The Devil of Echo Lake (8 page)

The door opened. Billy climbed in.

As they closed the distance to New York, the January moon kept pace with the car, and Trevor Rail spoke the truth of Billy’s situation. He said he
expected
Billy to be an egotist. He would have no use for him if he wasn’t. He had seen artists lose faith and question their own value. He had seen performers sabotage their own success because deep down they didn’t feel they deserved it. You had to be an egomaniac to survive in the long run. Some singers reconciled this predicament by seeing themselves as saints, using their influence to save the world. Rail scoffed at the folly. “I prefer proud sinners. I can lay the world before you like a dish, Billy. But only if you’re willing to make sacrifices.”

Rail poured Billy another drink. He went on in that smooth, droning British lilt. War stories, jokes, little insights into Billy’s childhood. Billy laughed, wept and watched the limo cabin fracture into a stained glass mosaic through the tears.

And then there was New York, all lit up and glittering like ice chips in the black fur of some beast under the moon. Billy wondered if the rum was spiked with something. It didn’t matter anymore. He felt good. The road was broken at intervals by sections of steel plates that made the car bounce on its shocks. Soon, taxicabs flocked around the limo like a swarm of bees.

Rail’s driver was aggressive enough to run with the best New York engine jockeys, maneuvering the unwieldy vehicle with precision, if not grace. Billy was thrown into the air above his seat a few times, hitting his head on the plush ceiling, feeling the steel frame through the fabric.

Rail stowed the empty glasses and laid a sheaf of legal-size papers on the little table beside the lava lamp. Densely printed small type.

“What’s this?” Billy asked. He had to raise his voice to cut through the noise of the engine, now working harder, and the background cacophony of taxi horns and hydraulic truck brakes compressed by the channel of tall buildings they were moving through.

Rail leaned in, close to his ear. When he spoke, Billy could feel hot breath in his hair. “It’s a production contract. It grants me the privilege of recording your first album. If I secure a deal for you, I retain points on the record and a modest percentage of the publishing. You will find it’s quite fair.” He drew a black felt tipped pen from his breast pocket, uncapped it and moistened the tip by placing it on his tongue for just a second—a quick gesture that was at once predatory and erotic.

Two conflicting voices arose within Billy simultaneously. One was a piece of advice he’d heard from several sources over the years:
Don’t ever give up your publishing rights.
The other was just a victory cry.
I’m getting signed! I’m finally getting signed!
His heart pounded so hard that he looked down to see if his shirt was moving. He took the pen in his clammy hand and unconsciously placed the cap in his teeth, clamping down on it like a nipple as he scanned the blocks of obscure legalese in the wavering bloody light. The car continued to rock and sway through the urban canyons of Manhattan.

In a flash, Billy saw the walls of the car disappear around him, the profusion of sparkling lights from the skyscraper windows replaced by stars above a dark sea. There was no land in sight. He was riding the back of a mammoth black wave from towering crest to bottomless trough, his stomach left somewhere high above and behind him in the plunge. Trevor Rail still sat across from him, not in the jostling white leather cabin of a limo now, but in a mouldering rowboat, holding the dripping oars above the water, teeth flashing like rubies from deep within a black hood. The image was vividly present, but gone in an instant.

Billy looked down at the papers and tried to focus. It was hard to read—the motion of the car, the alcohol, and his ignorance all conspiring against comprehension. He remembered how quickly he’d been kicked to the curb in Hartford for asking to call Kate. What was he going to do now, ask to call a lawyer?

I’m getting signed
. The words were an incantation against all misery. They would have a powerful effect on everyone in Billy’s life. He imagined how their faces would look when he told them the news—his father, his boss, his band mates. Everyone who had ever politely encouraged him while privately scorning his chances. He would be vindicated. For every time he’d taken a song to the band that they had turned down, he would be vindicated.

But he could see Jim’s face a little too clearly. Could he really look Jim in the eye and admit that he had signed away
any
rights to the songs they’d written together? Could he really walk out on the band?

