As She Rides By (Vic Daniel Series)

by David Pierce

  "Because the greater the length, the less chance of the poor old dumb musician understanding it," Tom said.

  "I know what a royalty is," I said, "but I do not know how its percentage is determined, nor what that percentage is a percentage of."

  "I do," Jerry said grimly. "Pity I didn't fifteen years ago."

  "Also," I said, "I know there is something called music publishing from which a recorded artist or writer derives income; I suppose it's some kind of leftover from the days before records when a guy's income would come mostly from the sale of sheet music, which, obviously, cannot be the case today."

  "Cannot and is not, mate," Tom said. He picked up a handy pine cone and rolled it across the table to his partner, who promptly rolled it back.

  "What else don't I know . . . " I mused. "Don't know nothin' about agents and managers and personal managers, let alone song pluggers; don't know how records are actually recorded and then put onto vinyl or tape or compact discs, outside of what I've picked up watching my dream girl, Sandra Dee, her buxom chum, Annette Funicello, and Fabian in all those Beach Party epics."

  "Know who I met once?" Jerry said, a faraway look in his big blue eyes. "Ann-Margaret."

  "Big deal," I said. "I met Tuesday Weld once but I don't go around bragging about it."

  "I met David Bowie once," Tom said wistfully. "Didn't work out, though."

  "But I was once a gofer for a pop star," I said. "Back east, in Evanston, where I grew up, when I was no longer a youth but not yet a man.

  "Actually, bodyguard was more like it. He was a local kid. I knew his sister Chris slightly because she used to go out with my brother and that's how I met him. I was with him a year, a year and a half, in Evanston and then Chicago, then the deluge arrived for both of us."

  "How come?" Jerry asked.

  "Tell you some time, maybe," I said. And maybe not; I've got a few memory lanes I don't mind meandering back down again from time to time, but I also have a few I'd just as soon leave unretrodden, thanks. Such as, very briefly, this charming scenario: Concert. Bikers, two. Black leathers, swastikas, chains, beards, gloves, tripping maniacs. Displeased by the phrase "speed is for sissies" in a lyric, leap up on stage. Smash drum kit. Bodyguard in wings to the rescue, as city cops on duty at gig either out front of house cadging free tickets or backstage playing Old Maid. Valiant Bodyguard wrestles one biker to ground. Drummer, lead guitar, and bass guitar pile atop. V. B. slings biker two off the stage, incurring one knife wound and one broken wrist. Biker two lands on his head, breaks neck, and later croaks. V. B. does just under two years in Evanston Pen, learning how to lose at chess, how to read words more than one syllable long, how to avoid being anyone's sugar, and how to work a metal lathe without losing too many fingers.

  "What I do know about," I said, "is fetching. Scoring. Making fried chicken runs and booze runs. Lifting and toting million-pound amps with doped-out, hungover roadies in greasy T-shirts and hundreds of keys, and those were just the clothes horses. Carrying a concealed weapon illegally. Losing at gin. Keeping a ducktail slicked back."

  Jerry said, "Victor. What you don't know you can rapidly learn. I know a bit, so does, despite appearances, Thomas here, and so does Rickie. Our old manager's in town; he knows the whole management side and his old lady's a lawyer, she knows that side. It's not all that complicated, as an example of which one only has to look at the number of extremely rich morons in the business."

  "Now, now," Tom said. "Remember, bitterness leaves frown marks."

  "See, Victor," Jerry said, "Thomas and I are exceptionally chary right now. Or wary, if you prefer."

  "Or highly suspicious, if you prefer," Tom said.

  "The last time we climbed aboard the musical merry-go-round we did rather well, if I do say so myself," Jerry said.

  "But when it was all over, when the carousel ground to a halt and the circus moved on without us, we arrived back in England with the grand total of nine thousand dollars between us."

  "And twenty cents," said Tom.

  "This was after five years of working our buns off, remember," Jerry said. "As we alit from the tourist class section of the monoplane, we turned to each other and we vowed, never again."

  "OK," I said. "So what's the problem?"

  "I shall come to that," Jerry said. "So we went our separate ways. Marriages and children—in his case a great many of both—soon followed. Then one fateful day the phone rang. Hollywood was calling. Have you noticed that it is rather difficult to hang up when Hollywood calls?"

