Ritchie liked the guy, he was all right, had that look on his face like he could have a good time, like he wasn’t always trying to prove how tough he was.
Then Felix said, “So, Angie, when Frank tries to bring these bikers in to take us out and it doesn’t work, will you take over as Entertainment Director?” and Ritchie watched Angie think about it, not freak out or deny it or say, what are you talking about, or anything like that, just think about it and say, “I’d have to get a raise.”
Felix said, yeah, “Of course.”
And Ritchie was thinking, this could be interesting.
• • •
On the bus they’d been talking about the last twenty years, what they’d been doing, Cliff telling Dale and Barry about the real estate business, how good it was in Toronto, house prices going up all the time, but the later it got and the more Scotch he drank, the more he told them the truth. Told them about sucking up to all these young assholes with money, stock brokers and skinny chicks with baby strollers bigger than cars, nothing ever good enough for them. What he really wanted to say, though, was look in the bag, man, me and Barry stole thirty grand from a couple of shylocks. He really wanted to tell Ritchie, open up the bag and say, what do you think of that?
But the jerk probably wouldn’t care. Cliff could never understand the guy: Ritchie never seemed to care about the money at all.
Now they were at the Huron Woods Casino in one of the hotel bars, this one called the Longhouse and made up to look like the inside of a big tent, plastic-covered pillars supposed to look like logs, some actual leather on the walls and probably fake animal skins, just Cliff and Barry, Barry saying Frank Kloss was the Entertainment Director and Cliff said, “What the fuck? Here?”
Barry said, “Yeah, you didn’t know?”
“No. I don’t know, maybe I heard something, that when his management company went under, he went to work for a casino. I thought it was in Windsor?”
“It was. He was booking acts into it. I guess he got to know the guy running the place, went to work for him. Then he quit and went to Niagara Falls.”
“Quit or pissed somebody off? This’s Frank we’re talking about.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
Cliff said, shit, “He finished ripping off bands, moved up to ripping off old ladies.” He waved his empty glass at the bartender and looked around the room. It was mostly empty, late afternoon, a few older people, nothing that looked like it might be fun for Cliff. Maybe one woman, sitting with a guy in a booth, looked to be in her forties and so did the guy. She looked good, though, dressed up a little, wearing a low-cut dress, gold jewellery, make-up, like she was out for a good time.
Barry said, “I don’t know how many other bands he ripped off. I just know about us.”
“Fuck,” Cliff said. “And he’s here?”
“Got an office in the administration building right over there.” Barry pointed with his drink but Cliff didn’t think he had any idea which way the admin building was. Huron Woods, like every other casino, gets you inside and then turns you around — you don’t know if it’s day or night, if you’re coming or going.
Cliff saw the woman looking like she was flirting with the guy, her hand under the table, and wondered, did they just meet or are they having an affair? That kind of spark couldn’t be in some old married couple. He said, “Well, fuck, I hope I don’t see the bastard,” and Barry said, no?
“I’m hoping we do.”
Cliff looked at him and said, why, “You want to punch him in the face as much as I do.”
“I was thinking we’d ask him,” Barry said, “for our money.”
“Ha, good one. How much you think it is, like a million bucks?”
“I was thinking two,” Barry said, and Cliff realized he was serious, said, “You figure two million?”
Barry said, “We got basically nothing for the first three albums after the advances.”
“And they were the only ones that sold.”
“We don’t even own those songs. Every time I hear fucking ‘Red Light Street’ on that commercial it pisses me off.”
Cliff said yeah. The song, pretty much a comeback to the Police’s “Roxanne,” the story from the hooker’s point of view, saying I may not have to put on the red light, but I do what I want, nobody tells me what to do. Shit, Cliff remembered putting the lyrics together — most of them anyway — after a hooker he spent some time with in Chicago made fun of Sting, saying how he thought he told her once and he wasn’t going to tell her again, put away the make-up, her saying, yeah right, “He thinks he can tell me anything once,” looking at Cliff, “he better think again.”
The High were opening for Bon Jovi and Cliff spent the afternoon in the hotel with her, and now he tried to remember her name but didn’t come up with anything. She was sexy but really short, he remembered that. Brought her backstage, watched her leave with one of the record company guys, and he pretty much wrote the song while Jon was living on his prayer.
Cliff said, “Yeah, what’s that for anyway, that commercial, some car?”
“Fucking Korean piece of shit. They mostly used Ritchie’s riff.”
Cliff said, “Yeah, it’s good, that riff.” Ritchie came up with it right away when Cliff showed him the words, “She walks this red light street/She does what she wants/Nobody owns her/Nobody tells her what to do.” Ritchie’d said, yeah, like Roxanne, and Cliff said yeah. That Ritchie, always clever but never knowing what to do with it.
“So, what do you want to do,” Cliff said, “go over to the office and say, hey, Frank, we figure you owe us two million bucks, hand it over?”
“Something like that.”
