When Hell Freezes Over

by Rick Blechta

  JB: No, you certainly haven’t lost anything, to my ears.

  MQ: Thank you.

  JB: Were you surprised there was enough interest to support doing four performances?

  MQ: Quite frankly, yes. Over the years our albums have continued to sell quite well, but I guess it’s true what they say about absence making the heart grow fonder. From what I’ve heard, we could have sold out more than four.

  JB: So the next question obviously has to be: is this a one-off? Is there more Neurotica on the horizon?

  MQ: (hesitates) I know the rest of the band would like to continue; they always have. It became an annual ritual like sending Christmas cards for somebody to ask me about reforming. It was quite irritating, really. Up until now, I’ve always resisted. Past the fourth show, I don’t want to make any commitment.

  JB: Are you going to be glad, then, when it’s all over?

  MQ: I’d like to hope so. I do want to say one thing, and I hope you understand. I’ve found in the past number of days, that regardless of the fact that I’m pushing fifty pretty hard, my brain is stuck back in my twenty-second year. That’s when Neurotica first broke, and everything was new and fresh and quite exciting. I think I can speak for everyone in the group that we’re all still back there. It was the best time of our lives, and something like that makes an indelible impression.

  I know that’s going to seem rather pathetic to some people, being stuck in a year so long ago, but I think it’s a valid feeling. I have a very good friend who probably still feels seventeen inside. The strongest thing in your life is where you sort of get hung up psychically. Does that sound too airy-fairy?

  Thirty-Two

  We managed to book a room at the good old Argyll Hotel. The old woman behind the desk looked clearly scandalized because of the late hour, our appearance, but mostly our lack of luggage. Shannon found it amusing.

  First thing I did once we got to our room was ring Rolly, knowing he’d more than likely still be up. He fell all over himself when he heard my voice, obviously thinking that I was going to turn up dead. “What the hell happened?”

  “It’s too long a story to tell now. I’m about to fall over with exhaustion.”

  “Aw, c’mon mate! You can’t leave me hanging like this!”

  “Get used to disappointment,” I responded with a bitter laugh.

  He told me about Tommy: in hospital for observation, hopefully only suffering from minor concussion and a bruised face from having fallen on it.

  “Mags is on her way up now to be with him. You’d think the poor bugger had packed it in from the way she carried on! They never struck me as being all that close before this happened. You know how they were always ragging on each other. Goes to show you.”

  “Assuming Tommy is in decent shape, the concerts go off as scheduled, right?” I asked.

  Rolly seemed surprised. “You’re still in?”

  “I gave my word.”

  “When I told you what I did today, you looked as if you’d been kicked in the gut, mate. When you disappeared, I thought you’d scarpered again. Even after we found Tommy on the loading dock, I wasn’t sure until he started coming around and told us what had happened. Everyone’s been in a right bad state since then, I can tell you.”

  “Tell them I’m all right, but I don’t know yet what I can manage The call Shannon made to New York was even more interesting.

  She hadn’t been able to speak to her children for the past two days with all that had been going on, and even though it was after ten in the Big Apple, she had to speak with them. That part of the call went fairly quickly: Rachel and Robbie both complained about wanting to go back to Canada. Then their father got on the phone. At first Shannon’s face registered her disapproval at having to talk to him. As the conversation went on (Rob talking and Shannon listening and nodding her head), she began to look far more cheerful.

  Finally, she said, “Well, Rob, you know how I feel about this, and you know that I’ll do anything to protect my children. What happened was my fault. I should have known better and taken precautions, but uprooting them the way you did when both were so fragile was equally bad.” She nodded a few more times, then said,“Because of what happened tonight... No. I’m sure you’ll hear about it on the news... Yes. It involves Mastrocolle. Anyway, I’m committed to be here for another few days. I’ll let you know as soon as I know what my plans are... Middle of next week should be fine... I’ll call my lawyer tomorrow... Yes. Goodnight.”

