The Drummer

by Anthony Neil Smith

  “You’re here because you’re star struck?”

  He shrugged. “I have three Savage Night ticket stubs on a corkboard at home. I actually bookmarked a couple of fan sites. Stefan autographed my guitar case once. Here I was thinking all this time that they couldn’t get back together because, well, you were dead. Turns out all this time you could’ve, but now it’s the singer.”

  There, taking me back to Todd again. An accidental killing to save my ass. Paramedics probably would’ve had him back on stage within a day.

  “Why us? Why not a big name group?”

  He lifted his chin. “I know what I like, that’s all.”

  Then a loud thump, an echo, and the garage bay door began to roll down. My stomach lurched, acid stinging my throat, and I ran for the door. No chance of making it, the light falling lower and lower, a life-or-death “how low can you go.” My knees told me it was a lost cause. I dropped to my chest and almost rolled, but the door was too quick. I turned back inside right before the noise stopped and we were in complete darkness except for a dusty ray of sunshine from high above.

  “The fuck was that?” Hsieh shouted. “Hey! We’re in here!”

  “Quiet,” I shot back, a loud pointless whisper.

  “I’ll shout if I want to. Better than letting you shoot me.”

  “Keep talking and I’ll aim at your voice.”

  Then, a star-bright light clicked on and aimed for my face, nearly blinded me. I squinted, tried to make out where it was coming from. It swung away from me, found Hsieh against a side wall.

  Now that was a target. A two-fer, Hsieh and the flashlight serving themselves on a platter. I sat up and aimed the gun steady as I could, propping my forearm on my knees. Which one? The cop was just asking for it.

  No, don’t do that.

  He helped me after all I’d done to him. I owed him one. Swung my gun towards the flashlight.

  It clicked off. I fumbled, got off two shots—fucking A-bomb noise—where I thought the light had been.

  “Hey! Hey! What are you doing?” Hsieh. “Are you fucking insane?”

  The flashlight clocked on, this time bigger and sun-strength. A boot kicked my hand, sent pain shooting through me like a burn. The gun skittered across the floor. Too much fire, orange dots in my vision, for me to reach for it. Flashlight was already moving for it, nice casual pace, and I let out a hiss of “Shit shit shit shit…”

  “Get up,” A deep voice said. Someone grabbed my jacket by the shoulder and pulled me hard enough to make me do whatever he wanted. I was up, trying to place the guy’s voice. He dragged me across the room. I wasn’t able to focus on anything. We stopped after what felt like a mile, probably only a few yards, and a door slid open. Light, blessed light, showed me an elevator. The man holding me turned us around. I saw that his flashlight was taped to a big-ass chrome pistol. Hsieh’s gun was deep and snug in this guy’s waistband. The detective himself was still holding up his wall across the room.

  “You, get over here,” the man said. I got a better look—hulking figure, bald head, impressive strength. It was David.

  “Isn’t there a policy against playing a homo to get your target?” I said.

  “Shut up,” David said, a low growl. He kept his eyes on Hsieh, who had his hands up at shoulder level and was inching towards the light.

  “You really fucked with my friend’s head, you know? He was really into you. Like a serious ‘let’s buy towels together’ sort of vibe. I guess the ends justify the means, though. You got me, you fake fag.”

  David’s lips curled a little, a grin in disguise. He said, “Keep talking. That’ll make this next part more fun.”

  “This gentleman with me, he’s a New Orelans police officer. You certainly don’t want to do anything illegal in his presence, right?”

  Hsieh was closer, squinting at David like he was trying to remember something. “Yeah, that’s me, a full fledged peace officer.”

  David said, “In New Orleans? These cops go bad when you drop a penny. Hell, if I give him five bucks he might kill you, bury the body, and blow me all at the same time.”

  The confused look on Hsieh’s face wasn’t going away. That worried me some. David stepped to the side, held open the elevator door with his body, and waved the gun at Hsieh. “Get in.”

  He did. We followed. That’s when Hsieh’s look turned from Huh? to Oh, shit.

