Song of the Sound

by Jeff Gulvin

  Song of the Sound

  A Novel

  Jeff Gulvin

  For Kim with my love

  I’d like to say a special thanks to my agent and friend, Ben Camardi, whose support, consistency, and advice has allowed my career to keep rolling when it looked like the roads were closed.

  Contents

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Acknowledgements

  A Biography of Jeff Gulvin

  PROLOGUE

  1970s

  JOHN-CODY KNEW THEY were FBI agents as soon as they walked in. He sat behind the bar tuning his guitar and listening to the sounds of laughter coming from a group at a corner table. Saturday night in Hogan’s Hotel in McCall: he was preparing to play the first half of his set. Hogan always made him tend bar for the first part of the evening, then play a twenty-minute set to get the drinkers in the mood for a party. After that, he would tend bar again till the second set. That was fine by John-Cody; if they liked the way he played, the tips between sets were enough to pay his rent. This week had been slow, however. There was too much snow on the ground, notwithstanding the cabin fever that usually set in by February.

  He stared at the two FBI agents in their sharply cut suits, both with grunt haircuts. They stood out a mile in a cowboy bar. For a moment he wondered why he had come back here at all: they were bound to catch up with him at some point. He hadn’t meant to stay, he had just wanted to pick up his guitar and get going again. It had been Hogan who persuaded him. Hogan liked to have a male bartender as well as Nancy and Lisa whom he employed on alternate nights of the week. John-Cody was swift and thorough and he’d been lying about his age since the days when he was fronting his blues band in New Orleans. He had just turned seventeen when he headlined for the first time and he had been as sure as a gulf coast storm he was on his way to the top. But that feeling had been well and truly dashed the day of his eighteenth birthday.

  ‘Hey, Gib.’ A cowboy from a ranch on the South Camas prairie rattled an empty bottle at him. ‘Set me up, buddy. I can’t wait all night.’

  ‘You bet.’ John-Cody slid off the stool and put his guitar down. He took a cold bottle from the refrigerator and snapped the top off.

  The cowboy peeled a dollar bill off the roll he had tugged from his pocket and slapped it on the counter. ‘Change is yours.’

  John-Cody rapped the wooden bar with his knuckles.

  Lisa moved next to him. She had dyed blond hair and pink-painted nails that he could never quite decide were false. She poured a shot of whiskey into a glass and topped it up with 7Up, the gaseous liquid crackling over chunks of ice. ‘Hogan wants you on that stage, Gibby,’ she said. ‘You best get to it.’

  John-Cody felt the little tingle in his palms that he always felt when he was just about to play live: a hint of nerves that gave him the edge to play as well as he could. To say the presence of the FBI agents accentuated that feeling was something of an understatement. So far they hadn’t approached him, but once the set began his identity would be broadcast. He looked towards the door but the crowd barred any thoughts of an exit route. The back way was locked and double bolted and he knew they would have some deputy sheriff covering it from outside.

  He was calmer than he had thought he would be, given the circumstances, and he put it down to the fact that he had known they would come the moment he let Hogan convince him to stay. He was a fine guitar player and word got round quickly. Complacency and familiarity: he should have moved on like he had planned. He brushed against Lisa, catching a whiff of her perfume: it was too sweet for his tastes but feminine in an in-your-face sort of way. He could smell the burnt quality that the dryer left in her hair and a faint hint of female perspiration. One of the FBI agents leaned on the bar and looked him right in the eye. He was in his mid-twenties, with sharp blue eyes and a button tip to his nose. ‘How you doing?’ he said.

  ‘Howdy.’

  They looked at each other for a long moment. ‘My name’s Muller.’ The agent nodded to the guitar. ‘You best play if you’re going to. We don’t want a riot on our hands.’

  ‘I’ve got two sets.’

  ‘Not tonight you don’t.’

  John-Cody picked up his guitar, stepped through the gap in the bar and made his way to the stage.

  Louise was going to sing with him tonight. She was three years older than he was and had been singing the local circuit for a year and a half. Her father made the best ice sculptures in town. People carved them in their yards when the first snows hit and by the time the winter was over the sculptures would be hardened to a stonelike quality by the cold. Her family lived off the main highway heading for Cascade and they had an ice model of Apollo 11 right there in the front yard.

  She was having a drink with her redneck boyfriend who liked to stare John-Cody out whenever he was on stage. He did that to anyone who got within ten feet of his girlfriend; it was his way of letting you know that she was his property. He didn’t dance or clap his hands or sing along to anything, but just kept those little drill bores on John-Cody. At first it was unnerving, but after eighteen months of prison John-Cody figured he could handle a cold stare. He touched Louise on the shoulder and she nodded. He went up to the stage and waited for her to disentangle herself from Billy, who would much rather she didn’t get up there at all. John-Cody plugged in and played a little riff then broke into some New Orleans guitar blues he had composed while playing that year on Bourbon Street.

  He picked at the strings again, another tune, along the lines of James Booker but his own composition. The bar was as crowded as he had seen it and he wondered if there was any way that he could sneak past the FBI agents. Cowboys stood in their winter gear drinking beer from the bottle and townspeople hogged the barstools and milled between the tables.

