Ice Cream and Venom (8 page)

Back in his dressing room, Aaron questioned Orbison again, but there wasn't much information to be had.

"The British band has been sort of a nuisance to you, haven't they, Sir?"

"Roy, please."

"Sorry, Roy," Aaron agreed.

"No, up until the incident in the commissary, I'd only met one of them—George—he seemed nice enough, came in and talked to me about God for a bit. I tuned his guitar for him. I've already told you about the other one that I was eating with. So what's going on?"

"We've got a security problem, and the guy you were sharing a table with is kind of our only suspect at the moment. You'll tell us if he contacts you again?"

"Certainly."

"Thanks, Roy." There was a silence that went on just a beat too long, and even behind the sunglasses, Aaron could sense Roy was thinking about something.

"Can I ask you a question? You're good at your job, all these people clearly adore you, but you don't seem comfortable with it, Aaron. You don't seem like a man who feels like he fits in. How did you end up doing this?"

"Uhm... how is this relevant to the case?" Aaron asked.

"It's not. I just find I like you for some reason, and I'm curious. You don't have to tell me anything."

Aaron sighed, "Long, long story. I actually wanted to be a musician when I was a kid. I even recorded a song for my mama once, but, well, the session went badly. My daddy told me to give up my pipe dreams and knuckle down, so I drove trucks to put myself through college, got a degree in criminology, and went to work for Pinkertons."

"Any regrets?"

"Only a few million, but, you know… life..." he trailed off, suddenly uncomfortable.

"You want to be in my place," Roy said. It wasn't a particularly trenchant insight: He was rich, he was famous, he was uniquely talented, he was not only the King of Rock and Roll, but more-or-less the inventor of it as well.
Everyone
wanted to be in his place. He was used to this kind of thing. Aaron went poker-faced and stared.

"Let's assume you could make a deal with the devil, and go back in time and change your life so you're in my place, what makes you think you'd fit in to my life any better than your own?"

"Huh?" said Aaron, who was completely unprepared for this level of intimacy with a total stranger. A famous total stranger.

"Take Johnny Cash—I've never seen a man so eaten up with his own demons. They'd still be there if he was singin' or pickin' cotton. He's a great guy, he's my best friend, but he's never known peace and he never will this side of the grave. It's just his nature. Sometimes the thing we really want isn't good for us, sometimes it's disastrous. Claudette and I have had more than our share of troubles, owing entirely to the fame and the money and the temptation... but I can handle it because I'm kind of
built
to handle it. I'm longsuffering. But this kind of life could easily kill or destroy someone who wasn't suited for it, you know?"

Aaron wasn't sure if this was friendly advice, or an insult.

"I have to go talk to Tom, excuse me," he quickly excused himself.

"Not to mention," Roy yelled after him as he left, "That if you took over my life, I'd have to do something else, and that doesn't seem fair. I mean there's not really anything else I'm fit for..."

Once again, Tom refused to lock down the base. It could be anything, it could just be that he had a pocket full of loco weed and didn't want to get busted. Aaron had to agree, he didn't really have the burden of proof at this point. Besides, no one had reported anyone missing or otherwise unaccounted for, everyone was where they were supposed to be. It was a quandary. Aaron had to reluctantly agree, and left.

"It's still nagging at you, though, isn't it," Evans asked.

"Yeah. Well, eyes and ears open for our limey friend, and we'll grab him when he comes to sound check."

As it happened, it didn't even take them that long. The West Gate called in that one of the musicians was trying to leave without a pass, so they quickly apprehended him, and dragged him back to Aaron's temporary office. He screamed and fought and cursed and moaned, and was surprisingly tough, but in the end he gave in. Everyone was exhausted by then.

"Who did you kill?" Ron demanded.

"What?"

"Who did you kill?"

"No, you're going about this all wrong, mate," the man said, "If you're tryin' to nab me for something, you don't want to admit that you don't know what it is I did." Aaron silently admitted to himself that it was a good point.

"We know you killed someone," said Ron, "So who was it?"

"Well, if you don't know who it was, then you don't have a body, right? And if you don't have a body, then you clearly don't know I did it, 'cuz, there's no evidence." '
Damn,
' thought Aaron, '
he's a lot smarter than his silly hat would lead you to expect.
'

Evans continued to use the hard sell on him, but Aaron just sat back and watched it. After about ten minutes, the Englishman didn't crack, so he simply said, "He didn't do it, Ron. You can go, sir. Sorry for the inconvenience."

"You're bleedin' well right you're gonna be sorry for the inconvenience! This is wrongful imprisonment, I'm gonna sue you..."

"No, wrongful arrest. Wrongful imprisonment is something else. If we'd tied you to the chair, then that would have been wrongful imprisonment, but we just wrongfully arrested you. And as we're private detectives paid for by Boeing, you were never charged with anything formally, so it'll be hard to make it stick. I'll be happy to recommend a lawyer for you, if you like though. Ron, call Susan and have her pick out some lawyers for Mister Le..."

"All right, all right," the Brit cut him off. "So what's going on?"

Aaron sized him up for a moment, then said, "We think—thought—that there's been a murder somewhere..."

