Live Wire

conduit.

Through the rain, Myron could make out the twins’ silhouettes running back toward the water. Behind them came another man, the security guard, who stopped once the twins hit the beach. He put something to his mouth-a walkie-talkie of some sort, Myron figured-and said, “It’s just those stoned twins again.”

Win opened the door. Myron jumped inside. Win followed, closing the door behind them. They were now in an ultramodern kitchen. In the center of the room, there was a giant double oven with eight burners and a silver flume on the ceiling. Various pots and pans hung from the ceiling in decorative chaos. Myron remembered reading that Gabriel Wire was something of a gourmet cook, so Myron guessed that this all made sense. The pots and pans looked pristine-new or lightly used or simply well kept.

Myron and Win stayed still for a full minute. No footsteps, no walkie-talkie shrieking, nothing. In the distance, probably way upstairs, they could hear the faint hint of music.

Win nodded for Myron to go. They had already planned the post-entrance strategy. Myron would search for Gabriel Wire. Win would handle anyone who came to his defense. Myron switched his BlackBerry to a radio frequency and put the Bluetooth into his ear. Win did the same. Win would now be able to warn Myron of any incoming trouble-and vice versa.

Staying low, Myron pushed open the door to the kitchen and into what might have been a ballroom. No lights- the only illumination coming from the screensavers on the two computers. Myron had expected something more ornate, but the room looked as though it’d been converted into a dentist’s waiting room. The walls were painted white. The couch and love seat set looked more practical than stylish, like something you’d buy in any highway store. There was a file cabinet in the corner, a printer, a fax machine.

The expansive staircase was wooden with ornate railings and a bloodred runner. Myron started up the stairs. The music, still faint, grew louder. He reached the top of the staircase and started down the long corridor. The wall on the right was loaded up with HorsePower’s framed platinum albums and records. On the left were photographs of India and Tibet-places frequented by Gabriel Wire. Supposedly Wire had a luxury home in posh south Mumbai and often stayed, undercover, in monasteries in eastern Tibet’s Kham district. Myron wondered about that. This house was so damn depressing. Yes, it was dark out and the weather could have been better, but had Gabriel Wire really spent most of the last fifteen years cooped up here alone? Maybe. Or maybe that was what Wire wanted people to believe. Maybe he was indeed a crazy, world-class reclusive in the vein of Howard Hughes. Or maybe he had just had enough of being the famous, constantly-in-the-spotlight front man Gabriel Wire. Maybe the other rumors were true and Wire went out all the time, wearing simple disguises so he could visit the Met in Manhattan or sit in the bleachers at Fenway Park. Maybe he had taken a look at when and how his life had slipped off the rails-the drugs, the gambling debts, the too-young girls-and remembered why he started, what originally drove him, what had made him happy:

Making music.

Maybe Wire’s behavior of shunning the spotlight wasn’t so crazy. Maybe this was the only way he could survive and thrive. Maybe, like anyone else who makes a life change, he had to hit bottom and how much lower can you get than feeling responsible for the death of a sixteen-year-old girl?

Myron passed the final platinum album on the wall-a record called Aspects of Juno, HorsePower’s very first. Like any other casual music fan, Myron had heard about the legendary first meeting between Gabriel Wire and Lex Ryder. Lex had been performing at a sketchy pub called the Espy in the St. Kilda area near Melbourne on a busy Saturday night, playing something slow and lyrical and getting booed by the rowdy, drunken crowd. One of those in the crowd was a handsome young singer named Gabriel Wire. Wire would later say that despite the din around him, he was both mesmerized and inspired by the melodies and the lyrics. Finally, with the boos reaching an earth-shattering decibel, Gabriel Wire took to the stage and more to save the poor bastard than anything else, he started jamming with Lex Ryder, changing his lyrics on the fly, speeding up the tempo, getting someone else to pick up a bass and the drums. Ryder started nodding. He came back with more riffs, moved from keyboard to guitar and then back again. The two men fed off each other. The crowd fell into a respectful hush, as though realizing what they were witnessing.

HorsePower was born.

How had Lex poetically put it at Three Downing just a few nights ago? “Things ripple.” It had all started there, in that seedy bar on the other side of the world more than a quarter century ago.

Without warning, Myron flashed to his father now. He had tried to keep it out, tried to focus solely on the task at hand, but suddenly he saw his father not as a strong, healthy man but sprawled out on the basement floor. He wanted to run out of here. He wanted to get back on a damn plane and go back to that hospital, where he belonged, but then he thought how much sweeter it would be, how much more it would mean to his father, if he could somehow come back with his baby brother in tow.

How had his brother gotten caught up with Gabriel Wire and the death of Alista Snow?

The answer was obvious and sobering: Kitty.

The familiar anger-Kitty’s husband is missing and she’s exchanging drugs for sex favors?-rose to the surface as he crept down the corridor. He could hear the music better now. An acoustic guitar and a soft singing voice:

Gabriel Wire’s.

The sound was heartbreaking. Myron stopped and listened to the lyrics for a moment:

“My only love, we’ll never have yesterday again,

And now I sit through an endless night…”

It was coming from the end of the corridor. Toward the stairs up to the third floor.

“My vision blurred by tears,

Hardly feel the bitter cold,

Hardly notice the pounding rain…”

He passed an open door and risked a quick peek. Again the room was decorated with frighteningly functional furniture and gray wall-to-wall carpeting. No frills, no flair, no clever accent. Bizarre. Where the huge facade was jaw-droppingly majestic, the interior could double as middle-management office space. This was, Myron surmised, either a guest bedroom or maybe one of the security guards stayed here. But still.

He kept moving. There was a narrow stairway at the end of the corridor. He was nearing it now, getting closer to the plaintive sound:

“Remember our last time together,

Spoke of a love lasting forever,

Our eyes met in some kind of trance,

Everyone vanished as we just held hands,

But now you’re gone too…”

There was one more open door before the stairway. Myron took a quick look and froze.

A nursery.

The baby mobile with its potpourri of animals-ducks, horses, giraffes in bright, loud colors-hung over a Victorian bassinet. A butterfly night-light provided enough illumination for Myron to see the Winnie the Pooh wallpaper-the old Winnie drawings, not the more modern ones-and, in a corner, a woman in full nurse garb dozed in a chair. Myron tiptoed into the room and looked into the bassinet. A newborn. Myron assumed that it was his godson. So this was where Lex had run to-or at least, this was where Suzze’s son was. Why?

Myron wanted to tell Win, but he didn’t dare whisper. With the keyboard on silent, he typed in a text: BABY ON SECOND FLOOR.

Nothing more to do in here. He carefully stepped back into the hallway. The limited light cast long shadows. The narrow staircase ahead of him looked like something that might lead to servants’ quarters in the attic. The steps had no runner, just wood, so he padded up them as quietly as he could. The singing was getting closer now:

“In that moment my sun was gone,

And now the rain won’t stop falling,

In an endless spell of time,

In the middle of a moment,

And the moment can’t move on…”

Myron reached the landing. In lesser homes, this level might be considered an attic. Here the entire floor had been cleared out to make one expansive room that ran the length of the entire house. Again the lights were low,