“I want more of Martha’s songs.”
Bobby Doyle said, “Hey. It’s not your band, dude.”
Miguel spun around and yelled, “Get out!”
Martha screamed, “Miguel, you can’t do that!”
Arlo went over next to Miguel and turned his back on the rest of them. He wanted to smack Miguel a couple of times, make him calm down. He barely moved his lips, saying, “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry. Bobby gets out of line, I’ll take him out back and explain things.”
For a second Miguel held onto the doorknob, then he said to Martha, “Hablamos después.” The door slammed behind him. Arlo didn’t plan on explaining anything to Bobby. Rick dropped into a chair and put his face in his hands. “I’m gonna die. I am gonna drop dead. Please, God. Please.”
Arlo stood over his chair. “Is he playing in the band with us?”
Blinking, Rick looked up. “If you like him. What do you say? Martha?”
“Sure.”
“Arlo? Scott?”
They all agreed to let Bobby Doyle in. Bobby Doyle said, “Cool.”
They rehearsed for a couple of hours. Getting into the music again, Arlo felt better. He could close his eyes, Kelly would be in the room. In Bobby Doyle’s hands her guitar was singing her songs. Kelly would be happy if she could’ve known a part of her was still making music.
They took a break. Martha wanted to work for a while, so the guys put on their jackets and went out in the backyard with two six-packs. Arlo cut the terrace lights off. He and Scott dragged some chairs to the lake. They all sat down, and Bobby Doyle rolled a joint.
They talked about the rehearsal for a while, then talked about the concert. Bobby got up and moved his chair. He said, “I’m deaf in my left ear. The other one will go too if I don’t wear earplugs.”
They drank some beer, then Bobby told Scott it didn’t sound like he’d been playing bass too long, but that was all right because basically the Mayhem songs were pretty simple. There was a little blue tattoo in the shape of an infinity sign next to Bobby’s mouth, and in the starlight it gave him a crooked smile. The top of his shaved head shone. He rolled another joint and lit up. “Hey. What’s the story with Martha’s boyfriend? Is he Colombian?”
“From Ecuador, I think,” Scott said.
Bobby laughed. “No, man. Is he a drug dealer?”
Scott said, “I don’t think so.”
“He looks like one.”
Arlo said, “You shouldn’t say that, man.”
“What do you guys know about that dude that runs the studio? Victor.”
Arlo and Scott looked at each other. Scott said, “Yeah, he’s doing our demo tape. What do you mean?” He gave the joint back to Bobby Doyle.
Bobby held his breath. It took him awhile to answer. “I think Victor is a cop.”
“Whoa,” Scott said. “Why do you think that?”
“I don’t know, man. I’m getting these vibes all over. I’m sharing this with you because I’m in the band now. That’s why I asked you about Miguel. Call it my narc radar.”
Arlo looked at Scott. “Miguel doesn’t deal drugs. I know that for a fact. But you think Victor could be a narc?”
“I don’t know any narcs that run recording studios. If he is, there’s nothing we can do. Leave it be.”
“Yeah.” Bobby nodded. “Don’t carry anything in there, though. That’s my advice at this point. We ought to tell Martha and Rick.”
“And Miguel,” Arlo said.
“No,” Scott said. “Don’t tell anybody. They’d ask Victor what’s up, then we wouldn’t get the demo tape. We’d be screwed. I say we wait till after the concert, like Bobby said. Okay?”
Arlo thought about it. “What do you think, Bobby?”
“Sounds reasonable. Leave it be.”
Scott opened another beer. “Where are you from, Bobby?”
“Chicago. I was born there, but I’ve been all over.”
“Rick said you played with Ozzy Osbourne.”
The glowing orange dot passed over to Bobby again. They waited for him to exhale. He said, “No. I auditioned with Ozzy in 1986 to play for his tour. I was green, but they gave me the gig. You want to hear a total screw-up? I got drunk the night before the first rehearsal and slept through it. They fired me. I said to myself, Oh, so what? I don’t need this shit. Like you justify it in your own mind that you didn’t really want to do it, you know? Play backup for a washed-up rocker. That was my mind-set at that stage of my existence. Yeah. But Ozzy is cool, man. He’s all right.”
