Thirty-Seven

I glanced up and saw Roz waving at me from an alcove behind a palm. I almost choked on my coffee.

“Can you wait a minute, Mooney?” I said calmly, glad he was carefully eyeing Dee’s departure, making sure she headed straight for the elevators. “I need to hit the bathroom.”

“I’ll dial upstairs,” he said. “Meet you back here.”

A waitress pointed me in the direction of a small hallway. The ladies’ room had three stalls, three complete bathrooms, really, each with its own sink, so you wouldn’t have to wash up in semipublic view. Roz joined me while I was drying my hands on an individually rolled towel I’d taken from a decorative basket. No brown paper towels from a dispenser here.

For her role as undercover groupie, Roz had dyed her hair the color of red licorice, then cornrowed a small section near her right temple. The corresponding section at the left temple, crimped and puffed, looked like some exotic foodstuff, not hair. Starting from the bottom she wore black boots, ultra-tight shiny black stirrup pants, and one of her most prized T-shirts, a souvenir of a trip to New Orleans. Purple, with a row of oysters across her more than ample breasts. Beneath them, three lines of print said it all:

“Shuck me, suck me, eat me raw.”

Just the tone the manager sought to cultivate in her hotel. I could imagine her urgent memo to her supervisor: No more rock groups. No more blues groups. No more music groups. Perhaps a dispensation could be considered for the Vienna Boys Choir.

“Subtle,” I said to Roz, as we exchanged glances in the mirror.

“I didn’t know groupies went for subtle,” she said while applying lipstick to a mouth that could hardly have been redder. “And I haven’t even met a guy I’d like to shake hands with, anyway. The drummer’s strictly off-limits, according to Mimi. The keyboard man’s so drugged out he hasn’t gotten it up in years, also according to Mimi. The lead guitar’s a hunk-and-a-half, but he’s so stuck on himself he probably does it with mirrors.”

“Cut to the good part, Roz. Mimi may decide to visit the little girls’ room.”

“There aren’t a whole lot of good parts,” Roz said. “Little bitch doesn’t want a sister or a best girlfriend, that’s for sure. I’m the competition.”

“So what have you got?”

“For starters, Mimi is not Mimi. Try Matilda Hooper. Honest. I borrowed her wallet. I’ll bet my T-shirt she has a rap sheet, but it’s probably a sealed juvie. Fifteen, she says, but I’d make it seventeen. Been on the scene since she was ten, but I think most of what she says she makes up on the spot. She brags about dealing drugs, using drugs, doing guys, doing break-ins. If she does half what she says, she’s gonna be dead by the time she’s twenty.”

“She do our break-in?”

“She was busy that night, and she giggled when she said busy. If she was having sex with one of the guys in the band, one of the techies, one of the roadies, she’d have told every detail, no giggles. Sex with musicians—that’s, like, her business. She keeps their names written down in a book.”

“What else?”

“Look, this isn’t working out real well. Mimi seems to hate my guts. What I’ve told you is everything I’ve managed to wedge out of her, and everything I’m likely to get. I bought her drinks, the whole bit, but she’s gonna just pass out if I keep it up.”

“Has she said anything about Hal?”

“She thinks he’s pretty cute for an old guy. That’s all she said, but you want an impression, I’ll give you one. I think she’s close to him. He’s the road manager. He provides access to the stars.”

“She sleep with him?”

“Doesn’t brag about it. She once licked Mick Jagger’s right nipple. That she brags about.”

“Freddie bring in the drugs, or Mimi?”

“Not sure, but I’d say Mimi. Maybe both. You like my hair like this?”

“Awesome.”

She was accenting her eyelids with a substance that looked like a cross between glitter and clown makeup.

“I’m really picking up some fashion tips. You got to swing with a younger crowd, I guess,” she said.

I’m never sure when Roz is joking. I left it alone. “So you figure you’re finished as a groupie?” I said.

“Mimi’s gonna have some goon beat me up if I stick around,” Roz said. “That’s what I think.”

“So quit,” I said. “Go to the library. Do a periodical check. I’m not sure if the BPL collects stuff like Guitar magazine, but maybe they do. See what you can pick up about Hal Grady. Like what groups he’s managed. I think Mimi said one was called the Bow-Wows—”

“They weren’t bad,” Roz said. “I heard they made big bucks on tour, but their album went nowhere.”

“A road band,” I murmured. I started washing my hands all over again.

“What’s that mean?” Roz asked. “What are you thinking?”

I said, “Some bands, they’re great live; make a lot of money on tour. Exciting show. Good-looking players. Some bands are studio bands. Close harmony, special effects. They score big on album sales. Very few groups do both.”

“So?”

“I was wondering whether Hal specializes in road bands, bands that do a whole lot better on ticket sales than they do on albums, tapes, CD’s, what have you. Like the Bow-Wows.”

“Would that be unusual?” Roz asked.

“It would sure be interesting,” I said. “Check it out, if you can. The bands Hal’s managed, see if they all happen to be money-making road bands and studio zeroes. You know where to look?”

“Everyplace from Variety on down, I suppose.”

“Good,” I said. “And you can always ask a librarian, if they talk to people who wear obscene T-shirts.”

“Tell me the truth,” she said. “You think I should leave my hair like this?”