  “Detective…” I said.

  He turned to me, eye contact, no bull. “This guy’s local. I’ve questioned him before.”

  “That’s right,” David said. “Sure did. I remember now.”

  “You used to work jobs for the mob.”

  I looked at Hsieh, then David, thought for a split second these two were in together, but gauging the expressions, it was more like the trap had worked, two rats in one and it didn’t matter if one had a badge or not.

  David grinned again. “See? Told you this would be fun.”

  30

  On the fourth floor, the elevator stopped, the doors opened, and David threw me out like a bag of trash. He pushed Hsieh with the gun barrel. The cop’s hands were still shoulder-high, starting to sag. We were in a narrow and short hallway, two doors on the left wall and one on the right before the corridor took a turn to the left. Dark paint, maybe a deep blue, although it was hard to tell in the weak lighting. Only two of the five bulbs overhead were lit.

  I crawled to the closest wall and propped my back against it. My knees were shredded, all those years of banging double bass drum pedals followed by banging groupies on concrete floors backstage at arenas were catching up with a vengeance. Hsieh stood in the middle of the hallway, eyes on David, probably thinking of a thousand ways to sell me out and get on David’s good side, even take him up on that cheap blowjob. Fucking cop.

  “First door on the right,” David said.

  I counted. “There’s only one door on the right.”

  He shrugged. “I said what I was supposed to say.”

  “Both of us?”

  “Hey, you brought him along. Don’t ask me.”

  I let out a sigh and held up a hand to Hsieh. “Little help, please?”

  He finally dropped his arms, stepped over and grabbed my wrist. I slid up the wall, groaning and creaking every inch, until I was on my feet.

  “What happened to your partner? The guy who tried to mug me,” I asked David.

  “He wasn’t my partner. Just a guy doing a job.”

  “Aren’t I a little early?”

  “Hell, we’ve been expecting you all day. What took so long?”

  I smiled, couldn’t help it. “This and that.”

  He held the pistol out sideways, index finger stretched along the side like a pro, ready to slip into the trigger in a microsecond. “Time is money.”

  I turned the knob and walked inside, pretty much resigned to whatever choice was about to be made for me about the rest of my life.

  *

  It was furnished like an apartment, but with cubicle dividers taking the place of walls, except for an obvious bathroom door and a back corner sectioned off, a mid-level manager’s throne in a room of serfs.

  The section Hsieh and I stood in had a nice area rug, a couple of armchairs, and a settee against the left wall fronted by a coffee table. I thought dentist’s office waiting room. Seemed appropriate.

  A bit more unexpected—no one in the room except a solitary man in one of the chairs. He looked tired, late middle-aged with hair going gray, dark circles under his eyes. Thinner than me, maybe thin like I was in the Savage Night days. He wore a dark suit, a bright yellow tie, legs crossed like I’d expect from a chairman of the board. In his hand was Todd’s microrecorder.

  He grinned at me, his eyes widening a little, but he didn’t get up, that part explained by a walking stick leaning against his chair. The old man was familiar, vaguely. It took him saying my name to understand.

  “Christopher.”

  My real name, the one I tacked “Cal” in front of to
make the stage name. One that Sylvia didn’t even use for all our time together. The name I’d mostly forgotten. Not used since my parents, my teachers. My friends.

  “Doug,” I said. “Jesus…”

  His features fell into place. “Don’t get the two of us confused.”

  I took a step forward, an awkward step. In all my thoughts about him over the past couple days, I’d only seen him as he was in the past. I hadn’t even imagined a walking, talking guy still pushing ahead.

  I held my hands out. “A hug?”

  He grinned, then reached for the walking stick, pushed himself out of the chair as if it took all of a day’s effort, and said, “For you, absolutely.”

  I reached for him, wrapped him up. I wanted him to feel that I missed him. His free hand patted my arm.

  “Careful,” he said.

  I pulled back to get a good look at his face. A bit craggy, drawn. The hair was receding fast, and a mole on his cheek, something he was born with, was now doubled in size, more like a smudge under his skin.

