I have a friend who claims he can tell how much time has elapsed since anyone farted in a room. He says it’s never very long in a lived-in place. I’d have bet on a week here. The room had a bed, some books, three guitars in cases, a saucer with a few roaches in it and a pair of jeans, three T-shirts and a zip jacket. The guitar cases were the only items that got a regular dusting. The kitchenette had a half-loaf of green bread and a lump of ant-covered butter on a laminex table and a few basic bits of cutlery. There was milk in the fridge and some cans of Country Special beer.
I opened one of the cans, sat on the bed and drank it. No letters from Brisbane, no suicide note, no ripped mattress, no blood. The room was neither cheerful nor depressing; there’d be some natural light in the daytime and it seemed quiet now. The carpet didn’t stick to the feet and nothing big scuttled in the corners. I finished the beer and belched-that’d have to do for occupancy. I let myself out and drove home.
The next two days’ work was just as unprofitable. I tramped around the addresses Ro had given me and used the phone like Billy McMahon. In a city restaurant I talked briefly to Sport Gordon, whose chief amusements seemed to be flexing his muscles and shaking his head. I listened to impossible jargon in shops that specialised in gear for customising cars.
Talbot’s own car was said to be a silvered Mazda with many refinements which he kept in a parking bay at a big block of flats near his rooming house by arrangement with a non car-owning resident. I located the resident and was shown the empty parking space. As with the room, the rent for the space was paid up until the end of the month. I reported the car stolen, giving my name and phone number, and expected a call on it about as much as you expect the good news from the lottery office.
I went back to Talbot’s room, drank some more of his beer, and found some papers in a guitar case. He had a couple of hundred dollars in a savings account and a bit more in a cheque account. He had ninety dollars in USA currency which was increasing in value just sitting there in the dark-or so they tell me. Telephone numbers were scrawled on the back of a sheet of music, and I rang them, drawing blanks every time. A guitar shop, more mag wheels, a dentist and his mother in Brisbane, I pretended to be a record producer and asked for news of Tim.
‘Timothy?’ the stiff voice came back. ‘I’m afraid we’re not in touch. How did you get this number?’
I ducked that and left my number in case she heard. I guessed she didn’t even bother to write it down. After putting it off for as long as possible, I rang Hill with the bad news.
‘Shit,’ he said. ‘An impasse?’ He pronounced it with a hard ‘a’ like the American he was working hard at pretending to be.
‘Looks like it. I’ve got a few connections to the junkie scene, but I got blank walls there too. What’s happening with the record?’
‘I’m stalling the producers is what’s happening. Con’s going out of his mind.’
I realised that Con was the only card in the pack I hadn’t paid attention to and I knew why. I’d accepted Ro’s assessment of him-not very professional. I told Hill there were still a few leads to follow and rang off. A call to the studio got Ro who told me that Con would be in around eight; she made him sound about as welcome as AIDS.
‘What d’you want him for?’
‘Just a talk. Would you have time for a drink a bit before then?’
She said she would and I was there at seven. At a quarter past we were in the bar of the North Annandale trying to hear ourselves talk above the country’n western band.
‘How’s their sound?’ I yelled.
‘Lousy,’ she shouted, ‘but who’s listening?’
She was wearing a black top and white jeans this time and looked just as good. I grilled her about the music business, because my feeling was that it was at the heart of the matter. Something about the look on Con’s face when he couldn’t get blappy, something about Talbot’s carefully maintained guitars and about Ro Bush’s intelligent, careful assessments of the musicians’ talents and potential made me feel as if I was in the presence of a sort of religious fervour. Hardy’s law is that religion screws people up as much as other things, maybe more.
Ro Bush was a business-like lady and it didn’t seem inappropriate to take a look at my notebook while we were talking. I ordered a second drink and she unloosened a bit.
‘Will this go on Vance’s bill?’
‘Sure.’
‘Good.’ She smiled and took a solid sip.
‘Is The Dying Game really that good?’
‘I dunno. Haven’t seen it. I doubt it, some old hack wrote the script.’
‘I meant the song.’
‘Oh, the song. It’s not called The Dying Game, it’s… Bloody Nose Blues or something.’
‘Doesn’t it have to have the film title in the lyrics somewhere?’
‘Evidently not; it doesn’t, I know that.’
‘Mm, when do they copyright a song?’
‘Depends, sometimes when the record contract’s signed, that’s if the song’s already written; sometimes when the record’s due for release.’ She finished her drink and smiled again. ‘Better get back-thanks, Vance.’
Con was in the studio wearing the same T-shirt and looking even more harassed. My arrival didn’t help.
‘Shit,’ he said. ‘I was hoping to do some work.’ He drank a cap of Old Grandad to prove his point.
‘You can work. Just tell me about the fight that went on before Tim Talbot left.’
‘I can do better than that. Had a mike open.’ He flipped and pushed things on the console and a voice filled the room:
‘Fuck you!’ the voice said. ‘I wrote the fuckin’ thing.’
‘You think you’re bloody God, Tim. I changed the fuckin’ lyrics as I sang it, you didn’t even fuckin’ notice and now you want the credit.’
‘I wrote every note, every word.’
‘Wrote! What d’you fuckin’ mean, wrote? Where is it?’
‘In me fuckin’ head.’
‘What a crap heap that’d be-have another hit, Tim.’
‘I’m straight, Sport.’
This was followed by some laughter, a few guitar chords and a strangled yell. Con cut the sound.
‘What happened?’ I said.
‘Sport punched him. Tim split.’
‘Who was in the right? I mean about the song?’
Con shrugged and a sharp bone stuck up out of a hole near the neckband of his T-shirt. ‘Who knows? Tim wouldn’t have written anything down at that stage. Sport’s right there.’
‘Play me the song and I’ll leave you in peace.’
The bony fingers began their console minuet again. ‘Rough mix,’ he said, ‘accent on rough.’
The studio filled with drums and guitars and a wailing chorus. All that stopped and a voice that sounded like it was coming from under a door croaked and muttered through some verses about blood and broken bones. The guitars cut in from time to time. The whole thing ended with a noise like a symphony orchestra falling into a snake pit.
‘Jesus,’ I said.
‘Great isn’t it? Or could be if we could get that rhythm track.’
‘Didn’t Talbot want it quieter.’
‘Yeah.’ He flipped and punched; I could see the big spools over in the corner of the studio spin and stop. The music was familiar this time-the jumpy sound Con had been trying to match his guitar to on my first visit. I tapped my foot and Con looked at me before taking another cap of bourbon. I got up.
‘I’m with Tim,’ I said. ‘I’m keener than ever to find him.’
Sport Gordon lived in Bellevue Hill, off Victoria Road. His house was well back behind a high wall with big iron gates that were standing half-open when I arrived. I parked further up the street and admired the water view in one direction and the glow from the city in the other. This was one rock star who’d apparently done all right. The house was a low, rambling affair, half-wrapped around a swimming pool and a pebbles-and-pot-plants garden. There was a lot of glass and polished wood, and a three vehicle carport.