A Fistful of Rain (19 page)

“Just for the tour managers,” I said.

He nodded, grinning, then focused on me, concerned. “What happened to your head? You take a spill?”

“A bad one.”

“Were you loaded, Mimser?”

“No. I’m just a klutz.”

He laughed. “I love it, an Oregonian using Yiddish. Klutz. You’re not a klutz, kiddo. You want something, I’ve got stuff in the fridge, I’ve got some chai and some of those energy drinks that you and Van were chugging on the road. Bought a damn flat of the stuff, and I can’t stand it. Taurine, what kind of fucking flavor is taurine?”

“It’s kinda citrus,” I said. “I don’t need anything.”

“God, I do. I’ve got an ounce and a half of coke in the bathroom, I was gonna wet myself when that Hoffman one asked if she could use my facilities. Don’t think she noticed it, though.”

“You left it out on the counter?”

“Hell, no, it’s in my shaving kit.”

Graham left me laughing and went into the kitchen, then came right back, opening a can of soda. He flopped on the couch, and waved at me to take any seat I wanted.

“You hear the latest?” he asked me. “
Nothing for Free
is at seven, and
Scandal
just hit forty-nine. Our illustrious sponsor called me this morning, offering to tack on another twenty-five dates.”

“You going to take them?”

Graham chugged his soda like it was water, then lowered the can and began drumming one of his irregular beats on its side, staring at me. I wondered if he was actually on the coke he’d been talking about.

“Talked to Van about the albums, didn’t talk to her about the dates yet, there’s an issue, kind of, but maybe you should talk to her.”

“There’s an issue?”

“There’s a request, it’s not an issue, it’s a
request
that if they
do
add the dates, they add them with you back on the stage, not with Clay.”

“Oh.”

Graham swept on, ignoring the awkwardness. “I got a call, there’s a company down in L.A. called Muze Media, they put out videos, you know, the kind you see advertised on the cable outlets, late-night.
Sexy Coeds in New Orleans Show You Their Hooters
and shit like that, but they’re asking if we have any home video, maybe from the tour, anything like that. They’ll package and sell it, they’re offering a sweet deal on that.”

“We don’t have anything like that.”

“The Midwest stuff, this past summer, on the bus, Click had a camera, we were all passing it around, you remember, right? You and Van and Click all goofing around, making your home movie. You know who has that tape? Do you have it?”

“I’d think Click does.”

“I’ll have to call him.” He drained his soda, then began working the can in one hand, making the aluminum pop and crinkle. He was staring out the window, or maybe at the window, and his expression went a little blank, as if he was totaling figures in the spreadsheet of his mind.

“Hey, Graham?” I said.

“What? Sorry, honey, just thinking, you know.”

“Yeah, listen. I need some money.”

“You have money. You have more than
some
money.”

“Yeah, but I need cash,” I said. “It’s hard to explain, but there’s a purchase I need to make, and I have to do it by the end of the week, and the bank, they can’t get me the cash in time. But I was thinking, you’ve got cash, and you always said it was
our
cash.”

“You mean the Mad Road Money? Yeah, that’s Tailhook’s, that’s not mine. I’ve got a couple grand here, if that’ll do it, but I’d think the bank could cover that. How much you need, baby?”

“Four hundred thousand,” I said.

Graham stopped working the can and stared at me. “Come again?”

“I know it’s a lot.”

He continued to stare at me, and all of his nervous energy was gone. “Why do you need four hundred thousand dollars in cash, Mim?”

“Like I said, I’m buying this thing and—”

“What thing?”

“Property, it’s in Lake Oswego, near the water. Secluded, but it’s one of those private communities, you know, and they’re nervous about me moving in, because of everything and all. But if I can pay this guy in ready cash, he’s willing to sell to me.”

“You’re dumping your place?”

“It’s just . . . the cameras and everything, Graham, it’s just been too much, you know?”

“But you put so much work into that place.”

“I know, I know, but I can’t . . . I can’t stay there. And Lake Oswego, you know, it’s quiet, it’s real secluded. If I pay this guy in cash, then maybe the press won’t find out about it. I could use a place like that.”

He was wavering, I could see it.

“Be a good place for me to dry out.”

That was the push, and it took. “I can see that. But four hundred, Mimser, I’ve never carried a quarter that much. I can free up about a hundred, hundred fifty thousand.”

“I’ll write you a check.”

“Yeah, and you should talk to Van, too. She watches the money and she’ll want to know why I’m spraying cash like a stuck cow. Pig. Whatever it is that sprays when it’s stuck.”

“Normally a pig,” I said.

“You need it when?”

“By Friday. I have to meet this guy Friday noon, so if I can get it no later than Friday morning, that’d be great.”

“Yeah, I can do that,” Graham said, after a second. “We’re leaving tomorrow evening, but I should be able to get it to you before then.”

