How well do we really know those people we love?

     Is blood really thicker than water?

          Or… is it just a weird strawberry thickshake?

 

“Chords of Revenge”

By Stephen James

 

Music, so it is wisely declared by some, is the delicious wine that fills the empty cup of silence with happiness…

Or perhaps it is simply just me who believes this to be true. If you are somebody who enjoys the arts in any of its forms, then I am sure you will relate well to this intriguing story about the joy and splendour, bridged with reward, as well as the mistrustfulness’s and jealousies, which can evolve from the genius of musical composition…

When Brixton struck that final chord, then twisted his G-string, allowing the note to feedback through his amplifiers, he knew the crowd was his. The maturing rock performer took a well-earned bow. He had given his all and the standing ovation’s cheers and whistles were deafening. Moments prior, the moth-eaten but ruggedly handsome idol’s mesmerising work had just had the entire forty-thousand-plus gallery punching the air in perfect unison, to his hypnotic Texas Blues guitar rhythms. Brixton Pierce was one of the best around, no question about it, and when he stretched his vocal cords beyond their sensible limit, his clever self-taught ‘Swamp King’ timbre echoed perfectly with his music. Between verses, his manly fingers moved around the guitar’s neck so skilfully, it seemed inhuman. The tips of his left hand caressed the fretboards with the delicacy of a pollen-chasing bumblebee. His bar-room-brawled right, with the homespun muscle-shell plectrum, firmly clasped between forefinger and thumb, striking the steel strings with venom. Every note perfect. Every limit pushed. Every sound loud…

But deep down in his heart, he wasn’t complete. This backing band behind him wasn’t his original line-up. Only his best friend, bass guitarist Lefty Skankhorn, remained alongside. Their name was different now and the band had two female backup vocalists. It’s an old story; rock and roll musician has a fight with the band, therefore, they part ways. This story has a whole lot more to it, as you will discover. When Brixton pulled out of his bow to thank and introduce the other players, he rattled-off their correct names and instruments etc. Then finished:

“…And we are known around the various digs as ‘Brixton and the Murderer’s Ghost’. So, tell ya friends how much fun ya had now.” It was what he used to finish every show with, back when the others were together (this being the old band’s name). The stunned audience began clapping, hoping it had been a deep-rooted message or hidden rock star innuendo. The new band was called ‘Brixton has Murdered his Ghost’.

“Good-bye and God bless you all!” said the other stymied musos into their respective mics.

Brixton Pierce vacated the stage on cloud nine. Another great performance to a grateful audience and the guys didn’t miss a beat. His Les Paul Gibson, in the shape of a purple coffin, had resonated in a million different languages and squeezed out distorted webbings of notes, in bizarre fuzzed sounds. His fingertips were fried. He was also oblivious to his Freudian-slip to an ocean of sweaty torsos, their lungs screaming for more in the very-familiar auditorium known as Sound City Dome. He played here more than anywhere else. Brixton Pierce was adrenalin-powered at this moment. His mind had completely forgotten about the unfortunate death of his manager, Phil, and also the death of his wife. The now thirteen-month-old double-murder case had stalled to a slower than snail-paced limbo, due to the bamboozled police’s inability to convert the minuscule amount of evidence into a convincing arrest for prosecution. No murder weapon was found. All of the crime scene photographs seemed to offer no clues. Being the one left standing over the bodies, moments after, with their flesh still warm, Brixton had become the leading suspect after a cleaner had called the authorities. The distraught Scotswoman was the second person to enter the murder scene’s vicinity.

An awkward thirty-five-minute verbal stoush erupted in the dressing room after the show. Pierce’s new band’s manager, Brian S, as he liked to be referred to, asking where the hell the maturing rocker’s head was at. Brixton guzzled from the neck of a bottle of Jack Daniels Tennessee Whisky, passed to him by a hopeful blonde groupie who had again secretly forced her way in. The scantily dressed twenty-six-year-old, whose fountain of naturally blond hair ─ thick as Bougainvillea, tressed in bunches to her waistline, and was the shade of ripening wheat. The girl’s name was Nadine and her wading-bird legs seemed longer than realistically possible and out of scale with her large well-rounded breasts. She was beautiful beyond reproach. The other band members did not like her meddling into the group’s personal affairs. They didn’t approve of Nadine’s fondling hands, each time she brushed past the superstar. Backbone and right-hand man, bass player, Lefty Skankhorn, called her Barbie Doll even to her face, but the temptress pouted his comments into oblivion. Brian S said she was a slut and not a good vibe to bathe the band in. Brixton called her Nady Sexy Lady and told them she was just harmless eye candy. When the dust settled on the heated discussion, a combined promise of the band’s future became heralded as their chief priority. The other instrumentalist left along with the two backup singers. New manager Brian stared at the brooding virtuoso guitarist.

