Armageddon Rag Read online

  Ain’t gonna take it easy

  Won’t go along no more

  Tired of gettin’ stepped on

  When I’m down here on the floor

  He glared at Sandy as he sang, with an old familiar sneer on his face. As he bulled into the chorus, Sandy had a strange, brief flicker of double vision, as if the puffiness and the beard and the layers of flab were all part of some grotesque illusion, false and somehow insubstantial, and only now was he seeing through them, to where the real Rick Maggio lay trapped.

  “Cause I’m ragin’!” Maggio sang.

  “RAGIN’!” his back-up men echoed.

  They knew enough of the old Nazgûl hit to make a pretense of playing with him. The bass guitar was uncertain and the drums weren’t half as fevered and angry as they ought to be. But at least they knew their lyric, their single one-word lyric, and they put a little rage into singing it. Maggio grinned and drew pain from his guitar.

  “Yes, I’m ragin’!” he sang.

  “RAGIN’!” they screamed.

  The amps had been wrenched up all the way, so talk was impossible and the Come On Inn throbbed to the sound. Some of the audience looked scared. Sandy couldn’t blame them; Maggio looked scary. “Ragin’!” had always been his song, the only cut on Music to Wake the Dead where he’d sung the lead instead of Hobbins, and he was pouring all of his hurt and venom and twisted passion into it now.

  “How I’m ragin’!” he cried.

  “RAGIN’!” roared back.

  Sandy remembered West Mesa. The lights had gone scarlet and surreal and Maggio had stepped forward, skinny, sneering, to perform the song, his big track off their new, unreleased album. And by the third line of the chorus, the audience had gotten the idea, so when Maggio snarled “Ragin’!” sixty thousand people shouted it back at him. Red light and bloodlust and naked rage at all the cruelty of the world; sixty thousand voices come together. Almost sexual.

  Ain’t gonna tote no rifle

  Ain’t gonna sweep no floor

  Screw them liars in their suits

  I ain’t takin’ anymore!

  It was flawed, it was amateurish, yes. But still it had power. Raw, nasty power. Sandy felt it. He could sense the blood that Maggio was giving his guitar, the pain in the voice, the building anger.

  Cause I’m ragin’!

  RAGIN’!

  Yes, I’m ragin’!

  RAGIN’!

  How I’m…

  And then, suddenly, sickeningly, it ended. The music died with a shuddering whine like nails on a vast blackboard, the back-up musicians froze and goggled at one another.

  Down under the stage, the bartender had pulled the plug.

  Rick Maggio floundered like a man who has been interrupted while making love, who has been yanked forcibly and roughly out of his partner in the instant just before orgasm. He looked dazed and sick. Then, when he finally realized what had happened, he went white with anger. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” he screamed down at the bartender. “Get your fucking hands off my equipment. I’ll kill you, you cocksucker!”

  The bartender was wiry, fiftyish, with a jutting chin, wrinkles, and flint chips for eyes. “You got it wrong, Mister,” he said. “You not killing nobody. You punks just pack up and get out of here real quiet now. I don’t want no trouble. And you can forget the money, too.”

  “You hired us!” Maggio said. “We made a deal.”

  “I hire you to come in and play some music. Nice music, what my customers like to hear. I didn’t hire you to hear you foul mouth talking filth, or to have you scare away my trade, or make people deaf with that garbage you were singing. Get out, punk, before I call the cops.”

  Maggio yanked off his guitar savagely and jumped down from the stage. He looked real ugly. “We did two fucking sets, man,” he said. “You owe us money.”

  The bartender took a small step backward, reached under the bar, and came out with a Louisville slugger. “Get out,” he repeated. “You touch me, punk, and I break all you fingers.” Looking at him, Sandy could believe it, too.

  Maggio clenched his fist, raised it, lowered it, and turned away with an effort, shaking. The rest of the band had already started to pack up. Maggio looked like a man about to crack. Sandy didn’t want to see that. The idea left him feeling nauseated. It was time to go. He touched Francie lightly on the arm. “He was good,” he told her. “Tell him that. Tell him I said he was good.”

  She nodded, understanding. Then she went to Maggio and wrapped her thin arms around him and held him while he trembled. Beaten, white, impotent.