I got up and went and gave him a kiss on the lips, just a thanks. “You’re a saint.”

“You’re gonna have to talk to Van, you know. You should ask her at the party tonight.”

“I’m not going.”

“I know it’s soon after the funeral, but it could cheer you up.”

“I don’t think I’d be comfortable.”

“Mim, you’re part of the
band,
honey. Van loves you, she’s just being a hard-ass because she cares. That thing in Sydney, that’s not what this is about, that’s just the symptom, you know. Van’s got voice and she’s got presence, and even she knows that it’s worth shit if she doesn’t have you giving her a way to use them. We all want you back, we all want you healthy and happy, not . . . you know.”

“The way I am now?”

He crinkled the can again. “You should go, baby, at least stop by.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“I’ll be there. Click’ll be there. Be a chance to talk about these new dates, too. You tell Van what you told me, about this place, this Oswego lakeside-rehab-hideaway you’re buying, she might think that’s a big step, might lift her anti-Bracca embargo.”

“You think?”

“It’s what she says, it’s about the band. Getting you onstage, that’d be good for the band,” Graham said. “You should go.”

I told him I’d think about it, and let him hug me before I went out the door. Graham’s hugs are small things, as if he’s afraid that pushing his body against yours would be too sexual, would somehow corrupt the manager-talent relationship. But he gave me a good squeeze this time, as if to say that he knew I was fighting the good fight, that he was in my corner.

I headed out, back to the car, thinking that all I needed now was a quarter of a million dollars in cash, and that either Van or Click could easily provide it. Click was probably the safer bet. But Graham would talk to Van, tell her what I was doing, and if I didn’t then go to her, she could shut the whole thing down, at least for the time being. So Click wasn’t going to be an option.

The clock said it was almost four-thirty, and if I headed out to Lake Oswego now, I’d get swamped by traffic, and it’d take an hour, at the least. Which meant I’d arrive as Van was preparing for her party, something I didn’t want to do, because a party, to Van, was like a show. She wouldn’t want to be distracted before the curtain went up.

So I headed home, thinking that what was best for the band wasn’t always what was best for the performers, and wondering what I should wear.

CHAPTER 26

Van’s place was custom all the way, built in the hills of Lake Oswego, about twenty minutes southeast of Portland when the traffic was behaving. Lake Oswego once upon a very long time ago was big with loggers and cowboys and pioneers who wandered west on the Oregon Trail. Now it was big with money, fringed with upper middle class, an exceptionally white neighborhood in an already very white state, where urban professionals moved their families because the thought of raising those same families in the city made their bowels go loose. The Big Wealth surrounded the actual Oswego Lake, in houses shrouded in trees, with boat docks and views without neighbors.

Van’s house was still experiencing growing pains; like me, Van had been dumping money into her home ever since the tour began. Unlike me, though, Van had started from scratch, buying the property, then leveling the structure that stood on it. She’d had all sorts of headaches from the local homeowners and the county—Lake Oswego is in Clackamas County, unlike Portland, which is in Multnomah—but in the end, being Van, she’d won out. Her lawyers shouted louder, perhaps. Or maybe she just crooned at them with the mike.

Whatever the case, when I pulled up, I could see that the majority of the work had been completed. The house was bilevel, built onto the slope, so that the entry floor was actually the second, with another below, closer to the water. The drive down from the road dipped sharply before winding through the trees, and it provided a nice curtain of anonymity. But when I hit the bottom of the drive I could see the lights on, and over the Jeep’s engine, I could hear the music. There were already two dozen cars parked all around and along the driveway, and I could see some late-arriving guests making last-minute adjustments in rearview mirrors.

I parked and got out, and the music was louder. Van was still on the Radiohead kick. The song was “You and Whose Army?”

Seemed a fair question, and I just stood by my Jeep for a couple minutes, smoking a cigarette and trying to screw up my courage as each new arrival pulled up. “Keeping it small” meant only about fifty to seventy-five people were expected. Van’s really big parties drew more than two hundred. Sometimes it seemed like the only thing you needed to get invited was to be able to find the place on a map.

I didn’t want to ask Van for money. I didn’t want to be at a party. I didn’t, especially, want to be at one of Van’s parties. The last one I’d attended had been the night before we’d left on the most recent leg of the tour, and I’d spent almost the entire night getting drunk out on the balcony, throwing things into the lake.

“Mim?”

It was Click, and he’d come up behind me, and the surprise had my heart checking the exits. If he’d bothered to dress up for the party, I couldn’t tell. Maybe he’d changed to his really good Winterhawks jersey. The Chuckies were still mismatched.

“Just me,” he said mildly.

“You.”

“I said your name twice, nothing.”

“Lost in thought.”

He came up beside me with a chuckle, looking at the house and pulling his rolling kit from his back pocket. “You’ve got a lot of those to be lost in at the best of times.”