Brixton sat, picturing the scene in that very same dressing room, where his dead wife, Cassandra, lay naked donning only her wedding ring, alongside the body of his previous manager, Phil Slipphiery. He too was wearing precious nothing but his solid gold Omega watch. Both corpses bore the gunpowder burns of a near-point-blank, instantly fatal, gunshot entry wound at the heart. Brixton’s head rang loud with the lead-up week’s ugliness. His ears burning at her words of; “You are never here, bigshot! If you don’t stop touring, Brixton, I might have to find somebody else to cut my grass!”

Shrewd manager, Phil Slipphiery, had paid everyone the same measly amount, despite Brixton being the founder and mainstay. He had written and arranged all of their music and coined their lyrics too. Pierce was cool with that in the pop group’s heyday, believing showbiz to be a combined effort of talented synergy. After all, it was Phil who had packed the giant stadiums year after year, thus had a lot to thank him for. However, when once the pop group’s differentiations had escalated out of control, to the point of separation, he felt his nose slipping out of joint. He’d threatened: “Take a hike you promotional nightmare. I’ll play my own songs with good quality session musos and manage them all by myself!”

Phil Slipphiery had responded with: “Then I shall hit you with a crippling contract-breaking lawsuit!” Stressing further with disdain: “You dumb guitar-plucking hillbilly… you should have read the fine print! You will be left with nothing but your ego!”

Manager-dynamos, Brian and Phil were in fact brothers. Brian S’s previous clients, ‘The Thieves of Indiscretion’ had lost popularity due to the progression of music trends through the years, eventually disbanding altogether. He had propelled them to five top ten songs, three of which had charted in the number one spot. In the end, trapped like lamp-driven moths in the worn-out nineties grunge sound, they had fallen to fresh idealess cover songs. Out of coincidence, blended with convenient collaboration, Brian took over the ‘Brixton has Murdered his Ghost’ reins during the aftermath of his brother’s and Cassandra’s tragic passing ─ minus the contract’s ambiguous fine print. Snookered and stranded, Brixton was left little option but to comply…

Nadine sat quietly brushing her dazzling woven locks in front of the enormous bulb-clad mirror, out of earshot. Brixton’s head hung low. Speaking with the same haunting ‘Swamp King’ vocal tones used to sing with, he said with alacrity to Brian, “It’s frigging hard to keep myself focused and wired in, mate. You can imagine what it’s like. You have been in this business as long as I have. Always keeping fixated. Giving the crowd your all. Reading the knee-jerk, bullshit, negative, tabloid press. Trying to constantly come up with a great new sound!” He looked exhausted.

Brian, sucking hard on his Spanish filter-tip urged, “Leave it all up to me. But, don’t forget Brixton… that love triangle which you, Phil and Cassie were involved in throws an ugly beam of light on your image. Are the police still harassing you, champ?”

“Yeah, I gotta go visit them tomorrow at ten. And it wasn’t a frigging triangle, pal!”

Brian blew out a huge ball of cigarette smoke in Nadine’s direction. “Whatever… Are you feeling concerned or scared?”

“They reckon they may have a new flaming lead. My neck is practically in the proverbial noose!”

“Dumb detectives, wouldn’t know a criminal if he walked in off the street. Bet you are pretty angry still, Brixton?”

Pierce’s response came sharply. “Hell yeah! You know they full-on suspect it was me… I loved the bitch.” He swallowed a huge, neat, heart-stopping-for-most slug of his best friend Jack and dropped the half-full bottle on the carpet. “Should probably have given up the industry after all. Like she wanted me to. Damned hooked on the adrenalin-filled junk, wasn’t I?” Nadine flew from her chair to retrieve the dribbling golden liquid.

“Tell ‘em whatever crap they want to hear. Just don’t admit anything…”

His defence came even more loaded. “I didn’t do it damn you, Brian! Sure, I had all the reason in the world… Frigging ass-hole was fleecing my money and screwing my childhood sweetheart. What do ya reckon? I’m over the flamin’ moon about going to prison, just because the cops can’t pin it on any other bastard!”

“Okay, okay, okay… settle down maestro. Why don’t you, you know?” Brian had flicked his eyes down towards Nadine’s all-fours position with impious intent. He made a fist and vulgarly raised his forearm. “No one will tell, now that the others have all gone home.”

Although he was whispering, she easily heard and smiled like a deer fawn. The prostitute-red mini-skirt she was wearing hid little of her thighs and both men could practically see her navel between her fighting-against-gravity breasts’ cleavage. Brixton looked at her and said, “You’re just a kid, Nady Sexy Lady, but you’re a good-looking one. Don’t get mixed up with me. You may live to regret it.”

