It was about time for our break then, so we headed for Jerry’s Diner, which was nearby. The mood I was in, I almost hoped somebody would try to stick the place up while we were there.
I was stirring sugar into my coffee when a thought occurred to me. “Karl, that Influence you laid on the peeping tom a little while ago….”
He put down his mug of Type O and looked at me. “Yeah?”
“Could you use it on Wilson’s guards? Maybe get them all to drop their guns and take a nice nap?”
“All of them?” He shook his head slowly. “No way, Stan. If there’s a technique for controlling a bunch of guys all at once, I never heard of it. I’d have to do them one at a time, and I don’t think it would take long before the others tumbled to what I was up to. They’d open up on me – and since those fuckers work for Wilson, I wouldn’t be surprised if they are packing silver bullets.”
“Shit,” I said. “Well, it was worth a try. I was hoping you could put them under your spell long enough for us to–”
“Wait – what did you say?” Karl was looking at me with an odd expression on his face.
“Just this crazy idea that you’d be able to–”
“I know what you meant,” he said, and stood up abruptly. “I’ll be right back.”
I watched as he went to the rack near the front door where Jerry keeps all the free print material that’s available for customers to take. I thought I remembered several books of realty listings, as well as the Pennysaver Press, a local rag that’s full of cheap classified ads from people with stuff to sell. The Chamber of Commerce puts some of its publications there, too.
But when Karl returned to our table, he was carrying a copy of The Weekender, which bills itself as “The Wyoming Valley’s #1 Arts and Entertainment Free Weekly.” It’s also the only such paper in the area, so the distinction of being number one doesn’t mean too much.
Karl sat down again and began rapidly flipping the pages. He didn’t bother to explain what the hell he was doing.
“If you’re looking for the ‘gentlemen’s club’ ads, I believe they’re towards the back,” I told him.
“Figured you’d know that,” he said, without looking up. “But I’m pretty sure they also keep track of what bands’re playing at the local bars… Yeah, here we go.”
He began scanning the page he’d stopped at. Then his eyes stopped moving. “Good – we’re in luck. They’re still in the area. Got a gig in Wilkes-Barre, starting tomorrow night.”
“You’re gonna let me in on this great discovery sooner or later, right?”
“Sooner,” he said, closing the paper and dropping it on the table in front of me. “Our big problem is all these heavily armed dudes guarding Wilson. We can’t fight ’em, so we’ve gotta find the way to get the fuckers out of there.”
“Tell me something I don’t already know.”
“OK, how’s this – what would you say if I told you I know where we can find us a Siren?”
The Banshees were beginning a two-night engagement at the Palace, a club in South Wilkes-Barre that looked like no palace I’d ever heard of. We’d called ahead, and the manager had told us that the band was expected to finish its last set around 2am.
I hadn’t been in Wilkes-Barre in a while, and returning now made me feel kind of depressed. Lacey Brennan lived here – or she used to, before taking an extended vacation to visit her sister. I wondered where Lacey was at that moment, what she was doing, and how she was feeling. I also wondered if she was ever coming back.
Then I told myself to suck it up and focus on the job at hand. The stakes were too high for me to fuck up now because I was feeling moony over a woman. Even if the woman was Lacey.
The Palace’s dressing room for performers was located in a basement that looked like it hadn’t been swept out since Bush was President – the first one. It was ten after two when I knocked on the door, which was answered by the lead singer, who I remembered went by the name of some insect – Daddy Longlegs, that was it.
He looked at me and said, “What?” His voice sounded hoarse.
“We’d like a few minutes of your time,” I said. Politeness pays, especially when you want a favor from some people who probably don’t like you very much.
He stared a couple of seconds longer. “Hey – I know you.”
“Yeah, you do.” I held up my ID folder and let him see my badge. It was meaningless here, since Karl and I were out of our jurisdiction – but I was hoping a bunch of musicians wouldn’t know about stuff like that. “Mind if we come in?”
“Yeah, OK. Sure.”
He stepped back and let us into a twenty-by-twenty windowless room with concrete floors, harsh fluorescent lighting, and heating pipes running across the ceiling. There were some beat-up gray lockers, a couple of long benches, and another door through which I could hear water running.
The other two guys in the band looked up from the task of putting their instruments away. They didn’t seem happy to see us, but nobody went for a weapon. That was about the best I figured we could expect.
I looked at Daddy Longlegs. “Where’s your bass player – the girl?”
“She’s in the shower.”
“You mind getting her for me?”
He took a couple of steps toward the open door and called, “Hey, Scar! Come on out – we got visitors.”
The sound of running water stopped. A minute or so later, the young woman – whose real name, I knew, was Meredith Schwartz – came out, using a towel to wipe down her buzz-cut blonde hair. Apart from the towel, she was naked, but the guys in the band showed about as much interest as if she’d been wearing a suit of armor.
She looked at Daddy Longlegs. “Hey – who called five-oh?”
“Nobody,” he told her. “Guy said he wants to talk to us.”
She turned to me. “What about?”
“Why don’t you put something on first?” I said. I was trying to keep my gaze focused on her face, but one quick glance below told me that she had several more tats – besides the human heart on her arm that I’d seen before – and no pubic hair.
“How come?” She gave me an evil grin. “This ain’t in public or nothin’.”
According to the research Karl and I had done on the band the night before, Meredith Schwartz was an honors graduate of Mount Holyoke College, but she sure didn’t act or talk like a typical Seven Sisters grad – at least, I hoped she didn’t.
“We appreciate that you got the right to dress however you want in private,” Karl said. “But we were hoping to have a conversation, and you’re kind of… distracting.” Then he gave her a big smile.
“Hey, you’re a vamp!” she said with delight. “I didn’t know there were any vamp cops.”
“There’s at least one,” Karl said. “So, you mind getting dressed, or what?”
I couldn’t tell if he put any Influence behind the request, but Meredith shrugged and said, “Sure.”
She walked over to one of the lockers and pulled out a sleeveless T-shirt, jeans, and a pair of old Adidas running shoes. Without wasting time, she put them all on.
I, of course, didn’t stare at her tight young body while all this was happening. I’m not some creepy old man. But I do have good peripheral vision.
Meredith finished tying her shoelaces and straightened up. “Better?”
“Less distracting, anyway,” Karl said. “Thanks.”
She gave him a look that said she might not be averse to distracting him again sometime, but turned toward me as I said, “We’re not here to give you guys a hard time – about anything. Truth is, we need to ask you for a favor.”
One of the other guys said, “Favor? What kind of favor?”
“We want to make use of your band’s special talent – more precisely, Scar’s ability to drive men into a frenzy by her singing.”
“In a house near Scranton,” Karl said, “there’s a very bad dude holed up, surrounded by a bunch of guys with guns who aren’t afraid to use them. If we went straight in after him, there’d be a bloodbath.”