Armageddon Rag Read online

  Sandy stared up at him. “Jesus,” he blurted. He couldn’t believe he’d been so stupid. “I’m a fucking moron,” he said loudly. “It’s the same fucking night, isn’t it? September 20th!”

  Comprehension dawned in Slozewski’s dark eyes. “Oh,” he said. “You mean Jamie got himself killed on the same night.” He scowled. “That’s weird.”

  Sandy pounded the table. “It’s more than weird,” he said angrily. He had decided not to tell Slozewski all that he’d learned from Davie Parker, but now he abruptly changed his mind. Gopher John had to know. “This is kinky in the extreme. Jesus, why didn’t I realize! Sharon was right, I’ll never be the hippie Sherlock Holmes. Listen, it wasn’t any coincidence that Lynch got killed on the anniversary of West Mesa. There’s more to it than that.” He told Slozewski about the album, playing over and over, and about the poster that had been taken down and spread out under Lynch’s body. Halfway through his account, their salads arrived. Slozewski took up his fork and began to eat with methodical slowness, chewing each bite thoroughly, his eyes never leaving Sandy’s face.

  “I see,” he said when Sandy was done.

  “That’s why I asked about a Nazgûl cult,” Sandy said. “We thought maybe someone like that was responsible. Someone unhinged by your old music.”

  “Nah. I don’t know of anybody like that.”

  Sandy ate a forkful of salad, hardly tasting it, and put down the fork again. “Where were you that night?”

  “At the Gopher Hole,” Slozewski said. “Same place I am every night. Unless it was a Sunday. It wasn’t a Sunday, was it?”

  “No,” said Sandy. “Well, you’re clear then.”

  Slozewski shoved away his empty salad bowl. “Clear?”

  “You’ve got an alibi.”

  “Do I need one?”

  “The killer offed Lynch on top of one of your posters, while playing one of your records, on the anniversary of your last concert, in a manner described in one of your lyrics. What do you think? You admit there was no love lost between you. If you don’t have a cult of crazed fans, then suspicion is naturally going to fall on you and Maggio and Faxon.”

  “Well, I was here,” Slozewski said, frowning. “It ain’t Rick or Peter neither. No way, you hear?”

  The waitress cleared away the salad bowls. Sandy had hardly touched his. “There’s another thing,” he said, as she served the prime rib.

  Slozewski stared at him. “Yeah?”

  “You might be next.”

  “What?”

  “Think about it,” Sandy said. He cut into his meat deftly, put on a bit of horseradish, swallowed hastily. “Hobbins, now Lynch.”

  “Oh, fuck,” Slozewski said derisively. “You can’t be real, man. Even if you are, I’m safe till September 20th rolls around again, ain’t I?”

  “Maybe,” Sandy said, “but I’d watch out if I were you.”

  “I always watch out,” Slozewski said. Then he fell to his dinner, eating in a grim methodical silence. Sandy watched his hard, scowling face for a minute before returning his attention to his own prime rib. They dined in an uneasy quiet.

  It wasn’t until dessert and coffee that conversation resumed. “I don’t like this,” Slozewski said, as he stirred three heaping spoons of sugar into his cup and tried to whip it into dissolution. “Not one fucking bit. I don’t know what the hell is going on, but I ain’t got nothin’ to do with it.” He grimaced. “You’re going to talk to Rick and Peter?”

  Sandy nodded.

  “Watch out for Maggio,” Slozewski said. “He’s had some bad times. He’s a little crazy sometimes. I hope he isn’t involved. Don’t like Rick much, but I never thought he’d do nothin’ like this.”

  “He played a wicked guitar,” Sandy said.

  “The best. At least at the start, before the drugs. The drugs ruined him. He could have been world class, but after West Mesa he just got worse and worse. If anyone had a good reason to hate Jamie Lynch, it was Rick.” He paused for a moment, and then started talking about Maggio and the Nazgûl, about the way they had gotten together. “I wasn’t the first drummer, you know,” he said. “I just liked their sound, though, so I hung around, made myself useful. That’s why they started calling me Gopher John. Finally Peter gave me my chance, and I showed him what I could do. The next night Regetti was out of it and I was drummer.”

