Sirens, page 57
over on our first tour in sixtyfive ... it was th' winter, I remember -
bloody miserable weather. We were huge in England but here, only one
radio station was playin' our stuff when we came t' New York. Sometimes
we headlined but most often we were th' supportin' act, goin' on first
while the kids were still comin' in. It was a tough adjustment for all
o' us ... we saw a lotta empty seats. ' cried an' screamed all through
th' tour an' we had t' eone t' make sure he wouldn't scarper. He made
our more miserable ... wouldn't listen to Benno or any en we told him
th' US was where it was at if we were e it really big worldwide. "I
don't care ' bein' as big Beatles or th' Stones!" he'd scream. But we
all knew He did care ... a great deal. He just found out he hated tates.
Hated it worse'n anything. It was too big, too riding ... and far too
cold an' uncarin' for him ever t' had a chance to conquer it. ally,
thankfully, th' tour came to an end an' we flew back don. Not a word was
passed between us on that long But I know th' same thoughts were goin'
round in all heads. It'd all become too much t' bear ... An' then, in
nd, it began. Just when we thought it couldn't get ... Jon began t'
shoot his mouth off about how he never da started th' band in th' first
place ... we'd warped his pt o'th' music, he said.' s teeth began to
chatter and Daina turned him around to her, hugged him to her,
whispering in his ear for him to e. forget.. on's death.' on's ... He
nodded, his chin on her shoulder. ' was n'th' summer. Ian'd just got a
new house in th' country ... x. With a pool. He invited all o' us out.
That included an' she decided t' make a party o' it. Asked a bunch of
her nds - really stunning birds an' a gaggle of theatre nances ... cers
... actors, I don't know what. Some English and Scots a lotta
Germans'n'Swedes'n'that Aryan lot.' His head lolled against her and she
had to remind him to going, not to sleep. ' remember ... Nigel got
pretty fed with th' nances right away - he's never had any tolerance
that lot. Used t' ... I remember, he used t' go after them wn in
Brighton summers when we were younger an' had in' much t' do. Idle minds
...' He seemed to drift away a moment but it must have been on a memory
because he e back without any prodding. ''d all been drinkin' a lot,
dropping - hell, we were pretty 11 out of it ... Nigel got narked by a
couple o' th' nances 498 499 necking ... tried t' throw ' out.
"Course, Jon got in th, way ... Jesus, he began t' defend '. "Oh, that's
lovely, that is," Nigel said nastily. "You bloody queen." Jon said
nothing, just stood there, weavin' back'n'forth while Tie screamed at
Nigel: "This isn't your bleedin' party - butt out I" I He shook his
head. ' all happened so fast. Nigel slapped Tie an' she fell over a lawn
chair an' that made Jon take a run at Nigel. ' went at it, y'know - th'
way only streetfighters can. It was nasty ... bloody nasty.
"What you standin' ' for, gapin'! " I yelled. "Get ' apart! "
"But no one moved. No one did nothin. Not until I went over an'pulled
Nigel away. "C'mon," I said. "Let's you'n'me'n'Tic get these queens outa
here. They don't have t' see this." His head dropped. ' th'way back is
when it happened ... ' happened? Chris?' She lifted his head.
"Chris?' Slapped him across the face. ' were in th'kitchen ... all o' us
an' someone - I don't who - said, "What would happen if th' gas were
turned @nowan' Jon came in here to light up?" We all laughed,
higher'n'kites. But then, after a while, it wasn't so funny an' the
smell got t' us an' we all went back outside.' He sniffed. ' that time
Jon was askin' for more shit an' someone said: "Th' kitchen, Jon. It's
in th' kitchen." ' He stopped for a moment, listened to his own
breathing. ' wonder,'he said slowly, ' I'm gonna die.' ''re all going to
die.' His eyes focused on her. ' mean here ... now ... 'cause o' that
shit.' ' you do,' she said sharply, ' could only be suicide.' He thought
about that for a moment. ' don't want to die!' His whispered voice was
like the rustle of the wind through tall evergreens.
"Keep talking.' she said, ' you won't.' He closed his eyes for a moment
and when he opened them again, they were full of tears. ' remember ...
Oh, God help me, I remember it all.' He began to cry, softly and
silently, his tears sliding down his cheeks on to her flesh.
"We were such young punks then,' he said after a time. ' 500 only one
thing on our minds: makin' it. But it's what together, what made us
strong. It was how we d ... all the filthy ... shit they throw at you
day after CXPCCt You t' swallow without a pip o' protest. What's ship
cornpazed t' that?' rc was a small silence for a time, until Daina said,
"Then id you do?' thin', darlin'. We all just stood there an' thought o'
that ful American tour, of how much money we'd lost but 11 that how our
album sales had picked up by thl time left ... how th' offers'd begun t'
come in to Benno for dates ... bigger halls ... more money. But most o'
all we ht o' how Jon'd refused t' fly again. How he despised rica ... I
low he was holdin' us down from what we all t of as our ... destiny.
