Norrie squinted at me suspiciously, and when he got close enough, he lowered his voice and whispered, “Wuh-Well?”
“Well, what?”
“You nuh-know what, Stormaire. Duh-Did you fuh-find her or what?”
“Dude…”
“Yuh-You totally did, didn’t you?” He shook his head. “Thuh-That’s why you duh-ditched us.”
“. . it’s a crazy, long story, and-”
“Nuh-Never mind. Doesn’t muh-matter. Guh-Guess what?” When he looked at me again, he was smiling, and just like that, his stutter was gone. “I wrote a new song.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. And it’s good. All it needs is a bass line.”
“No problem, man.” In spite of everything, I felt that sudden lift that came along with our songwriting partnership, that sense that somehow we’d lucked into knowing each other, way back before either one of us could’ve guessed what that meant. “Bass line, I can do.”
“Wuh-Wait a second.” Norrie’s eyes narrowed. “Wuh-Where’s your bass?”
“I kind of… lost it.”
“What?”
“Look,” I said, “if I told you half the shit that I’ve been through in the last twenty-four hours…”
“That’s all right,” a voice said. “I’m sure we can figure something out.”
I turned around and saw George Armitage standing there.
In person, Armitage was exactly as refined and charming as I’d imagined from talking to him over the phone. He was in his midfifties, tall and fit, his skin almost Mediterranean, with just a few artfully arranged wrinkles around his pale blue eyes. Everything about him felt polished and real at the same time, and there was a certain smell, like suede and Lear jet fumes, clinging ever so faintly to his clothes. So this is what a billion dollars smells like, I thought.
The bodyguards on either side of him stood silent, their eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses. I almost immediately started thinking of them as Ram and Rod.
After a brief introduction to the rest of the band, and to Linus, who for once seemed able to keep from making some kind of acerbic comment, Armitage led Paula and me across the square to the small cafe, where a table was waiting for us. Ram and Rod followed at a respectful but conspicuous distance.
“I won’t keep you long,” Armitage said. “I know you’ve got a sound check to get to.”
“It’s all right.”
“How do you like the city?” He spread his hands magisterially across the cafe, the cathedral, and the piazza full of pigeons behind us in the gathering dusk, as if he’d conjured all of this out of the ether, just for us. “My absolute favorite place on earth. She’s like a beautiful woman whose favor I’ve never quite managed to capture.”
“It’s really great,” I said.
“I think we should celebrate.” He signaled the waiter. “Villa Antinori, ’ninety-five.”
The waiter disappeared, and Armitage turned the full wattage of his attention on me. “Perry, I realize all of this must feel like it’s happening very quickly to you, but by now you know how much I love your music, and I think it’s time we discuss Inchworm’s first album.”
“Okay.”
“I’d like to get you in the studio as soon as this tour is over, if possible. In fact, we were talking about going directly to L.A. You blokes could certainly recuperate there, and when the time is right, we could start recording right away. How does that sound?”
“Like a dream come true.”
“Wonderful.” Armitage smiled and glanced at Paula. “Make a note to book some time at Sunset Sound, love, won’t you?”
“Taking care of it now,” Paula said. She took her iPad out of her purse and started typing something onto the screen.
The wine arrived, and Armitage poured a glass for each of us.
“That settles it, then,” he said, raising a toast. “Here’s to Inchworm and the great future that awaits them.”
I reached for my glass, and that was when I saw Gobi coming through the crowd, walking straight toward us with the shotgun.
21. “Sweetest Kill” — Broken Social Scene
When I think back on that moment, I’m always amazed by how long it took me to react. Everyone else seemed to move before I did-Paula, the waiters, even the other patrons of the cafe.
Gobi took out the bodyguards from twenty feet away. I heard two quick, deafening noises-BLAM, BLAM-and saw them both pitch backwards in opposite directions, hitting the cobblestones on either side of the table. What I saw then couldn’t possibly be right-it had to be some kind of run-time glitch in the mainframe of the universe-because when I looked again, Gobi was less than a foot away, pumping another round into the chamber and pointing the shotgun right at Armitage’s chest, point blank.
Armitage opened his mouth to say something, but he never got the chance before Gobi pulled the trigger. There was a third deafening KAPOW, and the shotgun blast blew him backwards out of his chair hard enough to knock the whole table over with his knees, spilling wine and glass everywhere. Pigeons took flight and people screamed in that far-off way that voices sound after your eardrums have been assaulted by blunt-force audio trauma. My ears were used to it from years of speakers and amps, and it was still a backwards-sounding scream-the crowd almost seemed to suck it back inward-withering into a gasp, when they saw what had happened.
When I looked down again, Armitage was sprawled backwards on the pavement between his bodyguards, motionless in a huge and still expanding splatter pattern of his own blood. It spread out around him in all directions like the shadow of an object falling fast.
Without hesitating, Gobi reached down with her free hand and grabbed Armitage’s body, clutching his sagging weight under the arms, hoisting it up as if it were weightless, holding it in front of herself like a shield, all the while keeping the shotgun in her right hand. There was a distant CRACK and I saw another bullet hit the corpse in the chest. Looking around, I realized that the shot had come from somewhere far overhead, and that was when I realized there was at least one other person on a rooftop overhead, shooting down at us.
Gobi raised the shotgun one-handed and fired again, up at the top of the cathedral.
“Stand down.” Somewhere off to my right I saw Paula rise to her feet. I was expecting her to get out a phone to call the cops or an ambulance.
What came out instead was a pistol-polished, nickel-plated, and held with an expert two-handed shooting grip.
And pointed at me.
“Paula?” I asked.
Paula’s eyes stayed on Gobi. Her voice was absolutely calm. “That’s a Mossberg pump-action, isn’t it? Twelve-gauge, right? Nice gun.”
Gobi didn’t say anything.
“Only problem is, you’ve got to reload before you can shoot again. Move and he dies.”
In front of us, in front of the overturned table, Gobi stood frozen, still cradling the shotgun in one hand and Armitage’s corpse in the other. Even with my ears still ringing, Paula’s voice was crisp and totally clear, every syllable chiseled into the air. The realization came slanting at me sideways like a sudden cold rain.
My.
Girlfriend.
Paula.
Was.
Pointing.
A.
Gun.
At.
Me.
I stared at her. I couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. Still.
In front of us, all at once Gobi chucked the shotgun, shoved Armitage’s body away from her, swiveled, and threw her leg straight up into the air, bringing it down in an ax-kick to Paula’s face. There was a crack and Paula went hard to the ground. Gobi grabbed her iPad, but Paula must not have dropped the gun, because through all the broken glass and blood and wine, she was already firing at us. I should know. I felt at least one of the bullets whining past my head.