With Friends Like These... Part 17

Someone sat inside on a bench in front of a chest of drawers that had seen good days before the last world war. There was a mirror above it. An electric guitar lay across the chest, like an Aztec maiden readied for sacrifice. Sam hesitated at the entrance, rapped on the inside of the wall.

"Can I come in?" The singer turned and Sam saw the bottle, near empty.

"Can't keep you out,'* muttered the figure, finishing a long swallow. He choked, wiped his lips with the back of a wrist. This was bad, but it didn't stop Sam.

"Yes you can. Just tell me to and I won't come in."

The singer seemed ready for another swallow, paused, and vested a flicker of interest on Sam. It disappeared before anyone might see it.

"Come in or get lost, as it pleases you. Makes no difference to me."

Sam walked in, sat down in the single wicker chair, facing the singer's back.

"I'll be short and to the point. I'm an agent."

A slight smile touched the corners of the singer's mouth as he turned slowly. There was no humor in it.

"How sad for you."

"That's an opinion others share," Sam agreed. "Sometimes I feel that way myself. You Willie White-horse?"

Barely audible around sips of raw sad whiskey. "Yeah."

"You're an Indian?"

That produced the first reply above a mumble. Whitehorse opened his eyes aU the way (how black 181.

WITH FIOENDS LIKE THESE . . .

they were!) and glared at the agent. Sam squirmed a little. They seemed to back up to naked s.p.a.ce.

"You're a Jew, aren't you?"

"I am," replied Sam, unperturbed.

"Parker your real name?"

"No. My folks changed it when I was small."

The singer shook a little. It might have been laughter. It was probably the liquor.

"Well, Whitehorse is my real name, and my folks didn't go and change it! And I'm not about to." His gaze was unsteady but defiant. "Guess that makes me just a cut or two above you, don't it?"

Folding his hands over his tummy, Sam replied quietly, "If it pleases you to look at it that way."

The eyes glittered a moment longer. Then they closed tight, like wrung-out washrags, and turned away.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n you," Whitehorse hissed. "Oh, G.o.d d.a.m.n you!"

Pause; quiet. "You got an agent, Willie?"

"No." With satisfaction, "Can't stand 'em."

"I'm not surprised. Most of us are pretty obnoxious."

"And you're different, I suppose?" he sneered.

"I think so. You may come to think so. You know what I think, Willie? You've got talent. A lot of talent." When there was no reply to that, Sam continued: "I'd like to handle you. I think you could be a big star. The biggest, maybe. Get you some respectable sidemen, put together a decent band. Like a chance to work with some guys who can play more than chopsticks, Willie?" Still no reaction. But no rejection, either. Encouraged, Sam plunged on: "I guarantee to get you out of this sump heap, anyway." He sat back, concealing his antic.i.p.ation with the ease of long practice. "What do you say, Willie?"

Only sound the greasy tinkle of the bottle tapping rhythmically against the wooden bench. It was empty and so was the rhythm.

Then, "Sure, why not? At least somebody else can 182.

Woifstroker fight with the owners for drink money. Stupid b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, think they all know music . . . Yeah, sure, you can be my agent. What'd you say your name was?"

"Parker," Sam repeated patiently. "Samuel Parker."

"Okay, Samuel Parker. Deal. Manitou help you."

"Fine," said Sam, reaching into his vest. "Now if you'll just sign here, and he-" Whitehorse was shaking his head.

"Huh-uh. No contracts, no papers. If I want to quit, I up and quit. Just like that."

"Where does that leave me?" prompted Sam.

"In h.e.l.l for all I care. I could give a d.a.m.n. That's a problem for the Great Spirit, not me. Take it or screw it."

Sam sighed. "I'll take it. Now that that's done with," he stood and extracted a fresh cigar, "what's the first thing Ijcaa do for you, to seal our agreement?"

