The Devil of Echo Lake (17 page)

Billy looked beyond him at the fog-bound woods, pulling the thin silk kimono close around his chest. “What time is it?” he asked.

“I dunno,” Flint answered. “Early. Get dressed. Let’s go into town and get some breakfast.”

“You crazy? It isn’t even light out. I’m not hungry. Just come in before I freeze.”

Flint stepped into the church and Billy closed the doors, pressing his weight against them to make sure they sealed. He scratched his head and said, “You want some coffee? I’ll make some.”

“Yeah, good.”

Billy pointed at an antique couch where his acoustic guitar lay, the neck jutting over one arm. “Have a seat,” he said and set about opening and closing cabinets. Usually when he woke, the housekeeping staff had already been in and brewed the first pot of the day, so it took him a while to find the filters and get it started. His first domestic chore in recent memory accomplished, he returned to the couch where Flint was finger-picking a variation on McCartney’s “Blackbird” riff over the gurgling sounds of the coffee maker.

Billy sat down beside him and said, “Be ready in a minute. So… what’s up?”

“I wanted to talk to you before everyone else shows up. I couldn’t last night with Rail kicking us out all of a sudden.”

Billy said, “That
was
a gunshot, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, man. Dude’s a first-class nut job.”

“What
happened?”

“That kid Gribbens said something that pissed him off, so he fired a… a warning shot. Fucking gun came out of nowhere. Kid must have pissed his pants.”

Billy set his elbows on his knees, his temples in his hands, and stared at the floor.

“I didn’t like it one bit,” Flint said. “It’s not that he carries a gun that gets me. If he liked to shoot it off in the woods, whatever. But not in the studio. Nuh-uh. Not at some guy who’s running his ass off for crumbs. I don’t trust him with it. If I were you, I’d fire him.”

Billy nodded. “It’s not that simple,” he said. “Lemme get that coffee.”

He returned with two mugs and handed one to Flint. He put his own down on top of an amp, lit a cigarette, and began pacing the rug, talking between drags. “I have a three-record deal with Gravitas, but it doesn’t allow for much creative control at this point. The last record, well, they let me do it my way because
Eclipse
was a hit. This one, I have to do what they say. If this one bombs, I’ll get dropped from the label.”

“Billy, I’ve heard stories about ol’ Third Rail. Stop thinking about your contract for a minute. What’s your
feeling?
Is he dangerous?”

“He’s probably more dangerous than you'd think in your wildest dreams, but I don’t really see a way out for me. He’s the captain of this ship, and I’ve been press-ganged.”

“Well, I’m sorry, Billy. I guess you have an obligation, but I’ll work today and then I’m out of here. I’m not gonna end my career in a backwoods ditch because some psycho producer had a breakdown, you know? Use me the best you can today, okay?”

“Yeah. Alright, man. Can't say I blame you.”

“You shouldn’t have to deal with this shit while you’re trying to write. Talk to Danielle. She’s a ballsy lady. If you’re unhappy, she should be talking to the label.”

Billy took a long drag.

“Dude, are you alright? Hey, man, look at me. Am I way off base here? The fucking guy fired a shot at an assistant. Why do I get the feeling you don’t want to tattle on him?”

Billy stamped the butt out in the crowded ashtray. He said, “I hear your concerns, I do. But I have a strange relationship with him.”

Flint set the guitar down, turned his palms up in a prompting gesture.

“He showed up in my life at a time when I really needed help. He… intervened when I was at rock bottom. I was gonna kill myself. “

“Wow. So you feel like you owe him your life?”

“I don’t know. In a way, maybe.”

“That’s bullsh—”

“No. Let me finish. In a way, I owe him the life I’ve been living.
The
life. Being a rock star, what I dreamed of as a kid. It’s the only thing I know how to do, the only thing I’m qualified for. Nobody wanted to give me a chance until he showed up. And then doors opened where I didn’t know there
were
doors.”

