by AnonYMous
‘Hi, I’m Emily. I just wanted to say I thought you were great,’ she said. ‘Really strong vocals and your dance moves were so-o-o cool. Are they off the cuff? Or do you rehearse a lot?’
Elvis shrugged nonchalantly. ‘All improvised,’ he said.
‘Well, you know who really thinks you’re cool?’ Emily said, tapping his arm again.
‘Who?’ On the whole, Elvis believed that everyone thought he was cool. On the whole he was right, too.
‘Janis Joplin,’ she whispered.
‘Huh?’
‘I think she kinda likes you.’
‘Yeah? Where is she?’
‘Backstage. Why don’t you go back and say hi?’
‘You kiddin’ me?’
Emily laughed. ‘No, but she’s kinda nervous about approaching you herself. Because, well, you know, she’s got that problem.’
‘What problem?’
‘The Tourette’s. She’s not great at meeting new people. She even called me a – ’ Emily blushed ‘ – an extremely unladylike word when I congratulated her on her performance.’
‘Oh yeah. That. Actually, I kinda like a woman with a dirty mouth.’ Behind them, they heard Freddie Mercury begin belting out an impressive rendition of the Queen song ‘Who Wants To Live Forever?’
‘Cool,’ said Emily. ‘Why don’t I introduce you?’
‘Sure thing. Bring her up here.’
Emily disappeared backstage and left Elvis alone to watch the guy impersonating the late lead singer of Queen. By the time he had finished his performance and was standing before the judges, Emily had returned with a rather nervous-looking Janis Joplin. Elvis liked the look of Janis. She was kinda kooky and despite seeming rather timid, he knew that once she opened her mouth she was liable to start spouting all kinds of filth. Just his kind of chick.
‘Hi again, Elvis,’ said Emily smiling. ‘What’s your real name, by the way?’
‘Elvis.’
‘Wow. That’s sort of handy, isn’t it?’
‘Guess so.’ There was no doubt: the man oozed nonchalant cool.
‘Well. I’d like to introduce you to my friend, Janis Joplin.’
Elvis could see that Janis was extremely nervous about meeting him. But being as confident with women as he was in everything else, he reached out and took hold of her left hand. He lifted it to his mouth and gently kissed the back of it.
‘Pleased ta meetcha, Janis. What’s your real name?’
‘CUNT!’ yelled Janis.
Elvis frowned. ‘That’s kinda misfortunate. What were your folks thinkin’ when they came up with that?’
‘No no, sorry,’ Janis stammered. ‘My real name is Janis. I didn’t mean the… the – that. It’s just a nervous reaction I have.’
‘Well, I’m mighty pleased to meetcha,’ said Elvis, looking her right in the eye.
‘Pleased to meet ya too, SHITHEAD!’
Emily intervened in the blossoming courtship. ‘Ssshhh,’ she whispered. ‘The judging panel’s giving Freddie Mercury his comments.’
All three judges gave Freddie the thumbs up, Powell even going so far as to tell him he’d been the best performer so far.
‘Wow,’ said Emily thoughtfully. ‘They really liked him, didn’t they?’
Elvis looked at her. It occurred to him that she was a sweet, innocent and extremely pleasant young woman. Not his type, of course – Janis Joplin and her foul mouth were more his kind of thing – but he couldn’t help feeling glad that Emily had made it to the final and had not been assassinated by Gabriel. Not yet, anyway.
‘Y’know somethin’, Emily?’ he said. ‘You’re all right.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, flustered by his sudden compliment.
‘WHORE!’ yelled Janis, immediately following it with a quiet ‘Sorry.’
Elvis smirked. Janis was a real laugh. Definitely his kind of girl. He continued to look at Emily for a few seconds, however, because he didn’t want Janis to see that he was finding her affliction amusing. Once more he turned on the charm. ‘Well, Emily, much as me an’ Janis here were both excellent, an’ ol’ Freddie Mercury seems to’ve done okay, I still reckon you’ll walk away with it. If you’re as good as everyone says, then you’ll clean up.’
Emily smiled her appreciation, then rubbed her forehead. ‘Thanks. I’ve a splitting headache, though.’