  Snapping her cell phone shut, Shannon leapt to her feet and did a little victory dance. “The kids are coming home! Goddamn, that was out of the blue!”

  “What’s happened?”

  Shannon’s face just glowed. “Rob can’t handle being a full-time dad, that’s what. His lady friend wants nothing to do with the kids, no maternal instinct whatsoever. Robbie’s been in three fights at school, and they’re threatening to expel him. Rachel just mopes around the house and has been skipping classes. Long and short of it is, he wants to send them back. Now we’ve just got to convince a judge and Children’s Aid that it’s a good idea. I can’t wait to call my mom in the morning. She will be so excited!

  It was about this time that Shannon noticed I wasn’t sharing in her joy. “What’s wrong?”

  “Something Rolly told me this afternoon just before the bad guys showed up. It’s about Angus and what happened in Chicago. Seems I was very wrong all these years.”

  Shannon sat down next to me on the bed, concern now etched on her face. “What are you talking about?”

  “I was wrong! All those years...”

  The anger finally boiled over completely. Once released, it just roared through me with frightening intensity. I snatched up the nearest thing, the bedside clock radio, and threw it against the far wall. Rage at what Angus had done and sorrow at how his act of omission had robbed us all of the kind of chance you get only once—if you’re extremely lucky as we’d been.

  Shannon gripped my arms tightly, preventing me from storming around the room, likely breaking far more than a bloody clock as I howled at the fates. I struggled to throw her off as she clung to me with all her strength, not caring whom or what I hurt in my despair.

  She was sitting on my chest, holding me down as my strength flagged. Tears came, and I wept uncontrollably for a long time. Throughout, Shannon stayed with me, letting the spasm run its course. Though I couldn’t say it, her presence did bring comfort. Maybe because of it, I could let myself go like that for the first time. Giving in to such dark thoughts when alone can be dangerous indeed.

  Finally I was able to tell her about what had really happened on that night so long ago. I said far more than I intended, about all my fears and self-loathing over the years. Yes, I still had a lot to answer for, Rolly too. That had not gone away and never would, but Angus had done something terrible, and because of me, he had gotten away with it.

  “And this concert honouring him is now a complete farce from beginning to end!” I said disgustedly.

  Based on what she had said earlier, Shannon’s response startled me. “Can you be sure it didn’t happen as Angus said?”

  “What do you mean? Rolly told me he dragged the girl into the bathroom, there was some shouting then silence.”

  “And you’ve told me that Rolly was completely out of it at the time. Can you be certain that his memory is accurate? Perhaps Angus did take that poor girl into the bathroom to calm her down. It is possible she could have fallen. She was high and quite possibly drunk. The problem is you just can’t know for sure.”

  I shook my head. “You’re right... But not knowing leaves nothing but a festering wound. It will never heal.”

  “Sometimes that happens, and we just have to learn to live with it.”

  ***

  I woke up late in the morning, aware I was being watched. Turning my head, I saw Shannon lying on her side, head propped on her arm.

  “Good morning, love,” she said gently. “How do you feel?”


  I thought for a moment, taking stock. “Good...and bad.” Rolling

  over, I took her in my arms. “But mostly good. If you hadn’t been here

  last night, there’s no telling what I might have done.”

  “Things are going to get better now. You have your life back.”

  “And you’re going to get your kids,” I replied, nodding my head.

  “It’s more than I could have hoped for.”

  “I’m very happy for you.”

  She cocked an eyebrow. “You certainly don’t look it.”

  I got up and stared out the window for a long minute. Farther down the road, the statue of Highland Mary looked out across the Firth of Clyde.

  “Why do you think she did it?”

  “Maria? I’ve been thinking about that,” Shannon said, stepping up behind me and pressing against my back. “Well, I’m certainly no psychologist, but I think she loved and hated her cousin at the same time. That came through in a number of things she said. Then, you have to realize that she has no morals, or those she has are definitely very, shall we say, shiftable—one mark of the true psychopath. For whatever reason, she fixated on getting Mastrocolle at all costs. Everything she did was a means to that end. And it involved selling drugs herself to finance her plan, right down to using her body to worm her way into Mastrocolle’s organization, and then to get away again.”

