When nothing happened, he gathered himself to find Payton’s empty office.
The Hailmaker had gone.
25
THE GENTLE ART OF MAKING ENEMIES
The pillar of smoke was visible long before he reached Via Montana. It rose straight into the blue ether of sky, roiling, massive and black—another personal apocalypse for all of Los Angeles to witness. Clay gunned the engine the whole way up the street’s embankment. Even in his badly agitated state, it occurred to him that he needed to slow down, that if he didn’t exercise some restraint he was going to ram right through the gargoyle head on his own front gates.
Though as he rounded the bend that brought the cul-de-sac into view, Clay realized he couldn’t have reached those gates with a Sherman tank. Burbank P.D. had created a barricade of cruisers at the top; and the rest of Via Montana looked as if a spontaneous street fair had broken out. Cars lined both curbs, double-parked in some cases. People were hiking up to the barricade on foot like it was the apron of a stage. Clay had to park more than a block away and hoof it uphill, one of an anonymous many, catching tidbits from cops doing crowd control, from the chatter on the police and fire bands, from fans yelling to one another.
The fire department wasn’t attacking the flames directly; they were creating a fireline to prevent the blaze from spreading into the brittle-dry scrub around the property, and inevitably across the entire neighborhood. It wasn’t the main house that was on fire, but the guest place in back. “Isn’t that where Boyle hung himself?” someone asked. “Fuckin’ A right!” someone shouted back.
Clay lifted his chin, staring straight up into the smoke until the back of his head was resting between his shoulder blades. What he expected to see up there he couldn’t say. Boyle hovering in nebulous spirit-form? That had been the point of the Hailmaker setting fire to the Generator, hadn’t it? To eradicate Boyle’s anchor and send him reeling into oblivion. To deny Clay his strongest ally.
With the breeze carrying south, only the faintest whiff of burnt cedar descended on the street, but it was enough to spark powerful memories of being trapped inside Karney’s death-house, and if nothing else, Clay was thankful not to be near the fire. Some of the others coughed and paced, angling for photo opportunities. Most stood rooted where they were, hypnotized by the sirens and smoke. “This is the way Rocco wanted it,” someone insisted. “He’d have been happy to know his house went down in flames. Just like he did!”
“He didn’t kill himself!” Clay screamed at the crowd. “He was murdered goddammit!”
“Amen!” someone else shouted back. “You see, Lana, I keep telling you.”
Then Clay was working his way back downhill, hoping no one would recognize him. The last 24 hours was catching up with him. His head was as light as a helium balloon, his neck an ever-lengthening string. His feet stumbled clumsily under him; he held hoods and side mirrors of parked cars. What happened to Boyle? he kept asking himself. Where was he now that his anchor was gone?
The very idea of it overwhelmed Clay, and when he next blinked his eyes, he found himself lying on a patch of dirt beside a surf wagon. Somehow he’d passed out, mid-gallop. How long he’d been lying there he didn’t rightly know, but the smoke was still rising, its pillar like a tubular organism growing in a time-lapse video. And since no one had stumbled over his unconscious body, Clay casually lifted himself and continued downhill.
His phone rang. His father’s ID filled the screen.
Peter’s voice was as tight as a snare skin. “There’s a fire at the house.”
“I know. I can see the smoke.”
“There’s a police captain here, says he has a tip you started it. Tell me that’s not true.”
“It’s not true.”
“Okay.” His father almost sounded convinced. “I told them about the break-in last night. Come home. Show your license at the gate and talk to these guys. Tell them everything you—”
“Listen, I know you don’t want to hear this, but you can’t trust Essie. She’s not herself anymore. Don’t invite her in. Don’t go anywhere with her—”
“For shit’s sake, Clay, you have to stop—”
“I’m not saying she’s responsible for the fire—but she’s involved with the people who are. Please, trust me on this.”
Peter didn’t; so said his silence. “Where are you, son?”
“Son?”
Up the hill, Boyle’s fans, watching live feeds on their phones, uttered a collective gasp. “The roof just collapsed!” a guy who looked like Ric Ocasek shouted. Clay prayed that Peter didn’t hear the background noise. But—“You’re already here, aren’t you?”
