Show Business Is Murder Read online

  Sody froze, absorbing that thought. After a long moment, he glanced at Lian and nodded. “Right.” He packed his bass guitar into the battered case. “Go home, Joe. Get some rest. You too,” he ordered Lian. “Go on.” He gave them each a paternal wave, permission to leave. Joe, hugging his keyboard to his chest in excitement, nearly ran down 42nd street.

  Lian didn’t move. She gazed at Sody, her eyes interested.

  “Go on, Lian,” he repeated. “You need rest, too. See you tomorrow.” He patted her shoulder, not noticing how she jerked her shoulder from beneath his hand. He jaywalked across the street to enter the small coffee shop he liked to frequent. Lian, still not moving, watched him through the shop window until he began giving his order to a waitress.

  Then Lian turned and descended the stairs to the subways, took a train back to her old spot, the West 50th Street stop. When she got out, she opened her case again, seeded it with the two crumpled dollars, and began to sing alone: ‘Leave me now, I’ve moved on anyhow. Lah tee dah, down the MTA highway, the next stop will be better, Lah tee dah . . .’ Her song. The song. Her voice lifted and the tunnel seized it to send it soaring. Passengers paused to hear the whole song before moving on.

  And “Baby Jones.” The two gits hadn’t realized she’d written that song herself. It had caught on too fast to keep other street groups from stealing it, but it was hers. She’d registered that and the “Lah Tee Dah” song, and over twenty others she’d written, with the copyright office, the real one in Washington DC at the Library of Congress. She’d gotten a guy over at a Staples store to help her find and then fill out the papers. It had taken a few flattering lies, a few evenings of flirtation, but no sex, to get it done. Lian had no intention of sleeping her way to anywhere.

  Her grandmother had taught her, promise anything, but give them nothing. Lian, a very young Hermione Listenberger at that time, had taken this advice to heart. Her bubbe was smart. She’d survived exceedingly well in a male-dominated world, with much worse circumstances to deal with back then, Lian knew. Bless you, thank you, Lian sent her gratitude floating through the air to her bubbe. Bubbe was her “luck.” Her bubbe’s was the voice she’d listened to all her life, her mother having proven to be of no help in any way—well, except to show the stupidity of trying to use sex to get ahead. Although Lian supposed that knowledge was useful, too.

  All afternoon Lian sang only her own songs, no Abba, no Dylan, no anybody else but herself. And the crowds paused, entranced, and left dollar bills in their wake. After every song, Lian nodded her gratitude at her “luck,” her beloved ‘bubbe’ watching over her from farther down the empty track. Then she went home.

  The next day, she didn’t show up at the Grand Central entrance doors. Like lost sheep, the two men split up to look for her, figuring she must be in trouble. She’d never missed a day, and certainly wouldn’t miss today, their last rehearsal together to hone them for the afternoon meeting with the recording executive. They split up. Joe, by choice, set off to cruise the streets around Grand Central and Sody took the tunnels.

  About an hour later, Joe reluctantly descended into the tunnels himself. They’d all three almost exclusively ridden the 9 train, so he anticipated finding both Sody and Lian with little trouble. At the 59th Street station, he heard an unusual commotion. Not that the tunnels weren’t always echoing one racket or another, but this was different. These sounds were of terror, like animals trapped in a burning pen. As he threaded his way to the front of the crowd, Joe glimpsed a body being strapped onto a gurney in preparation to be lifted up the steep stairs to street level.

  “What happened?” he asked a plump fiftyish Hispanic woman near him whose frozen expression reflected his own.

  “He fell,” she whispered, fear stark in her creamy brown eyes.

  Just before the medic pulled the covering over the body’s face, Joe recognized the corpse. He stifled a sharp cry and stumbled backward to nearly fall over the Hispanic woman, who hadn’t moved.

  “He—Madre de Dios, he fell!” she whispered again to herself. She shuddered, then suddenly retreated to huddle against the gate, far from the edge of the track platform and began mouthing words only she could hear.

  Prayers, Joe guessed, and from a youthful habit, himself shakily began, “Holy Mary, Mother of God . . .”

