It was half past the midnight hour before The Five took the stage. They started the gig with ‘Bedlam A-Go-Go’, slowed to its original tempo. By the middle of the show, when Berke did her drum solo and Terry came in on the gutsy growling Hammond to trade back and forth with her, they were a smooth and powerful engine of sonic flight, up in the orbit of the spinning spheres, way up where the music looked to the mind of the player like geometric shapes constantly changing themselves against the pure black of space, collapsing inward and reforming like a multitude of kaleidoscopes or, the best that Nomad could describe this sensation of being one with the music, as existing for a short time within a Kenner Spirograph drawing set, where you put the tip of your colored pen in a series of interlocked wheels placed on a piece of paper, and when your talent and discipline took you where you were supposed to be—with guitar, or vocals, or drums, or keyboard—again and again and again, an intricate design began to appear that was a perfect and stunning combination of both mathematics and art. After going that far into the dream, the applause and appreciation of the audience was like a call to let go and return to earth, because no one could stay at that height very long, and wanting to get up there once more was part of the drug called creativity.
They were back at Chappie’s house around three-thirty, drained of energy but satisfied—like good sex—after two encores and a version of ‘Blackout of Gretely’ that had nearly lifted the roof off the Casbah. Chappie had some cold cans of beers on hand, and passed them around as everyone sprawled, half-dead, in the living room. Terry was sitting on the sofa between Ariel and Berke, with Chappie in a wicker chair and Nomad lying on his back on the gold-colored carpet. True sat in a green chair and gratefully accepted a beer; the night had passed with no incidents, and all the agents who’d put their lives on the line for him and The Five were by now at home with their families. Except, of course, the ones in the Yukons on sentry duty out front.
He drank his beer and listened to them talk. They were tired, sure, but they were still ‘up’, as they would call it. Terry was fretting about an intro he thought he’d flubbed, and Nomad told him to forget about it. Then Nomad sat up, turned his lasers on Berke and said he thought some of the songs were still running fast, and she said he was wrong, the beat was right in the pocket. He faced her down for a few seconds, and then they both shrugged and returned to their beers and that was the end of it but the point was delivered for Berke to rethink her timing. The small talk came back up, they laughed at the recollection of the Mad Lads’ lead singer going buck wild with his accordion, and suddenly Chappie got to her feet and asked, “Anybody want a nightcap? Something a little stronger than beer?”
“Mom,” Berke said, “don’t get started on that so late.”
“What’s late? Jesus, I hardly ever see you and you’re here two nights and leaving again at…what?…ten in the morning?”
“We can stay until eleven,” True said.
“Okay, eleven then! You! Mr. Secret Agent Man. You want a Jack and Coke?”
“Um…well…”
“Coca-Cola,” she told him, in case he was that much of a stranger to the human race.
“I’ll take one,” Terry said.
“What the hell,” Berke said. She shrugged and leaned back, throwing her sneakered feet up on the coffee table and in the process kicking some magazines off to the floor. “Sign me up.”
“That’s my girl. Anybody else?”
True looked at the others in the room. They were so young. He had the sudden feeling that he was very far from home, and after this was over all of him might not want to go home. It had been, to him, an amazing night. Maybe most of it had been senseless noise and barely-controlled chaos, but still…all that youth, and passion, and life under one roof…it was eye-opening, is what it was. In his day, it would have been ‘consciousness-expanding’. If you believed in that.
“I’ll take a little drink in a shotglass, if you have one,” True decided.
“Do I have a shotglass?” Chappie grinned at him. “What color, and from which bar?”
“Mom,” Berke said. “Stop fucking around.”
“You ought to help your mother,” True told her when Chappie had gone to the kitchen. “With the drinks, I mean.” He glanced at her well-worn sneakers. “And you probably ought to take your feet off the table.”
