by W E DeVore
“The Beasts are booked every weekend through the summer. Can’t we make it a little longer?”
“We can. We’re fine. The Cove can’t.” He kissed her. “Josh did his best while I was in jail and we were out of the country, but by the time I got back to it, the books were a mess. It took months to straighten it out. We’ll shut down for the summer. Hopefully, I can get a loan and we’ll reopen under another name. Try to keep my name out of it this time.” He gave her a sad smile. “It’s not closing the Cove, not really. That’s not what’s bothering me. It’s just a building. I can’t stand the way people look at me, darlin’. I can’t stand that people think I’d murder those women. It happens almost every damned day. Twice yesterday. Someone sees me and looks away or whispers something to the person next to them. I spent my whole life trying to be someone people could depend on and now people think I’d have it in me to beat a woman to death.”
She held him to her. “It’s going to be ok, Ben. We’ll figure it out. When we reopen, we’ll hire some P.R. and use it as an opportunity to tell everyone you’re innocent. You should have told me how bad things were. I didn’t know. We should have done something months ago.” Tom’s Jeep honked in the driveway and Q pulled back. “Hey, who’s playing Saturday?”
“No one. No one worth booking wants to get near me.”
“We’ll play, the Beasts and me,” she said. “Charlie was mad as hell when Tom booked us at Duke’s. The owner tried to stiff us the last time we played there. He’d rather play for free at the Cove just to prove a point, I know he would. And I’d rather play for free than risk Charlie pulling a gun on that dude again.”
Tom began honking incessantly.
“Go,” Ben said, smiling finally. “Thank you. I’d like the last Saturday we’re open to at least have some music.”
She kissed him and hopped off his lap. “Then music you shall have. I’m serious, Ben. We’ll figure it out.”
◆◆◆
Q cursed out loud and ran through a scale on the piano before standing up to stretch. Stanley walked in through the kitchen.
“Sorry, old man, I’m having a day.” She heard laughter in the courtyard and Charlie appeared in the doorway.
“Your timing is crap, Q,” he said. “That was terrible.”
She scowled at him. “Really, Charlie? I thought it sounded amazing, myself, being half a beat behind or ahead for the last twelve bars. It’s all the rage, haven’t you heard?”
Stanley sat down on the bench and played the part that Q was supposed to be recording. Four hands on a piano in two different passes. It was a cute idea, but without being able to watch her mentor’s fingers and feel his knee tapping against hers, it was hell trying to get into the groove.
Q began to pace. If she was being honest, the challenge wasn’t finding the pocket with Stanley, it was trying not to think about the fact that her husband’s world was crashing down around him and there was nothing she could do to stop it.
As Charlie continued to berate her, she tuned him out and stared at the rings on her left hand. Fingers snapped in her face and she looked up to find Charlie’s nose inches from hers.
“Are you even listening to me?” he asked.
She shook her head. “Nope. If I want a lecture about laying back in the pocket, I’ll ask JJ to do the honors, because he actually knows what that means, Mr. Centerstage.” She pushed him back. “Get out of my fucking face, Charlie. Let me talk to Stanley alone.”
“You’re a bitch, Clementine,” he said as he left the room.
“Takes one to know one, asshole,” she called after him.
Stanley laughed.
“You two should never sleep together,” he teased. “You’d end up killing each other.”
“No danger of that, old man. I swore off Keebler Elves years ago.” She yawned and sat down beside him on the bench. “I hate to do this to you, but we’re going to have to record this one together. It feels too unnatural. You have to scrap the part you recorded without us.”
“Yeah, I know. I was hoping it would work.” He leaned against her and grimaced. “I’m hurting bad today, young blood. I didn’t want to hold us up.”
She rested her head against his shoulder. “You and me both, Stanley.”
He kissed her forehead. “You want to tell me about it.”
“Ben’s going to have to close the Cove. Business has been way off since that crap last fall,” she explained. “Half the damn city still thinks he got away with murder. I don’t know how to help him.”
