My Favorite Band Does Not Exist

by Robert T. Jeschonek

  He was not alone in the blazing orange sky.

  "End your war." It was Scrier Inevitas, floating there in front of him. "Join with your enemy, or all is lost."

  Fireskull laughed. "I will join with him, all right, when I devour his wretched body."

  Scrier showed no emotion. Her voice roared with the sound of rushing wind. "If you and your foe do not unite, both your kingdoms shall be lost before the cock crows tomorrow."

  "Not if I kill all the cocks before then!" Fireskull swung his sword with a mighty stroke that could have cleaved a man in two. "Along with Johnny and his loathsome ilk!"

  "Your choice is clear," said Scrier. "Surrender."

  "If surrender includes wiping every trace of Johnny Without from the face of the world, consider it done!"

  "I will go to Johnny next and tell him the same thing," said Scrier.

  "You do that!" Fireskull's flames burned hotter and higher with wicked glee. "Tell him to surrender! Then he will finally know peace ... the peace of the grave!"

  With that, Fireskull soared off toward the frontline, whistling for the Lunatic Guard to follow. Scrier hovered in place for a moment, then shot past him so fast that all he saw was a blur.

  FOR a long time, the van was silent except for the noise of the engine as Sundra drove through the night. She gripped the steering wheel tightly and checked the rearview mirror several times a minute, watching for suspicious moves from Eurydice.

  For her part, Eurydice calmly watched the darkened countryside slip past. Every once in a while, she shot a glance at the rearview, taking Sundra by surprise and hypnotically holding her gaze for an instant.

  It was during one of those instants that Eurydice finally broke the silence.

  "Get off at this exit!" she shouted, bouncing up and down. "This is it!"

  "This is what?" Reacher wondered what she was up to now.

  "Please!" said Eurydice. "Get off here. I have to show y'all the coolest place!"

  Sundra swung off the highway and onto the exit ramp. "What place are you talking about?"

  "At the bottom of the exit, go left." Eurydice cracked her gum three times fast.

  "Go left toward what?" Sundra pressed.

  "I want to see if the place is still there," Eurydice said. "I haven't stopped by in years."

  Sundra made the left turn off the ramp. "How much farther should it be?"

  " 'Bout two miles," said Eurydice. "Go right at the blinking light."

  Sundra flashed another worried frown at Reacher as she made the right turn. She frowned at him again after they passed the three-mile mark. "Okay," she said finally. "We're going on four miles now. I thought you said two."

  "Give or take," said Eurydice. "I told you, it's been a while."

  "No offense," said Sundra, "but we're in kind of a hurry. We have to get to Maysville ASAP."

  "I know a shortcut," said Eurydice. "Just keep driving."

  Sundra sighed and drove onward. Three miles later, she slowed down. "Enough of this. We have to get back on the highway." She swung the van wide over the shoulder and started to make a U-turn. "You'll have to look for this place some other time."

  "Wait." Eurydice tapped Sundra on the shoulder with a yin-yang-painted fingernail and pointed straight ahead. "There."

  Squinting into the darkness, Reacher saw a dim, distant glow on the left side of the road. "That's it?"

  "You betcha." Eurydice blew a gray bubble with her gum.

  Sundra leaned forward, peering at the light. "Looks like an old roadhouse."

  "Go on now." Eurydice waved a hand with a shooing gesture to get Sundra moving. "You won't be sorry."

  With another heavy sigh, Sundra gave up on the U-turn and rolled the van forward again.

  As they drew closer, Reacher saw that the light was indeed coming from the windows of a dilapidated roadhouse. The squat building looked as if it had been patched together from mismatched planks and tarpaper about a century ago. An unlit neon sign topped the rippled front lip of the tin roof.

  Just as they pulled up across the road from the place, the sign flickered to life. It spelled Wigwam in red cursive.

  " 'Wigwam'?" said Reacher.

  "Everybody calls it Dusty's," said Eurydice. "It's been here forever."

  "I can see that."

  "All right, then." Sundra clapped her hands together. "You go on ahead, Deathy."

  Eurydice opened the door to get out. "Come on, now," she said. "You guys have got to go in and see this place."

  "Thanks, anyway," said Sundra. "We'll wait here."

  "You'll hate yourselves if you miss this."

