Armageddon Rag Read online

  Mercifully, the break arrived right after the first Barry Manilow song. The waitress handed Maggio the card as he was climbing down from the stage. He glanced at it, baffled, and then across the bar to Sandy. The bafflement gave way to a wary, faintly hostile look as he rounded the bar and came across the room. “What’s the joke, man?” he demanded in a hard unfriendly voice when he arrived. He dropped the card on Sandy’s table, in a puddle of beer.

  “No joke,” Sandy said, sitting up a bit. He gestured to the other chair. “Sit down. I’ll buy you a drink.”

  Maggio looked angry. He made no move to sit. “I get my drinks free, man,” he snapped. “Don’t do me no fucking favors. What kind of shit you trying to pull? You ain’t from no Hedgehog, so don’t gimme any of that crapola.”

  Sandy was a bit taken aback by the vehemence in Maggio’s voice. “Hey,” he said. “Back off. I am from Hedgehog. Sandy Blair. Hell, don’t you recognize me? I interviewed you twice before.”

  “Yeah? When?”

  “In ’69, in Boston, right after the release of the Black Album. And in ’71, two weeks before West Mesa. You were with this weird-looking black girl with a shaved head, but you asked me not to mention her in the story. I didn’t.”

  That seemed to put a dent in Maggio’s hostility. He even smiled briefly and took the chair opposite Sandy. “Hey, yeah, I remember that,” he said. “She was a sweet piece of tail. Maybe you’re straight. What was that name again? Blair?”

  Sandy nodded.

  “Well, sure,” Maggio said, “I think I’m remembering now. We got interviewed a fucking million times, man, it’s hard to keep all you clowns straight. Press guys were like groupies, a whole ’nother bunch in every fucking city, trying to suck you off for whatever they could get.” Maggio must have suddenly realized how offputting that all was, because he paused abruptly, stared hard at Sandy’s face, and then broke into one of the most fatuous fake smiles that Sandy had ever seen. “Hey, man, yeah,” he said, “I remember you now. Hell yes. You were different, not like them other guys. You wrote some good stuff, sure. Heeeeey! Sandy old man, it’s been a long time!”

  It was all about as sincere as Richard Nixon’s Checkers speech, but Sandy decided not to press it. “I had a big beard back then,” he said to give Maggio a graceful out. “That’s probably why you didn’t know me.”

  “Oh, yeah. Sure, man. That’s it.” Maggio turned and beckoned the waitress over. “Still good for that drink, man?”

  “Sure,” Sandy said.

  Maggio ordered Chivas on the rocks. When it arrived, he sipped at it tentatively. “So what can I do ya for, man?” he asked. “You on a story, or what?”

  Sandy nodded.

  A hint of wariness returned to Rick Maggio’s puffy, restless eyes. “Hey, look, you ain’t going to do one of them hatchet jobs on me, are ya? You know, how far he’s fallen and all that crapola?” He waved his hand vaguely, indicating the squalor of the Come On Inn, his band, all of it. “I mean, that ain’t fair, Sandy. This isn’t me, you know. I’m just playing with these assholes as kind of a favor to a friend, you know how it is. I’m balling that little girl on keyboard, and she wanted to get a group together, so I’m helping out. It’s only a temporary gig.”

  “I understand,” Sandy said. “That’s not what I’m interested in. I want to ask you about Jamie Lynch.”

  Rick Maggio relaxed visibly. “Oh, Jamie,” he said. “Sure. I read about it. What kind of animals would do something like that?”

  “You tell me.”

  Maggio’s expression got uncertain. “Tell you? What, man? I don’t know nothing about it. It’s just sad, man.”

  “Is it?”

  “An indictment of our times,” Maggio said. “You can quote me.”

  Sandy made a pretense of noting the quote. “It’s funny,” he said, “but I wouldn’t have thought you’d have cared much about Jamie Lynch getting killed.”

  The singer’s eyes narrowed just a little. “What are you saying, man?”

  “Just that you had no reason to love Lynch.”

  Maggio responded with forced, raucous laughter. “Who told you that, Sandy?”

  “Gopher John Slozewski, for one.”

  “Oh,” Maggio said. “Well, hell, we used to have this joke about John. What do you get when you cross a gopher and a Polack?”

