Voice (24 page)

Johnny watched as she walked to the hall. She hesitated, looking back expectantly at Randy, but he only bobbed his head from side to side. She shuddered, folded her bare arms, and left. Johnny heard the front door open and close.

“What am I supposed to do with
you
?” Johnny asked.

Be nice, John. This is one of your adoring fans.

Randy giggled.

This was not going to work. Bad enough this creepy bastard had shown up here at all, but the thought of him hanging out here all day was wholly unacceptable.

Douglas,
Johnny thought.
He’ll know what to do.

Johnny stood. He was still dressed in last night’s clothes, and the smell was pretty ripe, but just then he didn’t give a fuck. He slipped on his shoes.

“Come on, Randy. I’m leaving, and you can’t stay here by yourself.”

Randy got awkwardly to his feet and lurched after Johnny. His gait smoothed out somewhat after a few steps, but he still walked like he wasn’t familiar with the equipment.

Oh, good. Night of the Living Dead following me around all day. Fucking fabulous.

Johnny went outside, and Randy followed. Johnny squinted at the bright sunlight. Randy’s face contorted into an exaggerated expression of shock and disgust, his tongue extended and his eyes almost closed. “Augh,” he said. He held both hands up to shelter his eyes. “Bright. Bright.”

“Hangovers are a bitch,” Johnny said.
Sure. He’s just hungover. Right.
“I’ll get you a hat.” He went back in and returned with a Rangers cap and a pair of sunglasses. He had to help Randy a bit with the hat—it was too small for him, and he hadn’t got the hang of the adjustment in back—but after that, Randy seemed much happier.

There was no car parked out front; in fact, Johnny’s nighttime visitors never drove. Johnny’s house wasn’t that far from downtown, and given the odd coordination problems his visitors had, Johnny suspected that driving would be a disaster for them.

“Looks like we’re walking,” he said. Randy nodded eagerly.

Johnny walked quickly through the neighborhood. Most of the neighbors were probably at church, but it would be awkward if he ran into any of them. He didn’t know them well, and Randy didn’t seem like a great conversationalist. Plus—dammit!—Randy insisted on walking behind him. Johnny slowed down a couple of times and even tried to guide Randy into step next to him, but Randy wasn’t having any of it. No, he had to walk two paces behind Johnny, close enough that Johnny could hear his joyous, insane mutterings, close enough that when Johnny slowed, Randy ran into him.

What is wrong with this guy?
he asked “Johnny.”

He seems fine to me. Perfectly happy, in fact.

Bullshit.

Laughter.
Ah. Well, since you’re so smart on it, maybe you can figure it out and explain it all to me.

No help there. “Johnny” was a complete pain in the ass when he wanted to be.

They walked down Fitzhugh and onto Columbia, past the convenience stores and pawnshops squatting behind their iron bars. Only a few people were on the streets at this time on a Sunday, and the few he saw walked with their heads down, so preoccupied with their own thoughts that they paid no heed to Johnny and the shuffling weirdo behind him.

Johnny was coated in sticky sweat by the time they reached Main Street. The tattoo parlors and junk shops were closed and locked, the glare off the empty street a bland white like fossilized bone. If Johnny thought it was desolate down here on a Monday night, it was infinitely worse in the daylight, a marauded skeleton, picked clean and left as a warning.

Douglas wouldn’t be here, Johnny was suddenly sure. The kind of business Douglas did wasn’t daylight business.

Stupid. What the hell am I doing here?

For once, “Johnny” had no comment, or at least chose to make none.

“I’m gonna get some water,” he said. “You want some?”

Randy made no answer.

Irritated, Johnny turned. Douglas was there, staring at Randy, who was looking back with great interest. In the sunlight, Douglas looked even older than usual, pale skin folded into deep creases around his eyes, his hair more grey than black. He looked familiar somehow, too, though Johnny didn’t know from where.

Douglas broke off his staring match with Randy. “What do you need, Johnny?” he asked. His whisper barely carried to Johnny’s ears.

Johnny rubbed the back of his neck. “I, ah—look, I don’t know what to do with this guy.” He pointed at Randy. “I don’t know where the hell he came from, and I don’t want him around.”

“All right. That it?”

“Now that you mention it, no.” Johnny took a breath, then plunged ahead, avoiding the black holes of Douglas’s eyes. “These crazy fuckers that keep following me around—what is the deal with them? Are you—you’re not, I mean . . .” He looked away, across the street, to where a woman in a black tank top unlocked the door to one of the shops. “Are they, uh, dangerous?”

“Depends,” Douglas said. Across the street, the woman went inside. To Johnny, it looked like she locked the door behind her.

When it became obvious that Douglas wasn’t going to say more, Johnny pressed on. “Depends on what?”

“On what you mean by dangerous. They’re not gonna hurt you, Johnny. You already know that.”

With an effort of will, Johnny forced himself to meet Douglas’s gaze. The older man’s eyes watered from the glare, but he didn’t blink. “They killed somebody last night, man. Motherfuckers tried to
eat
him right on Commerce Street.”

Douglas arched one eyebrow. “You know this for sure?”

“It was four kids from the show last night, and they were acting all crazy when it all went down. I don’t need a jury to give me a verdict on this one. Christ, the other guys in the band think you’re selling some kind of psycho drug to people that come to our shows.”

“I told you,” Douglas said, and there was a knife edge buried in the whisper. “Crazy people are part of it. Bitch and moan all you want, but deal with it.”

“They
killed
somebody.”

“I’m sure it won’t happen again. It’s not your fault. Get over it.”

“And they’re staying crazy now. Randy here has been out of his goddamn head for over twelve hours,” Johnny said, his eyes flicking to the man next to him. “What is going on?”

Douglas put his hands in his pockets, and the line of his mouth drew tight. “Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to, Johnny.”