Yes, our destiny. That was th' Tie used ...' ou mean she stood there and
watched her lover walk P ris shook his head slowly, sadly. ', no, no.
She went t' th' side o' the pool an' sat down with her legs danglin'
water -' y Godp e'd never've left th' band on his own, no matter what he
everyone, no matter how much he complained in public. all knew that. He
was nothin' without th' Heartbeats - just th' resl o' us. But it was
worse for Jon. He wasn't no rivor. Ile had only one lifeline that kept
him above th' erline with th' drugs ... Without th! band ...'He
shrugged. ' you let him die.' ' was a sacrifice, Tie said. In all
greatness, in all genius e must be pain, a givin' up o' the old in order
for th' new ke root an' grow. With Jon, we were going nowhere. It was m
or us an' there was no other way. He would've ... It uld'vc happened
fairly soon, anyway. His liver, his kidneys - heart, even, how long
d'you imagine they could've taken th' se, huh? How long? How long?' He
was screaming now_, arning and crying and beating against her with what
little ngth he had left. It was light when they emerged from the bowels
of the 501 Rensselaer on to the tattered sidewalk. Steam no longer blew
from the iron vent in the pavement and the derelict bad moved on to
better climes or worse, taking his newspaper with him. The empty bottle
was still there. And so was the cab. From somewhere west on Broad a" the
smell of steaming coffee came to them. Daina bundled Chris into the back
seat with the sl:epy driver's help. ' sure this bastard's all right?" he
asked, chewing on a toothpick. His breath smelled faintly from tuna.
"He's as pale as a corpse.' ' take us back to the Sherry-Netherland,'
Daina said, getting into the back and slamming the door shut. ' sure
must be a good friend of yours, Miss. Whitney; the cabbie said,
switching on the ignition. He stared at them both in the rearview
mirror. ', don't I know him?' Chris lay back in the seat. He was still
trembling but the crisis seemed to have passed. His eyes opened and for
a long time he watched the buildings passing by. ' isn't London,' he
said thickly. ',' she said quietly, trying to comfort him. ''re in New
York.' He nodded then. '. New fuckin' York.' He closed his eyes. ' me t'
th' airport,' he said in a firmer voice that she could almost recognize
as his own. ' want t' go home.
Back LA ... I got an album t'finish.' Twelve of course, think she ever
wanted to see him again; not what had happened between them. She was
wrong. , she was wrong the moment she returned from rk, put her hand in
the pocket of the Canadian lynx d the glassine envelope she had picked
up off the Chris' hotel room. She looked at it for a moment, put er with
the slip of paper Meyer had given her, which 0 lines in a neat,
controlled script: Charlie Wu Cherries, Van Nuys B. t a kind of
exultation at being able to lay in Bonesteel's two possible keys to
Maggie's murder. It was more than done for her but she did not mind. She
wanted to see on his face. did not want to call the precinct house and
give him vance warning. She passed up the silver Merc that old and
somehow shabby to her, climbed into the black ri the studio had given
her just after Heather Duell had ed. As befitting Southern California,
it had an all-letter e plate: HEATHER. It was low and sleek and very
fast. had she found driving such a sensual and invigorating ence; it
made her want to @ give up using limos - suits me, she thought as she
paused at the verge of Bel Air, g left on to Sunset. It slid through the
traffic like a . She sat so low in the vehicle she felt she was part of
it: gged in to the mighty engine, the electronicized circuits as she did
when a scene was going right and she was ing love to the camera. The
Ferrari made her feel as if were making love to the city as it whipped
by. art of her drifted away. It was as if a great multi-layered zle had
been forming in her mind and now she was inning to see a pattern
emerging after seemingly months 502 503 of blindly fitting one piece to
another without getting a glimpse of the whole. With the dream-memory of
her mother's death floodin, back to her in New York, the skein of her
past was complete and she could at last understand it in the context of
what she was going through now. She realized, after waking up from the
dream, that all anger she had felt for Monika had been leached away from
her at the bedside. It was as if all the intervening years had never
taken place and she and her mother - stripped of the accretion of
jealousy, envy, fear and rage - had conic upon the basic core of their
relationship: the love between mother and child. To Daina it no longer
mattered what Monika had done Or hadn't been able to do. In the thin
balance between life and death, she knew that love was all that
mattered. She did not want Monika to die and, turning away, she had
cried, silently and bitterly, perhaps as much for herself and what she
had given up, as for her mother. She wished at that moment that she had
the power to turn back time, to erase all the years she had wasted. But
she had no power. She was helpless before this unknown, unseen onslaught
against which Monika fought bravely to no avail. She knew, too, that in
an odd way Monika had been right. She had hit the streets to run away
from everything she could not bear to face. While she had scorned her
friends who turn d to drugs to obliterate reality and, in doing so, had
felt so superior, she had merely taken another route. Baba had known
that and that night when they had finally made love, she had sensed he
was about to send her away for the last time. '' yo' own good, mama," he
would've said. Everyone knew better than me, Daina thought a's she
headed for downtown LA. Christ, I was such an innocent in those days.