  John-Cody played, waiting now while Louise rearranged her clothing at the mike stand, and he watched the two agents standing at the near end of the bar. Their air of controlled composure was all too familiar and he felt his heart sink as the front door opened and the sheriff stepped inside. If there had been any chance of getting away it was certainly gone now.

  He played his heart out one last time, head bent, imagining he was with his own band kicking butt on Bourbon Street. He wore dark glasses so nobody could see the fear in his eyes and whenever he looked up the two agents were watching him.

  He launched into the first cover, Janis Joplin’s version of ‘Bobby McGee’: Louise plucked the microphone from the stand and moved across the little stage as she sang. John-Cody glanced towards the bar and the two agents in their long coats were still watching him. Cold all at once, he missed a chord and only the strength of Louise’s voice saved him. Closing his eyes, he let the breath hiss from between his teeth, thinking again how dumb he had been to get stuck here. He had crossed the state line three months after they released him, having been unable to find work in Washington, which was as far as they would let him stretch his neck. Hogan had given him his old job back and he knew people in McCall. They seemed to accept him notwithstanding the reason he had been plucked fr
om their midst in the first place. The parole officers in Washington had gone out of their way to obstruct him. They were friendly with the sheriff and the state police and as far as they were concerned his crime was as bad as it got. With no work he could not get by, so he had played them at their own game and skipped over the mountains to Idaho.

  Everyone seemed to be staring at him now, the crowd pretty quiet. Louise was into a slower song and he was plucking the strings with his thumbnail. The two FBI agents sat on stools at the bar with their coats hanging open, Muller’s jacket barely covering the bulge at his armpit. They seemed to be enjoying the show and Muller grinned wickedly as their eyes met. He tapped a finger to his temple in mock salute and John-Cody felt sick. The blood seemed to slow in his veins. The set was coming to an end and he had no way out of here except right past the bar and out the front door. The two men seemed to sense the timing and Muller got up and moved towards the handful of people dancing in front of the stage. John-Cody watched him and the man looked right back, a big smile on his face, pacing slowly and taking care not to step on anyone’s foot. His partner sipped Coke at the bar and fastened a button on his overcoat.

  John-Cody finished the set. Louise replaced the mike and the clapping echoed across the barroom. One drunken guy at the back whistled badly and Louise stepped off the stage to where Billy was waiting for her and eyeing the FBI agent as if she was the object of his attention. John-Cody set his guitar on the stand and ran his fingers over the frets. He hoped Hogan would look after it for him like he did the last time.

  He straightened up and looked Muller in the eye. The agent was tall and muscular under his clothes and he looked at John-Cody out of those chipped ice eyes.

  ‘You’re John-Cody Gibbs.’

  ‘And you’re the FBI.’

  Muller showed him white teeth, fingers jangling against metal in the pocket of his coat. ‘You violated the terms of your parole.’

  ‘All I did was cross the state line. I had no choice. I couldn’t get a job in Washington.’

  The man made a face: he didn’t care about the reasons. Why should he? He was only doing his job. He retrieved the noisy hand from his pocket and showed John-Cody cold metal handcuffs. ‘Turn around.’

  People were watching now, people who knew him, people who appreciated his guitar playing. John-Cody wondered how long it would be before they realized there would be no second set tonight. He looked the agent in the eyes, sizing him up, but he knew there was little point. Muller was big and well trained and even in jail John-Cody had never had a fight. Exhaling heavily, he turned around and offered his exposed wrists. There was a sudden silence in the bar, and he heard the cuffs snap to and felt them pinch his flesh where it was thin across his veins. The agent wheeled him round again, glanced at his buddy and nodded. He didn’t say anything to the crowd, but took out his shield and set it in his breast pocket so everyone could see what he was and figure out what they might or might not want to do about it.

  John-Cody cast a roving glance over the faces of the crowd, wondering if anyone would say anything, stick up for him, intervene in some way. But they didn’t. These were very calm, very assured government agents and even the most ardent redneck would think twice before getting involved. He was marched through the people he knew, all of them falling back until he was at the door and the hand of the second FBI agent was resting on his shoulder.

  ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘Nice and easy.’

  John-Cody paused as Muller opened the door and the wind bit into him. ‘I’m going to need my coat.’

  The agents hesitated, looked at each other and then Muller asked him where the coat was. John-Cody told him it was behind the bar and he moved to the counter and asked Lisa for it. She looked slightly stunned as she passed it over. Muller thanked her and as he moved back to the door Lisa’s eyes met John-Cody’s. She looked puzzled: he shrugged, then he was out on the sidewalk with the wind cutting his flesh.

  Their car was right out front and he was bundled into the rear seat. He sat on the handcuffs and winced, the metal twisting against his flesh. He thought about asking them to take the cuffs off or at least secure him in front, but he knew from experience they wouldn’t.

