By the time Lincoln’s birthday rolled around, Sandy had done a lot of thinking. He had two choices. He could pretend that everything that had happened since the day of Lynch’s murder had been a bad dream, forget it all, and set about rebuilding his life and his career like a sane, rational person. Or he could take a hand once again, play it out to its conclusion.
It was no choice at all, not really. He felt like a moth that had just sighted the Great Chicago Fire. He went to his record cabinet, slid out Music to Wake the Dead, and placed it on the stereo.
In the months that followed, Sandy played the album so often that eventually he had to hunt up a replacement copy in the record shop downstairs, since his was getting so badly worn. The more he listened to the music, the more certain he grew. The only thing that didn’t seem quite to fit was the final cut on Side 1, “Prelude to Madness.” The title was plain enough, but the lyrics were disconnected, cryptic. Right is wrong, black is white, who the hell’s got the justice tonight? the song said. Wolfman looked into his mirror and Lon Chaney looked back out, said another line. The chorus went, Queens beat aces every time, yeah! Dead man’s hand, dead man’s hand! And Charlie is the joker in the deck. But who the hell was Charlie?
He played “Prelude to Madness” more than any other cut, wondering what it was talking about, trying to make sense of it. But it never quite jelled.
He played “The Armageddon Rag” hardly at all. That one he thought he understood damn well, and the understanding made him nervous.
In March the dreams began again.
Some of them, Sandy thought, were just ordinary nightmares. He dreamed of Sharon dressed in ice, her skin blue with the cold, her glasses rimed by frost. He dreamed of Maggie weeping. Butcher Byrne stalked his nights, shotgun in hand, hunting him, and at the end of that recurrent dream, Sandy would see his own head mounted on the wall of Fort Byrne, between a moose and a large bear. He would wake shaking and sweating, deathly cold under all his worn blankets.
But it was the other dreams that scared him, the ones that were not ordinary. He could recognize them now, he thought. He could feel the difference between the visions conjured up by his own troubled subconscious and the ones sent to him, somehow, by Edan Morse. There was something alien about these other dreams. They were vivid and fevered, always in full color, yet less chaotic than his own dreams.
He dreamed a lot of war. He had never gone to war, never known war, but the dreams seemed very real to him. He was in Vietnam, and the silver jets screamed overhead and the napalm fell, and he felt its searing kiss on his body, burning, burning, an agony that lasted half the night. He was a nun in El Salvador, and the death squads came, and they raped him over and over again, sodomized him, took him two and three at a time, mouth, anus, vagina, until finally they brought out knives and put the cold steel in all the places where their flesh had gone. He was somewhere in the Middle East, working in an oil field, and the paratroopers came down, and he grabbed a gun and tried to fight but he was an engineer, not a soldier, and he caught a bullet square in his gut and it took him hours to die.
But there were good dreams, too. Sometimes it was Ananda who came to him in the night, her dark eyes glowing, her soft brown skin glistening with oil. She would smile for him and mount him and do things to him that you can only do in dreams, until the dawn came and he cried out and woke to wet, stained sheets.
And, always, he dreamed of the music. Waking or sleeping, it was with him. The Nazgûl in a hall as vast as the night, the broken people dancing, the yellow eyes above, his warnings unheard over the loud beat of the rock, Gopher John burning, Maggio rotting, Faxon slashed and bleeding, and Hobbins shrieking and writhing like a man possessed, and behind them the thin bleeding woman on the great X-shaped cross, the darkness gathering, the air full of fear and sex and joy and the metallic taste of blood. Each time the dream came, the sense of awful imminence was greater, until finally came one night in April when he dreamed the dream and woke to the sound of his own scream. He sat up in darkness, hyperventilating, damp with sweat, thinking something’s wrong. The dream had been too vivid to bear. He could still hear the music; melancholy and full of threat, as if a storm were gathering, the guitars in pain, the cadence of the drums almost martial, enough to set the blood rushing in his skull. On a darkling plain beyond, the armies gathered, good and evil. This is the day we all arrive at, Hobbins sang, this is the day we choose. The rhythm quickened, the battle began, armageddon, the great storm, soulstorm said the lyric, and the four Nazgûl became as one, Kill your brother, kill your friend, kill yourself! In the Rag, all the dead look just like you, one line promised. And they fought on. Dead or alive, it made no difference on armageddon day.
