Voice. Part 24

"Why don't you get it then? Clock's ticking!" Johnny pulled back the sleeve of his motorcycle jacket-his jacket, since Case had reclaimed hers a while back-and tapped an imaginary wrist.w.a.tch.

"Good thing it's my dime, then, isn't it?"

"Oh, it's your dime-that's why we were all waiting on your late a.s.s this morning?"

"Hey! Enough, all right?" Bill's good-natured grin was gone, and now he looked like somebody's p.i.s.sed-off dad. "Just cool it."

"I'll cool it when-" Johnny started, but Case cut him off.

"Outside," she said, pointing sharply with her thumb. "Now."

He gave her a mean little squint. "Or?"

"Or we'll have to pay for all the stuff I break with your head in here."

He sneered, but he got up.

Although she talked a good game, Case was getting very worried. It wasn't just the studio vibe-everything had a bad vibe lately. Somehow, more responsibility kept falling to her. h.e.l.l, if she'd become the band's peacekeeper, things had gotten very bad indeed.

The glare off the pavement in the parking lot was intolerably bright. Case stayed back next to the building where there was a sliver of shade, and Johnny followed suit. He crossed his arms and waited.

"What is wrong with you?" Case asked, low anger in her voice.

"What's wrong with me? I don't want to f.u.c.k this up, that's what's wrong with me. And my idiot brother can't seem to get his drumsticks out of his a.s.s."

"Lay off. He's stressed out, and you know it."

Johnny curled his lip. "Nice arrangement you've got there. He gets his excuses made for him, and you get your oil changed."

"Don't." Her voice was calm, but the word came out crisply, the "t" sharp and explosive. She felt calm, too-the same calm she felt right before going onstage, right before a tournament fight-or right before some real violence went down. She wanted this tour as badly as anyone, but if Johnny said one more word like those last few, somebody was going to get hurt and f.u.c.k the consequences.

He must have read that in her face, because he dropped his gaze. His voice took on a whining tone. "Maybe we should try one of the new tunes."

Case groaned. This again. "Let it drop, Johnny. Now is not the time."

"They're good f.u.c.king songs."

"I don't know about that, but I do know that we haven't even learned them yet," she said. "I'm not sure we'll ever learn them."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I told you, I f.u.c.king hate metal. I'm not putting my name anywhere near a song with a name like 'Black Goat with a Thousand Young.'"

"Johnny says-" He stopped abruptly, closing his mouth with a click. "They're good songs," he said.

Great. Now he's talking about himself in the third person. One more thing to reinforce her growing sense that the band was unraveling. Danny had gotten flaky lately, showing up late for practice and recording, flubbing easy parts, and forgetting important pieces of equipment-like his G.o.dd.a.m.n snare drum on one occasion. His preoccupation in the studio was becoming standard. She could understand that, sure, but the timing was spectacularly bad. Johnny, for his part, alternated between being a ma.s.sive d.i.c.k and withdrawing into an anxious, inward-directed silence. He gave her the creeps, and while she didn't like to think about that too much, it was getting worse instead of better. She thought he was neglecting his personal hygiene, too-that could be the only explanation for the very faint, rank odor that clung to him all the time these days.

That was not today's problem, but it occurred to her that she'd have to talk to him about it before they all ended up in a cramped van together.

"Case says they're not that good," she said, garnering a look of pure hatred that was gone almost before it registered. Almost. "Anyway, we don't know them." There. That was as much conciliation as she could muster. It would have to count as an attempt to keep this conversation from going off the rails.

It seemed to be enough. "Yeah. Okay."

Case breathed out, and that unearthly sense of calm left her. Seemed there wouldn't be a fight after all. "Now, do you suppose we can go back in there and pretend to like each other long enough to finish this f.u.c.king CD?"

Johnny nodded. All at once, he looked oddly lost.

"Good," Case said, and she opened the door. "Great."

