Emerald City (5 page)

“Busy day?” I asked.

He shrugged. “One of the machines went down so we were really hassled the whole shift.” He looked at me with concern. “What about you? What did Rob say about the message?”

“I'm staying on the story,” I told him. “That threat means someone killed Craig.”

“I know. I kept hearing that voice all day.”

“Yeah, I know. Me too.” The words had traveled through my head more times than I could count, too, as I tried to make any possible sense of them. “I saw Mike and Warren. They were pretty broken up about it all.” I thought for a moment. “I guess a little bitter, too, like Craig's death just cheated them out of their fame and money.”

“Did you tell them someone had murdered him?”

“No. I'm not saying anything about that until I know more.”

“Those guys were tight.” He swung his feet back to the floor and sat forward, his eyes intent and intelligent, hair flopping around his face. “And without them it would have sounded pretty ordinary, you know. They were the ones who put the bite in it. You remember Killer Days? That's the one with the riff in a really odd time signature.”

“Yeah.” I could recall it. I didn't think it was the best thing they'd done but it was still a good song, a downward spiral of a piece that exploded at the end. Every time they played it on stage the audience went wild.

“Craig wrote that a couple of years back. I remember he played it once when a bunch of us were over at his place for a party,” Steve continued. “It was okay, but nothing special. It was Tony who came up with the riff and Warren who suggested the way to do it.”

“I didn't know that,” I said with interest. I'd always assumed that Craig had been the driving force and that the others had been mostly interchangeable.

“You've got to give them credit.” He stretched out lazily. “Anyway, what's for dinner?”

I glared at him until he held up his hands in apology, then said, “Just pizza.”

I put it in the oven to cook and cleaned up the table where I'd been working. I felt as if I'd been running fast for the last couple of days, dashing from person to person only to hear the same words over and over again.

We lazed around until eight-thirty, and I went to get ready for the show. A few years ago I'd have put on crazy makeup, somewhere between glam Bowie and Adam Ant. I'd toned it down since I hit my thirties, just some purple sparkly eye shadow and bright red lipstick. I spent a few minutes with hairspray and a comb, ratting my hair up, then stood back and looked in the mirror. Not too bad. There were lines around my eyes and mouth, but I'd earned them and I wasn't going to hide them. An old CBGB t-shirt, black jeans that were washed out and tight, and heavy biker boots. To finish it off I put on a leather jacket with SEXUAL ANARCHY in a faded scrawl on the back. I'd found it sitting on top of a garbage can back in '83 when I was walking to a gig, as if it had been waiting for me. The lining was torn but I'd mended it carefully with a needle and thread. The words brought comments and offers but it only took a dark, enigmatic smile to shut most people up.

By nine-thirty we were at the Vogue, drinking Rolling Rock and saying hi to familiar faces, Scotty, Anne, Dave, Jane, the people who liked to hang out. A couple of girls in leather looked hungrily at Steve, then let their eyes pass quickly over me, so I grabbed him and gave him a long, deep kiss as they watched, just to piss them off. I loved this place. It was where the freaks came out at night, where Goth, fetish wear and anything went as long as it was black. I remembered when it had been called WREX, part of the small circuit of punk clubs dotted around downtown. Since those days it had developed its own identity, not quite gay, not quite straight, but past all that, pumping out dance music that let the Sisters of Mercy and Madonna slink side by side. On Tuesdays, though, it kept a grip on its past with live music. And tonight it was Jayne County.

Jayne was special, a living rock'n'roll fairytale. Once upon a long time ago, a good Southern boy who called himself Wayne County had gotten the hell out of the Bible belt and headed for the gay beacon of New York. He put out a few singles and made a very minor name for himself. Now, just like the Lou Reed song come to strutting, breathing, trash-talking life, he was a she named Jayne. Still putting out records that only a few people bought and touring around the country.

Jayne didn't have her own band. Instead she used musicians from whatever city she was in, blithely expecting them to know the material. Tonight there were a couple of members of the Fastbacks behind her, along with Mike on drums. No one expected anything good, we were all just here for the fun of the occasion.