“But you did come close to making it,” Scott said.
“Close? I was a guitar tech for Aerosmith and Metallica, man. Year and a half on the road.”
“No shit. Whoa.”
“Deluxe tour buses. Plenty to eat. We could have anything we wanted. The best grass, the best beer. Any girl we wanted. Three at a time if we wanted. But it gets boring. That’s hard for you to conceive of at this point in your careers, but after a while it gets to be a drag. Looking for that perfect high. Looking for that woman who won’t let you down.”
Bobby Doyle faked holding his guitar, and when he sang it sounded like a file on sheet metal. “Don’t let me down, mama. Don’t let me down, pretty mama, ’cause here I am, girl, standin’ at the edge of heaven, waitin’ for your sweet, sweet touch to save me—” He strummed in the air. “Bah-dah-dah-da-da-daaah.” Then he took the joint from Arlo. “Wow. We’re retro tonight, folks. Didn’t mean to sound so … Nirvana.” He fell off his chair giggling.
Arlo let out some smoke. “You just made that up right now?”
“Yeah. My voice is shot.”
“I like it,” Arlo said. “What was that chick died of heroin in the sixties?”
“Janis Joplin?” He laughed. “Great. I sound like Janis on smack.”
They opened another beer each.
Bobby Doyle said, “You know what I like about Mayhem? The music is about unseen forces that want to control the human spirit. They hold the place in modern mythology that used to be occupied by the Devil. They foster an impulse to destroy. That’s what my songs are about—how people respond to annihilation of the spirit in an age when violence is more acceptable and social constraints have loosened.”
Arlo nodded.
“I don’t know,” Scott said. “Martha Cruz has her own ideas.”
“Yeah.” Bobby Doyle made a little smile. “She’ll learn. Nobody does it alone, man. I used to think so. Then I mellowed. I’m older now, I’m just happy to have a job.”
“How old are you?” Scott asked.
“Guess.”
“Thirty-eight?”
“Thirty-one. I only look ancient.”
Arlo fell asleep on the roof in a flat spot so he wouldn’t roll off. Voices woke him up. He opened his eyes and pushed down the top of the sleeping bag. Martha’s voice, popping mad. Then Miguel, yelling back at her. This time of year, in winter, people would leave the windows open to get some air, opposite what it was up north. Sometimes they forgot that other people could hear.
Arlo was in his socks. Carefully picking his way over the barrel tiles so he wouldn’t crack them, he made his way down the slope, stepping over a vent pipe, bracing himself on a chimney. From forty feet up, he had a view of the surrounding land—two or three huge houses already built and another under construction, with a lake all the way around, except where the access road came in. There was the big dragline that Arlo had worked on. In the darkness the water looked black, and the mounds of white rock were like jagged gray hills.
Arlo finally stopped on the side of the house outside Miguel’s bedroom. There was a little balcony down there, and light was coming through the doors. He could barely make out his watch. Two-thirty in the morning.
They were yelling in Spanish. Miguel told her to shut up a couple of times. Their words would be clear, then get muffled, as though they were pacing around in the room, coming nearer to the doors, then going away.
Shivering in the
cold air, Arlo peered over the edge of the roof. He heard a couple of sharp cracks. Martha cried out. Told him to stop it. Miguel shouted at her. Something about the keys. Where were the keys? Arlo shifted his weight. Miguel had smacked her around before, but this was getting to be too much. Martha had a mouth on her, and she could be stupid what she said, but still. He leaned out farther, holding onto the chimney. The door banged open, hitting the wall. Martha came out onto the balcony, and Arlo ducked back. She ran down the stairs barefoot, wearing nothing but a little red satin nightie. The balcony had a stone staircase going down the side of the house to a flower garden and a little fountain. Miguel was right behind her, just his black trousers on. He and Martha disappeared past some hedges. There was the sound of snapping twigs. Martha yelped once. Then silence.