  Sandy shrugged.

  “Our drummer,” Maggio said, guffawing. “I mean, the Gopher was never the brightest guy around. He misunderstood stuff. Like me and Lynch, I guess. Jamie made us. Hell, we had our hassles. What group doesn’t hassle with its manager? But that was a long time ago, and we go back a long long way, man. Why did the Gopher think I might have something against Jamie?”

  “Oh, a couple reasons,” Sandy said. “The drugs, for one.”

  “The drugs,” Maggio repeated. “See what I mean? Dumb shit Polack thinks I’d get upset with a dude who gives me free drugs. Shit, man, I wish I had somebody giving me free drugs now.”

  “How about the pictures of you and the Pittsburgh twins?”

  Just for a brief moment, Sandy thought he saw Rick Maggio flush. It vanished in an uneasy grin. “Fuck, I’d almost forgotten about that. They were something, I tell you. Wish I had their names now. Real prime. And by now they’d be legal, too. Let’s see, what’d they be? Something like twenty-six, twenty-seven. You oughta go interview them, Sandy boy. But hey, look, the Gopher just didn’t get it. Jamie took a few pictures, sure, but it was just a joke. A real yock. Those little numbers didn’t mind one bit, they just wiggled and stuck out their behinds and smiled for the camera. And it never bothered me none. So Jamie liked to kid around a little. Big deal. I was cool, I could take it.” He hesitated. “Hey man,” he said, “you ain’t gonna put nothing about this in your story, are ya? I mean, it don’t bother me or nothing, but my old lady might get weird about it.”

  “I don’t think I’ll need it,” Sandy said carefully, giving no promises. “Slozewski also said that you wanted to get the Nazgûl back together, you and some promoter you’d hooked up with. True?”

  Maggio smiled. “So the Gopher got one right. We’re going to get back together. Wait and see. Edan will fix it all. It’ll be a sensation, man. Biggest fucking comeback in rock history. You tell Jared Patterson to put that on his fucking cover instead of fucking Farrah Fawcett. You tell him Rick Maggio and the Nazgûl are coming back, better than ever.”

  Sandy thought the fantasy was a little pathetic. He squelched a wisecrack about how Maggio seemed to have changed the name of the band. “This all set?” he asked.

  Maggio finished his drink and shook his head. His long dark hair hung down around his bloated cheeks in ropy strands and swayed with his denial. “Nah, but Edan’s working on it.”

  “Edan,” Sandy echoed. He flipped back a few pages to the notes on his interview with Gopher John. “Edan Morse, right?”

  Maggio nodded. “You know Edan?”

  “Slozewski mentioned the name. Slozewski also said that Jamie Lynch wanted no part of it. What about that?”

  “OK, OK,” Maggio said in a hassled tone. “So Jamie Lynch was being a pain in the ass. Sure, man. So what?”

  Sandy shrugged. “So if the cops wanted to get suspicious, they might say you had a motive for killing him.”

  Maggio turned awkwardly in his seat, put two fingers in his mouth, and whistled. “Francie!” he yelled. “Get your ass over here!”

  All conversation in the Come On Inn ceased at the shrill sound of Maggio’s whistle. It resumed tentatively as the keyboard player detached herself from the table where the band was sitting and made her way across the room. As she neared, Sandy saw that he had not been mistaken about her age. Rick Maggio still liked them young. Francie looked maybe seventeen; a child playing at being a woman. The word that came to mind was waif. She reminded Sandy of some of the runaways he had known in the Sixties, flower children wilting too early in the winter of the world, sustained by nothing but fading memories of their summer of
love. Francie was very short. Pretty in a vaguely innocent way. Long, stringy blown hair, big brown eyes, hollow cheeks, lots of rings on her fingers. She was wearing a dirty white tee shirt with a transfer that said PLEASE DON’T SQUEEZE THE CHARMIN over pictures of two rolls of toilet paper, end on, placed in what should have been strategic spots. Only Francie’s thin, boyish figure offered no Charmin to be squeezed, so the effect was more pathetic than erotic. Her smile was a wispy, uncertain thing that flickered on and off like the big C in the electric sign outside.

  When she reached their table, Maggio grabbed her arm, pulled her to him, and sat her on his knee. “This is Francie, my old lady,” he told Sandy. “Francie, tell this fucker where the hell I was the night Jamie Lynch got his heart cut out.”

