I knew what I was singing about before I even sang it. That StageHolo offer, and the idea of playing for a paid audience night after night, the good and the bad parts. The funny thing about bargains with the devil was you so rarely heard about people turning him down; maybe sometimes it was worth your soul. I scrambled in my gig bag pocket for a pen and paper. When I came up with only a sharpie, I wrote the lyrics on my arm. The chords would keep. I'd remember them. Would probably remember the lyrics too, but I wasn't chancing it.
Silva stepped out a little while later, wearing only a ratty towel around his waist. "There's a bucket shower out the back!"
"Show me in a sec, but first, check it out." I played him what I had.
His eyes widened. "Be right back."
He returned a moment later wearing jeans, bass in hand. We both had to play hard, and I had to whisper-sing to hear the unplugged electric instruments, but we had something we both liked before long.
"Tonight?" he asked me.
"Maybe… depends on how early we get there, I guess. And whether there's an actual soundcheck. Do you remember?"
He shook his head. "Four band lineup, at a warehouse. That's all I remember. But maybe if we leave pretty soon, we can set up early? It's only about three hours, I think."
He showed me where the shower was, and I took advantage of the opportunity. The bike kids appeared with a bag of lumpy apples, and we ate the apples with our omelets, sitting on the floor. Best breakfast in ages. They explained the barracks – the story involved an arts grant and an old school and abandoned buildings and a cat sanctuary and I got lost somewhere along the way, working on my new song in my head.
After breakfast, we made our excuse that we had to get on the road. They walked us back the way we came, around the front.
My smile lasted as long as it took us to round the corner. As long as it took to see Daisy was gone.
"Did you move her, Jacky?" Silva asked.
"You've got the keys, man."
Silva patted his pockets, and came up with the key. We walked closer. Glass.
I stared at the spot, trying to will Daisy back into place. Blink and she'd be back. How had we let this happen? I went through the night in my head. Had I heard glass breaking, or the engine turning over? I didn't think so. How many times had we left her outside while we played or ate or showered or slept? I lay down on the path, away from the glass, and looked up at the morning sky.
The bike kids looked distraught, all talking at once. "This kind of thing never happens." "We were only trying to help."
"It wasn't your fault," I said, after a minute. Then louder, when they didn't stop. "It wasn't your fault." They closed their mouths and looked at me.
I sat up and continued, leaning back on my hands, trying to be the calm one, the adult. "The bad news is we're going to need to call the police. The good news is, you're not squatting, so we don't have to work too hard to explain what we were doing here. The bad news is whoever stole the van can go really far on that tank. The good news is they're probably local and aren't trying to drive to Florida. Probably just kids who've never gotten to drive something that didn't drive itself. They'll abandon her nearby when she runs out of gas." I was trying to make myself feel better as much as them.
"And maybe they hate Chinese food," Jacky said. "Maybe the smell'll make them so hungry they have to stop for Chinese food. We should try all the local Chinese food places first."
Silva had stepped away from the group, already on the phone with the police. I heard snippets, even though his back was turned. License plate. Yes, a van. Yes, out of state plates. No, he didn't own it, but the owner was with him. Yes, we'd wait. Where else did we have to go? Well, Pittsburgh, but it didn't look like we'd be getting there any time soon.
He hung up and dug his hands into his pockets. He didn't turn around or come back to the group. I should probably have gone over to him, but he didn't look like he wanted to talk.
The kids scattered before the police arrived, all but Emma disappearing into the building. Jacky walked off somewhere as well. It occurred to me I didn't really know much of his history for all the time we'd been riding together.
The young policewoman who arrived to take our report was standoffish at first, like we were the criminals. Emma explained the situation. No officer, not squatting, here are the permits. I kept the van registration and insurance in a folder in my backpack, which helped on that end too, so that she came over to our side a little. Just a little.
"Insurance?"
"Of course." I rustled in the same folder, presented the card to her. She looked surprised, and I realized she had expected something electronic. "But only liability and human driver."
Surprised her again. "So the van isn't self-driving?"
"No, ma'am. I've had her – it – for twenty-three years."
"But you didn't convert when the government rebates were offered?"
"No, ma'am. I love driving."
She gave me a funny look. "
"Was anything in the van?" she asked.
I sighed and started the list, moving from back to front.
"One drum kit, kind of a hodgepodge of different makes, Ampeg bass rig, Marshall guitar amp, suitcase full of gig clothes. A sleeping bag. A box of novels, maybe fifty of them. Um, all the merchandise: records and t-shirts and stuff to sell…" I kept going through all the detritus in my head, discarding the small things: collapsible chopsticks, restaurant menus, pillows, jackets. Those were all replaceable. My thoughts snagged on one thing.
"A road atlas. Rand McNally."
The officer raised her eyebrows. "A what?"
"A road atlas. A book of maps."
"You want me to list that?"
"Well, it's in there. And it's important, to me anyway. It's annotated. All the places we've played, all the places we like to stop and we don't." I tried to hide the hitch in my voice. Don't cry, I told myself. Cry over the van, if you need to. Not over the atlas. You'll make another. It might take years, but it could be done.
It wasn't just the atlas, obviously. Everything we had hadn't been much, and it was suddenly much less. I was down to the cash in my pocket, the date book, the single change of clothes in my backpack, my guitar. How could we possibly rebuild from there? How do you finish a tour without a van? Or amps, or drums?
The officer held out her phone to tap a copy of her report over to me.
"Non-comm," I said. "I'm so sorry."
Silva stepped in for the first time. He hadn't even opened his mouth to help me list stuff, but now he held up his phone. "Send it to me, officer."
She did, with a promise to follow up as soon as she had any leads. Got in her squad car. She had to actually use the wheel and drive herself back down the rutted path; I guessed places like this were why police cars had a manual option. She had probably written us off already, either way.
I turned to Silva, but he had walked off. I followed him down the path toward an old warehouse.
"Stop!" I said, when it was clear he wasn't going to. He turned toward me. I expected him to be as sad as me, but he looked angrier than I had ever seen him, fists clenched and jaw tight.
"Whoa," I said. "Calm down. It'll be okay. We'll figure something out."
"How? How, Luce?"
"They'll find Daisy. Or we'll figure something out."
"Daisy's just the start of it. It's amps and records and t-shirts and everything we own. I don't even have another pair of underwear. Do you?"