I had taken some fingerprint samples, and passed them on to a friend of my in the police lab, with the hope that they might come up with a positive ID, and give me some idea what I was dealing with. Having nothing better to do until the results came back, I had taken to Og's style of living in the hopes of gaining some insight into how the man's mind was working. I had reached the conclusion that it wasn't.
I noticed that there was a bowl of fruit sitting on an end table nearby, and I suddenly realized that after all this running around I'd been doing all day, I hadn't had time for lunch. I reach out, grabbed an apple, and pulled out my machete to slice it in half. As I cut the apple, the phone rang. I left one slice sitting on the table in front of me, bit into the other one, and picked up the phone.
"Hi, Guts? This is Artie. I got the results back from the crime lab. All negative."
"Whatta ya mean, all negative? No record, no military file, no nothing?"
"I mean he hasn't even got a birth certificate on file! He's an unperson!"
"Hmm. Could he be a protected witness or something?"
"If he is, than what is he doing in the middle of a hi-profile rock band? The government would have a tough time protecting his identity like that!"
"Point taken, Art. Thanks anyway. See you at the poker game next week."
As I dropped the phone, I reached out for the other half of the apple. It wasn't there. I looked up. Og had picked it up, and was turning it over in his hands. Then he looked at me and smiled. "It's brilliant, Mr. McCartney, just brilliant - Apple Records. What did Mr. Lennon think?"
Mr. McCartney?
"By the way, there are another 37 songwriters camped outside the building, waiting to see you. The usual lot - all have new song ideas they want to record. I've heard some of them..."
He was speaking with an English accent. Slowly, it dawned on me what was going on. I decided to play a hunch. "So what did you think of them?"
He grimaced. "Horrible. Just horrible. No bloody good at all, not one of them. But I'll give them all an audition, just as you ordered. Mind you, some of that noise is enough to drive a man to drink."
"Can you remember how some of them went?"
"Lord, it's all I can do to forget it. One of them, it was unbelievably raunchy, went something like this..."
He began to sing. He had a fairly good singing voice, but the lyrics were indeed awful. As I sat there listening, I suddenly realized I had heard this song before - that very morning, in fact! He was singing 'Graffiti', the song Grated Chez was playing in rehearsal! As he finished it, he stretched his hands behind his head. "I don't know everything, Mr. McCartney, but I know what I like!" With that, he snatched up the apple, bit into it, and dropped it. The vacant stare returned. He again sat motionless before me.
Some frightening scenarios began to form in my mind. Apparently, Og had at one time been a gopher at Apple records, the Beatle's own label. From what I remembered of those days, hundreds of artists had descended on the place to try and get a recording contract. Og was one of those responsible for listening to auditions, which must have been so bad that they ultimately drove him insane. Years later, Grated Chez stumble onto what's left of him, discover how to trigger his memories, and draw out the lyrics to those long forgotten songs - songs, which in those days were considered trash, but today are called 'New Wave'. They touch up the songs a bit, give them that punk feel, and they've got an instant hit!
But suppose the original writers recognized their old work?
As the thought struck home, there was suddenly the sound of a series of small explosions coming from the room next door - Hookie Jones's room! I leapt to my feet, burst open the door, and ran down the hall. As I got to Hookie's door, I noticed a number of tiny bubbles seeping under it.
Rommel, just coming up from poolside, marched by as I pondered what I was dealing with. As he followed my gaze downward, his face glazed with fear. "Oh my God! HOOKIE? CAN YOU HEAR ME?"
"Rommel? What is this stuff?"
"It's beer foam! Help me, we've got to get this door open, fast!"
I suddenly remembered that closet full of beer that Hookie kept in his room. We both put our shoulders to the door, and after the third try, managed to bust it off its hinges. As it came loose, it fell towards us, revealing a wall of foam behind it, which promptly collapsed upon us. As we fought the current, we managed grab the door frame, and pull ourselves inside, bracing our bodies against the room walls. As the foam level subsided, it was clear that it was, indeed, coming from the closet. It appeared that every can had burst open, flooding the room. Hookie lay near the floor by the closet door, gasping for air.
Rommel and I waded through what was left, picked Hookie up, and dragged him onto the bed, which was the highest ground available. Hookie choked out what had happened - "It was just horrible. I opened the door, grabbed a beer, and opened it. It just burst open on me, spraying foam all over the place. Several sprays hit other cans, knocking them over, and then they burst too, and so on, in a chain reaction! I couldn't get away, it all happened so fast..."
Rommel picked up a can. "This beer is warm. Someone switched off the air conditioner in the closet. This was deliberate!"
Rommel was right. Somebody had tried to foam Hookie to death. There was no longer any question of whether someone was trying to murder the band or not. The question was if I could find them before they succeeded.
TO BE CONTINUED...