"Boss, no!" Evans exclaimed!

Aaron continued without pausing, "...on the base, but as you and the head of Boeing security point out, no body: no crime," then shot his sidekick a cold stare.

"He's our chief suspect!" Evans exclaimed.

"Oh, he is not. He didn't do it."

"You don't know that," Ron said.

"Yes I do, and you do too. Just look at him. Did you kill anyone, son?"

"No sir," the Brit said, "no, I could never kill anyone... life is too sacred, All you need is..."

"Then why did he run?" Evans demanded.

"Probably because we chased him," Aaron offered.

"'S right, mate! Human nature!" The Brit said.

"Again, I'm sorry for all the fuss, sir. I do ask that if you see anything suspicious here, you please let me or Mr. Evans know, ok?"

"Gear!" And he walked away.

When he was out of site, Evans said, "You want me to tail him?"

"Oh, hell yeah!" said Aaron.

The opening act sucked. What made them worse, Aaron thought, was the elements of their songs were actually kind of good, but they just didn't work in relationship to each other. Their Everly Brothers-styled harmonies were very nice and very tight, and their drummer was very, very good, but he kept launching in to Gene Krupa-like drum leads that completely overshadowed everything else. The lead guitarist—the one who'd been talking to Orbison about God earlier—was technically very good, but hadn't developed any particular style or flash of his own, and he and the bassist were clearly at odds with each other musically. And that bassist—that bassist was just the worst thing Aaron had ever seen. Lord, he was terrible. Aaron had a thing for music, and when the music press had described the bassist as a 'brilliant deconstructionist,' he'd been interested to see them play live just so he could figure out what that phrase meant. Turns out it meant playing one note on one string for an entire song, then playing the same note on the same string for the next entire song, and so on, for the whole set. Terrible. John, Paul, George, Pete, and Stu might be the fab five of England, but it was pretty clear that The Silver Beatles were never going to amount to anything in the 'States.

In the security booth, watching the closed circuit TVs, Aaron saw that the president looked a bit confused. He applauded. A featureless secret service goon whispered in to his ear. Nixon's confusion apparently cleared, and he stopped clapping.

Evans, sitting to Aarons' right, ventured an opinion: "I imagine he thought those Brits were Orbison."

"I imagine so," agreed Aaron. " Roy—Mister Orbison—told me earlier that he doubted Nixon was actually a fan, just wanted to look cool."

"Good bet."

"What the hell was that stupid 'No Pakistani' song about?"

"I don't—did you see that?"

"No..."

"Monitor Five, orchestra pit."

"I didn't see anything," Evans said, "What about it?"

"Drums. Who's assigned to the pit?"

"West."

"Call him." Evans did, but there was no answer.

"I'm going down there to check it out, Aaron said. You stay here, you're in charge until I get back," and he tore out the door.

Burt Reynolds was like royalty in Florida. He was born there—depending on who was telling the story—was a football hero, graduated from one of its state universities, and, in 1959, he'd become the first man in space. He'd been approached by a consortium headed by Boeing and supervised by Dr. Werner von Braun. The German had actually been one of Reynolds's college professors at FSU. When the time came to strap a person to the nose of a souped-up ICBM, he remembered the young Air Force Lieutenant. In relative secrecy he was officially shanghaied away from the Air Force and became—as he himself deprecatingly put it—"America's answer to a Russian dog in space."

The ovation when he came out on stage was deafening. Even President Nixon, who'd broken his ankle during a state trip to Cuba last week, stood.

Aaron Presley was in the orchestra pit, heading towards the drums, confident that whatever was going on had finally revealed itself. There was a nervous-looking timpanist by his kettle drums, sweaty and panicked. Aaron made him instantly as the most likely one to be behind whatever was going on. He came up behind him, out of the drummer's line of site, and with one hand on his pistol in his pocket, he brought his left hand down on the man's shoulder. The man startled, and at just that moment Aaron felt a hand coming down on his own shoulder, startling him as well.

"What the hell?" Aaron whipped around in shock, pulling the gun out. On stage, Burt was telling homey anecdotes about how he'd done work as a stunt man to make ends meet in college.

It was West, "Whoa, whoa, what's going on, Chief?" he asked, his hands flying out in front of him in an 'I surrender' posture.

"Why didn't you check in?" Aaron demanded.

"The drummer here..."—he indicated the nervous man—"...took a bad fall, went ass-over teakettle a few minutes ago. It's too late for a replacement, no time to go to the infirmary, so I got him a bag full of ice for his leg." He proffered the bag. The drummer embarrassedly strapped it on the swollen limb with duct tape.

Was that it? Was that what had happened? A drummer falling off a riser? And still no body?

He thought it through.

Yes, despite his nagging feeling that something was going on, he had exactly no proof. Everything that happened could be explained in some other means—Lennon walking through the pool of blood unseen when he slipped out to smoke a joint, the clumsy drummer, even the blood could have been caused by a bunch of different causes. '
Hell, it really could be just a nosebleed. I mean, no one was missing from any of the various security teams running around at the ceremony.
' He was just being paranoid. '
Time to get over it,
' he ruminated as he walked out of the orchestra pit. He'd have to report in to Tom about this to be safe, but...'
oh, hey, there's Tommy now!
' he thought as he caught sight of him out of the corner of his eye, and headed towards him.

