Broken Piano for President (24 page)

“Well, I don’t…agree. This just isn’t me.” He withers, but stops short, reminded of the confidence Martin’s affection brought.

“This band isn’t supposed to be who we are. It’s about those moments when you
aren’t
yourself.” A comfort arrives in Dean’s mind—reminiscent of the Winters lunch meeting. Here, like improvising the flu fighting hamburger, he’s winging it. The idea of not being yourself has never crossed his mind. But damned if it doesn’t sound right. “You aren’t really living until you are someone else. Don’t you,” he takes a deep, drama club breath. “Don’t you see? I thought we were on the same page with this stuff.” The singer’s head shakes, shocked that in all these months his best friend didn’t even learn that much.

“Um…I’m not saying I don’t want the band. Just maybe we could do things different.”

“Nobody listens to
fun
, Henry.” Deshler shoots Pandemic a
can you believe this
look and swings back toward the bassist. “You can’t have art and fun, that’s when things start to suck. That’s always when a good band goes wrong. That’s how you got the first couple Genesis albums.”

“We can be the first ones to do it right. That’s what I want, man. Take it or leave it.”

Deshler throws the bottle behind him. It
plonks
against the wall but doesn’t shatter. It rolls to a glassy, hollow stop at his feet. “Because that’s just…it’s…dude, people are finally coming to our shows and you want to change? We were in the newspaper!”

“I’d like to try something different, too,” Pandemic says over Deshler’s shoulder. Pandemic’s never thought about it before, but change sounds good now. Plus, he wants a way to dig claws a little deeper into Dean’s snotty orphan ass. “Yeah, something
really
different. You know, grow artistically. Make pop music.”

“Forget this shit,” Deshler huffs, shooting back-and-forth looks at the others. “Just forget it.”

The singer stumbles into the corner and grabs his coat. He turns around shaking his head, muttering.

“Oh, dude, also,” Hamler says, squishing into a sour face. Tony ordered him to cover up this new duty. His mission for the next seven days is top secret. “I can’t practice for about a week, I’ve…I’ve, uh, got to go home for a funeral. I’ll be out of town.”

“Oh, whoa, strange coincidence,” Pandemic says. “I can’t practice either, I forgot. Ahhh, yes-yes-yeah. I’ve also got a family funeral.”

The two eye each other, unaware of the real coincidence.

“I give up,” Deshler says as he climbs the stairs with a stagger in his steps. “Maybe we shouldn’t have any more practices ever.”

“Maybe.”

“Well, I…Maybe.”

The next morning, Henry drags a suitcase up Olde-Tyme’s skyscraper and stops at the floor marked
Lettuce Acquisitions.
Technically,
Winters Olde-Tyme Covert Operations
doesn’t exist. Corporate smoke and mirrors, you see.

“Big man wants to chat, wants to give you a handshake or something before you leave,” Tony says in a hurry—sweat hanging from sideburns. “C’mon, we’ve got to move if you want to be on time for tonight.”

The office doesn’t look like a spying nerve center. With its
blah
name, eggshell walls and beige carpet, it
looks
like Lettuce Acquisitions
.
Just another boring department in an office building.

“Jesus, okay. Let me at least take my coat off.”

“I’m not joking around here. This is top priority, hustle up.”

Waiting for the elevator to the Executive Suite
,
a crowd of suits stuffs into another elevator. One voice buried in the mob snags Hamler with fish hook violence. “I’m thinking we can make it a sauce,” the familiar voice says. It growls deep and nervous—Isaac Hayes on a first date. “Like ketchup and Nyquil.” It sounds like the lead singer of Lothario Speedwagon. Or the former lead singer of Lothario Speedwagon. Hamler decides it’s just some stress hallucination. If it was actually Deshler Dean, he’d break that little shit’s nose—amongst other things.

Hamler and his boss ease into an elevator alone. “Why me? There have to be a dozen guys who can babysit.”

“Because, we think you need a new challenge. Okay?”

“This sounds like a load of bullshit.” Six dozen floors flush past them. Henry breathes and waits for the right moment. “Look me in the eye and tell me what’s the deal. Why do a bunch of Russians need me, of all people?” The doors wishbone apart. Hamler’s question is chopped off by a man he’s only seen in company promotional materials.

The CEO looks like governor Christopher Winters, but with a greasy mustache, an extra chin and a stain on his yellow tie.

“Ah, Tony, thanks for coming so quickly. This must be agent Hamler, perfect. You look like a man I can trust. Come in, come in.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir,” Hamler says, shaking the CEO’s surprisingly limp hand.

Down an oak hallway lined with photos of Henry’s first kill, Roland Winters hacks and dices his arms while speaking. “Okay, so you’ve been briefed, yes? We have some nuggets. Apparently Bust-A-Gut’s intelligence corps is going to try something funny. We don’t have any concrete info, but with those heartless savages, anything’s possible. We need someone to be a bodyguard of sorts.”