  “Does that also include jumping into my car?”

  Shannon laughed, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “That was the only ‘miscalculation’ she would admit to. Mamma Vennuti’s last hours came as a big surprise to her and she raced to the hospital from Germany with her ‘Gia’ persona still firmly in place. It was only by chance that her Brummy comrades, the guys she hooked into doing her drug shipment, were in the area at the same time carrying out a completely unrelated errand for their boss. The fact she jumped into your car was a total fluke.”

  “Some fluke.”

  “Yeah...”

  I turned and held Shannon close, the two of us brought together by the oddest, and ultimately most tragic of circumstances.

  Eventually, I snapped to. “Wonder what time it is? We promised to meet Campbell at the police station.”

  Looking over at the bedside table and laughing, she said, “This darn hotel should make sure each room has a clock!”

  Getting dressed, Shannon discovered her watch buried among her clothes on the floor. “Jeez! It’s almost eleven. We should hustle our butts or they’re going to come looking for us.”

  I drove through the sleepy town and up the hill to the ugly police station, fitting in with its surroundings about as much as a flamingo in a flock of geese.

  Campbell was still hard at it, looking grey and tired, but wearing a satisfied expression.

  Shannon flopped down onto a chair without an invite. “What’s up?”

  The Scottish cop actually smiled as he put down his pen. “Well, lassie, thanks to your information, we’ve done a good night’s work. You will also be interested to know I got news from Birmingham, and they’ve clapped the irons on most of that crew, and a fingerprint of one of the thugs matches the only print we lifted from Angus MacDougall’s sitting room. Somehow we’ll get the bugger to talk, mark my words!”

  “My money’s on the guy in the hospital in Toronto being the murderer,” Shannon said grimly. “He liked his cigarettes way too much!”

  I was confused about the references in the conversation. “How did the Brums get mixed up in what happened last night?”

  She sighed. “The Chameleon’s doing yet again. As we were approaching Glasgow, she borrowed my cell, made a phone call down south and set something in motion that led the Birmingham crew to where she’d hidden the heroin shipment—yet another part of this schizophrenic plan of hers. The drugs were in the basement of Mamma Vennuti’s house. My jaw was down to the floor when she calmly turned to me and announced that the late Papa Vennuti was a bootlegger and smuggler of note in the forties and fifties when rationing was still in effect. Apparently, the Vennuti furnace pivots out from the wall, and there’s a storeroom behind it. Unfortunately, for the bad guys, the Birmingham police, having received an anonymous tip, already had the place staked out.”

  “Caught them red-handed, too,” Campbell said. “The one thing that baffles me, though, is how the girl fit in. We’ve never run across anyone with so many aliases. It’s almost comical.”

  Shannon looked grim. “Maria Rota is the cousin of Luigi Mastrocolle’s illegitimate daughter, and there’s nothing funny about her. I firmly believe she’s psychotic.”

  “Speaking of the girl,” I asked, “have you managed to catch her?”

  “No, laddie, but we will. She can’t remain on the run for long.”

  “Did she get off the hill?”

  “Aye. Had a car parked and waiting down the road. The local patrol had seen it earlier in the day and thought it belonged to some over-hearty hill walkers. We tracked her up to the forestry road near the top of the hill, then she made her way down through Puck’s Glen to the car park at the bottom. We found a flowered dress there that we think belongs to her. She must have driven off right under our noses. Got through our road block and all, too.”

  Shannon flashed me a look that said volumes.

  Our statements took a while, but the process was relatively painless, and at the end, Campbell actually thanked us for our help. “You will be called for at the trial, and I’ll be in touch if we need anything more in the meantime.”

  Shannon talked me into taking the ferry across to Gourock to save time. Big mistake. The Clyde was wind-whipped, the sky leaden as a cold rain fell, and I spent another endless sea voyage with my head hanging over the side of the boat.

