Scratch Fever

by Collins, Max Allan

  He was handsome, in an ugly way. A big, lean man with the slightest paunch, with dark, somewhat shaggy hair that was graying at the temples, and widow’s peaked. He had high cheekbones, a mustache, and a mean look, but those eyes, those narrow, squinting eyes, had something else in them besides meanness. Intelligence, for sure. Humanity? Humor? Maybe not.

  At the time, Nolan had been running some sort of restaurant in Iowa City, in which Jon was a partner, it seemed, though he didn’t say much about that. When she saw Nolan, he’d be dressed in a sportcoat and turtleneck and slacks, something casual, in a country club sort of way, and the guy looked good, looked right. Only something was wrong; something about him made her think of a gangster.

  She used to kid Jon about that.

  “I wonder what your gangster friend’s doing right now,” she’d say, sitting up in bed in a motel room, watching TV, on the road with the Nodes.

  “Probably sticking up a bank,” Jon would answer, with a funny smile.

  She and Jon had continued to share a room on the road, even though their romance had turned into a friendship, albeit a friendship that included sleeping together (but only occasionally screwing) and getting out of each other’s way when an attractive member of the opposite sex came along. She had a feeling Jon could have been serious about her if she let him, but her insistence that she was not a one-man woman, that marriage and whatever were not in her plans ever, cooled him off a bit.

  And he did seem to like the freedom to go after the bitches, like that Darlene she’d spotted out in the bar. Jon was a weird kid, in a way, so goddamn straight. He didn’t even smoke dope—no drugs at all; no booze to speak of, either.

  There was that one time, however, that he got good and plastered. It was at a party at some trailer out in the country, where a guy had a hog roast at three in the morning after the Nodes had played a particularly long night at a particularly rowdy bar. The girl Jon was with, a short little blonde in halter top and jeans, was the sort who wanted to drink but would not drink alone, and so Jon drank with her and later crawled off into the woods with her, too. But by the time he ended up back at the motel with Toni, he was plastered—plastered in the way that only someone who doesn’t get plastered often can get plastered. And he started to talk.

  And he told her the damnedest things.

  About him and Nolan.

  And bank robberies and shooting somebody called Sam Comfort, some crazy old man who was a thief himself who Jon and Nolan were looting, and wild goddamn things about some girl getting her head blown off by somebody called Gross, and shoot-outs in lodges up in Wisconsin. And the next morning Jon asked her to forget all that stuff he told her last night, and there had never been a word about it since.

  Till tonight.

  “Light My Fire” was almost over.

  She got back up on stage, and Jon gave her a little smile and she gave him one back, nodding, and they went into the next song.

  Playing tambourine and singing back-up, she glanced over at Jon, and he was into the music—not a sign of worry. And she felt better. Jon had left a message for Nolan, and the woman in white and her big sandy-haired stooge didn’t know that. And that made Toni feel better; the cold feeling at the pit of her stomach was gone.

  Then she noticed Jon flubbing the words on “Jailhouse Rock.”

  And at the back of the room, standing by the double doors, the big sandy-haired man waited and watched.

  5

  THEY GOT called back for two encores. One encore was typical for the Nodes; they were good enough to expect that. A second encore indicated to Jon that the word had spread through the crowd that this was the band’s last night.

  Some of Roc’s followers were shouting for “Cat Scratch Fever” again, and even though Jon and Toni weren’t featured on it, making it inappropriate for an encore, Jon went ahead and announced it and went off with Toni into the stage-right cubbyhole to wait it out.

  “That fucking thing again,” Toni said, shaking her head. Still not sweating.

  “No accounting for taste,” Jon said, smiling back.

  “We better do one more and put this turkey out of its misery.”

  Jon nodded. “You okay?”

  “I think so. I blew some words.”

  “I know you did. That’s not like you.”

  “Yeah, well, I started thinking about the words, and that’s deadly. As soon as you start thinking about ’em, you lose ’em.”

  “Right I blew a few myself. Lots of hamburger tonight.”

