The Broken Promise Land

by Marcia Muller

  “This is an impossible situation,” I told Hy as I took in the scattered activity.

  “Well, I can see I’m gonna have to learn a lot fast. But for tonight… I’m not all that worried.”

  Obviously he’d been following a train of thought similar to mine while we’d waited in the trailer. The notes, while escalating in intensity and bizarreness, were still a remote form of harrassment. To move directly from that to violent action was a big step that the sender was not likely to take without a series of smaller steps to bridge the distance. I nodded agreement and began to study the immediate area, blocking it out into manageable segments. After a moment I began to sense a pattern under the chaotic activity: Everyone there had a function; everyone there belonged. The audience was separated from the concert personnel by a phalanx of security guards.

  The cart stopped close to the stage, and we got off, Ricky shaking hands with the reporter, who in turn was escorted out by Rattray. When he came up to us, my brother-in-law’s eyes glittered with a wired energy that I’d watched build since we’d arrived. He said, “Man, that guy had some strange questions. He asked me how I felt about being Ricky Savage. Why didn’t he just ask me how I felt about breathing?”

  As Ricky had slipped into his performance mode, I’d noticed that the flat, drawn-out accent of the Central Valley grew more pronounced, as though on some level he was tapping into the roots that had nourished his talent. His reactions were altered, too: quicker, but measured to some inner beat. As he introduced Hy and me to the four members of his band and situated us on a lighting platform at stage right, I sensed he wasn’t really seeing any of us; he’d become a tightly controlled, self-contained system that would respond only to the stimuli necessary to give a good performance.

  The band members were another story entirely. They clustered together, joking and chatting—buddies out for a good time. Their easygoing manner set them apart from Ricky, made it plain who was support staff and who was the star; their camaraderie accentuated his aloneness. I recalled his comment about playing clubs and looking at the ass end of some broken-down, third-rate singer. Could one of the band members harbor similar sentiments? Did one or perhaps more of them resent my brother-in-law’s success?

  Throughout the emcee’s introduction the four continued to make sotto-voce jokes and comments. But then the crowd’s voice swelled and applause thundered; one by one the musicians kicked into the same focused state as Ricky. He glanced at them, gave them a high sign, and ran onto the stage. After a beat they followed.

  The crowd noise crested now; floodlights panned across the audience. Most were standing. They clapped their hands, shouted, whistled. A cloud of confetti billowed to one side. Near the front a young woman stood, eyes closed, hands clasped as if in prayer. An elderly woman jumped up and down, face glowing like a teenager’s.

  A shiver passed along my spine. I shouted to Hy, “I knew he’d made it, but I had no idea how big!”

  Hy’s eyes were gleaming with vicarious excitement. “Can you imagine standing up there like he is and watching twenty-five thousand people go ballistic over you?”

  “I’d rather face down a thug with an Uzi.”

  The huge number of people and volume of noise didn’t daunt Ricky. He stood relaxed in his cream-colored western-cut suit, guitar slung across his chest, then finally held up his hands for quiet. After the roar had died to rustles and whispers, he took hold of his microphone and spoke in a voice that—to one who knew him as well as I—was at once both intimate and at a vast remove.

  “Thank you very much. And we also want to thank you for coming out tonight in support of the rights of victims. It’s time we’re joining hands and saying ‘no more of this.’ And it’s good people like yourselves who help get the word out to the ones who don’t want to listen. This song’s about them, and it’s dedicated to the memory of Tina, Sandy, and Carolyn, the victims whose tragic deaths made us sit up and take a look around.”

  The crowd grew very still now. The band broke into the opening strains of “The People Who Won’t Listen.”

  Hy tensed.

  “What?” I whispered.

  “Motion over there on the left.”

  I kept my eyes on Ricky, ready to move if someone went for him.

  “It’s a kid… wait, security’s got him.”

  “What’d he—”

  “He’s drunk, that’s all.”

