Killer Solo by David Hiltbrand

Author:David Hiltbrand
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780061856990
Publisher: HarperCollins

CHAPTER

25

I paid close attention to the performance that night in Chicago. Terry was right. Some of the sizzle had gone out of Shirley’s act. Gram was flaying the drums, but he was the only member of the band playing with abandon. The show was still pretty entertaining as theater, but it lacked passion, which is the plasma of rock ’n roll. That’s why I went to see Bruce Springsteen’s marathon concerts so many times even though I didn’t much care for his music. (Maybe it was that sour milk-can sound of Clarence Clemmons’s saxophone that turned me off.) But Bruce was a rock ’n roll revivalist, a guy who spilled his guts onstage night after night. He was the second-hardest-working man in show business. As of Chicago, Shirley had dropped out of the top 100.

The audience at the Horizon didn’t pick up on it. They were as rabid as every other crowd on the Triumph of the Antichrist itinerary. I could tell how whipped-up they were by the number of EMT teams running on and off the floor, hauling off the fallen on stretchers.

You see this a lot at the rowdier rock shows and at the all-day outdoor festivals in the summer where there’s a lot of drinking going on. One guy jostles another or smiles lasciviously at his girlfriend and—drop the gloves, Gordie—it’s clobbering time. The paramedics have to carry off the pulped-up loser.

But there wasn’t a lot of booze at Shirley’s shows. In fact, I’d wager that the drug of choice among his devotees was Paxil. Most of these kids were carted off after fainting dead away. Sure, it was the excitement and the fact that they were dressed too warmly in layers of black clothing. But Shirley’s pale proselytes tended to be loners with varying degrees of social anxiety. Being around this many people, even kindred spirits, was overwhelming. The paramedics were busy that night in Chicago.

Back at the hotel after the show, I considered calling my sponsor. I could phone Chris at three A.M. if I was really stressed out and he would spend an hour talking to me ungrudgingly. But this night I just wanted to chat. And given the hour and the time difference, I decided to hold off.

Besides, I had better things to do. I was going to pay an unannounced visit to Paula, give the girl a thrill. After all, she had said this might be the night.

Wrapping myself in one of the hotel’s big, fluffy white robes, I grabbed a rose off a delivery cart in the corridor on her floor. I clasped the rose stem in my teeth and arranged myself in Paula’s doorway like one of those saucy rogues on the glossy cover of a romance novel. Then I knocked. When the door swung open, I was looking at the carpet, the better to stun Paula with my sultry bedroom eyes as I languorously lifted my head. My gaze climbed slowly up her body, but instead of Paula, I

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