  Then Joe’s mouth couldn’t quite close and he suddenly felt claustrophobic in the tunnel. Grimy oil-slick stairs going down to lower, filthier tunnels, and more stairs to other dark exits and entrances taunted and closed in on him like living threats. He hoisted his keyboard in his arms like a long heavy baby and darted for the stairs to the street.

  When he emerged, he raised his face to the sun and breathed until he could calm himself. A small hand touched his elbow, and he jumped, choking back a fearful cry. When his vision cleared he discovered Lian gazing at him in astonishment. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Sody!” Joe’s voice cracked. He coughed, then tried again. “It’s Sody, lass. He’s gone.”

  “Gone? What?” Lian suddenly huddled against his hard-muscled arm as if frightened. “You mean he’s dead, don’t you! How?” she demanded, but her voice was soft, trembling. “He was awfully tense about the audition. Did he . . . ?

  Joe’s testosterone kicked in and he straightened his shoulders. “Nay, lass,” he began, “He had no reason to—the crowds . . . he fell. It was an accident.” He shook his head. “He was looking for you. We both were. Where’ve ye been?”

  Lian looked at him strangely. “Resting. For our audition today. Weren’t you?”

  “Nah. We came to play as always. Like a rehearsal. If ye wanted to rest today, why didn’t ye say so yesterday? We worried! If we hadn’t, then maybe Sody might still be . . . might not’ve . . .”

  Lian shuddered. “You mean it’s my fault, then? I’m sorr—“

  “Nah. Didn’t mean that. Forgive me. No fault to yersel’. He slipped, is all. It’s so dark down there, and crowded, the floors coated with grease from the trains. I hate the tunnels, truth be known.”

  He put one arm around her and she leaned against him and they stood entwined in silence. “I’m scared, Joe,” Lian finally said, her voice small. Joe’s arm tightened around her and he let his keyboard slide to the sidewalk.

  He kissed the top of her head and swallowed hard. “Lian, my angel, no reason to fear wi’ me around. Ye must know how I’ve felt about ye since the first day . . . doesn’t seem right to say so now with Sody gone . . . but . . .” He shook his head. “I’m here for ye, Lian. Always. I think ye know that, don’t ye.”

  Lian lifted her head at that and sang softly to him, “Always, and forever, in darkness of night, in darkness of daytime, in darkness of sight . . .”

  Joe’s eyebrows lifted and he gazed tenderly at her soft mouth as it moved, digging words out of her brain, making a new song.

  “Yer lovely, my Lian. A nightingale.”

  She backed away. “Joe, we have to go back down there right now.”

  “What! To the tunnels? Why?”

  “It’s my place. My luck. I must go! I can’t let Sody’s ghost keep me away. Joe, take me. Be with me. I need this, or I can’t succeed at the audition! But I can’t go down there alone!”

  At the balky look on Joe’s face, she said softly, “We’ll pick a different station. A lighter one, cleaner. Where isn’t important. It’s that—I can’t sing without my luck. And my luck lives in the tunnels. We have only an hour before our appointment with fame. Fame we deserve!”

  Joe stared at her, then at his feet, then away. “Yer daft, lass. No good going down there again. Make your luck come up to you!”

  She jerked herself away from him. “Forget it, then. No appointment.”

  Joe exhaled sharply as if she’d punched him in the stomach. “Audition alone? Me? I’m a keyboarder who can sing some, but not like you! Ye’d ruin me chances by leaving!”

  “I have no choice. I can’t go without my luck! And it’s down there!”


  Joe breathed heavily, lips pale.

  Lian said, “Are you afraid of Sody’s ghost? He loved us! He wouldn’t hurt anybody, let alone you. I’m not afraid.”

  “Okay, okay!” Joe turned, then stopped. “Not here, for God’s sake.”

  “I said so, didn’t I? Our old place. 50th Street. Let’s go there. And we’ll walk, not take a train. Can you carry the keyboard that far?”

  Joe nodded wordlessly and they walked side by side, Joe unhappy but unable to stop his Lian. “My Lian,” he murmured to himself, as if comforting himself that she was “his” and so worth facing the tunnels. Worth facing the fright the tunnels had always held for him, but he’d kept concealed. As he walked on, gradually he relaxed and eased nearly all the way back into his normal cocky self.

