The Armageddon Rag

  The drinks arrived. Ellyn lifted his third gin and tonic, sipped, smiled, sipped, set it down. “A simple process, Blair. The same process that changes Billies into Williams and Bobbies into Roberts. I grew up. It’s called maturity.”

  “Maturity,” Sandy echoed tonelessly. It was one of Sharon’s favorite words when things got nasty in their brownstone. He hated that word.

  “I was the original peace-and-freedom kid,” Ellyn said, “but that lifestyle got old awful fast after college. Face it, Blair, living hand-to-mouth may be fine and romantic at twenty, but it’s boring at twenty-five, depressing at thirty, and downright grotesque at forty. You get hungry for all those middle-class comforts you put down when you were a stupid kid. The Sixties were a joke. We were wrong all along. We were spoiled children mouthing off, and we didn’t know a damn thing about the world or how it worked. The revolution! Come on! What a frigging laugh! There was never going to be no revolution.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” Sandy said. “You were the revolutionary, Lark. I was the one who went Clean for Gene, who worked for peace candidates. Within the system, remember? Not you, though. You said that was a waste of time. In fact, you said it helped perpetuate bourgeois oppression, because it created the illusion that the system worked. The whole thing had to come down, you said, and the faster the better. Elect fascists, that’s what you suggested.”

  “So I was an immature asshole,” Ellyn said.

  “And now you’re a mature asshole,” Sandy snapped.

  “At least I’ve changed.”

  “You know,” Sandy said, “that’s the funny thing. You haven’t changed. Not really. I’ve changed, whether you realize it or not. Maggie has changed. I think I’m going to look up Bambi and Slum and Froggy, and when I do, I bet they’ll have changed. But not you.”

  “Something wrong with your eyes, Blair,” Ellyn said. He smiled and tugged on the lapel of his expensive suit.

  “That’s surface and you know it. Inside, you haven’t changed a bit. When it was chic to be radical, you were more radical than anybody else. Though, come to think of it, you never really put yourself on the line, did you? No arrests on old L. Stephen’s record, huh? Now, of course, it’s chic to be successful, and you’re more successful than anybody else. Me especially, right?”

  “You said it, Blair. I didn’t. It’s a competitive world out there. I’m a winner. You’re a loser.”

  That was the final straw; now Sandy was definitely pissed. “It was always a competition with you, Lark. Even when we were all firmly against competitiveness, you made certain you were more against it than the rest of us. You’re a fraud, Lark, but there’s no change there, so don’t give me this bull about maturity. You were always a fraud.”

  “I’m a fraud who pulls down a nice six-figure salary, lives in an expensive house, and drives a big car,” said Ellyn.

  “I have a Mazda RX-7. Want to drag, bozo?”

  Ellyn laughed. “Oh, that’s perfect,” he said. “Talk about juvenile competitiveness!”

  “It’s the same song you been singing all along,” Sandy said. “I’m just not trying to be all wry and sophisticated and subtle about it.”

  “Sandy, you know that buying a sports car is a terribly trite way of reasserting your masculinity in the face of your waning sexuality. What color is this overpowered phallus of yours?”

  “Fuck off,” Sandy said. “Your little act isn’t even consistent. That crack was pure Lark. L. Stephen ought to have a sports car of his own. A Maserati at the least. You know, in the old days I never quite understood the chip on your shoulder, why you were always putting me down. But I’m mature enough to see through you real easily now.”

  “Go on. This is fascinating.”

  “Envy,” Sandy said.

  “Me?” Ellyn laughed. “Envious of you?”

  “Envy and insecurity,” Sandy said. “I beat your time with Maggie, was that it? Or was there something else? Or was it just that you felt so small inside that you had to cut everybody else down to size? And your name was part of it, right? All those years growing up, and every kid you met made fun of you when you introduced yourself, so you learned to attack first, so you wouldn’t have to defend. Keep them all off balance, right?”

  “You’re beautiful when you’re angry,” Ellyn said dryly. “Don’t stop. I love parlor psychoanalysis. You’ve got quite an imagination. You ought to try your hand at writing.”

  Sandy knocked off the last inch of beer in the bottom of his stein and stood up. “I have,” he said. “In fact, I wrote you into Kasey’s Quest. I had the police beat you to death.”

  Ellyn looked confused. “Huh? The girl was the only one got…” He realized what he was saying and stopped.