  I let my breath out slowly, still watching my brother-in-law. The intensity and emotion he’d been holding in check was fully unleashed now. He moved to the hard-driving beat, fingers picking quickly over the strings of his guitar, belting out the lyrics of his song. As the sound spiraled and echoed off the hills, the crowd responded with yells and cheers.

  Hy spoke close to my ear. “Rattray arranged for me to meet with the head of security in a few minutes. I’ll run over to their operations center, warn him that we might have a situation on our hands, then prowl for a bit.”

  “Okay.” I squeezed his arm before he slipped off the platform.

  The next number was “Cobwebs in the Attic of My Mind,” the song that had started it all. Its opening bars brought forth shrieks of approval. “The Broken Promise Land,” last summer’s hit, quieted the audience. What up-turned faces I could see grew rapt and serious as Ricky sang of the recording industry.

  They lure you with their talk of fame

  They swear you’re sure to make a name

  The lies you’re living take their toll

  And in the end they own your soul…

  What irony, I thought, that a song so bitterly critical of the industry had received a Grammy and a Country Music Award! I was willing to bet, though, that few insiders had recognized its true message.

  As Ricky ventilated on stage the same feelings he’d expressed that afternoon in my office, it occurred to me that of late his work had repeatedly dealt with certain elements: melancholy, weariness, disillusionment, alienation, and loss. The price, perhaps, of trying to prevent the industry from claiming his soul?

  The concert went on: rousing, lighthearted numbers alternating with powerful, moving songs. In the middle of one of my favorites, “Somebody’s Waiting Tonight,” Hy slipped onto the platform. “Everything okay?” I asked.

  “Security’s better than I thought. Firm that’s handling it specializes in concerts; I picked up some pointers, and they’re willing to consult if we have to cover him on tour. Dammit, I wish that wasn’t coming up next week.”

  “You can handle it, though?”

  “Sure, but it’ll cost him.”

  “Better I identify the note writer, then. I don’t want Ricky dipping into the kids’ college funds. And this situation with my sister could get expensive.”

  “She’s never struck me as that kind.”

  “She never used to be, but who knows? The life they’ve been living could change anybody.”

  “What d’you suppose is going on with her? I thought you two were close.”

  “So did I. Guess I won’t know till, as he suggested, I ask her.”

  The number ended, and the crowd was on its feet again. Sound surged against us like a tidal wave. Once more Ricky waited, once more he raised his hands for quiet. Then he paused for a long time, blinded by the lights but appearing to survey each face. When he gripped the mike his voice was deeply emotional.

  He said, “This next one’s for Charly. I guess now it’ll always be for Charly.”

  Close the windows, lock the door

  You don’t love me anymore

  Stop the paper, give back the keys

  Maybe now this pain will ease…

  The song’s title was “The House Where Love Once Lived.”

  “Oh, God,” I whispered, looking away. “He’s always been such a private person. Why’s he doing this?”

  Hy’s arm tightened around my shoulders. “Sometimes opening a vein in public makes it easier to believe that what’s happening to you is real. Poor bastard.”

  W
hen the last strains of the song echoed off the hillsides, the audience went wild—applauding longer and louder than for any number yet. As if, I thought, they felt his pain and hoped to heal him. Ricky’s composure failed; he took a step backward and turned as if to speak to the band. His shoulders shuddered and he bowed his head, struggling to regain control. Then he recovered, wiped his face with his hand. Nodded to the band members and returned to the mike.

  “Thank you very much. You folks have been such a great audience—” Cheers interrupted him. “Yeah! I mean it, you’re terrific! So now we want to do something extra special for you. We’ve got a new album coming out next month; it’s called The Midnight Train to Nowhere, and we’re gonna preview the title song exclusively for you all.”

  The applause escalated. Over it Ricky added, “We sure do hope you like it.” He began to pick out a complicated series of chords, and immediately the noise died down.

