The Devil of Echo Lake (7 page)

He felt a pang of regret about leaving the guitar on the bridge in the freezing cold for God only knew how long, snow piling up on it. It was a Gibson, and he knew that if the guitar ended up in Jim’s care, like he wanted it to, his friend didn’t have the money to repair a warped neck.

But that guitar still had a few more Billy Moon songs in it because of what happened next.

*  *  *

He stood there on the edge watching the snow spiral down into the icy black water. He reminded himself of the likelihood that if he left this bridge with his feet on the ground, he would end up as assistant manager of the pharmacy where he worked as a stock boy—overweight, using his store discount to keep a small arsenal of foot-care products in the medicine cabinet of his crappy apartment, and taking his acoustic out of the closet once a year to play it when he’s drunk enough. He stepped out with one combat boot pointing toward oblivion, as light splashed over the scuffed toe.

He couldn’t help it. He looked up at the oncoming car. The light moved too slowly. It was coming to a stop.

He heard a door open, but he couldn’t make out what kind of car it was or who just got out, not with the glare of the headlights in his eyes. Then he heard a voice coming from the light: a lazy melodious voice with a British accent. It spoke his name. He was trying to make sense of what he'd just heard, but his brain flat out rejected the idea that someone had called him by name—nobody in this city knew his name. That was why he was hanging off this bridge. 

Certainly no one who drove a car knew his name. All his friends rode the T. The idea it was his boss flitted through his mind, but not with an accent like that.
Is someone from work fucking with me?
Had it been his boss, it would have only strengthened his resolve to throw his weight forward and end it. Only that felt wrong, too, because he had been interrupted.

Playing his encore and putting the guitar to bed in its plush velvet case felt right. It kept him in his suicide trance. But he couldn’t have the last thing he ever heard be his boss offering to give him a lift, in his best Nigel Tufnel impersonation. The suicide trance felt a lot like his songwriting trance, but the perfect rhyme he could feel forming on the dark periphery of his short life turned out to be a clunker that he just couldn't bring himself to end the third verse with. It was all wrong.

The man called Billy’s name again.
It must be a cop who tracked me down for something, but I haven’t done anything,
he thought
.
There was something deeply unsettling in the taunting singsong quality of the voice and as was the way he was so exposed in the headlights, like being on stage where everyone looking at you is a faceless silhouette beyond those blinding, hot aluminum cans. How could someone feel threatened by anything when in the act of offing himself? But he did.

He stepped toward the car to put a girder between his face and the light and could see a black limousine with a driver in a cap. One of the back doors was open, allowing a pool of red light to spill out onto the road like a fever. The man behind the seductive voice stood at the edge of that pool of sickly scarlet aura, grinning at him, wearing a tan suit, no tie, and sporting slicked-back black hair. Scruffy, in a rich sort of way, like a musician. Or a drug dealer.

That almost makes sense. He wondered,
Who did I fuck over? Did the band sell some pot on this guy’s turf and now he’s going to make an example of me?
And the fear threw his petty vanity into stark relief.

The snowflakes blowing across his face in the high wind started to melt a little faster on his flushed skin. He understood in that moment that even though he would have gone through with it, his suicide wouldn’t have been motivated by pure despair and self-loathing. It would have been his last shot at infamy in the absence of fame. Now the prospect of getting whacked by a drug lord and making the papers as a dim-witted, small-time pot peddler scared the hell out of him. It was a pitiful fifteen minutes. Jumping from the bridge, a guitar left behind, would have put a stamp of authenticity on his death. Suffering Artist: Exhibit A.

Billy approached the car, and the stranger smiled. He swept his hand toward the soft red interior in a grand theatrical gesture ending in a slight bow.

Billy found his voice, hoarse and ragged. “How do you know my name?”

“I’m a fan. Good show tonight. I can tell you weren’t at your best, but I have a knack for spotting potential.”

“You were at the bar? I didn’t see you.”

“I saw you.”

“Who are you?”

“Trevor Rail. I’m a producer. Grab your guitar. Let’s take a drive.”