How long he sat in the dark, waiting for the sound to fade. How long he sat breathing heavily, trying to calm himself. How long he sat and listened before he knew the truth. It was real. The music was real. Not a part of his dream, no, not at all.
In the other room, someone had turned on his stereo, and the Nazgûl were performing “The Armageddon Rag.”
Sandy felt the fear pass through him, swift and cold and thin as an ice pick. He rose from the mattress, unsteady in the darkness, and went to the door.
The only light came from his amp; the dim red eye of its ON light, the pale band of the radio stations he never listened to. The darkness was full of music. She was sitting in the old overstuffed rocker by the window, but she rose when Sandy entered.
He went to his stereo, hit the reject button. The song ended abruptly, with Hobbins in mid-word, the final broken chord lingering in the still cold air of his apartment. Sandy breathed a little easier, and shivered. She had opened the door to his bathroom, and a chill had seeped in everywhere. He closed it and turned to face her. “I’ve dreamed of you,” he said.
She came closer. “I know.” Her arms went around his neck. She pulled him down to her, kissed him. Her mouth opened, and her tongue pushed at the unyielding wall of his teeth. She drew back, her eyes wide and questioning. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Sandy said. He trembled. “Everything.”
Her face was as smooth as a pool of still water, with hidden depths below. “We have unfinished business,” she said.
Sandy was strangely nervous. He felt as he had felt years before, the very first time, with Maggie. He was a boy again, and a frightened boy at that. He wanted her, wanted her terribly, and yet he said, “I’m not sure.”
“I am,” Ananda whispered, and she took his hand and led him back into the bedroom.
He had been hard since he’d seen her seated in the living room, but it was a strange sort of erection, as much fear as lust. He felt very passive. His head was full of Sharon and Maggie and armageddon.
But Ananda was a master exorcist. “This time you’ll remember,” she promised. It was like the dreams. She undid her blouse, popped the snap on her jeans and peeled them off, and straddled him wearing nothing but her panties. She did that little thing with her tongue. Her body was lithe and slender, with the long hard muscles of a swimmer. She had high firm breasts with nipples the color of dark chocolate that hardened instantly when Sandy brushed them with his fingers. Her hair was a fine black cascade that trailed across his face and chest as she kissed his mouth, his nipples, his navel, and finally took him in her mouth. For years she teased him, tongued him, brought him right to the brink and then drew him back, smiling, tongue flicking across her lips.
And when the games finally stopped, when she finally stripped off her panties and mounted him, she talked to him. Small jokes, whispered endearments, little gasps and cries of pleasure, urgent four-letter instructions. And somehow that made it better; more exciting, more personal. He thought only fleetingly of Sharon, who had always been silent when they made love, as if somehow he shut off her personality when he thrust into her. She would move with him, and sometimes groan, but never talk, and in that sense she was a stranger during lovemaking, in that sense she was only a body. But Ananda was there, always t
here, with him every step of the way, and her mind and her wit and her words made her body more erotic and intense than it could possibly be alone. When Sandy came, it was not just an orgasm, but an orgasm inside Ananda, which was different somehow. He was very conscious of her, of her smile and her cries. And then she came, moving on top of him wildly, her head thrown back, gasping, her hair whipping back and forth as she shook, a dark flush spreading across her breasts. Sandy could feel her contractions, one after the other, ebbing slowly.
Finally he pulled her down against him, hugged her, kissed her. She licked his ear. When he laughed she rolled off, smiling, and said, “Good enough for government work, right?” Then she padded into the bathroom and returned with a damp, warm washcloth whose touch was incredibly soothing. “Say something,” she told him.
But in the short time she had left him, the darkness had crept back into the room and settled over the mattress, and Sandy was no longer smiling. “You’re the only good thing in any of the dreams,” he said. “The rest of it scares me.”
Ananda settled down next to him. “Tell me about it,” she whispered.
