Harlan Coben - Live Wire

“I’m really sorry for your loss,” Myron said.

“I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“It’s okay.”

“I know I should get rid of this stuff. Sell it. But I just can’t yet.”

Not knowing what to say, Myron went with a classic: “I understand.”

She managed a smile. “But, really, you want to know about the symbol.”

“If you don’t mind.”

Evelyn Stackman crossed the room and opened up the filing cabinet. “Horace tried to figure out what it meant. He looked up Sanskrit and Chinese and hieroglyphics, things like that. But he could never place it.”

“Where did you first see it?”

“The symbol?” Evelyn reached into the cabinet and pulled out what appeared to be the cover for a CD. “Did you know about this album?”

Myron looked at it. It was the artwork, if that was what you called it, for an album cover. He had never seen it. On the top it read, “LIVE WIRE.” Then under that in smaller print, HORSEPOWER LIVE AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN. But that wasn’t what drew your eye. Under the letters was a strange photograph of Gabriel Wire and Lex Ryder. The shot was from the waist up, both shirtless, back-to-back with their arms folded. Lex was on the left, Gabriel on the right, both turning to look at their prospective music buyer with serious glares.

“Right before the Alista Snow tragedy, they were going to do a live album,” Evelyn said. “Were you with them then?”

Myron shook his head. “I came on later.”

Myron couldn’t stop staring. Gabriel and Lex had thrown some “guyliner” on their eyes. Both men were given equal space in the photograph-if anything, Lex had a better spot, being on the left where your eye naturally goes first-but what you noticed here, what you couldn’t help but feel, was that your eyes were drawn to Gabriel Wire, almost exclusively, as though there were a bright beacon shining down on that half of the photograph. Wire was-and Myron believed this with all due hetero respect-so damn handsome. His gaze did more than smolder; it called out to you, demanded attention, insisted you look back.

Successful musicians have a variety of strengths, but rock superstars, like their athletic or thespian counterparts, also have the intangibles. That was what transformed Gabriel from musician into rock legend. Gabriel had almost supernatural charisma. Onstage or even in person, it blew you away, but even here, in a photograph from an album cover never released, you could feel it all again. It was more than just good looks. You sensed in those smoldering eyes sensitivity, tragedy, anger, intelligence. You wanted to listen to him. You wanted to know more.

Evelyn said, “Gorgeous, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

“Is it true about his face being destroyed?”

“I don’t know.”

Next to Gabriel, working the pose too hard, was Lex. His folded arms were tensed up, as if he were doing the quiet bicep flex. He was strictly average-looking with somewhat nondescript features, and perhaps, if you paid him any attention at all, you realized that Lex was the sensible one, the consistent one, the stable one-in short, the boring one. Lex was the grounded yin next to Gabriel’s hypnotically volatile yang. But then again, every long-running group needs that balance, don’t they?

“I don’t see the symbol here,” Myron said.

“It never made it to the cover.” Evelyn was back in the file cabinet. She pulled out a manila envelope with the wraparound string. She took the string between her thumb and index finger, stopped, and looked up. “I keep wondering if I should show you this.”

“Mrs. Stackman?”

“Evelyn.”

“Evelyn. You know Lex is married to Suzze T, right?”

“Of course.”

“Someone is trying to hurt her. And Lex too, I guess. I’m trying to figure out who.”

“And you think this symbol is a clue?”

“It could be, yes.”

“You seem like a good man.”

Myron waited.

“I told you Horace was a big-time collector. His favorite items were the one of a kinds. A few years ago, the photographer Curk Burgess contacted him. A week before Alista Snow died, Burgess took the photograph you’re looking at now.”

“Okay.”

“But he took a bunch that day, of course. It was a long photo shoot. I guess Gabriel wanted to go with something more risqué, so they took some of these pictures naked. Do you remember a few years ago when a private collector bought a Marilyn Monroe porn film so that no one else would see it?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s more or less what Horace did. He bought the negatives. We really couldn’t afford it, but that was the level of his commitment.” She pointed to the album cover in his hand. “This was originally a full body shot, but they cropped it.”

She unwrapped the manila folder, slid out a photograph, showed it to him. Myron looked. The two men were shot from the side and, yes, they were naked but the shadows were, uh, tasteful and worked like fig leaves.

“I still don’t see it.”

“See that mark on Gabriel’s, er, upper thigh, I guess?”

Evelyn handed him another photograph, an extreme blowup. And there it was, on the right thigh, very close to Gabriel Wire’s somewhat legendary groin-a tattoo.

A tattoo that looked exactly like the symbol in the “Not His” post on Suzze’s Facebook page.

There were still two hours until his meet with Kitty at the Garden State Plaza Mall. On the way to the bus stop by the George Washington Bridge, Myron filled in Big Cyndi on what he’d learned from Evelyn Stackman.

“Curious,” Big Cyndi said.

“What?”

Big Cyndi tried to shift in her seat to face him. “As you know, Mr. Bolitar, I spent many years as a rock groupie.”

He hadn’t known. In the glory heyday of the Fabulous Ladies of Wrestling on WPIX Channel 11 in the New York area, Big Cyndi had been known as Big Chief Mama. As a tag team, Big Cyndi’s Big Chief Mama and Esperanza’s Little Pocahontas were Intercontinental Champions, whatever “Intercontinental” means. They were the good guys. Little Pocahontas would usually be winning on skill before her evil adversary would do something illegal-throw sand in her eye, use the dreaded “foreign object,” distract the referee so she could be double-teamed-and then, when the crowd was in a total frenzy, crying out seemingly in vain at the horrible injustice being done to a smoking-hot babe, Big Chief Mama would roar and leap from the top rope and free her lithe, babe-a-licious partner from bondage and together, with the throngs on their feet cheering, Little Pocahontas and Big Chief Mama would restore world order and, of course, defend their Intercontinental Tag Team title.

Massively entertaining.

“You were a groupie?”

“Oh yes, Mr. Bolitar. A big one.”

She batted her eyes at him again. Myron nodded. “I didn’t know.”

“I’ve had sex with many rock stars.”

“Okay.”

She arched her right eyebrow. “ Many , Mr. Bolitar.”

“Got it.”

“Some of your favorites even.”

“Okay.”

“But I would never kiss and tell. I’m the model of discretion.”

“That’s nice.”

“But you know your favorite axe man in the Doobie Brothers?”

“Discretion, Big Cyndi.”

“Right. Sorry. But I was making a point. I followed in the footsteps of Pamela des Barres, Sweet Connie-you remember, from the Grand Funk song?-Bebe Buell-and my mentor, Ma Gellan. You know who she is?”

“No.”

“Ma Gellan considered herself a rock star cartographer. Do you know what that is?”

He tried not to roll his eyes. “I know a cartographer is a mapmaker.”

“That’s right, Mr. Bolitar. Ma Gellan made up topographical and topological nude body maps of rock stars.”