Stuart Kaminsky - Show Business is Murder

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, LIANLogan 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.

“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.