It was pretty dark out there, no moon or anything. Arlo waited. The fuzziness he’d had in his head when he woke was gone now. He was worried what might be going on. He looked down at the balcony, wondering if he could hang off the edge of the roof and drop without breaking his leg. Then he saw them coming across the flower garden, Miguel dragging Martha along by her elbow. The front of her nightie was ripped, and her hair was hanging in her face.
Arlo didn’t wait for them to come back to the house and go inside. He knew that if he stayed by the balcony and listened, he would hear them making love like wild animals. On all fours he went up the steep incline of the roof, then over the highest point of it, able to see his way in the starlight pouring down. He pulled his sleeping bag over his head, but he doubted he’d get much sleep the rest of the night.
CHAPTER 31
Elaine was on her second vodka and tonic, listening to Charlie Dunavoy play “Sophisticated Lady,” when she heard someone pull out the stool beside her. Fridays were busy. She couldn’t expect solitude. She turned her eyes, prepared to give someone a dismissive glance.
It was Dan Galindo. “Well,” she said.
“Hi, Elaine.” He gave her a peck on the cheek, then told the bartender to bring him a draft.
“Is this a coincidence?” she asked.
“Not really. Charlie called and said why didn’t I come over.” Dan propped the heel of his sneaker on a rung of the bar stool. “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard Charlie play. He’s pretty good.” A button-down collar showed above the neck of his blue pullover sweater. He smiled at the bartender when she set down his beer.
“Terry, don’t take money from this man. Wednesday was his birthday, and I’m buying him a drink.”
“Happy birthday,” the bartender said.
Dan looked at Elaine. “How’d you know that?”
She shrugged. “We went out for a beer when you turned thirty, sort of a bitch-and-moan party because I lost a big jury trial the same day.”
“Has it been that long?”
She touched her vodka tonic to his glass. “We’ll do it again when you’re forty.”
Dan took a swallow of beer, then said, “Charlie told me forty would be better. I hope he’s right.”
“Well, don’t ask me, I’m certainly not there yet.” Elaine reached for a pretzel, then scooted the bowl toward Dan. “I hear you’re looking for another job.”
“It’s time,” he said. “Charlie’s about to retire. I’m thinking Fort Lauderdale.”
“Oh, yes. Your ex lives up that way.” Elaine picked salt off a pretzel. The band swung into “Satin Doll,” and she turned her head toward the stage. A few couples got up to dance. Charlie and his bass player were accompanied by a young saxophonist, a student at the school of the arts downtown. She watched his cheeks fill, watched him lean back with his horn. A sweet sound.
“I came to say thank you,” Dan said. “If it weren’t for you, I’d be in jail right now. When I knocked on your door that night, I thought you weren’t home.”
“I couldn’t let you in.” She smiled. “No, Dan. I didn’t have company. I just couldn’t talk to you. Why were you there?”
Dan came a little closer to be heard over the music. “I wanted to ask who the hell that bearded guy was outside your house last Sunday morning. He looked just like Victor Ramirez.”
Still watching the saxophonist, Elaine said, “I figured it was something like that. Don’t ask me about the case, Dan.”
“Are you still on it? When I called your office, they said you were out of town on a family emergency, but here you sit. Did Paxton find out what you did for me?”
“Oh, it wasn’t just that.”
“Well, what was it?”
Poking the lime slice down into her drink, she shook her head.
“Okay.” Dan settled back on his stool, and his hands kept the rhythm of the music. The sleeves of his sweater were pushed up. He had long arms and angular, graceful hands. The skin was deep golden—many hours on the water, she assumed.
He said, “What do you know about Kelly’s death? The police won’t tell me anything. Are there any leads?”
“Not that I know of.” She glanced at him. “The police don’t keep in touch.”
“Why did Kelly come to see me that night?”
“I have no idea.”
Dan’s shoulder was lightly touching hers. “She wanted to tell me something, Elaine. I wish I knew what it was. I’m asking you because I know that you were involved with bringing her in as a confidential informant, and I have to assume that you knew her pretty well, and that you must have talked to her.”