The musicians tuned up and waited. Mike looked as if he'd rather be anywhere right now than on a stage. They waited expectantly, looking at each
other until Jayne finally bounced into view in a slashed dress and torn hose. Everyone cheered and the first chords of If You Don't Want to Fuck Me, Baby, Fuck Off filled the air.

It was great ramshackle Southern camp and we ate it up like honey. She was funny, she was crude, and no one cared if she wasn't too great or that the band missed cues and hit bum notes. It was fun, like a spontaneous party to celebrate midweek. A short set, two encores and with a “Thank y'all,” she was gone and we poured out into the night.

The air had turned colder, more like a real Seattle spring, with a wind off the Sound that bit lightly against my face and the hint of rain in the air. We walked quickly back to the car.

“What did you think?” I asked.

“It was good.” Steve laughed and took my hand as we walked. “I kind of expected she'd be crappy, but I loved it. She doesn't take herself seriously.”

We drove home with the heater cranked. In the apartment I closed the drapes as Steve grabbed a shower. I glanced over at the answering machine. No new messages. Thank God.

“I need to sleep.” Steve nuzzled against me as I looked out into the night, lips rubbing against that sweet spot on the back of my neck. “Are you coming to bed?”

“In a little while.” I was still buzzed from the music, my ears ringing, the adrenaline of a good gig rushing through me. It'd be a while before I could rest. Above it all, though, I could still hear the voice from the message, running as if it was on a loop. “I'm going to have another beer first.”

“Okay.” He smiled and kissed me. “I love you.” Like most guys I'd known he didn't say it often, he didn't believe he needed to, that we both already knew it, and I could always see it in his eyes.

Alone, I popped the top off a Rainier and stood by the sliding glass doors. On the hill above the other side of Lake Union the lights of St Mark's cathedral twinkled. All the towers downtown were aglow, climbing tall up to the sky. Someone out there was threatening me and it scared me, made me feel weak and little and all the things I believed I'd managed to leave behind.

It was late when I finally found more than a few minutes sleep, and gray light
was streaming in by the time I woke. Steve had gone to work, leaving his empty cup sitting on the table. I was still groggy. The clock on the stove read ten after nine; the rush hour was past, people were already bright and alive and at work.

I made more coffee and sat drinking it as I thumbed through the morning paper. There was nothing else on Craig. The bad thoughts that had kept me awake had vanished with daylight. I was strong again, back to the real me.

I showered and dressed, folded up my completed reviews and set off for downtown. There was a chill in the air, and a misting rain so light it barely felt wet, enough for a jacket over my t-shirt and plaid shirt.

The elevators were sliding up and down the Space Needle and the tourists would be falling in love with the views from the observation deck. The day was too cloudy to make out Mount Rainier or the Cascades but there was still plenty to impress. Where else could you start to drive down a hill and look out across the water to the peninsula on the other side, or glance up and see the noble white face of a mountain on the horizon?

Down in the lobby of The Rocket building I picked up the new issue and thumbed through it quickly, seeing what work of mine was in there. A short interview, three reviews and a show preview about Terry Lee Hale and Gary Heffern at the Five-O. Not too bad.

I climbed the stairs and entered the office. After all the frantic activity of production earlier in the week it seemed calm, almost lazy. Someone in the art office was playing the Deep Six compilation, the U-Men blasting a soupy mess of sound through the place. I used the photocopier then knocked on the frame of Rob's open office door.

“Hey,” he said. “I was going to call you this morning, see if anything else
had happened. How are you doing?”

“I'm fine.” I wasn't about to start discussing the worries and the fears. Over the years I'd learned to keep a wall built against some things. As I'd walked into town something had come to me. “How do you get heroin in this city?”

“I don't know,” he answered. “My cousin's a cop. He'll be able to tell me and come up with a couple of names. People who'll talk to you.”

“Thanks,” I said, gladdened by his offer. Rob was a good editor, he loved music, but I'd never seen the serious journalist side of him before this. He ran a hand through his hair.