  "I've never had any trouble," I said. King whimpered in his sleep briefly. The cat in the eaves rolled over on its back and opened one yellow eye cautiously, then the other. When it saw that King was sleeping away, it inched on its fat belly over to the gutter, preparing to pounce. My boy, without opening his eyes, let out one growl from the back of his throat. The feline immediately assumed an innocent expression and began licking one paw. Which proves once again the superiority of canine over feline—cats maybe can see in the dark, but dogs can see with their eyes closed.

  "It wasn't Hollywood calling, you jerks," Tex said, puffing a little from the steps. "It was Norwalk." He came up the last few steps and sank down beside Tom on the bench. "Had this little thirty-six-track studio down there and it was going to waste. Know how much a thirty-six-track studio costs these days?"

  "Must be a couple of hundred bucks, at least," I said. "What is a thirty-six-track studio?"

  "It is a recording studio," Tom said, "in which there is an elaborate piece of electronic instrumentation commonly known as the board which is capable of recording and retaining thirty-six separate tracks, or tapes, which the engineer will then reduce down to one master track, from which millions of records can be made."

  "Got 'cha," I said. "I have a one-track machine myself in the office. A Sony. Nifty little thing."

  "Which probably does all sorts of tricky and underhanded maneuvers like recording through walls and in cocktail lounges unbeknownst to the person sitting opposite you," Tom said.

  "Why, the very idea!" I said, trying to look offended. In fact, he was right on, it did all that, and more. Phil the Freak out in Glendale recently demonstrated to me a parasitic transmitter, speaking of bugs and suchlike, that a few years ago would have been dismissed as pure science fiction. What I was visiting him for was, I had a client who was almost paranoically afraid of his offices being bugged, especially because, following modern architectural trends, they were mostly constructed of glass. And we all know about windows these days—a laser bounces a light beam off one, picking up even the faint vibrations people make when they talk, and the beam, packed chock full o' sound, rebounds to a computer that analyzes the noises and reconstructs the dialogue. And if this beam is being transmitted by spread spectrum, which means across a wide band of radio frequencies, it's just about impossible to detect. So what do you do, aside from putting heavy drapes outside all the walls and windows, which probably wouldn't work anyway, and would also look pretty silly? Easy, if you're Phil the Freak. He sold me a dozen little weeny electric motors to attach to all outside walls, and what they do is produce their own vibrations and the poor old computer can't unscramble their vibes from the ones produced by conversation. Yet.

  When I rejoined our conversation, Jerry was saying, "Which brings us rather neatly to the point."

  "Well, I have been listening, chaps," I said. "I think I can manage to put all the pieces together. Tex, here, wants to dust off his thirty-six-track board and start you two recording again."

  "How does he do it!" Tom said in awe.

  "You two, given your past history, are wary, or chary, or highly suspicious of music business moguls; whether rightly or wrongly, of course, is not for me to say."

  "I will," Tom said. "Rightly, mate."

  "Therefore," I said, "one can only presume that you would like a highly trained, discreet investigator of complete professionalism—whose rates are surprisingly reasonable, by the way—to examine the business
ethics of ol' Tex here, no insult intended."

  "Almost," Jerry said. "Except that it is ol' Tex here who wants you to investigate the business ethics, if any, of ol' Tex here."

  "Well, stone the crows!" I exclaimed, demonstrating that, if pressed, I could speak Limey with the best of them. "That's a new one on me. Although there was this time a suspicious husband tried to hire me to find out who was billing and cooing with his adorable, dusky wife, but I had to turn him down."

  "Why?" Jerry asked.

  "It was me," I said. "Talk about your conflict of interests."

  Chapter Three

  I dunno what he's waitin' for, it could be just mañana,

  Or a car with a drunken millionaire who's gonna stop one day . . .

