Sirens, page 34
who she lived with.' us. Jesus.' She tried to sort out her thoughts. '
didn't I me before?' 297 'I'm sorry,' he said.
"Really I am. But what good would itve done?' .,You bastard!' she cried
and slammed down the phone. The music came again from downstairs in the
suite but this time it contained the sheer cold brilliance of massed
synthesizers. ' working with synthesizers,' Chris had said to her once.
''ve got to be super careful not to reveal more than you want." She bent
over, her head in her hands, pulling at her hair. '' She pounded her
balled fists on to her thighs, the pain making her eyes water. But still
she felt utterly impotent. The Nova Burlesque House was the first place
she thought of going. After all, there were many there who loved Baba
and who, heavy bulges under their armpits, would give him his measure of
revenge once she told them what she had been witness to.
She hurried down the bleak street, buttoning her peacoat as she went,
oblivious to the flotsam of humanity who huddled, breathing shallowly,
lost within themselves, or sleeping, shoeless, in papered doorways all
around her. Midway down the block she began to notice the burgeoning
crowds, the refulgence of the roof lights of the police cars. She slowed
her pace, her pulse beating strongly. She seemed to have difficulty
breathing. She came to the further shores of the throng, saw the lines
of stretchers and, hidden on the east side of the phalanx of police
cars, the ambulances from Roosevelt Hospital. Christ, she thought. No.
And began to worm her way through the crowd. There was a live-wire
tension as there always was when the cops came around here in force. But
today, there seemed to be something more. ' a blowout!' she heard
someone say. ' saw so much goddanined blood 1' From the other side.
She pushed and squirmed until she was near enough the front to see. The
doorway to the Nova was blackened on the outside. It reminded her of the
way a suspected Viet Cong; village 298 after an American battalion had
raided it. It made the news on all three networks one evening. There was
of smoke but as she sniffed the air, she scented the harsh smell she had
noticed in Baba's apartment after been shot. hers kept coming and of
course the cops line of stretc 1;rawling all over the place. They were
having a field day, to each other with as much relish as newscasters
just a. major disaster. she saw Rooster. He was on a stretcher, his face
towards her. His eyes were closed. Blood had seeped the cloth they had
put over him. His normally glossy skin had taken on an odd waxy patina.
She wondered Tony and whether all those children and grandchildren ever
see him again. er was coming just abreast of her and, involuntarily, e
was torn from her mouth. One of the policemen around and she saw
Sergeant Martinez' porcine face. yes widened as he recognized her. !'he
called. ' warma talk to you!' whirled away. She knew what he wanted to
talk to her It had nothing to do with murder. She was the only 0s left
to his graft-taking. Cmere 1 Come back. Putita! I'll get you!' voice
seemed to follow her through the crowd as if it ar and could pick her
out, surround her, draw her back. ing, she shoved people this way and
that as she drove ag path through the throng. People were milling all
and this was in her favour. But still she felt Martinez behind her,
heard the pounding of his huge, thick-soled against the unyielding
pavement. points, the crowd was so thick she had difficulty uvring. She
began to pant, felt the sweat prickling her rms, rolling down the
indentation of her spine into the of her working buttocks. eone -
Martinez or perhaps an annoyed passerby - ed at her sleeve and she
lurched sideways, going over on . and nearly losing her balance.
She staggered for steps. Her left ankle began to ache as she sprinted
off, g the comer on to Eighth Avenue. 299 immediately, she ducked into
a narrow alley, stood with her back against the wall, perfectly still
except for her heaving breasts'. Sweat poured off her in torrents and
she felt as hot as if she had a fever. She waited five minutes, then
walked out as calmly as she could and into a Blarney Stone down the
block near Forty-first Street where it was dark and beery-smelling and
she could order a corned beef sandwich for ninety-five cents. She sat at
a sticky table near the bar and watched the Knicks lose a close one. The
music was gone from below, which was perfectly all right wi her. Its
Dantean minor harmonics had only added to her depression. She felt as
helpless now as she had then. And just as terrified as if Martinez were
breathing down her neck. And perhaps he still was, from his niche in her
past, she told herself. She got up. The only way out of it was through
power. Real power. The kind that Rubens and Meyer wielded. Yes, they
might have given up a lot but look at the return I And I, Daina thought,
know what I'm getting myself into. Yes, there're pitfalls but if I'm
constantly on guard- for them, how can they hurt me? And Heather Duell
could do it, she knew that. Could. If everything went right. In the
bathroom, she turned on the tub, sprinkled in a packet of violet-scented
bath beads, waited until the fragrance began to suffuse the small room.
She stripped off her clothes and sank gratefully into the hot water. She
put her head back against the tiles. She gasped. Nile filled the
doorway, his half-open eyes regarding her wit the utter tranquillity of
a grazing bovine. ' the hell d'you think you're doing?' she snapped.
