Show Business Is Murder (11 page)

He greeted her with excitement. “Fantastic!” he exclaimed, not specifying just what was so fantastic. She lifted the edges of her mouth in a parody of welcome. And began to sing. An old tune, from Abba.

On the second stanza, he joined in, tuning his guitar as he strummed, swiftly catching up. She rolled from one style into another, one tempo into another. She couldn't faze him. They had to scoop up some of the money now and then and shove it out of sight, her case filled so fast. Never want the crowds to think you didn't need their dollars. After the third hour, suddenly she stopped, drained and unable to sing another note. He let his cords drift off into the tunnel and gazed fondly down at her. “Thought you'd never wear out. I been playin' on adrenalin the last hour. But we are so fuckin' good!”

“My name's Lian Logan,” she said, trying it on him out loud. Her first foray into the great world of Irish balladeers.

“Yeah? Nice to meet you, Lian,” he said, not looking at her. He was busy pulling out the dollars they'd hidden to dump them into her case. He crouched, then began making two meticulously neat piles. She watched, but he did the chore fair and honest.

He stretched as he stood. “Jeez, never did a three-hour gig straight through. I'm wrecked. How about you?”

She was, too, but ignored the question. “Listen, I play alone.”

“Oh, c'mon! You never made that much money by yourself, don't tell me that.”

She bristled. It was true. “I'm a lone act.”

“Lian. Am I hustling you? Am I taking a bigger share, or all of it? And I could, a bitty thing like you, I'm twice your size. Don't you hear how great we sound together? We—we complement each other.”

Lian scowled down at her case, now tenderly cradling her Gibson in its felt-lined bed, locked for safety. She swung the case up across her shoulders and back, the woven strap tight between her breasts.

“Tomorrow,” he begged. “Just let me come tomorrow.”

She looked off down the rails as if seeking the answer written in graffiti there. Feeling her success vibes, testing the idea on her surrounding luck. She stood motionless, waiting. Then, one last glance up at his pleading, handsome face, feeling the extra dollars in her pockets. “Ok. Tomorrow. Eleven.” And she strode off toward the stairs to the streets above, melding into the crowd but alone in her thoughts.

The next day brought Sody and Lian together again, same place. Without consultation, she, leading off again, struck strongly into some vintage Dylan. He slammed into her path and, grinning, stayed with her all the way in a harmonic third, doing a fantastic job of it, too, she admitted
grudgingly to herself. Then a bit of alternative that she'd picked up last week, not the whole song, but a change of pace and mood. Sody handled it well. Tall, slender, his blonde tipped hair shagged just right, he looked like a movie star. She thought about that as she watched him play. Talented, yes. And bringing in cash like a six-foot-tall ATM machine. She gazed off again down the empty track.

Maybe this was right for her at this stage of her career path. Maybe he'd been “sent” by those lucky airs that carried her to her golden goals. Suddenly she muted her voice, in effect offering him the lead. After a fleeting lift of eyebrows in surprise, he took off, letting her follow, making the decisions and taking the melody. He was excellent, she admitted. And he hadn't followed her home yesterday, so maybe he wasn't a creep. Finally, she nodded to herself and accepted him. This time at the end, she divided up the take and when handing over his share, looked up into his happy face and let herself really smile. “Welcome, Sody.”

He heaved a deep sigh. “Thanks, Lian. You had me worried.”

She shook her head as she wound the strap from her case around herself again. “Never worry, Sody. Bad for luck. See you tomorrow.”

He lunged quickly into her path. “Want some dinner?”

She shut her eyes for a moment and silently cursed. Had she made a mistake after all? “No,” she said shortly, then left.

The next day she and Sody were again at their post at the subway stop when a short dark young man stepped off the arriving train and walked directly toward them, the familiar stars in his determined eyes. Without pausing in her song, Lian screamed inwardly at her fate, enraged all over again. Was her life being wrenched from her control? Had she proven unworthy of her luck and had it abandoned her?

“Been hearing about you two topside, on the street.
Needing a keyboard?” he asked, and Lian gasped, forgetting her lyrics. Her hands dropped useless at her sides.