  AT FOUR, LIAN Logan appeared at Krim Recordings. When she stepped into the office of the man who’d worn all black when he’d first heard her sing, she saw that he was again dressed in all black. She idly wondered if he had four or five identical outfits like that.

  Buoyed by this opportunity that her luck had brought, she stood straight and as tall as her small frame allowed. Krim Recordings was the top studio in Manhattan. Probably the Western Hemisphere, she speculated.

  The man backhanded a flaccid wave at her in greeting, not rising from his black leather chair, rather leaning back and swiveling as he wordlessly examined her like a doctor preparing to give her a physical. She made a mental note that when she rose to the top she’d make sure every man in every room she entered would rise in respect. Soon.

  “Where’re your partners?” he asked.

  “They weren’t my partners. I work alone.”

  “And the music . . . ?”

  “Twenty-seven of the songs are mine. I wrote them and own the copyrights to them all.” Her assurance carried her through the long moment during which the man stared at her.

  Suddenly she said, “Listen to my signature song. I don’t believe you’ve heard it. It would be the showpiece of my first CD.” And without permission, she lifted the Gibson from its case, slipped the strap over her shoulder and began, “Leave me now, I’ve moved on anyhow. Lah tee dah, down the MTA highway, the next stop will be better, lah tee dah. . .”

  At the end, the man sighed. “Totally. Totally.”

  She nodded, taking the compliment as her due.

  Then he rose from his chair, opened the heavy oak paneled door to his outer office, stuck his head through and shouted, “Get Bobby in here. And Frank—no, I don’t care what they’re in the middle of, get them now.”

  He shut the door again, smiled into her perplexed face and sat. “It’ll only be a minute.”

  “What will—”

  But just then the door opened and in strolled two young men. The blond one with very long hair had that emaciated, bad facial-skin look of chronic drug use, although his eyes were clear. Fresh from rehab, Lian guessed. The other looked like an ex–beach bum, sun-streaked curly mop of dark hair, dark tan, lean and muscled, his shirt unbuttoned to display sixpack abs and an outie belly-button ring. The ring had a large stone in it, all too obviously a cubic zirconium—if it had been a diamond, he’d have needed a body guard, she thought scornfully. The rings in his ears were too numerous to count, ending in one large stud in his right earlobe. Shmuck, thought Lian to herself. Both men gazed at her expectantly.

  Then she got it. Lian exhaled deeply. She turned to the man in the chair. “They sing.”

  The man nodded enthusiastically. “You need partners. You three will blend like sons of bitches. And if not,” he shrugged. “We have technology that will—“

  “I work alone,” said Lian, her voice deeper and clearly full of anger held in only tenuous check.

  She repeated, in case he hadn’t gotten the idea. “I work a—“

  “You sing for us, we handle things the way we want. Only deal you’ll get.”

  “And my songs?”

  “Oh, you’ll be the headliner, no question. Songs and all. We’ll fix you up with some backup instruments.”

  Lian listened as the man in black outlined the next years of her life. The two “singers” bobbed their heads like plastic dogs in a back window of a vintage car. First Lian examined one, then the other. She nodded to herself, as if agreeing with a voice inside her head.

  She turned her attention back to the black-clothed manager from Krim Recording Studios. He was digging in his drawer for a contract form. She read it over twice, crossed out one paragraph outlining a few rules about her so-called “band,” then altered the three-year length of the agreement to one year. She raised her eyebrows to see if the man would object.

  He waved away the rejected paragraph, but then looked up in disbelief. “One year? Most performers would give their mother’s arm to increase their time with Krim!” He pronounced the agency name as if speaking of the pope.

  “We’ll see how you do,” she only said.

  He gave a short laugh, shrugged, initialed the changes, then signed and initialed three more copies. She did the same. He gave her a copy that she tucked into her deepest jeans pocket.

  As he carefully recapped his burgundy Mont Blanc pen, she said, “I like to spend time underground.”

  The man’s brow furrowed. “Under—“

  “In the subway tunnels. The action there inspires my songs. I can’t write them anywhere else.”

  The man waved a magnanimous hand at the two male “singers.” “Hey! I understand art. You guys go with her, practice down there. You might even pick up her style better down there. Worth the effort.”

