Revenant Rising

by M. M. Mayle

  “Yeh, right,” he groans when that effort lasts no more than ten minutes and his head fills with worrisome imagery, all of it featuring Laurel in some sort of peril. He envisions her literally devoured by commuter traffic or at the mercy of a villainously pleasure-seeking David Sebastian; he pictures her accosted by hordes of paparazzi and set-upon by every convict she ever helped send to jail. That last is most disturbing for taking on aspects of a Bruegel depiction of Hades. He blinks it away and turns on telly.

  Nothing there to distract. He goes to the window. No distractions there either, unless the movement of traffic below may be seen as spellbinding. In the end he does what he’s been denying himself all along, goes to the phone and dials her number. If she’s there, she’s not picking up. And her machine’s not picking up because it’s probably still full.

  “Hell with it.” He lets out a mild string of oaths, goes into the bath to take a couple Polks, then laughs at himself for having gone through the motions. As if the over-the-counter shit could somehow cure ills of the psyche. As if any form of shit could cure what ails him.

  He’s still grumbling and bumbling about when the door chime rings. He doesn’t respond because Bemus will get it. But Bemus isn’t here, he remembers when the chime sounds again. He goes to answer it, faulting himself in the extreme for the momentary lapse.

  Rayce is alone when he comes in—a novelty in itself—and he’s replaced the rock star plumage with an Italian designer’s idea of ordinary street clothes. He takes his time looking round the suite, much as Nate did his first time here. If he finds fault with the surroundings, unlike Nate, he’s not saying so by word or expression.

  At the piano, he picks up and fondles the Icon statuette displayed there. “Brilliant, that was . . . what you did when accepting this thing. I would’ve told ’em to sod it.”

  “Don’t think it didn’t cross my mind, but it was more satisfying to make ’em squirm a bit.”

  Rayce sets down the Icon and takes up the glass owl that’s been on display ever since it was purchased to give to Laurel one day. After thoroughly fingerprinting the sleek object, Rayce helps himself to the music and lyric sheets scattered overtop of the piano. “And what have we here?” He silently reads through a few with his lips moving and goes full voice on the set Colin most wishes he’d left in a dresser drawer.

  “Can’t you see I’m here to love you? . . . Don’t you know I’m here to care? . . . Will you ever let me tell you . . . My life is yours to share?” Rayce gives the recitation the full treatment saving the most dramatic pause for last. “Wowser,” he says and rather gulps. “This is lookin’ serious, mate. Like I said earlier, where is she?”

  “Far as I know, she’s at home. I’d just left her there when I stumbled onto you.”

  “From what you’ve said on the phone, I thought she’d be lodging here with you. Are you sayin’ . . . you’re not sayin’ you haven’t been there, are you?”

  “Like it’s any of your bleedin’ business.”

  “That’s a no, then.”

  “We’ve had direct eye contact a few times. That count for anathing?”

  “Jesus, Mary, and Margaret Thatcher!” Rayce let’s go with a trademark cackle. “Look who needs a boost. Look who’s wanting a wingman, a Cyrano, a—”

  “The day I need any of that is the day—”

  “It’s plain you’re in need of something. I propose we go downtown.”

  “Clubbing?”

  “Recording. New label’s givin’ me carte blanche with studio time whilst I’m in town. Let no note go unrecorded appears to be the policy and who’m I to argue? Gimme thirty minutes to alert the lads and we’ll be off.”

  Rayce must have alerted the media as well because when the convoy of limos leaves the hotel, paparazzi bring up the rear, some on motorbikes. At the lower Manhattan recording studio they’re met by a veritable who’s-who of session musicians and recording engineers.

  The subject of Laurel still lingers, retarding his ability to see much beyond the end of his own nose. He’s slow to grasp that this must be the first time since rehab that Rayce has been inside a recording studio, an atmosphere at once redemptive and harshly reminiscent of a former lifestyle. That might account for Rayce’s muted exuberance in the limo. That might even account for David wanting the two of them at the same hotel. If that is the case, the manipulation’s more characteristic of Nate than David, who ought to know as well as anyone that proximity doesn’t always produce the kind of mutual-assistance pact he’s looking for. He can’t be blamed for trying, though.

