The Rock 'N Roll Detective's Greatest Hits - a Spike Berenger Anthology (74 page)

The two engineers at the sound board had their work cut out for them.

As soon as the band was ready, Tittle began a syncopated 5/4 rhythm line which everyone in the house knew as the opening to one of Windy City Engine’s more well-known songs, “The Mayor and the Player.” Brill’s bass line meshed into the drum beat until it reached a crescendo, at which point the keyboards and guitar joined in. The audience was on its feet. They cheered again when Nance started to sing. He was in fine voice and the concert was off to a magnificent opening.

P
rescott turned onto Armitage and discovered a mob scene outside the Park West.

“Where the hell am I going to park?”

“Damn,” Berenger said. “Park illegally! I don’t give a—”

They both screamed! A couple ran across the road in front of the car and Prescott had to slam on the brakes. The young man and woman just laughed and the guy made a peace sign with his right hand. “Peace, man!” he called.

“Careful, there are a lot of cops.” Berenger scanned a side street and spotted a space in front of a fire hydrant. “Pull over there!”

“The car’s registered to you and not me, right?” she asked as she made the turn.

“I’ll pay the goddamned fine. Just park the car!”

She did. The two PIs jumped out and ran toward the building. They pushed through the crowd and made their way to the front doors, where two policemen stood guard.

One of them said, “Tickets.” It was a command, not a question

“We’re private detectives working the Musician Murders Case. Let us in!”

Berenger was obviously out of breath and still woozy from his ordeal. The ugly lesion on his forehead didn’t look very pretty either. The cop nudged the other and said, “Oh, is that right? And I’m Humphrey Bogart. Who’s she, Lauren Bacall?”

“Officer, you have to believe me—”

“Sure, sure, we’ve heard it all tonight. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry—and I do mean hairy!—wants in. Go on, get out of here!”

“But, officer—”

The other patrolman, a much bigger man, stepped forward. “Look, Mac, did you hear him? Move along!”

“It’s all right, officers!”

Mike Case emerged from the multitude of people on the sidewalk. He held up his badge for the guards’ benefit. “Officer Mike Case. These two are with me. I’m on the Task Force. Let us in.”

The big policeman shrugged and gestured toward the door. “Be my guests.”

“Thank you,” Prescott said. She was beginning to feel the inevitable adrenaline crash. After expending so much epinephrine earlier, her body was dragging. She leaned on Berenger’s arm as they slipped through the door, looking even more like stoned-out concert-goers. The first guard stared at them.

“It’s okay,” Case said again. “They’ve just been tortured and almost murdered with mind-altering drugs.”

“Oh, all right then,” the cop nodded. “No problem.”

The trio entered the lobby and rushed to the center aisle door. The band was playing hard and loud, the crowd was digging it, and the electrifying vibe was palpable. Berenger, Prescott, and Case stood at the back of the house, taking it all in.

“What do we do?” Prescott shouted at Berenger.

“I… I’m not sure.”

“I should go find Doherty!” Case yelled. “Stay here!”

Berenger nodded.

The band was at the end of the intricate and epic-length “Funnel Cake Fandango,” after which they rocked through a five minute jam. The medley ended with “Cab Ride with Magritte,” an impressive, technically-proficient riff that alternated between a 3/4 time signature to one of 7/8. They were surprisingly tight and dead-on for an under-rehearsed group of musicians.

When the applause waned, Nance stepped up to the microphone and said, “Thank you. Now it’s time for a little surprise for all you Red Skyez fans out there.”

Cheers.

“And maybe for some of you fans who once liked a little band called The Loop, if any of you are still alive.”

More cheers.

“He hasn’t been on stage since nineteen-seventy-three, folks. We managed to talk him into joining us tonight. So give a warm welcome to Stuart Clayton!”

The house went nuts. People screamed, whistled, cheered, stomped the floor… and then the noise abruptly fell away when a figure emerged from the wings.

It was a woman with long blonde hair, sunglasses, blue jeans, a baby doll top, and a flowery floppy hat. The four musicians on stage all did double-takes and stepped back, astonished. Nance’s mouth dropped as the woman moved past him and took her place standing behind Clayton’s keyboards.

Someone in the crowd yelled, “That’s not Stuart!” Laughter.

The woman spoke into a microphone. Her voice was soft, low, and sultry. “To start off my set, I want to sing you a song I wrote many years ago.”

She immediately launched into a number that both Berenger and Prescott recognized as one of the tracks that the killer had left at the crime scenes. The musician played two keyboards at once, producing the kind of full, orchestral sound that Rick Wakeman would envy. The number was slow, haunting, and a complete change of mood and tempo from the previous set. Someone in the audience booed. There were some catcalls.

Then she began to sing. The voice was the same as Berenger and Prescott remembered it… almost.

“Spike! What do we do?” Prescott whispered.

Berenger was frozen where he stood. It was a train wreck in slow motion. All he could was say, “Shhh.”

Nance, Callahan, Brill, and Tittle remained on stage, staring at the newcomer with astonishment. Then, very slowly, Tittle and Brill managed to join with some rhythm and bass. By the last verse, Nance was also strumming the chords and Callahan filled out the sound with piano arpeggios.

When the song ended, there was scattered applause, more boos, and a few shouts of “Where’s Stuart?”

The woman removed her sunglasses.