  On the midnight train to nowhere

  It’s as cold as it can be

  In the window I see darkness

  And a face that can’t be me

  It’s been all too many miles

  Since I knew just who I am

  And this role that I’ve been playin’

  Is a sham

  I had no thought when I left home

  For the man I’d come to be

  Just a thirst I put no name to

  And a yearning to break free

  Now the miles keep on clickin’

  It’s a lonesome world I see

  And the life that I’ve been leadin’

  Troubles me…

  I glanced at Hy, saw that his gaze was focused on other places and times. Like the man in the song—like Ricky—he’d left his home in the high-desert country years before, in search of some indefinable thing. And although he’d eventually returned there, what he’d seen and done in the interim had made him a stranger who harbored nightmares and recriminations enough to outlast a long period of reclusiveness, a marriage, and the untimely death of his wife. It was only in the past year that he’d been able to open up and share his secrets with me.

  But I also had my secrets. The fresh-faced cheerleader I’d once been had left San Diego looking for… what? More. That was all the definition I could put on it. Well, I’d found more, that was certain. Found, too, the demons I’d brought along with me. Now there were emotional doors that I no longer dared to open, and I sometimes wondered what kind of woman I’d become.

  The last notes of “Midnight Train” hung on the night air. The crowd was strangely silent. Ricky drew the mike close, spoke again in that oddly intimate-yet-not-intimate voice. “That song’s for all of us who can’t go home anymore. To Bakersfield.” He tapped his chest. “To Missoula.” A nod to Norm O’Dell, lead guitarist. “To Austin.” Another nod to his bass player, Forrest Curtin. “To Shreveport.” The drummer, Jerry Jackson, acknowledged with a wave. “And to Oklahoma City.” He motioned in the direction of Pete Sherman, on keyboards.

  “And now,” he added, “would you please give a big hand to these guys behind me? They’re the greatest!”

  The response was wilder than before. Over it, the band kicked into “Baby, We’ve Got It All.”

  It was an early upbeat song written on the first wave of success—for Charlene.

  Five

  By the time we got back to the trailer area I felt drained, both from the heat and the emotional intensity of the performance. Hy himself allowed as how he could use a beer or two. Ricky and his band members, however, were flying high on an enormous rush, even after working for close to two hours in ninety-degree heat. As soon as they climbed off the golf carts they brought out the joints and bottles and passed them around while they rehashed the concert.

  “I don’t know,” Ricky said, “they were awful quiet after ‘Midnight Train.’”

  “Shit, that’s because they loved it!”

  “You think so, Pete?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I surely do.”

  “He’s right, Rick. ‘Midnight Train’s gonna be a blowout.”

  “I don’t know, Jer.”

  “Hey, Savage, give it a rest.”

  “Hell, the kind of year I’m having, we’ll be lucky if the thing doesn’t stiff.”

  “No way! You get a crowd like that one to shut up—”

  “And you’re looking at another Grammy and solid platinum—”

  “And a big bonus for the band—”

  “And the doofus prize to Norm for some of the most fumble-fingered gittar I ever heard.”

  “You had to mention it, Curtin! Christ, did you hear when I…”

  I turned away, leaving them to their moment. Linked hands with Hy and moved toward the trailer. We mounted its steps and he opened the door.

  “What the hell?” he said.

  I stared down at a pile of dying weeds lying just inside the threshold.

  “Oh, Jesus!”

  “McCone, what is it?”

  I got down on my knees and grabbed some of the wilted stuff. Held it up to the dim light from inside, calling to mind my seemingly irrelevant research in the library’s science section that afternoon.

  Shiny green leaves on long streamerlike branches… Fragrant tubular yellow flowers…

  Their scent cloyed. How had someone gotten the plant to flower this late in the year? According to the horticultural guide, it usually did that in early spring.

  All parts of the plant are poisonous…

  “McCone!”

  Brings on muscular weakness, convulsions, sweating, and respiratory failure…

  I said, “This stuff is called Carolina jessamine.”

  A knowing light came into his eyes. I nodded.

