“So, if there was anything wrong…” Steele paused following the cables to the sound booth. “He should have known about it.”
“I did, right off,” Flynt announced proudly.
“You certainly did, old roadie, you certainly did.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
They walked outside and immediately noticed that the rumble of the crowd had lessened over the last several minutes. For a bunch of rowdy kids after a broken-up concert, the crowd certainly calmed down with record speed. It appeared as though getting John to disappear worked wonders. They essentially cut off the head of a snake. A deadly, venomous one.
Steele witnessed first-hand the raw power of the mob mentality and what it could do to people. If John got these kids too caught up in a hate tornado, the whirlwind rivalry would only get worse. The worst thing was, it would likely be unintentional. Some good-natured ribbing could instantly lead to warfare in groups like this. Would a clash of these two anarchistic musical forces result in more murders? Doubtful. They were kids, after all.
Besides, it seemed that Paul was the source of the real violence, anyway, and he was removed from the equation.
The detectives were already making their way to the cars. A few kids gave them sidelong glances, their antisocial groups taught them to hate the police. At least that was something they had in common.
“You got the address of the venue that Paul is working at?” Steele asked.
“Yup,” Flynt said gladly. “Just let me go grab Mindy out of my car.”
Flynt ran off before Steele could stop him. Steele wanted to leave as quickly as possible. He wished Mindy could stay out of this one, for once. No such luck.
Steele got to his car and took a look around the street. It was dead quiet to an almost spooky degree. Didn’t kids normally hang around after shows? More than that: if an accident happened, don’t gawkers tend to stick around and gossip for at least a half-hour? Sure, the excitement was over, but things like this had a tendency to keep people gasping and chatting. Steele saw it countless times. People tended to make up their own exciting details about what they “witnessed.”
No doubt by tomorrow the story would evolve into flames shooting out of Terry’s mic, sparks showering the spectators, and a bolt of lightning from the Almighty himself.
Something was definitely strange about the silence, though. It bothered Steele more than he cared to admit. He was taken from his unease as Flynt approached, proudly holding up his phone with the Mindy app already opened.
“Ready to go!”
“Great,” Steele said. “Hey, does it seem oddly quiet to you?”
“What do you mean?”
Steele widened his eyes and motioned to the street. “I mean oddly quiet. What do you think? Didn’t you use to work in music? Didn’t you just say that?”
“Yeah, but—”
“Where did all the kids go?”
“I don’t know. They seemed pretty pumped up, and it’s still early. Maybe they went to another show.”
“Another show? Is there anything even remotely close to—”
Mindy butted in. “Yeah, baby. Continue point-five miles. Your destination is on the right.”
“Oh, no,” Steele said. “You don’t think they all went to…”
“To get our perp? Uh-oh.” Flynt’s look of enlightenment spoke volumes.
“Get in,” Noah said. “After all the stuff John was saying to this crowd, I doubt they’re just going to cuff Paul and hand him over to the law.
“Buckle up,” Flynt said.
Steele couldn’t believe he’d actually said that. He tugged on his seat belt. “I already am.”
“I know. I just mean emotionally, psychologically buckle up. You know?”
Steele started the car, shifted it into drive and peeled out. Talking over the furious engine of the Crown Vic, he said, “Hard to believe.”
“What?”
“That a guy as old as he is willing to kill for some high school girl. Doesn’t he have anything else going on in his life?”
“Have you ever met sound guys?”
Noah grinned. He really hadn’t until recently. And that was enough for him.
They blew two red lights and arrived at the venue in a little over forty seconds. Sure enough, a crowd of punks was already gathered outside of the show. A lone bouncer was doing his best to keep back the crowd, but shouting and intimidation would only last so long. The guy looked like the side of a mountain, but with enough gangly punks swarming him, he’d eventually give out. As soon as one kid laid a hand on the bouncer, the authority barrier would be broken and everyone would rush forward. He would be overwhelmed in seconds.
That moment came all too quickly. Before Steele could even put out the call for backup, the bouncer was shoved aside. He tripped over someone else’s feet and went sprawling into the mob. The moment he was down, the angry punks started to storm the place like a fortress.
“Well, this just got more interesting.” Steele brought the radio mic to his mouth and called for backup. Both detectives jumped out of the car and darted toward the fray. There was an absolute crush of bodies bottlenecked at the door. As the kids funneled inside, Flynt and Steele pushed their way into the line.
“Get back and go home!” Noah yelled, flashing his badge. “We’re the police and we will arrest you if we have to!”
He knew just two cops in street clothes couldn’t stop the kids. They could hold them back, scare them off for a minute or two, but as soon as the detectives let their guard down, the punks would go searching for another way into the building.
Flynt and Steele managed to bully their way through the crowd and enter the venue. They instantly found themselves right on the front line of a shouting match. That was half good. The kids hadn’t taken to fists yet. Maybe things would stay that way. They were just spectators, after all, not the Red Army. Besides…a lot of the punks were super scrawny, maybe a buck-ten soaking wet. Did they really want to start fights?
