February Thaw Page 8

  "You never know what?"

  "What?"

  The old man sighed. "Never mind."

  "Man, if I could play like you…"

  "You'd sound like a crap imitation." He let the guitar slide around on its strap until it hung upside down along his back, tangling with the long grey pony-tail. "Play like yourself," he growled, turning away.

  "Don't go! I need to know how you do that! Please…"

  The scuffed motorcycle boot, raised to step away, settled gently back onto the packed sand. "Ah, the magic word. You really want to know how I play like I play?"

  "Yes!"

  "It's these." The old man reached into the pocket of his faded jeans and pulled out three neon green picks.

  Jack looked down at the plastic triangles and then back up at dark eyes. "Picks?"

  "Magic picks."

  "Are you shitting me?"

  "I wouldn't think of it. These picks will let you pull the music in your soul out of your axe."

  "I don't do soul. Or country or R&B. I do metal, man."

  "And does anybody actually listen to you? I thought not," he continued, raising a hand to cut off Jack's sputtering rationalization. "Use these picks and I guarantee people will listen. You give me that coat you're carrying, and you can have all three of them."

  "The coat?"

  "Yes."

  "That I'm carrying?"

  "Yes."

  "For three magic picks?"

  "Yes."

  "Totally a deal, dude!"

  *

  Jack ran back to the dilapidated third floor walk-up, past the boarded up storefronts and the uncollected trash with the magic picks clutched tightly in one hand. He couldn't wait to hear what the rest of the band would say.

  *

  "Are you fucking nuts, man?" Disbelief – and possibly hunger – made Gustav's voice more than a little shrill. "We sent you out to buy food and you came back with fucking guitar picks?"

  "Magic guitar picks," Jack explained, holding out his hand, the three picks piled on his palm.

  "Can we eat them?"

  "No, but…"

  "Then I don't care if they make you sound like Mike Fucking Nesbit. You traded the only thing we had that was worth anything for them and they're crap!" Gustav slapped Jack's hand aside.

  Frustration added force to the slap.

  The picks flew up, turned slowly through a beam of late afternoon sunlight, and disappeared out the open window.

  Jack searched until long after dark, but the picks had disappeared into the debris that filled the vacant lot.

  They didn't practise that night. They went to bed early listening to the rumblings of their empty stomachs and Maitland complaining about having to return to work for the finance department of the municipal government.

  Jack usually woke up when the beam of sunlight spilling in through the curtainless window had moved far enough across the room to fry his face. On cloudy days, he slept in. On this particular day, after having rolled over and gone back to sleep twice, he finally sat up and peered across the room at the window. Either his internal clock was way, way off or the pollution levels over the city had gotten seriously out of hand.

  He scrambled into the clothes piled on the floor beside his mattress, and, holding his shoes, padded barefoot across the room. If he turned on the lights he'd wake the guys and considering how pissed they already were about the whole food thing, he decided he'd just do a little checking first.

  The window opened almost quietly.

  The total lack of light beginning to seriously freak him out, he leaned through the opening and almost immediately cracked his head against another building – a building that definitely hadn't been there when he went to sleep.

  A building about fifty stories tall and exactly the shape of the vacant lot, Jack realized, standing out on the sidewalk a few moments later. It looked like it had been made from sheets of gold-coloured glass and, gleaming in the sunlight, it seemed to promise that, inside, dreams could come true. Written in shiny black on the big front doors were the words, B. Stalk Productions.

  He could see a security guard sitting at a desk in front of a pair of doors. One was the elevator, the other bore a sign saying EMERGENCY EXIT. On the wall between them were about a hundred gold records. At least Jack assumed they were records; he'd never actually seen one up close and personal. After scraping a bit of crusty plum sauce off his t-shirt with the edge of his thumb nail, he pushed open the door and shuffled across the polished marble floor.

  "Dude?"

  The guard looked up from his monitors, dark eyes locking on Jack's face. "Yes?"