  Hamburger was garbled singing with the mouth right up against the mike, sounding like words but not words at all.

  “Jon, that big guy’s still hanging around. When I took that little break midway through the set, he was still sitting in his booth. Then he came and stood in back and watched for a while.”

  “Yeah, I know. I saw him.”

  “Yeah, well, your girlfriend was there, too.”

  “No kidding?”

  “The one with the white outfit and the big tits? Yeah. Still here. Or she was twenty minutes ago, anyway.”

  “Jesus. So she didn’t split.”

  “Nope. Somebody else was out there, too.”

  “Who?”

  “Darlene.”

  “Who the fuck’s Darlene?”

  “You mean, which fuck’s Darlene, don’t you? Burlington, a couple of months ago? The Ramp? Lanky with brown hair and lots of eye makeup?”

  “I think I remember.”

  “Had a dyke girlfriend who wanted to cut your nuts off?”

  “I remember.”

  “Well, she’s out there, too, cuter than Rod Stewart’s mom. What’s that dyke’s name, anyway?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Me either. So, Jonny. Tonight’s a real stroll down memory lane, for you, huh? Maybe they’re all here ’cause it’s the Nodes’ last night.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Are you scared?”

  “A little.”

  “Yeah. Me too. I’d take another hit of Cutty Sark if I thought I could keep it down. What should we do?”

  “Get back on stage and play one more song, I guess.”

  They did—”Johnny B. Goode” by Chuck Berry.

  And it was the last song the Nodes ever played together, because the audience was too worn out and drunk to work up the applause for another encore, and Jon and Toni and the rest of the band came down off the stage and mingled with the crowd, as the Barn would be open for another half-hour before the lights would come up and the band’s equipment would get torn down. The jukebox started up and an Olivia Newton-John record came on, a mild protest by someone not into the Nodes’ brand of hard-core rock ’n’ roll. Couples slow danced. Singles who hadn’t scored shuffled toward exits, looking around one last time to see if somebody was left to come onto.

  First order of business at the end of a performance was getting paid, and since Jon was listed as leader on the union contract Bob Hale had signed, it was Jon who followed Bob back behind the bar again, through a hallway and into a small office. Bob paid Jon in cash, shook his hand, reminded him to keep in touch if he and Toni put another band together, and went back to the table out in the club where a short-haired brunette waitress with a slender figure and a tired, pretty face waited to be the queen of Bob’s waterbed this winter night.

  Usually Jon waited till later to pay off the band members, but tonight he gathered them in the stage-right cubbyhole and gave them their shares, holding back his one-and-a-half shares (he owned the PA equipment and van and so got an extra half-share) as well as the agent’s commission. These five people had worked and lived together for some seven months, and despite their differences, this was an awkward if not exactly poignant moment.

  Roc scratched the side of his narrow, faintly pockmarked face; he had some eye makeup on, which had always looked silly to Jon before. Now, for some unknown reason, Jon felt touched by the guitarist’s show-bizzy affectation, out here in the Iowa sticks.

 
; Roc extended his hand, and he and Jon—the two strong ones in the group, whose conflicting tastes had made this split inevitable—shook hands in a sideways, “soul” shake.

  “It’s been real,” Roc (whose real name was Arnold) said, with a small, embarrassed smile.

  “It’s been real,” Jon agreed, giving him back the same kind of smile.

  There was a brief round of handshakes; the boys, except for Jon, each gave Toni a hug. Mick advised her to “watch the sauce—it’ll catch up with you someday,” and she advised him to “watch that dope you smoke or you’ll wake up even dumber some morning,” and they all laughed.

  “We’re not going to tear our stuff down tonight,” Roc told Jon. “Bob said we could come back tomorrow and do it.”

  “I figured as much,” Jon said. He knew that they planned to rent a trailer to haul their amps and guitars away. Usually the band traveled in two vehicles: Jon’s van, with all the major equipment and room for two riders (invariably, Jon and Toni) and Roc’s station wagon, which held the other band members and a few odds and ends of equipment

  “We’ll help take the PA and mikes down, of course,” Mick added. “Help you load your organ and stuff, if you want.”