A new voice arose in his crowded mind, dressed in the tone and inflections of the man seated before him.
At midnight, you were ready to throw your life away, your flesh and blood, and now you’re worried about a few percentage points on some money you haven’t even earned yet
. That was enough to silence his guilt and doubt. Trevor Rail had found Billy Moon at the bottom, in his darkest hour. He had nothing to lose and the world to gain.

He put the pen to the paper and signed his name after the X.

*  *  *

The limo crawled up a narrow alley and stopped in front of a dumpster. Rats scampered over the lip and shot off into the dark. The driver got out first and opened the rear door. Billy climbed out with Rail on his heels.

“Where are we?” Billy asked.

“I’m going to show you what you have to live for.”

“In a piss-stinking back alley? This ought to be good.”

“In there,” Rail said, pointing his long fingernail at a reinforced steel door. The only indication of what lay beyond was a piece of gray driftwood hanging from a black iron scroll arm above the entrance. Painted on the wood in gold leaf in an archaic script were the words: CARNIVORE'S CARNIVALE

Rail knocked. The hinges shrieked and the door opened to reveal a bald-headed black man with a gold ring the size of a small doorknocker hanging from his nose. Rail inclined his head ever so slightly and said, “Good evening, Peter.”

“Evening, Mr. Rail.”

Peter reached out with a muscle-ripped arm and pulled on a heavy metal bar, like a gambler spinning a slot machine. A second, inner door opened like an air lock, releasing a wash of industrial voodoo drums and chainsaw guitars.

The space inside was packed with the sort of New York revelers who look like they’ve just stepped out of the six pages of cologne-drenched fashion ads one has to flip through to find the table of contents in
Vanity Fair
: bare-chested omni-sexual golden boys in Armani vests and emaciated girls in rawhide-laced slit skirts, thick black eyeliner, electric blue hair. The air was tinged with hashish smoke and pheromones and underneath it all, a bass note of charred flesh and iron.

The room, which at first sight had appeared vast, soon resolved itself into a claustrophobic box when Billy noticed that the purple and yellow robo-lights were reflecting back at him off mirrored walls. A tall, thin girl with a pallid complexion, dressed in a sequined leotard completed by a top hat and baton, stretched like taffy as she danced. It took Billy a few seconds to decide that he was not, in fact, tripping. They were funhouse mirrors.

A path opened through the crowd when Rail walked across the room. Even those whose backs were turned to him, or who danced with their eyes closed, stepped aside instinctively at his approach. When he and Billy reached the other side of the dance floor, they passed under an archway of heavy wooden scrollwork painted with cracked gold. The volume of the pounding music dropped down enough in this new space—more tunnel than hallway—to allow conversation as they passed through.

“What is this place?” Billy asked, touching the silky sleeve of Rail’s jacket.

“It’s a private club,” Rail said. “The finest fresh flesh in New York.”

The music receded behind them, and now Billy could make out another sound coming from somewhere ahead, growing louder. It was a drip-drop splashing sound, echoing through the tunnel. He looked down and saw that they were walking through a thin layer of water he hadn’t noticed before. The passageway was long; the only light the purple and yellow flicker on the ceiling far behind them at the mouth, and a dim blue glow up ahead.

Billy hesitated, thought of turning back. Who was this guy, anyway? His survival instincts were being triggered with each step they took away from the crowd. Billy stopped walking. Rail seized his wrist and pulled him forward with enough force to make him slip on the wet floor. As he tumbled toward it, throwing his hands out and bracing for impact, he felt his leather jacket tighten around him. Rail had caught him with one hand. In both the tug and the catch, Rail had revealed surprising strength. He steadied Billy and released him.

There was a scraping sound of flint and steel—a lighter sparking a flame. Rail’s shadow-painted face floated in the darkness, drawing on a cigarillo. The producer held the flame aloft, raised an eyebrow at Billy, and exhaled pungent smoke through his nostrils. He tilted his head toward the floor. It was hard to tell for sure by the wavering orange light, but before Rail capped the lighter, Billy thought he could discern a thickness in the consistency of the liquid running down the grated gutter at the margin of the tunnel. Not dirty water. Blood. The smell of iron in the air suddenly made sense.

Rail said, “Watch your step.”

Billy froze in place. Was it
human
blood?