Janis reached out and touched the other girl’s forehead. ‘Shit! You’ve got a fuckin’ big lump there. What happened?’ she asked.
‘If you must know, I had my head smashed repeatedly on the floor of my hotel room by a guy who tried to kill me.’
Elvis felt a cold shiver run down his spine. So Gabriel had tried to off her?
‘How’d it happen?’ he asked.
‘This big shaven-headed biker guy tried to kill me, but before he could finish the job another guy came to my rescue and shot him dead. To be honest, I’m still kind of dazed about it all, and not just from having my head beaten against the floor.’
‘Oh.’ Elvis’s deeply non-committal response concealed his confusion at this latest turn of events. So Gabriel was dead and Sanchez was missing. Elvis had some thinking to do. What was going on? And as he rubbed his hand on Janis Joplin’s ass, another question struck him. Was ol’ Janis wearin’ any panties?
As Elvis was pondering the answers to all of these important questions, Freddie Mercury bounded off the stage and came over to join them. There was a broad smile across his face, as he was unable to hide the excitement he wanted to share with them.
‘Wow, did ya hear that?’ he asked them. ‘They said I was the best so far!’
‘Good for you. Congratulations,’ said Emily.
‘FUCKBAG!’ yelled Janis.
‘She thinks you’re good, too,’ Elvis said in Janis’s defence.
‘Thanks.’ said Freddie. ‘Who’s up next, anyway?’
Elvis looked around. ‘S’posed to be that Blues Brother guy. Can’t see him nowhere, though.
He looked thoughtfully at Emily for a moment, before adding softly, ‘Maybe he’s gone missin’, too?’
Forty-Seven
Invincible Angus’s eyes scoured the kitchen. The place was a mess, as though it had been abandoned by staff caught out by a fire drill. Metal tables on castors were scattered around, kitchen utensils littering the work surfaces. Remains of food, sauces and flour covered everything. There were tall steel trolleys with trays on them scattered around too. And a smell like something had died in there permeated everything, although it was more likely to be rotten meat.
The state of the kitchen was unimportant, however. Foremost in Angus’s thoughts was finding out where that weasel Sanchez was hiding. All he needed to do was stand still for a moment, look around and listen. With any luck, an answer to the question of Sanchez’s whereabouts would soon present itself.
And it did.
In the near corner thirty feet or so in front of him, Angus could see a large metal door that looked as though it led into a walk-in fridge or freezer. He’d ignored it on his first scout around the room, assuming that Sanchez wouldn’t be stupid enough to hide in such an obvious dead end. But as he thought back to how the fat little bastard had knocked himself out when trying to fire a handgun earlier in the day, it made perfect sense. Sanchez was a buffoon, and undoubtedly dumb enough to hide in a room with only one way in or out.
It was then that Angus noticed the clinching evidence. On the floor outside the metal door was a small pool of blood. Closer inspection showed that a trail of it led from the door through which he had entered from the bar. He must have winged Sanchez with the bullet he’d fired through the glass door into the lobby. The trail led all the way from the bar door to the pool outside the metal door, where it came to an abrupt end.
Shame it’s so easy, he thought with a grin.
Soft-footed, Angus followed the trail of blood, doing his best not to be heard. He stopped outside the door and leaned up against it with his ear pressed to the cold metal. There
was no sound from within. He reached over to the large metal handle and slowly pulled at it. It was spring-loaded and flicked up in his hand, permitting the door to open slightly. He became even more cautious, for there was a possibility that Sanchez might now be armed. Very slowly, while standing back out of harm’s way, he grabbed the handle and pulled the door open.
No one charged out. He cocked his head, listening. Still nothing. He carefully stepped round the open door and stood just inside the entrance, pointing his gun into what was clearly, from its temperature, a walk-in freezer.
There was a light mist inside the cold store that made it difficult to see clearly, but he could make out three ceiling-high racks of shelves containing boxes and bags full of food and separated by aisles. Condensation was running down the walls and the whole place had an uncomfortably damp, clinging feel to it. There were also a few pig carcasses hanging from the ceiling. No sign of Sanchez, though. Angus took a look along the floor and saw that the trail of blood continued. It led round to the aisle on the far left. That was to be expected, as it was the part of the freezer farthest from the door.
