Mary Lee frowned; she didn't look as if she were about to fall in love with this contraption. 'Well, I dunno-'
Macalvie said, 'Just do it, right?
Mary Lee's eyes widened.
Jury went on. 'First of all, I want you to get up to the dress circle, and tell the lady in silver and red-she'll be sitting in the middle of the second, third row-'
'Oh, I seen '
'Tell her I want my own personal cheering section if something happens. Applaud, yell, jump up and down-'
'Won't work, Jury,' said Macalvie. 'For five seconds, maybe. No more.'
'All I need is five seconds.'
'All I need is an explanation,' said Melrose.
That the swell beside her apparently wasn't in on this operation galvanized Mary Lee into action. 'Right, luv.' And she left to churn up the stairs.
'Come on,' said Macalvie, 'let's get up there.'
The Odeon might as well have sold Standing Room Only because no one was sitting down. The rows of seats were superfluous. Jury bet they'd stand all the way through the concert, given their enthusiasm for the next two numbers.
Then, keyboard-led by Caton Rivers, John Swann gave himself over to a solo called 'Sunday's Gone Again.' Swann had enough available attitude to spread around a dozen bands, but he also had a nightingale's voice and an incredible range. The top notes he hit were as silvery as the jacket he wore. No wonder Jiminez (who kept his own attitude under subtle wraps) wanted him in the band.
Jury was holding his breath for Charlie Raine's solo. Charlie didn't move like the others; he didn't wheel round like Jiminez, who was graceful as a dancer; he wasn't all over the stage like Swann, marking out each section of the clamoring audience as his provenance. Charlie was both shy and cool; he stayed still.
As he was doing now, swamped in light by the doubled-spot playing on him, standing with his amplified acoustic singing 'Yesterday's Rain' into the hush of the theater. He ended with a return to the last verse, stopped, and there was a silence as heavy as the applause, foot-stomping, and yelling that followed.
Jury breathed again and looked over to Macalvie near the stairwell, then to Plant, who was sweeping the balcony with his opera glasses.
The band had been at it now for nearly an hour… another forty, fifty minutes to go. They didn't break.
Jiminez and the keyboardist, Rivers, traded a few improvisational, intuitive licks that gave the audience some breathing space and Charlie time to towel off his head. The two spots separated now, one following Jiminez and one Raine as they broke into a trade-off of technical wizardry, Alvaro on a funky blues line that backed off into a classical progression-Bach, it sounded like. Jury smiled in spite of the tension that made his arms, his back ache. The old 'back-porch blues man'; it was an ear-bending mix of perfectly amplified acoustic and heavy slide distortion on Jiminez's electric.
Jury felt the crush of people behind him, people before him, people standing in the aisle, backs against the wall, cheering. He edged forward to stand beneath the Exit sign, couldn't see because of the reflection from the spot. Both of the lighting technicians were following their targets with the light-
From his position by the stairwell, Macalvie frowned, squinted at the stage. The spotlights were out of sync. The one light was following the black guy, Jiminez, who was moving all over. The other was fixed; it wasn't on Raine, wasn't following him, though his movements were sparse. He stepped into it and stepped out. Hunched down, Macalvie started moving along the aisle, toward Jury.
Plant whipped the opera glasses quickly from the stage back to the spotlight. It was in a pool of darkness, and all he could see of the operator was a chap in a leather jacket and a cap who seemed to be adjusting something near the bottom of the huge spot. Beside it was a gig bag.
The noise as Macalvie tried to muscle his way through the knots of devotees turned the Odeon into a compression chamber. For chrissakes-
Jury saw both of them coming, had his hand on the revolver in his shoulder holster, moved slowly along the wall.
He should have realized it: of course it wouldn't be Charlie's solo, where the audience was as hushed as a sleeping baby; it would be like this, a trade-off of technique between Charlie and Alvaro that whipped the house up into a frenzy. They were playing together but they stood absolutely apart.
Charlie was sending fiery arpeggio runs across the long stage; Jiminez was addressing them with those heavily distorted power chords. It was a complex, killer duet that kept the audience in a state of controlled havoc with little spills of applause all along the way for Charlie's shot, for Alvaro's return.
Plant couldn't move all the way up to the rear, cross it, and go down again. There wasn't time. He jumped up on the empty seat and used the whole row as a clattering path to the other side, followed by outraged shouts to get the fuck down and the bloody hell out of the way. Along the way he sent at least one illegal tape recorder, a couple of beer cans, and a waving Sirocco T-shirt flying into the air with his cosher and might (given the crack) have broken the wrist that tried to pull him down.
It wasn't a gig bag.
The folding stock of the rifle clicked into place and she raised it so that the barrel jutted through the bars of the circle. It was the perfect hiding place, with herself in a pool of darkness, the light huge and blinding. And who would pay much attention to whoever was operating the Super Trooper? She was between it and the wall anyway.
Jury was crouched, holding the Wembley with both hands. 'Rena.' The word cut through the noise just like the snick of a safety.
'Hold it right there,' said Macalvie, who'd drawn out a.38.
Rena fired a half second before the commands, out into the theater, toward the stage.
Wes Whelan did a total turn, and yet still came down on the one, hitting all the punches, not missing a lick.
The others hesitated, looked at him, and hit their instruments again, following his lead.
As she swung the rifle, catching Jury in the sight, Melrose tossed his coat at the gun. Macalvie threw himself at her legs and raised the butt of his pistol. The spotlight fell across Rena Citrine and hit the floor with a hideous crash.
And now, thought Jury, comes the hard part.
Panic in a theater filled with over a thousand people.
In the second row, Carole-anne and Mrs. Wassermann were yelling, jumping, applauding the drummer and Jiminez, who had picked up on this improvisational mix. The people round them were distracted momentarily. But those nearest were staring in frozen silence for what Jury knew would last only seconds before the panic started. The audience in the stalls hadn't picked it up yet, but bad news travels fast. He pressed the radio button, spoke into it.
Melrose Plant, seeing Macalvie and Jury throw themselves at Rena Citrine, calmly lit a cigarette and turned to the several dozen people nearest and said, 'That's show biz, ladies and gentlemen.'
A woman screamed. It was one of the shrillest noises Jury had ever heard.
He got off his knees, looked down at the stage, and as soon as he thought it-for God's sakes, Mary Lee!-here she came…
Nervous, hobbling on the stiltlike heels of her glass slippers. The people in the stalls were looking from her up
