Chapter Eighteen
The room smelled like an abattoir, the lake of blood reflecting the overhead lights. St. James’ stomach churned and rose like Mt. St. Helens erupting. He barely made it to the men’s room in time, crouching over the bowl and heaving up knackwurst, sauerkraut, and three or four pints. Gasping and drooling, he looked up. Someone had left a perfectly good line of coke on top of the white porcelain toilet tank.
One fuckin’ line, what harm could it do? It wasn’t as if he had access to an unlimited amount. He knew it would make him jangly and cost him sleep, but at that moment, on his knees before the porcelain bowl, he thanked God for providing him with the much-needed boost.
St. James surreptitiously rolled a Ten Euro note, leaned over the line and hoovered it up.
Idiot! It might be rat poison!
But it wasn’t. It had that pure chem lab flavor of the finest pharmaceutical cocaine. An electric jolt spread through St. James’ nervous system, restoring his self-esteem, increasing his strength, making him smarter.
Well, oll roight, then.
Checking himself in the mirror for tell-tale signs, St. James washed his hands and face and returned to the club. Udo and Kaspar furiously mopped the floor with industrial-sized mops, ringing them out in large corrugated steel pails. St. James stared, slack-jawed. He’d stumbled into a Uwe Boll movie.
“What the fuck, man!”
Udo looked up at him, eyes black as coal. “There’s always a lot of blood after a good mosh.”
St. James stared at the monstrous pool of blood. It looked like the entire contents of a body’s circulatory system. Fucking gallons. Guttierez’ hat was gone.
“Where’s ’is ’at?” St. James wailed.
Kaspar grinned. “What hat?”
What happened to Guttierez and Brigid?
Guttierez wouldn’t just run out, not without delivering his message.
St. James felt a touch on his arm.
“We have to get out of here,” Connie said, shoving a digital camera into her purse.
St. James allowed her to lead him by the hand like a small child toward the front door where an employee was sweeping up broken glass.
Where were the police?
St. James could barely walk. Connie gripped him painfully at the bicep to keep him from falling. She was furious. “You’re wasted,” she hissed. “No point in talking about what happened tonight. Where are you staying?”
St. James dug in his pocket and found the room key attached to a large plastic fob. “Hotel Paradise. It’s not far.”
Connie could barely contain her disgust as she hailed a taxi and dropped St. James off in front of the narrow building sandwiched between an apartment block and an electronics store. St. James heaved himself from the rear seat, nearly falling into the gutter. He shuffled up to the front door, somehow got it open and went inside.
He checked his watch. It was one o’clock. At this hour, the lobby was empty except for a young man slouched behind the counter playing a video game on the booking computer. He had a shaved skull and barely acknowledged St. James.
St. James took the ancient creaking elevator to the seventh floor, went down the hall with one hand extended for balance. He double-checked his room number against the key—he’d stumbled into the wrong hotel room once too often. Wouldn’t do to start a row now.
He got the door open, went in, and shut it behind him. His guitar case lay on the bed where he’d left it. Had the room been searched he had not the wherewithal to tell. The coke had left St. James jangly but exhausted, still suffering from the sleep deprivation of the previous two nights. Caused by drinking. Now he had beshat himself in front of Serafin’s stunning reporter, further lowering him in her esteem.
Why not whip it out and piss on the floor while he’s at it?
St. James growled low and guttural at the back of his threat, disgusted with himself. How could he be such a bloody wanker? How was it possible? After the first album, his future had looked so bright. There were appearances on SNL, Leno, and Letterman.
But when it came time to record a follow-up, St. James choked. Nothing left in the pipeline. He’d always assumed that artists manufacture art the way bricklayers lay brick—one brick at a time. He could never find the next brick. Twenty years of writers’ block. “25 or 6 to 4” played constantly in the back of his mind drowning out his own melodies. If he ever had any.
He wanted badly to repair the harm he’d done to his reputation with Connie—not that he stood a chance with her. My God. Every man who met her felt the same thing. What a cliché. Maybe if he took one of the downers a girl had given him in Venice, if there were any left.
The bed squeaked as St. James sat and went through his pockets. Out came the wallet, miscellaneous change, matchbooks from a half a dozen dives, a pen, his cheap new cell phone.
It suddenly occurred to St. James to check his cell phone. It was a throwaway with a limited number of minutes he’d picked up the day before at the electronics store. He flipped it open. He had one voice mail. It took him four or five times before he was able to recall it. He suffered through the schoolmarm: “You have one voice mail. To listen to this voice mail …”
He angrily pushed one.
“St. James,” rasped Klapp in a German accent. “They’re on to me—I don’t know how they found out, but they’re after me right now. It will be a miracle if I can escape them. You are our only hope. You must stop them before they reach Los Angeles! Learn the truth! Go to Rathkroghen! Dig up Paddy’s grave …”
The call ended.