“Because it’s not Davis Karney’s replacement I want. It’s Rocco Boyle’s. You don’t seem to comprehend your talent, child. You’ve spent your life idolizing him, wanting to be ‘like him.’ Never realizing that your destiny is to surpass him.”
Clay exhaled slow. And did his best to resist the overwhelming temptation in those words. “Your pitch is well rehearsed, I’ll give you that.”
“We’ve been watching you for some time.” Again the Payton impression slipped a little. “Haven’t you always felt watched? And was it a coincidence you moved to L.A. at the same time the people in Boyle’s house decided to sell? What luck that they sold it to your father and not the highest bidder. And isn’t it convenient that you found a talented band looking for a frontperson at the same time you met the ghost of your fallen idol?”
Clay was silent. He remembered that first night in the house, seeing Savy and the guys for the first time, how much their single-file procession had reminded him of a Rocket Throne album cover. What had been coincidence and what had been carefully arranged? How much power did the Queen Bitch really wield?
“How is Rocco Boyle? Does he ever wonder why he’s still among the living?” The Hailmaker clacked Payton’s nails on the desk. “He’s here because I let him be. Because I knew he would hone your skills faster. How better to replace him, after all, than to gull him into teaching his replacement? He’s not fighting me the way he thinks. And he may think he can protect you, but where is he now?” He gestured around the room, daring Clay to search for ghosts behind his chair, in the corners, under the bonsai. “Rocco Boyle is a bit player in our greater drama. And he doesn’t know you. You’re hungry. Like he was in his youth. Only hungrier. That’s what he fails to realize—you’re not the miserable, introspective, second-guessing prick he was. You know what you want: To command a stage in front of a hundred-thousand people as their bodies writhe and the dust clouds lift. You want your guitarist to fall madly in love with you and still let you sample the groupies. You want to do everything in life worth doing, and you will.”
“Only to spend an eternity in Hell.”
“Hell?” Payton’s face was openly disgusted. “I wouldn’t have taken you for a disciple of Christian dogma. I’m sure you haven’t prayed since your mother died, and who could blame you? What second-rate God allows that sort of end to his own creation?”
The Hailmaker waited for a response. Clay had none.
“If God is the great album-maker, humanity was little more than a half-assed side project.”
“Then why waste your time on us?”
“Because this album”—Payton’s arms spread, as if to take the world in his embrace—“means everything to me. So it stands to reason that I will fight harder for it than He—She… It—ever will.”
Clay swallowed. He looked again to the Barbie mirror—and the Hailmaker’s eyes were watching him there. Bald-white in the reflection, no pupils, no irises. Instantly Clay felt their gravity. If they wanted to yank him from his chair and drag him over the desk for a feast on the jugular, they could have done so with terrifying ease. For now, the Hailmaker was content to observe him. “What do you expect me to do?” Clay asked fearfully. “Hide some subliminal bomb in my music? Something that gets the cool kids shooting up their shopping mall?”
“I’m not in the business of making anyone do anything. Where’s the fun? I simply want you to think about the awful world we live in—and the fact that, inside a century, the human race will be eradicated by its own poison heart. Then I want you to act for yourself.”
“But why me? What does talent have to do with album sales? Why not hype a lip-syncing boy band?”
“You know the answer better than I,” the Hailmaker replied, and his smile stretched, stretched, stressing the elasticity of Payton’s face. “That isn’t the type of music people live their lives by. But a genuine rock god? A second- and better-coming of Rocco Boyle? There are so many lost souls who will listen.”
“I…” Clay began, but the mirror-eyes clamped down irrepressibly on his jaw.
Payton feigned a glance at a wrist where there was no watch. “Sadly our conversation must end. William Priest will furnish you with a revised copy of the terms. Our arrangement is simple: You make music for me. You have total control over the chords, the melodies, the solos, but the lyrics—the message you deliver to the masses—will be my subject. For that, I give you the skeleton key to the world. Go anywhere, do anyone, live a life truly worth living. And when you’re ready to quit, say so.”
A wave of nausea hit Clay and he doubled over in his chair. Not out of fear—but from a sudden unbridled excitement. Limitless possibility lay at his fingertips. More than he’d ever imagined. And for such a… fair price. ‘In the battle between ants and the stomping boots of Gods, the sidewalk is never yours,’ Roethke had told him, quoting Boyle’s own lyrics.
And the message had been sound—there was no sense in fighting things infinitely more powerful than you were.
Was that such a bad thing?
Anger, melancholy, betrayal, heartache, violence, death, suicide, the darker side of the human soul had long been fodder for great songs. Was it so terrible to make a career of it? If the human race was on the brink of ruin, as the Hailmaker seemed so confident it was, what could Clay or Savy or anyone do to change that? Better to look out for your own and live while you could.
The room was quiet, awaiting Clay’s inevitable nod. No street noise outside, no thuds or murmurs from the neighboring offices; it was as if they were miles from anything or anyone. The only sound came from
