At the back of the building, the stage door was standing open—a straight shot if not for the three-hundred-pound lineman crowding the doorway and the eight-foot fence separating the public lot from the backstage paddock. Even if I wanted to bribe that man, he’s ten feet away. And climbing the fence is probably a bad way to introduce myself.
Clay hopped up on the concrete base of a light post instead, looking around for a kid with an extra ticket, a scalper with his hat pulled low. There were no shady characters to be seen on the entire block, however, and Clay had a sinking suspicion there weren’t going to be any. The show was sold out because Priest and his minions had distributed the tickets for free. You either had one or you didn’t.
Reality check! “What now?” he asked aloud. Pay someone for their ticket? What if they recognized him and wondered why the lead singer needed to bribe his way in? It’d kind of raise unwanted attention. Then the element of surprise—his only real ally—would be kaput.
“Holy shit, I told you it was him!”
Oh, no.
Clay whirled and found himself face-to-face with Mo Marquez, who had materialized from the side door of a domestic-looking Chrysler minivan. Mo grabbed at Clay’s hand like they were long-lost twins and pumped it and bumped it in their own secret shake. One look in his eyes told you he was on his way to the dark side of the moon. Inside the van was a smiling bleach blonde with a Debbie Harry cut. Even more obviously high.
“Why aren’t you backstage?” Clay asked.
“We were,” Mo said, “but things got tense with everyone so on edge. I said fuck it—she and me are taking the air.”
“I’m Sunny D,” the girl giggled.
“My sister said you weren’t going to be here. You get sick or something?”
“Oh… yeah, man, puke city. I’m better now though. Only thing, I can’t find my pass, so I’m out in the cold.”
“I’ve got the good stuff kids go for,” the girl giggled.
Mo threw his arm around Clay with surprising strength. “Well, damn, they’re like three seconds from going on. Sunny, let me get this fool inside before all hell breaks loose.”
“Hey, you are that guy.” The girl leaned her whole torso out of the van, blinking her eyes rapidly. “I saw you at the Viper Room. Wow, wow, you’re a god.”
“I doubt that,” Clay said.
“Got something for you.” And without warning, Sunny D grabbed Clay’s hair and pulled his face toward her own. Her bottom lip was pierced with five hoops and they pressed Clay’s lips back against his teeth. After a long and awkward exchange, Clay managed to pry himself free—but not before she’d slipped her spearmint gum into his mouth. “Good luck tonight.”
“Thanks,” Clay said, only mildly staggered.
Mo cracked a grin and brought Clay over to the gate in the high fence, where he showed his laminated pass to a bored-looking guard while Clay, having given Sunny D’s gum a few courtesy chews, stuck the gob on the chain-link and followed him wordlessly inside the paddock. “You’ll need me to take care of you on the road, I can see that,” Mo told him. “Not that I care whose face you suck anymore. Since we’re all going to be rich, I don’t have to beg Savy to marry your ass.”
“She’s worried about you,” Clay said.
“Come on, I don’t have two sisters, do I?” Mo lifted his hands, righteous and rehearsed. “It’s under control. I can think of a hundred people, right off the top of my head, who indulge way more than I do.”
The excuses we tell ourselves, Clay thought. But approaching the stage door, it was unwise to bite the hand that fed. The doorman studied Mo’s pass like it was a third-world passport. Finally, he turned his unfriendly glare on Clay. “Yours?”
“Do you have any idea who this dude is?” Mo asked. “He’s the reason you have a paying job tonight.” When the guard only stared back, he added, incredulous: “Clay Harper? The fucking motherfucking singer!”
“The singer is a chick. The band’s been inside for an hour.”
To Mo’s credit, he wasn’t easily discouraged. “That chick is my sister, bro, and trust me, she don’t want to sing lead. Not that she couldn’t—I mean, I taught her myself when she was four. Me and Kermit the Frog…” He went on about Savy falling in love with the guitar after watching a John Denver Muppet special, and when the doorman told him, in so many words, that he wasn’t impressed, Mo stuck his pass closer to his face: “This says I get to bring a guest. Don’t deny me my inalienable American rights.”
“You already brought a guest,” the doorman shot back. He stuck his clipboard in Mo’s face. “A Miss… Sunny D Purple Stuff—”
“She’s over there.” Mo pointed back at the fence where the bleach blonde was waiting in her fishnet stockings, her mouth already working new spearmint. “Sorry, mamacita, the band list is all screwed up. You’re going to have to watch from the cheap seats!” And Sunny stomped her platform heel into the asphalt.
The doorman shook his head and made Clay sign in as a guest (Clay promptly gave him an “Eddie Wilson” autograph), and with an expression that suggested he hated his job and wished he could relive his gridiron days, busting skulls and concussing with the best of them, he let Clay pass.
Backstage, it was dim. “Edge of Seventeen” was blasting in the arena beyond. The steps to the stage were lit in a fierce purple glow and at the top, Clay caught sight of Savy, her hair pinned up in a series of glowing green barrettes, obsessively working her tuner. He’d made his entrance
