Fevre Dream (45 page)

He looked at Gwen and pointed. “Are those lasers?”

She nodded, smiling just a little.

“What the hell are you flying?” Dirk asked. “It looks like a war machine. Are we going to be assaulted by Hrangans? I haven’t seen anything like that since we toured the Institute museums back on Avalon.”

Gwen laughed, took his bag from him, and tossed it into the back seat. “Get in,” she told him. “It is a perfectly fine aircar of High Kavalaan manufacture. They’ve only recently started turning out their own. It’s supposed to look like an animal, the black banshee. A flying predator, also the brother-beast of the Ironjade Gathering. Very big in their folklore, sort of a totem.”

She climbed in, behind the stick, and Ruark followed a bit awkwardly, vaulting over the armored wing into the back. Dirk did not move. “But it has
lasers
!” he insisted.

Gwen sighed. “They’re not charged, and never have been. Every car built on High Kavalaan has weapons of some sort. The culture demands it. And I don’t mean just Ironjade’s. Redsteel, Braith, and the Shanagate Holding are all the same.”

Dirk walked around the car and climbed in next to Gwen, but his face was blank. “What?”

“Those are the four Kavalar holdfast-coalitions,” she explained. “Think of them as small nations, or big families. They’re a little of both.”

“But why the lasers?”

“High Kavalaan is a violent planet,” Gwen replied.

Ruark gave a snort of laughter. “Ah, Gwen,” he said. “That is utter wrong,
utter
!”

“Wrong?” she snapped.

“Very,” Ruark said. “Yes, utter, because you are close to truth, half and not everything, worst lie of all.”

Dirk turned in his seat to look back at the chubby blond Kimdissi. “What?”

“High Kavalaan
was
a violent planet, truth. But now, truth is, the violence is the Kavalars. Hostile folk, each and every among them, xenophobes often, racists. Proud and jealous. With their highwars and their code duello, yes, and
that
is why Kavalar cars have guns. To fight with, in the air! I warn you, t’Larien—”

“Arkin!”
Gwen said between her teeth, and Dirk started at the edged malice in her tone. She threw on the gravity grid suddenly, touched the stick, and the aircar wrenched forward and left the ground with a whine of protest, rising rapidly. The port below them was bright with light where the
Shuddering of Forgotten Enemies
stood among the lesser starships, shadowy everywhere else. Around it was darkness to the unseen horizon where black ground blended with blacker sky. Only a thin powder of stars lit the night above. This was the Fringe, with intergalactic space above and the dusky curtain of the Tempter’s Veil below, and the world seemed lonelier than Dirk had ever imagined.

THE ARMAGEDDON RAG

Coming in February 2005 from Bantam Spectra

“The best novel concerning the American pop music
culture of the ’60s I’ve ever read.”

—Stephen King

“Moving . . . comic . . . eerie . . . really and truly a walk
down memory lane.”

—Washington Post

“A knowing, wistful appraisal of . . . a crucial American
generation . . . poetic, nostalgic, daring.”

—Chicago Sun-Times

THE ARMAGEDDON RAG

On sale February 2005

It was not one of Sandy Blair’s all-time great days. His agent had picked up the lunch tab, to be sure, but that only partially made up for the way he’d gotten on Sandy’s case about the novel deadline. The subway was full of yahoos and it seemed to take forever to get him back to Brooklyn. The three-block walk to the brownstone he called home seemed longer and colder than usual. He felt in dire need of a beer by the time he got there. He pulled one from the fridge, opened it, and ascended wearily to his third-floor office to face the stack of blank paper he was supposedly turning into a book. Once again, the elves had failed to knock off any chapters in his absence; page thirty-seven was still in his typewriter. You just couldn’t get good elves anymore, Sandy thought morosely. He stared at the words with distaste, took a swig from the bottle in his hand, and looked around for a distraction.

That was when he noticed the red light on his message machine, and found that Jared Patterson had phoned.