“I’m your man, sir.”

“Henry is really showing lots of promise, chief. He was, uh,” Tony searches for the politically correct way to say
boss murderer
. “The main man with the
C.W. thing,
you know?”

Holding the doorknob to his office, Winters drops a solemn church nod. A brief memory of okaying his father’s assassination. “Nasty work, but important. I thank you, son.”

When Henry enters, he is swamped by heat—a thermostat stuck on broil. Four men and one woman lounge around in blue jumpsuits. They each nibble doughnuts. Black coffee is in the air. Another guy, standing at the window with a huge pompadour and thick glasses turns and stares. The man’s skin is colored like circus peanuts. Hamler suddenly craves a handful of the mushy orange candies.

“I trust you know who these gentlemen and lady are,” Winters says as the cosmonauts line up to shake hands, wiping powdered sugar from fingers. Compared to television, their faces are weird. Three have chin waddles and muscles and real tans. The other guy and a girl are pale and thin with horrible teeth. “This is Dimitri, Yuri, Pavel, Sonja and Keith. The, huh,” he laughs, “Moscow Five, I think we are promoting them as.”

Hamler shakes hands and says hello.

“Okay, so you’ll be around this crew all day, every day. You don’t let them get into any trouble. Anyone suspicious walks within an acre, you
solve
the
problem
with a gun if you have to. Got it? There are millions of dollars riding on this tour’s success. We’ll start tonight with the big television shindig, then nail both coasts for promotion. Be back in a week, you hear?”

“Absolutely.”

Delia Ellery, leaning against the wall with her stump to the bookcase, clears her throat. The CEO turns around and rolls his eyes.

“And this,” Roland says, faking forgetfulness. “This is the
big
winner of the contest. Henry Hamler, please meet…” Winters eases a heavy sigh, “Mister
Juan
Pandemic.”

America’s newest hero steps up. His black hair is a horrible wig, his tan is fake, his glasses have no glass. It takes the young spy three blinks to figure everything out. “You’ve
got
to be kidding me,” he says, shaking his drummer’s hand.

The Cliff Drinker wakes, shocked to be in his bed, neatly tucked and warm. He looks around the room: no pools, trails or specks of blood.
So far, so successful
, Dean thinks, kind of proud. He gropes the soft skin around his face—a night’s rest without being beaten by one-armed marketing execs works wonders for swelling.

Deshler gets up and dresses. After wrestling a comb through wild hair, he slips off to Winters headquarters. His first real day at work hums by without incident. People claw at each other to get near the new hotshot. Dean is shocked to see everyone stop and listen whenever his mouth opens.

Early in the morning, leaving Winters’ dark wood office after a meeting, Deshler has a breakthrough. “Mister Dean,” the head of the test kitchen says. “You can’t just mix cough syrup and raw ground beef. There is no amount of breadcrumbs we could add to keep this from cooking into sludge.”

“Damn,” Deshler says. “Well, hmm, what if we marinated the onions in cold medicine?”

“I don’t think that would mask the eucalyptus flavor well enough. That is our goal, sir, to make this healthful and edible.”

Getting into the elevator, another sober idea cartwheels through Dean’s head: “I’m thinking we can make it a sauce,” he growls deep and nervous—Isaac Hayes on a first date. “Like ketchup and Nyquil.”

“Well, gosh, sir.” This takes Dean by surprise, the man calling him
sir
is fifteen years older, easily. “
That
seems feasible, we could have a prototype ready by the end of the day tomorrow.”

A cheek-burning smile plants itself across Dean’s face. People are listening for once and he doesn’t have to cover them in mustard or bellow into a microphone. The foreign whip of satisfaction zings through his nervous system. He draws it in close.

What would Gibby do?
he thinks.

Nothing.

Come on
,
this always works. What would he do next?

Nada.

You know, that’s a load of horseshit
, he thinks.
What would Deshler do
?
Now that’s a question.
This new perspective toughens Dean’s posture. It doesn’t actually make him stand straighter, but it certainly feels like it.

Eager to keep this good luck and not wanting to run into Napoleon near the Beef Club, Dean chooses to eat dinner down the street from the Olde-Tyme office. He walks through the snowy dark, whistling something upbeat and unknown before slipping into a cramped Italian restaurant. Alive with garlic and fresh bread air, his stomach calls for the entire menu.

A glass of wine and a table for one, he stops to appreciate today. Did he feel this good turning eighteen, leaving foster care behind? No. Did he feel this alive when that box of
Broken Piano for President
tapes arrived from the printer, smelling new and full of promise? Close, very close. But, still, no. Was turning twenty-one this rewarding, tossing his fake ID and buying that first legal case of beer? He doesn’t remember.

There, gnawing on a buttery breadstick, Dean sees this could be the first entry into a new Hall of Fame.