  Muller climbed into the passenger seat while his partner got behind the wheel, started the engine and let the wipers clear the snow that had gathered on the windshield. He let the engine idle for a while. ‘Maybe we ought to just put this guy in jail tonight. Go north in the morning.’

  John-Cody listened for Muller’s reply, sitting there in the back while they talked about him as if he wasn’t there.

  ‘I guess we could.’ Muller peeled his sleeve back to inspect the dial of his watch. ‘It’s only nine thirty,’ he said. ‘I think we should get some miles under the wheels. Once we’re on the highway the ploughs will have most of this stuff cleared.’

  ‘Where’d you guys come down from?’ John-Cody spoke for the first time. Muller leaned his arm over the back of the seat.

  ‘You say something?’

  ‘I wondered where you came down from. I figure the road between here and Lewiston is only fit for a four-by-four this time of night. You didn’t come down from Lewiston, did you?’

  Muller cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘You want to spend the night in jail?’

  ‘I’m going to anyway. One jail’s much like another.’

  ‘You trying to be a smart ass?’

  ‘No. I just—’

  ‘Button it.’ Muller turned back to his partner. ‘Let’s go.’

  The driver levered the column shift into drive and they pulled away from the kerb.

  John-Cody shifted around in the back: McCall to Lewiston, that would be six hours at least in this weather. Then they would have to turn west and head for the coast. That’s if they were taking him straight back to McNeil Island. He was supposed to see his parole officer once a fortnight in Seattle so they might be taking him there instead. Either way he’d end up in prison.

  The two agents talked in low voices as they headed out of town, past the snow sculptures that lit up people’s yards in the moonlight. The driver swore under his breath, the wheels skidding slightly as they started down the hill. Behind them John-Cody sat on his hands and watched the backs of their heads, Muller’s face in profile when he turned sideways to talk to his partner and the scraped, reddened flesh of the driver’s neck under his marine-style crew-cut. He tried to adjust his position to make the journey more comfortable but he knew that no amount of shuffling about would help. By the time the cuffs were taken off, his wrists would be chafed raw and his hands numb through lack of blood. Prison again after nine months of being out. He thought about the first eighteen months of the three-year sentence the judge had handed down. In the state penitentiary there had been no lightweight farm duties for him; it had been jail-time and hard and he had no inclination to go back.

  Outside the vehicle the country flashed by as the driver grew more confident. The fields unrolled in white to the lunar grey of the mountains. The road was better than he had thought, but the temperature was well below freezing and there would be patches of black ice in the more exposed areas. He thought about the valleys and the high mountain passes between here and Grangeville: assuming they made it that far, it was Winchester and Lewiston then the rain-soaked coast road all the way to Seattle.

  The two agents talked quietly as they drove on and he could barely make out their words. Their voices became just a murmur and he slouched in the seat, trying to keep the weight off his hands. The Plymouth was new and the smell of polished vinyl was thick in his nostrils. His mind drifted back to the bar and the faces of the customers: the cowboys, Louise and her oversexed boyfriend. Vaguely he wondered why a girl like Louise went out with such a redneck in the first place. She had soul, she appreciated good music and understood what it took to combine rhythm and lyric in a way that picked at the senses. He doubted Billy had read a word since high school that wasn’t written on his pay cheque or in a sports bulletin.

>   He thought about leaving Hogan in the lurch again. The old man had been there the first time the FBI caught up with him, the two of them together on the sidewalk outside the bank after paying in the cash from the weekend. Hogan had just stood and gawped as two agents cuffed him then bundled him into the back of a car. He had been tried in Lewiston and sentenced to three years at McNeil Island. He had asked them to parole him back to Idaho, where Hogan would stand surety for him, but they wouldn’t. Perhaps that was just another indication of their vindictiveness. Hogan had never asked one question of him that first time he showed up and he didn’t ask any when he saw him again eighteen months later. He just gave him back his guitar and his job and pleaded with him to stay.

  Recollections of prison revisited him, images, memories, smells and sounds that he had put to one side the day he walked out the gate. Now they fairly flooded his mind and a sallow feeling like nausea settled in the pit of his stomach. McGuire’s thin and crooked features, Dallallio, and Mamba, the big black brother from Mississippi who had killed three state troopers in California. They would still be there, along with all the others, those who delighted in intimidating him, trying to get him alone so they could rape or maim or murder him as and when they chose.

  Somehow he had survived eighteen months without being defiled and without getting into a fight. The bulls had allowed him access to an acoustic guitar and that was probably what saved him. He had been playing guitar since before he could walk and had the kind of memory retention that allowed him to reprise any song he was asked for.

  Saturday afternoon in the yard became something of an impromptu jamming session. Mamba liked the music, as did Dallallio and McGuire. They were the three meanest men in his wing and they made it clear that as long as John-Cody played guitar he was under their protection. Everyone in the place was scared of Mamba, and when the word went out John-Cody’s life improved dramatically.

  They would still be there, but the chances of his being put back in their wing would be slim. The bulls knew the deal with Mamba and the others and something told John-Cody that spite would play its part in where he ended up. The thought appalled him and the sickness grew in his stomach.