“What about the phone message?” he asked.

“I don't know,” I admitted. I'd listened to it again before leaving the apartment. “There was nothing to show a break-in at Craig's on the police report, nothing disturbed. The autopsy doesn't mention anything about bruising or force. If someone really did kill him then he's hidden it very well. On the face of it, it's nothing more than a former junkie overdosing.”

“Keep digging.”

“I'm going to,” I told him with a smile. “We went down to see Jayne County last night,” I said, changing the subject.

“Yeah? How was it?”

“Pretty much what you'd expect. Fun. Raunchy, all over the place.”

“Want to review it?”

“Sure,” I answered. I hadn't been angling for the extra work but I wouldn't turn down a few more dollars.

“I left some stuff in your pigeonhole, too. See if there's anything you want to cover.”

“Okay.” I stood up.

As I reached the door, he said, “I'll call you later with the information. And like the man says, be careful out there.”

“Yes, Sarge.” I grinned. “Don't worry, I'm keeping my eyes open.”

“Go on, I'll talk to you later.” I raised my hand in farewell as I walked away.

The mist had turned into a light drizzle, nothing to worry someone who'd grown up in a place where people didn't die, they rusted. I headed back along Fifth Avenue. The monorail passed in a brief whoosh of noise, heading out to Seattle Center. I stopped at the Five Point, finally ready for a real breakfast and a couple of cups of coffee before going back to work.

By the time I'd made it to Tower Records I was ready for another break. Carla was in a lull at the espresso cart so I stopped to talk to her. She had a light jacket over her sweater and a Seahawks cap trying to keep her hair dry.

“You having any luck with the story on Craig?” she asked.

“I've talked to a few people.” I wasn't prepared to tell her about the message.

“You should talk to me.”

“About what he was like in high school?”

“Yeah,” she replied with a mischievous grin.

“That's not a bad idea. And you knew him here, too.”

“Not as well as I did back then,” Carla admitted. “But I still saw him.”

“Okay, let's do it,” I said. “You want to come by the apartment when you finish?”

Rob had been busy. By the time I arrived home he'd left me a message. He'd called his cousin, who would try to come up with the names of a few dealers who might talk. He also passed on the name and number of someone who could give me some background about the drug. I knew nothing about injecting or snorting. I'd only ever smoked weed, and I'd given that up as the local strains grew stronger and stronger.

And there was someone else I could turn to. I took my address book off the shelf, thumbed through and dialed a number.

“Central library. This is Monica.”

She was the information lady, the one who took the calls and found the answers people needed. I'd gotten to know her a little over the last few years, her East Coast accent slowly fading out here in the rain. Monica was brisk and efficient, and I was in awe of the way she knew where to look for things. She'd never failed me and I didn't think she ever would. I'd gone to the downtown library to meet her a couple times, taking thank-you gifts of coffee and chocolate. She'd turned out to be a plump, charming woman in her early forties, with sharp eyes and a very playful sense of humor.

“Hey, Monica, it's Laura Benton.”

“Hi, sweetie, I was just thinking about you the other day. Someone had a music question. How have you been?”

“Not bad,” I said. “What about you? How are the kids?” She was married with two teenage boys who were full of hormones and growing too fast.

“I swear the house permanently smells of testosterone,” she laughed. “What can I do for you?”

“I need to know about heroin addiction.”

“Okay.” She drew the word out slowly. “I hope you're not thinking of...”

“Not me.” I grinned as I replied. She had that effect on me. “It's for a piece I'm writing.”

“Let me look and I'll call you back in a few minutes.”

I decided to spend the time on some paying work, typing up the Jayne County review and listening to some of the new albums that had arrived in the mail. Most of it was dross, to go on to the sale pile to take down to Park Avenue Records. They'd have a few things I wanted for my collection, but mostly I sold them for cash. And all tax free.

It took all of fifteen minutes for the phone to ring, then Monica was reeling off facts about heroin addiction. I made notes, picturing her with a stack of books in front of her, moving from one to the next.

“I think I owe you more candy for that,” I said when she was done.

