Passing Through the Flame (31 page)

“You always do,” Horvath grunted.

“You’ve got to perform before live audiences or you’re not the Velvet Cloud,” Beck said. “You’ve got to sing real Velvet Cloud material to real flesh, or the group will fall apart. It’s falling apart already, you think I can’t see why Bobby, Mark and Jerry are off getting stoned in the john together. You’re not the Velvet Cloud anymore. They’re not with you the way you were because you’re trying hard not to be the you that made this group come together.”

“You know we can’t perform live. You know what it’ll do to Susan’s head.”

“Maybe you’re thinking too much about the state of my head,” Susan snapped. Horvath looked at her in surprise. She seemed just as surprised as he was; Jango looked like a cat just finished with a saucer of cream. “I mean, maybe Jango is right, maybe we’re all screwed up because we’re fighting who we are. Maybe we should do it.”

“Susan—”

Her eyes pulsed with the kind of power they had onstage, that they had had at Jango’s party, that they had when she was riding on the wrong side of the edge. The eyes of Star.

“I said maybe, Bill,” she said softly. “Maybe you should start writing about what we feel again. Maybe by making music about it, we can get into it and change it. Maybe by getting back into where we are when you write, you can get back to being the great songwriter you are.” She turned to Jango. “But just for a new album. No live appearances.” She shuddered, and quite suddenly she was Susan again, taking a nervous drag on the joint. “I’m not ready for that.”

“Not yet,” said Jango Beck.

“Not ever,” Horvath said. “Even if you’re right about what we need as a group, there are some prices we’re not willing to pay for fame and bread.”

“You do yourself an injustice, Bill,” Beck said. “There’s more in this for you two than just fame and money. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten that?”

Horvath felt a wild flash of something soar through him, the ghost of a feeling that had once filled him. It cockteased him for a moment and was gone, leaving him pining for something whose shape he could not quite remember.

“Well a few Star-type songs recorded in a studio couldn’t do any harm, could they?” he said. “If that’s what you want, babes.”

Nerves singing like high-tension wires, Susan jounced her Porsche into the parking lot of the High Castle with a messy downshift, zipped between rows of Porsches, Alfas, Cobras, Ferraris, and assorted other heavyweight machinery, and parked next to Bill’s car with a ragged swerve and a keening of disc brakes.

It had been quite a drive, down through the hills, onto Sunset, along the Strip to Doheny, and then into this border area around Melrose where Hollywood and Beverly Hills quietly slid into each other, following Bill’s smoke all the way. When Bill poured it on for the hell of it, it took everything she had just to keep him in sight; chasing him down the winding canyon roads was just this side of terrifying.

“Some drive, babes,” she said, getting out of the car tingling with good vibrations—from the drive, the night air, and doing with Bill something that he did so well. It’s so good to feel good about Bill, she thought. It’s so good to see him doing something he’s really
into.

“I’m feeling good tonight,” Bill said. “Finishing something I can stand listening to for a change is a real turn-on.” He took her hand, and they walked out of the parking lot and across a short stretch of sidewalk to the entrance. It seemed like old times, just the two of them out for a night together in a place where they wouldn’t be hassled after a good day’s work.

There were no groupies or agents or low-grade hustlers at the High Castle; it was a private club, open only to members and their guests, and membership was by invitation only. It was a kind of underground version of the Daisy in the plastic depths of Beverly Hills, but instead of actors, directors, screenwriters, and their hangers-on, the membership was made up of musicians, freakier record company executives and producers, the cream of the rock press, underground stars of various descriptions, a few heavy dealers, and whatever exotic creatures Jango Beck thought interesting.

Bill knocked on a plain unmarked black door; it was opened by a tall, thin young longhair in a brown suede suit who looked at them, nodded, and closed the door behind them. Susan smiled at him for the way in which he made the place seem like home, and he acknowledged it without coming on. Jango really knows how to build a mood, she thought. He’s so good at it you can never tell which background hides the real him. If there is a real him.