  Jack opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. "Do I, like, know you?"

  Inside his short, grey beard, the guard's lip curled. "No."

  "Are you sure because…"

  "I'm sure. What do you want?"

  "What do I want?"

  "What. Do. You. Want?" the guard asked again, very slowly.

  And Jack remembered why he'd come into the building. "What does B. Stalk Productions, like, produce?"

  "Music, boy. Mr. Stalk is a giant in the music business. Sitting up there in his offices at the top of this tower, he decides what gets heard."

  "I've never heard of him."

  "Has he ever heard of you?"

  "Not yet but…"

  "Then I'll have to ask you to leave the property."

  "Yeah but…"

  "Now, boy, or I'll…"

  Jack never found out just what the guard was about to do because at that very moment a stretch limo pulled up outside the building and four faceless minions in suits herded a girl out of the back and into the lobby. She wasn't the kind of girl he'd ever expected to see coming out of a car like that. She amply filled both jeans and tank, an electric pink mouth seemed curled up into a permanent sneer, and a tattoo on one rounded arm read, "BITE ME!"

  Under a ragged-edged cap of glossy brown hair, she looked angry.

  Jack loved that about her. He loved everything about her. He really loved the way she'd totally drawn the attention of the guard. Backing up slowly, he headed for the emergency exit and slipped through as his new love used some very, very bad language and was even more distracting.

  What a voice! It sounded just like Jack had imagined it would. It sounded the way she looked, strong and edgy and different.

  He hated to leave her, but this was his big chance.

  He'd climb all the way up to B. Stalk if he had to and force him to listen to the demo.

  He reached back into his pocket, touched the disc for luck, and started climbing.

  By the sixth floor, his knees hurt.

  By the tenth floor, he started singing to keep up his spirits.

  By the twelfth floor, he stopped singing because all those bottles of beer falling off the wall were making him thirsty.

  On the twenty-third floor, a skeleton wearing a white jumpsuit and rather a lot of tacky jewellery leaned against the door. Jack had seen freakier art on cases so no real big. "Dude, I guess you never did leave the building," he said thoughtfully as he passed.

  He felt as if he'd been climbing for days when he finally staggered up the last flight of stairs and stood staring at the gold number 50 stencilled onto it. For a moment, he didn't realize what it meant then, his heart beating like a double drum kit, he very carefully pulled open the door.

  He was standing at one end of a long hall. At the nearer end, a huge window let in the light. At the far end was a double door, the right half slightly open. To his immediate left was the elevator. Along the other side of the hall, were half a dozen closed doors. He could hear voices and, logically, they could only be coming from one place.

  His shoes sinking deep into the plush beige carpet, he made his way toward the open door.

  The cream coloured walls were covered in laminated posters of half a dozen interchangeable boy bands – where the word boy had been stretched to its limit and beyond – and three different blondes. The 'oh look at
me I'm a bad girl but not really' poses were all slightly different so Jack assumed they were different blondes. He'd never considered himself overly imaginative, but he could've sworn the eyes on the posters followed him as he passed.

  "Look, I don't know about this, Mr. Stalk."

  It was the voice of the girl. She sounded like she was still angry although a hint of uncertainty had begun to soften her edged tone.

  "But I do know, my dear. I've handled a hundred young women, worked them like clay, made them into what they are."

  "I guess but…"

  "You want to be a star don't you?"

  "Yeah, but…"

  "Trust me."

  Trust him? Jack shuddered as he peered around the edge of the door. He'd trust that deep oily voice about as far as he'd trust Maitland to maintain a certain minimum standard of personal hygiene. Which was to say: not very.

  The room behind the door was incredible. The desk, the leather sofa, the book cases, the poster of the current flavour of the month covering the wall behind the desk; they all looked like they'd been super-sized. The minions looked dwarfed by the furnishings. In the centre of the room, perched in a chair so overwhelming the thick, ridged rubber soles of her boots barely touched the floor was the love of Jack's life. The moment he saw her, all thoughts of having B. Stalk listen to his demo fled.

