“He didn’t kill himself!” Clay screamed at the crowd. “He was murdered goddammit!”
“Amen!” someone else shouted back. “You see, Lana, I keep telling you.”
Then Clay was working his way back downhill, hoping no one would recognize him. The last 24 hours was catching up with him. His head was as light as a helium balloon, his neck an ever-lengthening string. His feet stumbled clumsily under him; he held hoods and side mirrors of parked cars. What happened to Boyle? he kept asking himself. Where was he now that his anchor was gone?
The very idea of it overwhelmed Clay, and when he next blinked his eyes, he found himself lying on a patch of dirt beside a surf wagon. Somehow he’d passed out, mid-gallop. How long he’d been lying there he didn’t rightly know, but the smoke was still rising, its pillar like a tubular organism growing in a time-lapse video. And since no one had stumbled over his unconscious body, Clay casually lifted himself and continued downhill.
His phone rang. His father’s ID filled the screen.
Peter’s voice was as tight as a snare skin. “There’s a fire at the house.”
“I know. I can see the smoke.”
“There’s a police captain here, says he has a tip you started it. Tell me that’s not true.”
“It’s not true.”
“Okay.” His father almost sounded convinced. “I told them about the break-in last night. Come home. Show your license at the gate and talk to these guys. Tell them everything you—”
“Listen, I know you don’t want to hear this, but you can’t trust Essie. She’s not herself anymore. Don’t invite her in. Don’t go anywhere with her—”
“For shit’s sake, Clay, you have to stop—”
“I’m not saying she’s responsible for the fire—but she’s involved with the people who are. Please, trust me on this.”
Peter didn’t; so said his silence. “Where are you, son?”
“Son?”
Up the hill, Boyle’s fans, watching live feeds on their phones, uttered a collective gasp. “The roof just collapsed!” a guy who looked like Ric Ocasek shouted. Clay prayed that Peter didn’t hear the background noise. But—“You’re already here, aren’t you?”
“Don’t trust her,” Clay blurted. And his downhill jog broke into a run.
Somewhere between the house and The Knickerbocker it occurred to him that he’d lost all track of time. A look at the Jeep’s digital clock rattled his nerves all the harder. It was nearly one. By the time he reached the hotel, he was more than an hour late for their band meeting. Would Savy and the guys even still be there? And what excuse could he give? I was dancing with the devil in my shrink’s office. I blew you off to watch a piece of rock infamy—not to mention our own rehearsal space—get torched.
He banged through The Knickerbocker’s door hard enough to draw the ire of every dusty old-timer in the lobby. The desk clerk who’d been there the night of his band audition—she of the triple-thick glasses and put-upon attitude—gave Clay an admonishing dose of her eyes as he approached. “Is Savannah here? Spider?”
She seemed to be expecting Clay and lifted the desk phone. “Fine, I’ll send him up, but don’t give me lip,” she told whoever picked up. “Yeah? Well… ‘F’ you too!” She banged the handset down and told Clay, as if it was his fault, “Go to 11. Everyone’s there.”
Relief hit him in a flood. His band was here. Savy was here, safe and sound.
He found Spider and Fiasco under the big hotel letters on the roof, drinking, smoking Jane, and in a far more festive mood than he’d anticipated. At Clay’s entrance, they regarded him without hostility. “Sorry I’m late. I was looking for Savy this morning and then I…”—but looking at them, their odd smiles, he understood it was best to hold back—“I’m not sure where my head is at.”
“No worries,” Spider told him. “We’re here another hour.”
“Waiting for Savy to finish her shift,” Fiasco added.
“Savy’s okay then?”
“Better than okay, my man. Considering she’s working her last-ever shift of the last-ever meaningless job of her life.”
“Her last…?” Clay asked. But it was as obvious as their cannabis stink. In a way, he’d been preparing for this since he’d escaped Payton’s office. “Priest was here already, wasn’t he?”
Fiasco grinned back.
The fire was a literal smoke screen tokeep me away. “Please tell me you didn’t—”
“Sign a contract? Agree to headline a gig at the Palladium tonight? Make all our worldly dreams come true?” Fiasco tipped Spider a wink. “Why the hell would we ever do that?”
“A friend of a friend knew an entertainment lawyer,” Spider said. His tone was apologetic. Almost apologetic. “She looked it over, made some revisions. We showed it to Mr. Priest and he was okay with the demands. He even suggested a few more.”
Clay shut his eyes. No more fight in him—no anger or bitterness or even sadness. Just a strangling exhaustion that sunk all the way into his… spirit, essence, soul?… whatever he was at the vital core. Savy. Where was Savy in all this?
“And he told us the truth about you,” Fiasco went on.
“The truth? You think a guy like Priest knows what that is?”
“He arranged for you to meet with the head of his company. Isn’t that right?”
Clay stared numbly back at his bass player’s clenched teeth. It reminded him of Karney’s lipless grin, lifting from the swimming pool. “Yeah, you could say that.”
“Mr. Priest has seen it hundreds of times. Guys who act like Axl Rose even if they haven’t sold a single album. You live in privilege, after all. You don’t understand that if