  And one by one they all died there, and one by one they died…

  I rocked back on my heels, staring at the pile of wilting jessamine. The note writer had not only escalated his or her activities but demonstrated an important point: It was possible to get to Ricky. In a crowded place, surrounded by an army of security guards, it was possible to get to him.

  “McCone?” Hy squatted beside me.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Ricky and his band were still rehashing the concert, oblivious to what was going on here. Quickly I decided on a course of action. “Don’t let on to any of them what’s happened,” I said. “I’ll—Dammit, I need a plastic bag.”

  “Might be one in the trailer.” Hy stood, stepped over the jessamine, and went inside. When he came out he handed me a Ziploc. I used it as a glove and bagged a sample of the plant. A lab could probably tell me nothing more than I already knew, but I didn’t want it contaminated in case it contained some trace of the person who had left it.

  “I’ll get rid of the rest of this,” I told Hy. “I don’t want him to know about it.”

  “Why? He should be aware—”

  “Yes, but not now, not here. I think you’d better put one of your people on him right away; then we’ll tell him.”

  “I’ll use the phone in the limo to call in; one of our operatives’ll be at his hotel before he gets back there.” Hy slipped off the steps and moved toward the car.

  I stuffed the Ziploc into my bag, then dumped the remaining jessamine in a trash can inside the trailer. After looking around and deciding its interior hadn’t been tampered with, I went back outside and questioned a few of the security people. None had noticed any unauthorized people in the vicinity.

  Hy had just returned from making his call and Ricky was seeing the band off when Rae arrived, riding on a golf cart with one of the security men. She was barefoot and had tied the tails of her shirt below her breasts so her midriff was exposed. Her jeans were tight, her smile loose, and in her eyes was the gleam of a groupie.

  Ricky took one look at her, and in his eyes appeared the gleam of a man who could become very interested in a groupie.

  Rae got off the cart and came toward us; she’d had enough to drink that she put an alluring—and unaccustomed—sway into her walk. “The others,” she
announced, “decided to go to this shit-kicker bar in Penngrove that somebody told them about.”

  “What’re they going to do with Habiba?” I was fiercely protective of Anne-Marie’s and Hank’s ward, having recently survived an ordeal with her that few adults could have handled as well.

  “The last I saw she was asleep in the back of the limo. The driver’ll watch her. Anyway, I didn’t want to go along, so Joe offered to bring me here.” She waved to the security man, who was watching her wistfully. He waved back, then winked. She blew him a kiss.

  I stared at her in astonishment. I’d never before witnessed Rae on the prowl; this was fascinating.

  Apparently Ricky thought so, too. He moved closer, smiling.

  “So,” she added, turning and favoring him with a crinkle-nosed grin, “I hoped you might give me a ride back to the city.”

  His eyes moved from her face to her well-toned little body. “Ma’am,” he drawled, “it’ll be my pleasure.”

  Oh, shit, Savage! Lay it on a little thicker, why don’t you?

  He’d had just enough adulation and dope and whiskey to be foolish, just enough pain to be rash. But Ricky was a big boy; he could handle whatever came his way. It was Rae who worried me.

  She’d been through a lot in the time I’d known her: the collapse of a stifling early marriage; a tempestuous on-and-off-again relationship that she’d eventually torpedoed; a peculiar three-cornered love affair via computer that had ended in New Year’s Eve heartache. Since then she’d sworn off men altogether, but now, it seemed, she was ready to fly again. Fly Rae-fashion, with her autopilot set to collision co-ordinates.

  I wanted to grab her and shake some sense into her. I wanted to tell Ricky that he was on the verge of creating all sorts of complications. Rae was not only my employee but my friend; she worked in the same office with his son, and they had become buddies. How on earth would she be able to face us after a one-night stand with my brother-in-law, his father?

  But in the end I restrained myself and didn’t do or say anything. Both Rae and Ricky were grown-ups—even if they weren’t acting the role—and entitled to make their own mistakes.