We Are Toten Herzen

by C Harrison

  Part one was a single door, dwarfed by the scale of the building. Wallet pressed an intercom button and was soon talking to Elaine. "It's us."

  "Who?"

  "Tom and Rob."

  The door buzzed and opened. Part two was a small reception room, unadorned, undecorated, in possession of nothing more than white walls, a single strip light and a window covered by blinds. At the other side of the room was another door with another intercom. Wallet pressed the button again. Elaine answered.

  "Yes?"

  "What do you mean yes, it's us again. Are we gonna get frisked at some point?"

  "You'll be lucky." The door buzzed and clicked open. This time the room on the other side was a cavernous space, a chilly rectangular cave with some kind of structure filling the opposite end of it. A few weak lights hung from distant roof supports and were utterly unable to reveal any information other than where the misty darkness met the definite blackness of the warehouse walls. Elaine was stood a few metres away at a large console; the sound and lighting desk of the stage which was still dormant. Small figures, maybe three or four, stood together in a small cluster, talking, conspiring, plotting. The stage appeared to have two long ramps extending left and right down each side of the warehouse. Wallet's eyesight was keen, sharp enough to spot individual specks of dust on a pavement, but he was still adapting to the low light level of the cave when Elaine's voice thundered through the sound system.

  "We have guests."

  The warehouse lights extinguished and Wallet and Scavinio were pitched into a momentary deprivation of all awareness. The silence was unnerving, Scavinio was gently clearing his throat, the quiet rustle of his shirt giving him away in the darkness. "Good evening ladies and gentlemen," Susan Bekker's voice filled the warehouse, a slight reverb accentuating the scale of the invisible surroundings; she sounded like a goddess, a voice from on high, a visitation. "Welcome to our world."

  The lights exploded, the stage awoke and the warehouse was no longer a vast cavern of empty space but an internal kaleidoscope of dazzling stalactites, a brilliant lattice of red, blue, yellow, subtle pale green, then white, then blue then . . . name a colour, it appeared, slowly, gently. Wallet felt like his head was inside out, his vision so attuned to colour, colour that glowed with an intensity he still had trouble comprehending. He stepped away from Scavinio, leaving him to make sense of his own environment. Wallet walked towards the vision. Blue vertical lines either side of a central crown of shifting luminosity. But the big statement was still to come. As the searchlights swept the floor of the warehouse, looking for the crowd, for the audience to come, the back of the stage erupted. Falling at an angle was the Toten Herzen crest, the daggerlike logo of the T through the H, missiles of red and gold beams of light writhing outwards until their energy grew too high and the whole construct burst into flames. The roof trusses of the warehouse suddenly appeared in terror, the heat blasted Wallet's face, then the furnace settled and the flames were replaced by a glow from hidden lamps positioned somewhere around the crest. The lower tip of the T was swollen to form the main centre stage area, glowing like an alien landing site, whilst the lower limbs of the H levelled and surged outwards, runway lights along the length of them, firing upwards and rotating, first vertically, then horizontally.

  Wallet stood for a moment washed in the pyrotechnics and the dancing colours. "You clever bastards," he whispered to himself. "Oh, you fucking clever bastards."

  The light reached out to embrace every corner of the building, the structure of the stage silhouetted by brilliant gossamer and veils of sensitive pastel hues floating and drifting. The PA system hung down from the roof like giant fangs then without warning spoke out, screamed out, shuddered with low end feedback before roaring the powerchords of Susan's Flying V. She was picked out by a pulsating network of lights, a shadow, standing upright, nothing more than a black form with the distinguished pose of human playing guitar. Wallet's spine bristled as the music, the noise, the bellow of an electric guitar unstoppable through one hundred thousand watts of amplification simultaneously pinned him to the ground and lifted him off his feet, stretching his body in every direction. He wanted this moment to go on forever, just him, the lights, Susan's sound and fury, this experience, this sensation. But it didn't last forever, she played a wrong note, cursed and stopped playing. Then her giggling burst through the PA and the stage turned white.

  "What do you think, mere mortals?" said Dee walking down one of the runways. Neither Scavinio nor Wallet had an immediate answer apart from silence, the best anyone was going to get for a few minutes at least. "I hope we're getting this on film," she continued, "Rob Wallet speechless."

  Stage left, Marco and Rene were still talking, then joined by Susan all three of them came forward eager for a reaction from the outsiders. Scavinio was finally able to speak. "So, this is it? The stage? The Plan?"

  "This is part of it," said Dee.

