Wild Cards V: Down and Dirty

  “Quelle damnation,” Cordelia muttered. “In any case,” she said to C.C., “call me at the office tomorrow morning and I’ll have something lined out. Either Uncle Jack or someone else.”

  “Make it someone else,” said Bagabond.

  Cordelia smiled placatingly. The waiter returned and she ordered the fruit cup.

  —and marked C.C. down on the roster of benefit performers in bold, black letters.

  “Doggonit,” Cordelia said aloud to herself, “I’m good.”

  Then she hesitated and glanced back at the copy of the Village Voice lying on the desk. A small events notice in microscopic type was circled in red.

  She scrawled one additional name on the board.

  Friday

  Merde.

  No two ways about it. That’s what he felt like as he dragged into his home in the early morning. There was nothing welcome about entering the shambles of his living room. Jack stumbled through the debris. Ahead of him he saw the shattered door to his bedroom. His hand still hurt. But now, so did his teeth. His head, his hands—it seemed to him that every bone in his body ached.

  “Enfer,” he swore as he saw the blinking red light of his answering machine. He almost managed to ignore the single-eyed demon; then he bent and slapped the playback switch. Three of the messages were from his supervisor. Jack knew he’d better call back later in the morning, or he’d have no job to return to. He liked living down here, and he enjoyed the privilege of gainful employment down in the darkness.

  The other eight messages were from Cordelia. They were not very informative, but neither did they sound like emergencies. Cordelia kept saying it was important for Jack to get back to her, but the tone didn’t indicate mortal peril.

  Jack rewound the message tape and turned off the machine, then went into the kitchen. He surveyed the refrigerator and didn’t bother opening it. He knew what was inside. More, he simply wasn’t hungry. He had some idea of what he had devoured over the past day and night and didn’t want to think about it. Blind, albino gar. You wouldn’t find that on the menu at any Cajun restaurant in New York.

  He went into the bedroom and flopped down on the bed. There was no question of undressing. Jack only moved sufficiently to wind the antique quilt around himself. He was out.

  The phone by the bed awoke him at eight A.M. precisely. He knew this because the red LED numerals on the clock burned themselves into his retinas when he finally opened his eyes and reached over to stop the shrilling that was scraping his inner ear into shreds.

  “Mmmppk. Yeah?”

  “Uncle Jack?”

  “Yeah—uh, Cordie?” He came a good deal more awake.

  “It’s me, Uncle Jack. I’m sorry if I woke you. I’ve been tryin’ to get you for better den a day.”

  He yawned and adjusted the receiver so the pillow would hold it snug. “’S okay, Cordie. I got to call the boss and tell him I’m down with something and been too sick to phone the last couple days.”

  Cordelia sounded alarmed. “You really sick?”

  Jack yawned again. Remembered what he could have said. “Pink of health. Just went off on a bender, that’s all.”

  “Bagabond said—”

  “Bagabond?”

  “Yes.” Cordelia seemed to be picking her words carefully. “I asked her to look for you. She said you were out in the bay, uh, killing things.”

  “That about describes it,” said Jack.

  “Something wrong?”

  He waited a few seconds before answering. Took a breath. “Stress, Cordie. That’s all. I needed to unwind.”

  She didn’t sound wholly convinced but finally said, “Whatever you say, Uncle Jack. Say, listen, do you mind if I come by tonight after work and bring along a friend?”

  “Who?” Jack said guardedly.

  “C.C.”

  Jack thought about her, remembered visiting her in Tachyon’s clinic. He owned everything she’d ever recorded, albums and tapes both, shelved out in the next room. “I guess so,” he said. “It’ll give me an excuse to clean up the house.”

  “No need,” said Cordelia.

  He laughed. “Oh, yeah, dere is a need.”

  “Five-thirty okay?”

  “Should be. By the way,” he said, “what’s this all about?”

  She was candid. “I need your help, Uncle Jack.” She filled him in on how things were proceeding with logistics for the benefit. “I’m snowed,” she said. “I cannot do everything.”

  “I don’ know much about putting on this kind of event.”

  “You know rock ’n’ roll,” she said. “Better, you can handle just about anything that happens.”

  Almost anything, he thought. Tachyon’s face floated in front of him. Michael’s. “Flatterer,” he said.