He did. When he was done, she sighed. “Ugly,” she agreed. “But only dreams, for you. Other people lived those dreams, or will. I think maybe the oil field war is something yet to come.”
“Yes,” Sandy said. He had felt the same way. The planes had looked oddly futuristic in that one.
“I think you understand, Sandy. Deep down. That’s where it all comes from, deep down. Edan just brings it forth. So you knew all along. Those are the things we’re fighting against. War, oppression, injustice. The dreams were sent to remind you.”
“What about the concert dream?” he said.
“I think you misinterpret that one. Or maybe not. Maybe you’re just telling yourself that there’s an ugly time ahead, right? That’s true. Remember, the Rag has two parts, with the long bridge between, but before we reach the resurrection we have to pass through the fire.”
“Armageddon,” Sandy said. “The bloodtide. It’s a nightmare.”
“No,” said Ananda, “the world around us is the nightmare.”
“And you’re the dream?” he said.
She kissed him lightly. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve said yet.”
“How did you find me?” Sandy asked.
“Got your address through the Hog. Your realtor gave me the next clue. Nice lady, if you like dyed hair and fingernail polish. What happened?”
“It turned out our ideas on real property were just too diverse,” Sandy said. “She wanted a luxury condominium in order to maximize long-term capital gains, and I wanted a sugar shack to boogie-woogie in.”
“I’m glad,” Ananda said. She ran a languid hand up his body so softly it made him tremble.
“Why are you here?” he said. “I don’t have that much natural charm, I know that damn well.”
“You underestimate yourself,” she said, “but you’re right. Edan sent me to get you. The deal is set. The Nazgûl are back together. They’re down in Philadelphia right now, rehearsing secretly. Edan told me to fetch you down.”
“Why?” Sandy demanded. “What’s his interest in me?”
“He wants you with us. You have talents we need.”
“Talents?”
She sat up in bed, shook her black hair. “When the hour comes, we must raise an army. They must come to hear the Nazgûl play, come in the hundreds and the thousands. You can do that. You write. You understand the media, you have access to it. Edan wants you to travel with the band, to handle all the publicity for the tour. He said I could tell you to name your own fee.”
That was a curve ball that Sandy had never anticipated. “Is that why you’re here?” he said sharply. “Are you part of my fee?”
She frowned, and crossed her arms against her high, beautiful breasts. “Edan doesn’t tell me who to sleep with,” she said. “After a crack like that, I ought to spit in your face and leave, right? But I won’t. I’m going to forget you said that. There are more important things at stake here than your feelings or mine. Remember your dreams. Think of the stakes.”
Think of the stakes. I tend my garden, Maggie said with weary resignation. She looked old and beaten; robbed of their animation, her features were almost homely. What a frigging laugh, Lark jeered. Had he always been such a bitter, empty man? Believe, counseled Bambi, believe and you’ll be happy. Believe in Jesus or in pyramid power, in vegetarianism or love or the Democrats, it was all the same. Contentment built on sand, with a tidal wave onrushing. Froggy snorted with laughter. We coulda been a contender, he said. Only they said, “Kids, it ain’t your decade.” It ain’t our decade! We coulda changed the world, we coulda been something. Instead of bums. Which is what we are. Bums with spaghetti in our hair. How many wives had it been now? How many colleges? It’s too late, Slum said with downcast eyes. I’m incompetent. It’s too late. But what if it wasn’t? Edan Morse and Butcher Byrne, who was white and who was black? Round and round it spun, and the painted ponies went up and down, and everyone’s getting old but Mama Cass. Think of the stakes. Think of the stakes.
Ananda took his hand. Hers was smaller, cool and firm, her nails cut short, almost to the quick. His thumb traced the hard ridge of callus on the outside of her palm and little finger, in a gesture both tender and confused. “I know the stakes better than you can possibly imagine,” he said quietly.
She smiled. “Then you’re with us, right?”
Sandy stared at her. “You know, I don’t even know your last name.”
“Caine, but I never use it,” she said. “Why does that matter?”
“Maybe it doesn’t,” Sandy said wearily.
“Well?” Ananda demanded. “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem. Which is it, writer-man?”
