dreams. Once in a while, and only once in a while, someone comes along
who truly understands, who has the gift to transfer all those needs and
emotions into music.
"When I was three years old, I watched you"-she looked back up at
Brian-"all of you, go out on stage. I didn't know about things like
harmony or rhythms or riffs. All I saw was magic. I still see it,
Johnno, every time I watch the four of you step on stage."
He toyed with the copper column at her ear, then sent it spinning. "I
knew there was a reason we kept you around. Give us a kiss."
Her lips were curved as they touched his. "See you tomorrow. You're
going to knock them dead."
It was dusk when she walked to her car. Sometime during the afternoon
it had rained again. The streets were shiny, and the air was cool
and misty. She didn't want to go home to an empty house. Michael was
working late, again.
When she started the car, she turned the radio up loud, as she liked it
best on aimless drives. She would entertain herself for a couple of
hours, look at houses in the glow of street lights, try to decide if she
wanted the beach, the hills, or the canyons.
Relaxed, she set the car at a moderate pace and let the music wash over
her. She didn't check her rearview mirror, or notice the car that fell
in behind her.
MCHmL STOOD iN FRONT of the pegboard in the conference room and studied
his lists. He'd made another connection. It was slow work,
frustrating, but each link brought him closer to the end of the chain.
Jane Palmer had had many men. Finding them all could be a life's work,
Michael thought. But it was particularly satisfying when he turned one
up whose name was on the list.
She had used Brian's money to move out of her dingy little flat and into
bigger, more comfortable quarters in Chelsea, where she'd lived from
1968 to 1971, until she'd bought the house on King's Road. For the
better part of '70, she'd had a flatmate, a struggling pub singer named
Blackpool.
Wasn't it interesting, Michael thought as he rubbed eyes dead-dry with
strain, that while the McAvoys had been living in the hills of
Hollywood, Jane Palmer had been playing house with Blackpool?
Blackpool who had been at the McAvoys' party that night in early
December?
And odd, wasn't it just a bit odd, that Jane hadn't mentioned the
connection in her book? She'd dropped every name that could have made
the slightest ring, but Blackpool, an established star by the
midseventies, didn't rate a footnote. Because, Michael concluded,
neither of them wanted the connection remembered.
McCarthy stuck his head in the door. "Christ, Kesselring, you still
playing with that thing? I want some dinner."
"Robert Blackpool was Palmer's live-in lover from June of '70 to
February of '71."
"Well, call out the wrath of God."
Michael slapped a file in McCarthy's hand. "I need everything there is
to know about Blackpool."