Hy parked in a lot across the street and we walked toward the building. When we reached the curb I tugged at his arm and pointed to an oil-pumping rig that stood like a penned dinosaur in a fenced enclosure on the sidewalk. He looked at it and shrugged but didn’t display his usual curiosity about incongruous phenomena. His face was set in lines of concentration as we skirted the ticket windows.
Tonight—8:00
RICKY SAVAGE
and
Blue Arkansas
Hy motioned at the sign above the windows, then put his hand on my shoulder and steered me around a couple of pickups and a truck loaded with sound equipment to a wide side entrance. The interior was cool and dim, the arena’s floor easily the size of a football field. Tier upon tier of white seats rose behind walls topped with turquoise railings. There was a press box up to our left, and signs advertised Bud, Coors, and 92.3 KRST, New Mexico Country Radio. I turned, saw bleacher seats on the second tier behind us, as well as at the far end.
Now I knew why Hy was concerned about this venue.
A raised stage had been erected in the center of the floor, and roadies moved about, laying electrical cable. Others were rigging lights on the overhead grid, their voices echoing off the domed ceiling. My gaze moved from them to the stands and swept the oval perimeter. I pictured someone in the topmost row, with a high-powered rifle.
I asked Hy, “What’s the seating capacity here?”
“Close to ten thousand, and it’s sold out.”
“Are they checking for weapons at the door?”
“Uh-huh. It’ll slow things down, maybe make for a late start, but it can’t be helped.”
We started walking toward the stage, stepping over taped-down cables. I motioned at the openings in the walls where stairways descended from the seating area and raised my eyebrows questioningly.
He said, “Two guards on each, with others stationed in between.”
Suddenly Virgil Rattray loped down the nearest stairway, clipboard in hand, long locks swaying violently. “That’s not right, you idiot!” he yelled, shaking his fist at one of the men on the lighting grid. “Can’t you assholes at least try to get it right?”
Hy muttered, “Why must Rats always charm the hell out of everybody?”
“He tells me it’s not easy being him.”
“Being around him, maybe.”
We went past the stage toward open doors at the far end of the arena. I eyed the bleacher seats there and said, “Better make sure that weapons check is thorough. Where’ll you be during the concert?”
“With Ricky all the way from his dressing room to the stage, and there throughout.”
“And me?”
“Out of harm’s way.”
“Ripinsky—”
“I mean it.” His tone didn’t invite debate. I let it go—for now.
Immediately before the exit, he motioned to our right, and we went into a dim yellow corridor that curved with the shape of the building. A number of doors opened off it; I poked my head through one and saw a dressing room with shabby gray armchairs and brown carpeting.
Hy said, “The band’ll be in here and the next room. Blue Arkansas has the smaller ones across the hall. We’ll put Ricky farther down where we can control who gets in to see him.”
“And that is?”
“You, me, and my people.”
“Girdwood, Toole, and Rats aren’t going to like that.”
“Tough.” He stopped walking, looked along the curve of the corridor. “It’s not a bad setup, and we’re ready for damn near anything. I’ll tell you, though: It’d go a hell of a lot easier on everybody if Rae would show up tonight.”
RAE’S DIARY:
3:09 P.M., PDT
“Tonight? I can’t wait that long. I need to charter a flight to Albuquerque right away!”
The woman behind the desk at SLO Flight Service at San Luis Obispo County Airport shrugged and scratched her bare arm. No sympathy for my predicament there. “Sorry. All our people’re gone till then.”
I closed my eyes and refigured the driving time to LAX. It came out the same as before: nearly three hours if traffic cooperated, and you knew damn sure it wouldn’t. And even if a miracle happened, I’d arrive hours after the next Albuquerque-bound flight left, and hours before the one after that was due to depart.
I must’ve looked pretty pathetic because the woman said, “I’ve got an idea. My boyfriend, he just bought this Cessna One-fifty-two, and—”
“No way!” I pictured something tiny with wings, falling fast over the Santa Monica Mountains. Besides, a plane like that would take forever and a day to get to New Mexico.