He walked slowly over to the left-hand rack and peered around it. There was a long row of headless pig carcasses hanging from the ceiling. The trail of blood on the floor continued past them. It occurred to Angus that there was something a little odd about this trail of blood. It didn’t look like it had dripped to the floor from someone running or walking. It was smeared across the floor in an unbroken line, as if Sanchez had been crawling along the floor on his stomach. Angus stepped carefully round the first butchered pig, his finger taking up first pressure on the trigger of his gun. The smell in this particular part of the freezer was especially repugnant. Rotten meat that had no doubt been kept for too long, although it had to be pretty bad to overcome the effect of freezing. Either that, or Sanchez was in there and had shit his pants.
The aisle was no more than twenty feet long. Sanchez didn’t seem to be anywhere in sight. Still checking all round him for a potential ambush, Angus followed the trail of blood until it came to a sudden stop a few feet from the end of the aisle. He stopped and looked around. For the trail to have ended, Sanchez must have climbed. The shelves on either side of the aisle were stacked high with boxes. Against the wall in the far corner, jutting out from behind the last box on the bottom shelf, was exactly what Angus was looking for. A pair of highly polished slip-on shoes poked out. As he crept closer he realized that the owner’s feet were still in the shoes.
He stepped around the last pig carcass and jumped out in front of the shoes, his gun aimed and ready to fire. What he was faced with was not at all what he had been expecting. He lowered his pistol, frowning, completely nonplussed by what he saw. The owner of the shoes was a man, but this guy was already dead. And half-frozen, too. It wasn’t Sanchez. So who the fuck was it? There was frozen blood all over the man’s face and neck. The blood stopped when it reached a red and black neckerchief below his chin. Angus reached inside the man’s grey suit jacket and found a driver’s licence. He pulled it out and peered closely at it through the cold mist. The photo of the owner matched the bloody, messed-up face of the corpse.
‘Just who the fuck is Jonah Clementine?’ Angus whispered aloud.
He had barely finished asking himself the question when the freezer door slammed shut behind him.
Shit! Sanchez!
Sanchez had been cowering for his life beneath one of the wheeled metal tables in the kitchen. He had found one that had a white tablecloth overhanging all four sides almost to the floor, and had crept underneath it. To his relief the cloth covered everything, bar his feet. Even they would only be seen if someone were to lean down to take a closer look.
It had come as an almighty relief to him when Angus finally succumbed to his hunch and followed the streaks of blood on the floor into the walk-in freezer. For a few terrifying moments Sanchez had been unsure what the vengeful hitman was going to do. He was not a clever man, and had certainly never been described as cunning. Sneaky, yes. Devious and untruthful, certainly. Weaselly, most definitely. But cunning? Hell, no.
He had seen the trail of blood and had gambled on Angus following it into the freezer. Finally, one of his gambles had paid off. When his life was on the line, Sanchez’s ability to weasel out of just about anything took on levels of genius reserved only for the likes of Einstein. Naturally, his moments of genius were usually followed by an overwhelming sense of smugness and a powerful desire to gloat, which, as history had proved on many occasions before, were virtually always followed by some sort of comeuppance. It was a lesson he had signally failed to learn over the years.
Crawling out from his hiding place, he tiptoed over to the freezer door and slammed it shut. During his long and undistinguished career on the fringes of the catering industry, Sanchez had often come across this type of walk-in freezer, and he knew that, for some reason, they could never be opened from the inside. Quite why, he had no idea. Maybe it was in case the food came to life at night and tried to escape? Who knew? Either way, it was something for which he was profoundly grateful. From behind the door he heard Angus’s voice utter a single word.
‘Fuck!’
Sanchez shouted triumphantly back through the metal door. ‘Have an ice time in there, loser!’
At once the muted voice of the trapped killer yelled back, ‘You’re fuckin’ dead, dirtbag!’
