Chapter Three
Leavin’ here . . .
Kit’s reaction had been every bit as bad as Roger had predicted. It had taken nearly an hour to calm him down enough for John and Pete to try to talk some sense to him. Yes, they’d been attacked. No, they didn’t know by who. Yes, they were fairly certain that whoever did it wasn’t going to come back. How did they know that for sure? They didn’t, but the fact that there weren’t any threatening notes left behind meant it probably wasn’t a coordinated attack. Well, it makes perfect sense to us, Kit.
Keith sat at the table, nibbling at the remains of the combined breakfast and lunch that they’d decimated while John and Pete kept at Kit—Pete browbeating, John reasoning.
“All right, all right!” Kit said finally. “We’ll drop it if that’s what you want! But I want bodyguards!”
“No!” Roger said. “We don’t want ‘em! They only get in the way and make things difficult!”
“Impossible!” Keith piped up, waving his fork. “I can’t have any fun with some cop watchin’ everything I do, can I?”
“But boys, be reasonable! What if these people try again!”
“Kit, with all the roadies and managers and other musicians and fans about, how is anyone else gonna get close enough to us?” John said. “If they even try again?”
“All right,” Kit said, waving his napkin to indicate surrender. “No bodyguards. We’ll carry on as usual, all right?”
They wrapped up breakfast and headed out; John stopped in front of the mirror and combed his black bangs over his forehead and as close to the bruise as possible to mask it. At Keith’s beckoning shout he straightened, giving himself one last perusal before turning to the door. His wrist flicking with surprising ease, he tossed it over his shoulder and closed the door behind him.
In doing so he missed the comb’s landing—dead center in the middle of a glass on the table.
“You told them what?”
“I told them no bodyguards.” Kit leaned on the front desk, wiping his forehead. “They insisted; if we get bodyguards, they won’t go on.” He’d told them he was going in for a quick drink; he sincerely hoped that none of them decided to follow and found him talking on the phone.
The promotor’s voice on the other end sounded tired and grouchy. “I can’t run the risk of them getting killed before the tour is over. I have too much money invested in this for them to get hurt and not be able to continue.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, David,” Kit said. “We get bodyguards, they walk.” He turned, hanging up the hotel phone.
On the other end, David Williams sighed, replacing the receiver in its cradle. This was all he needed; musicians being mysteriously kidnapped and beaten and then being too damn stubborn to accept help. “‘We get bodyguards, they walk,’” he echoed as his assistant came in. He was a young man, probably no older than twenty or twenty-five, with short brown hair and intense brown eyes. His name was Smith or Smithers or Smithson or something like that; he was new, hired just the other day to handle the increasing workload as more and more rock and roll groups went on tour.
“Bodyguards, sir?” Smith/Smithers/Smithson asked.
“Nothing,” he waved. “Just trouble that’s going to have me running for the antacid.”
“Oh?”
Williams sighed, shoving papers around on his desk. “I have more than fifty thousand invested in this tour, and last night The Who were kidnapped, drugged, and returned to their hotel rooms with minor injuries. I want to get protection for them, and now their manager says they’ll quit if I do.”
“I have an idea about that, sir, if you’d like to hear it.”
Now it was Williams’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “Oh?”
“Well, I know these guys. They’re a band, but they have a reputation for being able to fight and they like to help people. We could hire them as an opening act and they could keep an eye on The Who without them knowing.”
Williams leaned back, steepling his fingers. “It’s possible, but . . . I don’t want substandard musicians on the tour. It’s too suspicious.”
“They’re not really substandard. They have quite a following in L.A.”
“Get me their name and address. I’ll look into it.”
“You’re serious about this, aren’t you?”
Mike leaned on the railing. “I’m always serious,” he said, ducking the towel that was thrown at him. “Okay, not always, but I’m serious about this.”
“Who?”
“Micky, I’m tellin’ you—that’s gonna get real old real quick, so why don’t you knock it off now, okay?”
Peter threw his head back and laughed, a rich, deep sound that bounced off the Pad’s highly decorated walls. “So much for serious,” Mike said, unable to keep a grin off his face.
“We’ve never done serious very well,” Micky said, getting up from his chair. He went over to Peter, pulling him upright. “Peter! C’mon! You can’t fall apart now! We have to open for The Who next week!”
It hadn’t arrived by phone, messenger (singing or otherwise), or by a note wrapped around a rock and thrown through a window. Instead it came in the form of a letter, printed in solemn black type and as short and to the point as it could get: “The Who are about to embark upon a U.S. tour and need a fresh, exciting opening act. Your reputation in the L.A. area is very good, and from what we hear, you would be perfect. Please send us your response no later than July 1st” followed by a name, address, and phone number. It wasn’t a name that Mike recognized.
His first thought—one shared by Peter after reading the letter—was that it was someone playing a joke on them. It wouldn’t have been the first time. Peter, though, had pointed out that the practical jokers they knew were far too subtle to use such a ridiculous letter. Despite the steady work they’d found and the growing following they’d managed to gather, they were still minnows compared to the barracuda that was The Who. “Besides,” Peter said. “I know that you’d sooner crack your own skull open than smash your guitar.”
It was all easily settled with a phone call, one that quickly revealed that the letter was neither fake nor delivered to the wrong address. Mike’s jaw got closer to the floor as he listened, sharing bewildered, mystified expressions with the others and occasionally sending Micky and Davy into fits of laughter.
“Well, it’s real,” he said after hanging up the phone. “Fifteen dates, and we go on right before The Who.”
“How do we know this isn’t a trick?” Micky said.
“Tattoos aren’t twitching,” Peter said. “Not even a tingle.”
“Yeah, but sometimes they malfunction!” Micky said.
“Are you hearing this?” Davy said. “They want us to go on a national tour with The Who and he’s arguing!”
“Well, you guys can argue,” Mike said, heading for the stairs.
“Where you going?”
“I’m goin’ to pack. Don’t know about you guys, but there’s a plane leavin’ tomorrow and I’m gonna be on it.”
On to Chapter Four
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