“She gave me the number of their dealer. I called him, we’re meeting tomorrow.”
“What?” He stopped, the bottle halfway to his lips and looked at me in astonishment. “Jesus, Laura. We’ve been threatened by some fucking whack job, he’s sent us a bullet and you’re going off to meet a heroin dealer? I think this thing is making you crazy. I mean, fuck, enough’s enough.”
“I’m going, and that’s it,” I told him. “You wanted me to follow this, remember?”
“I didn’t think you’d be hanging around with skag dealers. For Christ’s sake!”
It was the first time he’d ever raised his voice to me. I knew he meant well, but I didn’t like it. I could make my own decisions. Craig’s death filled my time, but it was the story I was working on.
I stared him down. “This guy’s not going to tell me anything on the phone. It’s in person or nothing. So I’m going and that’s it.”
“Where are you meeting?” he asked eventually, trying not to sound sullen.
“Pioneer Square. Safe enough.”
“What if he wants you to go somewhere?”
“I’ll think about that if it happens.”
He was silent for a while, putting the bottle on the table and running a hand through his hair. “I just don’t want anything to happen to you. Have you told Rob?”
“I’ll call him in the morning,” I said. I wanted to change the subject, to put everything back on an even keel. “How was work?”
“The usual. My head’s already in Saturday.”
I put my arms around him but he pulled back.
“I’m going to change and practice for a while. Do you mind making dinner?”
“Sure.”
I took a container of chili from the freezer and stuck it in the microwave. I could hear the sound of him playing, muted by the bedroom wall. I knew he was on edge; that was partly why he’d said what he did. But he’d surprised me by raising his voice like that.
By the time the food had cooked he was banging at chords, whether in frustration or deliberately I couldn’t be sure. When he joined me at the table he seemed calmer and more composed.
“Better?” I asked.
“Yeah.” He smiled sheepishly and ate for a while. “I guess I should do laundry so I have something to wear on Saturday.”
“There’s always tomorrow.”
“Yeah. I can’t be bothered tonight. Let’s just have a quiet evening, okay?”
We left the dishes and just sat on the couch with a diet of bad television. It was a good way to turn off the thoughts and the worries, diving into the sea of stupid sitcoms. I cuddled up against him, trying to mend fences with body warmth and kisses. He was reluctant at first, then he gave in. It all felt strangely domestic, as if we’d turned into our parents, worshiping at the nightly altar of television.
About eleven, just before the news, we went to bed. I reached out for him, my hand moving down his belly and slowly teasing him, first with my hand, then my mouth, before I straddled him, pushing down hard. I could feel him working off the last of his anger as he bucked under me. This was the way to make up.
After, while the sweat was drying on my skin, he was comfortably asleep and I lay uneasily awake, thinking ahead to the morning and meeting Nelson. All I knew was he had supplied Craig. What else could I ask him?
I didn’t need to call Rob the next morning. Just after nine, as I was hunting for my Mariners cap, the phone rang. I stiffened at the sound and picked up reluctantly.
“Hey,” Rob said, and I felt my body relax. “How did it go with Sandy?”
“It was good. I’m heading off to meet their dealer and see if Craig bought from him that day.”
“Where are you meeting?”
“Pioneer Square.”
“Can you stop by the office after?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“It’s kind of important.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “What is it?”
“I’ll tell you when you get here,” he said, the words sounding awkward. “Good luck,”
“Thanks,” I replied, mystified. “I’ll see you later.”
Friday was a day of wind sweeping in off the Sound, whipping against pant legs, turning umbrellas inside out and pushing the rain into gusts that drove hard along the streets. I’d taken the bus, and walked down First Avenue from Pike Place Market, past the Lusty Lady strip joint and sports stores advertising guns, down to where a couple of new hotels were springing up in the old buildings, giving them new, trendy life and boutique prices.
Pioneer Square was the oldest part of downtown, rebuilt a hundred years before, after a fire destroyed the area. These days it was where the nightlife met the tawdry. After dark the bars that lined the place were always busy, especially on the weekends when frat boys and suburbanites came out to party to the cover bands that made money entertaining the masses. Only the Central held on to its policy of original music. During the day it was a tourist area with shops of all kinds, along with street people, native, white, brown and black, who sat on the benches, bottles in bags, dogs at their feet, asking for spare change until the police came along and moved them on. The heart of it all was the totem pole that rose out of the sidewalk. It was meant to be proud, to capture the spirit of the place; instead it just looked worn and tired.
I pulled the Mariners hat down over my hair. As ten neared I stood close to the pole, trying to look inconspicuous but feeling curiously on display. Glancing around, no one was looking at me. I was just another anonymous body. The antique store on the corner rolled back the steel shutters that protected its windows, and just up Yesler someone was cleaning the window of an art gallery. Another normal day in Seattle.
The tap on my shoulder took me by surprise and I turned quickly.
“You wanted to see me,” he said, his voice just as lazy as yesterday. He was tall, looking down at me, a twinkle of laughter in his eyes, mouth curved slightly upward as if he found everything humorous. He had long blond hair, parted at the side, the wind swirling it away over his shoulders. An expensive rain jacket was zipped up around his neck, and he wore jeans artfully ripped on both knees and a pair of black, shiny Doc Marten boots, the yellow stitching bright around the soles.