“Well, you know me, I've never turned down a bribe in my life,” she giggled.

I thanked her, hung up, and returned to work. By the time I finished, the afternoon was beginning to fade. Carla would be arriving, and I wanted to talk to her before Steve came home and the pair of them started trading music stories.

I had the cassette recorder and microphone set up and two beers cold from the refrigerator waiting when she knocked on the door. I hung her coat on the rack and led her through. She'd been here a few times, for parties, even for dinner once, but she still looked around as if she'd never seen the apartment before.

“I can't believe how many records you've got.”

“Comes with the job,” I said, and it was mostly true. There were shelves and shelves sagging under the weight of LPs, others holding cassettes, even a few of the new CDs that were appearing. Everything filed, everything useful, all of them a pleasure. They were there for work but even more because I loved them. A married friend had once joked that they were the children I'd never had. It had stung; maybe there was a grain of truth in it. I handed Carla a beer and we sat down.

“You're sure you want to do this?” I asked, hand over the record button.

“Yeah, it's cool.” She looked at me. “Really, Laura, it is.”

“Okay.” I started the machine. “So you knew Craig at school?”

She took a long sip of beer. “We were in the same class from elementary on. But I didn't really get to know him until we were in high school.”

“What made you two become friends?”

She put the bottle down and moved it around on the table, creating a design of wet marks on the Formica.

“Do you know Bainbridge Island at all?” she asked.

“Not really,” I told her. “I've only been there a few times.”

“Right.” She emphasized the word carefully. “It's like there are two different types of people there, okay? You've got the rich ones who moved out there for the big country life. They commute to Seattle on the ferry every day and they have plenty of money.” She looked at me to make sure I understood. “Then there are people like my family and Craig's. No money, they do all the shit jobs and just get by. So there's this divide, and it was like that at Bainbridge High. The rich kids were all high achievers, lots of academics and sports. Go
fucking Spartans.”

“And you...?”

“We were different,” she replied with pride. “There were a few of us listening to all the punk stuff while all the jocks and preppies were into Journey and Styx and all that other shit. You'd walk around Winslow at night and all you could hear was Don't Stop Believing or some other crap coming from the cars. So we stayed together and listened to our Clash albums.”

It was something I could understand all too well even without growing up there. The great musical divide. I'd always been one of those who cared what she listened to, always changing the radio station until I found a song that meant something.

“What was Craig like then?”

She thought for a while before answering.

“He was sweet. I think he had this crush on me, but I was never into him that way. He played guitar – he taught me my first chords. But I didn't know he sang and wrote songs, too. He kept that pretty well hidden, even from me. He could be kind of shy about things, you know. He had a summer job as a busboy in one of the restaurants, and saved up to buy himself a Telecaster and a beater car for getting around in.”

“Did you come over to Seattle at all?”

She laughed. “Only every chance we got. We'd get on the ferry on Saturday and then drive up to the U-District and hang out on the Ave thinking we were cool as shit. We'd watch all the students and the street kids and just smoke and talk, or look through the record shops. Not that we had more than five bucks between us. It all changed when we were in our senior year, though.”

“What happened then?”

“Craig got this wild hair about starting a band. He wanted me to be in it, singing and playing, along with him and these two other guys we knew. Just covers, punk and New Wave stuff. We rehearsed a lot in my folks' garage, but we only ever played three gigs. I guess it gave him a bigger taste for music. As soon as we graduated he moved over here, got himself a job and started putting a real band together.”

“What about you? What did you do?”

She shrugged. “I stayed out on the island for a couple of years. It wasn't like I'd planned to go to college or anything. I worked at the grocery store and started writing songs. Most of the people I'd known had gone. I'd come over on weekends and see Craig. About half the time I'd end up crashing at his place then take the ferry back on Sunday. He'd gotten really serious about music and he started playing me his stuff. At first I was just surprised that he could sing so well, then I began to realize what a good writer he was.” She drank, taking half the beer in one swallow. I brought her another. “I mean, he was seriously talented. He was getting better on guitar, too.”