“Don’t trust her,” Clay blurted. And his downhill jog broke into a run.
Somewhere between the house and The Knickerbocker it occurred to him that he’d lost all track of time. A look at the Jeep’s digital clock rattled his nerves all the harder. It was nearly one. By the time he reached the hotel, he was more than an hour late for their band meeting. Would Savy and the guys even still be there? And what excuse could he give? I was dancing with the devil in my shrink’s office. I blew you off to watch a piece of rock infamy—not to mention our own rehearsal space—get torched.
He banged through The Knickerbocker’s door hard enough to draw the ire of every dusty old-timer in the lobby. The desk clerk who’d been there the night of his band audition—she of the triple-thick glasses and put-upon attitude—gave Clay an admonishing dose of her eyes as he approached. “Is Savannah here? Spider?”
She seemed to be expecting Clay and lifted the desk phone. “Fine, I’ll send him up, but don’t give me lip,” she told whoever picked up. “Yeah? Well… ‘F’ you too!” She banged the handset down and told Clay, as if it was his fault, “Go to 11. Everyone’s there.”
Relief hit him in a flood. His band was here. Savy was here, safe and sound.
He found Spider and Fiasco under the big hotel letters on the roof, drinking, smoking Jane, and in a far more festive mood than he’d anticipated. At Clay’s entrance, they regarded him without hostility. “Sorry I’m late. I was looking for Savy this morning and then I…”—but looking at them, their odd smiles, he understood it was best to hold back—“I’m not sure where my head is at.”
“No worries,” Spider told him. “We’re here another hour.”
“Waiting for Savy to finish her shift,” Fiasco added.
“Savy’s okay then?”
“Better than okay, my man. Considering she’s working her last-ever shift of the last-ever meaningless job of her life.”
“Her last…?” Clay asked. But it was as obvious as their cannabis stink. In a way, he’d been preparing for this since he’d escaped Payton’s office. “Priest was here already, wasn’t he?”
Fiasco grinned back.
The fire was a literal smoke screen to keep me away. “Please tell me you didn’t—”
“Sign a contract? Agree to headline a gig at the Palladium tonight? Make all our worldly dreams come true?” Fiasco tipped Spider a wink. “Why the hell would we ever do that?”
“A friend of a friend knew an entertainment lawyer,” Spider said. His tone was apologetic. Almost apologetic. “She looked it over, made some revisions. We showed it to Mr. Priest and he was okay with the demands. He even suggested a few more.”
Clay shut his eyes. No more fight in him—no anger or bitterness or even sadness. Just a strangling exhaustion that sunk all the way into his… spirit, essence, soul?… whatever he was at the vital core. Savy. Where was Savy in all this?
“And he told us the truth about you,” Fiasco went on.
“The truth? You think a guy like Priest knows what that is?”
“He arranged for you to meet with the head of his company. Isn’t that right?”
Clay stared numbly back at his bass player’s clenched teeth. It reminded him of Karney’s lipless grin, lifting from the swimming pool. “Yeah, you could say that.”
“Mr. Priest has seen it hundr
eds of times. Guys who act like Axl Rose even if they haven’t sold a single album. You live in privilege, after all. You don’t understand that if the rest of us can’t make a living at this, we’re stuck in day jobs for eternity. Teaching eight-year-olds guitar tablature. Mopping bathroom floors. Hiding our tattoos under dress shirts. Getting fat and old and boring. If that’s how you want to live, with all your daddy’s cash, that’s on you. But don’t you dare drag us down.”
“You signed the contract,” Clay grunted. “Priest sang you a lullaby and you fucking babies fell right to sleep.”
“We wouldn’t have”—Fiasco’s snakeskin boots shuffled on the roof gravel; he looked amused, almost amused—“without Savy’s consent. Your girl was the one who insisted we sign before you got here. Do you honestly think she’s going to give up The Life for a singer who can’t even show up on time?”
Clay pressed both palms to his forehead, as if to hold in what little was left of his sanity. Stay on your feet, he begged himself. Just stay on your feet.
His weary fidgeting delighted Fiasco Joe.