Nance, who was standing too close to his microphone, could be heard throughout the house when he said, “Oh, my God. It’s Stuart.”

The other members looked closer at the musician on stage. Without the sunglasses, the keyboardist’s face was visible. It
was
Stuart Clayton… dressed in drag and women’s makeup.

He removed the floppy hat, and suddenly it was apparent to everyone. That was a man on stage, not a woman. The audience realized it
was
Stuart Clayton and the lull in excitement received a boost. The physical transformation was remarkable. Sylvia Favero was so dissimilar from the weak and fragile Stuart Clayton that it was as if an actor with the genius of Laurence Olivier had taken the stage.

Both Berenger and Prescott were astonished by how tall, broad-shouldered, and muscular Clayton now appeared. He had walked on stage without a cane and played the keyboards with no noticeable handicap. The fifty-nine year old man was in perfect health. In fact, it was good enough to take down an adversary the size of Spike Berenger. That was the benefit of regularly training on Nautilus machines. It came easily to Clayton; after all, he had been a track and field star in his middle and high school years.

“I’ll be damned,” Prescott said.

“Told you so.”

Clayton spoke into the microphone with the same, feminine voice with which he had sung. “Thank you, everyone. And for my next number…”

The handgun appeared from nowhere. Berenger recognized his Kahr 9mm in Clayton’s hand, and it was pointed at Harrison Brill.

Before anyone could react, the pistol cracked. Brill jerked and stumbled backwards.

The audience collectively gasped. Someone screamed.

Clayton aimed the gun at Joe Nance. The guitarist had time only to open his eyes wide with fear.

The gun fired again. Nance twisted on his feet and dropped to his knees.

More screams. The audience panicked. A mass, uncontrolled evacuation ensued. Berenger and Prescott were caught in the onslaught of the stampede, but the sudden pandemonium was the catalyst for the PI to jump into action. He used his big body as a battering ram and thrust down the aisle toward the stage. Prescott followed in his wake.

Several policemen who had been on the outer aisles ran forward with their sidearms drawn. Someone yelled, “Freeze!” at Clayton, for the officers all trained their weapons on the musician. There were commands for him to drop the weapon.

And then Clayton pointed the gun under his chin with one hand and removed the blonde wig with the other. Right before their eyes, the man changed his body posture and exhibited a totally different physical language. With his left hand, he grasped the side of a keyboard to support himself, as if it were his cane. He had become Stuart Clayton again.

“Don’t shoot him!” Berenger yelled. “Hold your fire!”

Doherty appeared next to the PI. “Throw down your weapon or we’ll fire!” he yelled at Clayton.

“No! Sergeant! No!” By then, most of the crowd had trampled out of the theater except for the brave and curious. The media had stayed. Berenger made it to the apron and grabbed Doherty. “Tell your men to hold their fire!”

“Berenger! Get away, you fool!”
“I think I can talk him into surrendering!”

“Get out of here before I—”

Mike Case appeared from the side aisle and shouted, “Sergeant! Please!”

Doherty swung his head at Case.

Case whispered. “Let him try.”

Doherty clinched his jaw for a moment, looked at the man on stage, and then turned to Berenger. He gave the PI a curt nod.

Clayton spoke into the microphone again. “She said that Stuart Clayton would be the last to die. So here goes.”

“Stuart, no. Don’t do it,” Berenger pleaded gently.

But a woman in the back of the theater shouted, “Father! No! Don’t do it!” Clayton visibly reacted at the sound of it, but he kept the Kahr trained under his chin.

A man and woman hurried down the aisle toward the apron. Berenger recognized one of them as none other than his friend Sandro Ponti from Italy. The woman was an astonishing projection of what Sylvia Favero might have looked like at the age of forty. Berenger thought she was a dead ringer.

When they reached the edge of the stage, Berenger said, “Well, hello, Sandro.” To the woman—“You must be Julia Faerie. You got here in time for the finale.”

T
o Berenger, who was still a little under the influence of the salvia, Stuart Clayton’s was the Face of Death. As the musician stood on the stage with the Kahr under his chin, he appeared extremely unwell and vulnerable—a man with one foot already in the grave. Clayton also looked truly pathetic in the drag clothing; now that he could be seen up close and personal, he was just an old man dressed in women’s clothing and wearing poor makeup that ran with sweat.

Just as he had appeared in a photograph on the back cover of his 1979 album,
Trrrrans
.

What a sick
fuck
…
It was all that Berenger could think.

The policemen remained in position with guns in outstretched hands, aiming at the killer. Doherty stood at the edge of the stage with Berenger, Prescott, Case, and the two newcomers. Reporters and photographers were videotaping and snapping photos of the entire thing. Nerves were frayed. People were scared. The situation was a powder keg, ready to explode any second. It was the ultimate in reality television.

Clayton’s sad eyes moved to the woman who called herself Julia Faerie.

“Julia?” he called in his real voice.

“It’s me, Father. Now put the gun down and then I’ll give you a hug and say hello.” She spoke with a distinctive Italian accent. The woman was attractive, blonde, and fit. She exhibited self-confidence and pride, even if the man on the stage was a blood relative and had caused so much heartache.

Clayton blinked. Realization dawned on his face, and his expression turned to one of guilt. There had always been pain in his eyes—seeing his daughter brought it to the forefront.

“Come on, Dad. You need to put it down. Please?”