Authors: Jeremiah Healy
”Meaning Spiral might have had a longer run than it did?”
”Back in the ‘good old days.’” Lazar got a fire in his eye. ”And man, they
were
good. I got to see the country, do things you probably never even heard of.”
”Such as?”
”Playing gooseshit bingo out by Idaho. A guy’d scratch this humongous bingo card in the dirt behind a bar, and every-body’d bet on which squares the geese would squat over. Or up in Baltimore, I went rat-fishing, these crazy fucks there going out with peanut butter as bait, smeared on glue pads, i When the rats’d ‘bite,’ the guys reel them in and beat the shit out of them with baseball bats. And then there was the time in Michigan, we had Christmas Day off between gigs. Spi always carried a machine gun in the luggage compartment of our bus, and—”
”A machine gun?”
”Yeah. You know, one of those tommy-guns like The Untouchables used on the boodeggers in Chicago, big round drum of bullets? Well, like I said, this one Christmas, we didn’t have fuck-all to do, and we’re in the middle of nowhere, so Spi drives the bus to a little, like, glade of woods. Peaceful as shit, snow on the branches of the pine trees. Only then Spi takes out his own ‘snow,’ and once he’s in the clouds, he takes out the tommy-gun, too, and he shoots the branches all to shit.”
”On Christmas Day.”
Lazar shrugged and stroked his scar some more. ”Spi always did have a problem with holidays, man. Family baggage-”
”And his supply of snow?”
Lazar used an index finger to tap the bridge of his nose. ‘Toward the end there, cocaine was everywhere. Used to be we’d snort it through rolled-up hundred-dollar bills as straws.”
”And now?”
”Now?” An evasive look. ”I wouldn’t lay out my own money for the shit, but I wouldn’t turn down a free line, either.”
”I was thinking more where Veronica Held might have gotten some.”
”Never saw her snort, so I can’t help you there. In fact— Delgis! About fucking time.”
I turned as Reyes came through the padded door of the studio carrying a tray. I got up to make space for it on a plastic table littered with soda cans and candy-bar wrappers. When she set down the tray, I could see three sandwiches, three Sprites, and a bowl of com chips.
I said, ”Delgis, you going to join us?”
”Hell, no.” Lazar came over to her, though, and ran his pick-hand down through the hair on her neck. ”Even if she had time, there’s just the two for me and the one for you.” More stroking of the hair. ”Besides, Delgis’s been sort of off her feed since Very got dunked and crumped in the pool.”
Reyes hadn’t recoiled from the stroking, but now she turned away toward the studio door. ”You want some more, you call me.”
”Some more what?” said Lazar, the leer in his words as well as in his eyes.
Reyes left the room without looking back in our direction.
Lazar watched me as he walked to the food tray. ”Been punching that chick for the better part of three months now, and I can still embarrass her. Must be the Catholic upbringing.”
After a beat, I said, ”You and Ms. Reyes have been seeing each other?”
”Well, yeah.” Half a sandwich disappeared into Lazar’s mouth, and he spoke as he chewed. ”Not exactly senior-prom stuff. In feet, not half as good as we used to see on the road, our best tours.”
”Back in the seventies.”
”Man, you never did a trip—even as a roadie, the guys help us set up and break down?—you got no idea. Every chick in the audience wanted to be a real groupie, ride with the band.”
I reached for a sandwich. ”On your bus?”
”We had a nice setup: little kitchen, closet bathroom with a shower. For sleeping or fucking, it was bunks mostly, but they’d do. And if the band was staying in the town overnight, Spi might be off somewheres, and we could maybe get his.”
We. ”Spi’s what?”
”Bed, man.” Lazar popped a fistful of com chips, washed them down by chugging one of the Sprites. ”He had a real bedroom in the back. Oh, you could sit on the center of the fucking mattress and touch all four walls without moving, but it gave a hell of a nice ride for the chick of the night. In fact, I remember this one time, Mitch was on the road with us. Him and Spi had just counted our cash from the last gig, spreading it all over the bedsheets in back—twenty, thirty thousand wouldn’t have been unusual. And before we left the concert, the two of them picked up a couple of blondes from somewhere in Minnesota. Twin sisters, like the Twin Cities, get me?”
