Stand By Your Man

Chapter Twenty-five

Tony and Sheila were thick as thieves by the time they dropped me off at the Golden Stallion club. Tony gunned the engine and the two took off for who knew where, not to return until closing time.

I walked inside knowing I had fences to mend. I'd hurt my friend and there was no way I could think of to make up for that. When I entered the club, Jack had his back to me, fiddling with the monitor in such an obvious way that I knew he'd seen me arrive and didn't want to face me.

He waited until I was right behind him to turn around, pretending to be surprised and happy to see me.

"I want to talk to you," I said.

"Sure, Maggie, sure, but not right now, okay? Sparks asked me to check this monitor and we're due to start any minute. How about later?" He smiled but he wouldn't hold my gaze. At the first opportunity he turned back to the sound system and wandered away. The others were all tuning up, oblivious to me. When Chris finally looked up and saw me, he reached for my guitar.

"I'll get it tuned up for you," he said. "You want to do that new one we were working on last week?"

I nodded, but my heart wasn't in it. I stepped up to my vocal mike and did a sound check, watching Homer back on the soundboard nod and give me the thumbs up. The lights were flickering, traveling across the stage in broad beams of red and gold as the techies adjusted them to focus on the band members. On any other night I would've been eating this up. It was my dream to sing and now here I was, on stage five nights a week, the lead singer in a house band, and I couldn't enjoy it.

I walked to the dead center of the stage and looked out at the house. It was almost nine o'clock. The regulars were beginning to file in. Brenda Lee was just finishing up with her line dance lessons, putting a bevy of overweight middle-aged women through their paces. I waited there, in the spot where I always stood, and closed my eyes, wishing like anything for the feeling to come. I wanted the adrenaline rush I always got before I sang, but it wasn't coming.

"Maggie! Maggie, my God, move!" Sparks screamed and my eyes flew open, but not in time. I turned around and saw nothing but Jack. Jack running and hurtling toward me, a fierce look of determination on his face, his arms outstretched as he flew into me, knocking me off my feet and sending me flying backward.

A speaker tower crashed to the ground, falling from its position high above the stage, landing on the spot where I had just been standing. It shattered, splitting open, spilling wires and shards of black plastic everywhere.

Jack had tackled me, the force of his body throwing me off balance, across the stage, the two of us landing in a heap on the hard wooden floor.

"Are you all right?" he gasped. He pushed up off of me, turning to look at the spot where the heavy piece of equipment had landed.

"I could be dead," I whispered.

"But you're not," he said, and then he smiled. "You're not."

Cletus and the other bouncer were running up onto the stage. Pandemonium had erupted among the techies and the roadies, with everyone looking for the cause of the accident. But I knew it wasn't an accident. Accidents like that didn't just happen.

I started to shake and suddenly it was freezing, even with the ultrahot lights and the heat from the equipment.

Jack looked back at me and smiled. "Son of a bitch!" he said. Then he was standing, reaching down to pull me up.

"Cletus," he called, "we need to look and see if anybody's been fooling with the equipment. See who's been hanging around this afternoon. This couldn't have happened without someone noticing something." Jack was stronger and taller than he had been minutes before, and more certain of himself. The easygoing, peace-loving boy was gone, replaced by a self-assured man.

Sparks was impatient with the entire process. "Come on, get the other tower in here," he called to the stagehands. "Get this mess cleaned up." When the others ignored him, he became even more controlling. "Let's get moving, people. We're on in five."

Cletus stooped down by the broken amplifier, stretched out a hand, and pulled the broken chain away from the bits of equipment and examined them.

"Yep," he said, his eyes meeting Jack's. "Somebody cut on it."

"No kidding!" Jack couldn't seem to decide whether to be amazed at this or pleased that he'd figured it all out. He turned to me. "Let's go ahead and call your detective friend. He's gonna want to see this."

When a stagehand moved in with a broom, Jack stopped him. "You can't touch this. It's a crime scene."

"Aw, for pity's sake," Sparks moaned. "We've got a show to do."

"Well, we can just work around it if we have to," I said. But I knew that wasn't the case. Once the police arrived, we'd be twiddling our thumbs for hours while they took pictures and scratched their heads.

Cletus handed me his cell phone. "You'd better call," he said. "You seem to know them better than we do." He winked at me and smiled. "Tell him we need the V.I.P. treatment."

I dialed the number, knowing Weathers wouldn't be there, listening to the familiar recording: "This is Detective Marshall J. Weathers of the Greensboro Police Department's Criminal Investigation Unit. I am unable to take your call at the moment, but if you would leave me a detailed message, including the time of your call and your number, I will return your call as soon as possible."

I waited for the tone and tried to be brief. "Marshall, it's Maggie. I'm at the club. There's been an accident here, but it probably wasn't an accident, so could you come down?"

I hung up, handed the phone to Cletus, and turned back to Sparks. "Let's do it. Let's start off and work around the mess."

Sparks was all white hat and mustache, a short man with big pointy-toed cowboy boots and no sense of humor.

"Good enough," he said, and headed for his pedal-steel guitar. The rest of the band followed suit, picking up their instruments and plugging them into their amps. A techie pushed a heavy backup amp out to the edge of the stage.

"It won't be perfect sound," he said to Sugar Bear, "but they'll hear you fine."

