He remembered her saying I’m still with you back in Sweetwater. Her loyalty was like a knife to his heart. She was wasting time in this party band, and that’s what The Five was. A band pumping out pablum to be washed down by a flood of cheap beer. A broken-down, sad merchandise machine. One song like ‘When The Storm Breaks’ didn’t make any difference. He knew she was a better guitarist and a better singer and a better songwriter than he, and he believed his leaden earthbound influence was keeping her from finding her own path, because—Christ love her—she meant it when she said I’m still with you.
So now was the time for him to find his guts and say it.
He did.
“You ought to go out on your own.” He had to pause for a few seconds, to clear his throat. “Put your own band together. You front it. Audition the players, make the sound you want. You can do it. You could’ve done it straight out of The Blessed Hours, if you’d wanted to.”
“Oh, no,” she answered, in a quietly stunned voice like a child being told to leave the house. “Oh, no.”
“You can,” he said. “It would be all yours. What would be wrong with that?” He recalled all the times they’d been working together on songs and he’d steamrolled her, just plowed her under when she’d made a suggestion to transpose it to a different key or add this or take away that or whatever. Even though down in his deep dark grudge he’d known she was right—usually right—he couldn’t have let her take control. Once she figured out she didn’t really need him, then where would he be?
But now it was different. Day was night and up was down. Mike was dead and George was shot, the Argo had sunken in a sea of broken drywall, The Five had played its final gig and Johnny, there is no roadmap.
“I couldn’t do that,” Ariel replied. “I couldn’t leave my family.”
“Your family?” It was said with incredulous sarcasm. “Oh, a few people travelling together in a busted-up van? That family?” He hesitated, but when she didn’t respond he went on, because his blood was up and he was ready to hurt her to make her let go. “Musicians are a fucking dime a dozen,” he said. “Bands fall apart every day, so what’s the big deal? When it happens, you just go latch onto some other group of nobodies. So we were together a while, we went through some good shit and some bad shit, but that doesn’t make us a family. Far from it.”
“What, then? What does it make us?”
“It makes us nothing. Because we’re over. Don’t you get that? Now, if you want to live in your land of rainbows and moonbeams, that’s up to you. But I’m not living there. I’m telling you, The Five is finished. Okay? And I’m not coming back, so you and Berke and Terry get yourselves to Austin and do whatever the fuck you need to do. I’m out of it.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Listen, stop holding onto me!” he said, with maybe more vitriol than he’d intended. “Either put your own band together or go home to Massachusetts, but quit fucking around with losers like Neal Tapley. If you want to try to save sick animals, go be a vet.” He knew that was a hard punch, because Ariel had tried her best to get Neal off the crack, the speedballs and everything else he was loading himself up with to fight his depression, but she couldn’t hold him strongly enough to keep him from flying off that two-lane in his Volvo clunker. Nomad didn’t know if there was more to that story, if there’d been a “romance”—that’s how they would’ve put it in those godawful old English novels, “romance”—but he’d figured long ago that Ariel was searching for someone to believe in, to trust and to follow.
It ain’t me, babe.
“Go back to Austin,” he said, wearily now. “Just go.”
Still she didn’t leave him.
She spoke softly, but with grit in her voice: “Don’t you know that we’re all over the news? Front page of the morning Star, with pictures. We’re on NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox and CNN. The sniper story has gone nationwide. Haven’t you seen a TV?”
“No.”
“We need you back here with us. I’m speaking for Berke and Terry, too. Wherever you are, come back.”
“No,” he repeated, very firmly, and with that he had hung up the phone.
Hey, amigo! You that guy on the TV? Right there! You that guy?
Early Sunday afternoon, an officer had come to get him from his cell. Police Captain Garza was here, he was told. Wants to talk to you.
“No,” Nomad had said again, and had stretched out on his bunk. The officer had gone away, and there had been no further word from Captain Garza or, for that matter, anyone else.
So, it wasn’t bad. A clean bunk, good food, plenty of people to talk to when he decided he was ready to talk. Didn’t a lot of cool musicians pay their dues in jail? Not so bad. Except for the Day-Glo orange jumpsuit with the JAIL stenciled across the back. But he would bear that indignity, too.
He was out in the dayroom sweeping the floor when two of the badasses came up behind him. Not prisoners, but guards. Moates, the one with the bald skull and a mole on his forehead, the one Nomad had been warned by some of the other dudes not to look at because he really really really did not like to be looked at by pond scum such as themselves; and Kingston, the thin black guy with the goatee, the constant unsettling half-smile on his face and the snakes tattooed on his ropy forearms.
“Charles,” said Kingston, “somebody wants to see you.”
“Right now,” said Moates.
“Who is it?” Nomad asked.
“Move,” said baldie-with-a-mole, and he hooked a thumb toward a red-painted steel door across the dayroom.
“I don’t want to see anybody,” Nomad said.
“Ain’t askin’ you,” said Kingston. “Put the broom aside. Let’s go!”
Nomad weighed his options. The two men planted themselves before him, relaxed but ready. They were the real deal, citizens of the world of hurt. Nomad put his broom aside, and he followed Kingston with the bald dude right at his heels.
