Chapter Fourteen

Billy reached the door and stared at it. The only sound in the Green Room was his breathing. Then! He cocked his head on one side. He put his ear closer to the door. There was sound. A guitar riff like nothing he’d heard before. It was muted, but magical. The riff stopped. There was a muffled bass, the toc toc of a bongo and then the riff again.

Billy marvelled at the sound. It soared and created notes that were unimaginable. Billy wondered where the player found the amps to distort the notes so wonderfully. Billy had never heard music like this. It was full of rhythms straight from rock’n’roll Heaven. Jimmi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Richie Blackmore.

The door handle glowed in time to the beat: hot, cold; hot, cold.

It was too much. He had to find that band. He grasped the handle and turned it. The door slid open smoothly and he stepped inside. He looked around expectantly. But there was no band. The music was still there, still muffled. It came from beyond the wall opposite.

A puzzled frown passed over his face. Then he noticed the velvet covered easy chairs, finely made wooden tables sitting on the black and white marble-tiled floor. There were photographs on the wall and cupboards lined the white-painted walls. Bottles and boxes filled them, and small plastic bags overflowed onto the shelves. He recognised them instantly - two-gram sachets. He hurried over. The glass doors slid easily open, not like the chemist shops he’d had to rob.

He felt his hands tremble as he picked up a small packet. There were even perforations along the top. He pulled it open and dipped his finger in. Slowly the white covered fingertip moved to his lips. He licked it and as he’d guessed it was pure white heroin.

A quick glance told him there were millions of dollars in street value, in just one box. He put the pack down and investigated the rest of the shelves. Amphetamines, Angel Dust, LSD, Ice, straight morphine, sophisticated tailor-made joints.

In another cupboard, this time locked and barred were rows of hypodermic syringes, sealed in sterile packages.

He looked guiltily around him and then spotted silver trays gleaming in subdued lighting and spread about the room on coffee tables. It was Hollywood elegant, and he knew what was on them. He moved over for a closer inspection. Silver straws were arranged neatly by small piles of powder. Cocaine trails. Pills of all colours made abstract patterns in silver salvers. Bottles of Perrier stood unopened in ice buckets, with crystal glasses by their sides. This, thought Billy, was one hell of a party room. But where were the guests?

He sauntered thoughtfully across to the wall to study the photographs. They were large, like movie posters, and were glossily laminated to boards. At first the subjects puzzled him. Black and white images of smiling people full of life and well-being. They were all entertainers like him, Errol Flynn, Charlie Parker, Elvis Presley, Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday, John Belushi, Keano Reeves, Bela Lugosi. Then his mouth suddenly went dry as realisation hit. They had all died from drug abuse. He moved along the line to the end, studying each one. The last one was a rocker in full flight. It was the only photograph in living colour. It was Billy Winter.

Billy felt his legs go weak and he slumped into a green velvet chair, mouth like a desert dust storm, perspiration on his brow and hands trembling. What was this place?

He rubbed his arm and licked his lips. Maybe he needed a shot. Could he be having withdrawal hallucinations? His heart began to thump less rapidly. That had to be the answer. He gave a brittle laugh that echoed round the room. It was either that or someone was playing a ghastly joke.

He got to his feet again and found he was still clutching a sachet of dope. He hurried to the cupboard that housed the syringes and tried to open it, but it was firmly secure. He wandered round the room, looking for open cupboards. There were none, none of any use to him anyway.

Then he saw a syringe sitting alone on a shelf, leaning against the wall between two more photographs. He smiled triumphantly and picked it up. He noticed the small clot of bright red blood at the needle point. He hesitated. Then he saw the photographs. Rock Hudson and Liberace: AIDS. He dropped the needle on the floor, heart beating, fingers trembling. What were they trying to do to him?

He stared up at the ceiling and thought he saw a camera lens. Then he smiled. The women - Angela and Diana - it was them; it was just another piece of their trickery. He suddenly felt he was back in control. They were trying to break him, push him into shooting up.

No way. He took stock again. He didn’t need a fix. He felt clear headed and fit. There were no stomach cramps, no cold sweats. It was almost as though he were clean. He put the sachet back into the cupboard, then ran round the room whooping as he tipped over the silver trays, creating a fog of cocaine. Then he threw the salvers on the floor to create rainbow rivers of pills. He burst out laughing. If they could play games so could he.

He heard the strains of the magical riff again. The sound drew him to the wall. He pressed his ear to it, but the music was still far away. His heart lifted at the sound and it brought his mind back to his predicament. If that band was going to back him, then he had to be in the show whether Thornton and Finnegan were in it or not.

No question. That sound behind his voice would create a new phenomenon. The thought washed over him like summer rain. He straightened his shoulders and felt ten years younger.

Feeling wonderfully refreshed and confident, he began to walk back to the door, but before he reached it, the short man in the white coat appeared from behind the hot food stand.

Billy stopped. “You with the band, man?” he asked. The man shook his head. “Can you help me find the band?”

The man came cautiously forward. “You must not be tempted by the band. You must not do this show.” He gripped Billy’s arm so tightly that it hurt. The singer jerked his arm away.

“Hey man,” he grumbled.

The little man bowed his head. “So sorry,” he murmured and backed away.

Billy looked quizzically at the figure. “That’s twice you’ve told me not to do the show? What’s the buzz?’ The man was silent, but Billy persisted. “Yeah, okay, the chicks are over the top, but hey man, that band - that guitar, man.”

It was the sound he had searched for himself. When? A thousand years ago? A thousand hits ago? It was when the music counted for something more than money, when music was life. He almost had it. That was just before he met his idol, the Yank, the greatest guitarist in the world. What a support gig that was; travelling all round Britain, girls in every town followed by the big party with the smell of marijuana everywhere. Then there was the magic of the master and his guitar. Even when he was exhausted and took a hit his guitar played sounds Billy couldn’t even have imagined.

The bass man saw the idolising look. He smiled and Billy took his first hit of heroin. He soared but his fingers couldn’t even pluck the strings of his own guitar. He felt his first rush of exhilaration and his first downward rush of failure.

He was Billy Winter. Not the master. In his haze his anger swelled. He smashed his guitar against the wall and howled. The party people thought he was having a bad trip, but his band knew better. They heard the cry of the vanquished.

But Billy never lost the echo of the sound and the search became part of his life, and so did the insidious white powder.

Billy rubbed his arm in memory of his life and stared at the man in white, who was watching him carefully.

“Man, if I can find that band, I’ll work with it, even if the drummer’s Old Nick himself.”

The man shook his head slowly and walked towards the hot food stand. “You will not be wise,” he muttered and disappeared into the corridor.

Billy’s face wore a puzzled look. The little man bugged him. He looked slowly round the room. Nothing had changed. The smorgasbord of drugs was still there, tantalisingly available. And so was the blood tipped syringe. Memories stirred.

The drugs, the frantic never-ending craving for a feeling that would bring him close to the sound and the never-ending failure of the search.

He had never been able to work out whether the drugs helped or hindered. There were times, with the right quantity in his veins when the sound was so close he could hear it. But he never could create it on his own guitar.

But now, now he felt no need for heroin and he felt strength and faith he thought was long gone. The sound was here and he could create it himself. If only he could find the band.