But everyone is, once, and the first disillusionments are by far the
worst. The traffic cleared in a snaking lane in front of her and she
shifted up to fourth, depressing the accelerator, and the leashed beast
beneath her thundered, pressing her back against the wine-coloured seat.
Go, she thought. Go, go, go 1 For the first time in her life she felt
complete. There was an 504 inside her that had not been there before.
She felt, for time, fully as competent as a man in everything. Yet .
certainly not a masculine feeling, of that she was What was happening to
her? She thought of what she e for Chris. Only now did she glimpse the
truly terrifyturc of the episode. What if she hadn't ... But she already
the answer to that one. Chris would be dead now. what had possessed her
to take the glassine envelope? why give it to Bonesteel now? Would he
find traces of g but heroin in there? She felt a premonitory shiver go
her. What have I become involved with? she asked Maggie the
granddaughter of a famous political figure, by a hot shot. But she had
been tortured first, as if it had olitically motivated ... downshifted,
braking into a turn, moved up again to That hot shot, she thought,
sticks in my mind. And in front of her eyes, was a vision of the
glassine envelope on the floor of Chris' hotel room; a flicker of
emotion, calling out. What if Chris had been given the same of hot shot?
What if there was no coincidence but the tailing of an MO? Or, she
thought, it might all be an on of my fevered imagination. Somehow she
could not ince herself of that, though she took the devil's advocate's
for several minutes. She did not believe in coincidences at kind. he
precinct house looked just the same as it had before - it were a wagon
train crouched in a circle awaiting attack. was just getting out of the
Ferrari when a voice said: s Whitney!' t was Andrews, the patrolman who
had taken her to esteel's ollice. He was just coming down the steps to
the t. His longish hair was streaked by the sun; his eyes a deep e. She
gave him a big smile. ', how are you?' "Fine' Miss. Whitney. Just fine.'
He grinned and pointed. ome set of wheels you got there.' His hand
stroked the flank the car as if it were alive. ' us all in the dust.' '
know, Patrolman, I don't know your first name.' -'Pete, Ma'am.' He
jerked a thumb over his shoulder. ' 505 this is Harry Brafman.' The
other man, shorter and darker than Andrews but about the same age,
nodded. ''re both on Lieutenant Bonesteel's staff.' `D'you know where he
is? I've got something important for him! '. He's down by the pier at
Santa Monica. We're just on our way over. You can follow us.' ' don't
know about that, Pete,' Brafman said, frowning. ' know what's going on
there. We're not allowed to et civilians into a restricted area for any
reason! But Andrews waved aside his partner's words. '. Whitney and the
lieutenantre old friends, Braf. If she says she's got something for him,
he'll want to hear about it! Brafinan's dark eyes flowed up and down
Daina's body. 11 canst argue with that,' he said with just the trace of
a smirk. There was indeed something up along the piers. Even before they
arrived at Santa Monica, Daina could hear the piercing wails of the
sirens and she was glad of Andrews' escort; she never would have got
close without it. She counted at least half a dozen patrol cars and, as
they drove up, an armoured SWAT unit vehicle rumbled away. Sawhorse
barricades were up and everyone was being thoroughly screened. Andrews
and Braftnan got out. They got another patrolman to guard the Ferrari
while they took her behind the lines. The pier was awash with cops, all
of them in plainclothes.. There was an ambulance with its red light
flashing silently and its back doors gaping wide. It was empty inside.
Around to the left and farther down the pier, a pair of white-jacketed
paramedics were lifting something on to a wheeled stretcher. Daina
recognized the tall assistant ME who had been at Chris and Maggie's
house the day of the murder. He seemed to be cramming the back half of a
cheeseburger into his mouth. Beside him stood Bonesteel, resplendent in
a silk-and-linenweave suit of pale grey.
He seemed the only cool one on the pier. He was looking down at the
thing on the stretcher when Daina came up between Andrews and Braftnan.
For a time he was oblivious to them. Then he looked up 506 out taking
his eyes from Daina's face, acknowledged nce. got here in record time,"
he told them. He did not move d. ' shootout was at the far end. You know
what to's Forrager?' Andrews asked. t shoulder. Not too bad." Keyes?'
esteel hesitated just a fraction. ' didn't make it.' His Bickered. ''m
sorry, Andrews! i e her, Andrews stood stock-still, as if he were made
d. His handsome, sharply chiselled features seemed to aged in just that
moment. A light breeze stirred his fine, . hair. It was, Daina thought,
like baby's hair. But he's baby any more. fman walked by her, touched
Andrews on the arm. e on, Pete. We've got work to do.' He pulled Andrews
and, with their backs to her, they seemed just Re two ary men strolling
down to the end of the pier to see the eyes was his brother-in-law.' It
was the first sentence steel had directed at her.
"Andrews and his sister are very .' He said it as if the concept was