Five

The air inside the limousine was redolent of rich leather and fine tobacco. A red lava lamp on a low table between the backseat, where Billy sat rubbing his cold hands together, and the rear-facing seat where Trevor Rail settled in was the only source of light in the cabin. It must have been on for a while, because the lava was surging and writhing as if trying to break free of the glass. Rail cracked a window, withdrew a slim metal case adorned with elaborate scrollwork from his inner breast pocket, and offered Billy a cigarillo. Billy shook his head. Rail took one for himself and lit it with a silver Zippo, also engraved, possibly depicting a rooster with snakes for legs, but Billy only caught a glimpse.

The producer didn’t say anything for the first few drags, just sat there, appraising Billy wreathed in scarlet-tinged smoke. Billy had the feeling the guy was taking inventory of his assets. Tallying points for cheekbones, subtracting for the understated chin, adding a few for hair. Of Trevor Rail's own features, Billy could see now how handsome he was: slightly hooded lambent blue eyes coming across as a disquieting shade of pale here in the lurid light of the cabin, salt and pepper goatee tapered to sharp sideburns, teeth that would have been white as alabaster in clear light, here taking on the appearance of scintillating rubies when at last the man smiled and asked, “Do you write most of the material?” There was a hunger in the question.

Looking at those teeth, Billy felt that his hands might never be warm again, but he found his voice and said, “Some. All of the lyrics, some of the music.” He shifted in the luxurious seat and cast his gaze down at the guitar case resting at his feet. “Jim’s good at connecting parts and coming up with arrangements.”

“How about that one, ‘I Like to Watch.’ You write that?”

“Yeah. That’s one of mine.”

“First piece of valuable advice: dump them.”

“Huh?”

“Your mates. Dump them.”

“Why?”

“Because you won’t need them where you’re going.”

“And where’s that?”

“If you listen to me, the zenith, my boy.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let me guess. The band considers itself a democracy. Everyone tosses his spare cash in a jar; everyone contributes something to the overall
sound,
eh? Even the drummer gets a writing credit on your CD because you’re the Four Musketeers. Brothers-in-Arms. Am I right?”

“Something like that.”

“Do you know what constitutes a song by the definition of the United States Copyright Office? Lyrics and melody. That’s you. Lyrics and melody. You can’t copyright a drum part, a chord progression or a guitar sound. So when you write a hit song that could do well enough to buy a nice house, why should you have to give a quarter of a million dollars to some bass player who happened to be in the room when inspiration struck? It’s your melody someone hums when it’s stuck in their head, your words they remember. Perhaps even your pain that gave it life.” There was something harrowing in the way Rail pronounced the word
pain
, some resonant overtone that vibrated in the air between them like a rope snapping taut. Billy felt a hollowness in his stomach, a tightness in his throat.

“I haven’t written any hit songs.”

“Sure you have.”

Rail turned to the mini-bar, took out a bottle of Bacardi and poured two shots. He pressed a switch with his right forefinger. The nail was long for a man's, but immaculately manicured. The little window behind him slid down and he told the driver to take them back to Manhattan. The way he said the word made it sound like an enchanted island kingdom. Then he raised his glass to “catastrophic success.”

Billy didn’t know what to say, so he drank.

He wondered if Rail was for real, or if he was some kind of moneyed pervert, willing to drop some cash on whatever props would help him to seduce young men he’d taken notice of. With a little homework, a smooth talker could play on your hopes and dreams long enough to get you off your guard. And the guy sure could talk. He talked about who he knew at each of the majors and how much money Billy could expect in a bidding war.

He went on about the psychology of A&R men and how they were like hot women who expected the talent to grovel at their feet because they held the keys to the kingdom, but in reality, behind that power dynamic, they really only ever wanted someone if they thought they couldn’t have him.

Ever in fear of losing their jobs, they made most of their decisions by looking at what the competition seemed interested in. He knew who had engineered all of Billy’s favorite records and what those guys were working on now, and who was in rehab, and which
Rolling Stone
writer would favor you if you let him blow you. The guy was for real.

