"New Jersey?"

Cordelia nodded. "We"re going to the Holidome. We"re going to see Buddy Holley."

Jack said, "The Buddy Holley? I thought he was dead."

"He"s been on the lounge circuit for years. I saw a note about his appearance in the Voice."

"She wants him for the benefit," said C.C. again.

"A nostalgia act?" said Jack.

Cordelia was actually blushing. "I grew up with his music. I worship the man. I mean, nothing"s set with the benefit and him. I just want us to go see him and find out if he"s anything like he used to be."

"You may be in for a rude shock," said C.C. "Guitar of clay and all that."

"I"ll risk it."

""Not Fade Away,s one my favorite songs ever," said Jack. "Count me in."

"Tell him," C.C. said to Cordelia. "Bagabond"s going too," she said reluctantly.

"I don" know bout this," said Jack. He thought about his first encounter with Bludgeon, when the black cat had saved him from having to tangle with the psychopathic gay-basher. Had the cat been acting on his own, or at Bagabond"s suggestion? He"d never asked the woman. Maybe he would tomorrow night.

"Uncle Jack?" said Cordelia. He smiled at her. "Let"s rock."

Sat.u.r.day.

"Oh, my G.o.d," C.C. said, sufficiently low that only Jack heard. "He"s covering Prince, G.o.dd.a.m.ned Prince!"

"And not very well," said Jack.

Cordelia had worried because of glacial traffic in the Holland Tunnel that the four of them would be late for Buddy Holley"s first set. She also fretted that Jersey youth would make off with the Mercedes she"d borrowed from Luz Alcala.

"It"s a Holiday Inn," said Jack as they pulled into the entrance.

"So?"

"The parking lot"s illuminated," said Jack.

"There"s an empty s.p.a.ce close to the lobby," said Cordelia with relief.

"You want me to slip ten to the clerk to keep an eye on the car?"

"Would you?" said Cordelia seriously.

So they"d parked and secured the Mercedes and entered the New Brunswick Holidome.

The trip over from the city had been tense enough. Jack had ridden shotgun in front with Cordelia driving. Bagabond sat in back on the opposite side, as far from Jack as she could get. Both C.C. and Cordelia had done their best to keep a conversation going. Jack decided it was an inappropriate time to quiz Bagabond about whether his erstwhile rescuer, the black cat, had been acting autonomously or on his mistress"s orders.

"Dis is G.o.d be great," said Cordelia. She had slotted a ca.s.sette of Buddy Holley and the Crickets" greatest hits into the Blaupunkt player. The speaker system was far, far better than adequate.

"Cordelia," said Bagabond, "I like Buddy a lot, but maybe so he doesn"t hurt my ears?"

"Oh, sorry," said Cordelia. She turned the volume k.n.o.b down to barely endurable.

Then Sat.u.r.day-evening traffic slowed to a stop-and-go creep within the tunnel, the stench of auto exhaust rose up in visible clouds, and the four in the Mercedes listened to all of Cordelia"s Buddy Holley tapes before they reached New Jersey.

Cordelia had become more nervous the later it got. "Maybe there"ll be a warm-up group," she"d muttered. There hadn"t been, but it turned out not to matter. When the four walked through the door of the Holidome lounge, they saw there was no need to worry about seats. Perhaps half the booths and tables were vacant.

Clearly Sat.u.r.daynight baccha.n.a.lia in New Brunswick didn"t center here. They took a table about ten feet from the low stage, Jack and Bagabond on opposite sides, buffered by C.C. and Cordelia. And Buddy Holley covered Prince.

Jack recognized Holley from the alb.u.m portraits. He knew the musician was forty-nine, close enough to Jack"s own age. Holley looked older. His face carried too much flesh; his belly wasn"t completely camouflaged by the silver-lame jacket. He no longer wore the familiar old black horn-rims; his eyes were masked by stylish aviator shades that couldn"t quite hide the dark bags.

But he still played the Fender Telecaster like an angel.