  Reacher shrugged and unclipped his seat belt. "Why not?"

  Sundra grabbed his arm. "I think you should stay here with me. I really think we need to talk."

  "We will." Reacher opened the door. "Later."

  "No, please." Sundra's voice held a trace of hysteria. Apparently, Eurydice's serial-killer routine had been a little too convincing. "Please stay."

  "I'll be fine." Reacher peeled her hand from his bicep. He slid out of his bucket seat and stepped down onto the gravel shoulder. "I promise."

  "All right." Sundra didn't look like she believed him.

  Reacher shut the door and crossed the road with Eurydice. "Good job freaking her out," he said when they were out of earshot.

  "She deserved it." Eurydice dropped the Southern accent. "She kidnapped you, remember?"

  Reacher shook his head. "I don't suppose you'll tell me how you even knew I was kidnapped? Or how you found me?"

  She shrugged. "Would you believe women's intuition?"

  He sighed. "So what's going on here?"

  "You'll see." Eurydice led him across the deserted dirt parking lot.

  It looked to Reacher like no one had been there in a long time. He couldn't even see any tire tracks in the dirt. So who was inside with the lights on, and how had they gotten there?

  A chill shot up his spine. The place was like something out of a horror movie. He had the urge to turn around and get away as fast as he could, but he trusted Eurydice. He loved her.

  Of course, the front door did look like the lid of a pine box coffin.

  Without batting an eyelash, she opened it for him. "After you."

  Reacher stepped through into a musty vestibule with another door. Beyond it, he heard music playing.

  He aimed a puzzled frown at Eurydice, who pointed at the wall behind him. Turning, he saw an ancient poster tacked to it. The ink was faded, and the paper was cracked and torn, but the images and text were still clear enough to make out.

  In the middle of the poster, a man and a woman in what looked like World War Two-era clothes were dancing excitedly. The man wore a white shirt, bow tie, baggy brown trousers, and suspenders; the woman wore a knee-length red dress and a red bow in her hair. They were flushed and grinning, waving and kicking as if they were doing some kind of fast dance—a jitterbug, maybe.

  In the upper left corner of the poster, behind the dancers, a big band wearing tuxedos supplied the music, illustrated by swirling measures of jumbled notes streaming out of their high-held horns.

  The lower right corner of the poster was dominated by a cutout black and white photo of a man's head attached to a drawing of a tiny, tuxedoed body. The face on the head was long and thin, with a huge oily forelock arching over one eyebrow. A pencil-thin mustache clung to his upper lip, and the teeth in his vast smile were so huge that each seemed to have a life of its own. Because he held a conductor's baton in one tiny hand, Reacher guessed that he was the band's leader.

  "WHAT ALL THE FUSS IS ABOUT!" read the bold-lettered title atop the poster. In the lower left corner, in faded but still eye-catching red letters surging from the heart of a sunburst, was the band's name.

  "'Donny Basquette,'" Reacher read aloud. "'And Your Favorites.' Never heard of them."

  "You've got a lot in common," said Eurydice. "Like what?"

  "Come on." She smiled and squeezed past him to open the ne
xt door. "Let's go have a listen."

  REACHER and Eurydice were the band's only audience. They sat on some overturned crates in the back of the room and listened as the ancient musicians performed.

  They looked more decrepit than the roadhouse around them. Reacher guessed the female vocalist was the only one under the age of eighty.

  As old as the musicians looked, though, they sure could play. Dressed in black tuxedos, they reeled off songs like it was 1942. Reacher hardly knew a thing about big band music, but he could tell that the codgers were pros, performing with vitality that belied their advanced years.

  He pointed at the bandleader. "That's Donny Basquette?" he asked, raising his voice over the music.

  Eurydice shook her head. "Donny's dead. That's Laszlo Taper. No one can replace Donny, but Laszlo's filling in."

  The song ended, and Reacher and Eurydice clapped. Laszlo bowed and swept back an arm to encompass the band.

  The members nodded and grinned. They each sat behind a plastic music stand, the top part of which was black, with "Donny Basquette" in white across a raised lip that faced the audience. "Your Favorites" was painted in black around the middle of the cylindrical white base of each stand. Without exception, the stands were scratched and dented and chipped, worn down from decades of use.