He sat up. “I want to see it go down. I want to see it for myself. I think Edan’s a fucking murderer, but these days it’s hard to see who isn’t, so maybe it doesn’t matter. I’m going to be part of it anyway, so what the fuck, I might as well get paid for it. Tell Morse I’ll do his PR for him.”
Ananda touched his cheek lightly. “Welcome to the war,” she said, and Sandy took her and kissed her hungrily, and they made love again. He was on top this time, and he rode her hard for what seemed like hours, slamming into her over and over with an almost desperate force while she moved beneath him and cried out and urged him on. It seemed a dark, terrible sort of lovemaking, and for a while Sandy thought it might last forever, that he would never come, never. But when the orgasm finally arrived for him, it was explosive, a sudden spasm of release that drove all thought from his mind. There was nothing but sensation, the throbbing in his loins, her heat wrapped hard around him, and perhaps, far off in the back of his head, a dim and distant crescendo of drums.
Afterward, Ananda slept, but Sandy found himself tossing and turning. He had visions of Jamie Lynch with a gaping hole in his chest, staring out at him from blind eyes. He heard the screams of children burning in the Gopher Hole, and smelled the smoke. Finally he rose and dressed and went out into the cold, leaving Ananda in bed.
Two blocks away, there was a small candy store that stayed open all night. It was still an hour before dawn when he got there, but a half-dozen customers were seated at the soda fountain, drinking coffee and leafing through the early edition of the Daily News. Sandy went past them, back to where the telephone was squeezed in behind the pinball machines. He had never gotten around to having one installed in his apartment. He fished in his pocket, came up with a handful of change, fed the phone and dialed.
After a dozen rings, Jared Patterson’s groggy voice came on. “Who… wha? Jeez, wha time is it? Who’s it there? What?”
“Just me, Jared,” Sandy said. “I wanted to tell you that the Martians have landed. And guess what? I’m their press agent.”
EIGHTEEN
Look what they’ve done to my song, ma!/
Look what they’ve done to my song!
&
nbsp; It was an old neighborhood movie palace in a run-down section of Philadelphia, a Thirties relic that had been closed for more than a decade now, heavy with decay and faded charm. The marquee had six rows of neon tubing, three above and three below the blank gray area where movie titles would have been displayed. All the lights were gone or broken. Underneath was a ticket-seller’s booth as ornate as something from Arabian Nights, its glass cracked and boarded over, set in the middle of a tiled outer lobby with a third of the tiles gone. The doors to the inner lobby were boarded up as well, and padlocked.
He parked Daydream in the alley beside the theater, and they both climbed out. “This way,” said Ananda. She led him around back, to one of the fire exits with its big double steel doors, old red paint flaking off the metal. Gort was there, leaning against the brick wall and reading Sartre. He looked up and grunted at their approach.
Sandy flashed him a peace sign. “Klaatu borada nicto, Gort,” he said.
Gort glowered. “Real original. I hate that fucking joke. Everybody makes the same stupid fucking joke.” He went back to Sartre and let them pass.
Inside, they crossed a short corridor and pushed through a heavy velvet drapery, moth-eaten and covered with dust, its maroon faded almost to gray. They passed under an arched doorway into the dimly lit auditorium. When his eyes adjusted, Sandy saw a sea of rotting empty seats, a wide deserted balcony, vaguely Moorish decor, a ceiling painted with stars and clouds, and a stage strewn with sound equipment. Two huge speakers stood by the wings, cables snaked everywhere, and back by the ancient screen was a set of drums painted with a familiar black-and-red pattern. Gopher John was already seated among them, wolfing down a sandwich. Sandy spotted Rick Maggio and Larry Richmond as well. Richmond was seated on the edge of the stage, looking small and lonely in a way that would have been impossible for Patrick Henry Hobbins, his eyes closed as he did what looked like isometrics. Maggio was off in the back surrounded by a knot of people, most of them of the female persuasion. Sandy heard his loud, snorting laughter. Already the Nazgûl seemed to have captured a sizable number of drones, groupies, gophers, and hangers-on; Sandy saw at least a dozen people he didn’t know. “Where’s Faxon?” he asked.