Cliff downed the last of his Scotch and saw a woman walking through the bar. She was in her forties, too, carrying a little more weight than the flirty one in the booth, but also showing it off in a tight, low-cut minidress, stockings, stilettos, and attitude, walking through the place like she knew everybody was looking at her and she didn’t mind — she liked it. Cliff was thinking it was good to see that kind of confidence in a woman her age with that extra weight, could tell she knew how to use her body better than any skinny twenty-something.
He said to Barry, “You figure he’ll just hand it over?”
The woman got to the booth with the flirting couple and sat down, looking around for a waiter.
And Barry was saying, “I don’t see why not. The shylocks do.”
Cliff watched the scene at the booth, not as much fun now with the third wheel, hands coming up above the table, tight smiles all ’round, and he said to Barry, “They don’t have much choice, you holding a gun on them.”
And Barry said, “I still have the gun.” Cliff looked at him and Barry said, “Have one for you, too.”
“Are you fucking kidding? I told you after that French fucking asshole nearly killed me I’d never do that again.”
“It isn’t exactly the same.”
“No?”
Barry finished off his drink, tapped the bar, and said, “I can’t believe you can’t smoke in here. I’d like a smoke, how about you?”
“You’re not serious about this?”
Barry said, why not, it’s our money. “You know, you actually handled it pretty good. You didn’t panic or yell or anything.”
Cliff said, yeah, right, looking at Barry nodding, acting like he was impressed. Bullshit. Cliff knew he thought he was a pussy, standing there with a gun on the guy, not shooting him, getting smacked and tossed in the fucking trunk of the car. Pussy. Then he said, “It’s all I fucking think about.”
Barry said, come on, “Let’s step outside,” and Cliff followed him out the side door of the place to the patio that wouldn’t be used for anything other than smoke breaks in the summer.
A waiter in his buckskin jacket dropped a butt and went back inside, and they were alone.
/> Barry said, “You know, most guys, they would’ve started pulling the trigger right there in the lot, place’d be swarming with cops, everybody busted, some fucking dope dealer shot in the head. The next ten years’d be all lawyers and trials — you don’t end up in jail, you still end up broke.”
Cliff said, yeah, that’s true, but he hadn’t thought about that at all. He just thought about pointing the gun at the asshole and shooting, watching the back of his head splatter all over his fucking piece of shit Monte Carlo like in a movie. What he wanted to do.
Barry lit his cigarette and said, no man, “You’re good at it.”
Well, Cliff thought, he was getting better anyway. He lit up, sucking smoke deep into his lungs and letting it out slow, saying, “So, you think Frank has that kind of money, and he can just hand it over?”
“Guy runs a casino: I’m sure he can get his hands on some cash.”
Cliff said, “Shit, Barry, we don’t see each other for a few years, and it’s like I don’t know you anymore. You’re a different person.”
Barry smoked, didn’t say anything.
Cliff said, “It is our money, though, isn’t it? Two million bucks?”
“Probably way more than that,” Barry said. “But if it’s just you and me, that sounds about right as our share.”
Cliff said yeah, but was thinking he really should be splitting it with Ritchie, guy wrote all the music and most of the lyrics. It’s not like Barry ever had a piece of the publishing.
Then Cliff said, “But does he really run the place?” and Barry said, sure, what do you mean?
“Well, a casino,” Cliff said. “He’d have to be connected.”
“His name’s all over it,” Barry said.
“What’d you do, Google him? Maybe he’s just the front.”
Cliff watched Barry take a drag and blow smoke out in a long stream, nodding and thinking about it, and now Cliff wasn’t sure he wanted him thinking about it so much. Maybe it was better to just do it, like Ritchie always telling him he didn’t plan solos, didn’t work them out, just closed his eyes and played. Like fucking, Ritchie said, go with the moment.
“Be easy enough to find out,” Barry said. “We’re here for two more days.”
The door to the bar opened and a woman came out, Cliff recognizing her as the one who joined the happy couple at the table. She didn’t look too happy, putting a cigarette in her mouth and trying to light a match.
Barry looked at Cliff and nodded like they’d agreed on something, like the plans were all made, and went back inside.
Cliff said, “Here,” and flicked his gold Zippo.
The woman leaned forward a little, unsteady on her heels, and held Cliff’s hands while she got her smoke lit. Then she stood up straight, leaned her head back, and inhaled deep, blowing smoke at the sky.
Cliff said, “I still can’t believe we can’t smoke inside,” and she looked at him and said, “Sometimes it’s nice to step out, though, take a break.”
Up close like this Cliff figured she was in her late forties, figured she had some kind of special bra under her little dress holding them up like that, but that was okay — she was proud, took care of herself.
He said, “Yeah, that’s true.”
She said, “My sister and her husband, they want to be alone anyway.”
“Is your husband here?”
She said, “You’re so sneaky, working that in.”
“I thought it was an opening.”
She looked at him, up and down, and Cliff liked her, the way she was confident, some of it being the drinks she’d had, sure, but most of it just her.
He said, “Well?”
She smoked, puckering her red lips and inhaling, letting it out slow. “I haven’t had a husband in quite a while.”
