Voice (14 page)

“You tried to kill me,” Erin said breathlessly.

“You’re still alive, aren’t you?”

“Parts of me aren’t sure. Check back later.” She exhaled. “But that doesn’t get you off the hook. Your escape act last night and your friendly teddy bear of a drummer. What’s the story?”

Case sighed. This could all have been avoided if she’d had the presence of mind to stop by and make some excuses last night, but she’d been so rattled after her run-in with the wasted guy and the following encounter with Danny that she’d gone straight out to the car and kept going. Probably it really wasn’t any of Erin’s business, but she found herself talking anyway.

“I didn’t mean to ditch everybody,” Case explained. It sounded pathetic even to her. “I just don’t like to hang out with the drummer—Danny—any more than I have to.” She stared straight ahead at the mirror on the other side of the room. It was easier to talk without looking directly at Erin.

“You don’t like it, or you don’t think it’s a good idea?” Erin said. “Because it looked like you liked it just fine. You guys are electric together onstage. Yowza. Chemistry, baby.”

“It’s that obvious?”

“I think the whole room could feel it. You know he can barely keep his eyes off you the whole time you’re playing?”

Case closed her eyes. “No. I didn’t know that.”

“It’s true,” Erin said. Her cheerfulness was really starting to get irritating. “And sometimes you’d give him one of those smoldering looks and you two would lock eyes—so hot.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. ‘
Smoldering
’?”

“Would I make that up? Besides, you know. You were there.”

“Great,” Case said. “Now I feel like I’ve been performing some kind of sex act onstage. Thanks.”

Case said nothing else. Not only were her hormones dragging her around by the pelvis, but evidently it was obvious to anyone watching. Just fucking fabulous.

“So what’s the problem?” Erin asked. So much for silence. “Is there a band rule that says you can’t jump on the drummer? You guys are consenting adults.”

Case finally turned and looked at Erin, giving her an incredulous stare. “You noticed all this, and you missed the fucking wedding ring?”

Erin gave a short laugh. “Huh. You know, I did. That’s kind of funny when you put it like that.”

“Yeah. A regular riot.”

Erin chewed her lip. “Have you asked him about it? Maybe they’re into kinky stuff.”

“Jesus Christ,” Case said. “Not Danny. No way. Other than getting smashed every once in a while, he’s a choirboy.”

“And you don’t think choirboys are into kinky stuff? I swear, they’re the ones you gotta watch out for.”

“Jesus Christ,” Case said again. It was less satisfying this time. “No. Not Danny. I know everything there is to know about the kind of boys you gotta watch out for, and Danny is not one of them. Believe me.”

Erin was quiet. Case could see her calculating, turning the problem over in her mind.

“I guess you ought to avoid hanging out with Danny any more than you have to,” Erin said after a while.

Case nodded. She took a drink of water and swirled it around her mouth. She was tempted to spit it on the floor, but she got up instead, crossing the room to spit it into the water fountain. She came back and sat again. “A year ago, I think I’d have just taken what I wanted, and damn the consequences. It wouldn’t have been the first time.”

“Maybe you’re less of a stone-cold bitch than you used to be,” Erin said. The smirk on her face took most of the sting off the words.

“Maybe that’s it,” Case conceded.

“Or maybe you really care about Danny.”

Case recoiled. “Jesus, Erin. That’s about as funny as a fork in the eye.”

Erin only shrugged. The two women sat in silence, each with her own thoughts. Outside the room, the normal clanging and banging of equipment went on and on.

“You’re too easy to talk to, you know that?” Case said.

“It’s a gift.”

***

John served up another low-fat half-caff mocha blah blah blah what-the-fuck-ever with somewhat less than the usual Starbucks-approved amount of good cheer. The show last night had been great, and he’d even gotten enough sleep for a change, but the comedown was a bitch. For twenty-five minutes onstage, the gears of his own personal universe had meshed for once, and he had been propelled forward into . . . into what? Into something that felt like his real life, he thought. Making music that moved people.