Billy hadn’t eaten anything in about six hours, and the Bacardi went straight to his head. By the time the limo passed through Hartford, he was sold. His ship had come in. By almost diverting his destiny, had he somehow forced God’s hand? His ego bloomed, watered by alcohol and ambition. He couldn’t wait to tell Kate.

At the thought of her, he sobered a little. “Wait, why are we going to New York?”

Rail laughed. “To pluck you out of the brackish backwaters of the industry, for starters.”

“But nobody knows where I am. When I don’t show up at two in the morning with the other guys, my girlfriend will be worried.”

Rail's mouth twisted, trembled on the verge of laughter. Billy asked him what was so funny.

Shaking his head, Rail poured more rum. The grin melted back into his handsome face as he handed Billy the glass. Billy took it, but didn’t drink, just stared at Rail, waiting for him to answer the question until, unable to hold the man’s unblinking gaze any longer, he had to look away at the first thing his eyes could focus on—the bat logo on the bottle. The silence spun out. When Billy glanced up again, Rail was still staring at him like a dog establishing dominance, the red lava undulating in his black pupils.

Trevor Rail spoke softly. Billy had to lean in to make out the words over the hum of the engine. “Don’t kid yourself, Billy. You weren’t concerned about Kate an hour ago, when I found you on the bridge. That’s when I knew you were ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“To leave them all in your wake. Everyone who’s been holding you back.”

“Kate’s not holding me back. Wait, how do you know her name?”

Rail’s mouth twitched, a flicker of that sardonic grin. Before it could form, his face morphed into a mask of overwrought sorrow. “Oh, Billy,” he said, “don’t be ashamed of your selfishness. You’re an artist. It’s your nature to be self-absorbed. It’s practically your duty. You can’t help that that’s the way you’re wired. And now, for the first time in your life, you’re facing it: being honest about it. You were prepared to jump tonight, to let go of all your attachments, to let everyone you love mourn you. That requires a deep well of selfishness. To let your own pain trump everyone else’s. You need to learn to use that. Let that impulse focus and guide you, and it will take you all the way.”

He paused, giving Billy time to absorb his dark logic.

“
Then
you will be ready to give something to others, to the
world
, because you were true to yourself, not consumed by what other people want you to be. But it begins with severing the ties that bind you.”

“Maybe I don’t want to.”

“Don’t lie to yourself.”

“I don’t see why it’s a big deal to let her know I’m alright. Do you have a cell phone? I’ll still go to New York with you.”

Rail cocked his head and spoke over the lowered glass at the driver. “Stop the car.” The driver pulled over. As soon as the car stopped, Rail reached past Billy and opened the door. “Get the fuck out.”

“Why? What did I do?”

“I thought you were serious, but you’re clearly not ready. My mistake. Get out.”

“Whoa, hold up. You can’t just dump me in the middle of Connecticut.”

“The hell I can’t. Out.” Rail pointed a finger at the hot top.

Billy cradled his guitar case to his breast and climbed out of the car. The door slammed shut. The limo crawled forward toward the stream of cars and trucks flying past on I-84, the left blinker flashing as the car picked up speed.

Before he knew he was doing it, Billy took a deep breath and let out a roaring scream, pushing his voice from the diaphragm as if he were on stage with a dead monitor and the band louder than bombs.

“WAIT!”

The brake lights lit, the car slowed, but the amber blinker continued to flash. Billy ran beside the gleaming black limousine. The tinted rear window glided down, and Rail gazed obliquely at Billy with a contempt that made him feel like he was a bum shaking some coins around in the coffee dregs at the bottom of a Styrofoam cup.

“Okay, I’ll do it,” Billy said.

“Do what?”

“Anything. Whatever it takes.”

Rail laughed. A word from the sign on the bridge flashed in Billy’s mind. DESPERATE? The car stopped rolling.

“You really pissed me off for a minute there, Billy.”

“I’m sorry. I am serious. I am.”

“Don’t offend me like that again. I offered to make you a
rock star
. More beloved and influential than most presidents. Longer term too, if you play your cards right. More pussy than an Arabian prince. And you start talking about your
girlfriend?
Have some respect for the magnitude of what I’m offering you.”