  “Sarah was the character’s name,” Sandy said. “Why, I thought you didn’t have the time to keep up with pop literature?”

  The famous Ellyn smile curdled faster than milk left out in the desert sun, and a dark flush crept up his neck. Sitting there in his three-piece suit, drink in hand, he suddenly looked pathetic. “You have no right to judge me, Blair,” he said coldly.

  “No need to,” said Sandy. “You’re too busy judging yourself. Only you better realize that swapping Mao’s little red book for Dress for Success won’t make you a better person.” It was a good exit line. Sandy exited.

  Rush Street was crowded with happy-hour drunks. All the smart young women and the sharp young men, aging rapidly. Sandy shoved his hands into his pockets and walked back to his hotel, feeling tired and drained. The ghosts he’d seen in the streets last night were not the only ones doomed to fighting ancient battles over and over and over.

  EIGHT

  Who’ll take the promise that you don’t have to keep?/

  Don’t look now, it ain’t you or me

  Sandy found a pink telephone message slip waiting for him back at the hotel. He looked at it numbly. Jared Patterson had phoned. The report on Edan Morse, no doubt. Maybe something big had turned up if Jared called instead of using Express Mail. But Sandy wasn’t up to it right then. He crumpled the slip in his hand and dropped it into one of the lobby ashtrays.

  Up in his room, he kicked off his shoes, turned on the TV set, and phoned down to room service for dinner. It was overpriced, but Jared was paying. He tipped the bellhop handsomely and settled in to watch a rerun of Happy Days while wolfing down chicken cordon bleu. Richie and Potsie were having lots of problems, but the Fonz had resolved everything neatly by the end of the half-hour. Sandy found himself wishing he knew the Fonz. Of course, he had known kids like the Fonz back in the Fifties, but most of them would rather beat the crap out of you than solve your problems.

  He was drinking coffee when the news came on. Sandy sat up and took notice. “In our lead story tonight, Maine sheriff’s police announced an arrest in the bizarre murder of former rock promoter Jamie Lynch,” the blond, vapid anchorwoman said. Sandy stared at the picture behind her well-tailored shoulder. A big, dark-haired man in a red-and-green plaid jacket was being propelled toward the camera, and a waiting police car, by two deputies. One of them was unmistakably David (“Call me Davie”) Parker. Then the scene shifted, and Sheriff Notch Theodore was hustling the same big guy into jail, surrounded by the usual gaggle of press people. The anchorwoman droned on for a minute, and then blithely switched to a story about a pregnant panda, leaving Sandy ignorant and royally annoyed at TV news. He switched off the set, found Parker’s home number in a corner of his wallet, and called.

  It rang six times before Parker picked it up. “Yeah?” he said.

  “Just saw this weird show on the tube,” Sandy said. “At first I thought it was a McCloud rerun. Then I said, no, that’s Davie Parker. What the hell is this shit? Who was that guy?”

  “Figured you’d be calling, Blair,” the deputy said amiably. “That guy, as you put it, is one Paul Lebeque. We just arrested him for the Lynch murder. He’s a Canuck migrant worker. French-Canadian, you know. Seasonal farm laborer. We get ’em up here,
too. Snowbacks.”

  “I don’t care how he makes his living. How’s he connect with Jamie?”

  “Lynch connected with Lebeque’s sister rather than the man himself, if you get my meaning.”

  Sandy frowned. “A girlfriend?”

  “More like a one-night stand. An old story. She was a cute kid, eighteen or so. Lynch met her somehow, got her to one of his parties, gave her some nice coke, took her to bed, and forgot about her. She had to have an abortion. Her brother found out. For the past few weeks he’s been mouthing off in bars on both sides of the border about what he did to that heartless bastard who screwed and abandoned his kid sister. Get it—heartless bastard.”

  “I get it,” Sandy said. “I don’t believe it, but I get it. A fucking migrant worker? Defending his sister’s rep? Come on, Parker. Do you buy that?”

  “Notch is the one who bought it. He’s sheriff, remember? I’m only a deputy.”

  “What about those trick questions of yours? The album on the stereo, the poster? Did this Lebeque guy know the answers?”

  “Lebeque said the record was already playing when he arrived. He didn’t even notice what it was. He just turned it up loud so that nobody would hear Jamie screaming. As for the poster, he says that he didn’t take it down at all. Lynch had removed it, for some reason. It was already there on top of the desk.”