  The banter going on whilst the techies set up strikes as forced and artificial. The several musicians and the pair of engineers don’t exactly telegraph enthusiasm as they go through their various rituals of preparation.

  “You seein’ this for what it is, mate?” Rayce says.

  “I’m seeing that nothing’s actually expected and a big chunk of studio time stands to be wasted.”

  “All to keep my mind off . . . like anything could ever do much toward keeping my mind off . . . It’s always gonna be there.”

  “That your own assessment or that of a professional?”

  “Both.”

  “You do know this is where we were back in autumn of ’eighty-four?”

  “No shit. This the same studio? Is this site of the massive rat strangle with the string section of the philharmonic and all? There’s fuckloads I don’t recall, y’know.”

  “You ‘n’ me both. But no, I didn’t mean we were physically in this place back then, I meant this is where we were creatively. We were in the talking stages of doing something together, and my manager was dead set against it because—”

  “I was of questionable reliability.”

  “Yeh, somethin’ like that. I was arguing the subject with Nate the same day my lights went out.”

  “So, if I’m readin’ you right, you’re now suggesting we pick up where we left off . . . as though nothin’ much happened in the interim.” Rayce cranks cackle up to full booming laughter and everyone from gofers to engineers alerts.

  “Let’s start with the one you played me over the phone,” Rayce goes on, “the one you call ‘Angle of Repose.’ Lay down a ghost track of that and we’ll see who amongst these wankers has anything to add.”

  A slow two hours pass before unified direction is found, and once the road shows itself, there’s no holding back. The layers start going down with a complexity rare in a pickup band come together more for a perfunctory jam session than an actual recording session. With each playback, additional structure and texture is revealed even though the mix is still rough. This is no Muscle Shoals; that was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, but from within this impromptu coalescence, a rush is nevertheless building. When it comes, it’s the familiar one that’s better than anything that can be inhaled, swallowed, or injected. And with Rayce at the forefront, musical communication reaches a level transcending telepathy.

  Colin recedes from center stage, aligns himself with the rank and file. Songwriter/lyricist may be enough after all. Position may not be everything when choice rather than circumstance dictates its importance.

  Alone in the vocal booth, Rayce recaptures a vitality no one was expecting. From a distance, he still bears resemblance to the Pan, the beautiful boy whose plaintive pipes once drove his disciples to excesses of worship and his detractors to censorship campaigns to rival ban-the-bomb rallies, as one industry wag once put it. From any distance, he can still bring it off despite the effects of time, gravity, and hard living. Or maybe because of those effects. In a voice gone darker and grainier, he delivers like he’s never done before. It’s in the indefinable tonality and expression, in Rayce’s startling ability to convey broad statements with minimal effort. Bloody sorcery, it is.

  When they break to listen to the latest mix, three a.m. is not far off. Reactions vary from thunderstruck to awestruck, absent any chatter about what could’ve been done better.

  Rayce comes out of the bo
oth and drains off the last of the coffee one of the gofers brought in. “Let’s have it, then. What’s the deal? Why are you givin’ me first shot at this tune? Some sort of mercy fuck is it?”

  “Suits you better’n me, that’s all.”

  “You’re not thinkin’ you still owe for when you were tits up?”

  “That’s not what I was thinking, but I’ll always owe for—”

  “Don’t be a prat. You’ve been my favorite good deed for long as I can remember.”

  “And we all know how long you can remember.” Colin returns the jibe and gets a cackle out of Rayce that infects the others. A regular babel of banter breaks out, and this time it sounds sincere. When it’s run its course, he and Rayce return to the relative privacy of the vocal booth, where Rayce fixes him with a long unblinking stare.