  WE KICKED IT around for a while longer, then I said that as I had to leave shortly, perhaps everyone would excuse me if I got a touch businesslike. All but Tom said they would. I wrote down in my handy memo pad—courtesy M. Martel, Stationers—the name and address of the boys' ex-manager, also Tex's home address, the location of his thirty-six-track studio, also the name, address, phone, and room numbers of the hotel where Tom 'n' Jerry were temporarily staying; then Tex produced from a secret pocket in his belt a check already made out to me and presented it to me with a flourish. I glanced at it, then murmured, "Satisfactory," which is one way of describing a check for two thousand dollars and no cents. He then handed over a thick manila folder tied up, appropriately, with red tape.

  "Articles of my company's incorporation," he said. "Writers' contracts, recording contracts, semi-annual royalty statements, you name it, it's all yours. The little woman's an actuary, among other things; she keeps track of all this stuff."

  "You came well prepared," I said.

  "What's to lose?" he said.

  Rickie's girlfriend was stirring when we trooped back down to the front room. She was introduced to me as Big Red. As she was tiny and was also a blonde, I presumed the moniker was just one more amusing example of musician's humor. After asking me what the weather was like up there, which was not the first time I'd been asked that particular question, as I stood a manly six foot seven and a quarter inches in my socks, she pressed me to stay on and eat Chinese with them. I said thank you ever so but I had a previous engagement, called the dog, patted the pocket in which nestled the check, and dog and I departed.

  "Wasn't that all very strange," I remarked to my companion as we headed back over the Hollywood Hills to my side of town. King wagged his tail in agreement. "Let us look at it logically. Tom and Jerry are wary. That is logical. Tex knows they are wary. That is logical. They will not sign with him until they are unwary. That's logical. So he hires me to unwary them. That's almost logical. Obviously, he wouldn't hire me to unwary them if there was anything in his background, foreground, or playground even to make them even warier. What's not logical is, what's making me wary?"

  King came up with the perfect answer, as he usually did—drink first, think later. So we did. He drank some water from his Peter Rabbit bowl at home, gave me a hurt look when he realized I was on my way out again without him, then collapsed by his deluxe wicker basket in the kitchenette that had set me back a pretty penny, I can tell you, over at Paula's "Pets Pending." By the basket, you will notice, not in it. As if I cared. Then I strolled around the corner and up the street to Jim's joint, the Two-Two-Two, where I was to meet Evonne Louise Shirley. I was comfortably ensconced in the corner booth with my second brandy and ginger and an old copy of Cosmo I'd grabbed from the stack of magazines on the end of the bar when she arrived.

  She said hello to Jim, then came over to me, said, "Hi, sweetie," then gave the curls at the back of my neck a good tousle.

  "Hi sweetie yourself," I said. "Pardon me if my eyes are closed, but I'm not allowed to look at you until I finish this."

  "This what?"

  "This here form in Cosmo I'm filling in—'How Well Do You Know Your Mate? Please complete without any research or visual contact with your lover,' it says. Some of the questions are real tricky, too."

  "Yeah, I'll bet," she said, grabbing the magazine rudely from me and sliding in next to me. Jim's gorgeous bargirl, Lotus, brought over the rum collins Evonne'd ordered at the bar; she took a long swig, and read:

  Born: in the sticks in the middle west somewhere dusty

  Birth sign: Libra

  Age: 35—doesn't look a day over

  Height: 5' 7 1/2"

  Weight: 112

  Hips: 36

  Waist: 26

  Bust: 36-B

  Eyes: primrose blue

  Hair: corn-silk blond

  Hobbies: Me. Growing veggies, mostly green. Bridge. Potted briefly.

  Likes: Bad Italian. Eggs Benedict in bed. Magnum. All women writers including Shirley Collins.

  Dislikes: her school principal. Rhubarb. Psychiatric jargon. My line of work. My reading westerns. Kidneys.

  Birth/beauty marks: 3 freckles on face, 43 on shoulders and back

  Favorite color: yellow

  Favorite singer: Madonna

  Car: 2-year-old Celica, unwashed

  Major faults: slapdash with eye shadow. Loves dancing to disco. Likes kids. Leaves skins on when frying 'taters.

  Major virtues: Insane legs. Insane shape. Adores V.D. Insane face. Heartbreaking lips. Unfurrowed brow. Sun-kissed epidermis.

  She dropped the mag on the table as if it had botulism, and gave me a look.

