It's way too early for a death song.
Bill Lee looked across at Edie, not sure of his own ears. She was curled around the bar, only half-listening, but her face told him everything he needed to know.
From the next room, where the duel was happening, came the sound of Country Joe and The Fish's Death Sound Blues.
Bill looked at his watch, thinking perhaps he might have lost some time. It was 9pm; way too early for a death song. He looked again at Edie, absently sipping her drink. "Is this on Electric Music?" he asked.
Edie barely looked up. "You're not really asking, are you?"
Bill tried to relax, tried not to listen.
It's nothing; it's just a song.
The death rattle tambourine made for an odd seeding but that shouldn't matter. Carl had this. The guy Carl was playing was a thin strip of nothing and Carl had rattle-punched his way through dozens of guys like that. Bill tried to relax. His money was safe here. He'd seen a lot of duellists and a lot of hustlers and Carl was right up there; he'd made Bill a lot of money this season and, if everything went to plan, Carl had a real shot at Coker this year.
"Still think you'll be home before sunrise?" Edie asked, breaking his reverie.
Bill knew he wasn't expected to answer. He and Edie had been circling each other for well over a decade and now, not quite burned-out, they'd landed back at The Naked Light, exhausted enough of all the fuckeries to sit down and have a drink and start thinking about making some things stick.
Bill took a little breath that he hoped Edie didn't see and laid out an A5 blotter of Purple Ohm acid next to the California Sunshines that were already on the table. He needed to get back into it, was conscious of how far Country Joe had thrown him off his stride. "They all have their own identities," he started, "their own way of taking you onboard… or throwing you off."
Edie took a long sip of her drink. "You're a gamekeeper, Bill Lee," she said.
"I'm a survivor."
"You like to think that. What bits survived?"
Bill shrugged and dug into his case for some more blotter sheets.
Behind the bar, Keith wiped down some of the taps and looked over. "You want me to go get Pete?"
Bill shook his head. "Pete knows what I'm selling. I can always pick the cash up later."
"Not like you won't be in here," said Keith, sliding away.
Bill laughed. Maybe he had been spending a little too much time in this place. He could work on that. He laid the blotter sheets on the bar. Felix The Cats, Blue Beans, Charley Mansons, Strawberries. The best LSD west of Old Sarum, or that's how he's selling it. "Everyone forgot, Edie," he said. "That's the thing. The Ohms really do give you that sense of mystical wellbeing, The Charleys really will kick the shit out of the sixties…"
Edie wasn't having it, and it was partly why he loved her. "No one believes this shit, Bill, even if you pretend to. It's fucking marketing."
Bill paused. That sounded like a seed. He decided to change the subject. "You heard anything more about this Lettmann guy? From what I hear he's leaving the pits pretty wet."
"Doc's out there; he'll probably know," Edie said. "Though rumour has it he's throwing all his money behind Saul Chatterton."
"Doc's here? I haven't seen him since-"
"Bill. Bill."
Bill turned around. Carl Dodds was right up in his face. Carl was a wiry, spiky guy. He was ten years younger than Bill but right now he looked like every one of those years was etched into his face. And he shouldn't be in a green room in the middle of a duel.
"Carl?"
Carl looked like white shit. He hopped from foot to foot, uncertainly. "I think I might have him. I just saw a flicker. I just need a little extra to-"
"You think?" This was not what Bill needed to hear. Carl didn't look like he might have him. He looked like he'd seen a couple of ghosts.
"Yeah, yeah. Definitely."
Carl seemed nervous and that made Bill nervous. Bill looked at his watch. "Are you on a different time to me?"
"He's on the ropes, Bill. Kid won't even see it coming. I got this."
Bill sighed. He looked towards Edie. "Look, I just need to…"
Edie turned away into her drink. "Whatever," she said.
Keith wiped another bit of the bar that didn't need wiping.
Bill walked Carl back to the pit door. He put his arm around Carl's shoulder and leaned in. "You sure you're okay? You don't look too good. How much are you in for?"
Carl shuffled again. Bill tried to get a good look into his eyes but it was too damned dark in there. "It's hard to tell," said Carl. "There's a couple of folds on the table. Small notes. Maybe a hundred? He wants to go for another. I said I needed to ask you. I said we weren't really doing that much because of-"
"It's okay, it's okay..." Bill dug around a bit and found a couple of hundreds in two tightly packed rolls. He held onto them as Carl tried to take them. "You sure about this? That song…"
Carl smiled and took the money. "Bill, trust me on this; he's about to break. We've done, like, three trips each and a little hit of mesc. I've been going easy, suckering him into spending a little more on himself. He's cocky, that's all. Showing off to his girlfriend. Let me work on his Mummy issues…"
Bill nodded and Carl went through the door and back into the pit. Bill walked back to Edie, who was tracing one of the blotter sheets, a lovely version of Jimi Hendrix's head, four trips to the set.
"This one sets your guitar on fire, right?" Edie said, smirking.
Edie hung her head a little so her red hair flicked down. She was now thirty-one, only three years younger than Bill but looking like ten. She'd stepped out of the game earlier than he did, before all the seeds started playing in her flesh. There were little lines around her panda eyes and some smoking marks at the edges of her lips, but that was it; she'd gotten away lightly and she knew it.
Bill played along. "There's definitely… something about it. We should try some. Go back to your place. See how far we can make each other bend."
Edie shook her head. "We could. But I've got work tomorrow. I'll maybe see you later? Not too late."
"I'd like that. I've got a few things to sort back at-"
The howl that came in from the pit feels loud enough to see. It's a howl that slams right between the eyes. Bill recognised it immediately.
Carl.
Fuck.
He looked at Edie and her expression said: do whatever the fuck you have to do. There was a whole universe of history in that look; love and impossibility, folded in on themselves like a roll of banknotes.
Thoughts rushed in. Something was wrong. He forced himself to pause, no point in rushing into the pit and making things worse. There was a lot of history in that room, a lot of things that could become unwound. Five years ago today, his good friend August had left the building for good and-
Fuck, I'd almost forgotten.
Dates were important. He imagined Claude's high-pitched whiny voice: You let the dates slip by and you may as well let them fuck you in the arse.
August Avery's death had ripped the heart from this scene and it was only now being rebuilt. Every pit in every town in the whole of this tiny fucked-up world they'd built for themselves had felt the shocks and the waves of that dumb death. Every seed had crackled. When August walked off those cliffs and tossed himself into the almost-frozen sea, he had pulled at a thread in their strange little lives that had continued to unravel.
And now there was more screaming.
Bill took a few seconds. If Carl really was fucked in there then he was going to need to be calm. His stake money would already be long gone but there was still a pit that needed saving. He owed Pete that much, at least.
Okay.
Bill Lee tried a quick smile at Edie and headed into the pit.