by W E DeVore
Sanger spoke up from the doorway before Q could raise an objection to her summary dismissal. “I don’t think that would do a bit of good.” The three looked at him in surprise as he entered the room. “Sorry, I’m late.”
Q stood up and flung herself into Sanger’s chest. He patted her back and kissed the top of her head. “I’m sorry I worried you, Clementine. I overslept and still had some arrangements to make. I’m ok. Everything’s going to be ok.”
She studied him as he took the sheet of paper from her. Sanger never slept in and he certainly never slept past his alarm. “Late night, cowboy?”
Sanger winked at her by way of a cryptic response and read through the words in his hand, uncomfortably clearing his throat at regular intervals as he read the graphic description of how BBB thought Derek should punish his adulterous wife. He finally let out a low whistle.
“I’m with you, Clementine. This does not sound like a woman.”
“What should we do?” Q asked.
His face flattened as he stared at her for several seconds. Q gave him a questioning look as she attempted to figure out what this new expression of Sanger’s meant and failed. He finally said, “We’re going to push them.”
Derek stood up. “Are you fucking crazy? Did you read that shit? This person wants to hurt her!”
Sanger gazed at Q again and said, “No, they don’t. They want her to stop hurting you. They want you to hurt her for doing it. So, let’s end it. We need to end it. The obsession. The false sense of intimacy. All of it.” He turned to Derek and asked, “Derek, as of this moment, you are no longer in love with your Archangel.”
Derek folded his arms. “Spot, sweet little Spot; I don’t do love.”
Sanger rolled his eyes. “BBB doesn’t know that, asshole. You need to blow this whole thing off. Move on to the next actress-slash-model-slash-whatever. Starting now, your raven-haired muse is yesterday’s news.”
Brian protested, “No, the love angle is great for the tour...”
Sanger glared at him, “How many tour dates are you having trouble selling out of?”
“None,” Brian admitted.
“There you go. You do what I say,” Sanger insisted. He glanced back at Derek. “You have another woman you want to put in the hot seat?”
Derek shook his head. “No, of course I don’t. I don’t want anyone to get a threat like that letter. I’d rather announce that I’m coming out of the closet and take up with you.” He paused and looked Sanger up and down. “I don’t mind, actually, you feel like playing Jagger to my Bowie?”
Sanger laughed. “While I’m flattered, I think we should stick with what you know. Better yet, what this psycho expects. How do you feel about dating a federal agent?”
Q screwed her face up in confusion. “What?”
“Jeffries can handle herself. She’s good looking. She’s also willing to moonlight as Derek’s head of security for a few weeks. I called her already. It’s pretty much done. Just need you two to cooperate.”
Derek stood up and held out both his hands. “Woah. Can you catch me up, please?”
“How do you feel about redheads?” Q asked. “We know someone. An ATF agent. She’s cute...”
Sanger interrupted, “She’s gorgeous and has a great ass.”
“Watch it, cowboy. You’re dating my sister.” Q scowled at him.
He looked at her helplessly. “Clementine, I’m just stating facts here. We need a pro. She’s a pro. We figured NOPD would look too staged to be taken seriously by your letter writer,” Sanger explained.
“Who’s ‘we’?” Q asked.
“Rex and me. It was his idea. You were right. He’s not a bad cop.” He sat down on the couch and leaned forward, thinking through the plan. “We have to make up a story. How Derek met her. We thought head of security. Derek hires her as his head of security and she’s his new muse. A real archangel with a gun.”
Derek shook his head. “Fine. Whatever. I just want this to stop. I don’t want another rape fantasy about anybody getting tossed over my fence. Ever. Just make it stop.”
Q nodded. “If Jeffries is ok with it, it sounds like a solid plan to me.”
Sanger abruptly stood up. “Good. We’ll meet you later at the Orpheum. Get dinner reservations for the band plus me and Jeffries. Someplace public. Really public.”
He handed Brian his card. “Call me when you set it up.”
Sanger left the office without another word and Q chased after him. “Aaron, wait.”
At the front door to the building he turned and said, “I’ve got to go, Clementine. This is going to take some doing. There are a lot of moving pieces.”
“What happened to you this morning?” she asked, putting her hands on her hips. “Where were you? Why didn’t you call me back?”
“I was doing my job. You were right about me leaning on you too much. All that stops now. Go on, you have a tour to rehearse for, don’t you?” he replied, walking out the door and into the bright sunshine.
Q sat down on one of the acid green suede benches in the lobby, wondering what had happened to Sanger in the last twenty-four hours. Derek came down the spiral staircase from Brian’s office and sat next to her.
“Penny for your thoughts, angel?”
“You ever wish for something so hard for someone, but when they finally get it, you wonder if you made the right wish?” she asked.
“What did you wish for?”