  “I appreciate it,” Jon said, and everyone left the little cubbyhole and wandered out onto the dance floor, where the lights had just come up, bringing the usual groans and moans from the crowd, who, like a mole caught in the headlights of a car, preferred the dark.

  “What now?” Toni asked Jon.

  “I think I’ll see if the phone’s free.”

  “You already left your message, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah. But I’d like to see if I can get through to Nolan, and not his machine. I’d also like to see if Julie and the Incredible Hulk are still around.”

  They walked toward the outer bar.

  “What if they are?” Toni asked.

  “If Julie’s here, I want to talk to her. Like I said, maybe I can defuse this thing. If that guy’s still around and she isn’t, I’m curious to see if he’ll let me use the phone.”

  “And if he won’t?”

  “I’ll talk to Bob. He’s got a dog and a shotgun.”

  They entered the bar; people were getting one last drink, but the booths on either side were empty—nothing but moisture rings and ashtrays full of peanut shells.

  No Julie.

  No Hulk.

  “Let’s look around some more,” Jon said.

  “Like outside?”

  “Like outside.”

  They went out on the wooden sidewalk that ran in front of the building. The night was cold; they could see their breath. It was November and it hadn’t snowed yet. People were getting into their frost-frosted cars, most of the couples hanging onto each other, some because they were drunk, others because they were horny, and in a lot of cases both. No sign of Julie or her Hulk.

  “Let’s go back in,” Jon suggested, and they did.

  They took a booth.

  “I don’t know what to make of this,” he said. “I know she spotted me. Shit.”

  “You got word through to your friend,” Toni said, sounding as though she were trying to convince herself as much as Jon. “Why worry about it?”

  “What, me worry? Look, let’s go tear down the stuff and get the van loaded; the guys’ll help us, and maybe Bob and his people’ll pitch in, and we can get it done fast and head for Nolan’s.”

  “Maybe he’s already on his way here.”

  “You got a point. I’ll try him again.”

  He went to the phone. He had a dime poised to drop in the slot when a hand rested on his shoulder. Not a big hand this time, but a smaller, softer one.

  He turned and looked at Darlene, whom he suddenly remembered very well. Her long brown hair was in a sixties shag, and she did have lots of eye makeup (even more than Roc); she reminded him of Chrissie Hynde, of the Pretenders. A smiling, skinny girl, taller than he was, with pert little breasts bobbling under a Nodes T-shirt; he couldn’t remember that logo of his looking better.

  She stroked his bare arm; he was wearing only a T- shirt, now, himself, also a Nodes T-shirt. She poked at the design on his chest, traced it with her finger.

  “We look like twins,” she said.

  “Not quite,” Jon said. “Hiya Darlene.”

  An image of that shaggy brunette hair buried in his lap flashed through his mind; the van back behind the Ramp. Oh yes.

  “I’m sorry you guys are splitting up,” she said. “You got a good band.”

  “We had a good band. It’s over now.”

  “I’m sad.”

  “No big deal.”

  “I need a shoulder to cry on.”

  Your makeup’ll run, he thought, annoyed with her and with himself, because she was making his jeans tight.

  “You still got your van?”

  “Sure, but right now I gotta help tear down, Darlene.”

  “This won’t take long.”

  She had a whory mouth, but in a nice way, and though her teeth were faintly yellow, from smoking no doubt, they were nice teeth, and her tongue peeking out between the parted teeth was nice, too.

  “How about another time?” Jon said. Polite smile.

  “No time like the present.” She had hold of his arm, hugging it, tugging at him.

  He glanced back at Toni, in her booth; she was smiling at him, amused. But then she mouthed something at him. He couldn’t make it out and squinted and Toni tried again: What about the dyke? she was silently saying.

  Jon turned back to Darlene, said, “What about your friend?”

  She was still tugging him along, toward the door. “You’re my friend, Jon boy.”

  “Please don’t call me Jon boy. This is not ‘The Waltons.’ This is definitely not ‘The Waltons.’”

