Макс Коллинз - Spree

“Trust me on this, Nolan.”

“Jon—”

“Sometimes I know what I’m doing.”

“Take the gun.”

“I was planning to. I always take a gun into heavy-metal bars.”

Which is what the place was; the sounds of Motley Crue were blaring forth from speakers left over from when this joint was a disco, and down at the far end of the smoky barely converted warehouse, a band, five skinny males in heavy-metal war paint and sparkly skimpy clothes, was preparing to play a set. They were called Hellfyre and Jon had heard of them; second-raters all the way.

He had paid at a caged window, coming in, and had been carded, which now that he was getting into his mid-twenties actually sort of pleased him. Drinking age in Iowa was nineteen, so the possible Comfort daughter was either of age or had a fake ID.

Getting a close look at her, as she sat at the bar, a beer and a smoke before her, he figured it was a fake ID. This was a kid. She had the denim jacket off, slung over the back of her high-backed bar-stool, and she wore a yellow RATT T-shirt under which nice high handfuls poked, and her hair was a long and teased and heavily sprayed mane, and she was smoking a cigarette, apparently from the pack of Camels before her; but this was, nonetheless, a kid. With her cute features, big blue eyes, pug nose dusted with freckles, Kewpie-doll lips: a kid. She didn’t yet have the hard look the nineteen-year-old girls in this place did. The crowd was blue-collar all the way, guys in Skoal painter caps and scuzzy work clothes (the latter signifying unemployment) and girls in tight slacks and revealing tops and lots and lots of eye makeup.

The bar was a squared-off area at the back, and beyond it were tables and dance floor and stage; at the left and back a balcony surveyed the smoke and darkness. The place was about half full. Okay Wednesday night business, bar-band veteran Jon thought; typical.

He sat next to her.

She looked at him, noncommittally, looked away, sipped her beer, smoked her cigarette.

There had been no recognition in the look at all; Jon was quite relieved.

He said: “You ever hear these guys before?”

“Hellfyre?” she said. She had the faintest southern accent. She’d be from Missouri, if she was Comfort’s daughter; and sometimes you ran into a bit of a southern accent down there.

“Yeah,” he said. “Have you heard ’em before?”

She was a very cute kid; she was the kind of cute kid you think you’ve met before, Jon thought, even though you haven’t.

“Yeah, I heard ’em.” It was a nice voice, sultry and childlike at once. “They play down where I come from, sometimes.”

“You’re not from here?”

She shook her head. “I come from Missouri.”

He risked a grin. “Does that mean you’re going to show me something?”

She smiled back, warming to him; she had small, childlike teeth, very white. And her pink tongue licked out as she said, “Time will tell.” The slight southern lilt made the words sound great.

Fuck, could this little vision be a Comfort ?

“I just love heavy metal,” she said.

“Yeah, uh, me too.”

“What’s your favorite heavy-metal band?”

“Hard to choose. What’s yours?”

“I like that band Spinal Tap. They had a special on HBO. But I can only find one of their records.”

“Uh, that’s a satire, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“Nothing. Good band.”

“I like all kinds of music, though. Except country and western. My daddy listens to that all the time and I could just barf sometimes.”

“It’s not my favorite, either. I’d like to buy you a beer, when you’re through with that one.”

“Why not? Say. Don’t I know you?”

He slipped his hand into the deep pocket of the navy coat; the handle of the .38 felt rough and cold.

“I do know you.” She was pointing her finger at him, waggling it at him, and pointing her nipples at him, too; he was pointing the .38 at her from within his coat, though she didn’t know it.

“Isn’t your name Jon?”

“Why don’t we just leave here quietly,” he said, his gun poking at the pocket; but she didn’t seem to see that.

“You played with the Nodes!” Her face lit up like Christmas. She squealed like he was the Beatles. “You’re the organ player!”

His gun hand went limp in his pocket; something like relief coursed through him.

She leaned over and looped her arm in his.

“Don’t you remember me? I’m Cindy Lou.”

“Cindy Lou...”

“Cindy Lou Comfort. But maybe you didn’t catch my name. Year or so ago, in Jefferson City? It was at that place out on the highway.”

Shit. It was coming back to him.

She touched her hair. “I had my hair all cut off, then. During a break, you and me sat in this little dressing room under the stage and kissed and stuff.”

He’d felt her up. He’d felt up Cole Comfort’s daughter. Cole Comfort’s underage daughter.

“I remember you, Cindy Lou,” he said, his mouth dry, his dick erect.

“Is that a pistol in your pocket,” she grinned nastily, “or are you just glad to see me?”

“You’d be surprised.”

“I think that was a good idea you had,” she said.

Hellfyre began playing “We Ain’t Gonna Take It” by Twisted Sister.

“What was that?”

“Leaving here quietly.”

And they did; her arm around his waist and his around her shoulder.

Cindy Lou just couldn’t believe her luck. Running into the keyboard player from the Nodes! She loved that band; when she heard they broke up it made her sad. They’d always played a lot of oldies and some new wave and even a little heavy metal. And they jumped around on stage, and the guys were really cute. Especially that keyboard player. He reminded her of Duane, from the seventh grade, who popped her cherry. He was a little blond hunk, too.

They stepped outside into the chilly air, walking side by side, arms around each other. You could smell the river. You could see it too, moon dancing on the little waves. Real romantic, Cindy Lou thought, surprised at herself, surprised she could get it up after last night. But she put that out of her mind.

“Where do you want to go?” Cindy Lou asked.

“Where are you staying?”

“At the Holiday Inn.” She paused, then added, “With my daddy. He’s here on business.”

“I see.”

“We better not go back there. He doesn’t even know I’m out.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. He’s been keeping me cooped up at that motel, and finally when he wasn’t looking I just took the pickup keys and went.”

He led her to a sky-blue van.

“We could just climb in back of there,” she said.

“We could. It’s not fancy, but I got some blankets back there.”

She smiled, hugged his waist. “This used to be your band’s van, didn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

She pulled away from him, traced her finger on the side of the van. “You can almost see where your name used to be. The Nodes. You guys were real good. What happened to that girl that sang with you?”

“Toni? We were still in a band together till recently. She’s up in Minneapolis playing in one of Prince’s groups.”

“Really? That’s cool! That Prince guy is so sexy.”

He opened the rider’s side of the van and she climbed in and crawled between the seats in front into the back of the van, where the cold metal floor was warmed by several quilts and blankets. Some corduroy pillows were piled up against one side. Jon got in on the driver’s side, turned on the engine, started the heater going, locked the doors, and joined her.

“It’s going to take a while for that heater to get going,” he said, sitting on his knees, watching her as she arranged a little makeshift bed out of the quilts and blankets. At the head of the “bed” she placed two of the cord pillows and invited him to lie next to her, which, after removing his big navy coat, he did. She slipped out of her denim jacket and kicked off her heels, but otherwise left her clothes on as they got under a quilt and lay facing each other, smiling in the near dark, leaning on an elbow, some moonlight and streetlights filtering in through the back van windows.