  “He was with me,” she said in a small voice. “We didn’t have a gig that night, so we stayed home and watched TV and balled. Honest.”

  “All right,” Sandy said, though he thought that Francie had been ready with a reply all too quickly. Almost as if Maggio had rehearsed her.

  “See?” Maggio said, grinning. One of his hands went around her and up under her shirt, searching for Charmin. To wipe away the bullshit, no doubt, Sandy thought.

  Francie ignored him and let the hand wander and squeeze. “You really from Hedgehog?” she asked.

  Sandy nodded.

  “You going to do a write-up on us? How do you like us?”

  “Well, it’s not really my kind of music,” Sandy said politely. “I like harder rock.”

  She gave a tiny little nod, not at all surprised. “I didn’t think you were here for us. Just for Rick, right? Rick’s too good for us, really. He’s a genius. He was with a lot of big groups, you know? With Nasty Weather, and Catfight, and the Nazgûl.” Maggio was grinning behind her, his hand still working at her breasts. She acted like she didn’t notice it.

  “I know,” Sandy told her. “I covered the Nazgûl once. I was a big fan.” He looked at Maggio. “You really think you can get the band together again?” he asked.

  “Hey, man, I wouldn’t josh ya. I said so, didn’t I?”

  Sandy shrugged. “Sure. But I’ve got my doubts.”

  “Well, you just doubt away, it’s gonna happen. Just wait.”

  “You got some obvious problems,” Sandy said. “F’rinstance, I seem to recall that Hobbins is dead.”

  Maggio’s smile was broad and almost complacent. “Edan’s got that figured. Wait’ll you see. It’ll blow your fucking mind.”

  “Oh? How’s he plan to replace a dead man?”

  “No comment,” said Maggio. “Just wait and see, man. Or ask Edan.”

  “Maybe I’ll do that,” Sandy said. “How do I get in touch with him?”

  Maggio was wary. “Edan don’t like people giving out his number,” he said. “Maybe I’ll ask him about you. If he wants to talk, he’ll look you up.”

  “Interesting,” Sandy said. “Why’s he so secretive?”

  Maggio pulled his hand out from under Francie’s shirt and looked uncomfortable. “I told you, I’ll ask him about you. Edan don’t like being talked about.”

  “I see. All right, let’s get back to this Nazgûl comeback. You say this Edan Morse has some scheme for replacing Hobbins. Fine, I’ll give you that much. What makes you think Faxon and Slozewski will go along?”

  “They’ll go along.”

  “Why? They have lives of their own now. They don’t need the Nazgûl anymore.”

  Maggio flushed, and his face took on a strange, angry, bitter look. “Like I do, right? That’s what you’re thinking. They don’t need the fucking Nazgûl, but Maggio sure as hell does, that washed-up old creep, can’t even hack it no more, playing in dumps like this, living with teenaged sluts like her.” He gave Francie a rough push on her shoulder, and she moved off his knee, wordlessly, blank-faced. She stood awkwardly, not knowing whether to leave or stay.

  “I didn’t say that,” Sandy protested.

  “Fuck, man, you don’t have to say it. You’re thinking it, though, ain’t ya? Well so fucking what? You think I need the Nazgûl?” His voice dripped with sarcasm. “Not me, man. Fuck, why should I want to get together with those assholes again? Why should I want to cut more albums, and make millions of fucking dollars, and have hot little twats tearing off my pants every fucking time I turn around? What a fucking bore that would be. Me, I like playing Cal City and Gary and East St. Louis, seeing all them swell Ramada Inns, listening to Moe and Larry and Curly Joe trying to stay in key behind me while the douchebags in the audience shoot off their mouths and swill beer. I like sweating like a pig and getting shit for it. Why the hell should I ever want to play with real musicians again?” He slammed his empty glass down on the table so hard that Sandy thought for a moment it might shatter.

  “You haven’t answered my question,” Sandy said quietly. “So you want the group back together. What about Faxon and Slozewski?”

  “Fuck Faxon and Slozewski,” Maggio said angrily. “A prig and a dumb Polack, who needs ’em. Gopher John wasn’t even in the fucking Nazgûl at the start. He just hung around and ran errands. Go fer this, go fer that, you get it? There’s other drummers out there. I don’t need him, man, you hear me?”