‘Hey man, chill out!’ Unable to rein back on either his gloating or his lame jokes, Sanchez launched into a hip-swivelling dance normally reserved for the privacy of his own home. He incorporated some face-pulling at the freezer door into his dance moves, revelling in the fact that he’d outwitted a world-famous hitman. He couldn’t help himself, his celebration reaching new heights of smugness and self-congratulation because he knew that Angus was on the other side of a locked steel door, and could do nothing about it.
BANG!
Sanchez saw a spark fly from the door handle and heard a small click. On the other side of the door, Angus was shooting at the lock.
Fuck!
The triumphalist dance came to an abrupt end. Sanchez wisely took to his heels and ran for his life.
Forty-Eight
Jacko was backstage, taking deep breaths in readiness for his imminent performance of ‘Mustang Sally’. He was wearing the Bourbon Kid’s dark sunglasses, the Frank Sinatra impersonator’s hat, and a suit that had belonged to someone who was probably dead. He was alone in the backstage area now. Everyone else had moved off to better positions in order to watch the finalists perform. With the seconds ticking down before he was due onstage, the Bourbon Kid finally reappeared through a door at the back of the room.
‘I was beginnin’ to think you’d gone home,’ said Jacko. The Kid walked up to him holding a smart black Fender guitar in his right hand.
‘Here,’ he grated, holding the instrument out. ‘Use this.’
Jacko took the guitar in both hands. ‘You’re kiddin’, right?’
‘You can play this in the final.’
‘But there ain’t no need. They got a karaoke track for me to sing along to this time. I don’t even need the harmonica.’
‘You ain’t singin’ “Mustang Sally” this time.’
‘Yeah I am.’
‘Try it. See how long ya live.’ The voice chipped at Jacko’s nerves like gravel on new paint. He stood the guitar up on the floor and allowed the neck to rest against his left leg to keep it from falling over. Then he took the sunglasses off and looked the Kid in the eye. ‘Like, I thought you wanted me to win this? I almost know half the words to “Mustang Sally”. Why’d I sing somethin’ different now? Shit, man, I’m due on in about a minute!’
‘I cancelled the karaoke track. You’re gonna play a guitar solo this time.’
Jacko tucked the sunglasses away in the breast pocket of his black suit jacket and picked the guitar up to take a good look at it.
‘This thing even tuned?’ he whined.
‘How the fuck wo
uld I know?’
Jacko grabbed the black strap on the guitar and lifted it over his head, allowing it to rest around his shoulders. Then he strummed a chord and began twiddling the machine heads on the headstock at the end of the neck.
‘See? You’re a goddam natural,’ said the Kid, patting him on the shoulder.
Jacko groaned. ‘This is, like, the worst plan ever, man.’
‘Maybe. But if it works out you’ll be signin’ your name on that winner’s contract later on.’
‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What if I lose?’
‘I’ll kill you.’
‘Right. No pressure, then?’
‘Put the shades on. You’re due on in a minute.’
Jacko pulled the sunglasses back out of his jacket pocket and slipped them on.
‘So, what am I gonna sing now? I already told the organizers I was doin’ “Mustang Sally” again.’
The Kid reached inside his jacket as if to pull out a gun. Only this time he drew out a CD. The Blues Brothers Greatest Hits. He held it up in front of Jacko’s face and pointed to the track listing on the back of the case.
‘Track three.’
Jacko ran his eyes down the listing, stopped at track number three, and slowly read what it said. Then he peered over his dark glasses at the Kid.
‘You sonofabitch.’
‘Yeah.’
Forty-Nine
Emily was itching to get out onstage and perform. Jacko was due up next, then her, and last of all would be James Brown for the finish. She felt confident that she could outperform the three singers who had already been up. Janis Joplin had been an out-and-out disaster. Elvis and Freddie Mercury had both been impressive, but if she was on form she was sure she would beat them. James Brown would no doubt be a danger to her chances of winning, though not necessarily because of his singing. The Godfather of Soul was super-bad and liable to pull a weapon on her. Not the kind of guy she wanted to bump into in a dark corridor. The unknown quantity was the Blues Brother, Jacko, now only seconds away from performing. In fact, Nina Forina was standing centre stage, ready to announce him.