The glamourous groupie seldom spoke, her figure did most of her communicating, but on this occasion, a voice reminiscent of evocative molasses did offer “I love you Brixton. I always have, ever since I was a little girl.” The girl rested back to a kneeling position screwing the lid back on to Jack’s neck, her engaging blue eyes invading his spirit. “I have seen almost every single one of your concerts. But, I will wait forever or until you are ready. If you ever will be. I would even kill for you. I have never taken a lover. I’m still a virgin you know…”

Two speechless male jaws dropped open like oven doors. Brian S stood up and left…

At the police station, the rock performer sat in clouded disillusion as a series of photographs were spread out on the table in front of him. “Look,” launched a fattish balding superintendent. “I can’t believe we missed something so bloody obvious.”

“Nothing’s obvious to me, DSI Spokane. I’ve seen these before,” replied Brixton, staring at the horseshoe of hair which wrapped around the back of his head.

“Well, let me explain,” said Spokane, sliding one particular long-distance image into Brixton’s view. “It is hard to see at first, so we had this corner-section enlarged, just after this arrived yesterday.” The Detective Superintendent flipped over a photograph which had been inverted and put to the side. Next, he began hauling a small black booklet from his briefcase. “It is this… and as you can faintly see in the other snapshot. It is resting on that side table under those music sheets.”

Brixton held the two pictures juxtaposed. He glared at the distance one first. His tired eyes squinted to focus on the microscopic image. “It looks like a notebook or similar type of writing book. But I don’t recognise it. What’s this all about?” He had begun to study the much larger but distorted, fuzzy, enlarged, printed photograph.

Then it appeared…

A slapping sound, as it hit the desk, accompanied the arrival in front of him, of the small book shown in the police photographer’s enlargement. There was nothing on its black cover except for an embossed golden cobra in the top right-hand corner. Brixton’s heart skipped a beat upon sensing its recognition. Cassandra had the identical image tattooed on her front upper pelvis. Through his confused mind raced one question: What in the hell?

“Open it,” said the calmly-toned Spokane.

The first page bore the title: ‘Chords of Revenge ─ The Diary of a Frustrated Cassie Pierce’. Brixton started engrossing his way through the vividly-worded explanations of her steamy ongoing love affair with Slipphiery. Six months of disgusting lust. It described how her feelings for the rock star had waned, once the intellectual mind of the conniving older brother had encapsulated her attention. This minutes-older brother was, in fact, Brian, the new manager. Anger speared its way through his heart. He had already been torn in half ─ now it felt like quarters.

Spokane continued on. “It all became quite obvious to us once the diary was handed in. Brian was the one who had pulled the trigger on her and his own brother in a two-pronged alibi attempt to score your talent, and cast blame in your direction to confuse us. As you can see, he was clearly the one who was having an affair with Cassandra. It is our belief that he somehow set up the entire crime scene situation after, and I’m sorry for having to elaborate, Mr Pierce… after making love with your wife moments prior. He must have telephoned his brother and shot and stripped his clothes off to make it appear as though Phil was the adulterer. Then, dressed himself and hustled away with the gun. When our DNA tests were performed on Phil, the sperm residue had a matching, almost conclusively perfect result. Who would have guessed that his identical twin would actually be that donor?”

Brixton snapped the diary shut. His pulse was racing. His face fell into his interlocked hands on the desktop ─ eyes weeping. He mumbled into his web of moistening fingers. “Who handed it in?”

DSI Spokane eagerly answered. “She was a tall woman with blond hair. Quite attractive, in fact. Gave her name as Nadine Faithful, you know, like that old-school singer…”

“You mean, Marianne Faithful I think,” Brixton interrupted.

“Yep, that’s the one. Anyway, when we asked why, where, when, how, etcetera… The girl just said she somehow picked it up a day after, before the crime scene had been cleared. How she got in and out is a mystery, and she’s refused to tell us without seeing you first. Go figure? Very soon all the facts will be revealed.”

Suddenly, passing by within metres, an escorted and securely handcuffed Brian Slipphiery enters the police headquarters, head hung low. Brixton and Spokane’s head’s spun in unison.

The venom in Pierce’s voice, no longer imminent blurted, “You rotten, lying, conniving piece of dog-shit!” He left his chair to confront the dual killer ─ face painted to its extremities with loathing.

A tall sexy woman, who’d followed in the entourage’s shadow, stepped between them ─ her hand touching his chest. “Over a year I’ve held onto it. Didn’t want to break your heart any further, if you saw it, I mean… I… I…” she said, trembling in her high-heels. “Pretty dumb, huh?”

He looked shell-shocked but relieved. “Talk about waiting until the eleventh hour!”

She uttered five more simple questioning words. “Are you ready this time?”

Brixton’s demeanour changed quicker than a used car dealer’s smile. His indebted reply took twenty seconds to materialize. “Never readier! This has given me an inspiration for a song! Okay woman… Let those wagons roll…”