Shooting Star: A Novel

By Rodman Philbrick

Ronnie Garrick, a wild but amazingly talented singer from rural Texas, takes it on the road, risking her heart, her voice, and her life, as she claws her way to the top.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jun 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504013871

Rodman Philbrick

Rodman Philbrick grew up on the coast of New Hampshire and has been writing since the age of sixteen. For a number of years he published mystery and suspense fiction for adults. Brothers & Sinners won the Shamus Award in 1994, and two of his other detective novels were nominees. In 1993 his debut young adult novel, Freak the Mighty, won numerous honors, and in 1998 was made into the feature film The Mighty, starring Sharon Stone and James Gandolfini. Freak the Mighty has become a standard reading selection in thousands of classrooms worldwide, and there are more than three million copies in print. In 2010 Philbrick won a Newbery Honor for The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg.

Book preview

LYNN

Shooting Star

Manhattan

She woke up alone. In the dream he had been there, curled against her, his face lost in the dark penumbra of sleep. She stretched languidly, arching her body against satin sheets, wondering idly who he was meant to be.

The dream had aroused her, gathering heat, but she decided to do nothing about it. Better to let it charge and intensify, for tonight she would need the strength.

She put her long, slender legs to the carpet and stood up. At the touch of a luminous switch the drapes began to slide back, drawn floor to ceiling across a wall of tinted glass.

Ronnie Garrik pressed her hands against the cool pane as she gazed out over the city. Already the lights were beginning to blink on like the jewels of some fantastic dragon. Colored lights moved on the Hudson, gliding over the surface of the water.

The view was intoxicating. There was always something new to discover, some shape that had previously escaped her. She even enjoyed the slight vertigo moving like a seductive whisper in the back of her head.

And the whisper said, Tonight.

A buzzer rang. She ignored it. Not until the last blush of the sunset had faded and the evening star begun to glimmer did she moved dreamily toward the door.

I know a thing or two about the weather, said Sergeant Piezer. And I know a thing or two about mobs. If it happens to rain we could have trouble, am I right?

On Park Avenue the fog that had drifted in from the harbor thickened into a drizzle. Sergeant Piezer stood in the portico of the Waldorf-Astoria, sipping from a mug of hot coffee and surveying the barricades as he conversed with the bored young patrolman who was assisting him.

Am I right? he repeated. The patrolman shrugged.

It’s like this. You’ve got your crowd, see. Celebrity freaks, autograph hounds, photographers, and then you’ve got your nut element.

The sergeant gestured with his coffee cup, intent on the stentorian sounds of his own voice. He did not notice when the patrolman rolled his eyes.

The nut element is what we’ve got to look out for, he continued. "The rain don’t discourage the nuts, it just makes ’em mad. I guess they’re thinking, what few of ’em have actual brains, that once they get wet they’re damn well going to get close enough to touch one of the luminaries. The sergeant rolled the word around his tongue, as if it had special significance the patrolman could not possibly comprehend. They simply got to make a dash for the luminaries, and that’s when we got to smile for those television cameras and pretend what nice guys we are and keep back the nuts without actually breaking their waterlogged heads. Heads can get busted later, in the dark."

They don’t look crazy to me, said the patrolman. The several thousand people encamped behind the barricades looked docile enough. There had been some jostling for space along the rails earlier in the day, but the sergeant had resolved that with a few choice words and the expert placement of his small, lead-weighted billy club.

But that was before the weather broke. Now the sergeant shook his head and frowned. Plenty of nuts out there. Don’t know enough to come in out of the cold and wet. Am I right?

Anything you say, Sarge. It was easier to agree. He listened to the drone of the older man’s voice, nodded when appropriate, and looked fretfully at the darkening sky.

It began to rain.

Jade Gustave, Ronnie’s agent, arrived with flowers. He was accompanied by two strangers. Ronnie knotted the sash of her silk kimono and looked at Jade quizzically.

They’re from Equity, he explained, introducing his companions. Sammy and Charles. Charles is stage makeup. Sammy is the decal lady I was telling you about.

Sure. I’d forgotten.

Sammy was a diminutive woman with china doll features. She was dressed bizarrely: stiletto heels, a skintight black jumpsuit with chromed zipper running from crotch to left breast. She wore a decal of a heart upon her cheek. Her androgenous companion, who appeared to be slightly stoned, wore oversize horn-rimmed glasses and carried a bulky makeup kit.

I’m just up, said Ronnie, leading them into her suite. No conversation please. Not for a while.