  “So why the ropes?” Sandy demanded. “Why the whole ritual sacrifice thing?”

  “Lebeque says he wanted Lynch to know what was happening to him, to feel good and helpless and scared before he died.”

  “No,” Sandy said. “No, no, no! It’s a crock and you know it, Parker. What about the date? The fact that it was the anniversary of the West Mesa killing?”

  “Coincidence,” Parker said.

  “What about the fire at Gopher John’s place in Jersey?”

  “No relation to our case,” Parker said.

  “I don’t believe it,” Sandy insisted. “This is ridiculous. You know damn well that the Lynch killing ties in with the Nazgûl somehow.”

  “We checked that angle. All three of your musicians had alibis. Notch decided it didn’t connect.”

  “Of all the stupid, moronic…”

  “Ranting and raving won’t help, Blair,” Parker said. He paused briefly. “Look, if you quote me on this I’ll deny it, but the truth is, I think you’re right. Lebeque’s a hard case, but he’s a little nutso, too. I don’t think he did it, but he’s only too glad to take credit for it. The way Notch threw the questions at him, anybody could have come up with plausible answers on the record and the poster. Notch doesn’t want to be sheriff all his life. He’d like to run for statewide office. Solving this case so quickly is going to get him a lot of attention.”

  “But this guy is innocent!”

  “You don’t know that,” Parker said reasonably. “You suspect. So do I. But there’s nothing we can do about it. Notch is satisfied, we’ve got Lebeque in jail, and we’re shutting down the investigation.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Sandy said furiously. “Well, you clowns can do whatever you like, but I’m going ahead as planned. And when I shake loose the real killer, you’re going to have egg all over your face.”

  “You have something?” Parker asked.

  “Well,” said Sandy, “not really. Not much, anyway. But I’ve got a hunch. All my instincts…”

  “Notch isn’t much impressed by instincts.”

  “I have a name,” Sandy said.

  “Go on.”

  “Why should I? What’s the point? You’ve got Lebeque behind bars, you’ve got a motive, you’ve got a confession. Why should you care?”

  “I shouldn’t,” said Parker, “but I do. Notch ain’t going to like it, but I’m still willing to work with you on this.”

  Sandy hesitated. If Parker was straight, he might be useful. He decided to go ahead. “All right,” he said, “it isn’t much, but it is worth checking out. Edan Morse.”

  Parker repeated the name. “Who is it?” he asked.

  “A promoter, or would-be promoter,” Sandy said. “He wanted to get the Nazgûl back together. Lynch stood in the way. More than that I can’t tell you. Maggio was real reluctant to talk about him.”

  “Hmmm,” said Parker. “Interesting. The name sounds vaguely familiar. He’s probably one of the half-million guys with letters in Lynch’s files. I’ll check it out and get back to you.”

  “You do that,” Sandy said. He hung up, still feeling stung. No getting around it; he was going to have to talk to Jared, too. Might as well get it over with. He dialed.

  Jared sounded almost jovial. “I guess you heard the news?”

  “Yeah. So where’s that report on Morse I asked for?”

  “Oh, that. Never mind that. I had a couple of girls on that this morning, but they drew a blank. Nothing in the morgue, and our music editor has never heard of the dude.”

  “I don’t suppose it occurred to you to have your reporters call around, huh?”

  “Call? Who were we supposed to call?”

  “Oh, promoters, agents, rock singers, record company execs, say. For a start.”

  “Hey, Hedgehog is the Bible of rock music, Sandy. If we ain’t heard of him, nobody has. Besides, I told them to drop it when I heard about the arrest. What’s the point?”

  “The point is, those morons have got the wrong guy. Lebeque didn’t do it.”

  Jared perked up a bit at that. “No? Hey, that’s great! If you can prove that, the Hog’ll really have something.”

  “I can’t prove it. Yet.”

  “Well, what d’ya have then?”

  “Suspicions,” said Sandy. “Instincts. Trust me.”

  “Trust you?” Jared was aghast. “Hey, look, we can’t go out on that kind of limb just on your hunch.”

  “The Hog became famous by going out on limbs.”

