Scratch Fever Read Free

you?”
    “Somebody that could recognize me, all right. Not somebody we robbed. Not hardly.”
    “Scratch fever . . . Cat scratch . . .”
    “Somebody that was in it with you,” she said. “Right.”
    “So?”
    “So it was somebody that was supposed to have died in a car crash, a year ago.”
    “Jesus. What’s that mean?”
    “It means . . . I don’t know what it means.”
    “Maybe your friend would. Nolan.”
    “Maybe.”
    “You thinking about calling him?”
    “Yeah. I am.”
    “You better do it on the break. Those assholes are almost finished ‘making pussies purr. ’ ”
    Out in the other room, on stage, the trio was doing its big finish, which amounted to lots of sliding up and down on the bass neck for Les, some horrible high squealing lead up on the neck of the Gibson Explorer for Roc, and a frantic series of trips around the drum kit for Mick.
    “Let me have a sip of that,” Jon said, nodding at her whiskey bottle.
    “You never touch this shit,” Toni said, unscrewing the cap again.
    “I know,” Jon said, taking the bottle, swigging it. “But Nolan does.”
    Soon they were back on stage doing a song called “Die Young, Stay Pretty.”
     
     
    2
     
     
    IT WAS that kid, it was that goddamn kid!
    Dammit!
    What the hell was he doing here, playing in a rock band, for Christ’s sake? His curly hair was shorter, but otherwise he hadn’t changed; it was him, all right. Standing behind a portable organ, singing some unintelligible lyrics into a microphone, his voice booming out of the PA system.
    The ironic thing was that it was this band—the Nodes—that had brought her here. She had heard the group was breaking up after this engagement, which meant they wouldn’t have anything booked for the following week, which meant hopefully she could convince them to stay together long enough to play Tuesday through Saturday at her club, the Paddlewheel. She’d had a cancellation and needed a band, and this group, the Nodes, while not precisely the sort of group she usually booked in, had a reputation in the Midwest. So she’d come to hear them, and to talk to the leader.
    Whose name, it turned out, was Jon.
    “Yeah,” Bob Hale said, as they sat at the bar on one side of the dance floor, yelling to be heard above the band, “it’s that kid on the end, playing the organ.”
    She had looked at the kid, and he immediately seemed familiar to her.
    “Nice enough kid,” Bob was saying. He was a big, florid man in his forties, with reddish-brown hair and a childlike manner that gave him a certain immature charm. “You wouldn’t know it to look at the squirt, but he’s strong. Judas Priest, you should see him carry those amplifiers around, like they was pillows. The girls seem to go for him.”
    “Do they.”
    “Sure do.” Bob grinned at her; he had big teeth. “Get you a drink, honey?”
    “What did you say his name was?”
    “Jon. I don’t know what his last name is.”
    “Jon.”
    “Yeah. They’re booked out of Des Moines. Or they were. Like I said, this is supposed to be their last night. But maybe I could talk to ’em for you and convince ’em that . . .”
    She didn’t hear anything else Bob said after that; she was walking away. Before that kid on stage got a good look at her.
    Not that it mattered, at this point; she’d seen the flash of recognition—or something —on his face. He shouldn’t have been able to recognize her, not at that distance; not with the blonde-streaked hair, the glasses, the business-like suit and sweater she’d worn. But the feeling in her stomach said he had recognized her. Goddammit. Goddammit!
    Now she was out in the bar that connected the restaurant and club, which, like the rest of the Barn, was rustic—lots of rough barnwood decorated with an occasional horse-collar mirror and bogus wanted posters with Bob Hale’s name and face on them. There were booths with baskets of peanuts and popcorn on either side of the dimly lit room, enclosed on three