Occasional Demons Read online

  “Go home,“ he whispered to himself. “Just go the hell home and forget about her.“ Several times, he gripped the key in the ignition, preparing to start the car and drive away, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave.

  He knew—he could sense—that Manda was up there in the gathering darkness.

  Maybe she really was sick or hurt …

  Maybe she wasn’t able to get to the phone to call work or a doctor.

  As much as he tried to deny it, Jason knew he was going to go up and knock on the door just to make sure Manda wasn’t in any real danger.

  “Damn,“ he muttered as he drew the key from the ignition and swung the driver’s door open. As he stepped out into the street, a brief gust of cold wind raked chills across his back. Hunching up and tucking his neck into the collar of his jacket, he walked up to the front door, pressed his face against the glass, and peered into the foyer.

  There was no one in sight.

  The dim, bare light bulb cast a nut-brown glow over the dust and grime-caked floor and stairway. His teeth were chattering, and his hand trembled as he pressed the doorbell for apartment 7-B. From deep inside the building he heard a faint buzzing sound. He took a breath and held it as he waited for Manda to buzz him in, but the only sounds were the sounds of the city traffic behind him.

  “Jesus... Jesus... Jesus!“ he whispered, watching his breath fog the front door glass and then dissolve. The reflections of the city lights distorted in the door glass, and for just an instant, he thought he saw a black smudge reflected over his left shoulder. Grunting with surprise, he turned and looked, but there was nothing there.

  His anger rose as he gritted his teeth and pressed the buzzer button again, harder this time, as if that would communicate his urgency. He held it down while slowly counting to five and then released it.

  Still no answer.

  She probably isn’t even home, he told himself.

  Most likely, she had skipped work without calling in because she was just as sick of her job as he was sick of her bullshit. She had probably taken off for the day, gone somewhere with her loser boyfriend the pseudo-writer, and was having a grand old time. She probably just hadn’t gotten home yet.

  “’Scuse me.“

  The voice speaking so suddenly behind him made Jason jump. He turned to see a young man, standing close behind him on the steps.

  “Sorry... Sorry,“ Jason muttered, stepping aside so the man had room enough to insert his key into the front door lock. The man barely acknowledged him, but as he opened the door and stepped into the foyer, Jason braced the door open with his hand. The man regarded him with undisguised suspicion.

  “Forgot my keys,“ Jason said with an innocent shrug. He knew how lame he must sound but didn’t care. “My girlfriend’s in the shower and probably can’t hear me buzzing.“

  “What apartment you in?“ the man asked.

  “Seven-B,“ Jason replied with a flick of his head to indicate the upstairs.

  The man glared at him in silence for a second or two, then nodded and proceeded inside without another word. Jason watched as he walked down the corridor to a darkened doorway on the left at the far end of the corridor. After the man let himself into his apartment and shut the door, Jason exhaled. He was going to go upstairs to Manda’s door, but something off to his right caught his attention.

  The apartment mailboxes.

  He wasn’t sure why, but he experienced a jolt of recognition when he saw a padded manila book mailer on the floor in front of the row of glass-fronted boxes.

  “I’ll be a son of a bitch,“ he muttered as he walked over to the row of boxes and, bending down, picked up the book envelope.

  The package had been sent out from the bookstore. The store’s return address was clearly stamped in the upper left-hand corner on the front along with a carefully hand-lettered address:

  Manda Simoneau

  325 Congress St.

  Apt 7 B

  Portland, ME 04401

  “Goddamnit! I knew it!“

  Jason hefted the package. He could tell, just by the feel, that it was a book, and it didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out which book it was. It had to be the one Manda had special ordered and then not bought because she couldn’t afford it. Instead of returning it like she had been told, she had mailed it to herself.

  Jason’s hands were trembling out of control as he slid his forefinger under the stapled end of the package and ripped it open. As soon as he did, he let out a yelp of pain when a staple sliced into his forefinger just above the knuckle. A bright streak of blood ran down the side of his finger, smearing the book cover as Jason withdrew the book from its package.

