How to Kill a Rock Star (36 page)

“No singing Happy Birthday.”

“I can’t promise that. Do you have the list?” Weeks ago, Loring had asked Doug for a list of the artists he wanted to invite.

With the cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, Doug reached into his shirt pocket, pul ed out a handful of papers, and weeded through them, ripping to pieces everything that wasn’t what he was looking for. A credit card receipt, a gum wrapper, an empty matchbook al got torn to shreds. The only thing he didn’t tear up was a business card. He handed that to Loring. It was from an investment banker at Prudential.

“Other side,” Doug said.

Loring flipped the card. There, his father had penned a roster of names that, because of the smal surface area, al ran together like some crazy foreign alphabet.

The list was a who’s who of rock ’n’ rol : old guys, young guys, the famous, and the infamous. But it was the second-to-last name that made Loring stop and catch his breath.

“Dad, you can’t be serious.”

Doug stubbed out his cigarette and glanced at the names.

“Jesus Christ, Loring, don’t get al unglued about that. He’s a good kid. He deserves it.”

Loring picked up his dad’s ashtray and emptied it into the trash compactor, which he managed to open without How to Kil _internals.rev 2/22/08

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complication via the foot lever Doug had obviously not seen.

He set the ashtray in the sink and turned on the water. “No.

I don’t want him there.”

Doug laughed. “It’s not your party. Besides, it’s the least you could do after the hel you and your girlfriend put him through.”

Loring tried to keep his cool. Evidently his father believed the myth that Loring had stolen Eliza from Paul.

He only wished it could have been that simple.

“It’s not just me,” Loring said. “Eliza’s not going to want him there either.”

“I already asked Eliza. She didn’t seem to have a problem with it.”

Loring watched a pigeon flutter and shake on the window sil . The bird looked like it was trying to shrug something off of its back and lost a feather during the convulsion.

Doug fiddled with his lighter, and after what felt like a calculated silence, he said, “Do you remember that night in Cleveland? The night I met Eliza?”

Through the reflection in the window, Loring watched his father reach for another cigarette and light it. He wanted to grab his father’s hand and tel him he’d smoked enough, but he knew Doug would have just waved him off and grumbled about being too old to change.

“I left you a message. Do you remember?” Loring nodded at his own reflection. Behind him, his father’s eyes were glued to the tiny red-orange glow of the cigarette’s tip.

“At first I thought she was a crackpot, but the more we got to talking, the more I thought, this girl real y gets it.”

“
Dad
—”

“No, listen. I talked to her for an extra hour because I was waiting for you to show up, but you never did.” Loring felt his toes twisting, his fists tightening, his
31insides coiling. It was as though his body was trying to curl itself into a bal .

The ashtray looked clean enough after a little rinsing, but for lack of anything better to do, Loring went over it with a soapy sponge. He wasn’t clear on the point his father was trying to make, but guessed it was some kind of comment on fate, and on the obvious fact that Loring had failed to get to Eliza before Paul had.

“What did she say?” Loring asked quietly, stil facing the window.

“Huh?”

“Eliza. When you asked her about Paul, the birthday.

What exactly did she say?”

“Same thing I just did. It’s my party and I can invite whoever I want.”

Feigning indifference was one of the easiest skil s I ever acquired. There was the cheek-biting, which kept my lips from moving up or down, thus enabling me to maintain a neutral expression. The eyes were a bit trickier, but I found that if I looked directly at a person, they tended to believe what I was saying, even if it was a lie.

These were the techniques I had to employ when Loring broached the subject of Paul’s forthcoming attendance at Doug’s birthday bash.

“I couldn’t care less if he’s there or not,” I said, folding underwear on the bed, tasting blood in my mouth, yet keeping al traces of emotion from my face.

I tried to assure Loring that Paul wasn’t taking part out of spite, or because of some master plan to get me back. “He hates me, remember?”

“Right.” Loring sounded like a man who’d just received a draft notice. “Then why did he agree to do it?” The answer to that question was obvious.

“Paul would never turn down the chance to pay tribute to his hero, even if it means he has to be in our company.” Loring was sitting on the chair in the corner of the room.