The same couldn"t be said for his sidemen. The rhythm guitarist and the ba.s.s player both looked about seventeen. Their playing was not inspired. The muddy sound mix didn"t help. The drummer flailed at his snares, the volume coming through at about the right level to completely mask Holley"s vocal delivery.

In rapid order Buddy Holley segued from Prince into a bad Billy idol and then a so-so Bon Jovi.

"I don"t believe it," said C. C., drinking a healthy dollop of her Campari and tonic. "All he"s doing is covering top-forty s.h.i.t."

Cordelia watched silently, her expression of initial enthusiasm visibly fading.

Bagabond shook her head disapprovingly. "We shouldn"t have come."

Maybe, Jack thought, he"s biding his time. "Give him a little while."

As the desultory clapping faded after a game attempt at evoking Ted Nugent, a voice from the back of the lounge yelled, "Come on, Buddy-give us some oldies!"

A ragged cheer went up. Most of the clapping came from Cordelia"s table.

Buddy Holley took his Telecaster by the neck and leaned toward the audience.

"Well," he said, the West Texas tw.a.n.g still p.r.o.nounced, "I don"t usually take requests, but since you"ve been such a terrific crowd..." He settled back and strummed out a rapid-fire sequence of opening chords that his backup group more-or-less followed.

"Oh, lord," said C.C. She took another drink as Buddy Holley tore into Tommy Roe"s "Hurray for Hazel," then a quick verse of "Sheila," finally a lugubrious, almost-bluesy version of Bobby Vinton"s "Red Roses for a Blue Lady". Holley continued in that vein. He played a lot of music made famous by Bobbys and Tommys in the fifties and sixties.

"I want to hear "Cindy Lou or "That"ll Be the Day" or "It"s So Easy" or "T town,"" said Cordelia, distractedly swirling her gin and tonic. "Not this s.h.i.t."

I"ll settle for "Not Fade Away," Jack thought. He watched Buddy Holley slog through the dismal pop retrospective and started getting real depressed. It was enough to make him maybe wish that Holley had died at the height of his initial popularity and not survived to fall into this ghastly self-mockery.

Inebriated conversation and drunken laughter escalated at the surrounding tables. It appeared that most in the lounge had completely forgotten that Buddy Holley was performing onstage. When Holley came to the end of his set, he introduced the final number very simply. "This is something new," he said. The spa.r.s.e crowd was having none of it; they had turned actively hostile.

"f.u.c.k you!" somebody shouted. "Turn on the jukebox!" Holley shrugged. Turned.

Walked off the stage.

His backup guitarists quietly put their instruments down; the drummer got up and laid his sticks on an amp.

"Why doesn"t he do his cla.s.sics?" said Cordelia. "Hang on," she said to her companions. Then she got up and collared Buddy Holley as he headed toward the bar. They saw her talking earnestly to the man. She led him back to the table, dragged up a vacant chair, appeared to be making him sit through dint of sheer will. Holley looked bemused at the whole affair. Cordelia made introductions.

The musician courteously acknowledged each name and shook hands in turn.

Jack found the man"s grip warm and firm, not flabby at all. Cordelia said, "We"re four of your greatest fans."

"Sort of sorry you"re all here," said Holley. "I feel like I owe everyone an apology. This isn"t a good show tonight." He shrugged. ""Course most nights in lounges are like that." Holley smiled self-deprecatingly.

"Why don"t you play your own music?" said Bagabond without preamble.

"Your old music," said Cordelia. "The great stufF" Holley looked around the table. "I"ve got my reasons," he said. "It ain"t a matter of not wanting to. I just can"t."

"Well," said Cordelia, smiling, "maybe I can help change your mind." She launched into her spiel about the benefit at the Funhouse, about how Holley could go on early in the following Sat.u.r.day"s performance, that maybe he could do a medley of the music that had propelled him to superstardom in the fifties and early sixties, that perhaps-just maybe--the concert and the telecast could rejuvenate his career. "Just like when the Boss found Gary U.S. Bonds playing in bars like this," she finished up.