  "Thank you," said Laszlo. He was skinny, with a hawkish nose and thick-lensed, dark-framed glasses. His shiny silver pompadour matched the silver beard on his chin. He hadn't stopped smiling since Reacher and Eurydice had entered the room. "And now, 'Take the Z Train.'"

  Raising his conductor's baton, Laszlo turned to face the band. "A-one and a-two," he said, and they launched into another song.

  "Hey!" said Reacher. "I know this one!"

  Eurydice cracked her gum twice. "I know them all."

  After two more numbers, the band took a break. Laszlo rushed right over and threw his arms around Eurydice.

  "Enid!" he said. "It's great to see you!"

  "Same here." She planted a kiss on his cheek. "You look great."

  Laszlo stood back and beamed at her. "You haven't changed a bit, as always." Glancing at Reacher, he seemed to reconsider what he'd said. "Not that it's been that long," he added.

  "This is my boyfriend, Reacher Mirage." Eurydice put a hand on Reacher's shoulder. "He's a musician, too, you know."

  "Of course he is, dear," said the female vocalist as she sidled up to join the group.

  "Reacher," said Eurydice. "This is Clementine Tasseltoe. Clementine, meet Reacher Mirage."

  "Charmed." Clementine nodded.

  "Pleased to meet you," said Reacher.

  "Welcome to Dusty's." Laszlo shook Reacher's hand. "The rest of the gang will be over soon enough to say hello." Laszlo bobbed his head to indicate the musicians lined up at the door to the men's room. "Bathroom break, you know."

  "When your band has fifteen men over the age of seventy, you have to take plenty of bathroom breaks," Clementine said.

  "So what brings you this way?" Laszlo peered at Eurydice from behind the thick lenses of his glasses.

  "Reacher wanted to meet you," she said. "He has a band, too."

  "What's it called?"

  "Youforia." Eurydice slid her arm around Reacher's shoulders and cracked her gum. "They're amazing."

  "How nice," Clementine said sardonically. "Maybe they'll play Dusty's with us someday."

  "Your Favorites have been together since 1939," Eurydice told Reacher. "The last new member joined in 1957."

  "Well, you guys sound great," he said.

  "Why, thank you," said Laszlo.

  "Too bad no one else ever hears us," said Clementine. "But we don't exactly advertise, do we?" She cast a meaningful look at Laszlo, who nervously looked away.

  "C'mon over here, Preacher." He grabbed Reacher by the elbow and pulled him toward the ramshackle bar across the room. "I've got something to show you."

  Looking back over his shoulder, Reacher saw that Eurydice and Clementine weren't following him and Laszlo. "Eury?"

  "You go ahead," Eurydice said with a wave.

  "Have a seat, sonny." Laszlo swept a cloud of dust from a rickety barstool with the side of his hand. Releasing Reacher's arm, he scooted around behind the bar and ducked out of sight. He popped back up a second later and slammed down a fat scrapbook, sending up more dust.

  "Welcome to the Your Favorites archive." Laszlo threw open the cover of the book. "There's a lot of history on these pages."

  Reacher turned for a glimpse of Eurydice. He could tell she and Clementine were having a heated discussion, although he was too far away to hear any of it. As he turned back to Laszlo, one of the ancient musicians pushed in for a closer look at the scrapbook.

  "That's ol' Donny Basquette!" said the old man. "Why, he don't look a day past twenty."

  Laszlo jabbed the scrapbook page with his gnarled finger. "That's because he was eighteen in that picture!"

  "Like I said." The old man winked at Reacher.

  "Preacher, this is Spill Ringamajig." Laszlo playfully punched the newcomer's upper arm. "Spill's been with the Favorites since the beginning."

  "Glad you could join us." Spill grabbed Reacher's hand and shook it vigorously.

  Reacher nodded, but his attention was elsewhere. He couldn't take his eyes off the scrapbook page that Laszlo and Spill had been talking about, the page where they'd seen the photo of eighteen-year-old Donny Basquette.

  "He was a handsome fella, wasn't he?" Spill pulled the book over in front of him.

  Reacher rubbed the snow white stubble on his scalp as he continued to stare at the scrapbook. A chill rippled up his spine. From what he could see, the page was completely blank.

