I smiled politely and held out my hand to shake.
Cam's forehead slowly turned scarlet. He glanced at Garrett, then held up the lit end of his cigarette and examined it. "What'd this son of a bitch just say?"
Garrett looked back and forth between us. He pulled his scraggly saltandpepper beard, the way he does when he's worried.
"Can I talk to you?" he asked me. " 'Scuse us."
Garrett wheeled himself out of line toward the men's room. I smiled again at Cam, then followed.
"Okay," said Garrett when I joined him, "is this going to be another Texas Chilli Parlour scene?"
He gave me his evil look. With the crooked teeth and the long hair and the beard and the crazy stoned eyes, my brother can look disturbingly like a chubby Charles Manson.
I tried to sound offended. "Give me some credit."
"Shit." Garrett scratched his belly underneath the tie dyed I'm With Stupid Tshirt. He produced a joint, lit it, then started talking with it still in his mouth.
"Last time I took you out we ended up with a three hundreddollar bar tab for broken furniture. They won't let me in the Chilli Parlour for dollar magnum night anymore, okay?"
"That was different. I'd burned that guy for worker's comp fraud and he recognized me.
Not my fault."
Garrett blew smoke. "Cam Compton isn't some out ofwork schmuck, little bro. He's been on Austin City Limits, for Chris sakes."
"You know him well?"
"He knows half the people in town, man."
"Seems like an asshole to me."
"Yeah, well, you pass around good shit and give out backstage passes to major shows, you get a little leeway in the personality department, okay? You invited me here and you're buying the beer. Just don't embarrass me."
He wheeled himself around without waiting for an answer. Cam had disappeared inside the club. Probably gone to wax his guitar or tune his surfboard or something.
Garrett flashed his blue handicapped placard and made some noise and got us back to the front of the line, then inside.
The Cactus Cafe was an unlikely music venue, just a long narrow room off the corner of the Union lobby, a stage not much bigger than a kingsized bed, a little bar in back that served beer and wine and organically correct snacks. Not much in the way of atmosphere, but for fifteen years this had been one of the best places in Austin to hear small bands and solo acts. In Austin that was saying a lot.
I followed Garrett through the crowd. He drove over as many feet as he could getting past the bar and to the far wall. I had to stand next to him, pressing against the thick burgundy drapes and hoping the window didn't open and spill us all out into the rain on Guadalupe Avenue. I had enough room only if I used one foot and kept my Shiner Bock close to my chest.
"Good crowd," I said.
"I caught her last month at the Broken Spoke," Garrett said. "You wait."
I didn't have to. Just as Garrett was about to say something else applause and hoots started up behind us. The band emerged from the back room and began pressing through the crowd.
First onstage was the pudgy, whitebearded man from the photo on Milo's wall. Willis, Miranda's dad. He looked like a Texas version of Santa Claus—hair and whiskers the colour of wet cement, a jolly red face, a well fed body stuffed into Jordache jeans and a beige collar less shirt. He limped onto the stage with a cane, then substituted a standup bass for it.
Next came Cam Comptom, looking not overjoyed. He stared out at the audience grudgingly, like he was afraid they were all going to pester him for autographs. When he plugged in his Stratocaster he put a blue pick in his mouth along with several frizzy strands of his hair.
After him came a mousy librarianlooking woman who was apparently Julie Kearnes'
replacement on the fiddle. Then an elderly railthin drummer—that would be Ben French. Then a fortyish acoustic guitar player with a darkcheckered shirt and black jeans and a black Stetson that was slightly too small for his head—Brent, Miranda's older brother.
Miranda herself was not in the lineup.
Daddy Santa Claus leaned on his bass and straightened his straw hat and waved at one of the older couples in the audience. Willis might've been standing on his front porch picking for a few friends, or doing an impromptu hoedown at the local Elks Club.
The rest of the band looked stiff, nervous, like their families were being held at gunpoint in the back room.
After a few minutes of general cord fumbling and string plucking, the musicians all looked expectantly at Miranda's brother Brent.
He came up to the mike uncertainly, mumbled "Howdy," then lowered his head so you couldn't see anything except the brim of his black Stetson. Without warning he started strumming his guitar like he was afraid it might get away from him. His dad the bass player, undaunted, looked over at the others, smiled, and mouthed: "Ah one, two, three—"
The rest of the band came in and started grinding through an instrumental version of
"San Antonio Rose." . The fiddle player sawed out the melody in a watery but fairly competent fashion.
The crowd clapped, but not very enthusiastically. Many of them kept glancing toward the back of the room.
Nobody onstage looked like they were having an exceptionally good time except for Willis Daniels, who tapped his good foot and plucked his bass and smiled at the audience like he was totally deaf and this was the best damn thing he'd ever heard.
The band lurched through a few more numbers—an anaemic polka, a version of
"Faded Love" during which Cam Compton had a flashback and went into a Led Zep
pelin solo, then Brent Daniels' vocal of "Waltz Across Texas." Brent's voice wasn't bad, I decided after the second verse. None of the band members were bad, really. The drums were steady. The bass solid. Cam would've made a better rock 'n' roller but he obviously knew his scales. Even the substitute fiddler didn't miss a note. The players just didn't go together very well. They weren't much of a group. They definitely weren't worth a fivedollar cover.
The audience started to fidget. I wondered if there'd been a mistake. Maybe they'd all thought Jerry Jeff or Jimmie Dale was playing tonight. That might explain it.
Then somebody at the bar gave a good "yeehaw" as Miranda Daniels came out from the back room wearing all black denim and carrying a tiny Martin guitar. The applause and whistling increased as Miranda squeezed her way through the audience.
She looked like she did in the press release photos— petite, pale, curly black hair. She wasn't knockout beautiful by any means, but in person she had a kind of awkward, sleepy cuteness that the photos didn't convey.
The band put an abrupt stop to their waltz across Texas when Miranda got onstage.
She smiled tentatively into the lights—just a hint of her dad's crinkles around her eyes—then straightened her black shirt and plugged in her Martin.
She was definitely cute. The men in the audience would be looking at her and thinking it might not be a terrible thing to be cuddled up with Miranda Daniels under a warm quilt. That was my impartial guess, anyway.
Daddy Santa started an uptempo bass line going, tapping his foot like crazy, and the audience started clapping. Brent's rhythm guitar came in, more sure than before, then the drums. Miranda was still smiling, looking down at the floor but swaying a little to the music. She tapped her foot like her father did. Then she brushed her hair behind her ear with one hand, took the microphone, and sang: "You'd better look out, honey—"
The voice was amazing. It was clear and sexy and overpowering, not a hint of reservation. But it wasn't just the voice that nailed me to the wall for the next thirty minutes. Miranda Daniels became a different person— nothing tentative, nothing awkward. She forgot she was in front of an audience and sang every emotion in the world into the microphone. She broke her heart and fell in love and snared a man and then told him he was a fool in one song after another, hardly ever opening her eyes, and the lyrics were typical country and western cornball but coming from her it didn't matter.