Sody let his bass chords die. He gazed coolly down at the short intruder and said, “You got one?”

Lian glanced at Sody. Normally she'd be furious at him for acting as leader, but now it didn't matter. Now she only strained to hear a distant voice come floating to her from down the presently empty track, telling her what to do.

The stranger was around five seven, a few inches taller than Lian, but his muscles strained his black jeans and tee nearly to bursting. A no-style no-neck, marveled Lian. Hadn't shaved for days, by the look of him, and not recently bathed by the smell, either. His dark hair, though, curved clean and smooth, the ruffled edges just hitting his shoulders, but unmarred by any purple or green dye, shit that Lian hated. He also lacked the endless body piercing Lian considered childish, although tattoos could make a statement—so long as the statement wasn't that you'd been somebody's “partner” in prison or membership in a drug gang. Losers, that lot.

She considered her last thought. Sounded a bit Irish. Excitement shivered through her for an instant. The lilt was coming. And to help it, this chunk of powerful Irish male had arrived. Again she threw her question down the tracks, asking her luck what to do with this keyboarder with muscles and the genuine brogue she'd longed to learn. No sign came. Or was the answer standing in front of her in the form of this new musician . . .

Just then Sody turned to her and said, “Let's give him a try, okay? If he sucks, I'll throw him back on the train.” The young man glowered at that, as if his maleness had been challenged. Lian shrugged coolly, feeling anything but cool inside.

“Eleven tomorrow,” she agreed. “Make an impression or Sody will help you fuck off.”

The young man looked her over with black eyes melting
into black liquid. “Him? Small chance. Bugger you, more likely!”

She listened to this, lips parted and breathless. His voice slid like cream into her ears!

“What's your name?” she demanded.

“Joseph Francis Urban O'Rourke, then. Joe. And you?”

“Lian Logan,” she said and his gaze changed. She saw the shrewdness in his lightning assessment of her. She knew he'd seen through her and out the other side. He knew it all. Her fake Irishness, her ambition, her dreams. Maybe even her luck. His eyes glittered but with a powerful maleness that Sody could never have summoned, despite his height. Lian doubted Sody would ever be able to throw this one onto a train. Or anywhere.

“Keyboard.” She repeated stiffly, as if considering, and felt heat rise in her face.

She looked around for an electrical plug. As if he read her mind, he said, “I bring my own re-charge battery pack, if I need it, an' I usually do. Not a problem. Why ye got to sing b'neath God's good earth, though?” He looked around uneasily. “What's wrong with the open air?”

Lian's face hardened. “Not negotiable.”

“Tomorrow then.” They all nodded to each other and O'Rourke jumped down onto the track, and strolled along the narrow ledge where the trainmen usually walked to get to a needed repair down the line. Lian shivered to watch his carelessness of the massive trains and wondered if this was a stupid male display to impress her. It did.

In the coming days, O'Rourke became an asset, as Lian had guessed he would, since her luck must have summoned him to her. He seemed to live in an aura of confidence. He didn't know as many songs as Sody, but he could plug in spots as he caught on to the progression of chords and fill out the music until he quickly learned it.

Lian's voice soared like an angel borne up on the talents of
these two, but she was careful to practice the song in private. Over the next weeks, they made a lot of money, enabling Lian to dress more and more to fit the image she had chosen, rather than to just cover her body. She sublet a closet of an apartment, one room with several doors, each of which opened to a murphy bed, the toilet, and a sink next to a two burner stove, so she finally had somewhere relatively clean—and safe—to sleep. And she carefully gave no hint of its location to Sody, Joe, or anyone.

Then it happened. Lian moved the trio to “her” place outside Grand Central's double doors on 42nd Street. Joe, relieved to leave the dank underground behind, bloomed in the bright sun and his performances sharpened, to Sody and Lian's delight. Within a week, a portly man dressed in all black stopped to hear not just one song, but several. He stood close by for nearly an hour, reminding Lian of a Catholic priest in his black three-button suit hanging open over the black silk mock-turtleneck tee. His head nodded to the beat of their music, obviously enjoying himself. Then a sudden realization caused Lian to drop out of the performance of “Baby Jones,” too breathless to sing. It was
him!
Her “luck” had brought him!