Stanley played a light melody on the piano. “What does he need?”
“I don’t know. People to stop staring at him like he’s a serial killer,” she said. “A show on Saturday. A really good one. A packed one. We’re going to play, but that’s not going to pack the Cove this time of year. I want him to have one really good night. Something to remind him that not everybody hates him. It’s really eating at him.”
Stanley nudged her with his elbow and she played along with his melody. He finally said, “I’ve got an idea that might solve both our problems.”
“What’s that, old man?” she asked, relaxing into the funky rhythm of a track they’d already recorded.
“This album’s starting to sound too much like me. It’s stale. It’s dying slow,” he said, laying back into the pocket they were creating. “Take this song. How would you have recorded it if it were yours?”
“Rock it up. Let Tommy go to town on drums, maybe let Charlie play guitar. Make it heavier. Dirtier. Sludgier,” she said, without even having to think about it, having already had this argument with her bandmates when they’d recorded it. But the Beasts had insisted that she keep her mouth shut, still very much in awe of being in the studio with Stanley Gerard.
Stanley laughed and stopped playing, turning to face her. “Had to think hard about that, didn’t you, young blood? I brought y’all in, so this record would have some edge to it and I’ve been doing too much of the driving. Y’all need to take over, I’m too tired, but you’ve never played any of it live, so how could you get a feel for it? It needs to live. It needs to breathe. It needs to be young and in love and not six months out from a visit from the Grim Reaper. This is my last record. I want it to live.”
“You want to play it live?” she asked.
“No, I want us to play it live. The Beasts, you, me, and Walter. You’re right about us needing a guitar player. I think that’s the missing piece. We need to go back to my roots.”
“Since when?”
“Since now. We need to rock this shit up, just like we used to in the seventies. Time to bring back the Voodoo Boogaloo.”
“Oh, god. You want me to call Cinco, don’t you,” she stated.
Cinco Morello was one of the best guitarists the Crescent City had ever produced. Unfortunately, his legendary drinking problem made him a nightmare to work with. Stanley had cut him off decades ago after he’d had a very infamous affair with Stanley’s first wife, Loretta, and Stanley was a man of his word.
However, Cinco owed Q about seven hundred favors and Stanley knew it. Although, she’d have to call in every single one, to get him to play a gig with Stanley Gerard, let alone record an entire album with him.
Stanley replied, “You calling Cinco is exactly what I’m asking. He won’t do it for me, but he might do it for you. We’ll play the record live on Saturday at the Cove. Put the recording on pause for the next few days to rehearse, just the Beasts, Walter, and us. Let Cinco come in fresh Saturday night to jam with us. He was always at his best on the first take. I’ve never seen anything like it. After the gig, you and me will gang up on him and convince him to play the record.”
“The album will only cover one set, old man.”
He winked at her. “Well, that’s good, because I’m only good for one set. You’ll have to figure something out for the rest of the night without me and to give me some breaks.”
“I’m all out of ideas, Stanley,” she said. “But I guess we could
just jam. Get more comfortable playing with Walter and Cinco for the album. Be ready to rock come Monday. Cinco will be useless by two a.m. anyway.” She nudged Stanley. “You ready to do the damned thing or you want to wait until we rock this shit live?”
He shook his head, sadly. “I’m tired, Q. I need to take one of my pills, that’s going to knock me out for the rest of the afternoon. I think we’re going to have to call it a day. Start fresh in the morning. Y’all go on down to the studio and work out the arrangements for the songs you want to change. Leave me out of it. I’ll do it your way. I’m going to follow you for once. You’re ready. I know you won’t let me down, young blood.”
She kissed his cheek. “I got you, old man. Don’t you worry.”
He squeezed her hand. “I wish you’d have married my son. Someone like you would have been good for him.”
“What do you mean, Stan?”