“Nelson?”
“Come with me,” he said, and walked away without looking back. Nervously, I followed him to the parking garage up the street where he unlocked a BMW and sat in the driver’s seat. After a moment’s hesitation I settled next to him. If he started to drive away I could get out.
“Take your jacket off,” he said. I obeyed. He checked the pockets, searching for a tape recorder. “Now I’m going to pat you down.” I held my breath but he was fast and efficient, very practiced and professional, avoiding my breasts and between my legs. This was strictly business. “Right, we can talk now. What do you want to know?”
“It’s like I told you, I’m looking into Craig Adler’s death. You know him?”
He considered his answer. “I knew him. And yes, he used to buy from me.”
“He died of an overdose.”
“Yeah, you said that yesterday.” He stared out of the windshield at a blank wall.
“Had he been buying from you again?”
“No.” He turned to look at me. “What do you know about dealing?”
“Nothing.” I bought pot from someone I knew. Beyond that I had no idea.
“You got to be careful. There are a lot of bad people out there. And it’s changing. You heard about these gangs down in California?”
“I’ve read a little.”
“They’re selling crack cocaine down there. Weird shit,” he said meditatively. “There’s big money in it, and people get hooked on the rock fast. Next thing you know they’ll be selling heroin, too. They’re going to want all the market and they’ll kill to get it.” He glanced over at me and raised his eyebrows. “When that happens I’ll be out of the business. Those fuckers will shoot you as soon as look at you. They’ll be up here soon e
nough. They’re already down in Portland.”
“And what then?” I asked out of curiosity.
He paused. “Then I’ll be history. Adios, bye-bye.”
His thoughts about the future were interesting, but nothing I needed to know.
“How often did Craig buy from you?” I said, trying to put the conversation back on track.
“I don’t know. It’s not like I keep exact records for the IRS,” he said with a smile. “Not something you do in my line of work.”
“But Craig hasn’t bought from you lately?”
“I already said that.”
I reached for the door handle. “Thanks. I appreciate the information.”
“They were amateurs,” he said.
“Maybe that’s a good thing,” I countered.
“Depends how you look at it.” He grinned once more. “It’s not good for my profits.”
“Do you know anything about Craig’s death?”
“Not a damn thing,” he told me.
I opened the car door. “Then I’ll thank you again for your time.”
“Hey, it’s nothing.”
I walked away and heard him rev the engine then take off. I took off the cap and shoved it into my pocket before heading back up First Avenue toward the bus stop. That was a bust: nothing he couldn’t have told me on the phone and saved me a trip downtown.
It took fifteen minutes to reach The Rocket offices. The wind kicked up again, bringing more squalls of rain with it. People started to dash from cover to cover, sheltering under flapping awnings and in the doorways of buildings. I was already soaked; the water dripped off my hair and down my back, and my jeans stuck cold and wet to my legs.
I climbed the steps and shook myself off before opening the door. The office was busy, an old Black Sabbath track blasting from a boombox on one of the desks, people concentrating on their work.
“Hey,” I said.
Rob looked up from the piece of copy he was editing. “Hey, looks like you got soaked. You’d better close the door.”
I pushed it to, hearing the lock click, and sat down.
“What’s this all about?” The secrecy worried me.
He reached down and brought out an LP with a red cover. “This.”
I took it from him and looked at it, then sucked in my breath. Craig Adler and Snakeblood, it read. The ARP Demos. The music the band had recorded to grab their major label record deal. “What the fuck is this?”
“It came in the mail this morning.” His expression was hard. “Turn it over.”
I did as he said. There was only the track listing, no label name, no address. Nothing. Except, in large letters, Everything Courtesy of Laura Benton.
Twenty-One
I just looked at him, my mouth hanging open, unable to speak, looking at the words. They were there, they were real.
“I don’t understand,” I said finally, my voice stumbling. I could hardly breathe. My throat was tight, my heart beat fast in my chest. This couldn’t be happening. Slowly, I put the album back on the desk and forced myself to speak. “I had nothing to do with this. You’ve got to believe that.”
“I do,” Rob said. His expression was serious. “You’ve been royally fucked, and not in a good way.”
“It’s him, isn’t it? He’s done it.” I glanced down at the cover again, as if the words might have changed, my name might have vanished and everything would be okay again.
“It is. We both know that you had nothing to do with this,” he said. “But that’s not what other people are going to think.” He glanced at the album. “Your name’s on there. They’ll believe you were behind it.”
I felt bile rising as if I was going to throw up, and my mouth was dry. First the threats, now this. So there had been something else he could do. He’d beaten me. I’d worked so hard to prove myself, to show I could write as well as a man, that I knew just as much about music. It had taken a long time for me to be accepted. With one stroke he’d taken away all my credibility. He’d made me into a thief who’d stolen the tapes for profit. No one would believe anything I wrote about Craig now. I looked at Rob.