Once again, Johnny broke eye contact. The voice in his head snarled.
Are you gonna let this fucker push you around every time you see him? Do you mind if I . . .?

Johnny felt that push again, the one that came before he sang.
Go for it.

“Douglas, you miserable prick, you’re fucking this up. Again.”

The words came out of his mouth, but, unlike when he sang, they were dissociated from his thoughts—he was every bit as surprised by them as he would have been if somebody else was speaking. 

The older man’s eyes widened, and he leaned in toward Johnny. He bared his yellowed teeth in a smile. “Is that you? Is it really you?”

“Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers to,” Johnny heard himself say in a mocking voice. Douglas smiled wider.

“I won’t screw up this time,” Douglas whispered.

“Goddamn right you won’t. Now, take
this
sad sack of shit away, and I don’t want to see another one.” Johnny was so wrapped up watching the reactions on Douglas’s face that he didn’t notice his own arm move to point at Randy without any apparent instruction from him.

“Sure thing,” Douglas said.

Ha!
Johnny thought.
Take that!

Douglas turned to go, guiding Randy with a hand on his back. “See you later,” he said.

“Yeah. See you,” Johnny said, and his voice was his own this time. He watched Douglas walk away with Randy, and then he started home.

***

Douglas left Johnny behind, pushing the dumb babbling bastard that Johnny was so worried about in front of him. The guy—Randy was as good a name as any—muttered and mumbled, but he went where he was told. Probably he’d recover his wits in another day or so, and if not—well, so much the better.

A dark excitement filled Douglas’s body, tingling like electricity to the ends of his fingers and toes. The voice, the boss, had spoken to him—harsh words, sure, but he had failed too many times not to understand the impatience.

Randy tripped over a tiny crack in the sidewalk, and Douglas watched him fall, making no move to help. He got up after a short struggle.

This was the most dangerous part, Douglas knew from bitter experience. The disciples, as he thought of them, were stupid at this stage, and too weak to completely control either their bodies or their hungers. Some vague vestige of intellect usually kept them from doing anything too stupid in public, but last night they must have been hungry indeed.

That should never have happened, and he would have to heed the boss’s warning—it couldn’t happen again. Not where Johnny might find out. Soon the disciples would be strong enough, but until then Douglas would have to be even more vigilant. Johnny could still stop everything, if he really wanted to. Others had, Douglas recalled with a bitter pang. One had even managed to commit suicide, long after Douglas had thought success was assured.

And there was his own failure, too, the one that hurt most of all.

Not this time. He thought of the boss’s words, and that dark thrill ran through his body again.

“Johnnyyyyyy,” Randy said, dragging it out in a wavering, exultant wail.

Douglas grinned. “You said it, man.”

Case took one look at the booth and eased in next to Quentin, across from Danny.

“Where’s Johnny?” she asked.

Quentin pushed his menu away. Danny, she noted, hadn’t even opened his.

“He’s not coming,” Danny said.

“Tough to have a band meeting without Johnny.”

Danny inclined his head toward Quentin. “This is Quentin’s show.”

Quentin half-turned in his seat to be able to see Case better. There was a second’s pause while his eyes moved from Danny to Case and back, and then—

“I think we need to take a break from the band for a while,” he blurted.

Case made no response, watching as red blotches bloomed on Quentin’s face, like ink clouds spreading through water. Quentin folded his hands, unfolded them, and then put them in his lap.

“A break,” Case said at last.

“Yeah. Maybe a few months. Maybe—I don’t know. Longer. I mean, not too much longer. Just until, you know. Things calm down.”

“Until things calm down. Which things? Our fan base? I’m sure they’ll get good and calm after we just go away indefinitely. Or do you mean the clubs that are actually asking us to play now? I bet they’ll calm down plenty.”

“Case—”

“Or how about my fucking landlord? No, wait—he’s not going to calm down at all, because three hundred bucks a month is going to vanish from my income, which cuts pretty close to the goddamn bone. Are you insane? We’ve worked our asses off to get here, and, what? It looks too much like success for you?”

Case knew she was shouting, and she could see people at neighboring tables gawking, but she didn’t much care. This was absurd.

Quentin fiddled with his water glass. “I’m not afraid of success. But that stuff that happened the other night—that freaks me out.”

“No shit?” Case said. “You think
you’re
freaked out? I was right fucking there, and I’ve had nightmares about the body ever since. What the hell does that have to do with the price of eggs?”

“I don’t know,” Quentin said, holding up his hands. “It’s just—you know. They were at the show, just like some of the other weirdos we’ve seen. And Johnny keeps getting weirder. Did you see the way he flew off the handle the other night? I don’t think any of this is good for him. He’s losing it.”

“You didn’t think maybe you’d get his opinion on whether or not he’s losing it? We’re going to decide without him and let him know the verdict?”

Danny finally spoke. “I think Quentin’s right about Johnny,” he said. “He’s taking that stage persona of his way too seriously. I’ve never seen him like this.”

“So talk to him,” Case said. “Or something. I’m not going to sit here and decide what’s best for him.” She breathed out, trying to calm down, and addressed Quentin. “I’m not ready to ‘take a break.’ Not on Johnny’s account, and not on yours. If you want some time off, do what you gotta do.” She lowered her voice further and forced herself not to look away. “We’ll—
I’ll
miss you.”

Astonishment wrote itself all over Quentin’s face. “My God,” he said, “I think that’s the nicest thing I’ve ever heard you say to anyone.”

“Yeah, well, don’t get all choked up over it,” she shot back, but she smiled.

“I want this as much as you guys do, you know. I don’t want to swing a hammer the rest of my life, and playing music with you guys is—well, it’s the best thing I do. But this is getting weird, and I don’t like it.”