  ***

  The opening act, a local Celtic rock band on the way up, was thundering through their final number, and what they lacked in polish, they made up for in gusto. Backstage, they’d been pretty cocky (reminding me of Neurotica in the same sort of situation), and Rolly had been pretty quick to consign them to the “alternate” green room. The keyboard player had hung behind to talk with me, confessing to being a “bloody great fan of yours.”

  The past twenty-four hours had felt as if I’d been blown about in a hurricane.

  The promo people had talked me into doing a press conference, since there had been much skepticism from certain quarters that my disappearance had been engineered for publicity purposes. A surprising number of journalists had shown up, and we’d managed to cajole Campbell into giving the official version of the story. I’d answered questions from those present as best I could but generally wished I could have been somewhere else at the time.

  One thing Campbell did that brought a wry smile to Shannon’s face was show photos of Maria/Giovanna asking that anyone knowing of her present whereabouts contact his office.

  “Good luck to him in finding her,” I said afterwards. “It isn’t going to happen. If I know our girl, she’s probably on some island in the Caribbean right now sipping piña coladas and laughing at the whole sorry bunch of us.”

  “I don’t know. Maria Rota is seriously disturbed. Frankly, I wouldn’t want to be on her bad side. She’s very, very brilliant, a genius, I suppose, but reality for her is a very fluid thing, and that’s incredibly dangerous in someone like her. If I were in Campbell’s shoes, I’d be plenty worried.”

  We’d managed a run-through of the show late that morning, and I must admit to being disgusted when a photo of Angus was projected on the screen at the back of the stage.

  Tommy was out of hospital but still rather shaky. Even though he made a game attempt at playing, it was clear he wouldn’t be able to manage the whole set. After a hasty confab, we asked Ralph if he felt up to the challenge and would occupy his dad’s drum chair for at least part of the first night. This time, John and I exchanged meaningful glances when we detected mixed emotions on Tommy’s face.

  “I think I might be able to manage the encores for tonight. It would make a good
entrance, wouldn’t it?” Tommy said stoutly, then he’d ruffled his son’s hair. “But we are keeping it in the family at least!”

  Now, as zero hour approached, every one of us was pacing the dressing room like caged lions. Shannon, Mags and John’s wife up from London watched us with amused expressions.

  Shannon, leaning over, said into my ear. “I’m going out there tonight with my eyes peeled.”

  “What the devil are you on about?” I asked, my tension showing.

  She put her finger next to the side of her nose, a thoroughly British expression. “I wouldn’t be surprised if a certain party made the scene tonight.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding! Maria’s probably on the other side of the world by now.”

  She shook her head. “It would be just like her to show up tonight.”

  As they left for their seats, Shannon gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “I’ve waited twenty-four years to hear this concert, Quicksilver. Don’t screw it up!”

  Tommy, getting his own going over from Mags, laughed loudly as he heard that. “She’s a bit of all right is our Shannon, eh, Michael? Fits right in!”

  Shannon turned and winked as she disappeared through the door.

  Butterflies filled my stomach as we approached the backstage area. The last of the warm-up group’s equipment was pushed past, and since they’d been set up in front of us on the stage, all that remained would be to test the mics and electronics one last time. I felt keyed up but very apprehensive at the same time. It had been so many years since I’d last performed, and I wasn’t sure whether I still had the sang froid to pull it off.

  The stage manager walking up, handed me a small torch. “We checked your entire keyboard rig twice, but I’m sure you’ll want to do that again yourself,” he grinned. “Once you’re ready, flash me twice with this and just start playing. We’ll handle the rest. You’re going to be great!”

  I looked around at the others, each as tense as I. Tommy, Lee, John and Rolly, all of us were putting our reputations on the line. Ralph sat off to the side on a flight case, chomping on an apple. He grinned and gave me a thumbs-up as I turned to climb the stairs to the darkened stage.