The Rock 'N Roll Detective's Greatest Hits - a Spike Berenger Anthology (44 page)

“Fearless leader!” Remix cried when Berenger entered the room.

“Hey, guys. ‘Sup?”

His team members sat at computer workstations, pretending to look busy.

“I’m buried by all this work you left me,” Remix said. “I can’t even see the sunlight, man. I’m starving and dehydrated and I’ve gotta take a leak and—”

“Okay, okay, enough.” He addressed Briggs. “Anything happen while I was out?”

“Nope.”

“Nope,” Prescott echoed.

“That’s good, I guess. I heard Zach Garriott called.”

“The Shredder? Really?” Remix asked.

“Yeah, really. I guess I need to go call him back.”

“I don’t think he has any openings in his band, Spike. So get that right out of your system. And besides, you ain’t half as good as he is.”

“Thanks, Remix. Oh, I’m gonna need you in a while. We’ve got this IRS auditor coming to see Rudy and me. You think you could do one of your specials on him and keep him occupied for a while? Make him, uhm, comfortable while he
waits
?”

Remix’s eyes brightened. “The IRS? Holy snowballs, Batman! I’ve always wanted to take a crack at one of them!”

“Just don’t kill him. That’s against the law.”

“But you don’t particularly want to go through with the audit, is that the idea?”

“You got it.”

“Leave it to me, bossaroo.”

Prescott rolled her eyes as if to say, “Uh oh. We’re in trouble.”

“Say, Spike, Tommy and I want you to settle an argument for us,” Remix said.

“What’s that?”

“It’s not important, Spike,” Briggs grumbled.

“What?”

Remix cleared his throat. “Pink Floyd’s album. Is it
THE Dark Side of the Moon
, or just
Dark Side of the Moon
?”

Berenger winced. “Remix…”

“No, man, I wanna know! Tommy here bet me a dollar that the album title is
The
-less. I say it’s supposed to have a
The
on it.”

Berenger looked at Briggs. “Is this a real discussion you guys have been having? On company time?”

“Hey,” Briggs answered, “all I said was that the
The
was dropped from the title when the album was released on CD. Back in seventy-three, when the vinyl record came out, it did have a
The
on it. But now it doesn’t. Look at the spine of the CD. There’s no
The
. Pink Floyd and everybody else constantly refer to the album as just
Dark Side of the Moon
. Having to say
THE Dark Side of the Moon
is… well, awkward. Don’t you think?”

Berenger stared at his two teammates. “I haven’t really thought about it with such intensity, guys. But to answer your question, Tommy’s right. The original album had a
The
, but I always called it
Dark Side of the Moon
without the
The
. It sounds better that way.”

Remix grunted in disgust.

“You owe me a dollar, Remix,” Briggs commented.

Berenger left the room and made his way down to the second floor, which belonged to him and Prescott. Besides their separate offices, the level contained a recording studio and gym exclusively used by Berenger.

He went into his office, sat at his desk, and dialed Bishop.

“Bishop.”

“Rudy, I’m here.”

“Good. The auditor’ll be here any minute. You had me sweating bullets.”

“Rudy, I told you not to worry. Besides, Remix is gonna take care of him for us while I call Zach Garriott back.”

“Remix? Oh, no…”

Berenger chuckled and hung up. He went downstairs just as Melanie buzzed in a thin man in his thirties who wore a conservative suit that Berenger thought shouted
I AM AN IRS AGENT!

“Ringo, call Remix and have him come down and make our guest comfortable. Rudy and I will be with him in a minute.”

Melanie’s eyes bulged as she gulped, but she made the call.

The man approached the desk and spoke with a comically nasal voice. “Hello, I’m Milton Morgan with the Internal Revenue Service and I have an appointment with Rudy Bishop.”

“Just a moment, sir,” Melanie said with efficiency as she punched buttons on her desk phone. She was doing her best not to laugh. “Remix? Could you come down here? There’s a Milton Morgan from the IRS here.”

Berenger ducked into another office and waited. After a moment, Remix came bounding down the stairs. Morgan’s eyes widened when he saw the dark-skinned young man with out-of-control dreadlocks and piercings decorating his face.

“Hi, there. I’m Danny Lewis, Mister Bishop’s executive secretary.”

Melanie snorted again, because Remix was speaking with a phony British accent, as if he were a sophisticated black Londoner from the City.

“Mister Bishop and Mister Berenger will be right with you. I’m going to show you into our conference room where you can wait for a minute or two. Can I get you something to drink? Ringo here makes superb coffee.”

Morgan nodded. “Coffee would be nice, thanks. Cream and sugar, please.”

Remix led the man into the adjacent conference room. “Please have a seat and I’ll return in a moment.” He shut the door and ran into the kitchen. He poured a cup of coffee and then removed a piece of paper from his pocket. It had been folded into a receptacle for a white powder he had hastily procured from his office. He mixed in two spoonfuls of the powder, and then put the box away. Remix then added the cream and sugar.

“Here you are, sir,” Remix purred as he brought the spiked coffee into the conference room.

“Oh, thanks very much.”

“You’re welcome. Mister Bishop and Mister Berenger will be with you shortly.”

Remix turned, left the room, and locked the door behind him. As he started up the stairs, Berenger caught his eye. Remix gave him a thumbs-up and winked. Berenger noted the time on his wristwatch and then walked into Bishop’s office.