“I grew up dirt poor. When Voodoo Boogaloo hit, all that money…” He thought about it for a long time before saying, “I didn’t want Savion to want for anything. I wanted him to have everything I never did. You grew up with it, Q. You could have taught him the right things to do with money.”
She smiled. “I don’t know, Stan. Finding an equation to predict hurricane paths seems like a pretty good thing to do with your money.”
Stanley shook his head. “Not if you’re doing it to protect oil wells, not cities. Savion’s research was funded by some big Saudi oil company. They pulled the plug when his research missed the path of that cyclone that hit the Philippines. They lost six rigs in that storm.”
“He’s a good man, Stanley. A brilliant man. He’s going to wake up.”
“He also has all my faults, Q. He’s arrogant. Chases women…”
Q pulled back in surprise. “What are you talking about? He was so shy back in college.”
“That was a long time ago, young blood. And, not to embarrass you, but once you gave him a taste, women was the first thing on that boy’s mind, just above all those numbers.”
She felt her cheeks redden. “I didn’t know.”
“He didn’t want you to. He wanted you to think he was that same shy boy you knew. Like I said, I don’t think he ever got over loving you.” He kissed her on the temple. “Now, go on downstairs and bring this stale shit back to life.”
“You going to be alright?” she asked in growing concern.
He cupped her face in his hand and said, “About as alright as a dying man gets, I expect.”
◆◆◆
After forty-five minutes of arguing with JJ and Charlie about taking the wheel from Stanley, Q was about to lose her mind. Thankfully, Tom finally came to her defense.
He stood up from behind his drum set and walked over to his nephew. “Justice Augustine, how long have you been playing with Stanley Gerard.”
JJ looked at his uncle. “Same as you, Uncle T. A few weeks.”
Tom nodded and took three long steps to stand next to Charlie, who was leaning against the glass window that separated the live room from the control room. “And you, pahdna? How long have you been playing with Stanley Gerard?”
“On and off a couple years,” he said smugly. “He’s not going to like what you and Q are trying to do. The old man hates the Voodoo Boogaloo. It’s not his bag no more.”
Q gazed heavenward for assistance and rested her head on the keyboard she was sitting behind, making a long cacophonic thunk.
“And you, Q?” Tom asked. “How long have you been playing with Stanley Gerard?”
“Going on thirteen years,” she said flatly, without looking up.
Tom walked back to his drum kit and sat down. “End of discussion. If Q says that this is what Stanley wants to do, you fools need to shut up and listen. Come on. We have three days to put this gig together, so, stop fucking around.”
He beat out a steady pattern on his snare before launching into a much slower and heavier groove than the one he’d already recorded. Q and JJ soon joined him. Charlie shuffled his feet towards to the guitar amp, visibly reluctant to do so. He stared at Q sideways, obviously debating whether to give into her request or not before he finally picked up the Fender Strat leaning against the wall nearby and played a grinding power chord riff that sent a tingle up Q’s spine. She closed her eyes and imagined Cinco playing something similar, only with his tone and more polished touch.
This is going to be awesome.
They spent the rest of the afternoon reworking all but three of the songs on the album. Speeding some of them up. Slowing others down. Q took more liberties with the melodies, much to her sore throat’s glee. It was well past midnight when they finally called it a day and headed home.
As she climbed into Charlie’s truck, her phone dinged, and she looked at the text message from Sanger:
Hey C – you up?
When she texted back in the affirmative, her phone immediately rang.
“What’s up, Sanger? I’m about to leave Stanley’s,” she said.
“Is Ben expecting you home right away?” he asked. His voice sounded off.
“He doesn’t have to be. What’s wrong?”
“Feel like getting a drink with me?” he asked meekly.
She didn’t really, but Sanger rarely asked for her help, so she felt inclined to give it to him. She hung up and told Charlie to drop her off at Sanger’s place instead.
“You already screwing around on Ben?” he asked. “That didn’t take long.”
