Ragged Man (19 page)

He had been coming to Southern California off and on for the last five years. He didn’t like it. It was too hot and too smoggy, but this time he was excited, as excited as he was the first time he had seen Led Zeppelin that great day in 1975 at Earl’s Court in London.

He patted his shirt pocket, feeling the folded letter. The letter that was a gateway to a lot of money, maybe a quarter million or more, but the money was secondary, as it always would be when it came to Led Zep. It was the board tapes that he was after. The fact that he would make a small fortune was bloody great, but to hear stereo soundboard recordings of the greatest band on earth before anyone else, that was to die for, and the letter promised him that.

In his heart he had never forgiven Rick Gordon for scoring Zep board tapes and putting them out. The man cared nothing for the band, didn’t even like them. He was only in it for the money. If anyone should make money off the band, Tom felt it should be him. He hated it that he had put out over two dozen Zep boots and Rick Gordon put out five and made ten times the money.

True, his own titles were seriously lacking in the sound quality department. They were mostly recorded from the audience, with cheap cassette players, but they were great shows that documented the history of the band. It was also true that before he started doing business Rick’s way, he was slugging along, making barely enough to keep out of work and to keep up his Zep Collection. By signing on with Rick, he’d made enough money so that he wouldn’t have to work for ten, maybe fifteen years.

But Rick shouldn’t have put out the Zep board tapes without consulting him first. And he never should have put out Earl’s Court. That tape was sacred. That show was the one that had shown him the way. He should have been able to lie in bed at night and listen to it with his headphones and enjoy. He couldn’t enjoy it to the fullest knowing somebody else was enjoying it, too. The true collector lived to have a one of a kind thing. He should have been the only person in the world to be able to listen to that tape.

“
When are we going to Disneyland, Dad?” his son, named after Led Zeppelin’s famous guitarist, Jimmy Page Donovan asked from the back seat.

“
Don’t bother your father,” Sylvia, Tom’s new wife, said.

* * *

J.P. was glad to be with his father. It had been so long since he’d seen his dad. He couldn’t believe it last week when he’d called his mom and asked if she would let him fly to L.A. and spend two weeks in Southern California, going to the beach, Disneyland, Magic Mountain and, of course, the Pasadena Meet. But he was surprised when his dad met him at the airport with a new wife. He wasn’t sure how he should act around her or what he should call her. She seemed nice and he didn’t want to not like her, just because she’d married his dad.

* * *

“
It’s okay, Sylvia,” Tom said. Then, catching his son’s eyes in the rearview mirror, he added, “Just as soon as I meet the guy at the meet and collect the tapes.” He bet his son was the only eight-year-old in the world that knew the true value of a Zep board tape.

“
Are we gonna listen to them on the way, Dad?”

“
On the cassette player in this heap? You have got to be kidding. I’ll bet the only time it ever had clean heads was when it was new, and it’s not new now.” If he had his way, they would go back to the motel straightaway after he got the tapes and spend the next forty-eight hours listening non-stop, but he had promised his wife a trip to Disneyland, and she would never forgive him if he put Led Zeppelin ahead of Disneyland. It was a paradox to him that he loved and married a woman that hated the band.

When he received the letter, two weeks ago, with a sample song from the Montreal ’76 show, he was euphoric. Whoever Sam Storm was, he was offering him a fortune for only a hundred dollars a show. Six shows, six hundred dollars.

“
You’re gonna miss your turn, Dad,” J.P. said from the back.

“
Good eye, J.P.,” Tom said. He made a right turn into the college parking lot. The Pasadena Meet, as the Pasadena Record Swap Meet was called, was held on the third Sunday of every month at Pasadena City College, and for reasons that Tom didn’t understand, was the best source in Southern California to buy bootlegs. What had probably started as a legitimate, once-a-month record collector’s flea market, had rapidly turned into a bootleg free-for-all. Month after month, the same fifteen or sixteen bootleg retailers were interspersed among the ordinary record sellers, making between two and five thousand dollars each for a day’s work.

Tom was usually apprehensive when he was in a place where bootlegs were sold openly, but not today. He was excited about the tapes, but he was worried about his son and that ghost dog thing that he was caught up in. Tom hoped it was just a phase. It was normal for kids to be afraid of things in the dark, but not his kid. J.P. had a head on his shoulders. He knew the value of a good Zep tape. How many other kids did?

“
There’s a spot, Dad.” Again Tom had been brought out of his daydreams by his son.

“
We don’t have to go to Disneyland today if you wanna go back to the motel and listen to the tapes. I wouldn’t mind.”

“
But I would,” Sylvia said. “We planned on going to Disneyland today and we’re going. There is no way we’re going to sit in a hot motel and listen to Led Zeppelin all day.” With that said, she crossed her arms firmly over her chest, her body language closing off any further discussion.

“
Disneyland it is,” Tom said.

“
Yeah, Disneyland,” echoed J.P., “but I wanna write a note to Mom first and send Dancer home.” He’d brought Dark Dancer with him on the plane. He wanted his favorite bird to be a genuine five hundred miler and the only way to make him one was to release him five hundred miles away from home and have him return. He hoped Dancer wouldn’t let him down.

“
Is your bird going to be okay in that little cage?” Sylvia asked.

“
Oh sure, he’s used to it. Once Mom and I drove to San Francisco and let him go the next day. He was in the cage all night. He doesn’t mind.”

Tom put the Chevy in park, put on the emergency brake. “Time to find Mr. Sam Storm.”

“
Can I get a Coke and look around?” J.P. said.

“
Meet us back here in forty-five minutes,” Tom said.

“
Should he go off by himself?” Sylvia said.

“
He’ll be fine. He loves it.”

“
Want me to take some money, Dad? In case I find something?”