Sody glanced at her in concern, but after a deep gasp for breath, she rejoined the chorus, her voice energized and full of new emotion.

At the finish, the man gave her his card, as she'd known he would. “I represent Krim Recordings. How about a meet tomorrow? Four-ish good for you? Bring your instruments.” Lian nodded with as much coolness as she could muster. Sody and Joe gaped. As soon as the man turned the corner, disappearing from sight, Sody snatched the card from Lian's fingers.

“
Krim!
Omigod!”

“Aye! We got to—what do we got to do?” For the first time, Joe looked flummoxed.

Lian gazed at her partners in disgust. She thought Sody might cry, from the look on his face. “Well what did ye expect!” she shrieked at them both. Staying in her Irish persona was more important now than ever before. “What's the point of this if not to step up?”

Joe stared at her, blinking. “Oh, aye. Sure!”

Sody swallowed hard. “I can't sing anymore today. I can't.”

Lian said, “And why should ye? We'll be superstars after tomorrow!”

Sody froze, absorbing that thought. After a long moment, he glanced at Lian and nodded. “Right.” He packed his bass guitar into the battered case. “Go home, Joe. Get some rest. You too,” he ordered Lian. “Go on.” He gave them each a paternal wave, permission to leave. Joe, hugging his keyboard to his chest in excitement, nearly ran down 42nd street.

Lian didn't move. She gazed at Sody, her eyes interested.

“Go on, Lian,” he repeated. “You need rest, too. See you tomorrow.” He patted her shoulder, not noticing how she jerked her shoulder from beneath his hand. He jaywalked across the street to enter the small coffee shop he liked to frequent. Lian, still not moving, watched him through the shop window until he began giving his order to a waitress.

Then Lian turned and descended the stairs to the subways, took a train back to her old spot, the West 50th Street stop. When she got out, she opened her case again, seeded it with the two crumpled dollars, and began to sing alone: ‘Leave me now, I've moved on anyhow. Lah tee dah, down the MTA highway, the next stop will be better, Lah tee dah . . .' Her song. The song. Her voice lifted and the tunnel seized it to send it soaring. Passengers paused to hear the whole song before moving on.

And “Baby Jones.” The two gits hadn't realized she'd written that song herself. It had caught on too fast to keep other street groups from stealing it, but it was hers. She'd
registered that and the “Lah Tee Dah” song, and over twenty others she'd written, with the copyright office, the real one in Washington DC at the Library of Congress. She'd gotten a guy over at a Staples store to help her find and then fill out the papers. It had taken a few flattering lies, a few evenings of flirtation, but no sex, to get it done. Lian had no intention of sleeping her way to anywhere.

Her grandmother had taught her,
promise anything, but give them nothing.
Lian, a very young Hermione Listenberger at that time, had taken this advice to heart. Her bubbe was smart. She'd survived exceedingly well in a male-dominated world, with much worse circumstances to deal with back then, Lian knew. Bless you, thank you, Lian sent her gratitude floating through the air to her bubbe. Bubbe was her “luck.” Her bubbe's was the voice she'd listened to all her life, her mother having proven to be of no help in any way—well, except to show the stupidity of trying to use sex to get ahead. Although Lian supposed that knowledge was useful, too.

All afternoon Lian sang only her own songs, no Abba, no Dylan, no anybody else but herself. And the crowds paused, entranced, and left dollar bills in their wake. After every song, Lian nodded her gratitude at her “luck,” her beloved ‘bubbe' watching over her from farther down the empty track. Then she went home.

The next day, she didn't show up at the Grand Central entrance doors. Like lost sheep, the two men split up to look for her, figuring she must be in trouble. She'd never missed a day, and certainly wouldn't miss today, their last rehearsal together to hone them for the afternoon meeting with the recording executive. They split up. Joe, by choice, set off to cruise the streets around Grand Central and Sody took the tunnels.