'What, your share too?'
Rick looked wounded, as though this was an unfair departure from decent negotiating behaviour. He sighed heavily, burped lightly. 'I'd sooner do a no-profit deal with you than none at all, Danny. I'm not saying I'd be happy, but I'd rather you just... worked, even if it doesn't do anything to improve our year-end figures. I don't like to see waste, Dan. I don't like to see people just throwing away what they've got. There are enough people in this country who'll never even get a chance to work, who can't make anything of themselves, who can't use whatever kinda gifts they've got. But you could if you wanted to; you've got the choice. You're just... I don't know; lazy, too sorry for yourself. We've all been hurt by what happened to Christine; it's a tragedy, we all know that; a tragedy... but...'
He talked on for a bit, and a couple of times, when he waited for answers, I nodded, or grunted, or shrugged, and did whatever was appropriate, but I didn't hear what he said.
My eyes filled, briefly, at one point, but I blew my nose in the stiff napkin, and sniffed, and I don't think he noticed. I stared at his face without seeing him, listened — apparently avidly without hearing him.
So it was her .
It was Christine. Oh, Christ Jesus, what had happened? I didn't want to think about it and I couldn't stop thinking about it.
What had they done to her? Was she dead? Was it that bad, was it the worst? I thought back to the way Rick had talked when he first arrived that afternoon, the things he had said, the tone he had used, the way he had sat... and I couldn't tell. It might be something less than that, but I didn't think it was. She might have been pregnant and lost a baby, or been hurt in an accident, or... my imagination failed.
Most of the things I could think of were either just not severe enough for Tumber to have acted the way he did towards me, or things he might have followed up on, like if she'd been badly injured he'd have said something about me going to visit her or sending something. No, I couldn't think what it might be... prison? I latched on to that, like a drowning man. She'd been done for drugs in the States in some place with crazy penalties and locked up for a couple of years... but he would still have said something about going to see her, writing to her... Oh, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus...
'... Dan? You all right?' Rick Tumber looked more concerned than I could ever remember him looking. I sniffed, nodded.
'I, ah... I'm sorry. I was thinking about Christine.'
'Oh,' he said. 'Yeah.' He looked away, and slowly brushed some crumbs off the tablecloth.
God forgive me; this was terrible, but even now, even now I was trying to cover up, trying to not let on how little I knew; even now I was pretending I knew something, even if not all; 'What ... exactly happened?'
Rick's brow flickered, as though he disapproved of my ignorance. I shrugged. 'I only... heard,' I told him. 'No details. Can you tell me?'
Tumber cleared his throat, took a slightly shaky breath. We both watched his right hand stub out the stump of the fat cigar.
'It seems...' he said, after a pause, and a sigh, '... the guy was... some moral majority freak... I dunno; one of these fundamentalists or... some fucking nutcase; I didn't hear what church... sect or whatever...' Tumber shook his head again, still addressing the hand delicately tapping out the cigar. 'He just turned up at the hotel, in Cleveland, with a Saturday Night Special. He'd travelled up from Alabama, apparently, specially. Ah... like, they'd had tighter security in the South when they were playing there, just because they had all the demonstrations and such, and death threats, but I guess they didn't think Cleveland was so much of a threat. Anyway; he was waiting in the lobby, and when she came out the lift, he... he shot her. Got her bodyguard, too; blew the guy's brains out. Wounded Chris in the side and head; she got as far as the sidewalk outside, screaming for help, but the guy just followed her and put another two shots into her, on the ground, before a hotel guard shot him.
'She died on the way to hospital. The guy's trial probably won't be till the summer. They can't decide whether he's mad or not; usual story. Said God had told him to do it, because of... the act; you know; the guitar, at the beginning...'
Rick's voice altered suddenly, and he said, in a sorry, pained voice, 'Jesus, man, I didn't want to be the one to tell you all that. I really didn't. I'm sorry. I can't tell you how sorry. I don't know what more to say, Dan.'
'Yeah... excuse me.'
'Sure, man.
I went to the toilet to cry.
Rick came and got me twenty minutes later, after the management became worried and sent people in to ask if I was all right.
So they all say; I don't remember. I just sat in the cubicle, silent, hearing nothing, until Rick's voice brought me back. The funny thing was, I didn't even cry. I got up from the table, where my tears had been welling, and on the walk from the table to the gents my eyes went dry, like there was some terrible sucking emptiness inside me, drawing it all back in, soaking down into some strange, awful pit inside me.
I was led from the toilets like a zombie. Rick wanted to get a doctor but I said I'd be all right.
He walked me back to the folly.
'You sure you'll be okay, Dan?'
'Yeah; I'll be fine. Really; fine. It's just, I hadn't heard. Thanks for telling me.'
'That's okay. Look; why not come back to the hotel; we'll get you a room. You don't want to sleep in this big old place by yourself.'
'I'm better here. I'll be okay.'
'You sure?'
'Yeah, positive.'
'Well, I'll see you for breakfast, at the hotel, all right? You promised. I don't leave until after eleven. Breakfast, okay? About nine.'
'Nine. Yeah.'
'Okay then; you sure you'll be all right?'
'Yeah. Fine. See you for breakfast.'
'Okay; good night, Dan.'
'Good night.'
TWELVE
Yes, it is like sex. Performance; the show, the live act.
We had never been bad at it, and by now we were very good. I always thought I was the weak link, standing there just playing non-virtuoso bass and occasionally tapping my foot, but according to some people I was the base, too; something the others could build on; a rock, a foundation. Well, so they say. I think too many things are over-analysed, and a lot of the effort's wasted, just unnecessary. We were popular; end of story and so what?
But it is like sex. Of course. Getting out there and doing it, under the bright darkness of the hiding lights, in the bowl or beneath the arch, after the build-up of tension and the slow engorging of the venue where the people sit and stand together, sharing that warmth and sweat and scent, sharing the same obsession, the same fixation and anticipation. Oh, you enter into it, you become part of it; secreted beneath, preparing nervously in some distant dressing room, you can usually hear, you can always sense; you can taste it.
And there, suddenly appearing, in the blaze and smoke and the crashing chords, or just drifting in, like we did once, pretending to be road crew, fiddling with the gear, then starting to play, one at a time, almost casually, so that people only realised slowly, and the roar grew slowly, swelling and filling the place around us.. the initial nerves evaporating, the beat setting in, taking over, governing. And the greater rhythm, the light and shade of slower songs and faster songs and the few spoken intervals, when either Davey or Christine could just stop, listening and gauging and feeling, and mumble or shout or scream or just talk reasonably, make a joke; whatever fitted the mood, whatever moved us on, whatever kept that unstated game-plan on course and sent us all forward again.