“Goes with being The Brains.”

“I’m just the central nervous system, I wouldn’t know about that.” Click rolled himself a cigarette, and I lit it for him, and he thanked me and blew out a plume. “Surprised you came.”

“I need to talk to Van.”

“You’re not going to change her mind. I already tried.”

“It’s not about the band.”

“No? Then you better get to her early. She’s gonna be busy tonight.”

“Fleet week already?”

Click made a grunting noise, like I’d socked him. “Rose Festival’s not until summer, you know that. Might want to check your claws at the door.”

I dropped my butt and stomped it out. He was right; if I was already this defensive and Van wasn’t even present, things weren’t likely to go well once we got face to face. I was going to have to get that under control, and fast.

“Heard about the album?” Click asked.

“Graham says it’s at seven.”

“Must feel strange to you. Feels fucking strange to me.”

“It does,” I agreed.

He was still watching the house, smoking his hand-rolled. “Don’t change the fact that it’s a good album.”

“Guess not.”

“Might want to keep that in mind, that’s what I mean.” He flicked his cigarette down the driveway, toward the house, and it sizzled out in a puddle. Then he offered me his arm. “Let’s wow the little people, what do you say?”

“How can I refuse?”

“Oh, hey, so it turns out we’re sleeping together,” he told me when we were halfway down the walk.

“No shit?”

“Turns out that’s why you’re on hiatus. We had a messy breakup, you and me. Apparently I’m seeking solace with Van.”

“Brutal.”

“Tell me about it.”

A haze of smoke was leaking out of the house as we reached the door, a mix of cigarette and pot, and the music was louder, almost to the point of distortion. We stepped into a crowd of men and women, most of them in our age group, and I instantly realized the small-party estimate had been off, and that there must have been more cars parked outside than I had noticed.

There were hip-hopsters and punkers and retro grungers and people like me and Click, who’d decided that what we wore would be what we wore. I’d defaulted to my band outfit, just cargo pants and a black long-sleeved T-shirt, but only because it was too cold to wear the tank.

A couple of people shouted at us when we entered, waving hands or bottles, but their voices were swamped by the music, and Click and I just smiled and waved back. He dropped my arm and shouted in my ear.

“I’m gonna get a liquid. Catch you later?”

“I’ll be around,” I shouted back.

Click headed in the most likely direction of the kitchen. I worked my way past the entry crowds, down the stairs to the main room on the lower floor. Several people broke their conversations to watch me pass, and most even said hello. What they were actually thinking as I passed was anyone’s guess.

The living room space was a cavern, two stories high and long, and most of the party had moved there, doing nothing to defeat the size of the room. Another stereo was going down here, fighting with the music playing above, blasting dance remixes. A cluster near the far wall writhed, shimmied, and ground to the beat. On a big-screen television, one of the guests was playing a video game. The volume on that was cranked up, and the explosions on the screen seemed to keep fairly good time with the surrounding music.

Graham was with the dance contingent, grooving away, and he saw me come off the stairs and raised a hand, and I raised one back, then did a double take. My eyes were playing tricks. I looked hard, saw it again, and this time I was certain.

Dyke Tracy was dancing with him, her hair slicked back, working up a sweat. The outfit was new, not the work clothes and not what she’d worn when she’d grilled me in my kitchen the previous night, very casual, this time, just the jeans and the tee and the sneakers. Graham said something to her, and she shot a look my way and grinned.

I didn’t know if I should panic or laugh. Both seemed reasonable options.

Marcus wasn’t on the floor, and I cast around for him, trying to find him in the corners or on the stairs, but he wasn’t there, either. I took that to mean Hoffman was here on her own accord, not on the job, but that didn’t raise my comfort level.

Time to do what I came to do and get the hell out.

I stopped and listened at Van’s bedroom door, and didn’t hear anything like sex going on, so I figured it was safe to knock.

“Who?”

“Mim.”

There was a pause, and then the door swung open and Van stood there. I’d interrupted her halfway through makeup, and she’d done her eyes, but everything below the nose was still untouched. She didn’t look surprised or thrilled to see me, just turned and went back to her makeup table.

“Would you close it?” she asked.

I shut the door and took a moment to appreciate the room. It was large and white and functional. A big bed, good for sleeping or playing, a big television in the corner, and the makeup table. Doors led to the bathroom and the closets. One wall had a beautiful oil painting, a field of trees in what looked like a pretty fierce autumn storm, and when I moved my head, the light on the painting seemed to change, pulling the background into relief.

Van finished with her lips, capped the stick, and then turned to give me some attention. She was wearing another of her tees, this one gray and with the sleeves cut off. On it was a fifties-style woman’s face, neatly coiffed, eyes beneath sleepy lids, her mouth open, wiping at her chin with the back of her hand. Beneath it all was the slug
GOT CREAM?