I opened one of the other two Sprites. ”Mr. La—”
”Anyway, we’re driving toward Minot, S.D., only vehicle on the whole fucking road, with Mitch and Spi planking these twins on a comforter of cash in the back, when all of a sudden, the tires start going thump, thump, thump. Like we’re getting a flat everywhere at once only without losing our steering.”
”Mr. Lazar, I—”
”But we figure we got to pull over, and at the side of the road, we can see we been hitting toads.”
That stopped me. ”Toads?”
”Yeah.” The other half-sandwich disappeared, and Lazar reached for the last one with his right hand and for more chips with his left ”When Mitch and Spi come up front, find out what the fuck’s going on—I guess the thump-thumps made it better for them back there on the hump-humps—we see all these toads, hopping across the road. And one of the Minnesota twins says they’re some special kind like salmon.” After a swallow of sandwich and Sprite, I said, ”Salmon.”
”Yeah.” Lazar spoke around his food. ‘These toads migrate back to the exact pond where they were born before they’ll breed with another toad from the same place. Amazing, huh?”
”Amazing. You never had any trouble from the women who rode on the bus?”
Another evasive look as he snagged the last Sprite. ”Well, sometimes your standard chick turned into a raging bitch.”
I took another bite of sandwich. ”How do you mean?”
”Coming on the bus and not expecting to do all of us.” I’d let the ”we” part alone once. ”You’d expect her to have sex with all of you?”
”Well, yeah.” A confused look. ”I mean, that was kind of the purpose of the enterprise. Unless we took on a chick for each of us, which happened too.”
”Any indictments happen?”
”Nah, not back then.” More corn chips and Sprite. ”I mean, remember, this is post-pill and pre-AIDS, with free-love as a real established concept. Bitch wanted to cry gang-rape instead of gang-bang, she’d look awful silly explaining how it was her come backstage after a concert and onto a rock band’s bus in the first place. And besides, the bitch factor was maybe one, two percent. The rest of the chicks loved doing it, probably at least as much so they could brag to their friends.”
”The police believe Veronica was sexually assaulted as part of the murder.”
”Yeah, well, that girl was a—the fuck did Mitch call her? Oh, yeah. 'Vixen.’ A real little vixen.”
”Did Veronica ever hit on the other members of the band?”
Lazar finally looked shocked, crushed the soda can in his hand. ”She was Spi’s fucking daughter, man.”
”Did Veronica flirt with you guys?”
Now a measured look. ”Spi said, we’re supposed to tell you the fucking truth, right?”
”That’s my understanding, too.”
Lazar tossed the crushed can onto the empty food tray. ”Okay, man. Truth is, Very couldn’t turn it off. She’d be touching and teasing like Madonna until it went from embarrassing all the way to aggravating. And besides, with Buford carrying the plague—and Ricky queer as pink lace, so he could be positive, too—it was fucking dangerous for her. But she wouldn’t stop, except when granddaddy was around.”
”Veronica didn’t vamp when Colonel Helides could see it?”
”Nah. She knew how to behave herself around the goose who laid the golden eggs. But everybody else? Open fucking season.”
”Everybody, meaning not just the members of the band.”
”You got it. Her mother drove her to granddaddy s house, Very’d sit behind the driver’s side so she could run her index finger down the cheek and throat of the gate guard.”
”Umberto Reyes.”
”Right, right. Delgis’s brother. But not just him, either. Mitch Eisen, Tranh, even that ‘Plan Nine from Outer Space’ David, though he’d just run away from her.”
”David Helides would run. Anybody else not run?”
”You mean, like, stick their fingers in the nookie jar?”
”Take advantage of Veronica’s attitude.”
”Not that I ever saw, man.” Lazar picked up his guitar again, reclipping the shoulder strap. ”I think granddaddy wouldn’t just cut off the money to somebody who did that, but cut off his balls as well. Or just have that Tranh do it while you’re sleeping sometime. The Chinaman may look okay, but myself, I think he’s scarier than David the Ghoul.”