“But you don’t owe him anything. Do you know how much money he’s made off you? You’re the one who wrote the songs. You’re the one who sang ‘em. Hell, it’s you living on the road, working your ass off. The only reason he’s an in-demand producer is because you were a success. You’re the goose that laid the golden egg. But your self-worth is all fucked up because he’s messing with your head.”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s subtle. He’s got you here in the middle of the woods, isolated. He’s the one with the power, and he’s intimidating the engineers, playing with your ego. There’s no one else around to give you any perspective. If you ask me, you should be in the city with a band.”

“It means a lot to me that you’re worried. Seriously, I don’t think I have too many real friends these days who would talk to me like this. Truth is—yes, he scares me, but I believe in what he can do for me. He’s done it before.”

“That’s the label talking.
You
did it before.”

Billy looked at the floor and said, “People are starting to forget about me. What am I gonna do, go back to working in retail? You’ll think I’m crazy, but I think he can make me a legend. He’s done it before. For other people.”

“What the hell are you talking about? You’re his only platinum record.”

Billy shook his head, “I’m pretty sure he’s been involved with other records behind the scenes, or under pseudonyms. Really big records. He’s a lot older than he looks.”

“Dude, you
do
sound crazy. That makes no sense. You think he wouldn’t want credit? You really believe that?”

“I do. And it doesn’t matter anyway because my contract pretty much says I have to stay on this train until the end. They won’t let me off.”

Flint stood up and nodded at Billy, “Alright, man. I tried. I’m gonna go have some breakfast.”

“Hey, Flint,” Billy said when the guitarist had his hand on the iron door handle. “Do they have a piano over there in the old rectory?”

Flint's face turned a whiter shade of pale. He stared at Billy, opened his mouth, and closed it.

“I just wondered what could have woken you up at six.”

“It's a piano, Billy, not an alarm clock.”

“You sure the gun's the only thing you're afraid of?”

“Sorry I woke you,” Flint said, and closed the doors behind him.

Billy showered, dressed, and started work on a new beat in the computer. With the headphones on, he immersed himself in the project for a few hours, only looking up each time a wedge of subdued sunlight fanned across the floor to herald the morning arrivals—first Jake, then Flint again, then Gribbens.

Billy took off the headphones and nodded at the assistant. “Hey, Ron.”

Gribbens flashed Billy his usual enthusiastic smile and said, “Billy, my man. Wassup? Flint, baby. Hey, is that ‘Blackbird’ I hear you pickin’?”

“Indeed,” Flint replied. “Well, my variation on it, anyway.”

“
Nice.
I fucking love the Beatles. Wanna hear
my
variation on a timeless classic?”

Flint looked at Billy and said, “Sure.”

Gribbens slid the piano bench out with a grinding of wood on wood and straddled it. He stepped on the sustain pedal, flipped up the lid, and with a dramatic tilt of the head, struck a chord, singing:

There’s nothing you can shoot that can’t be shot…

He hit another chord and let it ring out.

There’s nothing you can snort that can’t be snot.

Billy and Flint started laughing. Jake looked up from his notes in the control room. Gribbens picked up a bouncy, slightly stilted descending bass line with his barely adept left hand, which he more than made up for with his voice as he sang out full and loud:

There’s nothing you can’t smoke, but you can learn how to take a joke

It’s easy…

All you need is drugs!

All you need is drugs! Dot dah diddle dah,

All you need is drugs, drugs

Drugs are all you need

Flint clapped and whistled as the door swung open and Trevor Rail strode in, black overcoat whirling around him. Gribbens cut it short and scurried away like a field mouse in the shadow of a hawk. He was in the control room gathering papers before the sound of the piano lid slamming down finished reverberating in the rafters. Flint slid off the couch and intercepted Rail with a lazy, tilting gait that seemed slower than it was. He said, “Hey, Trevor, I’ve been thinking about that bit I did in ‘Language of Love.’ I might have an idea for how to make it support the vocal more.”

Rail said, “Okay, we’ll try it. But the vocal itself isn’t etched in stone. I may have Billy try something different as well.”

Billy followed Rail into the control room and heard him telling Jake and Gribbens to build a makeshift vocal booth out of gobos and packing blankets in the big room.

“I thought it was a guitar day,” Billy said.