  She laughed, as if she understood him. “Come on. I got a present for you.”

  Jon didn’t smoke. Jon didn’t drink. Jon didn’t do dope. But Jon did have a weakness. And Darlene was definitely part of that weakness.

  He went outside with her.

  “I said, what about that girlfriend of yours?” he said, pulling loose from her, getting an arm’s length between them.

  “She’s not here.”

  “Well she was here,” he said. “I saw her.” He hadn’t, really, but Toni had.

  “So she was here,” she said, “so what? She’s gone now.”

  “Well, isn’t she your . . .”

  “She’s just another guy to me.”

  “So I gathered.”

  “Come on, I got something for you,” she said, tugging him toward the van, which was parked way down at the end of the tin shed that was the club portion of the Barn. The Nodes logo on their T-shirts was also on the side of the van, painted there, frosted over at the moment. Hugging his arm, she pushed herself against him, snuggled against him. As they walked, their footsteps sounded hollow on the wooden sidewalk. When they spoke, their cold breath hung briefly in the air, as though the words themselves were hanging there.

  “What’s her name, anyway?” Jon said.

  “Who?”

  “Your girlfriend?”

  “Who cares?”

  They were at the van. Jon unlocked the side door and they got in. There were some blankets on the cold metal floor of the van, which were used as padding between the amplifiers and such when the van was loaded for travel, and were also used for occasions like this, with Jon and Darlene falling on top of each other in the back of the van.

  “It’s a little cold,” Jon said, reaching over and locking the door they’d just come in. “Maybe I should turn on the heater.”

  “It won’t be cold long,” Darlene said, pulling her T-shirt off. Her nipples were two red bumps in pink circles riding small, high breasts above a bony ribcage; Jon put his hands on the breasts, kissed the breasts, but his heart wasn’t in it. His hard-on wasn’t, either. It was, in fact, gone.

  Because all he could think of what that dyke, whose name he couldn’t
remember, not that it mattered. He wasn’t even thinking about Julie and that Hulk of hers, really, it was that goddamn dyke. . . .

  Then she was at his fly, and her head was in his lap again, and he was suddenly getting back into it when the side door of the van opened and Jon, angry, confused—I locked that!—said, “Shut that fucking thing!” and then saw who it was who opened it.

  The dyke.

  Terrific.

  “Put your shirt on,” the dyke said to Darlene. A low, but not exactly masculine voice.

  Darlene, still blasé, did so, saying, “I only did what you told me to.”

  Like unlock the goddamn door when he wasn’t looking, Jon thought, as the dyke crawled inside the van and shut the door behind her. In a black leather jacket and dishwater blonde ducktail and Elvis sneer, she was a fifties parody. A fifties nightmare.

  “You don’t scare me,” Jon said, zipping up, scared. “Now just get out of here. Take your friend with you.”

  The dyke pulled at either side of her leather jacket, and the metal buttons popped open, and she took something out of her waistband. It was a gun. A revolver with a long barrel. Just like the one Nolan used.

  “What is this? . . .” Jon started to say.

  Just as the dyke was swinging the gun barrel around to hit him along the side of his head, the damnedest thing happened: he remembered her name.

  Ron.

  2

  6

  IT WAS a November afternoon that could have passed for September—not quite Indian summer, cooler than that, but with the sun visible in a blue, not quite cloudless sky. A nice day to be in Iowa City—if you liked Iowa City.

  And Nolan didn’t, particularly. Maybe that was why he moved out of here, a few months ago. That had certainly been part of it. That and Jon leaving.

  Not that he and Jon had been particularly close. They had been through a lot together, but basically they were just partners—in crime, in business, if there was a difference—and had shared that old antique shop as mutual living quarters for a year or so. That was about the extent of it.

  But without Jon around, Iowa City stopped making sense to Nolan. It was as though the town had an excuse being this way, with a kid like Jon living in it; now Nolan felt out of place, out of step, and more than a little bored in a college town perched uneasily between Animal House and Woodstock.