Max Collins: Scratch Fever

“You’ve got money, Julie. Give him his share.”

“He wouldn’t be satisfied with just his share.”

“Why not?”

“He’s a killer. He tried to kill me, once, remember?”

That was a lie, of course; it had been the other way around, but Harold didn’t know that.

Harold was balling those thick hands into fists the size of softballs. “If he tries to hurt you, I’ll...”

“What? What will you do? You don’t kill people, remember?”

They could hear the muffled blare of the band in the other room: “Scratch fever... Cat scratch...”

“That would be different,” he said.

“Would it?”

“You know it would.”

“We’ll let Ron handle it.”

“But who’ll handle Ron?”

“I will.”

“Good luck.”

She could handle Ron, all right, but the price was high: letting those hands rove across her body; letting those lips do what they wanted to. Sharing a bed with Harold was bad enough. Getting in bed with Ron was flat-out disgusting.

And, deep down, she was afraid of Ron. She was afraid of few human beings on this earth, but Ron was one of them.

But then, so was the man she knew as Logan.

THE LAST SONG of the third set was “19th Nervous Breakdown,” an old Stones song that Jon sang, and that tonight he was really identifying with.

He came down off the stage covered with sweat — not from nervousness: he was always wringing wet by the end of a set — and headed for the stage-right cubby hole behind the fake storefront, where he and Toni had spoken earlier. He grabbed a towel from the stack the Nodes always brought along with them. He wiped his face with it, rubbed his hair. Took off his shirt and ran the towel over his chest and back and arms, then put on a clean shirt. He went through at least three a night, and his sportcoat was always sopping by the end of the first set, discarded midway through the second. He worked hard at rock’n’roll.

So did Toni, but she didn’t seem to sweat at all. She stood in the doorway of the little room, leaning against the jamb, perverted pixie smile on her face. “How you doin’?” she asked him.

“Okay.” Jon smiled back.

She came in and reached behind the amp and drum cases for her bottle of Cutty Sark. “Still got that old girlfriend on your mind?”

“Yeah.”

She unscrewed the cap, swigged at the bottle. “Really sure it was her, are you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it wasn’t.”

Toni put the Cutty Sark away and took him by the arm. “Let’s go have a look around.”

Jon and Toni went out into the club and walked onto the dance floor. Les, Roc, and Mick were at a table, huddled together, making plans for the next incarnation of their band. The two factions of the Nodes didn’t even exchange glances.

Their sound man/roadie, a twenty-year-old ex-DJ named Tommy, approached Jon and Toni. He looked like a pudgy, slightly dense Paul McCartney; he wore jeans and a T-shirt with the band’s logo on it — the nodes — in Art Deco lettering.

“Good set,” Tommy told them, smiling and nodding, on his way to join the Les, Roc, Mick faction, of which he was a part. Since he got his paychecks from Jon, however, Tommy stayed civil where Jon and Toni were concerned.

From the back of the hall, where the stage was, to the other end was nearly the length of a football field, and Jon and Toni were stopped a dozen times as they walked along the edge of the dance floor, by the crowded tables. The Nodes had played the Barn three times before, and had a following here; word had gotten around that this was the band’s last night, and the fans were complaining.

A table of girls who had all gotten in on fake I.D.’s grabbed at Jon as he passed; arms, hands reached out for him, like Night of the Living Dead , only pretty.

“You can’t break up,” a little blonde in a red satin warm-up jacket and Clash T-shirt said. She had him by the arm.

A pudgy but cute brunette in a blue satin warm-up jacket and T-shirt that said “Wanna Party?” had him by the leg; she was saying something too, but Jon couldn’t make it out

Two guys dressed like urban cowboys (and looking ridiculous, Jon thought, probably a couple of high school teachers who ditched their wives for the night) were standing talking to Toni, saying much the same thing the girls were saying to Jon, but without the touching. Relations between men and women may have changed, Jon noted, but it was still the women who did the touching without permission.

Bob Hale was still sitting on a stool over at the bar, stage right. Jon pulled away from the table of girls and went over to him, leaving Toni behind with her admirers in cowboy hats.

Bob extended a big, rough hand, which Jon shook.

“We’re gonna miss you boys,” Bob said. Considering the way Bob was always pursuing Toni, it was amazing he had included her as one of the “boys.” Then, with a conspiratorial wink, Bob leaned in and said, “No other band pulls in the pussy like you guys.” Bob was grinning like a junior high kid who’d just discovered Hustler magazine.

“I appreciate that, Bob,” Jon said, sitting on the stool next to him. “You know, the other guys in the band’ll still be together, under another name.”

“I don’t give a shit about those guys. They play too fuckin’ loud. It’s you and little Toni that go over. The pussies like you , and the guys go for her .”

That was nice to hear, and was true enough, but Roc, Mick, and Les had a following, too. But Jon went along with Bob, saying, “Well, Toni and I may have a new band ourselves in a while.”

“You just give me a call when you do, and you got a booking.”

“Thanks, I will. Say, Bob. Who was that good-looking blonde you were talking to?”

“You’ll have to narrow ’er down,” Bob said, grinning even wider; he was the kind of person who could make a caricature out of himself without trying. “I talked to half a dozen good-looking blondes tonight already.”

“This one is old enough to be in here legally.”

“Yeah, but is she old enough for me to be in her legally?”

“She was about thirty, wearing a white jacket and dress, black sweater. Nice tits.”

“Oh, yeah, her. She’ll never drown.”

“Right, well, I didn’t get a good look at her from the stage. Aw, but you know how it is, Bob. Sometimes the closer you get...”

“The worse they look! Damn if that ain’t the truth.”

“How does this one look, close up?”

“Well she ain’t a ten.”

“No?”

“She’s a thirteen.”

“No kidding. Who is she? Do you know her?”

“Yeah, I know her. Wish I could say I could fix you up with her, but I never been able to get anywhere with her myself, believe it or not. That’s a high-class cunt. She’s got money.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Name’s Julie something. She runs a place called the Paddlewheel, near Gulf Port.”

“Illinois, you mean? Across from Burlington?”

Gulf Port was a wide-open little town where the bars stayed open all night. When clubs on the Iowa side shut down at two, the “Wanna Party?” die-hards headed for Gulf Port.

“Right,” Bob said. “Quite a place. Big gambling layout and everything.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“I wouldn’t shit a shitter. Little Las Vegas, they call it. You oughta see the place. Maybe you will — she wanted to talk to you about that, in fact.”

“This Julie did?”

“Yeah. She needs a band. Somebody cancelled out on her. She was hoping you guys might want one last job, ’fore you call it quits.”

“No kidding. Well, maybe I ought to talk to her.”