How to Kill a Rock Star (43 page)

“I
know
it sounds crazy,” she said, hands flailing like an Italian. “Just hear me out.” She pul ed a newspaper clipping from her pocket and shoved it at him. “The part that’s circled. Try reading it in Paul’s voice.”
38After shooting her a wary look, Michael read the blurb, imparting Paul’s prolix verbal style in his head. Two thoughts occurred to him, one right after the other. First, Paul was an idiot. Second, his sister, unfortunately, was not.

“You see it, don’t you?”

He set the clipping on the bar and sat on his hands to keep them from shaking. “I don’t know what you
think
you see, but let me just say this—Paul couldn’t have been the only man in the world who used
goddamn
as an adjective.”

“Like I said, I
know
it sounds insane, but—”

“Insane?” Michael shook his head. “How about certifi-able? How about
impossible
?”

“Wil you at least listen to my theory?”

“I’l give you one minute.”

She spoke quickly: “Al right, I think Paul
was
the eyewitness that night. I don’t think he was in the car with Feldman at al . I think Feldman is lying. I think Feldman is in on it and I think Paul
is
Wil Lucien.
That’s
what I think.” Michael tried to keep his voice down. “Eliza, Paul was my best friend. I miss him too. But you have to let go. Do you hear me? This isn’t healthy.”

“You didn’t let me finish,” she said. “I have evidence.” Michael didn’t like that word, evidence. It sounded like something that could occupy space.

“Did you know Hudson wasn’t Paul’s real name?”

“No,” he lied. “What was his real name?”

“I don’t know. I asked him a mil ion times and he always said he couldn’t tel me until we got married. But guess what?

I have a sinking suspicion it’s Lucien. Here’s something else you might find interesting: his father’s name was Wil iam, and Paul was known among his BINGO lady friends as Wil ie.” She took a quick sip of water and Michael tried to seize the moment to escape. “Wait. There’s more.”

“I don’t want to hear anymore.”

Michael was about to point out that, in case she’d forgotten, Paul’s body had been recovered and identified.
There’s
some evidence for her
.

She was a step ahead of him. “Tel me something, if Paul had gotten a new tattoo before he
allegedly
kil ed himself, would you have known about it?”

“Probably,” Michael answered. “Why?”

“To your knowledge, had he gotten any new ones?” Michael felt like he had dice tumbling in his chest. He didn’t want to tel her about the tattoo, nor could he imagine how she’d found out about it. But since he had no idea where she was going with this line of questioning, he had no choice but to answer her honestly.

“Yes.”

At first she looked puzzled, then thoroughly devastated.

“
Yes
?”

“I told him it was ridiculous, believe me. I tried to talk him out of it for days. And anyway, I thought it ended up looking more like a train track than a scar.”

“
What
?”

Michael took Eliza’s wrist and flipped it over. “I don’t know, maybe a little.”

Her eyes were expanding, as if someone were pumping air into her head. “Listen to me Michael, listen
very
careful y…” She drew him in and lowered her voice to a scarcely audible whisper. “I have a copy of Paul’s autopsy report, and according to the doctor who did the examination, the guy they pul ed out of the East River had a skul and crossbones on his right shoulder but
did not
—I repeat
did not
—have ‘self-portrait hanging from a butterfly’ on his forearm
or
a Chinese
wu
on his shoulder
or
a train-track scar on his wrist.

Do you understand what I’m saying
?” Michael clenched his fists. He understood he had to offer his sister some kind of logical explanation, he just couldn’t
38think of one. “I’m sure it was just a mix up.” He also knew he had to do better than that.

“
Mix
up?” she shouted.

The bartender looked again, and Michael shifted Eliza’s chair toward the front of the restaurant.

“Yes, Eliza. This is New York. They foul up al the time.” Sweat was running down his back. “Don’t get mad at me for saying this, but you dumped Paul, remember? You didn’t want him when he was alive so why this crazy obsession with him now that he’s gone?”

Tears ran down her cheeks and Michael moved over because he figured she was going to try to kick him. “Do you remember the day Paul and I broke up?” she huffed. “When he so conveniently walked in on me and Loring kissing?” Michael didn’t like her intonation. It sounded like another bomb about to drop.