  Ragin’, thought Sandy as the door closed behind him.

  SEVEN

  Hello darkness, my old friend/

  I’ve come to talk with you again

  Driving back up the Dan Ryan into the heart of Chicago, Sandy was glum, too dispirited even to push a cassette into his tape deck. He wasn’t sure where he was headed. No more than Rick Maggio was, he thought, or Gopher John or Maggie or poor dead Jamie Lynch, no more than any of them. But it was late and growing later and he was too weary for the road, so he found himself pulling off and cruising through the empty streets of the Loop, pulled by a lassitude that was almost a compulsion.

  He took a room for the night in the Conrad Hilton. “The fifteenth floor,” he told the desk clerk when he checked in. The man looked at him, gave an uncaring shrug, and handed over a key.

  When the bellman left, Sandy’s watch read a little past midnight. An hour later back in New York, he thought. Just the time to call Jared. He decided he’d pose as a late-night DJ doing a trivia quiz and ask Jared to sing the theme song from Superchicken.

  When Patterson’s sleepy, befuddled voice finally came over the receiver, however, Sandy found he had neither the energy nor the inclination for the ruse. “It’s me, Jared,” he said wearily. “I’ve got something I want you to check for me.”

  “Can’t you call at a civilized hour, goddamnit?” Patterson complained. “You promised not to bother me at home. What the hell am I going to do with you, Blair?”

  “You’re going to find out about Edan Morse for me,” Sandy said.

  “Who?”

  “Morse, as in code,” Sandy said. “First name Edan.” He spelled it.

  “Who is this guy?” Jared asked.

  “That’s what you’re supposed to tell me,” Sandy said. “I don’t know, it’s probably nothing, but the name has come up with both Maggio and Slozewski. He’s a promoter or something, wants to do a Nazgûl reunion.”

  “Hey!” said Jared. “That’d be something, right? Really put the icing on this story of yours.”

  “It won’t happen,” Sandy said. “This guy Morse is deluding himself. Still, I want to know who he represents, what kind of groups he’s worked with, what kind of ties he has in the music business. Have one of your green-haired teenyboppers dig through the morgue and send me a full backgrounder. I’m at the Conrad Hilton in Chicago. Express mail it there. I think I’ll be here a while.”

  “Why?” Patterson asked. “Didn’t you see what’s-his-name yet?”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Sandy. “But I’ve got to run down you-know-who.” He hung up, leaving Patterson thoroughly confused, he hoped.

  In truth, Sandy didn’t know how long he would be staying in Chicago, or why he wanted to. A lot of his memories were here in this city, and on the Northwestern campus up in Evanston, and those old memories had been restless lately, stumbling around in his head like so many newly risen zombies. Maybe that was it. Maybe Chicago would help put them to rest. And he felt somehow that he ought to look up Lark Ellyn, for reasons he did not understand. Lark and he had never been close, even in the old days, though circumstances had pushed them together a lot. In the past decade they had drifted apart totally, vanishing from each other’s world. Yet in some obscure way, Sandy knew that Lark Ellyn was a part of his story, just as Maggie had been. The thought came almost as a revelation, but when it came he knew it was right. All his reporter’s
instincts told him that this was larger than the Nazgûl, and infinitely larger than the slaying of Jamie Lynch. He nodded to himself, sleepily, and promised to try to figure out just why that was so on the morrow, and to set up a dinner date with old L. Stephen Ellyn as well.

  He never undressed or turned out the light; sleep took him fully clothed, sprawled on the narrow single bed in the old hotel.