Whitehorse hungrily sucked the last recalcitrant drops from the gla.s.s. He gazed at it moodily, hefting it by the neck. When he threw it into the far wall it shattered in a crystalline shower of quick brilliance and cheap wind chimes.

"Get me another bottle."

m.

Without even seeing the hovel Whitehorse was living in, Sam offered the singer the use of his own apartment. Whitehorse refused, but he didn't like riding the bus. So he accepted Sam's offer of a ride home.

On the way Sam nearly blew it.

"You know," he mused conversationally, "I've been thinking about ideas, presentation. Every group's got to have a gimmick to make it these days." . "Yeah," muttered the singer indifferently, staring out the window. "Hey, I know," he turned suddenly. "You're probably thinking that Indians are pretty 'in' right now, huh?"

"Well, I was sort of considering-"

"You were thinking of maybe fixing me up in some- 183.

thing real authentic. Beads and buckskin, maybe, with a full war bonnet and moccasins. Call us 'War Party' or something? Hey, how about a handful of fake cigars, too?1*

"Not exactly that," Sam countered, aware he'd somehow upset the singer. "There's already a group with a similar name and-"

" 'Come see the real Indian band play the sacred music of the Red Man as you've never heard it before. The new in, now powwow sound-that it, Parker? That's pretty good, ain't it, 'powwow'?" His voice was getting close to a shout.

"Easy, easy," said Sam placatingly, not looking into those volcanic orbs. They ate at something in him. "I didn't mean anything like that."

"No?" screamed Whitehorse. What bothered Sam wasn't the kid's violence. Darned if he didn't seem to be almost crying. Abruptly the singer seemed to collapse in on himself.

"No. Maybe you didn't. I'm sorry." He put his head in his hands and rocked a little on the seat. "Sorry, sorry, sorry. I've taken so much of that, that sickening, sticky, patronizing-" He coughed twice, violently the second time.

"Ought to lay off that stuff," Sam commented, keeping his tone carefully neutral. Whitehorse swayed, laughed a little wildly.

'"Hunk I'm drunk, don't you?"

"No-" began Sam.

"Well, I'm not! Most Indians drink, mister agent Parker. Not 'cause they like this rot. Not that. They drink 'cause most of what they were was ripped away from them by the white man's world before they got born. Liquor blurs over all the empty s.p.a.ces a little. All those dark wide holes that were once full of beautiful things. And the worse thing is, Parker, that you don't really know what they were, those things. Just a big nothingness feeling that they aren't there anymore.

184.

Wolfstroker "No, I'm not drunk, Parker. When I'm drinking I'm sober. I'm only drunk when I'm playing."

Sam slowed and pulled into the curb. He didn't offer to come up. They weren't in Beverly Hills. It took the singer three tries to get the door open.

Sara leaned over from the wheel, looking out. "Remember, Willie. The studio tomorrow. Sure you can find it?"

Whitehorse swayed, turned to face the agent. He held the guitar to him like a mute child. "I'll find it." It was hard to tell whether he was laughing or crying. "Man, I'm an Indian! I can find my way to anywhere, don't you know that? Yeah, I'll get there, if I can make it up the stairs." He put his hand to his mouth, blew out.

"Woo, woo, w-!" The third war whoop expired prematurely, subsumed in wracking cough. Sam turned away, embarra.s.sed.

"I'll be there. I'll be there."

IV.

Three young men stood in the concrete womb of the studio and stared impatiently at the white walls, their instruments, and Sam Parker. Sam transferred his gaze to his innocent watch and tried not to let them see how worried he was. He'd told Whitehorse ten o'clock. It was now twelve thirty and the trio was not in good humor.

He couldn't blame them. They were top performers all, maybe the best three unattached musicians in L.A. just now. He'd spent all night begging, pleading, offering his unmarketable soul again, to get them to cancel their other plans and show up here. No, he didn't blame them for being impatient. These guys were good, d.a.m.n good, and Sam knew he couldn't expect them to hang around much longer. The next time he asked for a little more time they would laugh at him.