  “Vérité.”

  A few moments went by. “One thing I got to ask,” said Jack. “We haven’t been talkin’ much…”

  “I know,” she said. “I know. For now I’m just not thinking much ’bout it.”

  “No resolution, then?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Thanks for bein’ honest.”

  More seconds went by. It seemed as though Cordelia wanted to say something, but finally all she said was, “Okay, thanks then, Uncle Jack. I’ll be by with C.C. at half past five. ’Bye.”

  Jack listened to the silence until the circuit disconnected. Then he turned over and dialed his supervisor at the Transit Department. He wouldn’t have to concentrate to sound convincingly sick.

  When he opened the door to Cordelia and C.C. late in the afternoon, Jack realized that cleaning up his living room probably had been the easier part of the day. Cordelia’s eyes seemed to squint as she looked at him, as though she were actually seeing two images and trying to choose the one she would perceive.

  “Uncle Jack,” she said. There was a stiff instant as she appeared to debate whether to give him a hug.

  The woman standing beside her defused the moment. “Jack!” said C.C. “It’s good to see you again.” She stepped past Cordelia into the living room, giving Jack a firm hug and a warm kiss on the lips. “You know something?” she said. “Even though I didn’t know what was going on for a long time, it really meant a lot, your coming to visit me in the clinic. Anything ever happens to you, you know I’ll be there every visiting period, okay?” She grinned.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Mon Dieu,” said Cordelia, looking around Jack’s home. “What happened here?”

  Jack’s restoration efforts had not been totally successful. Some of the smashed antique furniture was stacked to one side of the room. He hadn’t the heart to take it topside to a Dumpster. There was still the chance of careful repair and restoration.

  “When I was coming in last night,” he said. “I slipped.”

  “Shot while trying to escape,” said Cordelia ironically. “Whatever happened, Uncle Jack, I’m really sorry. This was such a beautiful place.”

  “It still ain’t shabby,” said C.C., plopping down in a claw-footed love seat. She spread her arms as she sank into the overstuffed upholstery. “This is great.” She smiled up at Jack. “Got some coffee?”

  “Sure,” he said. “It’s all made.”

  “Bagabond was going to come along—” C.C. started to say.

  “She had some errands uptown,” said Cordelia.

  “I think she’d want me to say hello,” said C.C.

  “Sure.” Right, he thought. Cordelia offered to help with the coffee, but he shooed her back to the living room.

  When everyone was settled with a steaming mug and a plate of scones with strawberry preserves, Jack said, “So?”

  “So,” said C.C., “your niece is very persuasive. But so’s my own ego. I’m gonna come out of seclusion for the benefit, Jack. Back to public performance. Cold turkey. Nothing half-assed. A couple billion potential viewers. There I’ll be, in front of God and everybody.” She chuckled. “Nothing like hitting acute agoraphobia head on.”

  “P
retty gutsy,” said Jack. “I’m glad you’re doing it. New stuff?”

  “Some old, some new,” she said. “Some borrowed, some blues. It all depends on what the boss here”—C.C. gestured at Cordelia—“gives me for time.”

  “Twenty minutes,” said Cordelia. “That’s what everybody gets. The Boss, Girls With Guns, you.”

  “Equality’s a great thing.” C.C. looked back at Jack. “So you’re gonna help me get ready for the big night?”

  “Uh,” said Jack.

  “GF&G can persuade the Transit people to give you time off,” said Cordelia quickly. “I talked to one of their guys in community relations. They think it’d be terrific to have one of their own involved in something like this.”

  “Uh huh,” said Jack.

  “With pay,” Cordelia said. “And GF&G’ll give you a fee too.”

  “I’ve got savings,” Jack said quietly.

  “Uncle Jack, I need you.”

  “I’ve heard that before.” Gently, this time.

  “So I say it to you again.” It seemed to him Cordelia’s voice, her expression, her eyes, were all one coordinated appeal.

  “It would be good to work with you,” said C.C. She winked one emerald eye. “Free backstage pass. Rub shoulders with the stars.”

  Jack looked from one woman to the other. “Okay,” he finally said. “It’s a deal.”

  “Great,” said Cordelia. “I’ll start feeding you the details. But there’s one more thing I want to mention now.”