“Sanger. He was all alone. All the time. Didn’t like his partner. Now he’s got a girlfriend and I talked him into working with his partner and…”
“He doesn’t need you like he used to,” Derek finished. “Welcome to parenthood, angel. You’d better get used to that feeling. You’ll feel that a lot if you have kids.” He jostled her against him and she laughed. “Come on, we’ve got work to do.”
◆◆◆
Later that morning, Dark Harm moved back to the Orpheum to resume dress rehearsals. The security firm had finished their sweep of the building and measures had been put in place to keep BBB and anyone with any semblance of a self-preservation instinct away from the entrances. Despite the added protection, Derek hadn’t been able to settle back into his normal demeanor. He’d been on edge all morning and most of his wrath was directed at Nick’s failure to maintain a steady, aggressive undercurrent to the band’s rhythm section. Q and Fiona stood near the drum riser, watching Derek yell at his bassist in a seemingly endless string of recriminations and insults.
“How long is he going to do this?” Q asked.
“Until he’s got it out of his system. I think this stalker situation has him freaked. He’s just taking back control.” Fiona yawned and scratched her nose.
“And Nick’s just going to take it?”
Fiona smirked at her sideways and said, “Three. Two. One.”
Derek finished his rant and Nick slammed the nearest mic stand down to the stage floor before stalking towards the greenroom. When Derek yelled at him to stay where he was, he hollered back, “Well, excuse me, oh, exalted one, but I have to take a piss.”
“Don’t you fucking lie to me,” Derek exclaimed. “I can see your hands shaking from here. You need to get it back under control. It’s not even lunchtime. For fuck’s sake, you can’t even get through rehearsals without a six-pack anymore.”
Nick hunkered down over Derek and yelled in his face, “That’s because I work for a fucking asshole, Derek.”
As he stormed passed Q and Fiona, he grabbed a cymbal stand and threw it across the stage with a crash.
“Hey!” Fiona shouted. “That’s my favorite ride cymbal, Nick. What the fuck?”
Derek jumped off stage, landing hard on the floor of the theatre and stomped up the aisle to the lobby. Q moved to follow him and Dave lit a cigarette from behind his keyboard rig, saying, “I don’t think you want to do that, Q.”
Q said, “Sorry, Dave, but I disagree.”
She walked offstage and towards the front of the theatre. Derek was s
itting on the cool marble floor, leaning against a carved pillar in the shadow of the ticket counter. He was watching a van unload half a dozen older women in front of the hotel lobby across the street. They all held plastic go-cups from a daiquiri shop on Bourbon and were fussing at their exasperated driver as he helped them sort out which shopping bag went with which woman. Derek shook his head slightly before resting it against his own shoulder.
Q slid up onto the ticket counter and sat cross-legged, resting her elbows on her knees. “Hey there, slugger.”
He straightened his neck and looked at his feet. “I don’t want to talk to anybody right now, angel. We’ll have our first quarrel if you say one word to me.”
She grinned at him and said, “One word.”
Derek started to laugh. “That’s not fair.”
“I don’t fight fair. Didn’t I mention that?” When Derek didn’t reply, she said, “You want to tell me what that was all about in there?”
“No.”
She nodded and replied, “Then I’m not going to do the tour. I don’t want to work for somebody who might randomly dress me down in front of the rest of the band just for having an off morning. And I’m not going to be in a band unless I have all the information I need to know about the people in it.”
Derek’s entire bearing changed in a split second and his spine stiffened. He looked straight into her eyes, maintaining steady visual contact and divorced himself of any emotion before he said, “Fuck you, angel. That’s fine by me. Have a nice life. On your way out, tell the rest of the band I’m handing out pink slips if anyone else wants to get mouthy today.”
She held his gaze. “Fair enough. See you around, Cincinnati. It’s been real.”
When she hopped off the counter and walked back towards the theatre doors, he said, “Don’t go. I’m sorry.”
She grinned to herself and went back to him, sliding down the adjacent pillar to sit next to him on the floor. She nudged him with her hip. “You’re a terrible poker player. Now, spill.”
“I don’t like drunks. Nick is a drunk. He’s also the best bass player I’ve ever had. But it gets under my skin, sometimes.”
“I ever tell you about my old bassist, Pete? The one JJ replaced?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“He was a pill head. Gambler, too. Used to get himself into trouble with the Greek mob periodically and expect me and the rest of the Beasts to bail him out. I had to go out on a dinner date once with a gangster who barely spoke English, just to keep Pete from getting beat to death.” Derek laughed, and Q stared at the traffic on the busy downtown street through the bank of glass doors in front of them. A man-mountain stood outside with his arms folded, on the alert for potential harm. “You can’t stop somebody from hurting themselves, Derek.”
“That’s not it, Q. He’s a grown man. It’s his problem, not mine.”
“Then why do you get so mad if you don’t care?”
Derek studied the reflection of the crystal globed chandeliers in the gleaming marble floor. “Because he’s weak and stupid and it pisses me off.”
“You ever try to get him to stop?” Q asked.