I watched him bend down to tie his shoe. He grappled with the laces, attacked them. “Eliza, I feel like things are good between us right now. I just don’t want Paul to swoop down and mess them up again.”

31I was stil biting my cheeks.

“Let’s go back to Vermont,” he said.

The time we’d spent in Vermont had been something of a Shangri-La: a long weekend of swimming, playing chess, cooking. Loring had even taught me how to ride a horse without using a saddle. But the liberty I’d pretended to feel simply because Paul and I were in a different area code was short-lived, not al that emotional y satisfying, and was fol owed by a painful recrudescence upon returning to New York. The minute the car crossed the state line, it al came back to me. Paul was in the air. He
was
the air. He hovered above the city breathing on me, stifling me, and providing life at the same time. I was sure Loring felt it, too. That’s why, as we were crossing the GW Bridge, he put up the windows for the first time in hours. He was trying to keep Paul out.

Loring got off the chair, positioned himself behind me, and set his arms directly on top of mine, making it impossible for me to keep folding.

“Vermont next weekend?”

“Your dad’s birthday is next weekend.”

“I mean after the show. We’l go the next morning.”

“I can’t.” Michael and Vera were going to Cleveland to visit Vera’s parents. I had agreed to stay at their house and dog sit. “Fender, remember? I promised.” The cheek biting was the key, but it only worked under normal conditions. Spur of the moment ambushes made nonchalance more difficult, which was the case two days before Doug’s big bash, when Lucy Enfield interrupted a staff meeting to tel me that some guy who looked like a mobster was in the hal waiting for me.

I almost ripped a hole through the side of my face when I saw Feldman pacing near the drinking fountain, his pudgy hands clasped together, resting above his belt as if propped up on a pil ow.

He held my hand flat like lunchmeat between two pieces of bread. “Eliza,” he said. “Can we go somewhere and talk?” Something was off the mark if he was cal ing me by my real name. Leading Feldman downstairs, I walked him outside and we stood in front of a newsstand.

“It’s good to see you,” Feldman said.

His voice was polite, humble, and frighteningly out of character.

“What’s wrong?” I said, suddenly panicked. “Did something happen to Michael? Or—”

I caught myself before I said the name.

“He’s fine. They’re al fine,” Feldman said. “For the moment.”

I picked up a newspaper so that Feldman would think I was uninterested in what he had to say, and a byline caught my eye. It was a story about a guy who’d recently survived a plane crash in Peru. The guy’s name was Phil ip Oxford, and he’d been flying on a smal South American carrier. I couldn’t fathom why anyone in their right mind would fly on an obscure Peruvian airline.

Feldman said, “Let me start by saying I owe you an apology.”

“For what?”

“For not appreciating you as an al y when I had you on my side.”

Phil ip Oxford was from St. Cloud, Minnesota. To get to Peru, he’d had to book himself on five different flights.

This was his first mistake. Since most mechanical mishaps occur during takeoff or landing, and he was racking up five takeoffs and five landings in a twenty-four-hour period, the odds were against him from the start.

Feldman used his hand to push al the hair off his face. One chunk of bang rebel ed, clinging to his forehead like a rat’s tail on a glue trap. “Have you talked to your brother today?”
32“No.” Michael had left me a message earlier but I’d been in meetings al morning and hadn’t had a chance to cal him back. “Why?”

“Paul’s quitting.”

I stared at Phil ip Oxford and tried to act blasé. Hearing Feldman say Paul’s name, even under these circumstances, felt like a gift. I hardly ever heard his name out loud, unless it was coming from Loring’s mouth, and Loring said it with too much indignation to make it worth anything. “He’s quitting the band?”

Feldman was shaking his head. “The band’s already kaput. I mean the whole shebang.”

“What are you talking about?”

“He’s done,” Feldman said. “Claims he got more respect as a shirt folder. He wants out.”

“What about the new record?” I was trying to keep the shock out of my voice but it wasn’t working. “Michael said they spent al last month in the studio.”

“They did. Winkle doesn’t like any of it.” Feldman was stil fighting with his hair. “And we’re talking powerful fucking songs. Mind-blowing stuff. Not number-one singles, obviously. But bone-crushing shit that would break your heart. Think
Sgt. Pepper’s
, the
White Album
. I know you don’t believe the music means anything to me, but I’ve known Paul longer than you have. This is the best work he’s done and I don’t want to see it sit on a shelf.”