  “Why do I have the feeling,” said Jack, “that I ought to be a ’gator at this very moment, lookin’ up at the gaff?”

  “You have plans for tomorrow night?” Cordelia said.

  Jack spread his hands. “I thought I’d maybe refinish some chairs.”

  “You’re coming with us to New Brunswick.”

  “New Jersey?”

  Cordelia nodded. “We’re going to the Holidome. We’re going to see Buddy Holley.”

  Jack said, “The Buddy Holley? I thought he was dead.”

  “He’s been on the lounge circuit for years. I saw a note about his appearance in the Voice.”

  “She wants him for the benefit,” said C.C. again.

  “A nostalgia act?” said Jack.

  Cordelia was actually blushing. “I grew up with his music. I worship the man. I mean, nothing’s set with the benefit and him. I just want us to go see him and find out if he’s anything like he used to be.”

  “You may be in for a rude shock,” said C.C. “Guitar of clay and all that.”

  “I’ll risk it.”

  “‘Not Fade Away’ is one my favorite songs ever,” said Jack. “Count me in.”

  “Tell him,” C.C. said to Cordelia.

  “Bagabond’s going too,” she said reluctantly.

  “I don’ know ’bout this,” said Jack. He thought about his first encounter with Bludgeon, when the black cat had saved him from having to tangle with the psychopathic gay-basher. Had the cat been acting on his own, or at Bagabond’s suggestion? He’d never asked the woman. Maybe he would tomorrow night.

  “Uncle Jack?” said Cordelia.

  He smiled at her. “Let’s rock.”

  Saturday

  “Oh, my god,” C.C. said, sufficiently low that only Jack heard. “He’s covering Prince, goddamned Prince!”

  “And not very well,” said Jack.

  Cordelia had worried because of glacial traffic in the Holland Tunnel that the four of them would be late for Buddy Holley’s first set. She also fretted that Jersey youth would make off with the Mercedes she’d borrowed from Luz Alcala.

  “It’s a Holiday Inn,” said Jack as they pulled into the entrance.

  “So?”

  “The parking lot’s illuminated,” said Jack.

  “There’s an empty space close to the lobby,” said Cordelia with relief.

  “You want me to slip ten to the clerk to keep an eye on the car?”

  “Would you?” said Cordelia seriously.

  So they’d parked and secured the Mercedes and entered the New Brunswick Holidome.

  The trip over from the city had been tense enough. Jack had ridden shotgun in front with Cordelia driving. Bagabond sat in back on the opposite side, as far from Jack as she could get. Both C.C. and Cordelia had done their best to keep a conversation going. Jack decided it was an inappropriate time to quiz Bagabond about whether his erstwhile rescuer, the black cat, had been acting autonomously or on his mistress’s orders.

  “Dis is gon’ be great,” said Cordelia. She had slotted a cassette of Buddy Holley and the Crickets’ greatest hits into the Blaupunkt player. The speaker system was far, far better than adequate.

  “Cordelia,” said Bagabond, “I like Buddy a lot, but maybe so he doesn’t hurt my ears?”

  “Oh, sorry,” said Cordelia. She turned the volume knob down to barely endurable.

  Then Saturday-evening traffic slowed to a stop-and-go creep within the tunnel, the stench of auto exhaust rose up in visible clouds, and the four in the Mercedes listened to all of Cordelia’s Buddy Holley tapes before they reached New Jersey.

  Cordelia had become more nervous the later it got. “Maybe there’ll be a warm-up group,” she’d muttered.

  There hadn’t been, but it turned out not to matter. When the four walked through the door of the Holidome lounge, they saw there was no need to worry about seats. Perhaps half the booths and tables were vacant. Clearly Saturday-night bacchanalia in New Brunswick didn’t center here. They took a table about ten feet from the low stage, Jack and Bagabond on opposite sides, buffered by C.C. and Cordelia.

  And Buddy Holley covered Prince.

  Jack recognized Holley from the album portraits. He knew the musician was forty-nine, close enough to Jack’s own age. Holley looked older. His face carried too much flesh; his belly wasn’t completely camouflaged by the silver-lamé jacket. He no longer wore the familiar old black horn-rims; his eyes were masked by stylish aviator shades that couldn’t quite hide the dark bags. But he still played the Fender Telecaster like an angel.