  "Part of it?" Scavinio looked around to see if there was another hidden bit lurking in a dark cranny somewhere.

  Dee sat on the edge of the runway, legs hanging over the side. She had a battered pile of paper, scraggy pages bound along one side. Scavinio and Wallet took a closer look. It was old paper, dog eared paper, faded and worn, like an old report released from some secret vault. Dee thumbed her way through it; page after page of drawings, technical drawings, engineering drawings, lighting plans, electrical wiring diagrams, cross sections, thumbnail sketches, colour renderings. Wallet recognised low resolution, low quality, early computer images created in software packages that were long obsolete. He was peering backwards in time to some early ambition and he wondered what its origins were, when was this plan devised? How long had it been mouldering in the background?

  "How did all this come together?" Scavinio may have had a few hunches, but no details.

  "Stage has been here a couple of months," said Marco. "Design was created," he scanned the roof of the warehouse, "1994."

  "What?" Scavinio was astonished. "You mean to tell me you were in New York and this thing was being built?"

  There was another one of those innocent silences that the band were so good at. Hard to imagine the sixty year old minds inside the twenty year old bodies. Wallet struggled to figure out if this was the swagger of youth or the mischief of age. Either way they had Scavinio on the ropes. Wallet took the document off Dee and flicked to the front. There was introductory text. "It's like some kind of manifesto," he said. "Stage one: Putting together the team. Stage two: The music. Stage three: Public relations; Stage four: The business plan. Stage five. . . . Fucking hell!"

  "What?" Scavinio checked it for himself. "Stage five: The enemy!" He had five determined expressions answering him "The enemy?" He took the document and read the section summary. "Whoever you are, whatever you are, we will find you and we will stop you. And no one will ever know. Jesus Christ, what does that mean?"

  "Figure it out, Tom," said Susan. "When you've put up with all the shit that we've been given you draw a line. Anyone who steps over that line will find themselves on a slab."

  Scavinio wanted an explanation from Wallet, but all this was news to him too. "I think we all know what that looks like. Is this one of those moments in the film where you say if you want to get out leave now?"

  "Possibly," said Susan. "But I know Rob's going nowhere. What about it, Tom?"

  "Sorry if it all sounds a bit blunt," said Dee, "but try to imagine the freedom you're gonna have working with us." She was convincing. "No one telling you what to do, no one bothering you about the bottom line, no shit from the accountants, no crap from the legal team, no fallout from the sponsors. Just you, us and music. How it should be. On our terms."

  Scavinio was upset. He turned away from the group and took a few steps towards some comforting thought. The band waited for him, allowed him some time. Finally he turned back.

  "It just seems so aggressive, so upfront."

  "Come on, Tom," said Marco. "You must have dealt with corp
orate contracts. There's no difference other than the language. The band are stating their position."

  Scavinio reread the summaries of the other sections.

  Stage One - The Team

  We'll gather a team of people who know their job inside out. There will be no gurus, no svengalis, no megalomaniacs, no jacks-of-all-trades. No weirdos, eccentrics, madmen, parasites, freeloaders or liars. Above all is trust.

  Stage Two - The Music

  We'll play the music we like, not what people want or expect. We'll play it the way we want to play it (and if that means opera, we'll play opera).

  Stage Three - Public Relations

  Publicity can take care of itself. If you criticise, be prepared to stand by your words. There'll be no artificial image, no focus groups, or market surveys. We are what we are, not what you think you see.

  Stage Four - The Business Plan

  There'll be no modern industry tactics. No tie ins, no sponsorship deals. Everything will be done in house, with no middle men or third parties. All sales, music, concerts, merchandise goes through us, our company, our world.

  Stage Five - The Enemy

  Whoever you are, whatever you are, we will find you and we will stop you. And no one will ever know.

  "You should be pleased we chose you," said Elaine. "Rob was unavoidable, but you were special."

  Wallet nodded. "Takes a while to get used to them, but once you've got through their cold hard exteriors they're just a bunch of pussycats really. Even Rene."

  Scavinio wasn't quite ready to smile, but how could he walk away from this. This control, this level of commitment, this desire to do the right thing. No ego, no greed, no posturing. It should be the easiest job he ever had, but still there was that one not so insignificant detail he couldn't pass by. He gazed across the floor of the warehouse at the enormity of the situation; the enormity of the space, the enormity of this ridiculous stage. Fifteen minutes ago he wouldn't have been sure just how big this band was, how serious they were about the comeback. Now he knew. The answer though wasn't the lights and the sound system, it wasn't even the document, it was the forty years of pain and disappointment encapsulated in that one short paragraph. Wallet understood where it came from; it came from the street where Susan lived, the school she went to, the crappy bars and slums they gigged in, the falling apart Commer van and the lay-by in Suffolk. It came from the photoshoot and the rabies jabs and the financial hoodwinking and stealing of publishing rights. And it came from the trickery, the conspiracy that almost had them murdered. Kill or be killed, that was the rule now. Take it or leave it, but ignore it if you dare. That's where Stage Five came from.

