Gossamer Axe Read Online Free PDF Page B

boy on the stage. But Kevin had played anyway, and one night a tall man in a fur coat had come up to him afterward.
    “You play… uptown,” he had said, his teeth glittering white in the darkness. And with a smile and a bow, he had vanished into the smoke and the shadows.
    But that was a long time ago, and Kevin could not even remember what he had played that night, or how he had played it. “Stormy Monday”? Had he in those early years possessed such gall that he had picked the classic? And—even supposing for a moment that he had—where had he gotten enough feeling that the tall man had pronounced his playing
uptown
!
    Or rather; where had that feeling gone?
    Sighing, he put the guitar down and tossed the slide onto the sofa. Wherever it had gone, it had undoubtedly taken out a long please and was not intending to return any time soon.
    Irony. Frankie had died, unknown, in his dressing room, and this pasty-faced honky had gone on into rock and roll, cut himself a little bit of a name, even gotten a contract offer. His feeling was gone, but that did not matter. The irony had taken over long ago, and so it was perhaps not overly surprising that, after showing enough honesty to turn down the contract, he had put together a guitar school where he taught others to play music for which he himself had lost any empathy.
    He stared out through the front door at the horses running back and forth in their pasture. He envied them their freedom and their purpose.
    What, he wondered, was that lick the old man had showed him ages ago? If it was important enough that Frankie had scorched his guitar, then perhaps, like the Ossipanic ballad that had escaped him, there was something to it that would break the music free once again, entice it away from the Florida condo that it was probably sharing with such things as inspiration and love…
    The odor of something burning seized his attention. Running into the kitchen, he found his eggs charred and unrecognizable, a brown smear of color of old coffee.
    “Hmmph?”
    It took Melinda a moment to realize that she had the wrong end of the phone receiver to her mouth. Half in, half out of her waterbed, she hitched herself up on one elbow while she attempted to turn it around. Mistake. It slipped from her fingers, bounced once on the side rail, and hit the floor with a thud. Across the room, the strings of her harp thrummed in response.
    Leaning over, she grabbed the phone by the cord and pulled it up as she fell back among the rumpled sheets. “Hang on,” she called hoarsely, hoping the caller could hear her, though in her opinion anyone who called at the ungodly hour of—she squinted at the clock—eleven in the morning deserved no courtesy whatsoever.
    She got the receiver to her ear finally. “Hello?”
    “Hey, how’ya doing, Melinda?”
    The caller was a man, and he knew her name. She figured that she must know his. “Okay,” she said. “Listen, I’m a little sleepy. Who is this?”
    “You gotta be kidding.”
    “I’m not kidding. It’s eleven A period M period, and you got me out of some nice dreams—”
    “Was he good?”
    “Fuck you.” She started to hang up, but the man squawked loudly enough that she put the handset to her ear again.
    “Hey, I’m sorry. It’s me, Tom.”
    “Tom? Tom who?”
    He sounded exasperated. “Tom Delany.”
    “Oh,
Jesus
. What the hell are you bothering me for?” Now she remembered why she did not recognize his voice: she had tried to forget it.
    “I’ve got some contacts out in L.A.,” he said, “and they’re interested in bankrolling me. I’m going to put a band together.”
    “Real nice. Count me out.”
    “You’re the best bass player I know.”
    “Yeah, because I’m the only one willing to cop to knowing your name. Forget it. I want to get back into a band, but not that bad.”
    “Melinda—”
    “Look—”
    “Just a—”
    “Will you buzz off? The only thing I ever got from you was screwed. Your idea of a band is