black shades. “I don’t care who you are. You’re not going back there.”
“Why not?”
“It’s closed.”
“Hey”—Stewart looked perplexed—“I’m not John Q. Public, okay? I’m not after autographs. I just want to cut through to the press box.”
“So go through the front.”
“I don’t like crowds.”
“That’s not my problem.”
Stewart laughed. “It’s not my problem, either, Jack, cuz I’m going through the back here. Why don’t you just relax a little?”
“You don’t understand.” Hook could feel, aside from his burgeoning anger, the phantom pain in his prosthesis. “Nobody goes backstage.”
“What, you afraid I’m gonna steal your trade secrets or something? We don’t even do a show like yours. I’m just going to the press—”
Hook grabbed him by the shoulder with his claw-hand, exerting just enough pressure to hurt. “You ain’t going anywhere—”
“HEY!” Stewart hollered, yanking free and stepping back rapidly. His breath came out in voluminous huffs, and he pointed a wrathful finger. “You are a rude motherfucker, you know that? I know people here! I play this place at least once a year! I don’t have to answer to pissants like you!”
“Like hell you don’t!” Hook took a giant step forward.
“BACK OFF!” Stewart yelled, and jogged back out of claw-hold range. “Just try and stop me, asshole! In fact, you’d better move, cuz I might just have your job by the time you hit backstage!”
“HEY!” Hook hollered, but it was too late; Stewart was already striding rapidly downward and away. The knot in his stomach was growing by leaps and bounds, but he was too slow, and the interloper would no longer listen.
“Oh, God,” he muttered as he staggered behind, but that was not what he meant. He was asking for guidance and mercy and strength.
But not from God.
Not exactly.
* * *
Pete was hissing steam by the time he hit the hallway that led backstage. The fresh air had mown through his intoxication; the fury had taken care of the rest. If there were any more douchebags like that last guy in the Scream entourage, they had best beware; he was liable to gnaw his way through them.
The craziness with Jesse wasn’t bad enough, it seemed. No, evidently the fun was just beginning. Who knows? he silently fumed. Maybe we could drive a threshing machine through the crowd, just to round things out. His anger kept him from noticing his surroundings until he was nearly halfway down the hall.
Then he stopped.
And stared.
Astounded.
The backstage corridor was long and high and wide, but The Scream had it very nearly packed with Anvil cases of every conceivable size and description. Pete had heard about The Scream’s stage setup—fourteen tractor trailers’ worth, requiring over two hundred thousand watts to power, and costing over three quarters of a cool million to build and run. Reputedly, it was the most elaborate and expensive road show in rock ’n roll history. Staring at its luggage, he could well believe it.
We take up a third of this space, he mused.
Packed loose. You couldn’t fit a greased weasel through the holes in these stacks. It was outrageous. He whistled appreciatively as he wormed around them.
Two roadies approached from the opposite direction, carrying something large and heavy. The guy whose back wasn’t to him thought to say something, then merely grunted. Good, Pete hissed internally. I’m not feelin that cheerful.
And then he reached the end of the corridor, and it was clear that there was one hell of a lot of business going down onstage, so he automatically veered to the right. A quick jaunt past the humming generator room, the closed doors to The Scream’s dressing rooms, and then cut through the hospitality room to the stairs leading up to the press box mezzanine, and—
“Hold it right there, scumbag,” said a cold voice to his right. He froze, just long enough for the voice’s owner to appear beside him and latch hold of his arm.
“Get your fucking paws OFF me!” Pete shouted. He whipped violently free and spun to meet his aggressor, right hand pulling back as if balling up for a blow.
The chance never came. Too swiftly, the palm of the tall man’s hand slammed into his solar plexus. He felt all the air in his lungs whoof out of him, pulling his attention away from the buckling of his knees and the pull of gravity until his ass landed hard on the concrete floor. The back of his head followed in short order. Then came the dancing neon stars.
The world was still spinning when he opened his eyes a split second later. The man who had hit him was saying something vicious and incomprehensible. Pete shook his head, got only pain for his efforts. Clarity availed him not.
Then there were several people around him, and they were all saying something, but the only one he understood was saying, Leave him alone, what’s the matter with you? Perhaps he understood it because he identified with the sentiment, perhaps because he recognized the voice, perhaps because the lips were right next to his ear. Someone was hoisting him up.
“Frank?” Pete wheezed. It was the best he could do. His consciousness was coming back, but so were the drugs and alcohol. The scrappling sound of flailing limbs and shoe-soles on concrete were supernaturally loud as he awkwardly regained his footing.
The Scream Page 18
