by T. N. Robb
For
Jeff Brooks and Jay Stoddart
"When the sound of the music changes, the walls of the city shake."
PLATO
ONE
Master Tapes
A hand swept across a beat-up, Chet Atkins-model Gretsch guitar. The strings on the shiny, burnt-orange instrument vibrated as the pick struck home. For a long moment, a wild, hair-up-your-ass chord hung in the air. Then the hand cranked back on the chrome tremolo bar, making It talk dirty and scream at the same time.
Billy Ray, a lanky, angular Texan with a pompadour and turned-up collar, cranked back on the tremolo bar again as if he were shifting into second in a drag race. The crowd at The Crescendo howled in anticipation as the drums and piano came pounding and sliding in, just as Billy Ray tore into his rockabilly anthem: "Blue Hotel."
The crowd was made up of mostly Hollywood greasers, valley bikers, newly arrived outlaws, irredeemable juvenile delinquents, and transplanted hillbillies, who at the moment were feeling like they were back home as the West Texas-bred band cranked up. The greaser chicks were Saran-wrapped with capri pants and assorted baby-doll sweaters, dark eyeliner, red lips, and coy hair all piled up and falling down. No one was sitting still, and their shouts of "crazy" and "get nekkid" kept everything on edge.
Amid them all were a scattering of overdressed, under-endowed managers and record executives frozen in mid-highball and glancing nervously around at the take-no-hostages bunch of black leather jackets, denim cutoff vests, T-shirts, and engineer boots. At one of the tables was Archie Hammond, a young record executive dressed like a Princeton grad, whose clothes looked as if they were matched in a cannabis haze. His appearance was casual in a preppy way, but with odd little touches like hot pink socks sticking out of the tops of his Bass Weejuns. Unlike the other bizos in their coats and ties, Hammond's face and body were animated. He was moving in his seat to the sounds, obviously digging the hell out of the whole scene.
Sitting across from him was Tommy Slade, who wore a five-hundred-dollar gunmetal silk suit that was strictly East Coast. Slade was the only one in the immediate area who wasn't rocking to the music. You could almost hear the gears commence turning under his slicked-back red hair as he watched Billy Ray and the Rockets. A fistfight broke out at the table next to them. Slade shook his head in disgust, but no one else paid attention.
Everyone else's eyes were riveted onstage, where Billy Ray was wailing. An Elvis snarl on his lip, his hand-rubbed guitar was jammed between his legs, sticking straight out as he revved up the tremolo bar. For an instant, Billy Ray's eyes fell on a blond girl standing by the cigarette machine. She was talking to several young hoods wearing gang jackets that said SCORPIONS on the back.
Johnny Betts, his pompadour head of hair shaking as he danced in an aisle, saw the object of Billy Ray's glance. He knew immediately, without doubt, that no one in the room was cooler than this girl, a Brigitte Bardot with a switchblade. She strolled over to the bar, drawing glances as she walked, and sweetly stole a longneck bottle out of the hands of a leering coat-and-tie-clad agent or manager-type.
The man was in the wrong ballpark, Betts mused, if he thought he was going to mess with her. She didn't even wait around to test him, just walked off with his beer. Never even glanced back.
There was one man standing at the bar, a big guy with a square jaw and clear blue eyes, who looked even more conspicuous, Betts thought, because his back was to the stage. Jack Cleary, Betts's boss, loosened his tie a notch, and glanced at his watch. He looked like an annoyed passenger who had taken the wrong train, and was fresh out of patience. The private detective sipped his bourbon, then looked over at Betts, who kept on bopping to the music.
Cleary glanced sideways toward the stage, letting the pure exhilaration and sheer energy of the music flow through him. He made a point of not letting Betts see that he was actually digging it. No sense blowing his image as a straight guy who liked to skewer the noisy, new music and the hard-core crowd that surrounded it.
Onstage, Billy Ray staggered backward, knees bent, and whirled around, singing directly to the Rockets. The three guys in the band were good ol' boys who had shared a lot of two-lane blacktop. Now Dwayne, the lead guitar, hollered encouragement as Billy Ray fell to one knee, pulling the microphone with him, and let loose from his heart by way of his lungs and vocal chords:
Blue Hotel,
On a lonely highway;
Blue Hotel, life don't work out my way.