Tom reached into his pocket and withdrew three twenties. There was always a chance the boy might stumble onto something worth having. “Here.” He held out the money. “Bargain wisely.”

J.P. grabbed the money and took off across the parking lot, dashing through a long corridor that lead to the other side of the campus, where the sellers were set up.

“
I love that boy,” Tom said to his wife.

“
I know you do, but it wouldn’t hurt if you taught him there is more to life than Led Zeppelin.”

“
He knows that.”

“
Why should he? You don’t.”

“
Let’s not fight about that now. We’ll go to the cafeteria, meet Mr. Storm, collect J.P., and then go to Disneyland. Okay?”

“
Okay.”

* * *

J.P. dodged around a big man headed toward the cafeteria, where his dad was supposed to meet the guy with the Zep tapes. That must be Sam Storm, he figured. He looked familiar. J.P. stopped and started to yell at the big man walking away from him, but an inner voice told him not to. If his dad had wanted him to meet Mr. Storm, he would have told him to wait, and besides, he didn’t want to talk to the man, because he might betray how much his dad wanted the tapes. Then Mr. Storm would ask for more money.

His dad had taught him to never betray how much you wanted something. “The number one rule a collector must always remember is to stay cool, play like you don’t care. Otherwise you pay through the nose,” his dad had said, so there was no way he was going to call out to Mr. Storm. He didn’t want to be the one to ruin the chance at Zep board tapes.

His mind made up, he started to turn his eyes away from the big man’s back, when the man stopped, turned quickly and locked his eyes onto J.P.’s. Then he dropped them to J.P.’s Robert Plant tee shirt.

“
You like Led Zeppelin, son?” the man’s gravel voice boomed.

Without a thought, J.P. turned and ran. No way was he gonna talk to Mr. Storm and give anything away, no way. He ran down the corridor between the student union and the bookstore, emerging onto the grassy area where the record dealers were set up, not knowing that if he had stopped to talk to the big man, he would have already been twenty seconds dead.

* * *

Watching J.P. run down the corridor, framed by its circular columns, reminded Tom of Luke Skywalker maneuvering his starfighter between the walls of the Death Star. Like Luke, his boy was good and kind and honest. Thinking of Luke Skywalker brought Darth Vador to mind and then he saw the big man step into the corridor in front of J.P. He saw J.P. expertly dodge the man as only a boy could. He saw him stop, turn, then run away. Good boy, he thought, watching his son continue his run down the corridor. He didn’t want to say anything to blow the deal or increase the price.

A feeling of unease grabbed Tom as the big man came closer. There was something about the way he carried himself. The way he moved his bulk with seemingly little effort. The strong strides. A confident man. Not the kind of man who spent his time with headphones clamped to his head listening to unreleased concerts. His tan gave him away. Tom had never met a Zep collector with a tan. Something wasn’t right.

“
Tom Donovan?” the man asked, approaching with his right hand extended.

“
Sam Storm, I presume.” Tom took the big man’s hand. His grip was firm, but overpowering.

“
That your boy I saw in the Robert Plant tee shirt just now?”

“
No, my son’s in Toronto. Sylvia didn’t want to take him out of school,” Tom lied, with a nod indicating his wife. Throughout his bootleg career he had been used to deception. He often used different names as a matter of routine when dealing with his customers. A different name and a different background for each one, so the lie about J.P. rolled off his forked tongue with the ring of truth.

“
I saw the shirt.”

“
The shirt?”

“
The boy I saw, he had a Robert Plant tee shirt on.”

“
Black with a head shot of Plant?”

“
Yeah, like that.”

“
Probably one of mine. I make and sell Zep tee shirts. That’s mainly how I make my money. There are at least four dealers here that sell them.” Tom had used the tee shirt cover story so many times to explain his income, that he said it naturally.

“
That explains it.” The big man laughed. “But I thought you also sold bootlegs.”

“
No, sir.” Tom was put on his guard. Very few people knew about his connection to the boots. The fact that this man brought it up, told him that he might be more than just a collector with a few tapes to sell.

“
One of the dealers last month said he traded you a few records.”

“
Oh, that,” Tom said with some of the tension visibly leaving his body. “I’m a collector and I’m working on a book about the history of the band, so it’s my business to know everything there is to know about Led Zeppelin. Bootlegs are a fact of life and an important part of the history of the band, and although some of them may sound terrible, you have to admit, they show what it was like to see Zep in their heyday.”

“
I suppose.” The big man sounded less like a collector every second.

“
Did you bring the tapes?” Tom asked.

“
Right here.” The big man tapped a coat pocket. “Gotta keep them out of sight. They’re pretty valuable.”

“
Hold on, we agreed on the price.”

“
I know and I’m not going to back out of the deal. It’s just that there’s someone else who is also interested.”

“
I assumed this was going to be an exclusive deal.”

“
I never said that.”

“
But it was a valid assumption. If you sell the tapes to somebody else, how do I know he won’t trade them around.”

“
I guess you don’t.”

“
That would make them worthless.”

“
He’s paying a whole lot more money than you are, so I don’t think he’s going to trade them. He’ll want them for himself, like you do.”

“
That’s good to know,” Tom said, relieved. Then he asked, “Who is this person?”

“
You wouldn’t know him.”

“
Try me.”

“
A guy named Rick Gordon.”

“
Jesus Christ,” Tom said through grinding teeth.

“
Got a problem with that?”

“
I’ll say. You sell them to him and I don’t want them.”

“
Why not?”

“
He’ll bootleg them faster than you can blink.”

“
I thought you didn’t have anything to do with the bootlegs?”

“
I don’t, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t know who does.”

“
Well, I’ll put your mind at rest, Mr. Gordon is retired. He doesn’t make bootlegs anymore.”