A plastic pass card was used on a slot in the door, followed by a key. Nomad was led into a stark hallway painted off-white, with several doors on either side. The door was closed and locked behind him. Moates gave him a shove just because he could.
Kingston opened another door without having to use a key. “Get in there,” he directed. “Sit down and wait.”
Overhead fluorescents spread even light on a table and three chairs, one across from two. The walls were the same stark blankness as the hallway. A cork bulletin board held no bulletins or pushpins. There was a smell in here as if it were a place the guards sneaked in to smoke cigarettes.
“Who am I—?” Waiting for, he was going to say, but Moates and Kingston were already going out and the door closed. Nomad didn’t hear a lock turn.
He sat down on the side of the table that faced the door. Damned if he knew what this was about. Whatever it was, he didn’t like it. He had the feeling that if he walked to that door and opened it, he might return to his cell in the shape of a pretzel.
In about thirty seconds, the door did open. A man entered. He was carrying a brown folder. He shut the door behind him and he did not look into Nomad’s eyes until he was sitting down on the other side of the table.
They stared at each other.
“You’re in some trouble, John,” the man said.
Nomad’s first urge was to shrug off the comment, to present a stone face like he’d seen the other inmates do when they were trying to act all-that in the presence of pressure or despair, but he didn’t because he knew the man was right, and the way the man had spoken was no-nonsense and required respect. But Nomad didn’t answer, and he spent a few seconds putting together impressions of his visitor.
The man was about fifty or so years old, in very good physical shape. He had a ruddy, outdoors coloring. His gray, close-cropped hair was retreating at the temples and sat on his head like a tight cap. He was so clean-shaven a razor might have been his religion. A military man? Nomad wondered. The man’s thick eyebrows were still black, his eyes a pale sky-blue. He
had the square chin of a comic-book hero but the crooked nose of a boxer who has gone a few bad rounds in his life. He was wearing khaki trousers and a dark gray polo shirt. Nomad had seen that he was wearing a black belt and black wingtip shoes. The man stood maybe six-one, had wide shoulders and forearms that looked as if he could chop wood for a living. His hands were veiny, one of the few signs of the toll of years. He had a few deep lines in his face, bracketing his mouth and at the corners of his eyes, but he didn’t have the saggy look that old people get. He didn’t have their sad look, of lost chances and yesterdays receding into the rearview mirror. In fact, this dude didn’t look like he’d lost any chance that came his way. The pale blue eyes were keen and careful. He wore a thin gold wedding ring and a nice but not flashy wristwatch. He kept both hands pressed flat against the brown folder on the table in front of him.
“Who are you?” Nomad asked.
“My name is Truitt Allen. I’m an agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, based here in Tucson. Want to see my ID?” He made a move for his wallet.
FBI, Nomad thought. Almost military. This dude was a tough old hoss. But he said, “Yeah, I do,” and he waited as the wallet was opened to display a gold-colored shield and the official identification card that bore a picture of Allen’s unsmiling, all-business visage.
“Okay. Now…do you want to see who killed Mike Davis and shot George Emerson?”
That question hit Nomad like a double blow to both heart and stomach. “What?” he managed to croak.
“Here he is.” Allen slid from the folder a sheet of paper and pushed it toward Nomad. On it was the color photograph of a man’s face, his eyes hooded in shadow. “This is his most recent driver’s license photo. His name is Jeremy Parker Pett, born January 5th, 1978 in Reno, Nevada. Ever seen him?”
Nomad was in a daze. He thought he shook his head. “No.”
Allen let him stare at the face in the picture for a few more seconds, and then he returned it to the folder. “The doctors are giving Mr. Emerson an eighty percent chance to pull through.”
“That’s good. Thank…um…why…” Nomad couldn’t make sense of what he was trying to ask, so he waited for it to come together. “Why…is this…Pett guy after us?”
“You’ve figured that out, have you? That Jeremy Pett is following you? Stalking your band, I guess would be the better way to describe it.”
Nomad swallowed thickly. “What’s he got against us?”
“We’ll talk about that,” Allen said, his gaze steady. “First we have to talk about some other things. You’re pale. Want some water?”
“I’m all right.”
“Sure about that?”
“Yeah,” Nomad said, and he meant it. He drew a long breath and let it out. “This isn’t…what I expected to be happening today. So how did you find out this was the guy?”
“Later. Right now we have to talk about your future. I understand you refused to see Captain Garza when he came here. I’ve talked to Miss Collier about the phone conversation you had. One would think you wanted to curl up in here and try to make the world stop turning. Is that what you want, John?”
“I want to be left alone.”
“Hm,” Allen said. “Sorry, I can’t do that. You’re much too important to me to be left alone.”
Allen leaned forward slightly, his hands still on the brown folder that held the picture of Jeremy Pett. “I want you to walk out of here with me,” he said. “Today. In fact…” He checked his wristwatch. “Within the next half-hour.”
“Oh, right!” Nomad couldn’t supress a crazed grin. “Just walk out of jail! After the shit I stirred up? Right!”
“Yes,” Allen said. “Right.”