  “I know what you were gettin’ at out there and I’ll say what I’ve always said. Be careful what you idolize, mate. It’s only quite recently I can go by a mirror without . . . without cringing. I’m fifty-five years old, can pass for seventy. Ready for the taxidermist, I am. But I’m learnin’ to handle it—and I can still get it up if someone else handles it.” Rayce winks, leers, leaves room for a laugh. “On the other hand,” he continues, “I’m putting together a new young band who are clean and sober, possessed of massive amounts of hair, and no strangers to spandex.”

  “But that’s not you. Forget the hair and the spandex. Leave that shit to those without any other marketable talents. Be Rayce Vaughn, it’s what you do best,” Colin says.

  “Even when I’m singin’ your shit?”

  “Specially when you’re singin’ my shit.”

  “And here we have it, ladies and gents.” Rayce climbs onto a folding chair, makes sure the intercom is on, gives a mock bow to a mock audience. “We at last have the real reason Colin Elliot’s givin’ me his best shit. He’s emulated me to the point we’ve come full circle and technically speaking, that would make his shit my shit. Shit-mingled, we are.”

  This brings genuine whoops of laughter and not a few curious stares from beyond the booth. Amongst the curious is the engineer who’s been spot-on throughout and now indicates he wants a word.

  “Colin, Rayce . . . if I may,” he says over the intercom.

  “Say mother may I.” Rayce hops down from the chair.

  “Ignore him.” Colin ushers the engineer into the booth.

  “Some observations and a suggestion. You’ve just made preproduction a dirty word and overthinking unthinkable. And you hafta know you’ve got an anthem on your hands that’s gonna blow ‘Desperado’ away with the tumbleweeds,” the engineer says.

  Until this reference to the great Eagles standard, no thought’s been given to comparisons, and Colin is not sure he wants to make any lest the word “derivative” happen to surface.

  “You’ve created an instant classic,” the engineer echoes Laurel’s opinion. “It’s one of those tunes folks’ll swear they heard before and artists like Sinatra’ll wanna cover. My suggestion is Colin do all the keyboards, isolate at the start, then share the vocals with you, Rayce. Let’s try it ensemble to establish the harmonies and then we can do the overdubs. That work for you?”

  A pleasurable shiver goes through him upon grasping that Laurel identified a so-called classic before a professional did—before he himself did, for that matter. “Works for me, I’m good” Colin says.

  “I’m on, but first I’m gonna need to step outside for a smoke,, and I could do with more coffee.” Rayce leads the way to the main exit, passing by numerous no-smoking signs and a few that read “Keep off the grass.”

  Out on the pavement, a pair of bodyguards are positioned either side of the door, more than enough to keep a few diehard paparazzi at bay. Rayce lights up a Marlboro red, inhales deeply and expresses annoyance that no one appears to be going for coffee.

  “If it’s only a hit of caffeine you’re after, I can supply some Polks. You know, the aspirin shit with the extra kick,” Colin thoughtlessly characterizes the remedy and fishes two doses from an inside pocket. It’s only when he’s offering the small glassine envelopes of powdered product to Rayce that he flashes on what he made it sound like and what it undoubtedly looks like to the watchful bodyguards and paparazzi.

  The realizations come a tick too late. A light flares, and an automated film advance whirs against a sudden blur of activity that includes his own. Minus the three seconds it takes to contemplate consequences, he’s on the bloke wielding the camera, smashing both to the pavement with enough force to guarantee damage to both. Rayce’s bodyguards pull him off before anymore can be done and restrain him as the fuckbag photographer scrambles to his feet and gathers up the remains of his camera.

  “That’s aggravated assault, asshole,” the bloodied paparazzo howls in his face.

  “You got that dead right. You aggravated me, I assaulted you. End of story,” Colin spits back and struggles against the bodyguards, who haven’t decided whose side they’re on.

  By now the other photographers are joined into the melee, recording the action as they wade into it. Additional bodyguards surround Rayce, and people pour out of the studio like it’s afire. It’s a tossup which will make the bigger story—the one he tried to forestall or the one brought about by his efforts to forestall.

