Alone on the keyboard, he broke into the first bar of “Seven Suns” and the crowd went crazy, hollering and cheering. The rest of the band joined in and the crowd started to quiet down, swaying together as if hypnotized. Abby and her pregnant friend Sandy sang along, loud and off-key, as the song ebbed and flowed like a tide over the ecstatic crowd.
Bell and Nina were the only ones who were unswayed.
Walter found himself wondering if the Zodiac might have been so brazen as to follow them into the venue. He couldn’t see the bespectacled killer as he scanned the faces of the crowd, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t there.
He wondered if the killer was enjoying the music, too, or if he was even capable of enjoying anything other than killing.
* * *
On the album, Walter was pretty sure that the song was about four minutes long, but more than fifteen minutes had passed and the band showed no signs of wrapping it up any time soon. He actually found himself getting impatient, and if that was the case, Bell must have been crawling out of his skin.
* * *
It was nearly a full hour and six encores later when the band finally gathered up their instruments and left the stage for good. With Walter and Bell in tow, Nina immediately pushed her way through the crowd and through a beaded curtain to a doorway that led backstage.
“Backstage” was probably a fancier name than the area deserved. The band was hanging out behind the stage, so Walter had to give it that, but his idea of what it might be like to be “backstage” with his favorite band wasn’t anything like this.
It was more like a vestibule with a crooked mirror bolted to one wall and crates of booze and beer kegs lining the other. A forlorn yellow plaid loveseat that was missing all but one of its threadbare cushions had been shoved into a corner, and a trio of spindly wooden folding chairs had been placed beneath the mirror.
The guys were all laughing and joking and putting away their instruments. Several joints were being passed both directions around the room. Two of the girls from the large group had found their way backstage and were giggling and flirting with Alex and Chick.
Abby was there, too, arms locked possessively around Roscoe’s skinny waist.
“Little Bobby loves ‘Seven Suns’,” she was telling him. “He always kicks when you play it.”
“Hey,” Roscoe said when he spotted Walter and Bell. “It’s the professors!” He grinned and passed a joint to Walter. “Did you dig that last song? It’s called ‘Gateway,’ and it came to me during that amazing trip we had with you guys. Just came to me, to all of us like it was already written. We barely even had to rehearse, we just knew it, man. We felt it—you dig?”
“That’s fascinating,” Walter said, taking a hit off the joint. “Do you have any plans to record it? I’d love to study the structure in depth.”
“Walter,” Bell said, taking the joint out of his hand and raising his eyebrows.
“Ah, yes,” Walter said with a slight frown. “Well...”
He had thought that Nina was going to talk the band into helping, since she was already friends with them. He’d had no idea that he would be called upon to do the convincing.
“Say, professor,” Roscoe interrupted. “You got any more of that righteous special blend of yours? I feel like ‘Gateway’ is just the tip of the iceberg, man. I can sense a whole concept album in there, just waiting for me to plug in, you know? I feel like this is exactly what the band needs to take us to a higher level.”
Walter looked over at Nina and Bell, shaking his head in disbelief. This was almost too easy.
“I tell you what,” Walter said. “We’re planning another telepathy experiment tomorrow.”
“We were wondering if we could use that old cabin that belongs to Chick’s parents,” Nina said. “You know, the one up in Fairfax?”
“Oh, yeah,” Chick said. “My folks never go up there this late in the year, it’ll just be sitting there empty.”
“Perfect,” Nina replied. “We’ll head up there first thing—what do you say?”
“That sounds groovy,” Abby said. “Can me and little Bobby come along?”
“Not for this one, Abby,” Nina said. “This particular blend has certain ingredients that may not be safe for unborn children.”
“Oh,” she said in small voice. “Well, I could just help out then...”
“While we appreciate your offer,” Bell said, using his deep, soothing voice to maximum effect, “in this particular experiment, we’ve had problems with preexisting relationships affecting the telepathic connections that are formed under the influence of the blend.”
“Yes, yes,” Walter agreed, thrilled with what Bell had contrived. “We can’t risk one of the subjects bonding with a mind outside the circle. For experimental purposes, we need to make sure that no external influences are allowed to skew the results.”
“It’s okay, starshine,” Roscoe said, pushing a lock of Abby’s hair behind her ear. “You stay here in the city and keep the home fires burning. And when I get back, I’ll sing you a new song.”
“Okay,” Abby said. “Can we get pancakes now?”
“Pancakes,” Walter said. “Splendid idea.”
* * *
Alex and Chick took off with their two new lady friends to hit a different bar down the street, but Roscoe, Abby, Iggy and Dave, along with the other pregnant girl Sandy, all walked a few blocks to an all-night diner called Plucky’s Waffle Inn. The place was jam-packed with disco queens and hippies alike, and the ancient and unflappable woman who was the only waitress in the place seemed equally amused by all of them.
Not that it really mattered to Walter, but over the course of their late-night, early-morning breakfast, he found himself trying to figure out which, if any, of the band members might be the father of Sandy’s child. She seemed equally flirty and friendly with everyone, including him. He wasn’t so uptight as to be scandalized by an out-of-wedlock pregnancy, but he had to admit he was curious.
Not curious enough to come right out and ask her, though.
Besides, it was far more enjoyable to discuss music and mind-expanding drugs. Roscoe was ferociously smart, and full of new ideas in how the two can be combined to intensify the effects.
“Music is primal,” he was saying. “It plugs directly into that central core of human consciousness. It goes beyond language, beyond any division between the self and the other.”
“There’s been some really exciting work done on the effect of music on catatonic patients, as well as those suffering from severe forms of dementia,” Walter said. “Are you familiar with the L-DOPA trials performed on patients with encephalitis, by a young neurologist named Doctor Oliver Sacks? He published a book about it, came out just last year. Absolutely fascinating stuff.”
“I’ll have to check it out,” Roscoe replied. “Who’s got the boysenberry syrup?”
“I do,” Walter said, holding up the little jug and giving his pancakes an extra drizzle before passing it over.
He would have been happy to stay all night in that diner, discussing a wide variety of intellectually stimulating theories and enjoying good, home-style food, but he couldn’t forget what they were planning to attempt tomorrow—today, actually. How everyone would be at risk, and how much was riding on their success.
Roscoe and the other band members continued to joke and horse around on the walk back to Nina’s place, but Walter found himself quietly introspective, lagging a little bit behind the others. Until he remembered that the Zodiac Killer was probably still following them.
He quickened his pace to catch up with Nina and Bell.
28
The next morning—more like afternoon, actually— Nina shook Walter awake again, this time with the typewritten note for the killer in her hand.