Dreams Underfoot: A Newford Collection (34 page)

Zoe cradled the receiver between her shoulder and ear and checked the studio clock. As the instrumental she was playing ended, she brought up the beginning of the Steve Earle cut and began to cue up her next choice, Concrete Blonde’s cover of a Leonard Cohen song from the
Pump Up the Volume
soundtrack.

“So talk,” she said, shifting the receiver back to her hand.

She could almost feel the caller’s hesitation. It happened a lot. They got up the nerve to make the call, but once they were con-nected, their mouths went dry and all their words turned to sand.

“What’s your name?” she added, trying to make it easier on him.

“Bob.”

“Not the one from
Twin Peaks
I hope.”

“I’m sorry?”

Obviously not a David Lynch fan, Zoe thought.

“Nothing,” she said. “What can I do for you tonight, Bob?” Maybe she’d make an exception, she thought, and added: “Did you have a special song you wanted me to play for you?”

“No, I ... It’s about Gordon.”

Zoe went blank for a moment. The first Gordon that came to mind was Gordon Waller from the old UK band, Peter & Gordon, rapidly followed by rockabilly great Robert Gordon and then Jim Gordon, the drummer who’d played with everybody from Baez to Clapton, including a short stint with Bread.

“Gordon Wolfe,” Bob said, filling in the blank for her. “You were talking to him earlier tonight on the patio of The Rusty Lion.”

Zoe shivered. From his blanket beside the studio door, Rupert lifted his head and gave an anxious whine, sensing her distress.

“You ..” she began. “How could you know? What were you doing, following me?”

“No. I was following him.”

“Oh.”

Recovering her equilibrium, Zoe glanced at the studio clock and cued up the first cut from her next set in the CD player, her fingers going through the procedure on automatic.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because he’s dangerous.”

He’d given her the creeps, Zoe remembered, but she hadn’t really thought of him as dangerous—at least not until his parting shot.
Remember me the next time you die a little.

“Who is he?” she asked. “Better yet, who are you? Why are you following this Wolfe guy around?”

“That’s not his real name,” Bob said.

“Then what is?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Not won’t,” Bob said quickly. “Can’t. I don’t know it myself. All I know is he’s dangerous and you shouldn’t have gotten him mad at you.”

“Jesus,” Zoe said. “I really need this.” Her gaze flicked back to the studio clock; the Steve Earle cut was heading into its fade-out. “Hang on a sec, Bob. I’ve got to run some commercials.”

She put him on hold and brought up the volume on her mike.

“That was Steve Earle,” she said, “with the title cut from his latest album, and you’re listening to Nightnoise on WKPN. Zoe B. here, spinning the tunes for all you night birds and birdettes. Coming up we’ve got a hot and heavy metal set, starting off with the classic ‘Ace of Spades’ by Motorhead. These are
not
new kids on the block, my friends. But first, oh yes, even at this time of night, a word from some sponsors.”

She punched up the cassette with its minute of ads for this half hour and brought the volume down off her mike again. But when she turned back to the phone, the on-line light was dead. She tried it anyway, but Bob had hung up.

“Shit,” she said. “Why are you doing this to me?”

Rupert looked up again, then got up from his blanket and padded across the floor to press his wet nose up against her hand. He was a cross between a golden lab and a German shepherd, seventy pounds of big-hearted mush.

“No, not you,” she told him, taking his head in both of her hands and rubbing her nose against the tip of his muzzle. “You’re Zoe’s big baby, aren’t you?”

The ads cassette ran its course and she brought up Motorhead. As she cued up the rest of the pieces for this set, she kept looking at the phone, but the on-line light stayed dead.

“Weird,” Hilary Carlisle agreed. She brushed a stray lock of hair away from her face and gave Zoe a quick smile. “But par for the course, don’t you think?”

“Thanks a lot.”

“I didn’t say you egged them on, but it seems to be the story of your life: put you in a roomful of strangers and you can almost guarantee that the most oddball guy there will be standing beside you within ten minutes. It’s—” she grinned “—just a gift you have.”