“Oh my God!” Berke spoke with breathless mock surprise. Her eyes had widened with pretend shock. “Guys, our road manager has become our barracks sergeant! Yeah, I knew that was coming. It doesn’t bother my mom, why should it bother you?” She did recall, however, that it had bothered Floyd.
“It’s not ladylike,” True said.
Countdown to blastoff, Nomad thought. Five…four…three…two…
“Go help your mother,” True said, and this time his voice carried the hard stamp of official business. “She needs you.”
One, the loneliest number, never fell.
Berke’s face seemed frozen, her mouth partly open and her black eyes as shiny as new glass. She slowly blinked, she said, “Okay,” with a quiet that nearly blew her bandmates’ minds, and then she got up and left the room.
“‘Danger’ is your middle name, huh?” Nomad asked True.
“My middle name is Elmer,” he said, as he retrieved the magazines from the floor and put them in a neat stack back where they were, and Nomad, Ariel and Terry thought that name sounded just fine.
True finished his beer. The drinks were served from a wooden tray painted watermelon green. True’s shotglass was full to the brim and had a logo that said it was from the Funky Pirate on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. He took half of it down and did not fail to note that Chappie had opened a fresh bottle of Jack Daniels and it was on the coffee table where her daughter’s feet used to be. Berke returned to her place on the sofa with her drink, and nary a hiss was hissed nor a curse unfurled like a battleflag.
But those fucking drums would sure take a beating tomorrow night, Nomad thought as he settled in with his potion. Or…maybe not.
True came to the bottom of his glass. He was still thinking about the Casbah, and how the audience—a decent audience, an appreciative audience, not like that mob at Stone Church—had responded to The Five’s music. This was a different world. He couldn’t imagine how courageous a person would have to be, to get up for the first time on stage in front of strangers who could cut your dream to pieces. Chappie was offering him another pour, and he accepted it. They were talking about the gig tomorrow night, how they needed to tighten up here or stretch it out a little bit there—‘let it breathe’, Nomad said, as if the song were a living thing—and the talk was easy and relaxed, the conversation of people who respected each other and, it was clear, really did share a strong bond of family, of professionalism, of…honor, really.
He understood that kind of bond.
He’d almost gone through his second shotglass when he said, “I used to be in a band.” It had come out of him so abruptly he hadn’t heard it coming, even in his own head.
The easy and relaxed talk silenced.
“Look at all those eyes,” True said, and when he smiled he thought his mouth felt heavy. “It’s true. I mean, I’m True. But it is true. Really.”
“What’d you play?” Nomad asked, with a semi-smirk. “Bone fiddle for the Cavemen?”
“No, honest to God.” He was aware of Chappie refilling his shotglass, and that was okay, they weren’t leaving until eleven. He would sleep until eight, he never needed much sleep anyway, this was a nice night and it was okay. “I played acoustic guitar in a band called the Honest Johns. Three guys. And me. I mean, three guys in all. When I was a junior in high school.” He took another drink, and boy was he going to sleep well tonight. This morning. Whenever. Time got weird when you were in a band. “Well, we never actually played anywhere. We just rehearsed in my friend’s rumpus room.”
“Say what?” Nomad asked.
“Downstairs room,” True explained. Jeez, these kids acted like a
dults but they knew as little about the world as children did. “My friend had an eight-track reel-to-reel. Tape recorder.”
“Cool,” said Terry.
“We played…let’s see… Buffalo Springfield’s ‘For What It’s Worth’. We did ‘One Toke Over The Line’, by Brewer and Shipley—”
“My man,” said Terry with admiration.
“We did ‘Blackbird’, by the Beatles. And I guess the nearest we came to perfection was ‘Suite: Judy Blue Eyes’ by—”
“Crosby, Stills and Nash!” Ariel was nursing a glass of orange juice. Her smile was sunny. “Oh, wow! I used to play that song all the time!”
“Really? I remember it had a strange tuning.”
“Oh yeah, the E modal tuning.”
Nomad just had to ask the next question: “Who sang the lyrics?”