“Do you want to know
why
I was kissing Loring?”

“Not particularly.”

“Paul was an hour away from turning down the Drones tour, that’s why.”

“
What
?”

Now she was nodding. “I wasn’t going to let him throw it al away just because I wouldn’t get on a plane. Don’t look at me like that. I wanted—hel , I don’t know what I wanted anymore. But besides that one kiss, I never so much as touched Loring until Paul hooked up with Jil y Bean. Until he’d moved on.”

Moved on
, Michael thought.
Yeah, that’s a good one
.

She waved the news clipping in his face. “Don’t you want to at least talk to someone about this? Maybe the police can check and see if—”

“
No
.” His head was pounding and he needed to get Eliza out of the restaurant before he had a meltdown in front of her. “Listen.
Shit
. Can you just let me sleep on this? You
real y hit me with a ton of bricks here, and what I want you to do,
right now
, is to go home, calm down, don’t talk to
anyone, and let me think this
over. Okay?” Michael was barely cognizant of walking Eliza to the door, putting her in a cab, and watching the car drive away.

Back inside the restaurant, he rushed downstairs, directly to the payphone. After making sure both restrooms were empty, he removed a two-by-four-inch piece of paper from his wal et on which he’d written a series of numbers separated by dashes and spaces. He’d been trying to make it look like birth dates, a combination to a lock, a bank account.

Anything but a phone number.

They hadn’t talked since the afternoon the body had been recovered, when Michael thought there was a possibility it had actual y been Paul and cal ed to make sure something hadn’t gone terribly wrong.

“
That’s
a frightening turn of events,” was Paul’s response after Michael informed him that his corpse had just been plucked from the East River.

But the only thing Paul had real y seemed to care about was how Eliza was taking the news. “Did she cry?” he’d asked over and over, until Michael final y said, “Yes, she cried, okay.

And she seems pretty pissed off.”

“Pissed off? Holy Hel , that’s
so
Eliza. She’s a real piece of work, your sister. She’s supposed to be crushed, not pissed off.”

“Paul, forget Eliza! Someone is dead. We could end up in deep shit if—”

“Stop cal ing me Paul.”

Michael gave Paul a quick play by play of Feldman’s visit, starting with the way Feldman dragged him outside, cal ed the body “insurance,” and said that his “friends” assured him it belonged to a very bad guy whom no one was going to miss. The last thing Feldman told Michael was that if he 38knew what was good for the wel -being of his family, he wouldn’t ask any more questions.

“Holy Hel ,” Paul had said, his voice shaking. “I don’t feel good about this body either. But, realistical y, it probably solidifies the story, not jeopardizes it, right?” Michael and Paul had ended that conversation agreeing that unless an emergency arose, there would be no more communication between them until the week before Paul was scheduled to leave the country.

Michael deemed the current situation a legitimate, five-alarm crisis.

He dialed the number, let it ring twice, hung up, and then dialed once more, per their code.

Paul picked up right away.

“It’s me,” Michael said. “Are you sitting down?”
December 7, 2002

How does that goddamn cliché go? If I’d known then what I know now.

Or maybe I should have heeded the opposite warning.

Maybe I should have delved a little deeper into
then
back when I was wandering aimlessly around
now
.

The holy truth is that I’m standing in front of a window looking out over Ora—wait, maybe I shouldn’t say where I am— Michael told me to stop divulging secrets on tape, which is why my reports have been sporadic. He’s right, I know. But I’m stir crazy. I need someone to talk to.

Let’s just say I’m in a New-that’s-not-York state, I’ve been holed up in this little apartment for two months, and I just got off the phone with the aforementioned Michael.

First of al , when nobody cal s you for like, a zil ion days, just hearing the phone ring is a monumental thril . Michael’s voice was a goddamn Verdi opera in my ear. And besides going out for midnight runs, which Michael doesn’t know I do, I don’t leave this room. Not that I need to. I’ve got two guitars, a box ful of books and music, a computer, enough food to last me through a long war, and about ten gal ons of toothpaste and moisturizer. I have no idea why I thought I was going to need so much toothpaste and moisturizer.