“Well, this guy’s really given me a case of the creeps.”

“Which one—Gordon or Bob?”

“Both of them, if you want the truth.”

Hilary’s smile faded. “This is really getting to you, isn’t it?”

“I could’ve just forgotten my delightful encounter at The Rusty Lion if it hadn’t been for the follow-up call.”

“You think it’s connected?”

“Well, of course it’s connected.”

“No, not like that,” Hilary said. “I mean, do you think the two of them have worked this thing up together?”

That was just what Zoe had been thinking. She didn’t really believe in coincidence. To her mind, there was always connections; they just weren’t always that easy to work out.

“But what would be the point?” she asked.

“You’ve got me,” Hilary said. “You can stay here with me for a few days if you like,” she added.

They were sitting in the front room of Hilary’s downstairs apart-ment which was in the front half of one of the old Tudor buildings on the south side of Stanton Street facing the estates. Hilary in this room always reminded Zoe of Mendelssohn’s “Concerto in E Minor,” a perfect dialogue between soloist and orchestra. Paintings, curtains, carpet and furniture all reflected Hilary’s slightly askew worldview so that Impressionists hung side-by-side with paintings that seemed more the work of a camera; an antique sideboard housed a state-of-the-art stereo, glass shelves held old books; the curtains were dark antique flower prints, with sheers trimmed in lace, the carpet a riot of symmetrical designs and primary colors.

The recamier on which Hilary was lounging had a glory of leaf and scrollwork in its wood; Zoe’s club chair looked as though a bear had been hibernating in it.

Hilary herself was as tall as Zoe’s five-ten, but where Zoe was more angular and big-boned, Hilary was all graceful lines with tanned skin that accentuated her blue eyes and the waterfall of her long straight blonde hair. She was dressed in white this morning, wearing a simple cotton shirt and trousers with the casual elegance of a model, and appeared, as she always did, as the perfect centerpiece to the room.

“I think I’ll be okay,” Zoe said. “Besides, I’ve always got Rupert to protect me.”

At the sound of his name, Rupert lifted his head from the floor by Zoe’s feet and gave her a quick, searching glance.

Hilary laughed. “Right. Like he isn’t scared of his own shadow.”

“He can’t help being nervous. He’s just—”

“I know. High-strung.”

“Did I ever tell you how he jumped right—”

“Into the canal and saved Tommy’s dog from drowning when it fell in? Only about a hundred times since it happened.” Zoe lips shaped a moue.

“Oh God,” Hilary said, starting to laugh. “Don’t pout. You know what it does to me when you pout.”

Hilary was a talent scout for WEA Records. They’d met three years ago at a record launch party when Hilary had made a pass at her. Once they got past the fact that Zoe preferred men and wasn’t planning on changing that preference, they discovered that they had far too much in common not to be good friends. But that didn’t stop Hilary from occasionally teasing her, especially when Zoe was com-plaining about man troubles.

Such troubles were usually far simpler than the one currently in hand.

“What do you think he meant by small deaths?” Zoe asked. “The more I think of it, the more it gives me the creeps.”

Hilary nodded. “Isn’t sleep sometimes referred to as the little death?”

Zoe could hear Wolfe’s voice in her head.
I’m the bringer of small deaths.

“I don’t think that’s what he was talking about,” she said.

“Maybe it’s just his way of saying you’re going to have bad dreams. You know, he freaks you out a little, makes you nervous, then bingo—he’s a success.”

“But why?”

“Creeps don’t need reasons for what they do; that’s why they’re creeps.”

Remember me the next time you die a little.

Zoe was back to shivering again.

“Maybe I will stay here,” she said, “if you’re sure I won’t be in your way.”

“Be in my way?” Hilary glanced at her watch. “I’m supposed to be at work right now—I’ve got a meeting in an hour—so you’ll have the place to yourself.”

“I just hope I can get to sleep.”

“Do you want something to help you relax?”

“What, like a sleeping pill?”