  “This guy Regetti,” Sandy said. “Was he bitter? Maybe he’s the killer.”

  “Nah. He died in a motorcycle accident before we even cut our first album. He was OK, you know, but I was a better drummer.” He went on, and talked for a long, long time.

  Sandy listened respectfully. “You miss it,” he said, when Gopher John fell silent.

  “Yeah, a little,” admitted the big man in the pin-striped suit, and for a moment, across the table, Sandy could glimpse the ghost of a wild-haired, scowling young man in a tie-dyed poncho and jeans, a magical madman surrounded by black-and-red drums, his cheeks flushed, his hands a blur, hammering out the thunder. “I miss performing,” he said. “There’s nothing like it, not a goddamned fucking thing in this goddamned fucking world, Blair. You see them out there, thousands of them, hundreds of thousands, and they move, they move and sway and dance and clap their hands, and all because of you, your sound. Your music fills them, does things to ’em, and somehow you get something back, you know? You can feel it. Energy, like. It comes pouring off the audience and into you, and it makes you crazy, it makes you better. You’re like some kind of fucking god up there.” He looked pensive. “And the music,” he added. “I miss that most of all. The bands that play the Gopher Hole, hell, I try to like them. I mean, I know music can’t stand still, and the new sounds are… well, you know, if we put them down, then how are we any different from the assholes who put down our sound? So I give them a place to play, the ones who deserve it. Only, down deep, I know something. I know it.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “They’re not as good as we were,” he said softly.

  Sandy laughed and felt warm. “Most of them, in fact, are shit.”

  Gopher John Slozewski leaned back and grinned. He glanced at his watch briefly.

  “Should we be getting back?” Sandy asked.

  Gopher John shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. The place is open now. The Steel Angels will be starting their first set. Only, you know, I don’t really feel like it. To tell the truth, the place runs damn good without me. Want another cup of coffee?”

  “Sure,” Sandy said.

  Slozewski raised a finger and summoned the waitress. They lingered over coffee for a long time, sitting in the quiet of the steakhouse while Gopher John talked about the old days, and the Nazgûl, about the concerts and the rallies and the songs. He rambled and reminisced and recounted old anecdotes in a voice grown faintly wistful, no doubt because of the wine. Wine had a way of making you wistful, Sandy thought. From time to time, Sandy would break in with a laugh, or with a story of his own about some acquaintance they’d shared in the rock world or the Movement. Mostly he just listened, though, staring out the window absently as Gopher John rolled on, and the coffee cups were refilled and then refilled again. The check came and Sandy covered it with his Visa, while cars plunged through the Jersey night, headlights stabbing blindly ahead. Sandy watched them and wondered why they were all in such a hurry to reach that darkness on the road ahead, that darkness that swallowed them whole. Once he saw the lights of a jetliner pass overhead.

  Later, much later, he heard sirens and glanced out just in time to see a blur of passing light, flashing frenetically. “Some hippie must have gotten on the turnpike,” he said, interrupting Gopher John.

  “What?” Slozewski said.

  “Cops,” Sandy replied, gesturing. “Didn’t you see them? You can still hear the sirens.”

  Slozewski frowned, and listened. “Nah,” he said. “That’s a fire truck.” And so it was; the noise grew instead of diminishing, and two long red trucks passed by in an almighty hurry. A minute later came an ambulance, a
nd an even bigger fire truck, and finally two cop cars, whose sirens did indeed have a completely different sound. “What the hell is going on?” Slozewski muttered. He got up suddenly. “Come on.”

  Sandy grabbed his jacket and his Visa receipt and followed Slozewski out into the parking lot. Gopher John was standing next to Daydream, staring off down the road. He said nothing.

  Down where he was looking, the whole eastern sky was suffused with reddish light.

  Another police car rushed by. Gopher John sniffed. “I can smell the smoke,” he said.

  “Industrial fire?” Sandy said. “A lot of plants out that way, right?”

  Slozewski turned his head and stared at him. “Yeah,” he said. “And my place is out that way, too. Let’s go.”

  “I hope it’s not…” Sandy started.

  “Let’s GO!” Slozewski roared, his voice suddenly ugly and afraid.