"Everyone's gone,' Nile said sadly. ' I'm through with the music." "Do
you realize,' Daina said, ' I'm naked?' He shrugged. ''t make no
difference e me.' ' about me? Do I get a vote?' ' was open." He walked
over to the toilet, sat on th C lid. ' introduce us?' 300 Uhm. Knew you
looked familiar.' His enormous nodded. ' star, ain'tcha.' at's one way
of putting it.' sniffed. ' sho smell nice.' you.' She stared at him, saw
that he was perfectly s and burst out laughing. He was far too sweet to
turn He seemed to her to have the air of a lost boy searching bis
mother, an odd kind of Peter Pan who did not even tand the nature of his
search - or of his longing. e you coming to the show tonight?' she said.
ah. To the party too, afterward.' He rubbed at his cheek. ''n you keep a
secret?' rc. p grinned, his long white teeth shining like a sun in that
Gonna jam there, oh yah.
Chris'n'me we got it goin'. plug in an' blow eardrums. Hah hah! Yah!' He
put a er across his lips, lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper. secret.
No one knows ' Chrisri'me. Now you. Ah! you go tellin' anyone now.
We wanna su'prisc ' all. Y'need su'prises, yknow, t' keep from fallin'
asleep. ise life gets very, very boring, fall asleep alla time.' way you
play, I'm surprised you find anything gave her a sad smile so filled
with emotion that she d. ' no. Y'got it the wrong way round actually.
On'y isn't boring's m'playin'.' His strong fingers arched, ing the air.
She saw the pale yellow build-up of the pads at their tips - the result
of long years of working Pteel strings. play so wonderfully, Nile. It's
so different from anyone ou're a genius you know.' . M'friends said that
'bout me in the beginnin, too. rids.' Ile shook his head. ' they say,
"Hey Nile, doin' with all that flamboyance on stage, man? The lics, the
lightshows; playin' your axe with your teeth. bullshit. You're the best,
man, you gotta act like it. o out there an' play ..." ' drifted off into
silence, his head in his hands, and his e was not lost on her. 301 'It
ain't me,' he said at last, '' standin' there.' He shook his head.
"It jus' ain't me.' ' why d'you do it?' Splashing a bit as she sat up.
Nile lifted his head like an animal questing. He shrugged. ' gotta move
with the times. I gotta rep I gotta live up to. I spent so many years,
bitter years when no one here wanted t' listen t' the music I was
playin; spent so much time tryin' just t' build that rep - gave up
everything in order t' get it an' now' - he laughed a chill bitter laugh
- ' I find that the rep's far more important than the music I'm makin'.'
He turned to her. ', the music's taken f'r granted now ... and it's the
rep that's gotta be maintained. I used my music t' build the rep but now
it's as if they're two separate entities each in their own universe.' He
shook his head. "Course I wouldn'eve made it without some friends.
Chris'n'Nigel'n', in those days, Jon .. ' knew Jon?" "Oh, yah. Well, not
for long though. There were a shitload of problems by then. Psychedelics
were fadin', y'see. The Beatles had already done their nut with Sergeant
Pepper, overnight changin' the face of music.
An' it was Jon's con- tention that the band had t' produce its own
masterwork in order t' keep up with the Beatles ah' the Stones. The
Waxworks album was the answer according to Jon, but then it was the
gospel according to Saint Jon, yknow. It was all his or as mostly as
counts. ' Nigel was against it from the first. He didn't want t' get
away from the band's blues roots. It had made them an' he was terrified
to monkey with the sound. Jon overruled him of course. But that was all
ancient history when I arrived in England an' by the time I really got
t' know them, things had changed drastically. Chris was none too happy
with Waxworks after all. I guess he'd come around t' Nigel's way of
thinkin'. Anyway he'd always be goin' off with Nigeel here an' there -
nobody but them knew where actually - leavin' Jon on his own.
Ian'n'Rollie never cared, see, ' they always had their own birds, their
own lives outside the band. But not these three. Band's their life,
y'know? ' Jon, he began t' freak. He wasn't the most stable of people t'
begin with. Woulda been a field day for any shrink. 302 paranoid, you
name it Jon would act it. Reality never much thim. knew the progression
of albums. ' was all downhill re for Jon, wasn't it?" hum. Next album
was Blue Shadows an' it was ted really by Chris'n'Nigel.
"Course I did a little here t' fill in when Jon didn't show or when he
passed his face in the loo. Christ, Tie had her hands full @,tessions."
they were true, all those rumours about you playing on sessions. V . My
company wouldn't give permission an' anyway I as a mate3 y'know. Jon was
in trouble, I gave the band in' hand. Any mate would've. But no one
wanted it Uhmm.' He looked around. ' got anything t' nodded. '.
Well.' He got up. ''ll just amble out. finish what you started. Any
Cokes?' Downstairs in the refrigerator.' t.' With a quick grin he
disappeared out the door. ' time she emerged, wrapping a thick bathrobe
around e music had come on again, filling the downstairs with ul sound.
the limo it was another world entirely. She felt like a a tank. It was
difficult to see out. The heavily tinted "let in only the brightest of
light. A black, faintly haloed ,",-,rushed silently by just as if they
were all Nile, staring at his silent TV screen. Except, Daina felt, they
were on the TV. car was full of the sweet smoke of grass.