Jade smiled. If she had slept he knew she would be okay. She would be fine. He issued instructions in a low voice, rang for hot coffee, and soon had Ronnie seated at her vanity, bathed in the bare yellow light.

Gown delivered?

She nodded. A knockout, Jade. Glove. she said, knowing he would understand her verbal shorthand.

Ronnie looked into the mirror as the kit was unpacked, but it was hard to focus. The surface of the mirror shifted, and yet she knew it was only sleep, or rather the waking from it, that made her eyes blurry.

One of the dreams fluttered in, the reoccurring one about the empty cabin and the mountain of ice. She wanted to tell Jade about it—he was always interested in her dreams—but the makeup artist was turning her chin gently, a small brush poised, and she lost the sense of it.

The coffee arrived. Jade touched the artist’s hand—Charles? Or was it Sammy?—and said, Let her drink this. We’ve got plenty of time yet.

Thanks, darling. She let the aroma steam up, delicious and new.

All the time in the world, he said.

The steam rose in billows, giving the illusion of moving clouds to the enclosed space. He inhaled and felt the hot moisture pass into his lungs. Too much smoke, he thought, he would have to cut down, once this was over. The hot water circulated with luxurious undulation, easing his tense muscles. It had been a grueling tour and he was glad it was almost done.

One of the twins was soaping his chest.

Oh, Zach, she sighed." You’re just too bee-oo-tiful for words."

The other was pearl diving. Or something like pearl diving. He felt her mouth encircle his big toe. Tongue tease. It tickled, but he tried not to squirm.

Doesn’t she ever come up for air? he asked.

Nah. She’s half mermaid.

He was about to ask which half but decided not to confuse the issue. He’d been introduced to the pair by a concert promoter in San Diego. They were identical twins and billed themselves, in groupie slang, as a bookend act. So far he liked what he’d seen of it. The mermaid was fishing around between his legs and he twisted sideways involuntarily. What was making him so damn ticklish all of a sudden?

He reached blindly behind him and pressed a button. The door opened immediately.

What can I get you, Zach?

All set here, Douglas. What’s the word on the fucking headwinds?

No problem. We’ve increased airspeed. ETA is now seven-twenty P.M. That still cuts it tight, so I radioed ahead for an escort. That should get us through traffic. And I know you like the sirens and the flashing lights, he added, grinning.

Great. Thanks, Doug.

Zachary Curtis sank back into the churning water, content. The hectic pace of the touring life had its compensations. The combination of altitude, hot tub, and bookend act was beginning to get interesting. One of the twins was licking the tender spot under his chin and the other … he sighed as the steam rose around him. Yes.

Tonight.

Zach heard a sputtering sound and felt a splash of hot water. The mermaid had come up for air. He reached for her.

Come a little closer, honey, he said. And let me show you how the other half lives.

John Lloyd Talbot cradled the telephone and smiled. If what he’d just learned was true, and he was reasonably certain it was, then the cake was iced. As he had promised her it would be.

He touched the intercom. Send my driver around, please. Security entrance. I’ll be ready in thirty minutes.

Time enough for a visit to what he deprecatingly referred to as the shrine. Actually the old Wurlitzer was his one superstition: No record was released by Liberty without first passing the jukebox test. He unlocked the door to the adjacent room and flipped on the green-shaded overhead light. It illuminated the billiard table where he frequently relaxed by experimenting with impossible cushion shots. To one side the juke glowed dimly on squat legs, lights flickering like some object come down from space, or so he liked to imagine. It was at once his temple and his treasury.

He slipped two bits into the slot, took a deep breath, and punched a three-hit combo. The machine coughed, sighed, sent an arm tracking out to pull a disc and flip it neatly onto the revolving platter. The hiss of the needle. And then, like a first tentative heartbeat, the bass thumped up from below the region of hearing and he began to fingerpop, snapping his fingers neatly, feeling the music pulse.

orphan child

don’t pit-ty me

sha-hooting star

will set me free

He sang along with it, bent over the old Wurlitzer so that his face was made golden by the neon light, snapping his fingers and tapping his feet and twisting his shoulders in syncopated time like a boy on the corner, singing his heart out on a Saturday night.

Jade eyed her critically but couldn’t keep the smile from his eyes. You are exquisite, he said, and then paused in a characteristic pose, fingers curled under his chin, hand cupping the opposite elbow. The pendant? he asked.

Do you think I should? You know how Kyle feels about—

Never mind that, said Jade firmly. It was his to give. He gave.

She went back to the dressing rooms barefoot, carrying the heels lightly in one hand. The diamond pendant was in the vanity drawer. She held it first to the light, then laid it gently in the hollow of her neck. The clasp snapped easily. Jade was right, of course. The star, trailing sparks of diamonds, was perfect.