  “You can’t be a Nazgûl reunion all by yourself,” Sandy pointed out.

  “Shit, man, I told you, they’ll go along. I guaran-fucking-tee it, you hear me? Stick that in the Hedgehog! They owe me, both of those fuckers. They ripped me off good. Gopher John got himself a fancy nightclub, Faxon lives like a fucking king, and what do I have? Nothing. Shit. Nada. That’s what I have. The Nazgûl would have been nothing without me. You think those assholes would be grateful, but no, no, it was always stick it to old Rick. After Nasty Weather smashed up, I asked that dumbass Polack to form a new group with me, but no, he goes off with Morden and Leach and leaves me out in the cold. And Faxon just sits there in Santa Fe on his fucking mountain, getting fat on his publishing rights. He got plenty and I got nothing. And he could care less. They owe me, both of them. You know why they screwed me? I’ll tell you why. Because of the chicks. The chicks always got the hots for me. Faxon never touched any of them but you knew he wanted to. He was so horny the come ran out of his fucking ears, but he’d never do nothing about it. And the Gopher, what he got was my sloppy seconds. I was the one they all wanted, they only fucked the Polack ’cause I told them to. See what you get trying to be nice? The chicks dug me better, so now they both got it in for me.” He looked at Francie with a face so flushed and ugly and angry that Sandy thought for a second he might hit her. “I got all the prime cut in those days, not third-rate little cunts like her,” he said. “And I shared, damn them. So they are gonna come around, you hear? They owe me.” He stood up abruptly, angrily, so fast the chair fell over behind him with a loud clatter. “I don’t think I got no more to say to you, man,” he said. Then, to Francie, “Come on, we got to play for these assholes.”

  But as Maggio stormed away from the table, she lingered behind. She looked downcast, but Sandy saw no hint of tears in her eyes. She must be used to it, he thought.

  When Maggio noticed that she hadn’t come with him, he swung around and stared. “Hey!” he yelled. “Come on!”

  “I just wanted to…” Francie began.

  He laughed a very mean laugh. “You wanted to,” he said mockingly. “I’ll bet you wanted to. Well, just go ahead. Fuck him, see if I care. Maybe you’ll get your name in Hedgehog. I don’t need you, cunt. I don’t need anybody.” He winked at Sandy. “Try her out, old boy,” he said. “She ain’t prime, but she’s not bad for what she is.” Then he swung around again and stomped back to the stage. Everyone in the bar was watching him. Maggio had finally gotten the audience’s attention.

  Francie stood a small hesitant step closer to Sandy. “He gets like this sometimes,” she said. “He don’t mean nothing by it, really. He says mean stuff, but he never hits me or nothing. He’s not a bad guy, Mister, not down inside. It’s only that he’s been having bad luc
k, and it gets him mad. He used to be a star. Please don’t write nothing mean about him in Hedgehog, OK? It would hurt him real bad if you did.”

  Sandy rose from the table, frowned, and put his notepad back in his pocket. “You’re a lot more than he deserves, Francie,” he said to her, smiling. He reached down and took her shoulder and gave it a small squeeze.

  “I’m not, really,” she said, averting her eyes. “Rick deserves the best. I can hardly play at all.”

  “There are more important things than music,” Sandy told her. He reached under her chin and raised her head to look him in the eyes. “The truth now,” he said. “Were you really with him that night?”

  “Honest,” Francie said.

  Before Sandy could frame another question, a stabbing blare of music came from the stage, as Maggio drew an angry chord from his electric guitar. “All right, you assholes,” he said loudly into the mike. This time everyone was looking at him. The red-headed bass player and the drummer sat behind him with wary looks on their faces. “We got a jerko reporter here who don’t think Rick Maggio can hack it anymore. He’s going to learn. Right now. So you people can stick your requests up your little bitty assholes, and tie your yellow ribbons round your little bitty cocks, because now we’re going to rock and roll!” He roared the final words and jumped and landed heavily, shaking the stage, and then the whole dingy little joint shook to the challenge of his guitar. The opening chords were awfully familiar, and Maggio’s raw, evil voice grabbed hold of the lyrics the way a man in pain grabs hold of a scream.