  “That was in the old days. We’re respectable now. We call ’em police instead of pigs. We listen to ’em. They say they got the guy killed Jamie Lynch, and I’m inclined to believe ’em. Sandy, I know how hard you worked on this, and it breaks my heart how it turned out, but you got to face facts. Your Nazgûl angle is deader’n Elvis. Give it up. The way I see it, if you hustle your ass back to Maine, maybe you can get an interview or something, and we can still salvage a story. I’d like it by Tuesday, for next week’s edition, but I’m even willing to give you an extra week if you need it. How’s that for nice?”

  “Blow it out your ear, Jared. I’m not going to Maine. I’m going to New Mexico to talk to Peter Faxon. And I’m going to do this story the way we agreed.”

  “No, Sandy,” Jared said. A hint of coldness had crept into his voice. “We have a reputation to protect.”

  “Jared, this is the kind of story that made us! So the cops have arrested the wrong guy! It makes it even better for us. A migrant worker at that. Minority oppression, right? We do an exposé, it rips the lid off everything. We’ve done it before.”

  “If you had anything concrete, sure, sounds good. But you don’t. Hey, I’m all for big, juicy stories, but all you can say is ‘Trust me.’ I’m not going to lay out all the money you want for some nostalgia piece on an old rock band. Without the Lynch connection, it’s garbage. So if you want to collect a check, you better hightail it back to Maine.”

  “I’m doing this the way I intended,” Sandy said, “the way we discussed.”

  “Hey, great,” said Jared. “Good luck selling it somewhere.”

  “I sold it to Hedgehog.”

  Jared laughed. “Better think again.”

  “We have a contract,” Sandy said stiffly.

  “I’m breaching it,” Jared snapped. “So sue me. You’ll get your five hundred bucks eventually. It’ll only cost you ten times that much in legal fees.” He laughed again, a braying, snorting sort of laughter that drove Sandy right up the wall. Then he hung up.

  Sandy sat listening to the dial tone. “I don’t believe it,” he said to himself loudly. “I don
’t fucking believe it!” He slammed the receiver back into its cradle angrily and sat on the edge of the bed, helpless, his fists clenched. He thought of calling Sharon. Then he thought better of it. Sharon would just tell him to come home and get back to work on his novel. What the hell was the use? Maybe he ought to go home. The cops claimed to have Lynch’s killer in hand, and his assignment had been yanked out from under him. Maybe it was time to toss in the towel. This whole thing had been a mistake from the start. Sharon was mad at him, Alan was mad at him, and nothing good had come out of his poking around, except maybe for his bittersweet reunion with Maggie. What was he trying to prove?

  He had a life waiting for him back in Brooklyn. Maybe it was time he settled down and lived it. He had to finish page thirty-seven and then go on to page thirty-eight. That was the rational, sensible, mature thing to do. Thinking of it made Sandy want to puke. The novel was going to be a disaster and he knew it; that was why it had become too difficult to face. He had no stomach for maturity. He’d seen too much of it this trip. Maggie, worn down and trapped in dead-end jobs, lonely, starting to get desperate. Lark, pumping down the gin and tonics, working hard to convince himself that he was wonderfully happy. Gopher John, ashen as he looked at the fire, radiant when he talked about the old days, about what it had been like to play with the Nazgûl. Rick Maggio, ragin’. The ravages of time. That was his story; that was more important than his novel. Jared didn’t want to buy it, and Alan didn’t want to sell it, and Sharon didn’t want to hear about it, but Sandy knew it was the story he had to tell. It was his story too, in a way.

  Sandy knew it was crazy. He didn’t even have a paper behind him now. He’d be working entirely on spec. Still, that might be for the best. Maybe he’d be able to sell it elsewhere. There were better markets than the Hog. He could try for Playboy or Penthouse. He could even show the piece to Rolling Stone. That would really get Jared’s back up. Maybe they wouldn’t take it, though. Maybe he’d have to give it away to some low-rent rag somewhere. But it didn’t matter. He had to finish it anyway. The story had begun as something interesting, something that might be fun. It hadn’t been fun, not at all. It would probably be even less fun as it went along. But he knew he had to see it through. Lynch might have been a first-class shit, but he was owed that much. Not to mention the people who died in the Gopher Hole fire, and even this Paul Lebeque. The clown was set up to take a fall for a murder he didn’t commit, and nobody cared. Not the cops, not the Hog, not even the guy himself. So it was up to him, then.