“We all did,” True said, not realizing what kind of trap he was stepping into. “We did the three-part harmony.” He took another drink, and thought of himself as a young man in a rumpus room, two friends on either side, singing into a microphone while the reels of a huge tape recorder caught the moment, to be forever lost except for the imprint in his mind.
“Sing the first few lines for us,” Nomad said.
“Huh? Oh, no. I haven’t sung that song for years.”
“Don’t you remember the words? You’re not that old.”
“John!” Ariel caught his gaze and shook her head.
“You’ve got to remember the tune,” Nomad went on. And why he was pushing like this, why he was showing a little streak of mean he didn’t know, except for the fact that the gig tonight had been a big success, the media thought they were a big success, the People magazine article would say they were going to be a big success, the future for this dead band said Big Success in huge flashing neon with dollar signs twenty feet tall, and he felt like a creepy-crawly piece of shit because it wasn’t about the music, it wasn’t about their talent and dedication to their craft, it was about death and sniper’s bullets, and how could a person with any ounce of self-respect call that a big success? He thought that the others, for all their smiles tonight and their afterglow of accomplishment, had to be feeling the same, or they just weren’t letting themselves think about it.
“If you remember the tune,” Nomad said, unyielding, “the words may come back.”
True nodded. “I do remember the tune.” His shotglass was empty once again, and Chappie moved to refill it because it was fun having a new drinking buddy, even if it was an FBI agent, but she stopped when she looked into her daughter’s face and those steady black eyes said No more.
“I’d like to hear some singing.” Nomad drew his knees up to his chin. “Man, you might be like…a lost talent or something.”
“Come on, John,” Terry said, and Nomad looked at him fiercely and asked, “Where are we going?”
Without warning, without an intake of breath or an explanation that his voice was rusty or that he couldn’t do this in public and he was sorry he’d even brought any of this to light, True began to sing.
His pitch was perfect. His voice was softer and higher than they would’ve expected. It had an element of a junior high schooler in it, singing for his friends in a downstairs room.
“It’s getting to the point,
Where I’m no fun anymore.
I am sorry.
Sometimes it hurts so badly
I must cry out loud.
I am lonely.
I am yours, you are mine, you are what you—”
True’s voice faltered. He stopped and looked at his audience, who were all staring at him. He started to take a drink and realized the shotglass in his hand had nothing in it. Now I’ve gone and made a damn fool out of myself, he thought. Damn old man, he thought.
Damn old man.
Maybe someone should have clapped, to break the silence. Ariel thought about it, and came close to doing it, but she did not.
It was Berke who stepped into the breech. “I bet John hopes he can sing like that when he gets your age,” she said to True.
“Well,” True said, and shrugged, and looked at his polished black wingtips.
“Not bad,” Nomad had to admit, after a few more seconds had drifted past. “You want to sign up for vocal lessons sometime, I’ll only charge you a hundred dollars an hour.”
True turned the shotglass between his palms. He had forgotten himself, he realized. He had forgotten why he was here, and what he was about. It was time, maybe, to let them know so he wouldn’t be allowed to forget again.
“In the van,” he said. “On the way to Stone Church.” He was still staring at his shoes, but he was speaking to John Charles. “You asked if you were supposed to feel sorry for Jeremy Pett.”
“Yeah, I remember.”
True nodded. He felt a pulse beating at his temple. “Have you ever fought in a war?”
“No.”
“Ever been in the military? Ever served your country?”
“Served my country?” Nomad’s voice had taken on a defensive edge. “Like how? Getting killed so a contractor can make big bucks and the flag-maker’s stock goes up on Wall Street?”
True lifted his gaze to Nomad’s. The agent’s eyes were sad. “Don’t you believe in anything?” He directed the question again, to all of them. “Don’t any of you believe in a higher calling than…what you’re doing?”