“His ex-wife asked me to help while we were recording Scarification last year. Do one of those intervention things.”
“Did you?”
“No. She gave him an ultimatum instead. Her or the bottle. Two guesses what he chose.” He leaned forward, folding in on himself and wrapping his arms around his knees. “She took his son. I didn’t know how bad it had gotten, not really, until we were already in Europe. He’d rather drink than raise his kid. Thinks being a high-functioning alcoholic is charming, I guess. Some people think it is, but his hands were shaking so badly this morning…It reminded me of my dad…”
“Your dad was a drunk?” she asked.
Derek flinched, and he wiped his face with his hands. “I must be tired, angel.”
Q reached out and touched his face, turning it towards her. “You don’t have to tell me. I get it.”
Pain flashed through his eyes and they flooded before he could stop them. He shoved her hand away and flinched. “Get away from me, please.”
She stood up and stretched, giving him the privacy he was asking her for. Walking to front doors, she studied Derek in the early afternoon sunlight. He seemed frail and shrunken, his usual charismatic posture weakened. A stirring of recognition made her chest ache for him and she made her decision to trust that Derek Sharp really was a good person underneath the mask he wore to hide himself from the world.
“Well, Cincinnati, you gonna ask me or what?” she said flatly.
He cleared his throat and said in a low, desolate voice, “Ask you what, Q?”
“You want an Archangel or don’t you, asshole? Because I could really go either way on this whole being famous thing.”
He smiled to himself and nodded. “I see what you did there.”
She turned and faced him. “Well?”
“Q, I’m too busy to audition your replacement if you’ve already decided to accept my offer. You coming or not?”
“I am. So, stop fucking around, will you? Day’s wasting.” She walked towards him and held out her hand to pull him to his feet. He stood close to her, tightly winding his fingers through hers and she asked, “So, how much does this gig pay?”
“More than your weddings do,” he said.
“I don’t know, Cincinnati. I play some pretty nice weddings.”
As they walked back into the theatre, they found Sanger standing centerstage between Rex and Jeffries, the former of whom was looking in awe at the lighting riggers making the final adjustments to the large screen they were hanging at the rear of the stage. A seven-foot-tall shattered window descended behind the three of them on a silent network of pulleys, startling Jeffries.
Sanger stood motionless, seemingly unaware or, more likely, unimpressed with his new environment. He’d spent countless hours backstage at the production for the Nine Circles Ball, protecting Q. He’d also spent countless hours keeping her company at load-in for more gigs than she could recall.
When Q noticed him closely observing her and Derek’s hands intertwined, she let go of her companion and quickly walked towards the front of the stage, with Derek following behind.
“Where’s Nick?” Derek called to the room. An empty beer bottle hurtled past Q’s head in the general direction of Derek’s skull by way of an answer.
Q identified the source of the projectile, seeing Nick’s fifteen-inch shock of green hair peeking out above the seats in the third row.
“What the fuck, Nick?” she exclaimed. “You almost took my head off.”
The rest of Nick appeared above the seats as he stood up and yawned. “Yeah, but I didn’t, did I?”
He held his hands parallel to the floor and steady as a gravestone. “Is this more to your liking, oh, captain, my captain?”
Derek shoved past Q and continued to walk to the stage. “I don’t have any more time for your shit today, Nick. Keep it together for the rest of the tour, or you’re gone.”
“Who you gonna get to replace me?” he asked, clearly not believing Derek’s threat.
Derek tilted his head back to Q. “Her bass player. He’s a child prodigy. He’ll do fine.”
“The fat black kid from the Rebel Angels?” Nick mocked. “He looks like a fucking broiled oompa-loompa.”
Derek didn’t reply. Instead he called back to Q. “Could JJ do the gig, angel?”
Q ran the calculations through her head and knew he could. But she also knew that six months without JJ or her playing with them would probably bankrupt Charlie and Tom. “No, he’s booked with the Beasts.”
Derek turned, folding his arms and glowering at her. “If I cover Charlie and Tom. Pay them to take six months off. Can JJ do the gig?”
She shoved her hands into her back pockets. “You already know the answer to that, Derek. The kid plays circles around everyone in this room.” Derek winked at her, and she caught on. Walk
ing towards Nick, she said, “He went on tour with Terrence Hill when he was fifteen, Nick. Four years after he picked up a bass for the first time. He figured out a Schumann etude by ear when he was eight. And he may be a little short and round, but he’s way more fun to watch on stage than you will ever know how to be. Besides, this band could use a little more color and it sure as shit could use a lot more funk. Y’all are white bread as the day is fucking long.”
Q pushed past Nick and held up her hand to stop him from speaking, pointing her thumb and index finger between his eyes like a gun. “And the next time you feel like taking Derek’s head off, I’d appreciate it if you made sure I wasn’t in the line of fire. I had a junkie bass player once, too, Nick. I’m not on your side in this.”