“Think you can cut me out?” Clay told him, and he hadn’t meant to shout the words. He seemed to be laughing now too, shouting and laughing and jerking around. “You can’t play as a three-piece, you fucking idiot. Who’s going to sing?”
And for a moment, Clay feared Fiasco would yell, Why Gar Basserman, of course! But what he told me was “Savy did fine before she forced you on us.”
Except that was a total lie and they both knew it. Savy had the voice for it, yes, that fiery angst that would have all her fans humping their speakers. But she’d never wanted to front a band. Her vocal desires extended only as far as harmonies—and how many times had they heard her say so? “She wants to be a guitar god,” Clay shot back. “She’s Jimmy Page, not Amy Lee, and that’s the law of her whole fucking existence.”
“Well, see? It just shows how little you know her,” Fiasco said.
“What songs are you going to release? Most of the demo is mine.”
“Is that true? I always kind of looked at those tracks as a group effort.” And clearly Fiasco was high, Snoop Dog-high, his eyes shiny and his grin too natural to understand how close he was to choking on his teeth.
“They weren’t copyrighted,” Spider said, staring down the neck of his Tequila Cabeza. And hearing the mild-mannered drummer say so, hearing the weight of guilt in his words, convinced Clay of this terrible reality more than anything. “Mr. Priest had all the paperwork to file them. I wish you were here on time, Clay.”
“On time?” Clay shouted back. “Do you have any fucking idea where I was?”
Spider dropped his eyes. Fiasco laughed. “We know what you were doing to the Generator, you psycho. We don’t trust a damn word you’re saying.”
In desperation, Clay spun around—to leave the roof, to rip down the giant R over top of him, to search for an ax to put through Fiasco’s skull—and he found Savy standing right behind him. Still in her domestic hotel uni, standing there in the California sun as if the last 24 hours had never happened. “Hey,” she said. “Let’s talk.”
“Tell me it isn’t true. You didn’t sign. You, of all people…”
Savy led him across the roof. For a moment all she could do was brush at her makeup-less face, at tears that weren’t there. “This morning I raced down to where Mo scores. There’s a turnover rate on those corners, but I recognized some of the dealers. No one had seen him. No one had a clue. So I went home and… he was sitting on my couch.”
“Your brother?”
“Priest. Priest was there with my abuelita. And Mo was there too—safe and sound in bed. Priest had heard about ‘my problem’ and made calls. He traced Mo to a party in Silver Lake and collected him. By the time I got home, my grandmother was cooking breakfast for Priest. And he’d told her about the money. I thought she’d see through him like she sees through everything. But I never saw her happier. She couldn’t get over that someone would pay me money to play guitar—that I could save my brothers with music. What was I supposed to do?”
“Thank Priest for getting Mo, then face him another time. When we were together.”
“I thought that’s what we were doing at noon,” Savy countered. “I waited for you. Believe me, I held off as long as I could.”
“You had to know it was them keeping me away.”
Savy hesitated, offered the faintest of nods. “Tell me one thing. Priest said he dug into our pasts. He knew stuff, like Spider’s real name.” Her stare skittered off, but he saw the accusation rise on her face. “He told us you were an addict. That true?”
Clay looked back at her; he hadn’t seen that particular curveball coming, but wasn’t the least surprised now that it was in front of him. That was the thing about secrets. They waited there in the dark with all their teeth barred; one wrong move and they lashed out and ruined everything. “Yes,” Clay sighed. “I used in high school. To impress a girl. My mother was strong—she sent me to rehab and I haven’t touched as much as a joint since I’ve been in L.A. I’m not a junkie, Sav. I’m not like…” He stopped short of saying it. They both knew what he meant anyway. …not like your brother.
“You lied when I asked you. Knowing I wouldn’t have let you in the band—”
Clay grabbed Savy’s arms above the elbows and squeezed her, so hard that fear sprang onto her face. “I met him, Sav. The Hailmaker. He was wearing a different face than in the video, and that’s only the beginning of his powers. Don’t you know what’ll happen if you mess up even a little?”
Savy didn’t fight his grip, just hung there, leaning her weight into his thumbs. “It doesn’t matter what happens to me. Mo needs full-time attention. Mickey needs to grow up where the gangs won’t touch him. If things keep on like they have, I’ll have no family left. Priest gave me a choice. It’s more than any of our heroes ever did. So yeah, if the price for my family is my soul, I’m going to pay, and I don’t give a damn what you think about it.”