Kyle would be watching. He could make what he liked of it.

In the corner of the vanity mirror she saw the lacquered enamel box, the latest of John Lloyd’s splendid gifts. Ronnie picked it up, marveling at the cool touch.

She pried off the lid and looked speculatively at the crystalline white powder. It was tempting, to be sure, but she clicked the lid firmly back in place. Tonight of all nights she wanted to be straight.

Ronnie? They’re waiting, darling.

She hurried back to the salon, Kyle’s pendant cool against her throat.

The luminaries, as the sergeant called them, began to arrive shortly after the camera crews finished their meter readings. The crowd surged forward, drawn by the approaching headlights. They pressed up against the barricades as the gleaming limousines glided into the spotlights. Two footmen in livery, keenly aware of the cameras, pulled open each door with a flourish. They were protected from the intermittent rain by an elaborate awning.

The luminous quality of a particular celebrity could be accurately gauged by the reaction of the crowd. A popular game show host, beaming as he exited his limousine on the arm of a rented blonde, got oohs and ahhs and his name rippling through the throngs. A svelte model, known more by face and figure than by name, got wolf whistles and ribald comments. A recording executive, a god in his own domain but unknown to the public, was greeted by silence until, in the hush, the voice of the television announcer carried his name and position and a few cheers went up in recognition.

But when a real luminary appeared the barricades shook and Sergeant Piezer was forced to shout himself hoarse. He was right, of course. The rain made it worse. But the sergeant, wise as he was in the ways of crowd control, was not prepared for the arrival of Ronnie Garrik.

She saw the twin beams of light sweeping across the underside of the clouds. And then, from far down the avenue, she saw the mob.

I’ll be damned, said Jade softly. His eyes widened at the sea of people surging behind the barricades. Ronnie squeezed his hand. She knew this scene by heart—the push, the shove, the frantic cry of hysteria. Jade knew it, too, but he’d never liked it.

They’ll eat that guy alive, he said, with an air of wonder.

Ronnie followed his gaze. Up ahead the mob had swarmed over one end of the barricade and buried a limousine. A lanky figure in a white linen suit was trying to extricate himself from the wave of flesh.

It’s Zach! cried Ronnie.

I believe it is, said Jade. "Good lord, I think he’s enjoying himself."

Zach Curtis was holding both hands high, grinning as the police came to his rescue. He didn’t seem particularly displeased by the crush of fans who were trying to get a piece of him. Ronnie and Zach had been lovers, years before. She’d been on the road with her first band and he was on the lounge circuit. Now they were in competition for the Goldie. Friendly competition, or so she hoped.

Now her Rolls was coasting silently to the curb and the liveried attendants were rushing to open her door. The mob, temporarily restrained by the police, took a collective breath. Ronnie stepped out ahead of Jade and ducked under the awning. A light mist was falling and the bright lights made jewels of the dewdrops in her dark hair.

And then the sound came over her like a warm wind. It was her name, distorted by thousands of open mouths, until it lost all connection to its source and became a thing that cried out to her.

Rrrrrroooooooonnnnnnniiiiiieeeeeeee. Like the wind.

The television cameras dollied in and she struck a pose, flashing her brilliant smile. The white gardenia made a striking contrast to her raven hair and the lights illuminated the gold-leaf design on her cheek. A gold star trailing sparks.

-onnie Garrik! -ooting Star! The announcer’s voice was swallowed by feedback, lost in the roar of the crowd. The barricades trembled.

A gust of wind ruffled her translucent gown and the paparazzi got a clear shot of her long, elegant legs. Backlit, the diaphanous fabric was rendered translucent, and her nipples, barely covered, stood out under the gauze like insistent fingertips.

The crowd roared.

We’d better run! Jade hissed in her ear. A moment later the barricades came down, the screams pitched higher in intensity, and a great mass of arms and hands and eager, wild faces converged on them.

Run!

A squadron of security guards broke through, pushing back part of the mob, then charged for the door. Her name was being chanted in ritual cadence as she was carried down the carpet, parting the sea of people who, in their ecstasy, longed to touch her. Or maybe, she thought, as two guards lifted her clear off the ground and spun her into the relative safety of the Waldorf, they want to tear me apart.…

He was just executing the Windsor knot on his best tie when the door opened. In the nine-year history of Liberty Records no one had ever opened the door to his private suite without first being cleared through the outer offices. But the two men, dressed in similar conservatively cut gray suits, entered without hesitation.