“Suit yourself.” The woman turned her back on me.
She’d given me an idea of my own, though. I went outside and made for the pay phone I’d spotted on the way in. Dug out my calling card and punched in RKI’s La Jolla number. Asked the operator for Dan Kessell.
“Sorry, he’s not available at the moment. Can someone else help you?”
Not likely. “This is an emergency.”
“Who’s calling, please?”
I told him and as an afterthought gave him the security code Ricky had jotted down in my notebook in case I needed help from RKI.
“One minute, please.”
In half that time a deep, growly voice came on the line. “This is Kessell. How may I help you, Ms. Kelleher?”
“I’m in San Luis Obispo working a lead on the Savage investigation. Turns out I need to get to Albuquerque as soon as possible, but there’s nothing direct from here, and I can’t charter a flight till tonight. Is it possible you could have one of your planes fly me down there?”
“Let me check on availability.” He put me on hold, came back a few minutes later. “You’re in luck, Ms. Kelleher. One of our jets is about to drop a passenger at Santa Barbara. It can pick you up in less than thirty minutes. Pilot says the flight time to Albuquerque will be around two hours and ten minutes. Does that suit you?”
Two hours and forty minutes, give or take a few. Half an hour at most to get a rental car. Say, another half to find Parkview Convalescent Home, where the Central Coast Independent Truckers Association sent Veronica Keel a small monthly check from their disability fund. And if I was lucky, another hour or so to interview her and learn her sister’s present whereabouts. Four hours and forty minutes—maybe less. By then it would be a little after nine, given the hour’s time difference, and Ricky wouldn’t yet have taken the stage. If Patricia Terriss was anywhere near Albuquerque, I’d be able to alert Hy and his security people in time.
“That suits me fine, Mr. Kessell,” I said. “Thank you.”
Funny about Keel having been in Albuquerque since shortly after her accident. The woman I’d talked with at the truckers’ association hadn’t known her, didn’t know why she’d chosen a convalescent home there. Not that it mattered to me. The poor woman had done me a favor; tonight I’d be with Ricky again.
Less than thirty minutes, Kessell had said. I needed to tell Hertz where they could find their car. Screw Hertz. I’d notify them later, if there was time. Right now I wanted to talk to Ricky.
Mr. Savage had already left for the fairgrounds, the desk at the Hyatt told me. Did I wish to leave a voice-mail message?
I did—even though he probably wouldn’t hear it till we were together. All I said was, “I love you.” I’d never told him so, and if I was going to fly I wanted it on record, just in case.
I suppose I should’ve bitten the bullet and called his cell phone, but sure as hell Shar still had it, and I didn’t want to fight with her or—worse yet—have her order me home to San Francisco. When this was all over I was going to take up a collection around the office—or maybe pilfer from petty cash—and buy her her own cellular unit. That way she wouldn’t always be borrowing other people’s toys. The woman had caved in and bought a car phone and a pager. Why, for God’s sake, wouldn’t she—
But I knew the answer. Any more gadgets would tie her dow
n, take away a chunk of her independence. Shar pretends to be technologically incompetent, but she’s actually as adept as the rest of us—and twice as stubborn.
For a moment I toyed with the idea of calling Hy’s cellular, but decided against it since, with my luck, Shar would probably be standing right next to him. I could try Kurt at the hotel, but I wasn’t sure I could trust him to pass on a message. But what about the fairgrounds office? They could page Ricky.
No, that would be a mistake. He was running his sound checks, totally focused on the concert. No one was allowed to interrupt him then—not even me.
In the end I did the noble thing and called Hertz. Then I sat down on a bench in the shade and prepared to risk my life in the unfriendly skies.
Twenty-six
6:03 P.M., MDT
“What the hell?” Virgil Rattray demanded. “His majesty can’t go back to the hotel and have room service like the rest of us?”