“You’re sure this is real?” I asked desperately.
“It is. I already talked to a few stores. They’ve bought copies, someone was around selling them. And I’ve played some of the tracks.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I talked to the publisher first thing.” He took out a cigarette and began to play with it. “I have to take you off the story. You understand?”
“But if you do that, he’s won,” I said helplessly. “You know that.”
“I’ll keep on with it myself. You think I’m going to let this lie?” He took out a book of matches and toyed with the smoke before pointing at the LP. “This is one more bit of proof. I’m not going to give up.”
He said nothing for a few moments before adding quietly, “There’s one more thing. We’re going to hold off printing any of your other work for a while, until this all passes.”
“What?” I hadn’t expected this.
“It’s only going to be for about three months.” He tried to smile but it was a poor attempt. “Laura, I’m not cutting you loose. You’re too good for that. It’s just a short break.”
“But...” I began, then stopped. Nothing I said was going to change things. It had already been decided. Rob hadn’t been quite right; I’d been royally fucked two ways.
“I mean it,” he assured me. “I’ll carry on with this. Shit, I hate to ask, but can you give me your notes?”
“Yeah, sure,” I agreed. I stood, feeling blank and empty, close to the shakes. “For what it’s worth, the dealer I just talked to didn’t sell Craig any heroin.”
“Then the question is still where did it come from and how did it get in his arm?”
“No,” I corrected him. “The question is who brought the smack and put it in his arm.” I pointed at the album. “At a guess it was to get hold of the demo tapes for that.”
“I was thinking that.”
“Discover who put it out and you’ll have a murderer.”
He scribbled something on a piece of paper and gave it to me. “That’s my home number. If you get any more calls, anything, let me know.”
Back home in the apartment I settled on the couch and let the tears come until I couldn’t cry any more. I couldn’t blame Rob; he was only doing what he had to do, protecting the integrity of the paper. But... it had taken two years of submitting pieces before anyone would take me seriously. I still had my first printed review framed on the wall. After that I’d pushed hard for more work, building a file of clips, sending them off, trying to convince magazines to take a chance on me. Some did, others still refused.
I knew bands toned things down around me. There was less boasting and drinking, the language was cleaned up a little, no offers of a beer or a joint, as if I was a schoolteacher. I’d come away with the story, but never the full story.
Now even that was destroyed. No one would accept my work after this. I might as well just apply for a job at Safeway. I kept expecting the phone to ring and hear a gloating voice. He’d outflanked me and beaten me.
I gathered together my notes. Before I passed them on to Rob I’d make copies. I could still make a few calls on my own. I looked up the number for Greg West at ARP. As I reached for the phone, it rang.
“You fucking bitch.” Warren’s Texas accent was more pronounced. In the background I could hear the boom of the stereo playing at Heaven and Hell. “Where did you steal the tapes?”
“I didn’t,” I said quietly. “None of this had anything to do with me. I didn’t even know there were any tapes.”
“Yeah, right.”
“It’s true. I’ve been screwed over the same as you to keep me off the story.”
“I don’t believe you. Fuck you.” He slammed down the phone.
There were going to be more calls like this, more hatred. No one was going to believe anything I said. I called the Los Angeles number.
“Greg West,” he answered when I was put through. I took a deep breath.
“It’s Laura Benton.” The silence at the other end told me he’d heard about the album. “My name’s on there but it’s nothing to do with me.”
“You know who that music belongs to?” he asked coldly.
“The band, I’d guess.” His question brought me up short. I’d never thought about it.
“To us. We paid for the studio time, everything. That means you stole the tapes from us.”
“Look, I know my name’s on the cover but it had nothing to do with me.”
“You’re right. Your name’s there, and that’s who we’ll go after. We’ll be contacting the police and you’ll be hearing from our lawyers.”
Christ. I didn’t need this on top of everything else.
“I’m sorry you were ripped off. But it wasn’t me. Find out who released them and take them to court, but I swear it wasn’t me.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Then that’s tough shit.” I took a breath, angry as fuck. “You send your lawyers after me, fine. But they’re not going to find anything to connect me with that album, because there isn’t anything.”
“There’s your name on the cover.”
“And it doesn’t occur to you that maybe someone was shafting me to stop me finding out who killed your musician? You know what? I’ve been threatened about this story. I’ve had phone calls, I’ve had a bullet in the mail and now I’ve been taken out of the game completely. If you don’t believe me, talk to Rob at The Rocket. He knows what’s going on.”
He hung up on me.
I sat for a while. I was cried out; now I was mad and it was time to fight back. I wasn’t going to be fucked over like this. I was going to find whoever had shafted me. And he’d left me an opening with that record.
I called Tom Hardy. If anyone knew where records could be pressed in Seattle, he would. With luck he wouldn’t have heard I was off the story yet.
“You’ve seen it?” I asked when he answered.
“Why’d you do it, Laura?” he asked sadly.
“For Christ’s sake, Tom, I didn’t!” I shouted, then took a breath to calm myself. “Listen, you know I was looking into Craig’s death. Why would I do something like this? I didn’t even know any demo tapes existed!”
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