John Lloyd Talbot cleared his throat. It was the only nervous habit he allowed himself. He met the eyes of both men.

I’m afraid you won’t be going out this evening, Mr. Talbot.

No? He pressed back his lapels, dusted a speck of lint from the jacket. He knew who they were and why they had come, but he preferred to let them go through the motions.

We have a certain matter to discuss, sir. There was nothing obsequious about the way the man in the steel gray suit said sir.

Yes, said John Lloyd. He placed one hand carefully into his trouser pocket. Yes, I suppose we do.

When Jade had recovered his composure, keenly aware that Ronnie had never lost hers, they entered the great hall.

This is it, said Ronnie softly. Her arm was entwined with Jade’s and he squeezed her reassuringly.

Cones of multicolored light moved through the shadows, focusing on the stage area with its bright facets of commercial glitter and oversized props. The audience here was a different beast from the mob in the street. Most were discreet enough not to approach Ronnie, but as the usher ran interference for them she heard her name passing from lip to lip, and the words shooting star echoing in her wake.

Smile, darling, Jade whispered. Smile until it hurts.

All the equipment the media could muster was aimed at them. Monitors caught her from a half-dozen angles, zeroing in for a shot of the blazing gold star on her cheek. She walked down the aisle with the natural elegance of an Egyptian goddess, serene and regal. Most of those in attendance were connected, in one way or another, to the business end of rock ’n’ roll and the sense of envy that rippled through the spacious ballroom was nearly palpable.

You’re looking gorgeous, baby, she told Jade. He grinned back, but he knew whom the eyes were for, and why the cameras were trained on them.

Hot stuff, Ronnie! Zach Curtis stood up and kissed her, well aware that the image was being carried to fifty million viewers. The show’s director, intent on building suspense with his pan shots, had seated them together.

Great to see you, baby. Their tongues had touched in the kiss, message received.

Zach had long, fair hair, a dazzling smile, and his pianist’s fingers glittered with the Indian jade rings he collected. Close friends like Ronnie knew he had a secret melancholy streak. But tonight he was full of intense energy and his kiss had been electric.

Beats me where Talbot has gotten to, said Zach, indicating the vacant seat at the table. The old boy must be backstage goosing the showgirls or something.

Unlikely, to say the least, said Jade, arching an eyebrow. He and Talbot were roughly the same age and he disliked hearing him referred to as old boy. He’ll be along presently, I’m sure.

Don’t mind me, Jade, old boy, said Zach. I’m nervous is all. Here, let’s drink up.

The Waldorf had staffed the mezzanine with waiters and a slender man with Valentino looks brought them an iced bottle of Dom Perignon.

Zach clicked his crystal glass to hers. To a lovely lady. And then he added, And may the best man win.

Ronnie laughed and the star on her cheek shone like a golden promise. Not a chance, baby. This one is mine. All mine.

Then the house lights dimmed. On stage the cameras dollied in, red lights blinking. Figures hurried about, as if in a panic, or trying to start one, and the screen monitors began to glow with the flickering, hypnotic light of television.

Staring into the bland eye of the monitor, Ronnie remembered another stage, another night …

West Texas

1

The little girl with the midnight black hair and the sea blue eyes frowned in concentration. Everybody was watching her. She liked that, and she knew it made her daddy happy. She gripped the banjo with all her might, looked up at the enormously tall man with the fiddle tucked under his chin. He smiled and she began to pluck the banjo strings.

A moment later he came in with the fiddle and she was swinging to the rhythm, plucking the tune on her banjo, delirious with joy.

Swinging.

In West Texas, in 1956, swing was still the thing. Not the swing of Benny Goodman, or the Dorsey bands, or Ellington, but the lively, countrified swing of Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys. Light, easy music based on the rhythmic folk tunes of the West, it was a jazzy evolution of barn dancing. It was made for dancing, for high bliss foot-stomping, and on a hot August night at the Grange Hall in Lubbock, Texas, Larry Garrik and the Palamino Boys were swinging.

And the crowd, swigging booze and beer out of paper cups, was hopping. The Palamino Boys were a bald impersonation of Bob Wills’s band, and Larry Garrik made no bones about it.

Old Bob is busy with radio and TV. He ain’t got no time for the little folk no more, and we aim to take up his slack, he would drawl as he solicited engagements at the numerous dance halls in rural Texas.

Garrik was a tall fellow with the rangy build, sun-drenched complexion, and ready smile of a man who was used to rough work and hard play. He worked weekdays for the railroad, inspecting desolate stretches of track, but he meant to carve out a place for himself in the world of country music. He would start out imitating Wills—taking up his slack—but after he’d earned a little money he intended to develop a style of his own.