  In less time than he would have believed possible at this hour of the night, police swarm the scene and he’s hauled away without ceremony, other than being told to mind his head when they put him in the squad car. On the way to the booking station, he consoles himself with the not-so-outrageous idea of ringing Laurel to come bail him out.

  FORTY-TWO

  Early morning, April 6, 1987

  “Good morning,” Laurel says, pausing to accept the handful of messages Amanda thrusts at her. “Anything serious?”

  “You’re asking me if anything’s serious? Like last night wasn’t serious enough?”

  “What last night? What are you talking about?”

  “You were with him, weren’t you?”

  “With whom? C’mon, Amanda, it’s too early in the morning for this kind of thing.”

  “I‘m talking about Colin’s arrest last night. Weren’t you there?”

  “Colin? Arrested? What for?”

  “The Wakeup Show said it was aggravated assault and malicious destruction of property, but you’d better check with David. He’s in your office.”

  “Wait, why is David in my office? He never comes in this early on Monday, the partners’ meeting’s not until eleven.”

  “Ask him, I’m just the gatekeeper.”

  “Finally,” David says without looking up when Laurel enters the inner office. She hears everything from reprimand to pained resignation in his one utterance.

  “At eight in the morning you cannot be suggesting I’m late.” Laurel says.

  “Only in returning my calls. I hope you have a damn good reason for avoiding me until now.”

  “I do and it’ll keep for now. What’s this Amanda tells me about Colin Elliot being arrested?”

  “He was. Early this morning during a break from a recording session with Rayce Vaughn.”

  “Dare I ask why?”

  “A photographer caught the two of them in the open, in a compromising situation. Colin immediately realized it and went for the guy. Roughed him up and smashed his camera. Unclear who called the authorities. Presumably the other paparazzi that were on the scene.”

  “Dare I ask what the compromising situation was?”

  “Colin was seen offering Rayce something that appeared to be drugs.”

  “Shit. I could have bet that would happen sooner or later. He offered this Rayce Vaughn character a powdered aspirin product, didn’t he.”

  “Yes, but how did you know?”

  “Colin took some himself. Here in this office, the day we met, and I drew the same conclusion the photographer must have. Where is Colin now? He’s not still being held?”

  “He should be out on his own recognizan
ce by now. I sent Stan Mason as soon as I was informed.”

  “Stan Mason, head of criminal division? Don’t you think that’s a little heavy-handed?”

  “I was at the country house, you were in the Jersey suburbs with your phone turned off. Stan lives in lower Manhattan, closest to the holding center, and owed me a favor.”

  “Okay, okay, but what’s that going to look like?” Laurel remains standing despite David’s urging that she take the client chair.

  “Considering what the rest of it looks like, I doubt anyone’ll notice that we brought in a big gun.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Although it was proven on the spot that Colin was dispensing an aspirin product and not the controlled substance the paparazzi were hoping it was, damage was done and I’m afraid it’s severe.”

  “Where is Nate Isaacs? He must be apoplectic.”

  “That’s what I was about to ask you. I’m unable to reach him.”

  “I last spoke to him on Saturday, and now that I think about it, he did say he’d be hard to catch until Tuesday—tomorrow.”

  “Well, wherever he is, however he reacts, he’ll be justified.

  This is looking bad indeed. Even though the charges barely constitute assault, the whole thing’s being overshadowed by the original impression—that Colin was pouring water on a drowning man in the form of offering drugs to a recovering addict.”

  “Where’s the so-called drowning man at the moment? Where is Rayce Vaughn? Have you talked to him?”

  “Of course I’ve talked to him. He’s the one who alerted me to the situation in the first place. He called me from the scene and again from the holding center. Right now it’s reasonable to believe he’s asleep at his hotel.”

  “Which hotel?”

  “He’s at The Plaza.”

  “I see.” Laurel paces the width of the large desk and back again.

  “Could you please sit down?”

  “Could you please sit somewhere else?”

  “Could you please identify who all you’re mad at so I can continue with this?”