Harlan Coben - Just One Look

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I need”-she stopped, caught her breath-“I need to go somewhere.”

His eyes. Probing. She remembered the first time she ever saw him, that sunny day at Centennial Park in Nashville. How far had they come? Mike still saw. He still saw her in a way that no one else ever had. For a moment Charlaine could not move. She thought that she might cry. Mike dropped the crackers into the sink and started toward her.

“I’ll drive,” Mike said.

Grace and the famous rocker known as Jimmy X were alone in the den-cum-playroom. Max’s Game Boy was lying on its back. The battery case had broken, so now the two double As were held in place by Scotch tape. The game cartridge, lying next to it as if it’d been spit out, was called Super Mario Five, which, according to Grace’s less than sophisticated eye, appeared to be exactly the same as Super Mario One through Four.

Cora had left them alone and returned to her role as cybersleuth. Jimmy had still not spoken. He sat with his forearms against his thighs, his head hanging, reminding Grace of the first time she’d seen him, in her hospital room not long after she regained consciousness.

He wanted her to talk first. She could see that. But she had nothing to say to him.

“I’m sorry to stop by so late,” he said.

“I thought you had a gig tonight.”

“Already over.”

“Early,” she said.

“The concerts usually end by nine. It’s how the promoters like it.”

“How did you know where I lived?”

Jimmy shrugged. “I guess I’ve always known.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He didn’t answer and she didn’t push it. For several seconds the room was dead silent.

“I’m not sure how to begin,” Jimmy said. Then, after a brief pause, he added, “You still limp.”

“Good opening,” she said.

He tried to smile.

“Yes, I limp.”

“From…?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I got off easy.”

The shadow crossed his face. His head, the one he’d finally worked up the nerve to lift, dropped back down as if it had learned its lesson.

Jimmy still had the cheekbones. The famed blond locks were gone, from either genetics or a razor’s edge, she couldn’t tell which. He was older, of course. His youth was over and she wondered if that was true for her too.

“I lost everything that night,” he began. Then he stopped and shook his head. “That didn’t come out right. I’m not here for pity.”

She said nothing.

“Do you remember when I came to see you at the hospital?”

She nodded.

“I’d read every newspaper story. Every magazine story. I watched all the news reports. I can tell you about every kid that died that night. Every one of them. I know their faces. I close my eyes, I still see them.”

“Jimmy?”

He looked up again.

“You shouldn’t be telling me this. Those kids had families.”

“I know that.”

“I’m not the one to give you absolution.”

“You think that’s what I came here for?”

Grace did not reply.

“It’s just…” He shook his head. “I don’t know why I came, okay? I saw you tonight. At the church. And I could see you knew who I was.” He tilted his head. “How did you find me anyway?”

“I didn’t.”

“The man you were with?”

“Carl Vespa.”

“Oh Christ.” He closed his eyes. “Father of Ryan.”

“Yes.”

“He brought you?”

“Yes.”

“What does he want?”

Grace thought about that. “I don’t think he knows.”

Now it was Jimmy’s turn to stay silent.

“He thinks he wants an apology.”

“Thinks?”

“What he really wants is his son back.”

The air felt heavy. She shifted in her chair. Jimmy’s face had no color.

“I tried, you know. To apologize, I mean. He’s right about that. I owe them that. At the very least. And I’m not talking about that stupid photo op with you at the hospital. My manager wanted that. I was so stoned I just went along. I could barely stand.” He stared at her. He had those same intense eyes that had made him an instant MTV darling. “Do you remember Tommy Garrison?”

She did. He had died in the stampede. His parents were Ed and Selma.

“His picture touched me. I mean, they all did, you know. These lives, they were all just starting out…” He stopped again, took a deep breath, tried again. “But Tommy, he looked like my kid brother. I couldn’t get him out of my head. So I went to his house. I wanted to apologize to his parents…” He stopped.

“What happened?”

“I got there. We sat at their kitchen table. I remember I put my elbows on it and the whole thing teetered. They had this linoleum floor, half coming up. The wallpaper, this awful yellow flowered stuff, was peeling off the walls. Tommy was their only child. I looked at their lives, at their empty faces… I couldn’t bear it.”

She said nothing.

“That was when I ran.”

“Jimmy?”

He looked at her.

“Where have you been?”

“Lot of places.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you just give it all up?”

He shrugged. “There wasn’t all that much, really. The music business, well, I won’t go into it, but let’s just say I hadn’t received much money yet. I was new. It takes a while to get serious money. I didn’t care. I just wanted out.”

“So where do you go?”

“I started in Alaska. Worked gutting fish, if you can believe that. Did that for about a year. Then I started traveling, played with a couple of small bar bands. In Seattle I found a group of old hippies. They used to do IDs for members of the Weather Underground, that kinda thing. They got me new papers. The closest I came back here, I played with a cover band in an Atlantic City casino for a while. At the Tropicana. I dyed my hair. I stuck to the drums. Nobody recognized me, or if they did, they didn’t much care.”

“Were you happy?”

“You want the truth? No. I wanted to come back. I wanted to make amends and move on. But the longer I was gone, the harder it was, the more I longed for it. The whole thing was a vicious circle. And then I met Madison.”

“The lead singer of Rapture?”

“Yeah. Madison. Can you believe that name? It’s huge now. You remember that movie Splash , the one with Tom Hanks and what’s-her-name?”

“Daryl Hannah,” Grace said automatically.

“Right, the blond mermaid. Remember that scene where Tom Hanks is trying to come up with a name for her and he says all kinds of stuff like Jennifer or Stephanie and they’re walking past Madison Avenue and he just mentions the street name and she wants it to be her name and that’s a big laugh in the movie, right, a woman named Madison. Now it’s a top-ten name.”

Grace let it go.

“Anyway, she’s from a farm town in Minnesota. She ran away to the Big Apple when she was fifteen, ended up strung out and homeless in Atlantic City. She landed at a homeless shelter for runaway teens. She found Jesus, you know the deal, trading one addiction for another, and started singing. She has a voice like a Janis Joplin angel.”

“Does she know who you are?”

“No. You know how Shania has Mutt Lange in the background? That’s what I wanted. I like working with her. I like the music, but I wanted to stay out of the spotlight. At least that’s what I tell myself. Madison is painfully shy. She won’t perform unless I’m onstage with her. She’ll get over that, but for now I figured drums are a pretty good disguise.”

He shrugged, tried a smile. There was still a hint of the old knock-’em-back charisma. “Guess I was wrong about that.”