It hadn’t moved many people, sure, but it had been a start. It had rankled at first that he’d pushed himself up to a new level—with the help of the band and Johnny Tango—and nobody had really given a damn. Then Case’s friends had come over (and he was still grappling with the world-altering implications of that unexpected phrase, “Case’s friends”) and told him how much they’d enjoyed the show, and suddenly he’d felt like he hadn’t been wasting his breath after all. They hadn’t been bullshitting, either, or at least he didn’t think so. They’d really had a good time, and though they had been there mostly to see Case, he’d gotten the sense that they’d really appreciated his performance, too.

For a moment or two, all had been right with the world.

And now he was making six-dollar coffees for hurried people with BMWs and no brains again.

Talk about a hangover.

He poured some tea into a plastic cup and set it on the counter, then turned to the guy working the shift with him.

“Drew,” he said, “can you imagine Ian Anderson working the assembly line in a factory?”

Drew was maybe a couple of years older than John, but apparently not enough older. He blinked. “Who?”

There was something to be said for remembering your audience, John thought wryly. He tried again. “Daughtry,” he said. “Can you imagine him pumping gas somewhere for six bucks an hour?”

Drew nodded. “Yeah. Totally. That’s probably where they should have left him.”

John couldn’t help but laugh. “Bad example. How about Fred Durst?”

Drew narrowed his eyes and tipped his head toward the ceiling, thinking hard. “No,” he said finally. “I can only imagine him in prison.”

“Fair enough,” John said, laughing some more. This might have been the only non-coffee conversation he’d ever had with Drew, and the guy was funnier than John had expected. “Come on, work with me here. One more time. What about Madonna?”

“I can imagine her doing
lots
of things,” Drew said. “And she probably has.”

More laughter. “You’re not making this easy on me.”

“Sorry, man,” Drew said. His grin said he was anything but. “Where are you going with this?”

“Haven’t you ever seen somebody, a musician or an actor or someone like that, and thought
Yeah, that’s what this person is supposed to be doing.
Like it’s impossible to imagine them doing anything but what they’re doing. Like they were made for it.”

Drew shrugged. “Not really, man. But I know some people who feel that way.”

“Yeah?”

“Hell yeah. Everybody who walks in the door here takes one look at me and thinks,
Damn. That man is
made
for brewin’ up a badass Cinnamon Dolce Latte.
”

“You have no culture.”

“Not a shred.” Drew turned to the woman who had just walked up to the register. “Welcome to Starbucks,” he said. “Would you care for a Cinnamon Dolce Latte?”

“Uh, no thanks.”

Drew glanced at John and shrugged.

John shook his head and went in back to make sure they had enough cups. A faint muttering sifted up from the back of his mind, dark, incomprehensible murmurings, but he paid it no attention.

***

Quentin bit back a curse, closed his eyes, and grimaced, covering his thumb with his fingers. With his other hand, he held on to both the top rung of the ladder and the heavy framing hammer he’d mashed his thumb with. Warm blood trickled from his fist.

Better a thumb than a finger,
he thought, though really any abuse of his fretting hand was a drag.

“Hey! Pay attention up there, for Chrissakes! You all right?”

Quentin opened his eyes. Cesar, the foreman, was looking up at him with concern.

“I’m gonna come down for a minute, okay?”

“Yeah, fine.”

Quentin slid his hammer into the loop on his belt and clambered down the ladder, leaving spots of blood on every other rung.

“Let’s have a look,” Cesar said. Quentin showed him the thumb—the nail was torn half off, and the wound under it welled with dark blood.

“Nice one. Come on. There’s a first-aid kit in my truck.” They walked over, and Cesar dug the white and red box out from behind the seat. He handed Quentin a bottle of peroxide and a roll of gauze.

“Thanks,” Quentin said.

