Another text came in. “Ah. They’ve determined that they’re just outside Prentiss.”
“Prentiss!” Glory was aghast. “They’ll be lucky if anyone drives by that patch of highway this time of night. Anyone who can haul a bunch of guys and their instruments, anyway. I’m amazed their texts are getting through at all.”
Prentiss was about an hour away, give or take. They could conceivably still make it to the show and play at least an hour, forty-five minutes.
“HOO! HOO! HOO! HOO! HOO!” The audience seemed to be getting more vehement.
“No one’s going to pick them up if they try hitchhiking. They look like they live in caves, with those beards. All they’re missing are axes to complete the murderous look,” Glenn fussed. Then he brightened. “Oh, look, there’s Eli. Maybe he can help.”
Glory’s heart lurched. Eli had two or three inches on most of the guys in the crowd, so he was painfully easy to see. He was taking golden-haired Bethany’s coat from her and draping it gallantly over the bar stool in the V.I.P. Section. Glory wondered if he’d spotted Franco Francone yet.
Franco’s presence ought to just about make Eli’s night. Then again, maybe he’d be too captivated by his “date” to notice him.
Glenn shot an arm up and waved until he caught Eli’s eye. Then he beckoned him over with a sweep of his hand. Glory was prepared to dart in another direction, but she really couldn’t see a way into the crowd at the moment. She was trapped by a sea of drinkers.
“Evening, Glenn,” Eli said, voice raised. “Great crowd.”
And then he saw her.
He paused a beat.
“Glory,” he said neutrally, by way of greeting. One would never dream she’d tried to mount him in his squad car last night.
“Eli,” she tried to say just as neutrally. She wasn’t nearly as good as inscrutability as he was. Her face was hot as a struck match head. She hoped he couldn’t see it in the dark.
Glenn put a chummy hand in the middle of Eli’s shoulder blades. “I know you’re not on duty tonight, Deputy, but do you think you can make a few calls to your professional buddies, see if they can find a band down on I-5 near Prentiss, help them get here? Their bus broke down and their cell reception is spotty.”
“So that’s what’s going on?” Eli scanned the place, reminding Glory of the Terminator. Eli really could read a room.
And then suddenly, Eli froze. Went absolutely still, like a spaniel pointing.
If Glory hadn’t known better, she would have thought an invisible lightbulb had clicked on over his head.
He pivoted back toward them slowly.
“I thought I saw your guitar in back, Glory, when I came through.”
He fixed her with a gaze so laser focused with meaning it instantly told her this wasn’t an idle observation.
“It is.”
Suddenly, in the swarming dark of the crowd, she could see Bethany’s golden, smooth head bobbing its way steadily toward them. She was wearing a darling off the shoulder red shirt, and the exposed shoulder was the kind of smooth, polished tan only money could buy.
“And that’s Franco Francone sitting on a stool over there,” Eli added, almost as a question. As if inventorying all the things that would mean something to Glory here in the Misty Cat at the moment.
“Yep. He’s sure hard to miss, isn’t he?” she said blithely, just as Bethany’s arm looped through Eli’s from behind.
“Hi, Glory!” Bethany beamed at Glory.
“Hi, Bethany!” Glory said brightly. She tried a smile, but she had a feeling she only managed to curl up part of her lip, which probably made her look either like Elvis or a rabid terrier.
Bethany looked startled. As well she might.
“Gotta go help Sherrie keep the customers drunk,” Glory said abruptly as she dove back toward the tables.
After last night, Eli really wasn’t feeling particularly charitable toward Glory. He’d resolved to have a perfectly pleasant if un-extraordinary evening with Bethany. Seeing Francone’s flawless mug and lanky body parked on a stool as he entered the Misty Cat had done nothing but solidify his resolve.
But as he watched the crowd swallow Glory up now, damned if there wasn’t that tug in his chest. As if that maddening woman kept his heart on a tether wrapped permanently around her wrist.