Hilary shook her head. “I was thinking more along the lines of some hot milk.”

“That’d be lovely.”

Zoe didn’t sleep well. It wasn’t her own bed and the daytime street noises were different from the ones outside her own apartment, but it was mostly the constant replay of last night’s two conversations that kept her turning restlessly from one side of the bed to the other. Finally, she just gave up and decided to face the day on less sleep than she normally needed.

She knew she’d been having bad dreams during the few times when she had managed to sleep, but couldn’t remember one of them. Padding through the apartment in an oversize T-shirt, she found herself drawn to the front window. She peeked out through the curtains, gaze traveling up and down the length of Stanton Street. When she realized what she was doing—looking for a shock of red hair, dark eyes watching the house—she felt more irritable than ever.

She was not going to let it get to her, she decided. At least not anymore.

A shower woke her up, while breakfast and a long afternoon ramble with Rupert through the grounds of Butler University made her feel a little better, but by the time she got to work at a quarter to twelve that night and started to go through the station’s library to collect the music she needed for the show, she was back to being tense and irritable. Halfway through the first hour of the show, she interrupted a Bobby Brown/Ice T/Living Colour set and brought up her voice mike.

“Here’s a song for Gordon Wolfe,” she said as she cued up an album cut by the local band No Nuns Here. “Memories are made of this, Wolfe.”

The long wail of an electric guitar went out over the air waves, a primal screech as the high E string was fingered down around the fourteenth fret and pushed up past the G string, then the bass and drums caught and settled into a driving back beat. The wailing guitar broke into chunky bar chords as Lorio Munn’s voice cut across the music like the punch of a fist.

I don’t want your love, baby

So don’t come on so sweet I don’t need a man, baby

Treats me like I’m meat

I’m coming to your house, baby

Coming to your door

Gonna knock you down, right where you stand And stomp you on the floor
Zoe eyed the studio phone. She picked up the handset as soon as the on-line light began to flash.

Which one was it going to be? she thought as she spoke into the phone.

“Nightnoise. Zoe B. here.”

She kept the call off the air, just in case.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Bingo. It was Bob.

“Tell me about small deaths,” she said.

“I
told
you he was dangerous, but you just—”

“You’ll get your chance to natter on,” Zoe interrupted, “but first I want to know about these small deaths.”

Silence on the line was the only reply.

“I don’t hear a dial tone,” she said, “so I know you’re still there. Talk to me.”

“I ... Jesus,” Bob said finally.

“Small deaths,” Zoe repeated.

After another long hesitation, she heard Bob sigh. “They’re those pivotal moments in a person’s life that change it forever: a love affair gone wrong, not getting into the right post-graduate program, steal-ing a car on a dare and getting caught, that kind of thing. They’re the moments that some people brood on forever; right now they could have the most successful marriage or career, but they can’t stop thinking about the past, about what might have happened if things had gone differently.

“It sours their success, makes them bitter. And usually it leads to more small deaths: depression, stress, heavy drinking or drug use, abusing their spouse or children.”

“What are you saying?” Zoe asked. “That a small death’s like disappointment?”

“More like a pain, a sorrow, an anger. It doesn’t have to be something you do to yourself. Maybe one of your parents died when you were just a kid, or you were abused as a child; that kind of trauma changes a person forever. You can’t go through such an experience and grow up to be the same person you would have been without it.”

“It sounds like you’re just talking about life,” Zoe said. “It’s got its ups and its downs; to stay sane, you’ve got to take what it hands you. Ride the punches and maybe try to leave the place in a little better shape than it was before you got there.”

What was
with
this conversation? Zoe thought as she was speak-ing.

As the No Nuns Here cut came to an end, she cued in a version of Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain”

by Faster Pussycat.

“Jesus,” Bob said as the song went out over the air. “You really have a death wish, don’t you?”

“Tell me about Gordon Wolfe.”

The man’s voice echoed in her mind as she spoke his name.
I’m the bringer of small deaths.

“What’s he got to do with all of this?” she added.