Anyway, after my post-death conversation with Michael, we weren’t supposed to talk again until after the New Year, How to Kil _internals.rev 2/22/08 5:00 PM Page 388

38when Wil Lucien wil be kissing America goodbye. Then, about half an hour ago, the phone rings and it’s Michael and he’s in a panic. He asks me to sit down, I tel him I’m already sitting and here’s what he says: “She knows.” I asked him who the hel he was talking about but he didn’t answer me and I thought he’d hung up until I heard voices. That’s when I realized he was at the restaurant. He was waiting for the people around him to leave.

As soon as it got quiet he cleared his throat and said, “Eliza.

She figured it out. You and your goddamn goddamns.” Then he commenced a rambling freak-out of questions: What if she goes to the police?

What if she blows the whole thing wide open? What if we end up in jail? Is that what I want? To spend the rest of my life in jail? Is it, Paul? Is it? Huh?

Huh?

She’s a smart cookie, I’l give her that.

Michael said, “Paul, say something.”

I said, “Stop cal ing me Paul.”

He told me this whole thing was my gig—that’s what he cal ed it, a gig—and that meant I was supposed to be able to figure it out and tel him what to do. But, at the time, a solution seemed like the least important issue. What I was wondering was why Eliza cared enough to figure it out. “What’s it to her?” I said.

Michael repeated my question in his dad voice, indicating his annoyance.

“I mean it,” I told him. “I want to know. Why the fuck does she care?”

So then he goes, “Jesus, Paul, she’s stil in love with you, why do you think she cares?”

Talk about a left hook. Talk about a sentence that can real y knock a guy on his ass and throw him down a flight of stairs.

And that’s not even the half of it. The next question out of my mouth was something along the lines of what about her goddamn boyfriend, and Michael purged a lot more shit, al this
stuff about what happened with Loring, how it was al a big sham. Wel , at least it started out that way. I guess she eventual y gave in and fel for the guy, but not until I commenced spite-fucking Amanda and Jil and, wel , never mind the rest.

I have to shut this thing off for a second. I’m getting—

what’s that Yiddish word for when you’re so overwhelmed you can barely speak? Verklempt.

Okay, I’m back. Sorry. Had to compose myself. Where was I?

I think I was about to say that if I ever see Eliza again—and the fact that this is even a remote possibility is—I don’t know what it is, a goddamn miracle, maybe? After I kiss her and hold her and let her touch my chest, I’m going to hang her upside down and employ Chinese water torture until she promises never to be so stupid again.

This brings me to the new crux of my life. To echo the words Michael left me with: “You have a real y big decision to make.” Michael said he would keep playing dumb with Eliza, stave her off until I make up my mind, but we both know what a pain in the ass she can be. In other words, we don’t have much time.

Michael suggested I take a few days to let everything sink in before I settle on a course of action. I said I would, and he and I agreed to talk again on Friday.

But come on, who the fuck am I kidding?

I already know exactly what I’m going to do.

Over.

Officer Levenduski offered me a soda. I declined, he opened a can for himself, and then sat down behind the big steel desk.

Based on the family photographs scattered around the tabletop, I guessed the desk didn’t actual y belong to Levenduski, as the subjects in the pictures were not, nor did they resemble, the man sitting across from me.

When I’d cal ed and requested a meeting, Officer Levenduski had been flippant, claiming he had better things to do than discuss the months-old, open-and-shut case of an obscure rock musician, until I mentioned I was a journalist for a national publication.

“Wil I be quoted in the magazine?” Officer Levenduski had asked.

“Of course.” I saw no point in tel ing Officer Levenduski that the article, as wel as my job, was nul and void.

The police report was sitting on the desk that was not Levenduski’s when I sat down. Before opening it, the rusty-haired officer spel ed his last name aloud.

“Most people end it with a Y but it’s an I,” he said.

I knew what kind of man Levenduski was just by looking at him—the kind who relishes his position of authority at work because he has no power elsewhere. I guessed his wife bossed him around, he had kids he couldn’t control, a dog that peed on his carpet, but here, behind the big desk, with the big gun at his hip, he was the king.