I got me a hard drivin’ sound in the back of my head, he would say. And one of these days I’m gonna cut loose and let everyone hear it.

Larry Garrik was open and friendly, full of ambition and good intentions, and his band was booked most weekends. Some nights they drove two hundred miles, played until dawn began to crack along the enormous Texas horizon, then packed up and drove home.

And there were those who thought Garrik’s imitation was nearly as good as the original. True, Larry Garrik didn’t quite have Bob Wills’s flair on the fiddle, but he was younger and his lack of experience was supplanted by an excess of energy. It was obvious he played from the heart. And if the Palamino Boys weren’t quite up to the Playboy’s snuff, well, they surely liked to stomp some, and they kept the beat.

Things were looking pretty good to Larry Garrik in August of 1956. From the stage, where he urged the band on with the rhythmic cadence of his bow, he could look out into the dimly lit Grange Hall. His pretty wife was out there somewhere. Probably dancing—Mae Ann loved to kick up her heels. And there was his little boy, Jackie, still in diapers. It seemed the boy could sleep through anything, even the Palamino Boys at full stomp. He knew exactly where his daughter Ronnie, barely four years old, blessed with the most beautiful pair of big blue eyes he’d ever seen, was—backstage with Alice Chilton, the banjo player’s wife, who had taken a shine to the little girl.

She’s got the smile of an angel, Lawrence Garrik. What’s a devil like you doing with an angel? Alice had asked as she bounced his giggling daughter on her broad knees.

Oh, Mae Ann loved her, too, there was no doubt about that, but Mae Ann hadn’t quite grown up herself. Larry was sure she would, eventually. For now, let her kick up her heels and get the wildness out of her system. Later, when he had a better band and maybe a radio show of his own, they’d settle down and make a real family of it. Yes, there was time enough for that.

Without pausing, the band kicked into a jazzed-up version of Tumbleweed, and as he continued to search the dark corners of the hall for a sign of his wife, Larry reflected on the essential difference between his baby boy and his little girl. Jackie seemed to be sleeping his life away, although in truth his life had barely begun, while Ronnie had been brimfull of energy right from the start. It had been impossible to keep that child in a crib; turn your eyes away for an instant and she had scrambled over the edge with the agility of a monkey. She was delighted by the smallest things, a broken rattle an old Navajo woman had given her by the roadside one day, or that foolish armadillo he had roped to a stake out behind the barn. One day he’d caught her stirring up a nest of red ants, bent over, poking with a stick, her little bottom perked out like an exclamation point. Miraculously, she’d not been bitten. Why, right at that moment she was probably running Alice Chilton ragged, though Alice seemed to enjoy it.

And sure enough, later that evening when the crowd had thinned—there was still no sign of Mae Ann—Ronnie broke away from Alice and came bounding on stage, her long dark curls flying as she made a beeline for her daddy and locked her arms around his knees.

When Larry picked her up and whirled her around the audience cheered. Ronnie grinned with such obvious delight that Larry set her down and brought out the half-sized banjo he’d fashioned for her.

Listen up, folks. This little gal of mine has learned herself a tune.

The banjo was nearly as big as she was, but Ronnie didn’t hesitate as her father began to pick out the melody of the old standard. She bit her lip in concentration, formed her pudgy fingers on the fretboard, and strummed the chords he’d taught her. And when he picked up the tempo and the rest of the Palamino Boys joined in, Ronnie kept pace, instinctively bobbing her head to the beat.

The Yellow Rose of Texas

Is the only gal for me

When it was over Larry picked her up and waltzed her off the stage into the waiting arms of Alice Chilton, amidst the raucous laughter and cheering whistles of the crowd.

Why, hell, Larry, someone called out. You got yourself a million-dollar baby!

The warm touch of hands, the bright smiles, the yellow lights, the soft bosom of Alice Chilton, who rocked her to sleep, these were the only fond memories of her childhood.

2

The static of the radio, the scratch of the fiddle, and the gurgle of whiskey in the jar. It was the same thing each evening. Already, at seven years of age, Ronnie could anticipate her father’s moods.

Each afternoon she ran from the school bus to the front porch, where Alice Chilton waited, rocking in the glider, shucking green peas or corn, or whatever fresh thing had come from her garden. The Garriks lived on the outskirts of Lubbock, where it was still possible to farm a little, where the ravenous sprawl of the city had not yet taken over the open landscape.

Soon enough, thought Alice, one eye on the encroaching skyline, soon enough.