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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781543939491 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | BookBaby |
| Publication date: | 09/03/2018 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 376 |
| File size: | 455 KB |
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CHAPTER 1
FOUR YEARS AGO
* * *
When the bullet struck his chest, Alexander B. Lowell lost his focus. He wasn't sure why the crowd was screaming, wasn't sure if he had even heard the shot. He fumbled through the last dissonant chord before his fingers dropped from the strings that were lined like an electric fence across the frets of his prized Schecter Hellraiser. His eyes glossed over the packed house of young bloods who were saturated with alcohol and sweetened by the latest designer drugs, and he briefly thought that maybe his own indulgent behavior prior to taking the stage had caught up with him.
It made sense. The music of the Great was heavy laden with a bass line laid out like death. The drums put the rhythm of assault rifles to shame, and Alec's Schecter Hellraiser added the right amount of nails on chalkboard to strike fear into the heart of any listener familiar with a mass murder horror movie. Combine it with the waning influence of Molly, and he thought he understood why he was going down. But the lead singer Claire, who had changed her name to Cleopatra to better fit the idea of the band's lame name, wasn't putting her signature raspy vocals to the test to belt out an impossibly long high note. She was screaming. Alec looked down to see a new hole, wet with blood, in his artistically torn shirt. His legs wobbled.
Alec thought that he sensed a moment of silence meant for cathedrals between the strike of the bullet and Cleo's unexpected turn as a scream queen. But then all hell broke loose in a slow-motion scene that melted in front of his eyes. The pierced and tattooed bodies of the young souls trying to prove they were fearless animals roaring to their music were crushed together within the sweaty confines of the underground club and were pushing their way toward any perceived exit. Dancers trampled each other in a deafening roar to get out, and Alec, or Alexander the Great as he was called by the hippest punsters of his fledgling fandom, collapsed on stage and blacked out.
* * *
Claire or "Cleo" LeCroix held Alec's hand and whispered comforting words into his ear after Mark the bass player and Patrick the drummer dragged him back stage away from the main point of chaos. A smear of blood marked a path for the unidentified shooter to follow if he or she so desired, but that didn't happen. Cleo quietly thanked God, which was odd considering what their band and their music represented.
Mark the bass player was more vocal and belligerent. "God damn it! God fucking damn it, Alec! You listen to me! You fucking stay with me, you hear me?" He muscled out of his shirt and used it to apply pressure to the gushing hole as he took terrified glances at the stage. "Alec? Alec!"
"He's bleeding out," said Patrick the drummer, who was young and technically underage to be in this club. He stared down at the body in numb shock as his mouth stuttered out the obvious with no intent of stopping. "Jesus — Jesus, there's nothing — there's — he's dead, he's —"
"— Find your God-damned phone and call 911!" Patrick raked his fingers through the tangle of dark hair at the center of his scalp. The sides of his head were shaved into a fade, giving him the appearance of a panicked Goth rooster. He took a tentative step to the left, then reversed course to the right before Mark screeched at him one more time.
"Now!"
Patrick patted himself down for his phone, fumbled it out of a pocket and lost it as a club bouncer pushed through. The bouncer paused and doubled back. "Cops are on the way. You know what you're doing here?" Mark admitted that he didn't with a shake of the head, and the bouncer replied with a harried voice before he bent down and gave a tutorial of the basics: how to monitor a pulse, how to apply the right pressure to the wound — a glossed over summary of proper CPR. Then the bouncer abandoned them, and Mark hung his head looking inadequate. Useless.
"Dear God, watch over us. Dear God, help him pull through —"
"— Shut up. What's that worth, huh?"
Cleo glared at Mark through her tears. "It's all I've got." She brushed at her eyes and gripped Alec's limp hand tighter. It brought her focus. "We could find his phone, call his family."
"He doesn't talk to his family." It was true. Alec never talked to his family in the presence of Mark or Cleo or Patrick. He never talked about them either, not even with Cleo, who sometimes brought up the topic after the more than occasional drunken night of intimacy. But this. ... this moment was bad, and she searched his pants pockets only to come up empty. Cleo sobbed. No, this wasn't happening. This wasn't fair, and the God that she grew up to believe in could burn in hell if He thought this was some justified penance for hers or Alec's or the band's supposed sins.
Cleo loved Alec. They were an unspoken couple who committed to being noncommittal. He was gentle with every kiss, every caress. The bad boy temper that was born from frustrations never reared its head when they were fucking. Alec may have been a moody ass sonofabitch on his best days, but it never took a turn toward the hurtful or vengeful or the bullying way unless it involved hurting himself. A fist through a mirror, taunting strangers into fights he couldn't win, playing out his frustrations across wire strings to the point of making his fingertips bleed; these were his acts of penance to keep his secret demons in check. Cleo knew Alec's demons stemmed from his family, but she had no idea what they were. He had refused to share.