Rail turned to him. “There’s little point in having Flint play around your vocal if I'm not sold on
your
performance. I’m hearing ‘Language’ as the single at this point, and I’m not going to waste time having him poke around in the dark until I know we have a vocal that’s a keeper.”

Billy blinked. “I wasn’t expecting to start the day with lead vocals, Trevor. I didn’t get much sleep and my voice is shit this early in the morning.”

“Don’t fret. It’ll warm up.”

“But Flint is only sticking around for today. We should use him while we can.”

“I was told we had him for three days.”

“He changed his mind.”

“Changed his
mind
?”

“Talk to
him
.”

Rail turned to Gribbens who was hovering nearby, listening to the exchange. “What are you waiting for? Didn’t I just tell you to build a booth?”

“Right. I’m on it,” he said and wobbled around, trying to choose which side to pass Rail on.

Rail leafed through the lyric sheets.

Through the glass Billy could see Jake and Ron rolling sections of modular padded walls with plexi-glass windows into position in a corner of the kitchenette. Flint was sitting on a stool near a stained-glass window that depicted one of the Stations of the Cross, tuning his guitar. Billy said, “Well, are you going to talk to Flint about how long he’s staying? ‘Cause if he’s leaving today, we should focus on him.”

“I don’t have a single yet,” Rail said, “and this studio is booked to someone else in just a few weeks. If Gravitas is going to pay for additional sessions at another studio, I need to have a single in my hands when we leave here. ‘Language of Love’ could be it, but I won’t know that until I hear you sing it like you mean it. I’m not going to piss away the day dressing up a song with guitar parts if the song might not even make the cut. Do you think I’m making a guitar record? I’m making a Billy Moon record. So get out there and sell me the song.”

Billy went to the kitchenette, lit a cigarette, and made himself a cup of Throat Coat tea. Jake was telling Ron which vocal mics to set up in the booth for Billy to try out.

“Billy, is there a favorite mic you’ve used in the past?” Jake asked.

“Not really. It always sounds like me no matter which mic. What’s the big black one that’s shaped like a gun?”

“An SM-7?”

“Yeah, I like that one.”

Jake called into the booth, “Put up an SM-7 too.”

A little while later Gribbens poked his head out of the control room and told Billy, “Ready when you are.”

Billy pulled a blue horse-blanket aside and stepped into the dead air of the booth, where he found his worn headphones hanging from a hook beside an assortment of expensive mics on stands. He put the cans on and looked through the window to the control room. Jake’s voice in his ears told him to sing through the song once, starting with the mic on the left and moving over to the next one for each new verse or chorus until he had tried them all.

Even in the headphones he could hear a sweet spot in the spectrum of his voice when he tried the third mic, singing:

Do you write a check?

Do you write a song?

Do you risk your neck?

To right a wrong?

Do you toss your change in a beggar’s cup?

Run into the flames, does it raise you up?

When you’re tied to the chair,

Will you lie, do you swear?

How do you speak the language of love?

They settled on the third mic. Gribbens took the others away and placed a windscreen in front of the keeper. Billy asked for a touch of reverb in the cans and Jake dialed it in. Time to sing it for real.

Billy closed his eyes and went inward, letting the dark details of the music carry him to that place where the studio disappeared and the part of him that was half poet, half character actor stepped up and laid it down. But in the middle of the take, he was jolted out of the flow when the backing track abruptly fell out from under him. Rail’s voice clicked into his ears, thin and distant, but as saturated with willful command as ever. “Pick a fucking beat to end each note on, Billy. They shouldn’t be that long. You’re running out of air and getting pitchy at the end of every line. Try ending it on three.”

And so it went for the next few hours. Billy sang until his voice was warmed up, rich and fluid. Then Rail had him sing the same chorus over and over in falsetto, full voice, and a raspy scream until his tone passed into a zone that was ragged and weak. The shadows of mic stands on the wood floor shortened as the sun climbed to its zenith. Purple and gold puddles moved across the room from the stained-glass panes. Rail’s criticism chattered, metallic and tireless in the headphones.

In the afternoon, the room darkened with storm clouds and snow flurries dusted the ground around the little church. The song played on and Billy sang:

Do you raise your voice?