He said, “I’m Cliff Moore,” and she said, “I know, from the High,” and he said yeah.
She said, “Your concert’s not till the day after tomorrow.”
“They always bring us in early to the casino gigs,” he said. “Hoping we lose what they’re paying us at the tables.”
“Do you?”
“The roadies do, some of the guys. It’s not my favourite thing about a casino.”
She said, no? “What’s your favourite thing?”
He thought about saying, at this particular casino it’s taking back two million bucks our old manager ripped us off, and realized he was going along with Barry’s plan without even thinking about it, now wondering how much of it was a set-up. Shit.
He said, “There’s usually some nice scenery.”
She said, “Oh my God, would a line like that really work?”
“Depends on how much you’ve had to drink.”
“I haven’t had that much.”
“Well, that’s good, we can still have some fun.”
She said, “We can?”
SIX
After talking on the phone through dinner, Felix said, I have to see someone but it was great to meet you, Ritchie, “Rock this joint, all right?” and Angie said, “Always a pleasure,” and he was gone.
Angie took Ritchie for a walk along the cobblestone path behind the casino, heading down to the lake, telling him that they built all this stuff to show off how beautiful the place was and no one ever leaves the casino.
Ritchie said, “You’re the only one who comes here,” and Angie said, no, “This is the first time I’ve ever been down here.”
Looking out over the moonlight on the lake, surrounded by pine trees growing out of rocks. Ritchie was thinking the place was good for her, and he told her he liked it, “The whole set-up.”
She said, “The casino,” and Ritchie said the whole thing, being out of the city, her running the Showroom, everything and she said, “Frank runs the Showroom.”
Ritchie said, “Sure he does,” and she looked at him and he looked back.
Then she shook her head, shook out whatever she was really thinking, and said, “It saved my life.”
“Yeah?”
He looked into her eyes, waiting. Shit, he’d been waiting a long time to look Angie in the eyes like this and he didn’t even realize it. She was getting to him a lot more than he thought she would.
“Yeah, well, you know, I don’t want to be overdramatic or anything, but you go through rehab a few times and it can feel like forever.”
“Sure.”
She said, shit, “You make me feel like an idiot.”
“I do?”
She laughed and said, “Fuck you, Ritchie,” and he laughed, too. Then she said, “You know, you feel like one more time going in, one more rehab, you just won’t be able to do it.”
“Yeah.”
She looked at him and she said, “So, you don’t have a girlfriend these days,” and Ritchie said, no, “A few one-night stands, but it’s been a few years,” and for the first time since he’d been at Huron Woods he thought about Emma, supposed to be the road manager but no one had seen her since Montreal, and now he was hoping she didn’t show up here.
Then Angie took his hand and held it and they walked along the sandy edge of the lake, a little man-made beach about six feet wide. Like the teenagers on a date they never were.
She said she was working for Frank in Niagara Falls and it was getting bad, mostly drinking, but she still did a little coke. “What a cliché, eh?” Ritchie didn’t say anything, he just squeezed her hand, and she said, “’Course it wouldn’t be a cliché if it didn’t happen all the time, right?”
“Right.”
“And since it happens all the time, you never think it’ll be you — you’re always under control.”
“I’ve seen it,” Ritchie said.
“I guess you have, all those years on the road.”
He wondered where they all went, all those years on the road. He was fe
eling like he’d just seen her at the Horseshoe yesterday, her acid-wash denim miniskirt, and leg warmers, frizzed-out dyed blond hair, big black bracelets.
Then she said, “The thing is, you have to stop trying to change. You have to accept who you are and just make adjustments.”
Ritchie said, “People don’t change,” and she stopped, held his hand, pulled him around so he was facing her, and she said, “No, they don’t, do they?”
“Think they do, I guess, but they don’t.” She was looking right at him, waiting to hear what he had to say, and maybe that was different, maybe that was a change. Or an adjustment. He wasn’t sure. He said, “All those assholes I knew thinking if they just had a hit song it would change everything, it would make everything great, just one hit, you know?”
And she was nodding at him, listening, taking him seriously.
He said, “But then we had a big hit and they were still assholes,” and she laughed.
She started walking again, back towards the casino, but then down another path through some trees with lanterns on them.
She said, “It’s like we’ve always been waiting for the next, whatever, you know, the next stage of our lives, the grown-up stage,” and he said, “Or avoiding it,” and she said, no.
She said, “I might have agreed with you a long time ago, Ritchie, the eternal teenager, but I don’t think so.”
“Are you saying I’ve grown up?”
She said, “Maybe I finally did. Maybe you already were when we met and I’m only just seeing it now.”
“Well don’t spread it around — I’ve got a rep.”
She stopped and looked at him again, said, “Yeah, you do, and you use it to keep people off guard.”
“I do?”
“Keep them at a distance.”
“Yeah?”
“Like right now.”
“I’m just not sure how to handle this, Angie. I don’t know what it is.”
“I don’t either, but I like it.”
She started walking again, and they came out of the trees to the edge of a parking lot.
Ritchie said, “So, you going to be the Entertainment Director?”
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