Then I wondered why I was playing games at all. I turned to look at him. "We're a band."
"No kidding! I used to have a band." A reassessment of the situation flashed across his face. A new smile, more collegial. The change in his whole demeanor prompted me to give him a little more attention.
"No kidding?"
"Yeah. Mostly we played here. Before the insurance rates rose and StageHolo convinced Maggie she'd save money with holos of famous bands."
"Did she? Save money?"
He sighed. "Probably. Holos don't drink, and holos don't dent the mics or spill beers into the PA. And people will stay and drink for hours if the right bands are playing. "
"Do you still play for fun? Your band?"
He shrugged. "We did for a while. We even got a spot at the very last State Fair. And after that, every once in a while we'd play a barbecue in somebody's backyard. But it's hard to keep it up when you've got nothing to aim for. Playing here once a week was a decent enough goal, but who would want to hear me sing covers when you can have the real thing?"
He pointed his beer at one of the women by the stage. "That's my ex-wife, by the way."
"I'm sorry?"
"It's okay." He took a swig of beer. "That's when Polly left me. Said it wasn't cause the band was done, but I think it was related. She said I didn't seem interested in anything at all after that."
He had turned his attention down to his drink, but now he looked at me again. "How about you? I guess there are still places out there to play?"
"A few," I said. "Mostly in the cities. There's a lot of turnover, too. So we can have a great relationship with a place and then we'll call back and they'll be gone without a trace."
"And there's enough money in it to live on?"
There are people who ask that question in an obnoxious, disbelieving way, and I tend to tell them, "We're here, aren't we?" but this guy was nostalgic enough that I answered him honestly. Maybe I could help him see there was no glamor left for people like us.
"I used to get some royalty checks from an old song, which covered insurance and repairs for the van, but they've gotten smaller and smaller since BMI v. StageHolo. We make enough to stay on the road, eat really terribly, have a beer now and again. Not enough to save. Not enough to stop, ever. Not that we want to stop, so it's okay."
"You never come off the road? Do you live somewhere?"
"The van's registered at my parents' place in Maryland, and I crash there when I need a break. But that isn't often."
"And your band?"
"My bassist and I have been playing together for a long time, and he's got places he stays. We replace a drummer occasionally. This one's been with us for a year, and the two of them are into each other, so if they don't fall out it might last a while."
He nodded. The wolfishness was gone, replaced by something more wistful. He held out his beer. "To music."
"To live music." My can clinked his.
Somebody shouted over by the bar, and we both twisted round to see what had happened. The air-drum player had wandered over – Max Weinberg was on break too – and he and Jacky were squaring off over something. Jacky's blue lips glowed from twenty feet away.
"Nothing good ever comes of blue drinks," I said to my new friend.
He nodded. "You're gonna want to get your friend out of here. That's the owner behind the bar. If your guy breaks anything, she'll have the cops here in two seconds flat."
"Crap. Thanks."
Blue liquid pooled around and on Jacky, a tray of overturned plastic shot glasses behind him. At least they weren't glass, and at least he hadn't damaged the fancy bar top. I dug a twenty from the thin wad in my pocket, hoping it was enough.
"You're fake-drumming to a fake band," Jacky was saying. "And you're not even good at it. If you went to your crash cymbal that much with the real Bruce, he'd fire you in two seconds."
"Who the hell cares? Did I ask you to critique my drumming?"
"No, but if you did, I'd tell you you're behind on the kick, too. My two year old niece keeps a better beat than you do."
The other guy's face reddened, and I saw him clench a fist. Silva had an arm across Jacky's chest by then, propelling him toward the door. We made eye contact, and he nodded.
I tossed my twenty on a dry spot on the bar, still hoping for a quick getaway.
"We don't take cash," said the owner, holding my bill by the corner like it was a dead rat.
Dammit. I squared my shoulders. "You're legally required to accept US currency."
"Maybe true in the US of A, but this is the US of Starker's, and I only accept Superwally credit. And your blue buddy there owes a lot more than this anyway for those spilled drinks." She had her hand below the bar. I had no clue whether she was going for a phone or a baseball bat or a gun; nothing good could come of any of those options.
I snatched the bill back, mind racing. Silva kept a credit transfer account; that wouldn't be any help, since he was already out the door. I avoided credit and devices in general, which usually held me in good stead, but I didn't think the label "Non-comm" would win me any friends here. Jacky rarely paid for anything, so I had no clue whether he had been paying cash or credit up until then.
"I've got them, Maggie." My new friend from the booth stepped up beside me, waving his phone.
He turned to me. "Go on. I've got this."
Maggie's hand came out from under the bar. She pulled a phone from behind the cash register to do the credit transfer, which meant whatever she had reached for down below probably wouldn't have been good for my health.
"Keep playing," he called after me.
Jacky was unremorseful. "He started it. Called us disease vectors. I told him to stay right where he was and the whole world would go on turning 'cause it doesn't even know he exists. Besides, if he can't air drum, he should just air guitar like everybody else."
Silva laughed. "You should have pretended to cough. He probably would have pissed himself."
He and Silva sprawled in the back together as I peeled out of the parking lot.
"Not funny. I don't care who started it. No fights. I mean it. Do you think I can afford to bail you out? How are we supposed to play tomorrow if our drummer's in jail? And what if they skip the jail part and shoot you? It's happened before."
"Sorry, Mom," Jacky said.
"Not funny," I repeated. "If you ever call me 'Mom' again I'm leaving you on the side of the road. And I'm not a Chauffeur. Somebody come up here to keep me company."
Silva climbed across the bed and bags and up to the passenger seat. He flipped on the police scanner, then turned it off after a few minutes of silence; nobody had put out any APBs on a van full of bill-ducking freaks. I drove speed limit plus five, same as the occasional Chauffeurs we passed ferrying their passengers home. Shortcutting onto the highway to leave the area entirely would've been my preference, but Daisy would have triggered the ramp sensors in two seconds flat; we hadn't been allowed on an interstate in five years.
After about twenty miles, my fear that we were going to get chased down finally dissipated and my heartbeat returned to acceptable rhythms. We pulled into an office park that didn't look patrolled.
"Your turn for the bed, Luce?" Jacky asked. Trying to make amends, maybe.
"You guys can have it if I can find my sleeping bag. It's actually pretty nice out, and then I don't have to smell whatever that blue crap is on your clothes."
"You have a sleeping bag?"
"Of course I do. I just used it in…" Actually, I couldn't think of when I had used it last. It took a few minutes of rummaging to find it in the storage space under the bed, behind Silva's garage sale box of pulp novels. I spread it on the ground just in front of the van. The temperature was perfect and the sky was full of stars. Hopefully there weren't any coyotes around.