The weeks leading up to the tour were brutal for Quentin. He needed money, so he'd picked up a bunch of overtime on the construction site. When the recording sessions started, he worked out a deal with his boss to get off early so he could make the sessions. He didn't want to give up the overtime, though, so part of the deal was that he'd come back after the sessions-often after midnight-and clean up the site and cut stock for the next day. He was down to about three hours of sleep a night, and his whole body hurt all the time. By the end of ten days of recording, he couldn't exactly remember a time when his whole body hadn't hurt.

That was cool, though-it would pa.s.s. The recording was done, and that's what counted. He knew Johnny and Case had some problems with the way it had come out, but he was thrilled. He had never imagined it would sound so good when they got done. The pressed copies wouldn't be ready for a couple of weeks yet, but he'd gotten a burned copy from the studio, and he had it cranked as he drove to the club for load-in.

One last show in Dallas, and then the tour. The tour. What a weird thought. Very cool, though. He hoped the turnout for the show was good-they were counting on the cash from the show to pay for the CDs and fund some of the trip.

He turned the CD up to deafening levels as he accelerated up the on-ramp to Central Expressway. It sounded great. He supposed he could see why Johnny wasn't too happy about it-Johnny sounded pretty good, but his voice was missing some of the magic it had during the live show. They'd tried a dozen or so microphones in the studio, just about driving the engineer nuts, but none quite nailed it. Maybe it was the s.p.a.ce, or Johnny's nerves, but it wasn't quite right. Close enough, though-Johnny still sounded pretty good. The rest of the band sounded incredible. Quentin had listened to his own ba.s.s coming out of the speakers in the studio and it had sounded so good he was ready to tackle the engineer to get him to divulge the secret of that sound. That hadn't been necessary-Bill had been pretty forthcoming, and, incredibly, the "secret" turned out to be nothing more than a touch of equalization and compression. Just amazing. When Quentin got a few bucks, he was definitely going to have to get a decent compressor for his live rig.

Quentin was singing along with "Changing Gears" and wondering about how much a good compressor cost when he pulled up outside the club.

The club filled up, and by the time the third band of the night went on, Quentin realized he shouldn't have worried about the turnout for the night. Ragman was getting a pretty good local following, and Erin had cranked her unstoppable promotional machine into high gear besides. At the current pace, the club would be turning people away at the door before he and the guys took the stage.

He saw Danny and Case sitting at a high table off to the side of the stage, and he thought about going over to say hi. The two of them obviously had something going on these days, but it seemed cool. That was about the only thing about either of them that was cool lately, though. Danny was a roaming ball of stress, and Case looked like she was half an inch from tearing Johnny's head off most of the time. Quentin wished she'd just relax, but he wasn't sure he could really blame her. Since the weirdness of the last few months, even Quentin didn't like to be around Johnny any more than he had to. Still, it was too bad. He thought Case and Johnny would write some even more kicka.s.s tunes together if they just learned to get along.

Ah, well. He didn't see Johnny anywhere, so the tension at Case and Danny's table probably wouldn't have attained its usual stratospheric heights yet. He bought a screwdriver and a couple of beers and ambled over.

"Drinks all around," he said. He put them on the table and gestured at the room full of people. "Pretty cool, huh?"

"Yeah," Danny said. He looked more like himself than he had in weeks. "I think it's gonna be a good show."

Even Case flashed him a smile. "Get that compressor yet?"

Quentin grinned back. "Nope. Saving up for the tour."

"Me, too," Case said. "I ought to get some new tubes for my amp, but they're d.a.m.n expensive. I'm praying the ones in there now last the whole tour. If they don't, I'm f.u.c.ked."

Quentin was about to reply when Johnny showed up at the table-also with an armful of drinks. He had a big grin on his face, and he looked genuinely happy. It seemed like a long time since he'd been without the expression of frustrated anger that was carved into his face lately, and Quentin was glad to see it gone. Danny smiled, too, and patted him on the shoulder.

"Gonna be a good show tonight, I think," Johnny said.