  His dreams were confused and chaotic. The Nazgûl were up on a stage, playing in some great dark hall. People were dancing feverishly. Sandy saw that some of them were on fire. Maggie whirled by, laughing. Blood was running from her nose, and her partner was a charred, blackened skeleton, bits of smoking flesh falling from him as he moved to the music. He saw other faces he knew; Lark, Slum, Bambi. Jamie Lynch was there, frenetic, wired, despite the gaping bloody hole in his chest. Around the perimeter of the dance floor, vague shapeless demons were gathering. Sandy could see them in the darkness, and he cried out, trying to warn people, but the others were blind, they paid no attention to him. They danced on and on. The Nazgûl were playing the “Armageddon/Resurrection Rag” from Music to Wake the Dead. It was a long, long song, it filled the entire second side of the album, and the dancers were lost in it, oblivious. While the music played, they could not hear Sandy’s shouts of warning, they could not see the enemy. Yet the demons were gathering, gathering and taking shape; he saw an army forming around them, in blue uniforms and khaki, with rifles and bludgeons and dark helmets that hid the inhuman, demonic faces. Up on the stage, Hobbins whirled and writhed and sang of death and rebirth. Up on the stage, Gopher John scowled and played his drums in a terrible driven frenzy. Up on the stage, Maggio sweated blood until it soaked through his shirt. He took it off and tossed it away; underneath his flesh was swollen and green and decomposing. Women with flowers painted on their cheeks fought over the bloody shirt. Sandy caught a whiff of tear gas and screamed at them, and they looked up, they all looked up, but it was too late, it was too late, the demons were coming… and the song went on forever.

  He woke, jerking up out of the bed and crying out, trembling for a moment until the nightmare released its hold on him and he looked around and saw the bare, drab hotel room. Running his fingers through his tousled black hair, Sandy took a deep breath, then pulled himself to his feet and went to the bathroom and drank a glass of water from a glass that had been sanitized for his protection. And then a second.

  As he drained the second glass, he realized why he had come to the Conrad Hilton, and why he had asked for the fifteenth floor.

  He would not sleep here, could not sleep here. He looked in the mirror. His clothes were rumpled by sleep, his eyes just the smallest bit bloodshot, his hair an unkempt mess. He splashed some water on his face, pulled out his suitcase, changed into a fresh pair of jeans and a blue cashmere sweater, combed his hair. Then he took his coat from the chair on which he’d tossed it, and went silently out into the hall.

  The hall was dim and quiet. Sandy couldn’t remember whether it had changed or not. Probably, he thought. Probably they had changed the paint, or the carpets, or something. He couldn’t remember. It looked the same. The same as it had been.

  Everything was empty, still. All the doors were closed and locked for the night. But it didn’t matter. Locked doors were no protection. Far, far away, he heard the elevator open, and then he heard footsteps, running footsteps, shouts and screams. And he knew it was happening again. Dazed, still half-asleep, Sandy moved down the hall, watching the room numbers. He turned a corner and froze. It was all there. They swarmed from the elevators, swirled down the halls, asking no questions, answering none, swinging, kicking, hurting. Dark blue figures and others in khaki, with clubs raised and bloody and of course the guns, undrawn yet still there, moving at their sides. Faceless, badgeless, pouring from the elevators, and in their eyes you could see that you were the enemy, nothing human at all, the enemy, the enemy, and they came at you, and they hit you, and nothing you said or did would hold back those clubs. There was chaos in the hall. They were pounding on doors, kicking in others, yanking out the kids inside, slapping them, pushing them, screaming at them to get out, get out, get out. They heard no appeals. He heard the nightsticks crack against arms, teeth, skulls. It was not a sound to forget, not ever a sound to forget. He heard the grunts, the moans of pain, the epithets that went both ways. He saw one slim black kid trying to stand up to them, and they just bowled into him, clubs swinging, surrounded him, hitting and hitting and hitting. Blood on the nightsticks. Then one of them looked up and they saw him. The mouth opened silently, the cold eyes narrowed, and the blue-clad arm pointed, and they moved toward him. Sandy backed up, backed away, and then he was running, screaming a warning, plunging down the halls as fast as he could, around the corners, all the time hearing the footsteps behind him. Ahead was operations. Ahead was the suite. Safety, safety, the ones in charge, they wouldn’t club the ones in charge. The doors to the suite were open. He rushed on in. They all looked up at him, startled. Four of them were playing bridge. Others were scattered around the room, talking softly, shuffling papers, drinking the bitter wine of defeat, licking their wounds. Sandy started to shout at them, lock the doors, close the doors, but it was too late, too late, the enemy was among them. They rushed in, clubs swinging. He saw one bridge player raise a hand to ward off a blow, heard the sickening crunch of contact, saw the nightstick splinter. Someone was demanding a warrant, shouting something about a warrant, and they were hitting him, and then he did not shout anything anymore. “Stop!” Sandy yelled. “Stop it! What’s going on here!?” He shied away from a blow, an arm across his face.