  “Wait, a minute,” Hsieh said. “This guy, he’s from the band? The bass player, right?”

  “Sure is.”

  Doug said, “You bring along a fan?”

  “A cop. No big deal. You, man, how are you doing? Still strong?”

  “Good days, bad days. The bad days are starting to catch up. I mean, do I look thirty-four?”

  He was right. His body looked borrowed.

  “So, you’ve still, like, got it, don’t you?” I said.

  “Every day of my life. You never beat it, but you can keep it down for a good long time. Problem is, it figures out how to get up after a while. Sort of what’s happened to me.”

  Doug sat down as gingerly as he had stood, crossed his legs, then laid his hands on his knees. His grin turned sad as he took me in, maybe amused by the changes. Last time he’d seen me, I was a long-haired ruffian, skeletal and volatile, in a Japanese sushi shop.

  Doug said, “I see you’re not dead.”

  It struck me hard as a slap, back to earth and reality.

  “Who’s bringing you into all this? What did they tell you?”

  Doug coughed, then glanced at Hsieh. “Do you think he’s going to figure this out on his own, or should I reveal everything?”

  The detective said, “I’m only a little farther ahead than he is. You can’t blame him.”

  “What?” I stepped in between them, looked back and forth. “Tell me.”

  Hsieh gave it a shot. “There’s no one else chasing you, but since that was what you thought, your friend here used the lie against you.”

  “Exactly,” Doug said. “We’ve been on to you for almost a year. Once found, you did exactly what we thought you’d do. Oh, Chris, I know you tried, and I know you wanted to leave me all that money. Still, though, if you hadn’t run off, there would’ve been less trouble for all of us.”

  I closed my eyes, shook my head. “No, that’s wrong. I did what was best.”

  “For you, not me. I needed a strong friend. The stress from grieving for you didn’t help either. Then the money didn’t come, and the band business slipped away. What did you expect? That we would last forever like Zeppelin? The Stones?” Doug stared at a spot on the floor. “Great bands keep going no matter what in the face of change. Everyone else fades into oblivion. We didn’t have a chance after you split. Another hair metal group without an audience.”

  He was right. Fine. I gave up too early, and that screwed up his life. Wait, he was blaming me for that?

  I said, “You know, don’t put it all on me. I’m not the one who let any old dick up my ass. I’m not the one who whored around then expected my best friend to keep the secret and run interference. I didn’t have to leave you one fucking penny. You’re whining that I didn’t give you enough? Here—” I pulled some cash from my pocket. “Is this enough? I can get more, start sending weekly checks. No problem.”

  Doug waved it off. “Please.”

  I was getting worked up. “No, I insist. I’ll start up the gravy train with interest. You see? Money is what you come here and ruin my fucking life over? I would fork over every dime if I knew it meant you had a chance to beat the fucking virus. Every last one to not have to see you like this.”

  “We should take him up on the offer.” The voice was female, coming from the back of the room near the corner office. Not just any female voice, either. I should’ve known.

  Doug nodded. “You didn’t think I was the mastermind, of course.”

  “Yeah, I was hoping.”

  He whispered, “Sorry.”

  The footsteps from the back clicked closer until she rounded the corner, hands on her hips, a high heeled foot perched forward ready for anything. My recent days suddenly made more sense.

  I said, “Looking good, Alison.”

  31

  She sure as hell was. Black pantsuit, white silk blouse, almost a Madonnaesque sexiness factor. Hair pinned up, her tiny body tight and powerful. Her face was clean of make-up, but she was a natural heartbreaker with those eyes.

  Alison took me in, an expression on her face I can only call Napoleonic. “I liked you better with long hair. Younger, too. I never pictured you this old.”

  “Me neither. You should’ve seen me three days ago.”

  She crossed the room towards me, leaned in to peck my cheek. Then she sat in the other armchair by her brother. “This is the cop?”

  Hsieh raised his hand, “Me. That’s me.”