As if reading his mind, Rail said, “It’s not exactly legal or kosher, but trust, me it’s the best steak on the hoof you’ll ever try. They have fresh oysters, too. Keeps you young, consuming things that still have life force in them.”

They walked on and came into the blue-lit room where a waiter was parading a drugged bull before a table of sharp dressed, clean-cut young men seated with an older woman whose place at the head of the table gave Billy the idea that they worked for her in some capacity. Rail nodded at her as they passed through the room. Billy couldn’t tell if she smiled at him, or if her face was permanently rigged with Botox injections.

“Don’t stare,” Rail muttered. “It’s not polite.” He put his hand on Billy’s shoulder and guided him to a tread-plate spiral staircase that descended from a corner of the floor.

The last thing Billy saw before the floor eclipsed his view was the waiter drawing a long, thin blade from his sleeve, and dipping it down his throat like a sword swallower at a circus. The sight of the docile bull made Billy think of the rum Rail had given him on the ride down from Boston. Was he drugged? He couldn’t tell. He felt light-headed, only half in his body. The alcohol, the drive, this dreadful place, the hypnotic voice of his guide—all of it was extinguishing lucidity.

At the bottom of the stairs, Billy found a black velvet curtain with a heavy, silver silk rope. He tugged on it. The curtain parted in the middle, and from behind him, Rail said, “I called ahead and ordered for you.”

Billy laughed as he took in the view. It was a harem. The room was made to resemble a large tent. Tapestries were draped from the ceiling and walls. Big, square velvet pillows covered the floor atop several layers of overlapping Persian rugs. The only light came from a star-shaped tin lantern hanging from a silver chain in the center of the room, its myriad pinprick holes emitting the golden rays of a candle burning within.

Six naked young women lay sprawled around the room on the pillows. Billy’s laughter tapered off when he noticed that the reason they were all so immediately, strikingly beautiful to him was because they all looked like Kate. Even by the uneven candle light, he could tell that none of them looked exactly like her twin, but they all shared her basic body type, her height, her mane of loose, curly red hair, her breasts. One had her eyes—another, her hands—on a third, the lips were just right. The illusion was good enough to cause a tightening of his black jeans. The girl with the perfect hair relieved that discomfort by unbuttoning and unzipping them.

She led him with a gentle grip into the center of the room where he fell to his knees on the pillows, just below the star lantern and another dangling silk rope. Now the Kates were stripping him of his jacket, shirt and everything else down to his socks with astonishing efficiency. He wondered if they were so well coordinated in everything they did.

They were.

Two tongues fluttered at his earlobes while two more did the same at his nipples. Then the mouths at his ears moved down to his nipples to replace the other pair, which in turn brushed across his hips and met at last in a long slow kiss around the part of him that was one. A fifth Kate was kissing his lips while the sixth embraced him from behind and sucked on the nape of his neck.

The configuration continued to evolve in perfect speechless synchrony.

When they had brought him to the brink for the third time and he was groaning between great heaving breaths, sweat stinging his eyes, pelvis vibrating with tremors of impending orgasm, they suddenly ceased their adorations as if in response to some silent cue.

Billy cast about trying to set his eyes on Rail. A flame revealed the man’s face in the corner when he lit a cigarillo, holding it between the ring finger and pinky of his right hand and sucking the smoke through the tunnel of his fist, an effect that made his hand appear to be kindled from within.

Rail spoke in smoke, his voice oily and resonant. “This token will be a reminder to you. The consummation of our contract.” He reached into the pocket of his slacks and withdrew a shining platinum ring. One of the Kates pried Billy’s clutching right hand from a pillow and held it out to Rail. Billy felt the metal mouth devour the knuckle of his ring finger.

Rail said, “From this night forward, you are married to the music, Billy Moon. Serve the music first and all else is yours for the taking.” Billy closed his fist. The ring felt heavy and cold. Trevor Rail raised his voice in mockery of a priest orating a Latin mass and intoned, “In the name of the riches, bitches, and fame everlasting, amen.”

The Kates resumed their rhythmic work as if they had never stopped, like a funk band kicking back in after a false ending.