Most of the punks were hurling insults at the Juggalos; some were demanding what they actually came for, which was Paul. If the Juggalos knew or cared who Paul was, they might have just given him up. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. All they could see was a gang of rivals pouring into their supposedly exclusive hang out.
It was surprisingly easy to tell them apart. Some of the Juggalos wore face paint. Many of them wore brightly colored hair—reds, purples, and greens. Most wore necklaces with little men holding hatchets. As for the punks, most of them were in black. Yes, they colored their hair, too, but not as bright and blatant as the Juggalos.
Times like this, Steele would love to point his gun in the air and fire it off into the ceiling to get the crowd quiet. That wouldn’t fly, though. The space was too confined and there were far too many underage kids. Instead, he held his badge high and shouted for the crowd to disperse. As expected, nothing happened.
Well, it was worth a shot.
More kids rushed in through the door, squeezing the divide between the groups and making it uncomfortably small. Half of the kids didn’t have any idea what they were screaming about. They just fed off of the energy.
“This is getting bad!” Steele yelled into his partner’s ear. “Where’s the sound booth?”
“Up there!” Flynt shouted and pointed.
This turned out to be a big mistake.
A few of the punks at their backs saw this and took it to mean: “There he is! CHARGE!”
They did. The two groups clashed with Flynt and Steele caught in the middle. Steele kept his arms up, but his hands close. He wanted to protect his head without coming remotely close to punching one of the kids’ lights out. He threw his shoulders and hips into weak spots in the crowd, trying to break through. Flynt followed behind. Steele could actually hear him apologizing to a few of the kids he bumped past.
As things intensified, Steele was horrified at what he saw next. As he made his way into the actual concert area—dimly lit and sme
lling of body odor—he saw just how bad it was.
The crowd was throwing chairs. They were mostly steel folding chairs, going end over end all across the place. Some went hurtling straight ahead like rockets while others were hurled into the air to fall where gravity took them. Some kids were crying out. Others were cursing and screaming. There were threats of violence and cries for control. Steele could barely hear these shouts, though. The band was still playing, and the maniacs on stage seemed to be enjoying the response from the crowd. The singer, in particular, seemed to be encouraging the hostility from the stage.
Steele turned to see Flynt caught in the swarm behind him. The kids were getting thicker in number now, resulting in more screaming matches. Steele saw one Juggalo reach out and shove a gangly punk. To Steele, it looked like the start of a fight.
Steele reached out and grabbed Flynt, yanking him forward.
“You alright?” Steele asked.
Flynt nodded. Pushing further through the mob, they both held their badges high, shouting, “POLICE, POLICE!”
The call mostly fell on deaf or blown-out ears. The band still blared from the stage, and kids were still screaming. The few kids who actually made eye contact with the detectives or their badges yielded just enough for them to break through the line. In moving ahead, Steele caught a stray elbow to the gut. It barely hurt but sent a little flare of anger through him. He reminded himself that it was not appropriate to strike a teenager.
Once they were clear of the pandemonium, Flynt almost made the mistake of pointing to the sound booth again. Steele swatted his partner’s hand down as they rushed towards the back of the venue floor.
They rushed across the floor just as the back exit flew open. A mad array of pushing and shoving between the two rival groups broke out there as well. So far, though, it remained nothing more than shoving and posturing. It wasn’t overly violent or bloody yet.
“It’s like a soccer riot in here!” Flynt yelled.
Steele briefly considered that the total breakdown in civility was too absurd for reality. Surely this entire, strange, pointless war was some kind of a nightmarish mistake. They were just kids. It was just music and pranks, right?
As he grabbed for this hope, he was shocked to find that someone, somewhere, thought it would be funny to change the room’s lighting. A tech in the backroom brought the house lights lower and switched on the stage’s strobe lights. The effect raised the chaos to a dizzying level. Some kids were actually cheering now as if it was all part of the show.
Steele then thought the lighting change might work to their advantage, though. With the room suddenly rocking to the disorienting flashing lights, and with the deafening screams of the crowd and the ear-shattering volume of the band, they should have an easier time sneaking Paul out of the place. That was if Paul was still here.
The detectives arrived at the three steps leading up to the sound booth. From below, it looked empty. A few kids tried ascending the stairs but Steele blocked them with a stiff arm and a glaring look.
To Steele’s surprise, Flynt charged up the stairs. Either he was fearless in light of what was to come, or terrified of all the commotion below. Steele followed him up and both detectives arrived on the platform to find Paul cowering in the corner.
“Paul Leslie,” Steele bellowed over the commotion. “For your own safety, you’re going to have to follow us.” He thought it was better to save the whole “under arrest” routine for later. They didn’t have anything concrete on him right now, anyway. Better to let him think this was a rescue operation. In a way, it was.
“What did I do?” Paul asked.
“Probably nothing,” Flynt said. “Hey, you’re into sound. Is it okay for a guy to like the piano more than a guitar?”
“Wha—wait… what? I don’t know, man.”
“What about violin?”
“Your positive reinforcement can wait,” Steele snapped. He reached down and pulled Paul off of the floor. “Now listen, Paul. You’re going to stay behind me and in front of my partner until we’re clear of the building. You got that?”