Elaine reached for another pretzel, nibbled it halfway down, then said, “We didn’t talk very often. I can tell you this. A couple of nights before she died, she left a message at my office. She was sorry for having lied about you. You see, she had told the DEA you were involved in money laundering with Miguel Salazar—” Dan dropped his hands on the bar and exhaled, and Elaine said, “I never believed that. She called me to apologize. Maybe she was going to see you for the same reason. When you ended your relationship with her, she was devastated—maybe that’s too strong a word. She was angry, and she wanted to hurt you.”
Dan took a moment to think about it. “If she was angry, I suppose she had a reason. I let her think we had something when we didn’t. She had her clothes in my bedroom and makeup in the bathroom, and I was ashamed to be seen with her. I look back now, and that’s how it was. I made excuses not to introduce her to my friends. My son never saw her. I knew we had no future, and I kept sleeping with her. Pretty sad.”
“Easy to say all that, looking back,” Elaine said, “but I think you’re too hard on yourself.”
The bartender came over to check on the level of their drinks. Elaine said to bring her another. Dan’s beer was only halfway down. He shook his head.
“The last time I saw her,” Elaine said, “she told me about her life, her childhood. How she got into music. Her dreams. I want to grieve, Dan. I want to cry, but I feel just … numb. I feel responsible somehow, you know? Not legally, but—”
He nodded.
For a while they listened to the music. Charlie waved at them from behind the keyboard. Lights played on his white hair, and the old bass man’s hands moved up and down the strings. Then the saxophonist came in—a rich, breathy melody.
“Vincent Hooper doesn’t deserve you, Elaine.”
The words surprised her, they were spoken so simply and earnestly. From anyone else they would have sounded insincere. “Don’t talk about what people deserve, Dan. That’s funny, though. I’m the one sleeping with a married man, and he’s the one who isn’t good enough.”
“You should leave him.”
“Think so?”
“Don’t waste a minute.”
She saw them both in the dim, glass-sparkled surface of the mirror. Dan’s profile, his hair neatly parted to one side. Large brown eyes, slightly downturned at the corners, which she had always thought rather affecting. Juries invariably trusted him.
“Well, it’s already over, Vince and I.”
“When?”
“Last night. I thought I’d celebrate.” Dan glance
d at her vodka tonic. “This is only my third. I might even stop with this, who knows?” She set it down on the bar. His eyes were on her, that patient, wordless gaze. “Part of the reason I split up with Vince, believe it or not, was you. He wasn’t sure what’s going on with you and me. I told him the truth—nothing—but you kept popping up. With a man like Hooper, you’re either on his side or you aren’t. If you’re part of the team, he would die for you. But if there’s any doubt, he slams the door.” She touched Dan’s shoulder and gave it a little push for emphasis. “Bagels. That’s what did it. You showed up on Sunday morning with a half dozen fresh bagels. What an underhanded tactic that was.”
“Don’t expect me to apologize, seeing how it worked out.”
She picked up her drink, then put it down again. “Dan, what are you doing, leaving Miami? If you go anywhere else, you’ll throw away every one of your clients. Okay, you want to go back to your wife and son, but make the commute for a while. Charlie says you’re starting to build a good practice.”
“Wow. I’d forgotten how bossy you can be.” Dan leaned on an elbow, cheek in his palm. “Why did you send me to Charlie?”
“Because he needed someone younger and decent and competent to help him out. Because I like both of you. Dan, why am I talking to you? We’re supposed to be shooting at each other.”
He sipped his beer. “I spoke to John Paxton today. Dropped by the office to clear up some details on a possible plea bargain for Rick Robbins—which I guess we can’t talk about—”
“No, we can’t.”
“Anyway, Paxton asked me about Luis Barrios. I don’t know why he brought it up, I guess it still bugs him. He asked me if I’d do the same thing again.”
“What’d you tell him?”
“That I didn’t know. I’ve given it a lot of thought lately too. Luis Barrios. Dead but he keeps on coming. I can’t get rid of him.” Dan turned to face her. “What was your advice back then, Elaine?”
“Mine? You never asked for an opinion.”
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