  “You sneaky little...“ he whispered when he saw the black, faux-leather cover and read the title out loud: “Psychic Black Holes.“

  Sniffing with laughter, he slipped the book back into the padded bag and tucked it under his arm. Without thinking, he brought his hand up to his mouth and sucked the blood from the wound. The metallic taste made him wince.

  The cut’s not so bad, he thought. Probably won’t even need a Band-Aid.

  As he left the building and walked down the stairs to his car, he couldn’t help but smile to himself. He’d bring the book to the store tomorrow and send it back to the publisher himself, and that would be the end of it. But not before he confronted Manda with it and fired her under the threat of prosecution for theft. That’d make her think twice about trying to rip off him or the company.

  Before getting into his car, Jason glanced up one last time at Manda’s apartment windows. The flat glass mirrored the black, velvet night sky with a cold marble gloss. The clouds swirled in reflection, spiraling inward on themselves with vague hints of deep red.

  “So, I guess that’s it for you, Manda,“ Jason whispered. His breath came out a gray puff of mist in the chilly night air, and then the gentle breeze silently swept it away as the gathering shadows of the night closed in around him.

  Dead Legends

  “Holy shit! What’s this picture over here?“

  With a swirl of his ankle-length, cotton print jacket, and trailing a plume of cigarette smoke over his shoulder, Stuart Bonney strode up over the framed photograph on the wall and tapped it with his thin forefinger. With a sweep of his other hand, he brushed the long hank of dark hair from in front of his left eye, but it immediately fell back into place.

  “Hell, boy, that there’s Jimi Hendrix, of course,“ Al Silverstein replied as he folded his stubby arms across his chest and gave Stuart a self-satisfied grin. “See right here? It’s even autographed by him and the other two guys in the Experience.“

  “I know who it is, but you mean to tell me Hendrix actually recorded here?“

  “Sure he did.“ Al gave his balding head an exaggerated nod that made his fleshy jowls jiggle like twin bowls of Jello inside his tight shirt collar. “Back in the sixties. Jimi stopped by for a few sessions. That was just before the Monterey Pop Festival.“

  “Un-fucking-real,“ Stuart said, his voice lowered to an uncharacteristic near-reverential whisper. “I can’t fucking believe it. And you were working here back then?“

  Al’s smile widened into a smirk. He looked almost as if he were gloating. He was a short, rotund man who stood a whole head shorter than the rail-thin Stuart, but there was something about him that made him seem bigger...a lot bigger. Maybe it had something to do with his near legendary status in the music industry.

  “You have to remember, Stuie, that I own this goddamned recording studio, so of course I was here. For every goddamned session. I’m telling you, they were just starting to get some attention stateside—Monterey’s what finally did it—but they laid down the heaviest fucking tracks I ever heard. None of them have ever even been released, of course.“

  “No shit,“ Stuart said. He was suitably impressed, but he was trying his best not to let his irritation show. No one had called him Stuie since he was a little kid. Even his mother stopped calling him that.
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br />   “Oh, yeah,“ Al said, frowning slightly. “They—uh, the rights are all tangled up in the legal problems with Hendrix’s estate. You know how that goes.“

  “Fucking-A I do,“ Stuart said. He inhaled and blew out a thin stream of smoke. “But don’t tell me you still have ’em. Those tapes, I mean.“

  Al shrugged casually, his smirk lifting one corner of his mouth as his dark, deep-set eyes beamed. “Sure I do. They’re locked up, safe and sound in the studio vault along with a whole shit-load of other stuff probably nobody will ever hear.“

  “No shit. Like what?“

  “Hell, I’ve got some unreleased material the Stones recorded here, back when that blond guy—what’s his name? Brian? Yeah, Brian Jones—back when he was still alive. He did some incredible shit with a sitar. I can’t remember the dates exactly, but it had to be sometime during one of their first North American tours. Hell, Lennon was in and did four or five solo numbers back when he was out here on the West Coast, carousing around with Nielsen and those guys. I’ve got some tracks the Doors laid down just before Morrison went over to Paris, a few things by Stevie Ray—“

  “No shit. You mean to tell me you’ve got some unreleased Doors material?“

  “’Bout half an album’s worth. Four songs they started working on right after they’d finished L.A. Woman.“

  “No shit,“ Stuart said, shaking his head in absolute amazement. “I never realized they had started on another project back then.“

  “Yeah, and just about that time McCartney was supposed to come in for a few days, but he had to cancel at the last minute. Too bad,“ Al said, shaking his head.