"I'll drink to that," Quentin said.

The four of them raised their gla.s.ses.

"Yeah!" Quentin yelled, though n.o.body heard it over the roar of the band, amplified to deafening levels. Whether it owed to finally being out of the studio or to the reinforcement of having recently played the same parts over and over again in the studio, the band was firing on all cylinders tonight. He especially loved the ba.s.s at a live show, the thunder of the cranked subwoofers vibrating his whole body on the low notes, the kick drum pounding his chest. There was nothing like it in the world.

Johnny was hot tonight, as if to make up for his lackl.u.s.ter performance in the studio, and his voice tore ragged, white-hot holes in the air. Enough people knew the songs that they were starting to sing along with the choruses, which Quentin thought was the coolest thing.

They started up one of the newer songs Johnny'd been pushing for, an unsettling tune called "Ashes and Bone." It might have been a creepy tune, but the intro the band had worked up for it just plain rocked. They nailed it, and Quentin looked back at Danny and grinned. I might get to do this for a job, he thought, and his grin widened. Danny grinned back-and then Johnny dropped into the first verse of the song. The whole atmosphere of the room changed. The grin melted from Danny's face, and from Quentin's too.

"There's footprints under my window

Cigarette ashes in a neat little pile

Cross made out of chicken bones

He's been coming for a long, long time"

The crowd got quiet, doing that hypnotized thing they sometimes did when Johnny was on a roll. Usually, though, they did it during the slower, mellower songs. This was a more raucous number, but the crowd was swaying and weaving, making barely a noise.

The stage lights seemed too bright, the back of the room shrouded in darkness. Even the lights Quentin could see through the open door to the street looked dimmed. He knew that must be an illusion caused by the stage lights being so bright, but it was unnerving all the same-as if the real world outside this room were fading away.

It got worse when Johnny hit the chorus.

"He's waiting for me out there

Coming for to carry me home

Waiting for me somewhere

Out among the ashes and bone

Standing in the ashes and bone"

Shadowy shapes seemed to flicker in the audience, shifting and writhing. They were never in Quentin's direct view, always at the edges no matter where he looked.

It occurred to him that the last time things had felt this bad during a show, Douglas had been circulating through the audience, whispering in ears. If that p.r.i.c.k was here tonight, Quentin was going to be furious.

What if he follows us on the tour?

Oh, h.e.l.l no. Things had been going reasonably well lately, and Quentin was not about to allow that creepy old b.a.s.t.a.r.d to screw them up. If he was here, Quentin was going to have a word with him.

The song came to an end. The crowd seemed to return to itself, applauding wildly, and Johnny held up his hands as though blessing them.

The lights came up, and sure enough, there was Douglas, slouching by the door, looking up at Johnny with shrouded eyes.

Quentin played through the rest of the set with a troubled mind.

"Fifteen hundred bucks!" Danny said jubilantly. They were the last band of the night, so the tally had been ready for them when they finished. Already, the place was starting to clear out.

"You're kidding," Case said. "There's no way they could have fit three hundred people in here."

"That's gotta violate fire code," Quentin mumbled. He looked from face to face at the thinning crowd. Douglas had been here, maybe still was, and that worried him. He'd lost track of the guy some time during the last song. Maybe that meant Douglas had gone-and maybe not.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Johnny said, "we have finally f.u.c.king arrived."

Quentin didn't know about that-he was finally f.u.c.king leaving. For once, he didn't have to work in the morning, and he wanted nothing more than to get the h.e.l.l out of here and get some sleep. Maybe that's it, he thought. I'm just overtired.

No, wait-there was Douglas. The older man was slipping out the door right now.

Quentin watched as half a dozen kids in the crowd coalesced into a group and exited behind Douglas. Maybe they were just leaving, like everyone, but there had been something in their faces as they'd watched Douglas leave that he didn't like.

"Guys, I'm exhausted," Quentin said. "I'm gonna head out."

"Good show," Case said.