“Just send somebody out for the food and have it here by seven,” I said through tight lips.
“Jee-sus! This kid-glove treatment makes me want to puke.”
“Just do it, Rats.”
“Yeah, yeah. But I’ll tell you… First he shows up early for his sound checks and throws everybody else’s schedule off. Then he sulks around in his dressing room and won’t let anybody in to see him. Now he wants a catered supper. That woman of his better show soon and take up some of the slack for me.”
I frowned.
“What, now I’m not supposed to mention her? Hell, everybody knows he’s misplaced her and is all bent out of shape. If I could get the kind of women Rick does, I’d sure as shit keep better track of them.”
Rattray started down the curving corridor, away from Ricky’s dressing room, but I went after him and grabbed his arm. He yanked it free, fury honing his features. “What the hell do you want now?”
“To talk some more about Patricia Terriss.”
His little eyes darted nervously over my shoulder and he licked his lips. “You tell Rick about me giving her those numbers?”
“No.”
“You going to?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
I ignored the question. “Did Patricia ever mention a sister named Veronica Keel, who lives in Paso Robles?”
“… Uh, she mentioned a stepsister. She was older, and they weren’t close.”
“What did she say about her?”
“Well, the sister’d had a bad accident before I got to know Patricia. Was in a nursing home, paralyzed. Patricia felt guilty about not going to see her—I guess the sister had helped her out when she was having a hard time with her dad—but she couldn’t deal with seeing her like that and, besides, she was afraid she might run into their father.”
“What was the problem with the father?”
Rattray shrugged. “He was an asshole, I guess.”
Typical Rats-style assessment. “Do you know his name or where he lives?”
“Uh-uh.”
“Or anything else about him? Or the stepsister? Or their mother?”
“Nope.”
“Anything else at all?”
“I told you everything about Patricia that I remember. Now, are you gonna keep quiet about what I did?”
“For now.”
“Jee-sus!” He whirled and strode angrily down the corridor. When he reached its end, he turned and pointed his finger at me. “You tell his majesty anything, it better be that I’m ordering his goddamn supper!”
With Rats’s departure, the corridor suddenly became very quiet. The band had gone back to the Hyatt, and Blue Arkansas were having dinner at a nearby restaurant. They were a friendly, shaggy bunch—high-spirited when they’d stumbled off their big customized bus earlier, after an all-night breakneck ride across the desert. They’d be hard pressed to make Dallas in time for tomorrow night’s concert, their lead singer had confided, but when you were traveling on a near maxed-out credit card, you learned to make sacrifices. Ricky had shown up right then, getting out of a limo, and as the band greeted him with shy deference, I couldn’t help but contrast the weary cynicism my brother-in-law often displayed with his younger colleagues’ seemingly boundless enthusiasm. I’d begun to suspect that, in the music business, the becoming was a lot more fun than the being.
Now I stepped back to the wall and leaned against its cool concrete, listening to the silence. All I heard was the hum of a distant generator and the whine of the neon tubes above my head. The coliseum was in readiness; everyone had taken a break except security.
Calm before the storm? Maybe.
After a few minutes I took Ricky’s cellular unit from my bag and dialed Jenny Gordon’s number in Austin. Her answering machine gave a pager number this time, so I redialed. Within five minutes Jenny got back to me.
“I’m in Nashville,” she said, “staking out that Tod Dodson’s apartment house. Got a good description of him and his car from the manager. So far he’s a no-show.”
“The manager tell you anything about him?”
“He’s a good tenant, pays his rent on time, works as a session musician around town. Has a couple of women friends, one that might or might not be Terriss.”
And if she was, what were the chances that Dodson was with her—either in Austin, Dallas, or here in Albuquerque?
“Well, thanks, Jenny. Let me know when you’ve got something.”