And it suddenly felt odd to have another arm looped through his. As though a new and unnecessary body part had been grafted onto his.
He smiled down at Bethany because it seemed the polite thing to do, and she smiled back, and that was nice.
Nevertheless. He watched the space where he’d last seen Glory.
And . . . there was something he had to do.
“Can I use your office to make a phone call, Glenn? I’ll see what I can do about that band.”
Eli could still hear muffled HOO HOO HOO HOOing through the door of Glenn’s office. He punched Deputy Owen Haggerty’s number into his phone. His heart was thudding steadily but hard, as if he was the one who was about to go onstage. As if he was about to commit a crime.
“Hey, Eli. Aren’t you on a date?”
Jesus. Everyone in town knew everything about everyone.
“Yeah,” he said shortly. “Listen, Haggerty? Will you call Deputy Becky Cameron over in Black Oak? A worried friend just reported a pack of guys with huge beards and tattoos and axes out on the highway near Prentiss. Parked in a bus. Out on I-5. Maybe send armed backup. Drugs might be involved.”
Not a bit of that statement was inaccurate. So help him.
There was no way a band didn’t have axes on them, for instance.
The six-string kind, that was.
And in this part of California, it was hard to know whether possessors of big bushy beards were ironic hipsters or meth-making neck-tattooed thugs. Cops in his part of the state were unlikely to give them the benefit of the doubt. And God help The Baby Owls if they had any drugs on their bus. Which, rock and roll being what it was, they probably did.
Ah, well.
Odds were pretty good that band was in for a long night, and it wouldn’t be anywhere near the Misty Cat. At least they’d be in out of the cold, if they had drugs on them. In a nice cozy sheriff station somewhere.
He ended the call.
Guilt pinged him, but only faintly. He felt something more like steely, unapologetic resolve. Life for a band on the road was grueling. Success was hard to come by and was in large part a crap shoot. But they were already on a billboard out on the highway and on Conan and Kimmel and radios and Spotify everywhere.
He might not be Franco Francone, but he could do this for Glory. At least this much.
He could let her do the rest.
And he could go try to enjoy his night with his date.
And if he knew Glory—and boy did he—he was positive he knew what she would do next.
Glory handed out beers to and took money from the astonishingly thirsty—and solvent, judging from all the cash shoved at her—crowd. She craned her head, but she could see that Eli hadn’t emerged from Glenn’s office yet. But every now and then a woman returning from the bathroom would glance toward Franco and do a violent double take and nearly trip over her own feet.
Glory could almost see the moment she decided that there was no way that guy was actually the Franco Francone. That maybe she should drink a little less.
Finally Glory was able to pay him a swift visit. “Anything I can get for you, Franco?”
“You already know what I want, Glorious.”
“If you also want a Sierra Nevada Porter, I can make that wish come true right away.”
He grinned at her. Another woman strolling by caught the reflected dazzle from his teeth and walked straight into a wall.
“Oof,” she said. Rubbing her forehead.
Glory winced.
“Is the porter any good?” Franco hadn’t even noticed.
“Sure. I like it.”
“Then the porter it is. What’s up with the missing band?
”
“Bus broke down.”
“Bummer.” And then he glanced up and froze. And his face darkened so abruptly Glory spun around.
Eli was standing right behind her. “Francone,” he said flatly.
“Deputy,” Franco drawled.
The air pulsed with so much dislike Glory was tempted to wave her arms about to dissipate it.
Nobody said a word for an absurd moment.
“Think the band is going to make it, Eli?” she said evenly.
He hesitated. “I did what I could,” he said carefully. “I’d say give it ten minutes. Then go talk to Glenn.”
He was looking just past her shoulder. As if he couldn’t bear to look at her full on, with Francone standing right next to her.
She didn’t know what had happened in that office, but she had a hunch that Eli had come to her rescue again.
And her heart leaped.
But then he just kept walking away, shouldering his way toward the end of the counter, where Bethany’s face turned up toward his like a flower, and he ducked his head to talk to her.