”Vietnamese.”
”Huh?”
”Duy Tranh is Vietnamese, not Chinese.”
The first chord on the guitar for a while. ”Whatever.”
I shook my head.
Lazar said, ”That it?”
”Not quite. Any reason you can think of why someone would want to kill Veronica Held?”
”Nada,
man. For a whole bunch of other reasons.”
”Tell me.”
Lazar let go of the guitar, which sagged down on its strap and then angled outward over his gut. ”One, she’s family to half the people at the party. Two, the rest of us get some edge, account of she asks granddaddy pretty-please to give the band money for this or that.” Lazar jerked his head up toward the ceiling. ”Spi may be writing crap, but it was crap that Very could put across, and she would have carried the rest of us burnouts with her. At least until some new flavor of the month got discovered by MTV or VH1.”
Taking more Sprite, I thought about something else. ”You said Veronica didn’t turn on the floods for Colonel Helides.”
”Not the sex stuff, no.”
”Until his birthday party.”
”Hey, man. You don’t have to tell me. I was there.”
I watched him a minute. ”Why would Veronica do that in front of her grandfather?”
”Beats me, unless it was the coke. All’s I can say is, she just about killed our fucking goose.”
”Meaning?”
”The old man looked like he was gonna have another stroke, maybe the big one. And Very pissed off our money supply before we could boogie without him.”
”So some people would have had a reason to kill her.”
”Some people were madder than shit at her, but we figured she could kiss and make up with her grandpa.”
I watched Lazar a little longer. ”Last topic. Where were you after Veronica ran out of that living room?”
”At the party, you talking?”
”Yes.”
Another shrug. ”I figured the old man would hit the roof, and he fucking started to, so I split.”
”You left the house?”
”Nah. Just figured to put a little distance between us, like help the guy forget he was paying for my room and board over here so he wouldn’t decide to cut us all off for what Very pulled on him with the lap-dance.”
”What kind of distance?”
More stroking of the cheek scar. ”Just drifted around the place. It’s got kind of a flow-through pattern to it. Ended up with Delgis in the kitchen. At least for a little while.” The leer came back to Lazar’s voice and features. ”Though she might remember it as longer, the good time I was showing her in there.”
I rose from the folding chair and ducked under the overhead mike. ”Thanks for your help, Gordo.”
”Hey, you’re welcome, man. And feel free, you want to tell any of the tour stories, especially that Minot one.”
”About the frogs.”
”Not frogs, man. Toads.” Gordo Lazar seemed indignant. ”Toads are particular. Frogs, they’ll fuck anybody.”
”Who’ll fuck anybody?”
A man’s voice from the door to the studio, slight Southern accent. When I turned, I saw one of the others from the Skipper’s birthday video. Ricky Queen wore orange shorts and a green tank top, his body still young enough to be toned without having to work at it The left ear bore three rings through the cartilage, the right ear two, and the left nostril one. Queen’s hair sprouted from his head, the roots dark brown, the mid-growth platinum, the tips the same orange as his shorts. He had a wide smile, with a single gold tooth in the bottom front.
Gordo Lazar said, ”This here is John Cuddy, Rick. He’s the man we got to talk to.” Lazar set down his guitar and started walking empty-handed toward the door. ”I’m still hungry, so you both can stay here, you want.”
I said, ”Gordo?”
He stopped. ”Yeah?”
”I’d feel a lot better about Delgis having made me lunch if you could carry our tray back to her.”
Lazar seemed to weigh something, then walked over, picked up the tray, and let Queen open the door for him. As the door closed again, the drummer crossed his arms and leaned casually against the wall. ”That was pretty good you know?”
”What was?”
The wide smile as he walked toward me. ”Don’t try to bullshit the kid, okay? I ask a cavebear like Gordo to do something domestic for a woman, he’d bite my head off. You ask it as a favor, man-to-man, and he does it.” Queen extended his hand. ”I’m too young to hire lawyers and stuff, dude, but I think I’m gonna have to be a little careful around you.”