  Stuart took another pull on his cigarette, then exhaled gray smoke from his nostrils as he moved a few steps further down the hallway to the next framed photograph. It was a black and white glossy of Jim Morrison, leaning with one foot against an amp. He had a whiskey bottle clutched like a baseball bat in both hands and was looking down at the floor, his head tilted so his long, curly hair covered his eyes, but Stuart immediately recognized the smirking curl on Jim’s upper lip. When he was a kid growing up in Chelsea, Massachusetts, Stuart had practiced that sneer in front of the bathroom mirror night after night. Scrawled across the bottom of the photograph, right across his black leather-clad crotch, was Morrison’s signature in gold ink.

  “I can’t fuckin’ believe you’ve recorded all these dudes, man, and no one’s ever even heard about it.“

  “Well, I wouldn’t say no one. A few people have.“ Al dropped his voice to an almost conspiratorial whisper. “This studio is just sort of a...a little trade secret, you might say. I don’t have to advertise all that much because people pretty much hear about what we’re doing here, and they come to me.“

  “I’ll bet they do, but—I mean...shit, man, look at these fuckin’ pictures on this wall!“ Stuart let out a smoky gasp. “I mean, it’s a fuckin’ who’s who of rock ’n roll history.“

  “You bet’cha ass it is, Stuie-boy.“

  Stuart almost exploded.

  Stuie-boy!... No one ever called him that!

  Al went on talking, not even noticing Stuart’s irritation.

  “And if we can work things out between us, do you know who’s picture’s gonna up on this here wall next, right alongside the Lizard King and Hendrix and Janis?“

  He smiled a wolfish grin as his voice trailed away teasingly, but Stuart didn’t have to answer him. As far as he was concerned, he knew damned right well who it was going to be.

  Stuart Bonney was the lead guitarist for Brokenface, a fast-rising hard rock group out of Boston. After a string of “almost-hits“ from one label, their first album from Relativity Records had charted in the top fifty under its own steam last spring. It had gone all the way to number one following their tour last summer opening for the Dave Mathews Band, but it had stayed there only one week because U-2’s new album came out. Unlike most groups who usually took a year or two to come out with a follow up album, Brokenface had gone into the studio the day after the Dave Mathews tour ended in August to start recording Zygomatic, which they wanted to have in the stores for Christmas.

  But there were problems.

  The band wasn’t very happy with the way things were going with their current studio, especially with Ed Simmons, who had coproduced their first Relativity album. There was a subtle but very definite pressure from the money men upstairs for them to come up with something just like the last record...something that would hit the top ten as soon as it was released, but all Simmons kept saying was, “I don’t hear a single here! Do you?“

  Over the past few weeks, the internal pressure had been building steadily. At times, it threatened to unravel the entire band. That’s why Stuart had taken the weekend off to drive from L.A. up to San Francisco. Like a lot of rockers, he had heard through the professional grapevine about Al Silverstein’s Sharp Sounds Studios, and he wanted to talk things over with Al, see what was up. He wasn’t all that serious yet about bagging the whole project. At least not yet. He was just sniffing around, looking to keep his options open. Stuart wasn’t all that easy to impress, either, having cultivated an unflappable image of cool...something he had to do after the album hit so big.

  But when Stuart realized the roster of people Al had worked with over the last forty years or more, he knew he was going to push for the rest of the band to come up for at least a few weeks to see if they could get anything happening. It couldn’t be any worse than the problems they were having now. And if things went too badly, Stuart was thinking about bailing out of the group entirely and working on his solo project.