I wait alone
Each lonely night.
Betts walked over to Cleary and grinned. "Whaddya think, man?" The young rebel, who was cut from the James Dean mold, pulled a pack of Lucky Strikes from his rolled-up T-shirt sleeve. He knocked a couple out, offered one to Cleary. "This guy's someplace else entirely. You know what I mean?"
"I envy him."
For a brief moment, Betts looked at Cleary as if he were a Martian, then he spun around and whistled as loudly as he could with his two fingers. "Crank that puppy up," he shouted.
As the music reached the top of the decibel level, Betts looked out over the crowd and spotted the blond girl, who had moved back over by the cigarette machine. He noticed how she watched Billy Ray with a studied detachment. There was no look of impassioned yearning on her face; no hysterical screaming. She regarded him as a conquest rather than a challenge, Betts decided. That must be it.
Then she turned away from the stage, closed her eyes, lost in her own thoughts. Betts continued to stare at her until she, sensing that someone was watching her, shot a glance directly at him. The look was a frank, open look of appraisal, nothing coy. No games. Betts liked that. He liked it a lot.
Her round, sky-blue eyes flashed as she shot him a slight, secret smile. Betts grinned back, then the moment was gone.
Archie Hammond, the record executive, stepped between Betts and the girl, blocking the view. "Jack Cleary? Archie Hammond, Silhouette Records. Sorry, daddy-o, been hanging long?" He smiled, laughed.
Cleary pegged him as an easygoing, likeable fellow. "Hard to tell. My brain turned to succotash right after the first number," he responded.
Archie shrugged amiably, plopped some bills on the bar, and urged Cleary away. "Volume's a slice modulated backstage. We can talk back there."
Betts started to follow, but Hammond stopped him. "Delicate matter," he said to Cleary. "If you don't mind, your mechanic can wait out here."
Cleary shrugged to Johnny. "You're on your own, kid. Later."
Betts looked down at Hammond's Bass Weejuns. "Nice shoes, man."
As Cleary disappeared backstage, Betts looked over at the cigarette machine and saw the blonde leaving the club with the Scorpions. As she reached the door, she shot a look back and her eyes met Betts's. For a moment, he considered the possibilities, then headed for the door after her. He paused near the entrance, taking one last hit of Billy Ray to rev him up for whatever awaited in the night.
It was the last song, and the mob was going nuts as Billy Ray lifted his guitar over his head. They were standing on chairs, cheering and whistling. Betts took it all in, letting the energy saturate from head to toe, then he turned, and pushed his way out the door.
Backstage in the dressing room, Cleary nodded as Hammond told him why he was interested in hiring him. "It disappeared from our studio three days ago."
"You got the wrong guy. Hammond. I don't run a lost-and-found service for rock and rollers."
"That isn't just a tape, Cleary It's a master." He motioned through the open door toward the stage, where Billy Ray was playing on one knee. "It's his new album. He can't press any records without it."
"Why Don't you go to the cops?"
"I don't need that kind of PR. These kids trust me w
ith their music. How long do you think I'd last as a producer if this got out?"
"My fee is fifty bucks a day, plus expenses. You sure you want to spend that kind of bread to get back some hillbilly tapes?"
Hammond smiled. "Billy Ray sold fifty thousand copies of his first album. We think this new one will sell at least a quarter million. It's 1956, Cleary, modern times. The forties are history, baby. This is the music of our time, and it's going to keep right on growing."
Cleary looked through the door, reassessing Billy Ray, who was finishing the song with a flourish. A quarter-million copies? Not bad. Then he shuddered at the thought of a quarter-million goofballs, just like the crowd out there, and all of them thriving on this raucous music. But he held his tongue, not wanting to offend the man who'd just hired him.
To Cleary, rock and roll had all the trappings of a passing fad. When something looked like a fad and acted like one, he expected he was watching one. But the fact that backwoods kids like Billy Ray were starting to make big money on it meant some of them weren't likely to fade away overnight. He had no doubt, though, that the ones who survived would be sounding like Sinatra in a couple of years.