It was the kind of shirt she wore simply to get a response, and for that reason alone, I ignored it.

“You have a detective on your dance floor,” I told her.

“Only one? I invited two.”

“Did you?”

“Two came by today, Portland PD, Graham sent them over. About what happened to your brother and the pictures and all of it. I was doing party prep at the time.”

“I know them.”

“Right, of course you do.” Vanessa turned back to the mirror on her table, picked up the hairbrush. “Anyway, I invited them. As guests, not cops.”

“You live dangerously,” I said.

She laughed at my reflection. “You’re one to talk.”

“Not kidding, Van. There are at least fifteen people smoking joints upstairs, and God knows what’s going on in the bathrooms.”

“Nothing’s going to happen.” She began pulling the brush through her hair, still watching me in the mirror. “Graham told me you’d be by.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“He said you needed to get together some cash for a purchase, and you couldn’t get the bank to hand it over in time.”

“I’m not after a loan, Van. I need to cash a very large check, and the bank can’t cover it in time.”

She finished fixing her hair, then got up and went to the closet. There was another mirror hanging from the inside of the closet door, a double full-length one, and she checked herself very carefully in it. I didn’t see anything wrong, but Van apparently did, and she spent a couple seconds adjusting the waist of her jeans, making sure they hugged low on her hips.

“So tell me about this place you’re buying.”

I’d refined the lie in the intervening hours, and I thought it flowed easily, not too smooth, but honest. “It’s on the other side of the lake, smaller than this place, but it’s really nice. Four bedrooms, two full baths, and there’s a really good space for a music room. And there’s a deck, you know, with a hot tub. The whole thing’s right on the water, really quiet. But you know how they are out here, they’re all worried about the publicity and noise and shit, and if I can get them a big lump sum down, that’ll make me look good.”

“Graham said it’d help you dry out.”

“I think it would.”

She nodded slightly, then checked herself again. She indicated her shirt. “You haven’t commented.”

“You wouldn’t like what I had to say.”

“Please, go ahead.”

I sighed. “All right, I think it’s sexist, gross, and that it pretty much declares that you’ll give a blow job to any guy who wants one.”

Van examined herself in the mirror again. “You get all that from the shirt?”

“You asked.”

“Shit.” Van pulled the shirt off, tossing it on the closet floor, then disappeared inside, rummaging around. “How much you need?”

“Two hundred and fifty thousand in cash. But I need it by Friday.”

“Three days? And how much is this place?”

“Seller’ll let me have it for a million.” I managed to say it like the number wasn’t significant, like we all were used to dealing with seven figures as a matter of course.

Van emerged, pulling on a green silk shirt. It clung to her shape, and she fixed the middle two buttons, leaving the others open. Her belly, flat and toned, and her cleavage, not flat but also toned, were deftly exposed. The hoop in her navel glinted.

“Better?”

“You look hot.”

She made a noise of agreement, then checked herself in the mirror a final time. Satisfied, she closed the closet door, then addressed me.

“What’s really going on?” Van asked. She didn’t sound angry or annoyed, just very matter-of-fact, as if she was used to all of my lies, and this was merely another of the legion.

“Nothing. Look, Van. I’m just trying to buy this place and this guy already has another buyer. He said if I paid him in cash, he’d sell to me. But he’s only giving me until Friday.”

“I had that company you used, the one Chapel called, come by. They went through this whole house, did a complete search. I figured it was prudent, especially with what happened at your place. They didn’t find anything.”

“This isn’t about the pictures.”

“Mim, I’m not an idiot, okay? Please, please, please stop treating me like one.”

“I don’t treat you like an idiot—”

“Then why do you keep lying to me?”

“I’m not—”

“Is whoever took those shots blackmailing you? Are there more pictures?”

“It’s not blackmail.”

“Paying isn’t going to stop it. You pay, whoever he is, he’s just going to come back for more. You can’t do this.” Van came closer, lowering her voice. “You can’t do this, Mim.”

“That’s not what this is. That’s just not what this is, Van.”

“Who hit you?” Van asked. “Your father? Did Tommy hit you?”

“No. No, it’s—”

“You’ve got a bruise on your throat, you know that? Right under your chin, it’s hard to see, but when you move your head and the shadow’s gone, it’s visible, and it’s a bruise.” Her face suddenly went blank, and her highlighted eyes widened. “Oh God, Mim, did someone choke you?”

She reached a hand for my chin, and I evaded it by stepping back and looking away.

“Please, Van,” I said. “I need the money, and I need it in cash, and if I could get it myself I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t ask. My bank can’t get it to me until Monday. I’m good for it, you know I can write you a check or make a wire transfer or whatever you want, but I’ve got to have the money, and I’ve got to have it by Friday.”