Through a darkened hall, around a right-angle bend, and into the main room of the High Castle. The walls were paneled with split lengths of weathered old telephone poles, and the high ceiling was hidden above a canopy of hanging green plants—ivy, air ferns, spider plants, Spanish moss. The lighting simulated late-afternoon twilight. The center of the room was a shallow twenty-foot-square pit lined with soft brown upholstery. Cushions of various shapes, colors, and sizes were scattered on the brown paddinglike bright fungi on a Black Forest floor, some serving as pillows, others as tables. Round wooden tables and wicker armchairs were scattered on the wide walkway that surrounded the pit, creating a kind of sidewalk cafe effect. One wall was the front of a small stage where once in a while someone jammed; across from it was a sit-down bar. People ate and drank on the promenade around the pit; when they really wanted to get into each other, they rolled around in the pit area. If they wanted to go further than rolling each other around, there were private rooms in back.

For Susan, the sense of Jango’s presence hung in the air. He ran the club for the members (or they financed it for him); he had conceived the idea, designed the place, and put it all together. It was an extension of his own reality, like every place he inhabited, but unlike his house, the High Castle didn’t give her the feeling of being in a spider’s lair. It was Jango, but it wasn’t
threateningly
Jango.

Bill led her to a table overlooking the pit. He ordered a steak with grilled onions, a baked potato, and a bottle of beer; she ordered mixed steamed vegetables with brown rice and strong English tea. He took out a joint, lit it with a drag, and passed it to her. She took a hit and thought how... how
Jango
it was to declare that open smoking was permissible in the High Castle, to convince people that it was not only permissible but secure. An island of home in a hostile sea.

The place was about as full as it was allowed to get; about a dozen people in the padded pit and a few dozen more seated at the table and the bar or wandering around. The High Castle didn’t feel like a club, it felt like a good-sized continuous party. It
was
a party, in the sense that most of the people knew most of the other people at any given time.

“I think we’ve really got a final version of ‘Slide to the Stars,’” Bill said. “What we’ll use on the album. That’s two songs ready to record. It’s slow, but it’s coming. I really think it’s coming. We’re gonna be all right.”

His eyes were bright and alive, and he was smiling; he had been smiling more in the past few weeks than in the previous six months.

The Velvet Cloud was starting to come together again. We’re all starting to remember who we are and how far we’ve come together. We’re getting back into the music.

The food came, delivered by a dark-haired young girl in a hand-embroidered white sheath dress, all multicolored flowers. The staff of the High Castle dressed according to whim, took no tips, and were full members of the club when they were off-shift. They ranged from wide-eyed young girls to old hippies to bull dykes to Annie, the seventy-five-year old grandmotherly cook.

They began eating. The rice was firm, almost crunchy, and the corn, carrots, squash, broccoli, mushrooms, and artichoke were hot, distinct, and just solidly soft; it was like eating a bouquet of taste flowers. A few people—Duke and Marlene, Snyder the Spider, Artie Dugan—nodded at them, but no one intruded into their reality.

Leon Russell was singing in what seemed like her ear. The sound system was fantastic; monster amplification when you wanted it, volume that could shake the walls like thunder, but fed through dozens of medium-sized speakers distributed evenly all over the place instead of a few giants, so that you could play right into everyone’s ear with a whisper or an all-out shout. Most of the people who jammed here didn’t ego-trip behind it; they did it to feel the sound system extend their beings. It was the best place around to perform, from a technical point of view, not to mention the mellow vibes. There had to be an absolute rule against live recording in the High Castle, or the place would’ve become a twenty-four-hour recording studio bummer.

“Hey, chase me away if this is intruding, but could I talk to you for a minute?” A bearded dude with medium-length brown hair, curly at the sides, balding on top, had appeared at the table. Susan remembered seeing him at Jango’s last party. He was the guy Jango had been talking to before that poor Chris had almost killed him....

Bill visibly drew into himself. “Do I know you?” he said.

“Not personally, but I’m sure you know my paper. I’m Barry Stein.” His eyes kept searching the room for someone or something; he seemed nervous, humming with unnatural energy.

“Oh, yeah, sure, the
Flash.
Hey, you’re not trying to con your way into an interview?”

“I want to ask you some questions about Jango Beck.”