“A higher calling?” Terry asked. “I believe in God, if that’s what you’re—”
“I’m talking about service to your country,” True emphasized. “To the fight for freedom. Not just here, but around the world.” His gaze fixed again on Nomad. Maybe he was still feeling a little light-headed and stupid from the Jack, but he had to get this out. “You can say whatever you want to about Jeremy Pett, and I’m not going to defend him for what’s he done, but that young man…that young Marine has served his country to the best of his ability, and no matter what he’s done or what he’s planning to do, no man who refuses to be a Blue Falcon can be all bad.”
“A Blue Falcon?” Ariel asked, frowning. “What’s that?”
“A military term for a soldier who leaves a wounded buddy on the battlefield. It means Buddy—” He just couldn’t say that word, it was undignified. “Effer.”
It hit Nomad. Hit him hard and square, right in the brainpot. Our barracks sergeant, Berke had said.
“You never told us where you were a cop before you joined the FBI.” Nomad’s voice sounded thick. “You were in the military, weren’t you?”
True’s gaze did not waver. “Military Police. United States Marine Corps.” He had joined right after college, knowing the MP experience would put him on the fast track for the job he really wanted.
Nomad saw the whole picture, even as it came clear for the others. “This isn’t about saving us. It’s about saving him.”
“That’s right,” said True.
“Shit,” was Berke’s caustic response. She leaned toward him in full attack mode, her teeth clenched. “You’re hoping he’ll try to kill us?”
“Planning for it,” True corrected.
True is False, Nomad thought. “Our road manager,” he said, the old familiar rage growing in his heart, “wants to save his boy. His little wayward nutbag Marine. Doesn’t matter if one or two or all of us get drilled. Is that it, Gomer?”
“Not exactly, but close.” True again stared at his shoes. He liked to keep them well-polished. He liked everything neat and clean and polished, but unfortunately life had a habit of getting very messy. He could feel, of all them, the girl staring at him with hurt on her face. He liked the girl. Really, he liked everyone in this room. Life had a habit of getting so very messy. “No one wants any of you to be injured,” he said, keeping his face lowered. “I knew there was a chance Pett might come after you at Stone Church. Every possible precaution was taken.”
“Yeah, except for one fucker getting in with a pistol.” Nomad’s voice was a whipstrike.
“Every possible precaution, exce
pt metal detectors. And, yes, I was hoping he’d show. I was hoping he’d try something when we stopped on the highway.”
“Christ!” said Berke. “Are we that worthless?”
“With the gear they’ve got—what you’ve seen and what you haven’t seen—my men only need a single shot from the dark to pinpoint a location. I’ve already told you how good a sniper Pett used to be. He set up that shot on Mike Davis with some of his old precision, but he didn’t hit with the first bullet. Did he?” True watched Chappie pour herself another drink. Her hand was slightly trembling. True waited until she was finished before he went on. The way the girl was looking at him—he could see her with his peripheral vision—made him wish this hour had never arrived.
“So Pett’s skills have diminished,” he told them. “It’s unlikely he can make a kill with a first shot, unless he gets lucky or close, which he doesn’t want to do. You knew you were bait when you agreed to do this. I believed then and I believe now that if Pett is still in this country, if he’s still following us and he wants to kill any one of you, he’ll try again. It doesn’t matter where. You go back to Austin and call it a day…guess what? It’s his call.” True aimed his cool blue eyes at Nomad, whose mouth was twisted with disgust. “But you’re absolutely right, John. My first priority in this situation is capturing Pett alive and getting him the help he needs.” He paused long enough for Nomad—for all of them—to absorb that. “That’s why I’m here, and not an agent from the office who wasn’t a Marine. Let’s just say, veterans look out for each other. For life. Or let me say…they should. What this young man has gone through, both in Iraq and here after he was discharged…that’s a tragedy I’m not willing to let continue by having someone shoot him in the head and drag him off like a piece of filth. Which he is not.” True felt the heat rising in his face, and maybe it was the Jack or maybe it was because he was just plain effing angry.