Billy Ray ran off the stage as the crowd screamed for an encore. Cleary watched the kid in the hallway as he wiped off his sweat-drenched body with a towel, then tossed back a couple of pills and washed them down with a gulp from a bottle of booze.
A big man wearing cowboy boots gently took the bottle from Billy Ray's hand and slid a paternal arm around his shoulders.
"You hear 'em, man?" Billy Ray said over the sound of hands pounding rhythmically on tables, demanding his return. "They love it."
"Just one encore this time, kid, and make it a slow one," Cowboy Boots said. "We gotta finish the album in the morning."
Billy Ray nodded, and Cowboy Boots sent the band back on stage. He took a swig from the bottle himself, and looked curiously at Cleary, who had watched the entire exchange.
Hammond caught Cowboy Boots's eye and motioned him into the dressing room. "Calvin, meet Jack Cleary. I've just hired him on to track down our masters."
He looked like a Deep South traveling Bible salesman with shiny pants, a big belly, and a ready smile. He pumped Cleary's hand as he sized him up. "Calvin Pettys. I'm Billy Ray's manager." He turned to Hammond. "We still on for dinner, Archie?"
"Yeah, grab Billy Ray after the encore and meet me over at Matteo's. We'll go over plans for the album. I'd like to see if we can wrap it up tomorrow." He looked over at Cleary. "Come on, I'll walk you out to your car.
As they left, Cleary heard Billy Ray scream, "We're gonna rock all night!"
In the alley behind The Crescendo, Hammond led Cleary over to a '55 Packard 400. He leaned against the driver's door, crossed his arms. "A friend of mine back East called me yesterday. He's got a record-pressing plant in Jersey. Said he'd gotten a call from a guy who wanted him to make some Billy Ray platters. Counterfeits."
He reached into his coat pocket and removed a piece of paper. "He was given this Los Angeles post office box number. Find out if they're willing to deal. I'll pay to get the tapes back."
Cleary didn't like the idea of playing middleman in the payoff of a crook. "What's going to keep it from happening again?"
"We'll be a little more careful about where the masters are stored after this experience. You can be sure of that. Like I said, I just want to get the masters back and keep the whole damn thing quiet. I hope that's cool with you."
Cleary shrugged, looked at the post office box number. "You know, I'd prefer tracking this guy down rather than writing him. You could do that yourself. It'll give us a little more leverage if I can find out an address or at least a phone number."
"Fine with me."
"It might take a few days, though."
Hammond pulled out a wad of bills and slapped them against Cleary's palm. "Fifty dollars a day, plus expenses. Seven days in advance. Will that do it?"
Cleary counted the money, tucked it inside the pocket of his slacks. "I suppose rock and roll will last another week."
He walked to his Caddy, started to unlock the door. Behind him, Hammond turned on the Packard's ignition. It made an odd noise, sort of raspy, like maybe the engine had a sore throat or was coming down with the flu.
"Hey, Cleary."
He looked back to see Hammond sticking his head out the window. "Get used to the music. It's here to stay."
"Righto, man," Cleary replied with a smile.
Then, suddenly, Hammond's car exploded with a tremendous blast. Cleary was hurled backward to the pavement, and the Packard lifted several feet off the ground in a fireball of metal fragments and body parts.
TWO
Hot Rods
All right, this was nuts. Betts knew it, but he didn't care. There was something about that blonde that intrigued him. Her hair, probably. And her body. But mostly that devilish look in her eyes, and the way she carried herself. That especially. Yeah, he liked that a lot.
In the parking lot, outside The Crescendo, he had heard the Scorpions talking about a drag race up on Mulholland Drive. They were all headed there, and when he saw the blonde slide into one of the Scorpion hot rods, he had hopped into his '49 Mercury and followed.
Now, as he sat behind the wheel of his '49 Mercury, watching the action, he wondered why he was always attracted to women who weren't the type to settle down. Not that he was looking to get married tomorrow or anything, but hey, it'd be nice to have something steady in his life for once, something he could count on, someone to come home to.