  “You almost fucked everything up for us.”

  “Sorry for the inconvenience.”

  “After all, we called Nine One One very early to tell say you should check on Todd in his hotel. What, the message didn’t get to you?”

  I couldn’t take this. I sat on the settee and let them talk.

  Hsieh said, “Not one word until Mr. Christopher here had the hotel call us.”

  “We needed Todd alive. A back from the brink thing. He wasn’t that bad when we left his room.”

  I got the picture in my head—Alison and maybe this David guy pouring drinks into an already drunk Todd, telling him what to write in the “suicide” note.

  “You didn’t see him the way I did later that morning,” I said.

  “He was fine. It was an illusion. Romeo and Juliet.”

  She sat on the edge of the chair, knees wide, hands animated. I wondered if her hysterics as a teenager were all a manipulative act, and the powerful image she projected in that office was always the real Alison, a genius with psychology.

  I said, “Todd knew you were the one who found me?”

  “Not until I visited him that night in the hotel. He was as surprised as you, but too drunk to be so coherent about it.”

  “He wasn’t drunk when he went to his car.”

  “Then he must’ve stopped off for a gallon of daiquiris. I smelled it on his breath. That’s what gave me the idea of pumping him full of more booze. David brought it over and we had ourselves a party.”

  Wow. She had it all planned out, played us both like a guitar solo, but I blew the fuse. If Todd thought he was the one who found me, it gave him a better story for the press than if Alison and Doug emerged from hiding first. She wanted to make sure her brother was the last missing member found, reveal his disease to the world, and Savage Night would get a miraculous pity boost in interest, sales, maybe a benefit concert with lots of friends. Worked for Queen after Freddie died.

  “Scripting the drama,” I said. “Todd’s suicide attempt, then the note reveals my hiding place, so I have no choice but to come forward. He comes out of the coma, we announce plans to reunite the band, and I’m guessing you’ve got Stefan’s number memorized.”

  “Keep going.”

  “I don’t have to. I want to know, though. Todd agreed to this? The coma?”

  Her smile was wicked. “Let’s say he wasn’t thinking properly at the time. If the alcohol wasn’t enough, then the other half of the party I threw for him sealed the deal.”<
br />
  I smiled right back at her. “You slut.”

  “I told you I’d fuck him one day, and that’s exactly what I did. Not that he could get it really hard in his condition.”

  Doug looked uncomfortable. He was always shy, even skittish, but hearing his sister’s chess moves made him squirm like a guy in a dentist’s chair. I wondered if he had much say in any of the reunion planning.

  Hsieh nodded at me and said, “She’s good.”

  “She’s had a lot of practice.”

  That brought a hiss from the bitch. “Like I always told you, it’s better when you do it for yourself. The problem, Chris, is that you felt guilty when you fucked me. Especially after we made you promise to keep Doug’s choices a secret.”

  My mouth went dry. I tried to talk, coughed instead.

  “Take your time.”

  I did. No reason to rush things. If she had a plan to draw me out, I imagined she also had one to solve my legal problems, like a tax lawyer on the payroll. Which led me to ask—

  “How the hell did you make enough money to do all this in the first place? Why would you need mine?”

  Whatever glee she been tossing around disappeared, giving us a look at a shadowy, used-up woman. “One more fucking album, maybe a nice radio hit, would that have been too much to ask? The rest of them had to pay up, go on budgets, and here was Sylvia and me fighting to make sure Doug had enough to hold onto some hope. We couldn’t tell anyone, and that made for extra tension. On top of your funeral, without a body, the break-up and the disease, that still sound like your little vanishing act was selfless?”

  Doug coughed and Alison’s attention switched instantly to her brother. “Are you all right? Need some water?”

  “I’m fine.” He patted his chest.

  “Don’t play tough.”

  “Really, I’m fine.”

  Alison turned to me again. “I gave up on some of those arguments, though. I could afford to. After all, we had your in-sur-ance money coming our way. How generous! Wasn’t it nice of him, Doug?”