Sparks started the count and the others began playing. I took the mike the roadie handed me, walked around the near-fatal mess, and stood just in front of the broken amp. I closed my eyes and began to sing.

"I'm standing on the edge of a broken heart,

I can't believe that we're falling apart.

Your touch has grown as cold

As the love that you stole

When you walked away from me."

Sparks brought the pedal-steel in under the melody, each note a sliding teardrop that broke just at the end of every syllable. The lights dimmed as couples moved together in a slow, steady circle around the dance floor.

Chris walked up to the mike right next to me, looked me in the eye and began the second verse of our duet.

"You're breaking my heart as you walk away,

I can't believe I'm your yesterday.

I tried for so long,

But you tell me it's wrong,

As you walk away from me."

Jack stepped in between us, his harmonica sweetly moving through the break as Chris picked up his mandolin and added a harmony to it. For a moment I lost sight of the danger, forgot about everything but the music and the song. But only for a moment; Marshall Weathers was the only reminder I needed to know that things weren't right. He stepped into the club and stood by the doorway letting his eyes adjust. By the time Chris and I came back in to sing the third verse, he was standing in front of me, staring at the ruined amplifier.

When the song ended, he walked up the side steps onto the stage and over to the smashed tower.

"Folks getting a little careless around here?" he asked. His thick mustache barely moved when he spoke, but his eyes seemed to be taking everything in. He was wearing tight faded blue jeans, a white dress shirt, and his lizardskin boots. He could've passed for a customer if I hadn't caught a glimpse of the gun that rested securely on his hip, hidden by his jacket.

"Cletus thinks somebody cut the chain," I said.

"Uh-huh," he muttered, stooping as Cletus had to pick up the twisted metal links.

"Don't you want to wear gloves when you do that?" Sugar Bear asked, his curiosity overcoming him. Sugar Bear has a thing about the law. He avoids them at all costs, figuring that one of these days he'll get arrested for intent to possess illegal drugs.

Weathers looked up at him and seemed to stifle a grin. "Nan. If there were fingerprints on this bit of chain they'd be long gone by now, smudged off by all the people who've probably handled it since it fell. Besides, it's really hard to lift a print off a thing like this."

Sugar Bear looked disappointed, as did just about everyone else, including me.

"Y'all might want to clean up this mess," he said. "Somebody could get hurt." He turned and looked at Cletus, who was standing on the edge of the crowd. "How about you tell me what happened and we'll go from there," he said.

Cletus nodded and spoke into his walkie-talkie, giving instructions to the other security staff.

"All right," he said, his voice a thick, bull-like monotone. "I'll buy you a cup of coffee in my office."

Marshall started to follow, then stopped and returned to the spot where I stood. "Give us a couple of minutes, all right, Cletus?"

Cletus nodded. "You know where I am," he said, and stalked off.

Marshall took my elbow and leaned down to murmur in my ear. "Let's go outside a minute."

I walked away with him, feeling his comforting presence by my side and wishing I didn't want him to stay. I wanted to lean into him, to feel his arm slip around my waist. I wanted him to make it be all right.

As soon as the back door closed behind us, Marshall turned and kissed me. It was a long, slow, deep kiss, full of promise and expectation. His hands encircled my shoulders and slid down my arms, and then he pulled me closer, until I could do nothing but melt into him.

I kissed him right back. I felt our bodies join together and suddenly there was nothing I wanted more than him.

He pushed away and looked down at me, his eyes delving deep inside me, probing for confirmation of what we both felt.

"What was that for?" I whispered.

"What do you think, Maggie?" He tilted my chin up again and brushed my lips with his. "Don't think I'm walking away from you," he whispered. He kissed me again, his hands moving to pull me closer again. "Now," he said, his voice soft against my ear, "I'm going to put a uniformed officer inside the club. I don't think anyone will try anything else tonight, not here at least, but I'd feel better with someone watching you. I'll be back to pick you up at closing time."

The alarm went off in my head and I panicked. He'd be back? So would Tony Carlucci. Now what was I going to do?

"You don't need to do that," I said. "I'll be okay."

"Maggie," Weathers said, his mustache tickling my ear as he whispered. "No arguments. I'll be back at two thirty."

He pulled his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and called to have a patrol officer watch the club and me. As he spoke I felt myself spiral further and further away. I couldn't tell him about Carlucci. He'd never understand that. And I couldn't call Carlucci. I didn't know his number. I had no idea how to find him. And even if I could, what would I say? Thanks for watching my daughter, but never mind? I'm going off with that man you say is a loser? And furthermore, what did I care what Tony Carlucci the Thug Private Investigator thought? And then, to top it all off, there was Jack. What was I going to do about him? He'd saved my life and all I'd done lately was hurt him. Tony Carlucci was right-Harmonica Jack did love me, or at least he thought he did, and I'd done a powerful job of ignoring that fact. But how long could that go on?

My ears were ringing. I was confused and frightened and living my life at the hands of others. I was going to have to do something, but what? I wandered away from Marshall, leaving him with his ear glued to the phone, issuing instructions and barking orders. I walked back inside, past the technicians and sound men, past the stagehands and backstage hangers-on, right up to Sparks.

"I'm leaving," I said. "I'll be back in time to finish the last set."

Sparks pushed his ten-gallon hat back on his head and favored me with a malevolent glare. "You can't do that," he said.

But I wasn't listening. I was walking away.