Buddy Holley looked honestly astonished by Cordelia"s outpouring of enthusiasm.

He put his elbows on the table, closely studying the club soda and lime the waitress had brought him, finally looking up at her with a slight smile.

"Listen," he said. " I thank you. I truly do. Hearing something like this makes my night-h.e.l.l, the whole year." He looked away. "But I can"t do it."

"But you can," said Cordelia. He shook his head.

"Think about it."

"Won"t do no good," he said. "It won"t work." He patted her hand. "But thanks for the thought." And with that, he nodded to the rest of them, then got up and trudged through the smoke to the stage for his second set.

"d.a.m.n," said Cordelia.

Jack watched the musician"s back as Holley hoisted himself up onto the stage.

There was something familiar about how the man carried himself. It was the sense of defeat. Jack thought he"d last seen that slight slumping of shoulders and hanging of head when he"d looked in the mirror. Just this morning.

He wondered how many years and what disasters had beaten Buddy Holley down. I wish--At first the thought didn"t complete itself. Then he said to himself, I wish I could help.

"You want to go or stay?" said C.C. to Cordelia.

"Go," said Cordelia. Almost too low to be heard, she continued, "But I think I"ll be back."

"Like MacArthur?" said Bagabond.

"More like Sergeant Preston of the Mounties," said Cordelia.

Sunday.

"So who are you calling a chickie?" said Cordelia, voice colder than the ocean off Jones Beach.

"What I be sayin"," said the Holiday Inn morning clerk, "is that we can"t be givin" out guests" room numbers to just any chickie what comes along." He smiled at her. "Rules."

"You want to know how early I had to get up to catch a train out here?" Cordelia demanded. "Do you know how long I waited for a cab at the New Brunswick station?"

The clerk"s easy smile started to fray at the lips. "Sorry."

"I"m not a G.o.dd.a.m.ned groupie!" Cordelia slapped an expensively embossed business card down on the counter. "I"m trying to make Holley a star."

"Already was." The clerk picked up the card and examined it. Below Cordelia"s name it read a.s.sociate Producer." The escalated job t.i.tle had been in lieu of a raise. "No s.h.i.t? You work with GF and G, the folks what do the Robert Townsend show an" all that Spike Lee stuff?" He sounded halfway impressed.

"No s.h.i.t," said Cordelia. She tried smiling. "Honest."

"And you"re gonna pull Buddy Holley out of this s.h.i.thole?"

"Gonna try."

"O-kay," said the clerk, grinning. He glanced at the registration spinner. "Room eighty-four twenty," He looked at Cordelia significantly.

"So?"

With a tone of voice that suggested "Don"t you know nothin"?" the clerk said, "The main roads leadin" out of Lubbock. The highway to Nashville."

"Oh," said Cordelia.

Buddy Holley had been asleep when Cordelia knocked on the door of room 8420 at 9:25. That had been obvious when he opened the door. His gray-streaked black hair was in disarray. His gla.s.ses were slightly askew as he peered out into the hallway.

"It"s me, Cordelia Chaisson. Remember? From last night?"

"Um, right." Holley seemed to gather himself. "Can I help you?"

"I"m here to take you to breakfast. I need to talk with you. It"s quite important."

Buddy Holley shook his head bemusedly. "Are you the irresistible force? Or the immovable object?"

Cordelia shrugged.

"Give me ten," said Holley. "I"ll meet you down in the lobby."

"Promise?" said Cordelia.

Holley smiled slightly, nodded, and shut the door.

Buddy Holley came to the breakfast table in crisp denim jeans, a flowered western shirt, and a brown corduroy jacket. He looked somewhat the worse for wear, but comfortable.

He seated himself and said, "You gonna evangelize me again?", "If I can. We can talk about dat after we get some coffee."

"Tea for me," he said. "Herbal. I brought my own. The tea selection in the kitchen is pretty shabby."

The waitress came and took their order.