"And now, Mister President, Ladies and Gentlemen," Burt was saying, "It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you The King of Rock and Roll, Mister Roy Orbison!" The crowd went nuts.

"Tom, I don't know what you're doing down h..." he started to say, but instantly recognized his error—it wasn't the head of Boeing security at all, but one of the Orchestra musicians who looked inordinately like him, only with shorter, blonder hair. "I'm sorry," Aaron said, "I mistook you for someone else."

"Happens all the time, man" the blonde man said in a nervous voice, sweat on his upper lip.
'Well, hell, who wouldn't be nervous in a place like this? Lots of pressure on,'
Aaron thought as he left.

"Thank you very much, mercy," Orbison said on stage. "You know, I got in a stupid little bet tonight to see whether I'd dare to play the worst song I ever wrote and risk looking like a fool in front of all you fine people. And I'm kind of a sucker for a dare, so here it is: with my apologies, the worst song I ever wrote..."

The band launched in to Ooby Dooby, and again, the crowd went wild. His worst song was also his first hit.

He was wrong. Nothing was up, he was just being paranoid, and yet he couldn't shake the feeling that something really
was
up. He wandered around aimlessly through the theater complex for most of Orbison's set, unable to concentrate. Eventually, he wandered backstage. No sooner there again, when Lennon the Brit came up to him.

"How the hell did I come to this," he said out loud without realizing it.

"Life is what happens while you're waiting for a bus," the Brit said.

"What?" Aaron asked, confused.

"Hey, Presley, you wanted me to tell you if I saw anything unusual?"

"Yeah."

"Well take a look at this," he led him on a winding course through the ropes and counterweights attached to the curtains, eventually coming to a large cask that had evidently fallen from the rafters.

"Some of those apes in the catwalks knocked this loose earlier. I noticed it, thought it might be beer, and, well... it isn't beer, mate, but it is leaking."

Aaron put his hand in the stain spreading from the broken boards. It was thick and sticky and cold, obviously blood, but whomever it had belonged to had been dead a while. He kicked at the lid until it came loose, and a bald middle-aged man in a tuxedo spilled out. The two of them wrestled the body out of the barrel, and Aaron quickly went through the pockets for ID. There was none, but the tux gave it all away.

"That's why no one reported any missing security... it wasn't one of the guards..."

"It was someone in the orchestra" Lennon said, "But wait—wouldn't they all notice an imposter?"

"No, the Miami Orchestra came down with a case of bad clams or something. Half of these people are replacements who've never met before. Lennon, you need to get up to Evans in the security booth, you know where it is? Good. Tell him it's someone in the orchestra, and we've got to prevent the President from going on stage, ok? Go! Now! Run!"

John Lennon ran from the back stage area while Elvis Aaron Presley hauled ass for the pit.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Burt was saying, "Please stand for The President of United States."

"Oh, hell," Aaron thought as he tore around the corner and across the floor. Everyone stood in unison, making it much harder for him to get through. He tripped twice, knocking over a fat man and his even fatter wife. The Orchestra launched in to 'Hail to the Chief' as he finally made it past the stairs and in to the pit. But where was the assassin? Without trying to attract too much attention, he drew his pistol and wove along the back wall. It was a very long rendition of 'Chief', since the president had his foot in a cast, and was taking forever to hobble out to the microphone. Were the basses a bit off? The music washed over him as Aaron was almost paralyzed with fear. He couldn't figure out why the music should keep mattering to him at a time like this, but it kept coming back to the bass... and...

...suddenly...

He knew. It all clicked in his head. He ran towards the stage at the front of the pit. By the time he got there, the man with the blonde hair had already pulled off the front of his upright bass, and was pulling out a rifle. No time to get there, no one else had noticed yet. Aaron Tennessee-rolled himself up on to the stage and took off at a sprint, yelling "West, Basses! Shooter! Get him!"

It was too late, the blonde man already had his weapon up and sighted. Aaron lunged himself through the air, just as the blonde man shouted "Power to the People!" and pulled the trigger. The bullet tore through the air at supersonic speed, leaving the barrel just an instant before West tackled the guy low and hard from behind, breaking the assailant's spine. The shooter went down without a sickening snap that only West could hear, and which would haunt his dreams for the rest of his life. The two of them tumbled through the string section, knocking instruments, chairs, and musicians everywhere.

An instant before, however, the bullet had found a target, but not the one the shooter had intended. Aaron's mad dive through the air had intercepted the slug before it could hit Nixon. He screamed in pain and was instantly unconscious from shock before he even hit the ground. A dozen Secret Service goons stormed the stage and dog piled atop the president and Presley, not quite realizing what was going on. A near riot broke out with panicked members of the audience stampeding for the doors.

Evans' voice came over the PA, "Please remain calm. The President is OK. There is no cause for alarm."

In the booth, Evans hollered for Tom to call out Boeing security to contain this panicking crowd before it turned in to a riot, but there was no reply. He turned to look, but the man was gone.