Meanwhile every half hour in the studio was costing him money, lots of money. Money he didn't have. The 185.

only thing that was doing well was his ulcer. He'd been a fool not to drag his discovery home with him, keep him in sight. d.a.m.nfool crazy drunken kid! Might have done anything. Might've hopped a plane to anywhere, or more likely a freight.

Every five minutes he'd phoned Whitehorse's apartment, then every ten. The last call had been forty-five minutes ago. If he was still there he wasn't asleep, he was catatonic. Or dead. Sam's hopes and visions were dying just as fast.

Drivin' Jack Cavanack stopped clicking stick on stick and looked up from behind his drums.

"Hey, man, this hotshot of yours better show up real quicklike, or I'm splitting. I got a gig in Seattle tonight and I do not, positively do not, feel like gettin' in there in the dark and cold. Comprende?"

Uccelo plunked his ba.s.s for the thousandth time and didn't look up at Parker. "Right on." Vincente Rivera honked a few funky free notes on his harmonica, gazed sympathetically at the harried agent.

"Sorry, Sam, but Jack's right. We all of us have got other things to do than wait around here. This is a favor from me to you, I know. But we been here for too many hours now, Sam. Offhand, I don't think your wonder boy's gonna show."

He snapped open a small black case with red velvet guts and eased his harmonica therein.

"Please Vince . . . Jack, Milo. Give me a chance, w.i.l.l.ya? Hey, another ten minutes, that's all I ask. Okay? Ten lousy minutes. I'm sure he'll be here. He promised me he would."

Rivera sighed, snapping the latch on the case. "Sam, I think you've been had."

"He was had when he decided on joining his n.o.ble profession," came a thin voice from the studio door. Sam spread a relieved grin from ear to ear, but inwardly he was seething.

"Willie!" It came out like a curse. "Knew you'd make it, fella!" Whitehorse walked past Sam, ignored the preferred palm.

186.

Wolfstroker "Sure, Sam. Promised." The singer looked only slightly less haggard than he had the previous night.

He found a plug, started to hook himself into the ganglion of his guitar's mechanical lungs, and talked while he worked: "You know, Sara, I wasn't going to come."

Parker pretended not to hear as he closed the studio door.

"I was just going to leave you flat, go to Phoenix. Big joke. This whole thing," and he took in the studio in a half-wave, "doesn't appeal to me. Then I thought Grandfather, whatever he might think of this, wouldn't like to hear I'd gone back on my word. So, what the h.e.l.l," he finished lamely.

Bless all grandfathers, prayed Parker silently. He felt like a man who'd just pulled an inside straight while hoping for a simple pair.

"What do you want me to do, Sam?" Whitehorse asked.

"Well, Willie, I want to find out if you four are compatible, soundwise. If you are, I'd like to work you together into a group." Uccelo hit a sour note on his ba.s.s and snorted derisively.

"Willie, that's-Drivin' Jack Cavanack on skins, Milo Uccelo on ba.s.s, and Vincente Rivera on harmonica, organ, Moog, and just about everything else you can imagine. Boys, Willie Whitehorse."

Sam had seen more instant camaraderie among a group of pallbearers.

"All right, Sam, we all know what we play, man," said Cavanack boredly. "Let's get this over with, huh? I got a plane to catch."

"Sure Jack, sure!" smiled Parker hurriedly. Cavanack turned his indifferent gaze on Whitehorse.

"What you want to play, man?"

"I only play my own stuff," Willie replied with equal indifference. "You can follow me.if you like."

"Now look here, man . . . !" began Cavanack, rising to his full six-five and glowering over his cylindrical zoo.

187.

"Please, Jack!" Sam pleaded, waving his arms. "It's just for a few minutes. Be the big man for a few minutes, huh?" He smiled desperately.

"Okay, Sam," Cavanack agreed warningly. "But you ask a lot, man." He sat down. Willie set his guitar in his arms with that smooth cradling motion.