Down And Dirty

She heard a dry chuckle. "Maybe they are."

"Anything you can do," Cordelia said, "I'll be very-" Croyd broke in again. "I'll see what I can find out. I'll get back to you." The co

Cordelia set the phone down and allowed herself a smile. She crossed her fingers. Both hands. Then she picked up from the desk the next note begging her attention. This one was simpler. Maybe she could find out in less than an hour exactly why Girls With Guns seemed to be hung up in Cleveland.

Wednesday

GF amp;G had decided that the Funhouse club band would back both C.C. Ryder and Buddy Holley. Actually it was C.C. who approved them; GF amp;G paid the checks.

"They're all sound musicians," said C.C. to Holley. "Good enough for me." He watched and listened as the two guitarists, drummer, keyboard woman, and sax player tuned.

Jack observed too. Practice would be long and tedious. But if you were an observer, it was show business in action. It was diverting. Glamorous. It was heaven.

C.C. led Holley onto the stage. Bagabond sat down at a front table, though the action looked performed under duress. Jack knew that she really did want to follow C.C. on up there.

"Mind if I sit here?" he said to her, setting his hand on the back of the chair opposite. Bagabond's dark eyes fixed on him fiercely for just a split second; she shrugged slightly and Jack sat.

"Okay," C.C. was saying to the musicians on the stage. "Here's what I'm go

The moment C.C. started to play, she looked stricken. "Nervous," Jack thought, was too mild a word for it. There was no crowd. There was no audience save the musicians, the technicians working on sound and lights, and the few odd observers such as Jack and Bagabond. C. C.'s lead went hideously flat. She stopped, looked down at the stage while everyone in the club seemed to hold a collective breath. Then C.C. looked up, and to Jack it seemed the motion was executed with enormous effort. Her fingers caressed the strings of her guitar. "Sorry," she said. That was all. And then she played.

Baby, the cards are out Baby, there is no doubt That when the dealer calls You been dealt a wi

The drummer picked up the backbeat. The bass player chugged in. The rhythm guitar softly filled the spaces. Jack saw Buddy Holley's fingers lightly stroking the strings of his Telecaster even though it wasn't jacked in.

You played since you were just a kid You played till you got old Baby, you never knew a thing Cause all you ever did was fold

The woman on keyboards ran an eerie, wailing trill out of her Yamaha. Jack blinked. Holley smiled. It sounded like the rinky-tink Farfisas both remembered from the presynthesizer, good old days.

Baby, don't ever fold Not when you got That wi

When it was done, there were a long few moments of absolute silence in the Funhouse. Then the tech people started to clap. So did C. C.'s backup musicians. They cheered. Bagabond get to her feet. Jack saw Xavier Desmond in the back of the room; it looked as if there were tears on his face.

Buddy Holley scratched his head and gri

C.C. looked pale, but she smiled and said, "Naw, it's pretty rough. It's only go

Holley shook his head.

C.C. Ryder marched over to him and tilted her face up toward his. "Your turn in the barrel, boyo."

The man shook his head, but his fingers were caressing the guitar.

C.C. tapped the side of her head. "I showed you mine." Holley made a little shrug. "What the heck. Gotta do it sometime, I reckon."

"No Billy Idol," Bagabond said.

Holley laughed. "No Billy Idol." He strummed contemplatively for a moment. Then he said, "This is new," He glanced over at Jack. "This one ain't even on the tape you heard." The strum deepened, picked up strength. "I call this one 'Rough Beast.'"

Then Buddy Holley played.

"It was incredible, Cordie. It's the old Buddy Holley with all the maturity laid in." Jack's voice was exuberant and uncritical. "Everything he played was new, and it was absolutely great."

"New, huh?" Cordelia tapped the earpiece with her right index finger. "As good as 'That'll Be the Day' and 'Oh, Boy'?"

"Is "Maxwell's Silver Hammer' better than 'I Want to Hold Your Hand'?" The excitement crackled in Jack's voice. "It isn't even apples and oranges. The new stuff's as energetic as his early songs-it's just more,-Jack seemed to be searching for the precise word-"sophisticated."

Cordelia stared at the photographs across the office but wasn't seeing them. Click. There might as well be a light bulb switching on above my head, she thought. I've gotta slow down. I'm starting to miss a lot. "What I'm guessing," she said, "is that Shrike doesn't have any claim on the new stuff. What I can do is put him in the hammock in the middle of the show. Maybe cut him down to ten minutes."

"Twenty," said Jack firmly. "It has to be as much as everyone else."

"Maybe," said Cordelia. "Anyhow, he's in the center so the audience warms up before they have to decide whether they're gon' be disappointed when Buddy Holley don' sing 'Cindy Lou.,"

There was a silence on the line. Jack finally said, "I don't think he'll mind."

"Okay, then. Great. This is really gon' simplify matters. I can tell the wet-brains at Shrike to screw off." Cordelia felt the crushing weight start to lift from her head. "You sure he'll do the show with new material?"

Jack's words were a verbal shrug. "The ice do seem to be broken. He and C.C. are reinforcing each other. I think it's all gon' work out."

"Great. Thanks, Uncle Jack. Keep me current." Cordelia's mood was cheerful after she hung up the phone. So Buddy Holley was in. And now she could call Croyd off the wild-goose chase. But when she phoned the apartment, no one answered. All she reached was the answering machine.

Maybe, she thought cheerfully, it's all gon' be downhill from here.

Thursday

Cordelia realized she was humming "Real Wild Child." The up-tempo rocker perfectly matched her hyper mood this afternoon. She wondered for a moment where she'd heard it as she identified the tune. She knew it was on none of her Buddy Holley albums. The song must just be in the air.

She tapped along with her fingers to the guitar runs in her head as she dialed her postlunch calls. Cordelia had phoned over to the Funhouse just about the time her takeout Vietnamese soup had arrived. Jack was sounding up.

"Practice is going great," he had said. "C. C. and Buddy ' are getting along fine. And Bagabond even nodded to me when I said good morning."

"How's the music?"

"They're both doing mostly new stuff-well, Buddy's is all new."

"Can he fill the whole twenty minutes?" Cordelia had said.

"Just like before-when I said he wouldn't have any problem? He still won't. You really ought to give him an hour."

"I'm not sure how U2 or the Boss would like that," Cordelia said dryly.

"I bet they'd love it."

"We won't be finding out." Cordelia sniffed the fragrance of crab and asparagus wafting out of the styrofoam soup bucket. "I've got to go, Uncle Jack. My food's here."

"Okay." Jack's voice hesitated. "Cordie?"

"Mmmp?" She already had the first spoonful in her mouth.

"Thanks for asking me to do this. It's a terrific thing. I'm grateful. It's… keeping my mind off everything else going on in the world."