“Where’s your head today, man? Jimmy said he about had to throw a two-by-six at you to get your attention a little while ago, and now this.” Cesar gave him a fatherly frown. “If you’re out of it today, you should go home.”

Quentin shrugged and opened the peroxide. This was going to hurt like a bastard. “No, it’s cool,” he said.

“Stay out too late last night?”

“Yeah. That’s it.” Quentin gritted his teeth together, screwed up his face, and poured the peroxide on his thumb. It hissed and spat and burned like hell. Pink foam spilled onto the earth. “Yeah,” Quentin said again. “Just didn’t get a lot of sleep.”

That was part of it, sure, but it wasn’t the whole story. He’d seen the old rocker, the one that hung around John like a fly buzzing around roadkill, at the show, and hadn’t been able to get him out of his mind since.

About halfway through the set, Quentin had seen him from the stage. The guy hadn’t been looking at the band or watching John at all—instead, he’d been turned half away from the stage and watching the faces of the crowd, his glance moving from one to another every few seconds. Whatever he was looking for, he didn’t find it, and he left at the very end of the set, slipping out the door as the band tore down. Quentin didn’t think John had even seen him.

The guy bugged Quentin. He had the sleazy manner of the kind of guy who’d sidle up to you in a crowded club and ask if you needed a gram, maybe half a gram, but his eyes were too slow, too attentive, and he wasn’t as jumpy as the dealers Quentin knew. The drug dealer vibe wasn’t
quite
right, but that’s all that Quentin could figure him for. That would explain John’s odd behavior lately, too.

And the voice? How do you explain that?

“Shit, I’m just tired,” Quentin said.

Cesar nodded. “Go home, kid. It ain’t worth getting hurt out here for fifteen bucks an hour.”

Quentin wound the gauze around his thumb. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

The stage was huge, almost the width of the whole building. It was just the kind of stage John would have loved to play on, he thought wistfully. One day. The place was packed, maybe a thousand people and standing room only, just like it would be for him one day. For now, though, he was only a spectator, jammed in next to a bunch of sweaty bodies and jostled this way and that by hard elbows and rude shoulders. Still, excitement crackled through his body. He was in the very front, pressed against the rail in front of the stage. Best seat in the house, so to speak. He couldn’t wait for the band to get started, even though he couldn’t precisely remember who he’d come to see. A heavy rock band, he was sure—the drum kit, Ampeg bass amp, and Marshall JCM800 guitar amp attested to that. The guitar amp was a little weird, though; he would have expected a big speaker cabinet in a venue this size, one big 4x12 at least if not two, but there was only a small cabinet on the floor.

It looked familiar. So did the drum kit, now that he was looking, and his excitement soured with a sense of low dread, like a low bass note that was felt more than heard. He stared at the kick drum, stupidly trying to figure out where he’d seen it before.

He was still staring at it when the crowd around him cheered and surged forward, smashing him against the metal rail. He pushed back, and the space around him, maybe three feet on every side, cleared instantly. None of the cheering, screaming fans touched him now; they avoided him, they wouldn’t look at him, even though they kept cheering and waving and pressing against each other. He dimly thought he’d have to hang on to that trick for future shows.

The beat kicked in, and the first chords of the song started.

That’s funny,
he thought.
That sounds like “Burn.”
That humming sense of dread doubled, acquiring some evil harmonics, and he felt his head turning back to the stage.

No,
he thought, all excitement gone.
I need to leave here. I don’t want to see this. I have to go!
He couldn’t stop himself looking, though, his head turning and his eyes opening wide to take in the whole stage.

His brother was sitting behind the drum kit. He looked good, too—happy, thrilled to be playing as he pummeled the floor tom and snare. Case was there, too, playing a Les Paul the color of blood (and why did that seem familiar? he was sure he’d never seen it before)—and fuck! Even Quentin was there, way on the right side of the stage, nodding his head and teasing deep, rumbling notes from his bass.