  The two men shrugged, obviously under total control of the man in black.

  Lian placed her guitar carefully back into its case, hefted it up over her shoulders. She nodded at the two. “Bobbie?” she asked the ex-druggie.

  He shook his head. “Frank. This here’s Bobbie.” He thumbed in the other singer’s direction.

  Lian ignored Frank’s outthrust hand. “Meet me eleven A.M. tomorrow at . . .” she considered. “The East 34th Street entrance to the downtown tunnel. Right?” She felt she’d worn out the usefulness of the West 50th Street station.

  The two nodded.

  Just Another

  Hollywood Ending

  DAVID BART

  “IS SHE DEAD?”

  It was a feminine voice, echoing through the hollow darkness in which Matt Corey lay; perhaps a faint glow from somewhere removed, he couldn’t be sure.

  A booming sound had preceded the unseen woman’s question; something loud enough to have awakened him . . . though he must surely still be dreaming, suspended without sensation in this featureless void, a profound absence of feeling throughout his entire body . . . except maybe his face, seemed he could feel movement of air.

  “I did the guy,” the male voice said, followed by an ominous clicking sound.

  Weird dream. Maybe one of those lucid kind where you—

  —another booming roar!—streak of fire pierced the blackness, briefly illuminating a . . . hell, he couldn’t be sure he’d glimpsed anything really.

  “Never would have suspected she had a lover,” the male voice declared over a papery sound; back of a hand scraping the edge of a lamp shade, groping for a switch.

  The woman blurted, “What’re you, jealous?”

  The conversation seemed too linear for a dream; Corey’s dreams were usually fragmented, jumping back and forth along the temporal line like a decaying quark, and he didn’t really hear voices in other dreams, somehow just sensed them.

  —incredibly harsh light flashed through Corey’s eyes to the back of his brain! So phenomenally bright there should have been pain—which quickly faded into a dark-spotted glow, like flashbulbs discharging in your face, reminding Corey of the hoards of paparazzi at some promo tour or movie premier.

  The male voice, exclaiming, “Wha—who in hell is this?”

  The words were clear but also distant, like conversation skittering across a still lake at night, voices originating a ha
lf-mile away but so distinct it’s as if the people stood next to you on the dock.

  “I recognize him, I think, but that’s not your wife!” the woman said.

  Vague images began to congeal within the fuzzy glow before him, black spots fading . . . indistinct forms and surfaces grew ever-more defined, though his line of vision was along a single plane—couldn’t move his eyes or even blink—staring fixedly upward at an angle.

  The upper edge of a huge, Spanish-style armoire appeared in the gathering clarity, and a mirror, presumably attached to a dresser below . . . a closet, though all Corey could see were tops of louvered, white folding doors—above it was all black and empty, as though the periphery of tunnel vision. He was unable to move his line of sight downward, see if there were bodies to go with the voices.

  Was there another form next to him? Another person? He sighed inwardly; if there were two of them, lying side-by-side, then this is definitely not a dream. This is getting caught in the act.

  Corey felt a movement of air pass over his face, very cool but oddly abrasive, and he could suddenly sense that another form had moved next to the bed, standing there looking down on him—could make out a vague form at the edge of his view but could not move his eyes in order to define features.

  “A movie star for Christ’s sake,” the male voice exclaimed. “Why the hell would someone famous be in my house?”

  “They’re naked, Vince,” the female voice replied dryly, “it’s obvious what they were doing—what I’d like to know is who’s the woman, and why is she in your bedroom?”

  LAST SUMMER . . .

  Corey had removed a section of railing and was sitting on the elevated redwood deck of his Malibu home, legs dangling, gazing out over the frothy surf at the distant horizon of a startlingly blue Pacific—ignoring the giggling covey of string-bikinied starlets jogging by on the raked sand below, glancing up at him, unabashedly displaying their pendulous attributes, doing so with a great deal of enthusiasm.

  All Matt Corey noticed was the emptiness he felt. He had always labored under the dense weight of some kind of indefinable angst, but lately the burden of this dark mood had grown intolerable . . . and now, when he sighed, it was as if it were his last breath.