Fire Lake (15 page)

There was a steel door at the end of the hall, with a
conical bulb above it set in a wire cage. Karen glanced up at the
bulb and said, "It's okay. We can go in. He's not recording now
or that bulb would be lit."

She opened the door and I followed her into a small
wainscoted room, with a glass window and another door on the far
wall. There was a pair of speakers built into the wall to our left,
blaring the music we'd been hearing. On the wall behind us, a huge
bank of half-inch tape machines and line amplifiers, racked in metal
cases, was lit up like a Christmas display. The VU meters were all
pegged. And to our right, sitting on a castered chair behind a
twenty-four-track mixing console, was a balding, paunchy, elfin man
with a Reds cap on his head and earphones over the cap.

For a second, Sy Levy didn't realize that we'd come
into the room. His eyes shut, he bobbed his head, drummed his
fingers, and tapped his feet to the sound of the music coming through
the headphones. He was wearing a white dress shirt open at the
collar, a ribbed, high-necked undershirt, a red cardigan sweater, and
baggy chino pants. A pair of steel-rimmed bifocal glasses were lying
on the console in front of him. I could still see the indentations
they'd made on either side of his nose. His face was tanned, plump,
and kindly-looking. Tufts of gray hair jutted out of each side of the
Reds cap, like the wings of a Pegasus. With the earphones on his head
and the gone grin on his face, he looked like a weird cross between
Timothy Leary and your uncle in Miami.

"Simon!" Karen shouted at him.

The old man blinked his eyes. When he saw Karen, his
face lit up like his console.

"Karen!" he shouted. "How the hell are
you! " He had a high, cheerful voice that fit his elfin look.
"Pull up a chair and sit down!"

Levy'd forgotten he had the earphones on, and he was
talking at the top of his lungs. Karen pointed at her ears, and Sy
Levy made a questioning face, then smirked. He pulled the earphones
off.

"Goddamn things," he said, tossing the
headphones on the console. He looked up, with a start, at the
speakers on the far wall. "Who turned them on?"

"You did," Karen said with a laugh.

He shook his head, as if it were an old joke, and
flicked a switch on the console. The room went quiet, except for the
swish of the tape machines. Simon Levy leaned back in his chair,
fitting the cap down over his smooth bald head with his right hand.
"It's been a long time, Karen," he said, eyeing her
affectionately. "You still look the same. Better."

"Bullshit," she said, grinning at him. "I'm
an old lady now, Simon, with two kids."

"Two!" he said with wonder. "Nobody'd
guess." He glanced over at me. "Who's your friend?"

"Stoner," I said, holding out a hand.
"Harry Stoner."

Levy leaned forward and shook with me across the
console. "I'm Simon Levy," he said warmly.

"Last of the beatniks. That's what I call
myself, anyway. My ex-wives would tell you nudniks. But who's asking
them?" He looked back at Karen. "How come Lonnie's not with
you?"

Karen shook her head. "We're not together
anymore, Sy."

"Since when?" Levy said with surprise.

"A long time," Karen said.

"How come he didn't tell me that?" he said
in a pained voice.

"You've spoken to Lonnie?" I asked Levy.

He nodded. "He came to the store just last
Wednesday." Levy glanced from Karen to me then back at Karen.
"Is there something I should know about?"

"We've been looking for him, Sy," Karen
said. "Lonnie's in some trouble."

"What kind of trouble?" Levy said with
alarm. He gave Karen a searching look. "What's wrong here,
Karen? What's Lonnie gotten himself into?"

"It's a long story, Sy," she said.

"I got time." He stood up and came out from
behind the desk. "Time is all I got. We'll go to the studio, get
a cup of coffee. Talk it over."

Karen glanced fondly at the little glass window in
the far wall. "Does it look the same?"

Levy laughed hoarsely. "On my budget, how could
it look different?"
 

22

Levy picked up a placard that was sitting on the
floor beside the console. "You go on ahead," he said to
Karen. "Help yourself to coffee. I'm going to put this sign in
the window and lock up."

He flipped the placard over. Back in an hour was
written on it in pen.

"I don't know why I bother anymore," he
said with a shrug. He tucked the sign under his arm and ambled off
down the hall.

Karen watched him disappear down the corridor, then
glanced at me.

"What do you think?" she said, arching a
brow.

"We'll find out," I said. "I have the
feeling your friend likes to talk."

She smiled. "He's a good talker, all right."
She pointed to the door in the far wall. "Let's get some
coffee."

Karen opened the door and we walked through it into a
large open room, with peeling off-white walls and ratty green
carpeting. An ancient upright piano was sitting beside the far wall,
elevated off the floor on a riser. Two microphones were set up next
to it--one by the keys, and the other peering straight down into the
sounding board like a bird standing on one leg. Several other
microphones were standing next to empty risers scattered around the
floor; thick black microphone cables ran in coiled tangles
everywhere. A tiny sealed-off sound booth with smoked-glass windows
took up one corner of the room. I could see a drum set sitting inside
the booth. Beat-up plastic couches and chairs lined each of the
walls.

Karen took it all in with that same look of nostalgic
pleasure that she'd had on her face when we'd first stepped into
Levy's shop.

"Believe it or not," she said, "a lot
of good music was made here."

"I believe it," I said.

She shook her head. "No, you don't. You couldn't
know just by looking at it. You would have had to have been here in
'68, when Lonnie was really cooking."

"I've heard him play," I reminded her.

"I know you have," Karen said. "But it
was different here, Harry. He was better here. With Sy and his
friends and me. He was at home. We weren't really into smack yet. And
he'd sworn off speed. Or so he said. All he wanted to do was play his
music. And man, he could play. He had a real hot band then--Flower
Power." She laughed at the name. "Flower Power. Can you
believe that?"
I smiled.