I hung up and contemplated the silence once more. Then I went past the guards near Ricky’s dressing room and stuck my head through the door. He sat in an armchair, his feet propped on a low table, holding this week’s issue of Billboard on his lap and staring into space.
“Rats is ordering your dinner,” I said.
“You didn’t have to ask him to do that.”
“You’ve got to eat.”
“I’m not all that hungry. Can I have my cellular for a minute? I want to check my voice mail.”
I handed it to him, sat on the table while he called the hotel. As he listened, his eyes grew brighter and his lips curved in surprised pleasure. He pressed a button to replay the message, then hung up and silently handed the unit back to me.
“She called?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What did she say?”
“That’s private, Sister Sharon.”
“Well, when did she call? Where is she?”
“Four twenty-five. And I don’t know.”
“But you think she’s all right?”
“She sounded all right, and she wouldn’t’ve said what she did if she wasn’t.”
Mystified and somewhat relieved, I nodded and left him to contemplate whatever Rae had put on the tape that so pleased him.
The corridor was still silent. Calm before the storm, I thought again. And seconds later the thought proved true. Loud voices came from the entrance—Kurt Girdwood’s familiar bellow and the softer, southern-accented tones of Ethan Amory.
“I tell you, Ethan, they’re not letting anybody in to see him—even me. Christ knows what he’s doing for hand-holding; the redhead’s disappeared and the sister-in-law doesn’t strike me as having much on the ball in the TLC department.”
“The sister-in-law is a pain in the ass and a dangerous influence—” Amory stopped both talking and walking when he spotted me.
I started toward them. “Speak of the devil,” I said with a smile. “You come here to cover your ass, Amory?”
Girdwood frowned and shot the attorney a puzzled look.
Amory ran his fingers through his hair. “Ms. McCone, I need to see my client. Something important’s come up—”
“I’ll be glad to relay a message.”
“Sorry, it’s confidential.” He attempted to brush past me.
I grabbed his arm, pushed him back. “I wouldn’t do that. There’re two guards outside his door—armed guards.”
Amory flushed angrily. “Who gave the orders that nobody gets in to see him?”
“Ricky himself.”
“Why not? His own team sees nothing wrong with turning on him.”
Girdwood asked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I think you know. And I’m sure Ethan does.”
Again the manager gave Amory a puzzled look.
I added, “I suggest you two leave now. Go someplace and swap stories about the different ways you’ve tried to screw my brother-in-law. Just don’t bother him—or me.”
They exchanged wary looks, each wondering what dirt I’d dug up on the other. Without further comment or protest, they went out the way they’d come in. I watched their retreating backs thoughtfully. While Amory’s sudden appearance here didn’t necessarily add to the risk factor, he was one more person to contend with. Why hadn’t he stayed put in Los Angeles—
“Son of a bitch!”
Rattray’s outraged voice came from the second dressing room. I went down there, looked inside, and found him kneeling over a metal suitcase crammed full of diagrams, notebooks, tools, and clothing. “Goddamned son of a bitch!” he yelled again.
“What now?”
He twisted around violently, almost falling over. “Somebody’s been in my case!”
“You mean that suitcase?”
“What the hell else would I mean, you fool? Yes, my case, where I keep all the shit I need to get through these fuckin’ tours! Somebody’s been in it.”
“Well, was anything taken?”
“… Not that I noticed.” He glanced at it, then slammed its lid and snapped the catches. “But that’s not the point. Everybody knows that case is off limits. And it’s the second time this has happened.”
“When was the first?”
“This afternoon before I left the hotel. I set it down in the lobby and went over to the desk to deal with some screw-up about the drum tech’s room. When I went back the seal was broken.”
“What seal?”
“I always stick a piece of tape on it so I’ll know if anybody’s messed with it. The tape was laying on the floor.”
I’d begun to wonder if the members of our group—myself included—might have cornered the market on paranoia. This more or less proved it. “Maybe the tape just fell off, Rats.”
The Broken Promise Land Page 29