Clay let go of her.
Savy’s shoulders slumped.
Clay turned—to walk away, to find an ax to put through his own head, to scream until all the Knickerbocker letters toppled over—and he realized Spider and Fiasco were no longer on the roof.
Savy saw this too and was alarmed. She hurried to the parapet and gazed over the side of the building. “Shit.”
Peeking over the edge, Clay saw, twelve stories below, two LAPD cruisers parked in front of the hotel. “Fiasco called the cops on me?” Clay said, hating how wounded he sounded. “That fuck-king prick!”
So this was it. He was powerless to stop what the Hailmaker had set so effortlessly in motion. I should give in too. Whatever happens, at least she and I would be together.
But it was too late, even for that. He had refused what was offered and was going to be returned to the empty life he had always known. And that was the worst punishment of all.
Caught in a whirlpool, feeling the inescapable suck of the bottomless drain, Clay could only appeal to the girl right in front of him. “I need you. You can see Rocco. Without you, I’m just some kook hearing voices.”
“Fiasco didn’t call the cops,” Savy told him. “I called them.”
She met his frozen stare, determined not to flinch. “Priest told us you suffered a panic attack and lit the Generator on fire, that the cops would be looking for you and eventually you’d show up looking for me. Right now Fee’s telling them you’re on the roof, threatening to jump.”
“No,” Clay said, and in stepping away from her, it felt like he was separating himself from the whole world. “Not you too.” Like Essie. And Karney. She was their puppet now.
“No,” she said.
“You called the cops for them.”
“But I didn’t say I was going to let them catch you.”
Savy snatched his wrist and led him to the fire escape. “Go down through the Marilyn suite, left out the door. Take the utility elevator to G and cross the garage. You’ll ex
it out in the alley.”
Clay was already on the escape, looming over the city, over the plume of white smoke still rising from his own distant hillside, before he realized Savy was walking away. He caught her shoulder, just before she moved out of reach. “Hey—fuck the contract. Come with me.”
“I’m not worth it, Clay, trust me.”
“I do trust you. But you’re wrong about that.”
“Get out of here. Leave town, don’t look back.”
Clay’s fingers found her face. “Listen to me. Please. Are you listening?”
Savy looked right back at him, even if it was the last thing she wanted to do. “I know what you’re going to say. It isn’t enough to save us.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“Then you’re a fool.” And even before her expression hardened, her arm flew up—and she swatted his hand away.
PART IV:
THE DISHARMONIC
26
GODS & MONSTERS
There was no accounting for the next few hours, only that he spent them in his Jeep behind the Tallyrand Restaurant in Burbank, the pain in his chest rising like hourglass sand. Choking, suffocating on it. It was hard to move, hard to blink.
Rocket Throne’s “All Goes Dark” was on the speakers, a fourteen-minute opus to close the album of the same name. Clay had always been fascinated with their longer tracks, where song convention was thrown out the window. At its fifth minute “Dark” broke from its verse-chorus-bridge cycle and gave way to extended solos and odd time signatures, Boyle’s voice a wordless instrument, every note perfectly rendered, and at the ninth minute, the music cut out completely and an unsettling wind overtook the track, blowing forlornly, sweeping the notes and lyrics and all that had come before it into the void. The wind howled long, sloooow… and then Ooljee’s bass returned, downtuned and thumping ominously. Thum-tum, thum-tum, thum-tum, thum-tum… Four bars and the drums locked on, Roethke playing behind the beat, dragging his ghost notes, each snare crack filled with a sense of uneasy anticipation. Then Boyle’s guitar joined, clean strings, whistling hauntingly, and his voice was almost transcendentally calm, as he crooned over this sea-pitching soundscape: There’s something I haven’t told you; but tonight there’s nothing more to hide… I want you at my side, when there’s nowhere left to hide… all goes dark and through the dark I call: Find me at the precipice, ready for the fall… all goes dark and to the dark I call: Find me at the precipice….
FAREWELL GHOST Page 29