In my head I translated Feldman’s statement into: “If this record gets shelved, I can kiss my Epstein future goodbye.”

“So, get him out of his contract,” I said. “Shop him to another label. You shouldn’t need me to tel you this.” The weather had been storming outside of Lima when Phil ip Oxford’s plane went down. I deemed Phil ip Oxford an idiot for not getting a weather report prior to departure.

“Winkle has no intention of letting Paul out of his contract. Not without a fight, anyway. And he advanced Paul money for the new record—a third of which has already been spent on pre-production, band, and studio costs. If Paul tried to bail out now he’d get stuck having to reimburse that.

And sure, he could sue, but a legal battle would go on for years, it would cost him hundreds of thousands of dol ars, and essential y put a stop to his recording career until the case was settled. On top of al that, if Paul signs with another label, Winkle gets a fucking override on the sales of the next album. Assuming Paul could even get another contract.

After this, he’l be considered a pain in the ass. Who’s going to want him?”

“Jack Stone.”

Feldman pointed his little sausage finger at me. “Don’t think that doesn’t play into Winkle’s decision to keep Paul under his thumb.”

Final y a smart move on Phil ip Oxford’s part—he’d booked a seat in the exit row. Only it turned out Phil ip Oxford was six foot three. Not so smart after al , just lucky he’d been blessed with long legs.

“I don’t get it,” I said. “If the label doesn’t like the record, and they have no plans to release it, why not just let him go?

What’s in it for Winkle?”

“Nothing. But he’s not losing anything either. He just hit the jackpot with that jailbait hooker from Indiana, so he’s in a position to do whatever he wants. And look at it from his point of view—the guy
knows
Paul’s a genius. Imagine if he did let Paul go, then Paul hooks up with Jack Stone and his next record sel s five mil ion copies. You think Winkle’s going to chance that?”

“Al right, so where does this leave Paul?”

“In limbo.” Feldman seemed on the verge of blowing a gasket. “It’s a power trip. Winkle’s fucking with Paul’s head, and unless Paul compromises, he’s screwed.”
32I almost made a joke about how much Paul liked getting screwed, but thinking about that felt like suffocation. I took a deep breath and focused on Phil ip Oxford.

This has nothing to do with me
, I told myself.

“Eliza, I don’t know how much Michael has told you about what’s been going on with Paul these past few months, but—”

“Michael never tel s me anything about what’s going on with Paul. Michael won’t mention Paul’s name in my presence.”

“Wel , to put it mildly, Paul real y got on Winkle’s bad side, and now it seems the guy’s mission in life is to make Paul miserable.”

“You mean to tel me Winkle’s going to sit on Bananafish just because Paul got pissy with him? Eventual y he’l get tired of the game-playing.”

“About two weeks ago, I cal ed Winkle and basical y said the same thing. Ten minutes later the asshole sent me a fax—the page of Paul’s contract that says the deal is void in one instance only—in the event of the death or disability of the artist. Basical y it was Winkle’s way of saying that unless Paul goes in and makes the record Winkle wants him to make, and says and does the things Winkle tel s him to do and say, Winkle owns Paul’s ass until the day Paul dies.” Phil ip Oxford claimed that before the plane went down there was so much smoke in the cabin he couldn’t see the emergency floor lighting. When the plane hit the ground he said it bounced. But Phil was ready. Phil had the exit open before the plane came to a stop. He was the first one out.

“Help me, Eliza. I’m running out of time.”

“There’s nothing I can do.”

“You’re the only one Paul ever listened to. At least try and talk some sense into him.”

I bit my cheek and stared at the photo of Phil ip Oxford.

He had a goofy, unburdened smile, and didn’t look like he could maneuver his way out of a sleeping bag, let alone a burning plane. “Believe me, I’m the last person Paul wants to talk to.”

I put the newspaper back. I was looking for someplace to store al the things I was feeling—the friction, the contradictions, the unmerciful truth—but my heart, my soul, my eyes and ears and even my toes were locking their doors.

They wouldn’t let me in. For safety reasons. I had no choice but to throw the feelings away.