  Stuart continued moving slowly down the hall, puffing on his cigarette and exclaiming surprise over some of the other framed, autographed photos, which included Buddy Holly, Sid Vicious, Janis Joplin, and John Lennon. Al kept up a steady stream of chatter, detailing for him who had recorded here and when, and emphasizing that most of the material had never even been released.

  It wasn’t until he was nearing the end of the hall that something struck Stuart as...well, odd. Frowning, he looked carefully at a photo from a recording session with the original Pretenders. His mouth dropped open, and he almost said something, but he remained silent as he let the implications of what he was thinking sink in.

  “That there’s a couple of the original members of the Pretenders,“ Al said, his voice sounding unnervingly close and loud behind Stuart’s back. “Chrissie couldn’t make it for the session, but we laid down some backing tracks. That Chrissie Hynes has got one hell of a voice, don’t’cha think?“

  “Umm...yeah,“ Al replied, nodding his head absently as a thought formed more clearly in his head. “It’s—ahh, it’s too bad half the band had to go and O.D.“ He could feel Al, standing close to his shoulder. He took a quick step to one side, hoping to put a bit more distance between them.

  “And how about this one of Stevie Ray Vaughn?“ Al said, indicating the last photograph on the wall. “That’s one helluva shot, ain’t it?“

  “It sure is,“ Stuart said, but he was still distracted by what he was thinking. He realized that not only was this wall a history of rock n’ roll; it was also a nearly chronological photo gallery of the dead legends of rock n’ roll.

  “This one of Stevie Ray,“ Stuart said. “It, ahh, it looks like it was taken... When was he...?“

  Stuart’s voice faded away as he tapped the photo with his forefinger, hitting it hard enough to knock it a little off kilter. Grunting softly, Al reached past him and straightened it out while Stuart leaned down and buried his cigarette butt in the sand-filled ashtray on the floor beneath the picture.

  “You were saying...?“ Al said.

  His breath washed like tepid water over the side of Stuart’s face, but in spite of its warmth, it gave Stuart a subtle chill.

  “When was this—ahh, picture taken?“ Stuart asked, aware of the slight quaver in his voice. He stared at the photograph of Stevie Ray for what felt like way too long, waiting for Al’s reply as st
eadily strengthening rushes of cold squiggled up and down his spine.

  “Not too long before the plane crash, actually,“ Al said simply, and then he sighed. “It was horrible, the way that happened, wasn’t it?“

  “It sure was,“ Stuart said softly.

  Al’s voice and heated breath were still too close for comfort. Stuart wanted to put a bit more distance between him and Al, but he didn’t want to appear too obvious about his discomfort, either. For an instant, he wondered if Al might be gay, and this was his way of working up to hit on him.

  After sucking in a deep breath, Stuart turned and looked at Al, determined to make it clear there was no fucking way he was into that; but he found he couldn’t maintain eye contact with the man for very long, so he turned back and stared blankly at the photograph of Stevie Ray Vaughn. Reflected light, probably from the flash when the picture had been taken, made the guitar in Stevie Ray’s hand look like it was blazing with white laser fire.

  Carefully avoiding Al, Stuart started walking back down the hallway, checking every photograph as he went, trying to put all of them into chronological order. All of the pictures had obviously been taken here in the studio, most of them while the singers and musicians were actually working. As he neared the end of the corridor, the thought that had been niggling at his mind finally became a firm conviction.

  Every single one of these pictures had been taken shortly before the performer died, most of them within a matter of weeks if not days.

  The thought chilled Stuart.

  “You want to take a minute to check out the studio itself?“ Al asked as he crossed the hall to a closed door. “We’ve got some remarkable state-of-the-art equipment in here, and the acoustics are absolutely unique. I guarantee you’ll get a sound here that you won’t get at any other recording studio.“

  He fished in his pants pocket until he produced a large brass key, which he inserted into the door lock. He smiled over his shoulder at Stuart as he turned it.