Nomad searched the man’s eyes, which had taken on a flinty color. “Are you serious? How the fuck can I just walk out of here? I’m a prisoner!”
“I can take you out. Simple as that.”
“You can…take me out? Uh uh!” Nomad leaned back in his chair; he wanted to laugh, but he didn’t think Truitt Allen would like the sound of it and he decided he’d better not piss off Truitt Allen. “It’s not simple, man. I don’t know what this is about, but I know it’s not simple.”
“You did cause some damage, yeah. You did kind of fly off the handle. But, some things have come to light since you were brought in here.”
“What things?”
Now it was Allen’s turn to lean back, and cross one leg at the ankle. Nomad saw he was wearing socks the same color as his shirt. “Number one: the wall you tore down. With the mural on it.”
“Okay, so what?”
“The building inspector found an electrical wiring hazard behind it. If you hadn’t broken the wall up and exposed it, the place might have caught fire sooner or later. So maybe you saved the restaurant, and maybe the owner is grateful to you.”
“I’m sure he is,” Nomad said sarcastically.
“The nightshift cook had no permit for his pistol,” Allen went on, his expression nearly the same as in his picture ID. “So he’s in a little trouble himself. The waitress you attacked turned out to have a few skeletons in her own cupboard. One big one, like being wanted under her real name for the sale of crystal meth in Amarillo two years ago. Seems her current boyfriend has been cooking the stuff in a rented house on North Edith Boulevard.”
“What’ve you been doing?” Nomad asked. “Beating the bushes?”
“Beating them ’til they bleed,” Allen said.
“I hit a guy in the mouth. I think I might have broken his jaw.” Nomad cocked his head to one side. “Are you going to tell me he needed oral surgery anyway and I saved his folks some money?”
“No. He’s an honor student at UA with a father in the banking business. Big Wildcats supporter. The other kid whose shoulder you dislocated is a trombone player in the marching band. So…you’re still up for assault and battery, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know. Am I?”
A slow smile crept across Allen’s mouth, but his eyes remained cool. “A real tough guy, huh? Mad at the world? Think it owes you something?”
“Wrong. Nobody owes me a fucking thing.”
“I wish you wouldn’t use that word.”
“What word?”
“The four-letter word, and don’t play stupid. How come you people use that word all the time? You use it so much it doesn’t mean anything. Noun, verb, adjective…using it says your mind is lazy because you can’t come up with another descriptive.”
“What people are you talking about?” Nomad asked, doing his best Clint Eastwood squint.
“Young people,” said Allen. “If this is the voice of the future, I’m glad I won’t be around a whole lot longer to hear it.”
“That’s your problem,” Nomad said, and he wished he had a cigarette because in the time-honored tradition of prison movies he would’ve spewed smoke in the old fucker’s face.
Or maybe not, because he didn’t particularly care to wind up in the infirmary today, and anybody with the first name of Truitt probably had a lot of practice putting people in plaster casts and bandages. And to tangle with an FBI agent, even a geezer like this? No way.
After a long pause during which Nomad thought he could hear the geezer’s wristwatch ticking, Allen said, “Let’s talk about your problem, John. Which I think is not going to go away anytime soon.”
“What would that be?”
“Jeremy Pett,” came the answer. “You know, we think the bullets that hit Mr. Emerson were fired from the top level of a parking deck. We didn’t find any brass, he cleaned up after himself, but we believe we’ve calculated the firing angle pretty well. It definitely was a downward shot. A difficult shot. You know how far away that parking deck is from where Mr. Emerson was hit?” He didn’t wait for a guess, which wasn’t coming anyway. “Across the street and three blocks away. He had a sliver of a view to work with, but he found a position to watch the van, and he might’ve been sitting there for hours. Just waiting for somebody to come get it
after the show. Probably didn’t matter who it was, as long as it was a member of your band.”
“George is our manager,” Nomad said. “He’s not on stage. How could this fu…how could this guy recognize George?”
“He may have seen him at one of your shows, or—”
“Gigs,” Nomad corrected, for the sake of it.
“Okay, thank you for that. Or, as I was about to say, he probably got a good look at Mr. Emerson when he was scoping you at that gas station outside Sweetwater. Bear in mind, Pett has likely—I’d say without a doubt—gone to your Internet site and made note of your stops during this tour. Am I getting anywhere with you? Impressing you on how serious this young man is?”
He was. Nomad frowned and looked down at the green-tiled floor, but no answers lay there. “Why does he want to kill us? We haven’t done anything to him.”
“That you know of,” Allen said.
Nomad lifted his gaze back to meet the other man’s. “What’s that mean?”
“It means,” Allen said, in a slow and deliberate voice, “that Jeremy Pett is probably not going to stop what he’s doing—for whatever reason he has, whatever grudge he’s holding—until he’s satisfied. I’m telling you that Mr. Emerson—”
“George. That’s his name.” Nomad felt both clammy and feverish. Wasn’t the air-conditioning working in this part of the jail?
“George, then. I’m telling you that George is very, very lucky. It helped him that UMC has one of the best trauma teams in the country, and they got him within what they call ‘the golden hour’. But in time he’ll be wheeled out of here, and—”