Actually it had been Jared’s secretary who made the call, which Sandy found amusing; even after seven years, and everything that had happened, Patterson was still a bit nervous about him. “Jared Patterson would like Mister Blair to contact him as soon as possible, in connection with an assignment,” said the pleasant professional voice. Sandy listened to her twice before erasing the tape. “Jared Patterson,” he said to himself, bemused. The name evoked a hell of a lot of memories.

Sandy knew that he really ought to ignore Patterson’s message. The sonofabitch deserved no more. That was hopeless, though; he was already too curious. He picked up the phone and dialed, mildly astonished to discover that he still remembered the number, after seven years. A secretary picked up.
“Hedgehog,”
she said. “Mister Patterson’s office.”

“This is Sander Blair,” Sandy said. “Jared phoned me. Tell the poltroon that I’m returning his call.”

“Yes, Mister Blair. Mister Patterson left instructions to put you through at once. Please hold.”

A moment later, Patterson’s familiar mock-hearty voice was ringing in Sandy’s ear. “
Sandy!
It’s great to hear ya, really it is. Long time, old man. How’s it hanging?”

“Cut the shit, Jared,” Sandy said sharply. “You’re no happier to hear from me than I was to hear from you. What the hell do you want? And keep it short, I’m a busy man.”

Patterson chuckled. “Is that any way to talk to an old friend? Still no social graces, I see. All right then, however you want it. I wantcha to do a story for
Hedgehog,
how’s that for straight?”

“Go suck a lemon,” Sandy said. “Why the hell should I write for you? You fired me, you asshole.”

“Bitter, bitter,” Jared chided. “That was seven years ago, Sandy. I hardly remember it now.”

“That’s funny. I remember it real well. I’d lost it, you said. I was out of touch with what was happening, you said. I was too old to edit for the youth audience, you said. I was taking the
Hog
down the tubes, you said. Like shit. I was the one who
made
that paper, and you damn well know it.”

“Never denied it,” Jared Patterson said breezily. “But times changed, and you didn’t. If I’d kept you on, we’d have gone down with the
Freep
and the
Barb
and all the rest. All that counterculture stuff had to go. I mean, who needed it? All that politics, reviewers who hated the hot new trends in music, the drug stories . . . it just didn’t cut it, y’know?” He sighed. “Look, I didn’t call to hash over ancient history. I was hoping you’d have more perspective by now. Hell, Sandy, firing you hurt me more than it did you.”

“Oh, sure,” Sandy said. “You sold out to a chain and got a nice cushy salaried job as publisher while you were firing three-quarters of your staff. You must be in
such
pain.” He snorted. “Jared, you’re still an asshole. We built that paper together, as a communal sort of thing. It wasn’t yours to sell.”

“Hey, communes were all well and good back when we were young, but you seem to forget that it was my money kept the whole show afloat.”

“Your money and our talent.”

“God, you haven’t changed a bit, have you?” Jared said. “Well, think what you like, but our circulation is three times what it was when you were editor, and our ad revenues are out of sight.
Hedgehog
has class now. We got nominated for real journalism awards. Have you seen us lately?”

“Sure,” said Sandy. “Great stuff. Restaurant reviews. Profiles of movie stars. Suzanne Somers on the cover, for God’s sake. Consumer reports on video games. A dating service for lonely singles. What is it you call yourself now? The Newspaper of Alternative Lifestyles?”

“We changed that, dropped the ‘alternative’ part. It’s just
Lifestyles
now. Between the two H’s in the logo.”

“Jesus,” Sandy said. “Your music editor has
green hair
!”

“He’s got a real deep understanding of pop music,” Jared said defensively. “And stop shouting at me. You’re always shouting at me. I’m starting to regret calling you, y’know. Do you want to talk about this assignment or not?”

“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn. Why do you think I need your assignment?”

“No one said you did. I’m not out of it, I know you’ve been doing well. How many novels have you published? Four?”

“Three,” Sandy corrected.

“
Hedgehog
’s run reviews of every one of them too. You oughtta be grateful. Firing you was the best thing I could have done for you. You were always a better writer than you were an editor.”

“Oh, thank you, massa, thank you. I’s ever so thankful. I owes it all to you.”