  ANOTHER musician hobbled over to the bar and joined Laszlo and Spill in laughing at a clipping in the scrapbook—a nonexistent clipping, from Reacher's viewpoint.

  "Mooney Claptrack," Laszlo said between chuckles, slapping the new arrival on the back. "Meet Preacher."

  "Yo." Mooney was a full head taller than Laszlo and had a huge belly. His wispy silver comb-over barely covered his spotted scalp. "I'll never forget the look on Donny's face when Japanese Bill waltzed in stark naked."

  "And he just sat down and started playing," said Spill.

  "Donny could really think on his feet, though," said Laszlo. "Remember, he told the audience it was part of an 'Oriental tradition'?"

  "Bill was only doing it to get back at Donny for insisting he wear a tux like everyone else in the band!" Mooney leaned back and roared a belly laugh at the ceiling.

  "But it backfired," said Spill. "Donny got all kinds of free publicity because of the 'bare clarinetist'!"

  "Pretty funny, huh, Preacher?" said Laszlo.

  Reacher nodded and smiled. "Oh, yeah." With Laszlo, Spill, and Mooney acting like they all saw a newspaper clipping on the page, Reacher was afraid to tell them it looked blank to him.

  "Oh!" Laszlo turned to another page. "And look at this! Our first world tour."

  "World tour?" A fit-looking old man shoved his way between Spill and Reacher for a glimpse. He had neatly trimmed white hair and the handsome but fading features of an ancient movie star. "World's shortest tour is more like it, thanks to Montezuma's revenge."

  "Oh, that was bad," said Mooney. "Twenty guys with the runs on a tour bus in Mexico."

  Laszlo laughed so hard that he had to take off his glasses and rub the tears from his eyes. "And Donny wrote a song about it," he said, shaking his head. "'Montezuma' was one of our biggest hits."

  "By the way, kid." The movie star slid a hand toward Reacher. "I'm Tommy Coin. Vocals and vibes."

  Reacher shook Tommy's hand. "Reacher Mirage. I'm with Eurydice."

  Tommy looked puzzled until Laszlo spoke up. "Enid," he said simply, and Tommy nodded with understanding.

  "Speak of the devil!" said Mooney.

  "Hey, guys!" Eurydice strolled around the bar, waving and smiling. "Whatcha doin'?" She cracked her gum, and then her attention was caught by the scrapboo
k. "Is that who I think it is?" She leaned over the bar, poking a yin-yang fingernail at the scrapbook page.

  "Sweetwind Wilson," Tommy said with a grin. "The one and only."

  Reacher watched as Eurydice studied the page. Since she seemed to see something other than blank paper, too, he started to wonder if he was the one with the problem and everyone else was seeing just fine.

  Eurydice smirked. "Wasn't he the one who—?"

  "Tried to get Donny Basquette fired," finished Mooney.

  "Was wanted in seven states," added Spill.

  "Claimed to be a Baptist minister," Tommy chimed in.

  "Was the best tenor saxophonist on God's green earth." Laszlo nodded appreciatively.

  "Handsome guy." Eurydice stared at the scrapbook.

  "He sure was." Clementine piped up suddenly from behind Reacher. "What do you think, young man?"

  Reacher looked at the scrapbook page. "Uh, sure. I guess he's handsome."

  Clementine stared at him for a moment, hands on her hips. "C'mere a minute," she said to him, walking away from the bar.

  Reacher looked to Eurydice for a cue, but she was busy flipping through the scrapbook while the musicians shouted out stories and laughed. With a shrug, he followed Clementine across the room.

  She stopped by a framed photo on the wall, a black and white eight-by-ten that was hanging at an angle. She straight ened the frame, then clasped her hands behind her back as she gazed at it. "You see this picture?"

  Reacher considered his answer, then nodded. "I see it." The image in the frame was that of a big band, dressed in white tuxedos and arranged on risers behind gleaming music stands. The stands looked just like the ones in the roadhouse, with "Donny Basquette" painted along their upper lips and "Your Favorites" painted around the bases.

  A beaming bandleader stood at one side of the frame, baton raised and ready to conduct. A beautiful woman in a low-cut, sparkling evening gown smiled warmly on the other side of the photo. Reacher thought she could have been Clementine, a long time ago.

  "You see it?" said Clementine. "But there's nothing there!"