  Sandy glanced briefly at the spreading red wound on the night sky, then hurriedly unlocked the doors of Daydream. A minute later, they were on the highway, speeding toward the conflagration. Gopher John had his arms crossed tightly against his chest. He was scowling and silent. Sandy drove with a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.

  Long before they got there, they knew. The road took a small curve past a Midas Muffler shop and a Burger King, and then they could see it clearly, the flames licking at the night, the thick clouds of greasy smoke rolling up and away, the ring of fire engines laying siege. Gopher John said nothing at all. Sandy pulled into the parking lot and slammed on the brakes without bothering to find a parking place. The lot was full; full of police cars and fire trucks, and cops and firemen rushing everywhere shouting orders, and wild-eyed crowds of civilians staring at the fire and calling one another’s names and sobbing. And cars. The lot was full of cars. The place had been packed, Sandy thought as he stared at all the cars.

  He felt the heat on his face as soon as he opened the door and climbed out. It was a chilly October night, but he had no need of his jacket. Slozewski had gotten out faster and was already plunging through the crowd. Sandy put his car keys in his pocket and followed. Some of the people, he noted, had torn clothes and faces smudged by smoke. There was a lot of smoke. He passed a young girl, who was screaming hysterically and pounding her fists on the asphalt of the lot while a friend tried to restrain her. Sandy looked at her helplessly, then back at the fire. Water was pouring from the encircling hoses, but it seemed to have no effect on the blaze. As he watched, a huge gout of bright orange flame went roaring up, and the crowd shuddered like a single frightened animal and edged backward, away from the fresh wash of heat and the acrid scent of smoke.

  He found Gopher John up by the police line, arguing with an overweight cop. “You got to let me go in. I own the place. It’s mine.”

  “Nobody goes in,” the cop said. “Can’t you understand? You want to get yourself burned up, Mister?”

  “But I’m the owner!” Slozewski insisted.

  Sandy put a hand on his shoulder, but Slozewski glared at him and shook it off. His face was red with reflected light, and fires danced in his eyes. “There’s nothing you can do,” Sandy told him.

  Slozewski ignored him. “Let me by!” he said to the cop.

  The policeman just shook his head curtly and called out to one of his fellows. Two other cops came over. “He says he owns the place,” the fat one remarked.

  “Would you come with us?” one of the other policemen said, taking Slozewski by the arm.

  Gopher John stared at him. He shook his head and let himself be led off through the crowd. Sandy started to follow, but the fat cop grabbed him by the sleeve. “Hey, where you think you’re going?”

  “I’m press,” Sandy said, trying to shake off the grip.

  “So?” the cop said. “You wait here.”

  Sandy waited. The fire burned on and on. No one came out of the building, and no one went in. Sandy went back to his car and got his notepad, then moved around asking questions. The crowd was full of dazed, crazy, smoke-smudged kids. They all looked so young, he thought. A girl in a torn dress and heavy green eyeshadow babbled at him, but seemed to know nothing. A fat boy with a crew cut shrugged and said, “I just seen it burning and come to watch.” Several people told him the fire had just come, “out of nowhere.” Sandy saw one man sobbing convulsively, but when he tried to question him, another man pushed him away hard, saying, “He can’t find his girlfriend, you hear? Get the hell out of here, fucker. Leave him alone, hear? Asshole. Motherfucker.” And then a torrent of abuse that got louder and louder. Sandy backed away from him uneasily, glanced around for the police, and shouldered through the press of people.

  Finally he found someone who claimed to have seen it all, a thin youngish man with dirty blond hair cut short, a gold loop through one ear, a green leather jacket, and a bleeding lip. “They pushed me down,” he said, wiping away the blood with the back of his hand. But he was pleased to be interviewed. “Jim,” he said, when he told Sandy his name. “Don’t say James in the paper, OK? I’m Jim. I was there, yeah. It was real ugly. The Angels were playing, and everybody was dancing, and then all of a sudden I thought I heard someone yelling, but I wasn’t sure, ’cause the music was so loud. So I went on dancing. And then these guys come pushing through the dance crowd, crazy, screaming something. They just pushed into people. That’s how I got this.” He used his hand to wipe away more blood. “Then I smelled smoke, though, so I got up real quick, and people were yelling fire, but I couldn’t see nothing except a little smoke coming through this door, over the top, you know? Through the crack. It didn’t look like much. And the band stopped all of a sudden, and one of these bartenders went running up to the door—”

  “What door?” Sandy demanded.