“Yes.” Paul was wide-eyed with fear and would have agreed to anything that would get him to safety.
“Good. Keep one hand on my shoulder at all times. If I feel your hand let go, that means someone got you, which means I stop to save you. And that means you don’t get out of here in one piece. Say all of that back to me so I know you heard it.”
Paul did. Then he asked, “Can’t we just wait up here until, you know… backup arrives or something?”
The guy was smart, at least at that moment. Tactically, staying was the better move. The badge and the shouting weren’t doing much for the detectives out there in the chaos, but protecting a small area like the booth would be easy. Anyone stepping in would immediately see two cops and back off.
This wasn’t about tactics, though. Steele wasn’t sure what it was—gut instinct, maybe—but he knew he needed to get Paul to the station sooner rather than later. If they waited for the whole thing to calm down, Paul’s mood might stabilize. If they were going to get a confession out of him, they needed him to think the station was the only safe place in the world.
At least, that was part of it. The other part was that Steele wouldn’t mind seeing Paul take a few slugs to the face on their way out. Maybe that was backward thinking, but Steele didn’t have time to pass judgment on himself.
“Ready?” Steele was looking at Paul, but really directing the question to Flynt.
Both men nodded.
“Alright. Here we go.”
They rushed down the stairs and back into the insanity of clashing armies, lit by the strobes that were flashing at migraine-speed.
Someone shouted, “There he is!” and Steele immediately began to question his logic. He held out his badge, which seemed absurd at this point considering how dark and chaotic it was. Then he shouted, “Police!” just one more time.
He maneuvered the trio in an evasive pattern, making it hard to track their movements through the pulsing lightning in the room. Ahead, he could see the red exit sign in all of its glory. It was tough to tell how many fighters were beneath it, so Noah just brought himself and his team up to ramming speed.
He plowed into the crowd with all of his momentum, plus that of Paul and Flynt. Somehow, it wasn’t enough. The crowd was too densely packed. He tried again but failed. He felt Paul getting pulled away.
This is a disaster.
He kept trying. What were these kids going to do if they got ahold of Paul? Beat him? That gave Noah an idea. A risky and devious idea, but it was something.
The idea came with another accidental elbow, this time into his ribs. Steele couldn’t help it; this time he sent his own elbow back. It glanced off of a Juggalo that went barrelling into another Juggalo. The second one assumed the first was trying to start a mosh pit or something because he cheered and started jumping. Soon, the others joined in.
Steele grabbed Paul and shoved him toward the door, toward the crowd of angry kids. Right away, someone kicked at him. A flying chair barely missed the top of his head. A kid to Paul’s right called him a very creative and nasty name.
“Take him outside!” Noah shouted. “Beat him up!”
Steele caught a hilarious flash of terror on Paul’s face as he assumed he would be left out to dry by the police. As Paul was dragged outside by the kids, Flynt and Steele followed. Outside, the air was cool, the crowd was smaller, and the thunder of the band was muted. The lighting was also much better, allowing the kids to finally see that the two whackos that escorted Paul outside were policemen.
“Police!” Noah screamed. “Step away from him right now!”
Steele resisted the urge to draw his gun. He didn’t need it. Now that the size of the mob was reduced, their mentality would return to something more rational.
The voice and badge proved to be enough. The kids backed off, though one kid spit on Paul’s shoes. Flynt took the initiative, grabbed Paul, and togethe
r the three hustled back to the car.
“Hey, Paul?” Flynt asked.
The guy was panting, unable or unwilling to answer. He looked like he wanted to cry and fight, all at the same time. “What?”
“Did you put any thought into my piano question?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“Have a seat,” Steele said, pointing at the metal chair against the wall.
“How ’bout you take these cuffs off?” Paul said, glaring at Steele.
“Sure thing.” But he did not take the cuffs off. Steele continued to escort Paul down the precinct’s rear hallway, to Interview Room A.
As Steele made his way down the hallway, a uniformed officer came running to catch up with him “Lieutenant? You’ve got some folks here to see you. A Mr. Vernon and his daughter.”
“Thanks. Are they up front?”
“No. Sergeant Flynt put them in Room B.”
“Perfect.”
Steele continued leading Paul to Room A. He opened the door, gave him a little shove inside, and then closed the door. He caught a brief look of confusion on Paul’s face before the door closed between them. Steele then stepped further down the hall and opened the door to Interview Room B.
Flynt sat on one side of a green metal table, while Mr. Vernon and Julie sat opposite him. Julie looked like a scared child. She was dressed in a pair of jeans and a UCLA sweatshirt, apparently having changed in the hour or so since she’d left the venue. Her face was washed clean of any make-up; her hair was pulled back in a ponytail.
Her father was a thick-chested man, which he strategically puffed out as Steele entered. Mr. Vernon wore a protective scowl, yet held a thinly veiled sadness in his expression.
“Thank you for coming in,” Steele said. He extended his hand to Mr. Vernon. “I’m Lieutenant Noah Steele. I see you met my partner.” The two men shook hands, and Steele smiled at Julie. “Hi, Julie, how you doin’?”
“Not the best.”
“What’s this about?” Vernon asked.
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