“Where is he?” Bishop asked. A man in his late forties, Rudy Bishop was a nervous type who couldn’t keep still. At the moment he was compulsively tapping the end of a ball point pen on the edge of his desk.

“In the conference room. We have time to make that call.”

Bishop half-smiled and slid his phone across the desk as Berenger sat in the chair on the opposite side. Bishop gave him a piece of paper with the phone number written on it and Berenger dialed.

“Hello?”

“Is this Zach Garriott?” He shot Bishop a look and indicated the tapping ball point pen. Bishop immediately shoved the pen into his shirt pocket and attempted to be motionless.

“Yes?”

“It’s Spike Berenger.”

“Spike! How are you, man?”

“Okay! Nice to hear your voice. It’s been a while.”

“Yeah, it has. What’s it been, three or four years since I saw you in New York?”

“I think so. I heard you called?”

The timbre of Garriott’s voice changed from exuberance to solemnity. “Yeah, I did. You heard about Charles Nance?”

Berenger frowned. “No. What about him?”

“He was murdered, man. Shot and killed a few nights ago outside his house!”

“Oh my God!”

Berenger had met Charles Nance a few times. He knew the man’s brother, Joe, slightly better. Their band, Windy City Engine, was one of Berenger’s favorite underground prog outfits out of Chicago.

“It’s the third one in two months, man, and we’re getting spooked!” Garriott said.

“Wait. What do you mean, it’s the ‘third one’?”

“You haven’t heard? About the Kriges? Or Dave Monaco and Hank Palmer?”

“No.”

“Where you been, Spike? Someone’s killing off Chicagoprog musicians right and left. It’s like open season on us, man. You gotta come help us out. I mean it, man! Get out here as soon as you can!”

“Wait, wait, slow down, Zach. Back up. I’m in New York. We don’t see news from Chicago unless it’s pretty big stuff.”

“Yeah, well that figures. If Sting or Elvis Costello got bumped off, it’d be international news. But kill some unknown, underground has-been musicians that hardly anyone listens to anymore, and it just ain’t news.”

“Zach, will you tell me what’s happened? Take a deep breath and start at the beginning!”

Berenger heard Garriott breathe slowly and with force, and then the man said, “Okay. About six weeks ago, Lew and Sarah Krige were shot outside their house in Evanston. Did you know them?”

“No, I never met them. But I know who they are. They were members of Red Skyez. Lew Krige took over from Stuart Clayton when he left the band in the early seventies, right?”

“Right. Well, anyway, they were shot and killed. Then, about three weeks later, Dave Monaco and Hank Palmer were on their way out of the Double Door and were shot. They had just played a gig there and were headed for their cars. Blam, blam! Both of ‘em dead.”

“Jesus!”

Dave Monaco and Hank Palmer were also former members of Red Skyez. Monaco, a bass player, and Palmer, a drummer, had gone on to other bands and session lineups in the mid-seventies and beyond.

“And now Charles is dead. We’re all freakin’ out, man.”

“I’ll bet. What do the police say?”

“They don’t say nothin’! They’re runnin’ around in circles. Hell, they haven’t even admitted that all three murders are connected. They need some help, man, and that’s why I called
you
. You’re the best in the business, Spike. We need you.”

“Do the police have any suspects? Anything at all?”

“Only that a witness reported seeing a woman with blonde hair and a big hat leaving one of the scenes. And if it’s who I think it is, Spike… well, you’re not gonna believe this, but she’s a goddamned
ghost
!”

“What do you mean, Zach?”

“I mean what I said! The killer has been dead for thirty-five years!”

B
erenger and Bishop told Garriott they’d phone him back. They sat in their chairs for at least a minute before anyone moved.

“So, is he doing too many drugs or something?” Bishop asked.

“I have no idea. Zach always struck me as pretty smart. He’s made a decent career for himself.”

“So did Hendrix. So did Janis Joplin. So did—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” Berenger picked up the phone and called the Operations room. “Suzanne? Hey, would you or Tommy go on the Internet and find all the stories you can about recent shootings of musicians in Chicago.” He gave her the victims’ names.

Ten minutes later, Remix brought down a small stack of printouts. As Berenger suspected, the news items were not front page news. Charles Nance received a page two story, but the other two incidents were considerably smaller. Lew and Sarah Krige were shot in front of their home in Evanston, just as Garriott had told them. Police suspected robbery or a drug transaction-gone-bad to be the motive, although nothing from the house seemed to be missing. A witness described a woman with shoulder-length blonde hair and a broad, “floppy” hat leaving the scene. Marijuana was found in the house, adding weight to the drug scenario. The Kriges were in their late fifties and were once members of the band Red Skyez before striking out on their own with the band simply called Krige. Friends and colleagues said the couple had kicked around Chicago for nearly three decades and never found great success, although they made a living and seemed relatively happy.

Dave Monaco and Hank Palmer were also former members of Red Skyez. When that band split up, Palmer followed the Kriges and played drums for their group. Monaco joined the band South Side for a while but struck out on his own in 1978 to play with a variety of musicians and lineups in Los Angeles. He moved back to Chicago in the late nineties and played one-off gigs with various former members of the Chicagoprog scene. On the night of the shooting, Monaco and Palmer had done a show at the Double Door club with musicians not related to Chicagoprog. The duo was shot at point blank range in the street as they left the club. Once again, a blonde woman in a large hat was seen by a couple of witnesses.