That pose. It was so masculine and solicitous and possessive. So . . . claiming. And Glory felt instantly nauseous.
So maybe he’d made an emphatic decision in that office, too.
Whatever. She could cope.
“What did he mean by ‘give it ten minutes’?” Franco’s mood hadn’t quite rebounded from eye contact with Eli yet.
“I’m not sure,” Glory said tautly.
That wasn’t quite true. She knew exactly what it meant.
She gave it seven minutes.
Glenn was particularly easy to find tonight. He was the big gray-haired guy who looked ready to pull his hair out.
She planted herself in front of him and put her hand on his arm to stop him. “Glenn. This crowd is going to leave if the band they came to see doesn’t show up. Figure at least two more beers in each of them, on average, that’s another, what, thousand bucks for the restaurant at least? Giorgio can pinch hit as a cocktail waiter if you need him. Let me play.”
He gave his mustache a quick chew and scanned the crowd.
Then turned to her abruptly. “Can you get it together and be on stage in five minutes?”
“Less,” she said instantly.
“Do it,” he said swiftly.
“Yes!” She punched the air and gave a little hop then spun around and located Giorgio, grabbed him by the arm and held him fast. She ignored his dumbstruck glare and rattled off orders. “Giorgio, can you grab me that short padded stool next to the counter? The one that Mick almost brained the sheriff with? And that box the olive oil came in today. The empty one. Bring them up to the stage and mic them. I’m gonna play.”
“You’re going to mic the stool and the box?”
“Yep. You’ll see. Oh, and grab the big flour sifter, too.”
Someone in the crowd jostled him right into her. “WHAT? I thought you said flour sifter.”
“I did. GO GO GO!”
Bless his surly little heart, he was off like a shot.
She knew exactly what she was doing. It was so much easier to give orders than follow everybody else’s.
She saw Glenn talking to Sherrie, who gave her the thumbs-up as she retrieved her guitar from its case. She slung it over her neck and strapped on the harmonica, adjusting it as she walked through the hall just like a rock star emerging from an arena’s backstage labyrinth.
She arrived on stage to find that Giorgio had mic’d the box and stool expertly. He settled the flour sifter down on top of the box with a flourish. He offered her a high five as he walked off, too.
And then she took a deep breath. And she stepped into the spotlight and planted herself in front of the mic.
The crowd noticed pretty quickly. “Hoot the fuck are you?” someone hollered immediately.
“‘Freebird’!” someone else yelled. Predictably. The Lynyrd Skynyrd request had cycled back around and was now considered wittily ironic. She probably should do a version of ‘Freebird’ one day.
“Show us your tits!” came from another guy in the crowd.
“LANGUAGE!” Glenn bellowed from some place in the restaurant.
But this was all as standard as “Check, one, two” in any unruly club audience. She’d even heard women shout that at guys. She could handle it, piece of cake.
“Don’t you mean my hooters?” she said idly. “And by the way, sweetheart? No fucking way am I showing them to you.”
This got a laugh. “Preach it, girl!” some woman shouted approvingly. Very good. Laughing was good. She needed to act as if she owned this crowd right from the beginning or she was sunk.
Her hands were trembling. That moment between silence and her first note was like diving into a beautiful ice-cold sea every time. The dive was terrifying, but once she plunged in the waters were positively holy. Once she was in, she was a freaking porpoise.
“And besides, hooter guy . . .” she said offhandedly, continuing the conversation, as it were, as she fine-tuned her E string “. . . in a minute, dude, you’re going to want to show me your tits. In fact, you’ll want to do anything I tell you to do. I will own you.”
This got a WOOOOO! You had to show a crowd who was boss. It was like the cat slapping an alligator on the snout.
“You’re hot!” someone drunkenly yelled.
“Don’t you mean HOOT?” she shot back.
“No, I meant HOT,” he countered, sounding wounded.
“You speak the truth, son,” Glory agreed placidly into the mic, and they laughed again. “Hey, any drummers out there? Monroe, Monroe Porter, you out there?”
