Unleashed

TWENTY-TWO

THE CLEANUP OF RAMSEY’S APARTMENT MUST have been a nightmare. Victor handled it, along with the team he uses for such things. “Welcome to the world of grown-ups,” he’d said to me earlier. But I couldn’t begin to deal with that sort of thing; I just wanted to walk away and forget it ever happened. Someone had to do it, though, and as usual, that someone was Victor. For the first time, I got some real insight into our relationship, and why he never really took me seriously. To him, I wasn’t a grown-up, and never would be. And he might just be right about that.

Morgan was happy to find out that things were back to normal, though they’d never really be normal for her again. Collateral damage. I called her a couple of times, mostly out of a sense of obligation, but she made it clear she wanted nothing more to do with me or my world.

I never saw the Wendigo again. Well, that’s not exactly true. I was over at Emily Janover’s house one night, talking about a project she had in mind. Emily is a keyboard player and singer, a Diana Krall type. She’s good, but she could have been really good if she’d only applied herself. Of course, I’m hardly one to talk. We shared dinner and stayed up late, talking about who else she wanted for her CD and what songs to do.

She turned on the TV and switched over to a late-night talk show.

“There’s a band from the Bay Area on tonight I want to see,” she said. “The Death Turtles. Supposedly they’re the next big thing.”

We listened to them, and they weren’t bad, though not to my taste. But in the back, sitting behind a massive set of drums and grinning from ear to ear, was a curly-headed fellow I knew all too well. Emily was less than impressed by the band.

“Same old thing.” She sighed. “If you want to hit the big time, three chords and a loud voice is what you need.”

“That song had five chords,” I pointed out.

“Same difference. They sucked. Except for the drummer. I have to admit it-he’s out of this world.”

“You have no idea,” I said.