  He opened his eyes then, dizzily, and the hall was empty. Dead and empty. He was panting. No, he told himself. Nothing here, nothing here. No shouts, no screams, no sounds of blows. How could there be? It was not 1968. Those passions were long dead. He did not believe in ghosts. All those closed doors hid only empty rooms and a scattering of conventioners and airline personnel and tired travelers. The only sound was the whir of the elevators, off in the distance around the corner.

  He shoved his hands deep in his jacket pockets and headed toward the sound, punched the button, waited. Finally the elevator arrived. When the doors opened, some old memory, some instinct made him shy away. But there was nothing inside. He entered and rode down to the lobby.

  “I want a different room,” he told the desk clerk. He handed over his key. “Here,” he said. “Have the bellman move my stuff. I’m going out for a walk. I’ll get the new key when I come back.”

  The clerk nodded, politely, noncommittally. “Yes, sir. Was your room unsatisfactory?”

  “I don’t want to be on the fifteenth floor,” Sandy said. “I want to be on a different floor.”

  “You requested that floor,” the clerk pointed out. He was an older man, slender and prim, his thinning hair combed carefully back. He had dark, disapproving eyes.

  “I was there before,” Sandy muttered, looking away, running his fingers through his hair. “Oh, God, yes, I was there before.”

  “Yes, sir. When was that, sir?”

  Sandy looked at him, wondered if he’d worked at the Hilton then, if he’d been on duty that night. “You know,” he said. “You know damn well. That was where operations was. Headquarters was up on the twenty-third floor, I remember that, up where Gene was, but the fifteenth was ours too, the fifteenth was operations, and that was where they came for us.”

  “You were throwing things,” the clerk said, and it looked odd, the way he spoke without moving his lips. “You were throwing ashtrays, and bags of urine, and human excrement. You were throwing things from your windows. You deserved it.”

  “No,” Sandy said. “Lies, all lies. I was there, dear God, yes. No one threw anything, not us. It was a goddamned fucking lie, you hear?” But the man was staring at him, smirking at him, mocking him behind that polite smile. Sandy felt sick. He spun, lurched across the lobby, toward the doors, feeling haunted and hunted. The lobby was full of faceles
s blue shadows, and masked Guardsmen, and they glared at him as he passed. He passed through them, running, staggering, desperate for air.

  Michigan Avenue was deserted as far as the eye could see. Sandy glanced at his watch, leaning back against the side of the building. It was half past four. Across the street was the dark, threatening emptiness of Grant Park, a great darkling plain of brown grass and concrete under the glittering cliffs of the parkside buildings. He moved toward Michigan and Balbo, driven by something he could not articulate.

  The ghosts were there, too. Sandy stopped, shivering in the cold October air and the wind off the lake, remembering another night, a hotter night, warm and muggy, when the slightest breeze was a welcome relief. All around him phantoms stirred and took on shimmering, insubstantial shapes. The armies of the night, he thought. And there they were. On one side of the street was a ragtag, brightly colored, taunting mass of children, armed with ribbons and banners and flowers and slogans. They are all so young, Sandy thought, and remembered how different it had seemed back then, how very different. There were no faces, never any faces, only blurs, images, and emblems. Young blond hair, clean, shimmering, flowing past innumerable trim waists. Faded, worn jeans with flower patches. Headbands. Daisies. Granny glasses, halter tops, paisley shirts, bell-bottoms, armbands, headbands. Yippies and hippies and Mobe people and Clean for Gene. Holding hands. Singing. Chanting. Lips moving silently. The front rank was all young women, pretty young women, girls really, and dimly he saw the marshals moving through the crowd, heard them saying, “Chicks up front, get the chicks up front. Keep it calm. Keep it calm.” The whole in constant motion, people shoving this way and that, turmoil, stirring, everything blending together, a great melting of shadow forms. Banners waving above it all, red flags and black flags, slogans painted on sheets, the peace symbol and the Viet Cong flag, everywhere banners shifting and swaying and snapping when the wind came sighing off the lake. Everyone swaying, girls and guys and banners all together, hands joined, arms linked, swaying, lips moving.