Drummers, she knew from experience, always carried around sticks. They were forever percussing everything. They really couldn’t help themselves.
“I’LL DRUM YOU, BABY!” some fool hollered. Sherrie and Glenn were making a mint.
Oh brother. “What does that even mean?” she laughed. “Someone bring that guy a beer! He’s obviously not drunk enough yet.”
More laughter and WOOOOOs!
The crowd shifted and undulated like a ball pit and Monroe Porter squirted through and sprinted up to the stage. He was, as she’d predicted, carrying sticks. She leaned into him to tell him what she wanted him to do.
His face lit up. “Dude!” He approved. “I can totally do that. I know most of your set.”
He climbed up next to her.
“Glory, you ready?” The voice was right in her ear. She jumped. She hadn’t even noticed Glenn sidling up.
She nodded.
Glenn seized the mic stand and pulled it toward him.
“QUIET!” he bellowed.
The audience was so amazed to be yelled at that silence fell immediately.
“Ladies and gentlemen . . . The Baby Owls’ bus broke down on the highway, and we’re doing our best to get them here. Got our best people on it.”
“BOOOOOOO! SSSSSSS! HOO! HOO! HOO! HOO!”
“QUIET. You’re about to be grateful for that little mechanical malfunction because, ladies and gentlemen, you now get to listen to . . . GLORY GREENLEAF!”
He set the mic stand back in front of her and strolled off with a murmured “knock ’em dead, kiddo.”
Chapter 14
But his announcement was met by a scattering of polite applause. Pat pat pat pat. Not even any heckling. Which was almost worse than no applause at all. Someone belched. A woman giggled. She heard someone who sounded a lot like Casey Carson yell a delighted “Go, Glory!”
She peered into the restless dark, which was interrupted only by cell phone screens and glints of eyeglasses aimed at her. She felt a bit like a lone camper who sees the yellow eyes of wolves in the dark.
She’d decided on her first song, and there was no way that at least half this crowd full of music geeks wouldn’t recognize it once she started: it was a legendary song from a legendary band from a legendary record. If she nailed it, she’d have them eating out of her hand.
If she
botched a single note, it would sound like a bad parody and she’d be lucky if they didn’t start hurling beer bottles at her.
They ought to just mic her heart. It was about ready to kick its way out of her chest.
She gave her head a shampoo commercial shake, threw her shoulders back, and smiled as if she was about to spring the best secret on the crowd, then put her lips on her harmonica and blew those first notes of Led Zeppelin’s “Your Time Is Gonna Come.”
That lonesome, pure, winding lick seemed to fly right up into the rafters and then pour out of the Misty Cat’s walls.
There was an audible rustle of leather and flannel and denim as the crowd shifted, leaned forward.
Some guy shouted a muffled yes!
Someone else exhaled an impressed “Damn!”
And, oh yeah: she nailed that intro.
She brought her head down hard to signal Monroe, who brought his sticks down on that plump stool just as she laid into the first chord, then arpeggiated it, funking it up just a little more than the original, getting heads out there nodding.
Her voice soared and ached, singing the story of a lying cheating lover, howling the pain of it, soulfully threatening retribution.
The first WOOOOO! hit around the third line of the verse. The audience was in. She could almost feel that click, like two continents colliding to form a new one.
And when she got a little carried away, she demanded, “Sing it with me!”
Only actual rock stars had the all-fired balls to withstand the shame if the audience decided that nope, they would not be singing it with her, even after she entreated.
But they actually did.
She felt literally intoxicated. Helium filled. Soaring and unfettered for the first time in eons, maybe ever. Because this was her milieu.
A few guys actually attempted to flick their lighters. Glenn was prepared for this and he waded through the crowd and yanked them from hands before the sprinklers could go off.
And then she cued Monroe to cut the song, and slammed it to a finish.
“WOOOOOOOOOO! WOOOOO!”
Wild at Whiskey Creek Page 18