"My mom died, and my dad found religion," he would say. "Just leave it alone, alright?" And he would clam up with a sour face, uncap whatever cheap brand of brew was left in their barely cooler than room temperature mini-fridge, and set his strings on fire with his cut and bleeding fingertips to annoy the neighbors in the adjacent apartment.
Cleo caressed those fingertips now as she held his hand. They were soft; not a callous, cut or scar on them. Odd.
Law enforcement arrived. Never in her life was Cleo as glad to see the cops as she was on this night. They wore body armor and head gear as they secured the mostly evacuated building. They escorted paramedics inside, who wasted no time assessing Alec's chances of survival before they hooked him up to tubes and portable monitors, strapped him onto a gurney, and wheeled him the hell out of there. Cleo wanted to go with him, but the police held her back. They had questions for her and Mark and Patrick who found himself a chair and stared straight ahead in silence without blinking for the duration of the interrogation.
Did you see the shooter? No. Does he have anyone who would want to do this? No. A drug debt? Ex girlfriend? No and ... well, yes. Belinda Allen was a distant memory from high school, and a relationship that ended when Alec left his home town in Wisconsin to escape his mysterious, dysfunctional family. It had been a clean break as far as Cleo knew, but honestly she wasn't sure. Alec never talked about his family, but he had occasionally mentioned Lindy, and usually with a smile. But Cleo wasn't sure, and she told the police she wasn't sure, and could this please all be over because she'd rather be pacing the floor of the Emergency Room where the unknown shooter had less of a chance of hiding in some missed broom closet or dark corner.
Mark had nothing to offer. Patrick continued to stare.
* * *
The shooter walked away that night or was squeezed out in anonymity along with the panicked mass exodus. He or she (for it was hard to tell when the shooter was dressed in baggy trousers and an oversized hoodie) stepped out into the cold Los Angeles streets and kept walking, looking like another homeless outcast in need of a box or a tent along Skid Row. A turn down the right alley, and the shooter had the opportunity to dump the gun into a trash bin that reeked from the stench of rotting sushi. He or she didn't bother. He or she still needed to find a way home, and a random holdup at a gas station or all night mini-mart seemed like a plausible way to earn the necessary funds.
The shooter realized that even the idea of a holdup was an unnecessary danger to make it home. The right phone call to the right person was all he or she needed to make. Their network was vast, the mission complete. The prophet Alexander was dead, along with his legacy to the world. Amen. Hallelujah.
* * *
A TV droned in the corner of the Ashland, Wisconsin Emergency Room at two in the morning. Three young men sat watching cable news with a mix of boredom and nausea from too much alcohol after a cold weekend kegger in the woods. The one in the middle was especially in a sour mood as he leaned his head against the wall behind him and held an ice pack over his nose. The front of his shirt held dripped blood stains that made his case look worse than it actually was.
The locked door that separated the waiting room from the Emergency Ward clicked open, and the boys looked up. They straightened up too. The two friends of the bloodied one suddenly seemed to wish that they also had a broken nose for the nurse to take care of. Belinda Allen twisted a strand of her richly curled hair, then slipped a pen from between her lips as she examined a clipboard. "Kenneth McCusker? Is that you?" Her eyes pierced through the middle one, the nose bleeder, and she waited with an inviting smile as the three of them stared back with slack jaws.
"Yeah ... yeah, it's me," McCusker finally managed. He rose in unison with his buddies, and Belinda held up her hand.
"Just Kenneth. But don't worry. I'll take good care of him." Disappointed, McCusker's buddies returned to their seats and turned back to the TV news. Belinda glanced at the screen and saw the ticker across the bottom of the reporter's story. It said Los Angeles. "What's going on?" she asked Kenneth as she led him to triage.
"Stupid fight with a Jets fan —"
"— No, the news."
It took a moment for McCusker to process. "Oh. Shooting. Los Angeles. Some club." Belinda nodded at the all too common occurrence as she led the guy to an exam table and patted it for him to take a seat. "Some guitarist got hit. Some metal band. Never heard of 'em. The Great something or other? Nobody listens to that Danzig shit anymore."
Belinda didn't hear that last part. She abandoned the patient, pushed through the door of the waiting room and startled McCusker's buddies. She closed in on the TV. The news cycle had already moved on to pundits and their political debates about guns and about the irresponsibility of rock stars who promote violent and immoral behavior. Belinda ransacked through old magazines and health-care flyers until she found the remote. She hit the playback button for the channel, and she hushed the confused pair of friends when they asked with concern if she was alright.
She wasn't alright. The report included a blurry cell phone video of a washed-out club band playing music that was distorted by the phone's tiny speakers. The gun shot rang out clearly. A startled guitarist stood there for a moment before he lost his balance and crumpled to the stage. The rest of the video was a wash of grainy crowd shots as people screamed and pushed their way to cover. The piece returned to the reporter outside the now evacuated club.