  The same couldn’t be said for his sidemen. The rhythm guitarist and the bass player both looked about seventeen. Their playing was not inspired. The muddy sound mix didn’t help. The drummer flailed at his snares, the volume coming through at about the right level to completely mask Holley’s vocal delivery.

  In rapid order Buddy Holley segued from Prince into a bad Billy Idol and then a so-so Bon Jovi.

  “I don’t believe it,” said C.C., drinking a healthy dollop of her Campari and tonic. “All he’s doing is covering top-forty shit.”

  Cordelia watched silently, her expression of initial enthusiasm visibly fading.

  Bagabond shook her head disapprovingly. “We shouldn’t have come.”

  Maybe, Jack thought, he’s biding his time. “Give him a little while.”

  As the desultory clapping faded after a game attempt at evoking Ted Nugent, a voice from the back of the lounge yelled, “Come on, Buddy—give us some oldies!” A ragged cheer went up. Most of the clapping came from Cordelia’s table.

  Buddy Holley took his Telecaster by the neck and leaned toward the audience. “Well,” he said, the West Texas twang still pronounced, “I don’t usually take requests, but since you’ve been such a terrific crowd…” He settled back and strummed out a rapid-fire sequence of opening chords that his backup group more-or-less followed.

  “Oh, lord,” said C.C. She took another drink as Buddy Holley tore into Tommy Roe’s “Hurray for Hazel,” then a quick verse of “Sheila,” finally a lugubrious, almost-bluesy version of Bobby Vinton’s “Red Roses for a Blue Lady.” Holley continued in that vein. He played a lot of music made famous by Bobbys and Tommys in the fifties and sixties.

  “I want to hear ‘Cindy Lou’ or ‘That’ll Be the Day’ or ‘It’s So Easy’ or ‘T-town,’” said Cordelia, distractedly swirling her gin and tonic. “Not this shit.”

  I’ll settle for “Not Fade Away,” Jack thought. He
watched Buddy Holley slog through the dismal pop retrospective and started getting real depressed. It was enough to make him maybe wish that Holley had died at the height of his initial popularity and not survived to fall into this ghastly self-mockery.

  Inebriated conversation and drunken laughter escalated at the surrounding tables. It appeared that most in the lounge had completely forgotten that Buddy Holley was performing onstage. When Holley came to the end of his set, he introduced the final number very simply. “This is something new,” he said. The sparse crowd was having none of it; they had turned actively hostile.

  “Fuck you!” somebody shouted. “Turn on the jukebox!”

  Holley shrugged. Turned. Walked off the stage.

  His backup guitarists quietly put their instruments down; the drummer got up and laid his sticks on an amp.

  “Why doesn’t he do his classics?” said Cordelia. “Hang on,” she said to her companions. Then she got up and collared Buddy Holley as he headed toward the bar. They saw her talking earnestly to the man. She led him back to the table, dragged up a vacant chair, appeared to be making him sit through dint of sheer will. Holley looked bemused at the whole affair. Cordelia made introductions. The musician courteously acknowledged each name and shook hands in turn.

  Jack found the man’s grip warm and firm, not flabby at all.

  Cordelia said, “We’re four of your greatest fans.”

  “Sort of sorry you’re all here,” said Holley. “I feel like I owe everyone an apology. This isn’t a good show tonight.” He shrugged. “’Course most nights in lounges are like that.” Holley smiled self-deprecatingly.

  “Why don’t you play your own music?” said Bagabond without preamble.

  “Your old music,” said Cordelia. “The great stuff.”

  Holley looked around the table. “I’ve got my reasons,” he said. “It ain’t a matter of not wanting to. I just can’t.”

  “Well,” said Cordelia, smiling, “maybe I can help change your mind.” She launched into her spiel about the benefit at the Funhouse, about how Holley could go on early in the following Saturday’s performance, that maybe he could do a medley of the music that had propelled him to superstardom in the fifties and early sixties, that perhaps—just maybe—the concert and the telecast could rejuvenate his career. “Just like when the Boss found Gary U.S. Bonds playing in bars like this,” she finished up.