  She was… blonde!

  And somehow, she looked… thinner!

  "Packaging, my dear, is everything."

  Jack's gaze jerked over to the music mogul. He was kind of a little guy actually; short, and skinny, and going bald. The cigar clenched between his teeth was probably bigger than his…

  "We'll work the tattoo into the design of something a little more marketable. Something like a butterfly or a unicorn. Won't be any trouble at all, will it boys?"

  "No, sir, Mr. Stalk!"

  Given the harmonies in their unison answer, Jack had a horrible suspicion he knew what happened to boy bands when maturity won out over marketing.

  She chewed on her lower lip, no longer electric pink but softer, glossier, and said, "I… I… I need to take a piss."

  "Tinkle."

  "What?"

  "From now on, you tinkle."

  Jack shuddered.

  Her fingers gripped the arms of the chair so tightly the leather squeaked a protest. "Whatever. I gotta go."

  "First door on the left."

  Jack flattened against the wall as she came out into the hall, remaining hidden safely behind the open door and exposed again as it closed. Fortunately, she didn't look back.

  "The girl's got potential."

  "Yes, sir, Mr. Stalk."

  "As soon as we change the way she sings, and pierce that navel, we'll have ourselves another…"

  As the bathroom door closed behind him it cut off the name of the blonde they were planning to copy. Jack was just as happy not knowing.

  He'd never been in a girl's bathroom before. It was cleaner and it smelled better and instead of a condom dispenser there was a…

  Eww.

  "Hey! What the hell are you doing in here?"

  Oh, yeah. That was the rage he loved! He ducked her swing, backed up against the sink, and raised both hands in surrender. "I'm here to rescue you!"

  "Are you tripping?"

  "No! This Stalk guy, he's trying to…"

  "To make me a star, fuckwad."

  "OW!" Hopping sideways, rubbing his shin, Jack tried to watch her fists and her feet simultaneously. It wasn't easy given that he was beginning to feel a little faint with hunger. "He's not trying to make you a star. He's trying to make you a pop star."

  "That's a lie!"

  "Don't take my word for it, look in the mirror."

  Straightening cautiously, he watched her face as understanding dawned.

  She reached out one trembling finger and touched her reflection. "Oh my god. I'm almost… cute."

  Grabbing the hem of her tank, she hauled it up, bent forward and scrubbed the soft glossy colouring off her mouth. Just as Jack began to wonder what she was going to do next, she reached into the depths of her cleavage and pulled out a silver tube. In half a heartbeat, her lips were electric pink again.

  "Man, that's better."

  And it was, although Jack was too busy watching her put the lipstick away to say anything.

  "Well don’t just stand there with your thumb up your ass, let's haul it!"

  "Right." A raised hand held her back as he peered out into the hall. The coast was clear and the elevator was still at the top floor. "Come on!"

  Holding his breath, Jack led the way. The door to B. Stalk's office was still open and something about the music mogul suggested his life would not be pleasant if they were caught. Fortunately, the carpet muffled two sets of footsteps as easily as one. Jack had begun to breathe normally again when, suddenly, the posters lining the walls cried out, "Master! Master!"

  Jack froze. The girl froze. They looked at each other. They looked at the walls.

  "Okay," Jack muttered. "Didn’t expect that."

  "Master! Master! A dirty metal head is helping the new girl escape!"

  From the far end of the hall came an enraged roar. "Fe, Fi, Foe, Justin! After them!"

  "Yes, sir, Mr. Stalk!"

  All at once, standing still seemed like a bad idea. "Run!"

  The posters were shrieking, the minions were yelling, but they were at the elevator and Jack jabbed the button. The door whooshed open. He dove in, hit the close door button, grabbed his love by the arm, and dragged her inside.

  "That's for bleaching my hair, dipshit!" she screamed back at the minion sinking slowly to his knees, both hands clutching his crotch.