  "Of course," I said hastily, "I hadn't gotten around to all your inner virtues yet, there were so many I needed a separate sheet of paper."

  "Know what?" she said, shifting a little closer to me. I closed what little gap remained.

  "What?"

  "Sometimes I wonder."

  "That's it?"

  "That's it." She favored me with an all-too-brief kiss, which tasted of rum-flavored dentifrice, with just a soupçon of woman added; are you listening, Colgate? Take a tip.

  Over cannelloni at Mario's later she told me about her day and I reciprocated. She complained, not for the first time, that my days always seemed to be more interesting than hers. I responded, as I usually did, by pointing out that (a) she got paid regular, (b) no one ever tried to beat her up, and (c) my days were really as dull as hers but I was the more gifted storyteller.

  Over the profiteroles, she asked me if it had crossed my mind that maybe Tex really did have something to hide, but that it was so well concealed that he was confident a dodo like me would be too dumb to find it. I immediately lied, saying it was the first thing I'd thought of. So what was I going to do, then? I said, what the hell, sugar, I'd probably go through the motions anyway, and two grand still bought a lot of motions in my milieu.

  "And, speaking of motions . . ." I then suggested hopefully.

  "Homeward, please, Victor," she said, "is my motion."

  "Ah," I said. "Of course, dear. I understand completely." I paid the exorbitant bill, and out into the night we went.

  AND, GO THROUGH the motions I did, starting the following day, which was a Monday, a hot summer's Monday, temperature by ten a.m. already in the middle seventies and climbing, and the smog thick enough to be served as an orange milkshake. Before setting off to keep my eleven o'clock appointment with Dick Distler, the Limeys' ex-manager, which I made as soon as I got to the office that morn, I took King out back for his morning ramble, figuring he'd better ramble while he could. There was no sign of Amos 'n' Andy, but Joe was there, as usual, dozing against my wall. I was glad to see there was no fencing in place yet, but about half the fenceposts were affixed. Well, they just might become unaffixed some dark night, thought I darkly while my puppy dug away busily at the foot of the tree. After a moment he gave me a guilty look, then began chewing on something. I went over and wrestled it out of his mouth in case it was a chicken bone or something even worse for him, like some ancient Chicken McNuggets. It wasn't, it was only a bit of an old paper plate with a smear of what I hoped was ketchup on it.

  "If you are going to dig, why do
n't you dig up something useful," I told him. "Like a priceless artifact, for example." Then I said to myself, "Bingo, baby. B-I-N-G-O! What a smart dog. What a good boy." King wagged his tail. I felt like doing likewise.

  Distler's office was on Sunset Boulevard, just past Western; the Hollywood Freeway let me off a short block from it. King enjoyed the drive more than I did, a lot more. Wonder why dogs like sticking their fool heads out of the windows of cars in motion? There was, of course, no place to park nearby, not even a meter, so I finally wheeled into a pay parking lot, tucked my Nash into a spot of shade, left all the windows open a bit for King, poured him some water into his number-two bowl, told him to piss out the window if he had to, told him to go for the throat at the first sign of an intruder, then walked back to the rose-colored, one-story complex where Dick Distler's office was. And, from the signs on the doors, where a lot of other people in the music business toiled as well, if "toiled" is the right word. Tom could no doubt suggest others, like looted, pillaged, pirated, plundered, purloined, filched, cribbed, and for all I knew, shanghaied.

  I was working my way up the line toward Distler's when I heard a moan coming from a narrow walkway that separated two of the buildings. In my part of town we would have called it an alley. There were a couple of garbage cans halfway down pretty well blocking the passageway completely; I spied what looked like a leg sticking out from behind one of them. In I went, with some caution. It was a leg, all right, attached to a skinny kid who was curled up in a heap against the false-brick wall. Also attached to him, to his bare, upper arm, was a dangling, empty syringe. The kid was out cold. I took his pulse; he still had one. I opened up one eyelid and got mostly white looking back at me. Right in front of my nose was a window. Inside I saw this guy with a beard rolling around on the floor. Probably some writer, I guessed. I knocked on the glass. The guy came over to the window on his knees and opened it.

  "Call the cops," I said. "Tell 'em they'll need an ambulance."