  “Some door, I don’t know. In the back. It said employees only on it, I remember that. Anyway, this guy runs over to it, and the smoke is coming out the top, and he grabs the knob and pulls it open, and then all this fire comes out. All at once, you know. With this big whooosh!” He spread his arms along with the sound effect. “The guy who opened it just got crisped, you know.” Jim had a sickly smile on his face, and his eyes glittered with reflected flames. “And other people caught fire too, I saw them running around, burning up, you know, rolling on the floor. So then I figured I’d better get out of there fast. I was right by an emergency exit, so I jumped for it, but the fucker wouldn’t open, so I pushed my way back to the main door and got out. Everybody else was pushing, too. I saw people getting stepped on. You should of seen the place go up! The firemen couldn’t get inside for shit, neither. A bunch of them run in and came running out again real fast.”

  “OK,” Sandy said. “Thanks.” He moved away.

  “Jim,” the man called after him. “Not James!”

  “Fuck,” Sandy muttered. He moved around until he found one of the firemen in charge, talking to another reporter. “You know how it started?” Sandy asked him.

  “Not yet,” the fireman said. “We’re investigating.”

  “How about fatalities?” the other newsman asked.

  “At least five dead. Two died of smoke inhalation, and three were trampled to death in the panic. It appears that the fire blocked off two emergency exits in the back, and two others were locked, leaving only the main entrance. We suspect the final death toll will be higher. Much higher. A lot of people never made it out of there.”

  “Can you give me a number?” the reporter asked. “I’m on deadline.”

  “Fifty at least. Maybe as much as a hundred. Don’t use my name, that’s just a wild stab.”

  “But why were the fire exits locked?” Sandy asked.

  “Go ask the owner!” the fireman snapped, moving off.

  Sandy pocketed his notepad and drifted back to the police barrier to watch the flames shrink. He stood quietly, hands shoved deep into his pockets. Finally the last orange snakes twisted and died, long after the roof had collapsed in a huge gout of smoke. The red death-glow that had drenched t
he darkness was gone, but the fire trucks continued to pour water onto the smoking ruins. The bystanders and survivors got into their cars and left until only a handful remained. Sandy was one of them. When the wind blew, the air was heavy with ashes.

  He found Gopher John Slozewski standing alone by a deserted police barrier, his face as gray and ashen as his building. Sandy put a hand on the big man’s shoulder, and Slozewski turned toward him. At first the dark eyes held no recognition. Then, finally, he nodded. “Oh,” was all he said. He looked back at the remains of the Gopher Hole.

  “I’m sorry,” Sandy said.

  “All those dead,” Slozewski said to no one in particular. He did not look at Sandy. “They ain’t even sure how many. More than West Mesa, though. A lot more. They say the fire doors were locked.” At last he turned. “Blair, you got to believe me, it couldn’t be. Red told me to lock those doors. He was the assistant manager, you know, and he said kids were sneaking in and not paying the cover charge and that we ought to lock the doors and stop ’em. But I told him no way. I swear it!”

  “Maybe he locked them anyway,” Sandy said.

  Slozewski looked once more at the ruins, staring as if the weight of his gaze could somehow make the twisted, blackened beams rise and knit themselves anew. His face was blank of expression, unlined and innocent as a child’s. In despair, he had lost his scowl.

  “Do they know how it started yet?” Sandy asked.

  Gopher John Slozewski laughed bitterly. “They think,” he said. Then, very quietly: “Arson.”

  FIVE

  Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away/

  Now I need a place to hide away/

  Oh, I believe in yesterday

  She opened the door to him and said nothing at all, but her smile was all the greeting he needed. It was the same whacko lopsided gee-whiz smile he remembered, beneath the same crooked nose, and it had been too damn long since he’d seen it. He found himself smiling back, and when he did Maggie stepped forward and they hugged fiercely for a long long time. When at last they broke the embrace, she held his hands in her own and said, “Jesus, it’s good to see you. Really.”