Fireflies ing ash as they orchestrated their pulls on the weed, on and
off like automatic doors. I leaned forward, opened the tiny refrigerator
built e back of the front seat. He extracted a bottle of Kirin and,
opening it, tipped his head back. He sucked three- rs of the contents
down his throat in one swallow. ide him Tie smoked a joint she had
ostentatiously in a black paste she had concocted from THC. One 303
slim leg was crossed over the other, her right ankle hooked behind her
left, the pearl lami of her dress falling away frorn the firm flesh
revealed by a high slit. She wore three gold bracelets on her left
wrist, each in the form of a serpent with its tail in its mouth. The
ancient Egyptian talisman that she never took off was around her throat.
Chris, who sat next to Daina, had his head flung back against the plush
seat as if he were dozing. Nile had gone in the second limo with Ian and
Rollie. Tie handed her joint to Daina who passed it back to Nigel. He
sucked on it. Tie stared at Daina. Silka, in front with the driver,
seemed to watch them and the road ahead at the same time. One long arm
lay along the seat back like a cord of wood. '.' It was Nigel's voice.
It was soft but the atmosphere in the car had been so still, so thick
with their studied nothingness - the void that, perforce, comes just
prior to a gig - that Daina started. ', Chris.' ' is it?" Chris did not
move a muscle, did not open his eyes. ' don't know whether th' guys are
ready t'do
"Saurian" t'night.' "Course they are.
They did it Vr th' record, they c'n do it t'night.' ' don't know '
worryin'.' ''know I don't like last-minute changes. Too many things c'n
go wrong. I don't wanna be up there playin' an' find rn'trousers down
round m'ankles.' Tie giggled and Nigel glared at her. ''ll only go wrong
if you think they will, mate.' Chris brushed at the tip of his nose with
the palm of one hand as if he had been bothered by a fly.
"Anyway it wouldn't be th' first fuckin' time it's happened t' us.
Remember that time in Hamburg with th' coppers all over th' hall? Or in
Sydney when -' ', this is no time t' be strollin' down memory lanep '
better time,' Chris said placidly. ' tol' th' guys we were takin' it
out.' eyes snapped open. He was a blur as he reached grabbed at Nigel's
shirtfront. ' bleedin' th' hell off me, matep Nigel shouted. He hacked
at V powerful wrists, twisted his body from side to side. ,'Daina said.
'. Cut it out.' the far side of the limo, Tie sat motionless, her eyes d
unreadable as she stared straight ahead. She held ch away from her.
Smoke drifted languidly upward t of her partly opened lips as if she
were a billboard. Daina called, still struggling between them, ''t to do
something to stop them?' y should IP she whispered. ' adrenalin's good
for both.) grunted from in front and half turned. Somehow ged to get
both his thick arms through the gap in the partition. With seeming ease,
he pulled them apart d them there until their panting had subsided. two
of them glared silently at each other. Daina could @1,the sweat, the
animosity that had sprung up between as clearly as if it were a freshly
killed animal. r a time Tie said softly, ''s only an hour before on
stage.' It seemed directed at both of them or, more tely, at the space
in contention between them.
el twisted his head as if he had a crick in his neck, his T-shirt down
over his stomach. se,' Silka said, his voice like gravel crunching under
tread. side the night had abruptly come alive. Masses of kids the avenue
before the hall like lemmings striving to be rst to reach the sea. Daina
felt rather than heard a deep . even through the limo's excellent
soundproofing. sounds were not made to be kept at bay. flow of the kids
receded and bulged as the look-outs periphery spotted the enormous
Continental. A roaring urf and the driver spun the wheel to the left. As
they the masses seemed to fly apart as kids began to run limo's
direction. Hair flew in the night and shoulder swung dangerously in
short choppy arcs. One blonde 4ent over on her high heels as she ran.
For a moment 304 305 she seemed to regain her balance as someone on her
right brushed her back. But she was hit again before she had a chance to
right herself and she fell. The crowd poured in on them, looking neither
to the right nor the left, just coming straight on like a bolt of
lightning. As if they possessed radar, they had locked on to the image
of the Continental and, until it managed to outrun them, they could not
be impeded. Someone - in the semi-darkness, the mass had begun to blur
in its vast freneticism - stumbled over the girl on the ground. She
tried to get up but they kept coming over her, oblivious. She was
stepped on; someone tried to leap her but, missing, pitched on to the
asphalt of the avenue. Daina saw the girl's face lifted, her mouth
opened wide in a scream no one heard. Daina reached for the door, felt
Chris' hand over her wrist. ' th'hell're you doin?' ''s a girl out
there,' Daina said breathlessly. ''s hurt. We've got to help her.