"Flower Power," she said again, staring
around the room.

A coffee machine was burbling on a little stand by
the door. Karen walked over to it and poured two cups of coffee. She
handed one to me.

"The last time we stopped back here was in '70,"
she said, sipping the coffee. "After our stint in Hollywood, on
our way to New York. We had a kind of reunion--a jam session with
Pete and Alex and Norvelle. Guys from the old band. God, that party
lasted for days. People just kept coming to the studio, like it was
an open house. Sy loved it. He was so happy for Lonnie, because he'd
made it big. He never said a word about Lonnie dropping him as his
manager. He was just happy for his friend." She put the coffee
cup down, walked over to one of the microphones and pushed it with
her hand. It wobbled on its platter stand, like a dumbbell, then
snapped upright.

"If we'd known then what was in store, we'd have
never stopped partying," she said, her back to me. Her voice had
grown heavy with nostalgia. "Because it was all downhill, after
that. That week was like the crest of a wave--the height of
something. It was never that good again. That new. That full of
promise. New York turned out to be a nightmare. Then Chicago. Philly.
East St. Louis. After that, it was all . . . Fire Lake."

I walked over to her and pulled her close. She looked
up at me with tears in her pale blue eyes. "I'm not crying for
him, Harry," she said apologetically. "Just for the way it
was."

"It's all right." I stroked her brown hair
and brushed the sidelocks from her wet eyes. "We'll find him."

She shook her head. "Too late."

Levy walked into the room, and we both glanced at
him. Karen wiped the tears from her eyes with her fingertips and
smiled bravely.

"I'm just feeling sad about the old days, Sy,"
she said with a broken smile.

"'S all right," he said, waving a hand at
her. "I feel sad about them all the time. Feeling sad about the
past is my business."

Karen smiled. "The studio really hasn't changed,
has it?"

Levy looked around the decrepit room, with just a
touch of pride on his face. "Nope. It's still a mess. But this
room has history in it. The wallpaper may be peeling, but there's
music in that plaster. Lots and lots of music. And Lonnie made his
share."

I had the feeling he was saying it for my benefit. I
smiled at him and said, "I wish I'd been here then."

"Where were you, kid?" Levy said in his
sprightly voice. "We'd have taken you in, wouldn't we,
princess?" He smiled at Karen, and she nodded. "We were a
family."

Levy walked over to one of the plastic couches and
sat down.

"About Lonnie," Levy said, folding one thin
leg over the other and cupping his hands on his paunch. "What
kind of trouble is he in?"

Karen glanced at me and I said, "Tell him."

She ducked her head. "Drugs."

"Son of a bitch," Levy said with a sigh, as
if that's what he'd been expecting to hear. "Is he in jail?"

Karen shook her head. "But he might be better
off in jail. He's botched up a drug deal and gotten in trouble with
the man.

Levy winced with pain. "How could he do that?"
he said, staring at Karen helplessly. "A kid like him. With all
that talent. How can he keep destroying himself this way?" He
shook his head mournfully and tsk-tsked with his lips. "Stupid,
stupid."

"What did he talk to you about on Wednesday?"
I asked Levy.

"He asked me for a few bucks."

"Did you give him money?"

Levy blushed for an answer.

"How much money?"

"How much I had on me," he said, shoving
his hands in his pockets, as if he were hanging on to what was left.
"Not much. Thirty, forty bucks." He jiggled the change in
his pants pockets, making his trousers flutter loosely about his
legs.

"Did he tell you why he needed the money?"
I asked.

Levy shook his head again. "We didn't talk
money. Money don't mean nothing. We talked old times. We talked
music. Mostly we talked about you, sweetheart," he said to
Karen.

Karen put a hand to her mouth. "What about me?"
she said timidly.

"About bringing you back to Cincy," Levy
said. "He didn't tell me you two were separated. He just said he
had high hopes about relocating and starting fresh. He had a plan. He
was going to get back together with Norvelle Thomas. Remember
Norvelle?"

Karen nodded, her hand still over her mouth as if she
were afraid to make a sound.

"He was going to start a new band with Norvelle.
Rehearse out here, in the studio. He was going to get back on track.
Then he said he was going to bring you here to live with him. We were
going to have another reunion, once you got here. Like the one back
in '70. One big family again. Remember?"

Karen stared at Levy with a heartbroken look on her
face. I put my arm around her and pulled her against me.

"I can't," she said, shaking her head. "I
just can't, Harry." She broke away from me and walked quickly
out of the room.

Levy stared after her piteously. He took his glasses
off and wiped his eyes. "Life isn't fair," he said--to no
one, to the walls with the music in them. "You should have seen
her in 1969. She was the most beautiful child. So loyal to him, so
full of spirit, so full of hope. And Lonnie . . ." His tired
eyes went out of focus, as if he were reliving it in his mind. "He
was the best I ever had. And I helped a lot of kids. But Lonnie was
special, and you don't ever stop being special."

I stared around the forlorn studio and ducked my
head. "He still loves her, you know," Levy said sadly.

I kept staring guiltily at the floor. "This
Norvelle you mentioned. Do you know where he can be reached?"

Levy nodded. "Leanne Silverstein gave him a
handyman job at that theater she manages. For old times' sake. Except
for pickup work, Norvelle hasn't really played steadily for years."

"Leanne Silverstein?" I said.

"That's her married name," Levy said. "Ask
Karen. Tell her Leanne Gearheart. She'll know."

"Where is the theater?" I asked. "Downtown.
On Fourth Street. The Bijou."

I thought of the ticket I'd found in Lonnie's
clothing. It was a connection. Not a big one, but it gave me the
feeling that Karen and I were on the right track.

"Thanks," I said to the old man. "You've
been a help." I started for the door.