“You could at least be civil,” Jared said. “Look, you don’t need us and we don’t need you, but I thought it would be nice to work together again, just for old time’s sake. Admit it, it’d be a kick to have your byline in the old
Hog
again, wouldn’t it? And we pay better than we used to.”

“I’m not hurting for money.”

“Who said you were? I know all about you. Three novels and a brownstone and a sports car. What is it, a Porsche or something?”

“A Mazda RX-7,” Sandy said curtly.

“Yeah, and you live with a
realtor,
so don’t lecture me about selling out, Sandy old boy.”

“What do you want, Jared?” Sandy said, stung. “I’m getting tired of sparring.”

“We’ve got a story that would be perfect for you. We want to play it up big, too, and I thought maybe you’d be interested. It’s a murder.”

“What are you doing now, Jared, trying to turn the
Hog
into
True Detective
? Forget it, Jared, I don’t do crime shit.”

“Jamie Lynch was the guy that got himself murdered.”

The name of the victim brought Sandy up short, and a wisecrack died in his mouth. “The promoter?”

“None other.”

Sandy sat back, took a swig of beer, and mulled on that. Lynch had been out of the news for years, a has-been even before Sandy was fired from the
Hog,
but in his day he had been an important man in the rock subculture. It could be an interesting story. Lynch had always been surrounded by controversy. He’d worn two hats: promoter and manager. As a promoter, he’d organized some of the biggest tours and concerts of his day. He’d ensured their success by booking in the bands he controlled as manager, and by denying those bands to rival concerts. With hot talent like American Taco, the Fevre River Packet Company, and the Nazgûl under his thumb, he’d been a man to reckon with. At least up until 1971, when the disaster at West Mesa, the breakup of the Nazgûl, and a couple of drug busts started him on the long slide down. “What happened to him?” Sandy asked.

“It’s pretty kinky,” Jared said. “Somebody busted into his place up in Maine, dragged him into his office, and offed him there. They tied him to his desk, and, like,
sacrificed
him. Cut his heart out. He had one after all. Remember the old jokes? Ah, never mind. Anyhow, the whole scene was kind of grotesque. Mansonesque, y’know? Well, that made me think of the series you did back around the time that Sharon Tate got offed, you know, that investigation of . . . what did you call it?”

“The dark side of counterculture,” Sandy said dryly. “We won awards for that series, Jared.”

“Yeah, right. I remembered it was good. So I thought of you. This is right up your alley. Real Sixties, y’know? What we’re thinking of is a long meaty piece, like those in-depth things you used to go for. We’ll use the murder as a news peg, see, and you could investigate it a bit, see maybe if you could kick up something the police miss, y’know, but mostly use it as a springboard for a sort of retrospective on Jamie Lynch and his promotions, all his groups and his concerts and his times and like that. Maybe you could look up some of the guys from his old groups, the Fevre River gang and the Nazgûl and all, interview ’em and work in some where-are-they-now kind of stuff. It would be sort of a nostalgia piece, I figure.”

“Your readership thinks the Beatles were the band Paul McCartney was with before he got Wings,” Sandy said. “They won’t even know who Jamie Lynch
was,
for Crissakes.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. We still have lots of our old readers. The kind of feature I see on this Lynch business will be real popular. Now, can you write it or not?”

“Of course I can write it. The question is, why should I?”

“We’ll pay expenses, and our top rate. That ain’t nothing to sneeze at, either. You won’t have to sell the paper on street-corners afterward. We’re beyond that.”

“Terrific,” Sandy said. He wanted to tell Jared to go get stuffed, but much as he hated to admit it, the assignment had a certain perverse attractiveness. It
would
be nice to be in the
Hog
again. The paper was his baby, after all; it had turned into a pretty wayward and superficial kid, but it was his, nonetheless, and still had a lingering hold on his loyalties. Besides, if he did this Lynch piece, it would help restore some of the old
Hog
quality, if only for an instant. If he passed, someone else would write the article, and it would be more trash. “I tell you what,” Sandy said. “You guarantee me that I’ll get cover billing with this, and you put it in writing that the piece will be printed just the way I write it, not one word changed, no cuts, nothing, and maybe I’ll consider it.”