  Scavinio took a deep breath. "Well, I guess I'd rather be on the inside than the outside. Sounds a little safer."

  Susan smiled, one of her big beamers that left you in no doubt what she was. Wallet had felt those teeth in his shoulder, had experienced that mouth sinking deeper and deeper into his flesh, the touch and smell of her hair as her head burrowed into him. And no matter how agonising it was, no matter how exquisite that pain had been searing through his body like a scalding hot blade, he always promised himself he'd one day feel it again. But for now she belonged to someone else. Someone who wasn't going to live forever. Wallet could wait.

  31 (August)

  Another brown envelope sat on the mat behind the front door of Terence Pearl's mid terrace cottage. It stood out amongst the junk mail, pizza leaflets and a plastic charity bag. The neighbour selling Avon had left yet another catalogue and wasn't picking up the message that Pearl bought his soap and shampoo from Tesco. He scooped up the pile, checked the brown envelope's return address (HM Revenue and Customs) - they're after me now, he thought - and went into the kitchen. He was moments away from a repeat of Nigel Slater's suggestions for cheap and tasty suppers and the table was laid out with raw ingredients like a medieval media luvvie's banquet. An old block of parmesan which cost a fortune when he bought it four months ago sat rancid next to a plate of chorizo; plum tomatoes and radish added an edgy touch of crimson as they waited for Slater's subtle magic touch. And on he came, bespectacled and swirly of handwriting, he launched into an impassioned insistence that suppers don't have to be intricate. He then went on to name so many ingredients Pearl had lost count and the plot within seconds. And then the phone rang. "Oh, for heaven's sake!" He threw a half chopped red pepper back into a bowl and headed into the hallway still carrying his fish knife.

  "Hello, Terence Pearl."

  "Pretty far out article this time, Terence."

  "Did you like it? Surprising what the numbers come to if you keep at it hard enough."

  "What's the reaction been?"

  "The usual mix," said Pearl carrying the phone back into the kitchen. "Half the readers think I've really lost it this time, some have corrected the figures, others couldn't believe I'd managed to arrive at May 1st. One or two nervous jitters already."

  "Well that's all well and good, but have they reacted?"

  Pearl noticed Slater was weighing a bag of wholemeal flour. "Afraid not," he said. "I don't know what's going to provoke a response."

  "Well don't stop trying. I keep telling you to make contact directly with them. Have you done that yet?"

  "No. No, sorry. . . ."

  "Well why not? I could say they don't bite, but they obviously do."

  "I don't know their contact details. You can't just pick up the phone book. There isn't a vampire section in the Yellow Pages, you know." Slater was coating his steak with a spice mix so thick it looked like a flintstone wall.

  "They're on Twitter!"

  "Are they?" said Pearl.

  "You mean you've never looked?"

  "I suppose not, no. I'll do it today. I'll have a good search through all the social media sites and get something to them." He looked around for sesame oil. (Seasoning the pan with lard would be a last resort!)

  "Next forty eight hours, Terence. This has gone on long enough. There could be announcements any day now and if we're not part of those plans then all of this will have been for nothing."

  "I know, I know," said Pearl. "I'll step it up now. They may not have been in touch, but there have been newspaper reactions to the essay. They're bound to be aware of those. Call me again tomorrow and I promise I'll have news for you."

  "I hope so. This has got to work, I'm relying on you. I'm sorry if I sound harsh, I don't mean to be. You know as well as I do I can't do this myself and I am grateful, but if at any point you feel you can't do what I'm asking you must tell me so that I can find someone else."

  "I understand. I'll try my best. Oh, for heaven's sake."

  "Sorry?"

  "Can someone ask Nigel Slater why anyone would just happen to have leftover saffron? And why the hell doesn't he sit down when he eats?"

  "I'll leave you to it, Terence. Bye."

  "Okay, bye."

  Twitter? Toten Herzen on Twitter. Pearl was unsure how that would look, but he made a mental note to head there straight after Slater had finished caramelising a rack of lamb ribs.