“Hey, man, you’re really being gross coming in here like this and asking for an interview! Not that there aren’t a few things I could tell you about Beck.”

“Look, I don’t want to interview you. I want you to maybe help me save my paper. From a really bad scene.” Stein looked really frightened for a moment. Frightened and at the same time, angry, a volcano trying to think of a safe way to go off.

Bill’s eyes searched Susan’s. Why not? she flashed back at him. We’re riding a sweet trip right now, with plenty of energy to spare. “Jango Beck and bad scenes go together,” Bill said. “Have a seat, brother.”

Stein smiled weakly as he sat down. “I knew I could count on you,” he said. “What you do is what you are.”

“And what are you?” Bill said, half-amused, half-annoyed.

“Fucked over,” Stein replied. “I’m trying to figure out whether or not it was by Jango Beck.”

“What good would knowing that do you?” Bill said.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean if Beck jobbed you, you’ve already been jobbed by the master. You’ll just get yourself hurt worse trying to get back at him.”

“I don’t want back at him. I just want out.”

“Out of what?”

Susan felt Stein’s confusion. Bill was toying with him, and his head had been tied in knots before he sat down. “You’re confusing him, Bill,” she said, and she did it with just the right smile, just the perfect little laugh, to make Bill smile with her and let Stein’s oscillating mind snap back into its original groove.

“Beck’s been your manager from the beginning,” Stein said. “That’s why I wanted to talk with you when I saw you. I’m trying to find Jango, I thought I might find him here, so I came to the High Castle with Artie Dugan. What kind of connections does Jango really have?”

“What kind of connections?” Bill said evilly. “You don’t want to know what kind of connections. And neither do I. AC-DC, inside out, and upside down. If the connection is crummy enough, Beck has it. He’d sell his old lady smack and then sell her the methadone to come off it on.”

“No, Bill, he’d sell her the smack, then
give
her the money to buy methadone,” Susan said. Stein was getting more and more frightened, and Bill was playing with his fear. It was a bad number. Bill didn’t realize what he was doing, he was trying to be funny about their mutual problems with Jango, he was being friendly, but Stein was on the edge of dread and taking it all utterly seriously.

“Either way, he’d still make a profit,” Bill said.

“Is Jango Beck really a heavy smack dealer?” Stein asked. “Heavy enough to have Mafia connections?”

“The Mafia is heavy enough to have Jango Beck connections.”

“Oh, stop it, Bill,” Susan said, again disarming any ego threat in her words with a little laugh. “You know the Mafia wouldn’t be Jango’s style. Man... Barry, why don’t we just shut up and you tell us what it’s all about?”

Stein broke into a thankful smile. “My paper was in a big hole,” he said. “Bigger than usual. Some crazy dope-running Green Beret character slipped us a list of big-time undercover narcs, and I published it and blew their cover. The federal government couldn’t find anything to arrest me for, so they had the narcs sue personally for invasion of privacy. So while the case drags forever through the courts, no one will print the
Flash
and we’ve got to post a bond we don’t have to stay in business. A nice slick way to destroy us with a case full of holes.”

“Don’t tell me,” Susan said. “Jango saved you.”

“How did you know that?”

“It’s his style.”

“When did Jango ever save anyone?” Bill said.

“Maybe us,” she replied. “Have you looked into a mirror lately? You look a lot better, babes, since Jango razzle-dazzled us into getting back to work.”

Bill looked at her: frown, smile, shrug.

“Well, Jango Beck really didn’t save
me
,” Stein said. “He set me up with a backer who sold me a printing plant on easy terms and lent me the money I needed. Now I find out that the printing plant is a permanent money drain. If I keep it, I go personally bankrupt, and the gangster Beck got me involved with gets his printing plant back and ends up owning the
Flash.
If I default on the note I signed for the plant, the bastard doesn’t just get the printing plant back, he gets the paper too. I can’t get rid of the printing plant without losing the paper, and I can’t keep the printing plant without going bankrupt. Beck’s tricked me into handing ownership of the
Flash to
a greasy capitalist pig either way!”

“I don’t understand half of that shit,” Bill said, “but it sure sounds like Jango Beck.”

“But what can
we
do to help you?” Susan asked.