“Fuck you,” she said. “Unlike you, I’m capable of monogamy.”
Charlie winked at her. “I’m capable of monogamy. It just doesn’t seem fair to give all this to just one woman.”
“All of what, Charlie. Herpes? Chlamydia? That tiny little dingaling of yours?”
“I told you before, it ain’t little,” he said.
“And I’ve told you before, if you have to keep telling me it ain’t little, most likely it isn’t very big.”
He laughed. “Nice. Look, Q, I’m sorry about earlier. You were right. We needed to help the old man out. That shit was stale.”
She was taken aback. Having known Charlie for a decade, she could count on one finger the times that he’d apologized for anything. She inwardly cursed as she realized that somehow he’d figured out that Stanley was sick.
“How did you find out?” she asked.
“I went back into the control room to get my cigarettes. Heard you and Stanley talking through the piano mics. Lorene forgot to mute the channels. How long does he have?”
“Not long, Charlie. We need to wrap this up. He’s getting sicker.”
He said quietly, “I love that man. I dreamt my whole life of playing in his horn section.”
“I know.”
Their mutual admiration for Stanley Gerard and her close proximity to him was one of the reasons Charlie had joined the Beasts in the first place.
“Is Cinco really going to play Saturday?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I hope so. Voodoo Boogaloo is still my favorite Gerard Group record. Cinco’s a pain in the ass, but he is fun to play with.”
He pulled over in front of Sanger’s house and elbowed her. “So are you, Q. Don’t stay up too late. I want to get an early start in the morning. I’ll pick you up for eight. Stanley seems better in the mornings; we need to use it.”
Q jumped out of the truck and skipped up the cement steps to Sanger’s house. She pounded out the Mardi Gras Mambo on his door. When he opened it, he immediately apologized.
“I shouldn’t have called,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be. Ben’s freaking out and I could use some masculine advice. Also, I’m starved. Come on, let’s go to Manny’s and get a taco and some indigestion together, my treat.”
He opened the door. “That sounds great, actually. Come on in.”
She followed him inside and was startled by the sudden cleanliness of Sanger’s house. The messy disorder had been put back into its proper place and every surface gleamed.
/>
“Yvie coming over or something?” she asked, sitting at the shining wood dinner table that was not, for the first time in her experience, covered with crime scene photos. “This place is immaculate.”
“I clean when I get upset,” he said.
“You must have been pretty fucking upset, you could perform surgery in here,” Q said. “Please tell me this is not about Yvonne.”
“Tell me what’s wrong with Ben,” he said, sitting across from her to put on his shoes.
“Tell me why your house is so clean,” she replied.
“You first.” He laced up his shoes and looked up at her.
“Not here. Come on, let’s go. I really am starving. I skipped lunch and dinner. It’s been a long day.”
She stood up and went to the front door, beckoning him to hurry up. Sanger joined her to lock up the house and they walked down the darkened sidewalk, turning at the corner to head down to Magazine street and their favorite all-night Mexican restaurant a few blocks away.
After several silent steps, he said, “So, what’s up with Ben?”
“We had a fight this morning. I had a nightmare about Ethan and I didn’t handle it well.”
“What kind of nightmare?” he asked.
“A doozy. So bad, I don’t want to talk about it. So bad, I threw up when I woke up this morning. They’re getting worse, Aaron. I think it might be this stupid Dark Harm record.”
“You sure that’s what made you sick?” He winked at her. “Maybe you have a little Bordelon on board.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, Sanger. What is it with you and Ben? Women do throw up for reasons other than pregnancy. You want me to show you my tampon right now to prove it to you?”
He looked down in dismay. “Totally walked into that. Why do I let myself do that?”
She laughed. “It’s just menstruation, Sanger. Jesus, you look at corpses all day and a tampon makes you squeamish?”
“No. But you do have a tendency to overshare about your…” He made a general gesture to her midsection.