He didn't know any of these cats, so he stayed where he was, down low in his seat, watching from a discreet distance where he could see—but not be seen.
The machines—'53 flathead Ford V8s, '32 deuce coupes, '51 Rockett 88 Olds, souped-up '55 Chevys—were gathering into position. Their headlights, arcing and sweeping crazily, illuminated a big turnaround in the road. They lined themselves along the edge of the road, just where Mulholland straightened out of a dangerous looping curve.
Two hot rods stood out from the others. A fire-engine red '55 Chevy Bel Air convertible jacked up with positraction and a Continental kit, gleamed in the headlights. The other was a shiny black Ford deuce coupe. They eased out of the turnaround and disappeared around the curve on their way to the starting line a few miles up the winding road.
Scorpion boys and their chicks sat on the hoods of their cars swigging beers and waiting for the action to flash by. Then Betts saw what he had come here for. The blonde. She was sandwiched between two Scorpions on one of the car hoods. She didn't know he was there, and he wondered now if she had even been looking at him at The Crescendo.
Yeah, she had, he decided. His instinct about things like that was pretty finely tuned.
Scorpions, he thought, probably didn't worry too much about whether their chicks wanted to settle down. There was a certain seduction about living as they did. On the edge. Who was he kidding? He knew all about it. Maybe better than most of the Scorpions.
A kid wearing a Scorpion jacket stood at the finish line with a makeshift flag. Just a few feet behind him, off the shoulder of the road, the canyon dropped straight down several hundred feet to the valley below, where endless ribbons of colored lights were blinking under a black sky strewn with stars. If one of the cars veered out of control, the entire sky and valley would momentarily open up for the driver as he was hurtled toward a certain death. It had happened.
A few minutes later, up the mountain, another Scorpion slashed the air with his hand, signaling the start of the race. The engines roared, smoked, tires screeched, pebbles flew into the air. The deuce coupe jumped out a nose ahead, but by the time they disappeared from sight the Chevy was pulling away.
Betts was keeping his eyes on the blonde, watching how she moved, who she talked to. She didn't seem particularly attracted to any of the men around her, which gave him hope. Still, he wasn't ready to approach her. The moment had to be right. He would know when.
&nbs
p; He saw her lean forward as one of the Scorpions pointed up the road. Betts couldn't see much of the road, but he heard a sharp, piercing screech of tires and he knew the cars were skidding around the last curve. He held his breath, almost expecting to hear a god-awful shriek and crash as the speeding steel machines collided. But it didn't happen.
Suddenly the Chevy shot by the finish line a full three car-lengths ahead of the deuce coupe. The blonde leaped from the car hood and walked out to the road. The winner turned around, and the blonde stuck out her thumb and seductively shook her behind. Scorpion boys howled in delight, and Betts bit his lower lip. She jumped into the passenger seat, and the Chevy paraded past the other cars until the loser pulled his deuce coupe to a stop at the far end of the turnabout.
The winner, who Betts figured was the leader of the Scorpions, climbed out. The blonde joined him, draping an arm around his neck as the deuce coupe driver slowly ambled over to them.
The blonde stuck out a hand, and the loser handed her a couple of bills. Betts started his engine, and drove forward. He leaned out the window to hear what they were talking about
"Twenty-five," she said, waving her hand lightly in the air. "Looks like you're five light to me."
The loser looked up at her for mercy, received none. "Come on. Let's have it, hotshot."
He handed the other bill to her, then looked at the leader. "I was close,man. Hadn't been for that curve, I woulda had you."
"Too bad it ain't horseshoes, dipstick." The leader looked around, grinning, feeling cocky. "Anyone else feel lucky tonight?"
The hoods had been burned too many times already, and no one was stepping forward. "No way, Larry," someone yelled.
"What? No takers?" Then his laugh was drowned out by the low, mean growl of a muscle car. Betts smiled to himself as the Merc prowled into the light, the gleaming chrome teeth of the grille the first to emerge from the dark.
He knew there was one way he would win the blonde's attention, and this was it. His window was rolled down, and his arm rested comfortably on the door. He glanced at the guy named Larry, then at the blonde. "What's your name?"
