Broken Piano for President (43 page)

“Our finances,” the accounting guy says. “Are drilling a hole to China.” According to his team’s predictions, the company could be bankrupt in a year. Maybe less. “This,” he says with a sour mouth. “Is an Enron-sized nosedive. Possibly worse.”

On top of everything, marketing informs the group that the cosmonauts are still loose. They still have Juan Pandemic captive, as well as the translator. Most of Tony, the undercover agent, was found in a barbecued wreck early this morning, fifty miles outside of town. “What is the
high road
if these Russian psychopaths return to the office with machine guns?” they ask.

A file folder containing photos of all those on board the bus is passed around. Two look surprisingly familiar.
Funerals my ass
, Dean thinks.

The Marketing Director says, looking directly at the CEO, “It’s time to go to Plan B if we want to salvage this and put a tight lid on the situation.”

Roland Winters nods, “We have a Plan B?”

Winters’ office is clear now. Double Harry and Deshler are facing the boss in creampuff leather chairs. Harry crosses and uncrosses and recrosses his legs—unable to find comfort.

“Well boys, what do you think?” Winters says, rotating skin folds with a temple massage. A mix of sweat and aftershave clouds over the desk to Dean’s nose.

Deshler wants to speak, but there is a tension in the air that says shut up. His bridge-burning exit at Bust-A-Gut heaps confidence atop his frizzy-headed soul. Why not go two-for-two?

“This isn’t really our area, Roland,” Harry says, removing his hat, planting both feet on the ground.

“No, I think it is. You guys are
idea
men, thinkers, troubleshooters.” He removes his ketchup jacket and reveals Dijon sweat stains. “Just shift from ground beef to ground control. I need you.”

Those eyes
, Dean thinks.
Yikes.

The men fold their hands like prayer group. They sit silent. Dean is loving every second of this mess.

“There’s another problem, gentlemen. Have you ever heard of the Purple Bottle? Dean, you’re a young guy, maybe you’re familiar.”

“Uh, yeah, chief,” Dean says, lungs lifting heavy for air, half-shocked. “I know it.”

“I heard through the grapevine that my son’s
band
is performing there tonight. Lothario-something-or-other. This is pretty hard to swallow with the hot water he’s paddling around in, but who can tell with that kid? Harry, you know Tim. Anything harebrained is possible with him. I mean, Christ, with the drugs, who knows?” Winters’ face hangs in a way that says he’s genuinely concerned.

Keep quiet. Shut up. Shut up
, Dean tells himself.
They think the show’s at the Bottle, you are okay. Keep quiet.

“Should I get a team? To…” Harry holds, then whispers the same as when suggesting Christopher Winters’ murder, “
Take care of things
?”

Dean twists in the slick leather chair like someone just finished frying hamburgers on it.
Chill out. You are okay. They think it’s at the Bottle.

“Well, here’s the funny part, Harry,” he says with a dash of optimism. “I had our people dig into it. This Purple Bottle’s manager says the concert has been moved.”

“Get an address?” Harry whips out a pad of paper.

“You won’t need that. The guy says the show is moved to the
ballroom
at the hotel.”

“Ballroom, what ballroom?”

“Think about it.”

“The Beef Club?”

Deshler’s hair grows hot and itchy. His necktie is a rope of lava.

“That’s what I want to find out.”

(You have rock and roll concert tonight, yes?) Sonja says, kneeling next to Henry, half-asleep atop naked floorboard slats.

Rubbing yellow crust from eyes, Hamler butchers another translation: (No. Mister Pandemic is a sausage stuffed with excrement and lies.)

(He is saying it is quite important. You will play.)

(That is a canyon of trouble, Sonja.)

(No, little one, this is my offer. It is very significant to young Mister Winters. He has been a good comrade to Keith and I. You have been a more than excellent translator. You are free to go.)

(Again, don’t you police think want talk to me?)

(Perhaps, but police not wanting you for wrongdoing. You will not know our location. You are innocent.)

(Have you been smoking Pandemic’s pipe?)

A wrecked smile appears: (No my friend, our mission is nearly over. You are no use to us. We are setting you free on the condition that you play your music. It is great opportunity.)

Do not trust her
, his mind says.
They killed Martin. These people are evil. Do not trust her.

Sitting up, Hamler’s voice rises: (Wait, Pandemic doesn’t speak Russian. How did you talk to him?)

Sonja’s lips part and her tongue rests against the back of teeth to speak when Keith stomps up from Lothario Speedwagon’s practice space and into the living room. (Let us go, sister. It is time to be on our way. The mission needs us.)

(So long, Little Henry. You have been a great friend. Perhaps we will meet again,) Sonja says, rubbing Hamler’s hair like a stray dog.

“Where the hell is Martin?” he screams, but in a whistle of freezing wind through the front door, the Russian pair disappears.

Henry stares at the closed door for a long minute. Gaps around the frame welcome in white light. Things are cold and lonesome. His head thumps.

Henry turns toward Pandemic’s room, but stops. For a flicker, he thinks about what it would mean if someone murdered his own grandpa. He thinks about Martin…dead? The guilt grinds deeper into Hamler’s muscles and he realizes there is only one way to make it up to Pandemic. Hamler walks into the dungeon of a bedroom. It’s chalkboard-dark. Henry can’t see the mattress, even with the daylight coming through the open bedroom door.

“Dude?”

Some blankets turn over and springs creak.

“Yo, Juan,” he whispers into the void.

A low moan ripples through Hamler’s body. It reminds him of Deshler’s singing. Kind of like Lothario’s song
One Foot in the Womb
.

“Pandemic, I’m in. Let’s play this show tonight.” Hamler stands with toes hanging in the darkness and heels in the light. “Who cares about making people happy?” he says. “I want to make art. I want to be part of this. Any idiot can get a crowd to cheer. It takes guts to piss people off. I get it now.”

“Seriously?” Juan’s chest runs through a lumber mill. The band is sitting in his palm. “Tell me what you are saying, for real.”

“Yeah, man. Let’s make Lothario work. I’m in. I’m in.”

Hamler enters the room. It’s as bottomless as guilt and cold as loneliness.

“I might not jab out your eyeballs after all,” Pandemic rasps.

“Thanks.” Surrounded by nothingness—pupils still pinpoints, unable to make out shapes in the room—Hamler says, “The Russians left.”

“I figured.”

Henry’s foot lands on something soft. Wet and squishy. Hamler does not want to know what it is. “How did you guys communicate?” He takes a backward step.

“Huh?”

“How did you tell them about the show tonight?”

“I didn’t.”

Deshler says good morning to his assistant, Austin, and tells him only to forward calls from Harry and Roland. “Oh, here’s your mail,” the secretary says with a three-coffee grin and a small stack of envelopes. On top is a card featuring a Thanksgiving turkey.

Change of venue noted. See you tonight. Malinta’s head looks pretty good these days.

This morning there’s a bicycle messenger zipping through traffic. He wheels between choked streets and across sidewalks. People grunt and call him an asshole.

The cyclist was paid twice the usual fee by a guy who looks like one of the Moscow Five—the one that got shot—to deliver a DVD to the television station that produces
Nightbeat
. The disc is snug and dry inside a black shoulder bag.

The enormity of tonight’s concert finally sinks in, and nerves thrash at his belly. Dean can’t focus—he starts writing emails and forgets to whom, walks down halls and forgets to where. So, when our hero leaves work it’s no shock he can’t find that key to the hotel’s back door. He must use the main entrance and parks the car down the street in order to skip valet. He vaguely remembers Friday being Napoleon’s night off.
Maybe I’ll luck out
, he thinks.