Belinda cupped her hand over her mouth and tried to understand what she had just seen. She trembled in silence, barely aware of the hand on her arm; it was one of McCusker's concerned buddies. "Are you a fan or something? Are you alright?"
Belinda backed away. She dug her phone out of her pocket as she headed for the exit. The admissions nurse, Jennie, called out before she could get far. "Lindy? What are you doing?"
"I have to go. I'm sorry, I can't. ..." She pocketed the phone, realizing there was no one she could really call. She no longer had Alec's number, his father was a lost cause, and his sister Ilene would probably tell her that Alec had it coming. Belinda didn't want to be the one to share the news with Alec's pious sister, and as she reached the parking lot she realized that she didn't have her keys. Or her purse. Or her coat. She turned back toward the hospital, then turned back toward the lot and pulled her phone back out as the chilly night air seeped into her bones. "Mom," she said when a voice picked up on the other end. And then it hit her; the shortness of breath, the sting of tears, the tremble in her voice. "Mom, I need you to take care of Jake. I'm going to Los Angeles."
* * *
Alec Lowell — Alexander the Great — became famous because of the bullet. The odds of surviving a gunshot wound to the chest are low but possible given the right circumstances. Caliber, trajectory, and speed play their part. Then there's the material that the bullet must penetrate, depending on those circumstances: glass, Kevlar, layers of fabric, bone. Most of those factors, with the exception of bone, were absent from Alec's case. Surgeons pulled a .38 caliber slug and bone fragments from Alec's sternum out of the muscled wall of his heart. The lead surgeon was a capable man but not necessarily a rock star among his peers trained in the cardiovascular arts. He was as surprised as the public by Alec's recovery, because while a bullet to the chest had a low rate of survival, a bullet to the heart had almost none.
Almost. There had been cases over the course of centuries that provided enough evidence for Alec's recovery to be attributed to luck, although those in the entertainment news industry were thrilled to call it a miracle. So was his manager. So were the Christian Crusaders who saw fit to remind him that he was going to hell because of his blatant rebellion against the One who gave him a second chance to find the right path. Some of those devout members of society had done some Internet digging and found fodder to crucify Alec for his disrespect of the Almighty. This punk turned anarchist grew up out of tragedy, and before he turned his back on God he turned his back on his father, a devout Catholic who suffered a mental breakdown not long after Alec left home.
"How did they find out about him?" Cleo shushed him from beside his recovery bed.
"You worry about you." Alec closed his eyes and took a breath, and Cleo chose her words carefully. "Hon, I'm with you. I'm beside you through this whole unbelievable nightmare. You know that, right?"
Alec freed a chuckle that was cut short by a spasm of pain. He rolled his eyes. "Whatever, Claire."
"Don't. Don't call me Claire."
"Why not? It's who you are. Who the hell says 'hon'? A Cleo or a fuckin' Claire?"
"Are you done, hon?"
"Isn't it what this is? Us? Done?"
"Alec —"
"You worry about you? I know where this leads. It wasn't serious. I know that. Whatever."
"There's someone else here to see you." Cleo paused. Stay cool, she thought. This is the right thing to do no matter how much it hurts. "Someone from home." Alec stared at her for a silent moment before he crushed his eyes shut in denial. "No."
"I've talked with her. She dropped everything to be here."
"I'm fucking tired, man. And she doesn't care. She blames me for Dad, and I don't care. I'm not ready."
"Who are we talking about, hon?" Alec huffed, like it needed to be said before he followed up without saying anything. Cleo leaned back ready to give up because she recognized the moment that she knew would come. He was shutting her out and shutting her down. "Fine. Get your rest. But I'm the one who had to talk to her. Me, Alec. She came all this way for you."
Alec turned his face away. He looked pained as Cleo vacated her seat and turned her back on him. "I can't sleep, you know. I'm so goddamned tired, and I can't sleep."
"I know." Cleo closed the door behind her, found the nearest restroom and cried her eyes out in a closed stall. It didn't last long enough. The creak of the lavatory door and hurried footsteps to reach the stall beside her were enough to make Cleo rein in those emotions and dab at her muddy mascara with the ample supply of scratchy paper that hospitals equate with toilet tissue. She waited, content to feel trapped from leaving.
Alec was right. Their relationship was something that they both agreed should remain casual, no attachments, because long-term relationships with your band mates always ended up messy. Those relationships usually went down in flames, along with the band itself. She knew that. And Alec, good God. It didn't take long knowing him to understand that any relationship with him would — not could, become complicated. He was broken inside, hurt, lost, in need of mothering. She knew that. Goddamn it, she knew it. But here she was wanting to hold him and nurture him and protect him because broken men who never really became full-grown men were her weakness. It was her mommy fix, and she hated herself for falling for it.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Perfect Prophet"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Diane M. Johnson.
Excerpted by permission of BookBaby.
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