  Then the door closed and they were moving. It took a few floors for that final word to stop echoing within the stainless steel enclosure.

  Mouth open Jack stared in admiration. "Man," he said when there was a chance of being heard, "have you got a set of pipes."

  She spread her hands, the gesture somehow taking in not only the tower but her reason for being in it. "Well, duh."

  "I'm uh, Jack. Jack Grimm."

  Her eyes narrowed. "Stage name?"

  "Yeah. But not the Jack part." He waited.

  After a long moment, she sighed. "Lyra Gold. Not a stage name. Dumbass parents."

  He nodded sympathetically. "Rough."

  "No shit."

  They watched the numbers fall on the digital display.

  "So now what?" Lyra asked as they passed the halfway mark.

  "Well, there's only the one elevator so the minions'll have to take the stairs."

  "Yeah, but there's a security guard on the first floor; they'll just call down and he'll be waiting for us."

  Jack had a strong suspicion that one elderly security guard would be no match for Lyra's boots, but he kept it to himself and pressed the button for the third floor. "I flop next door," he explained. "The building's three stories high, but the stories, they're not so high. Not so high as here, I mean. Because they're high enough for themselves. Anyway, that oughta put the window on the third floor hall right over the roof."

  "What?"

  "We're going to jump out the window to the roof of the building next door."

  "Right."

  The elevator chimed softly and the door opened to an empty hall; plainer than the hall on the fiftieth floor and poster free, but, otherwise, identical.

  Jack listened at the stairwell door. He could hear the minions descending, moving fast. "Oh sure," he muttered, joining Lyra at the window. "You guys get to come down the stairs."

  He could see his roof, his peeling tar paper, his fine patina of pigeon shit, only an easy four foot jump away.

  "It doesn't open!"

  "No problem." Taking a deep breath, Jack moved back a dozen paces and ran at the window as hard as he could. The noise he made on impact wasn't quite splat, but it was close.

  "Move your skinny ass out of the way," Lyra snapped.

  It seemed like a plan, so he did
and then watched amazed as Lyra took a deep breath – he was definitely in love now – and sang. One note. One very high, sustained note.

  The window shattered.

  "You okay?" she asked as the glass fell to the roof below.

  "Thrash metal band," he told her. "I got callouses on my ear drums an inch thick."

  "Sweet." She gestured out the jagged opening. "Age before beauty."

  "Pearls before swine."

  "Together?"

  Her hand was warm and dry.

  "Together."

  A moment later, they stood shoulder to shoulder on the roof and stared up at the tower. As impossible as it seemed, they could clearly hear the footsteps of the minions still pounding after them, prodded on by screams from the fiftieth floor.

  "YOU BELONG TO ME, LYRA GOLD! WE HAVE A CONTRACT!"

  "You signed a contract?"

  "I was desperate!"

  Jack raised both hands. "Say no more. Been there."

  "I'LL GET YOU! I'LL GET YOU AND YOUR LITTLE BAND TOO!"

  "I think he's confused," Lyra muttered as Jack ran for the door leading down into his building. "Hey, where you going?"

  "I've got an idea."

  The door was never locked, but then again the wood was so rotten there wouldn't have been much point. Jack ripped it open and stuck his head into the mouldering stairwell. "Gustav!"

  Down below, the door to the apartment opened and Gustav peered out into the hall. "Dude?"

  "Up here!"

  "Dude!"

  "My axe, man. Throw me my axe!" After a moment he added, "And an amp and an extension cord!"

  *

  The tower threw the first note back at him. Jack smiled. He was just warming up. By the third note, Gustav was plugged in and playing beside him. By the… well, after a while, Maitland had his set up and was pounding out a rhythm on his skins. Chording right up at the top of his fret board, Jack turned to Lyra and nodded.

  "Dude!" Gustav bellowed into his ear. "She doesn't know the words!"

  "Yeah, she does!"

  "But…"

  "Trust me!"

  And Lyra sang. They weren't the words as written, but that didn't matter.