Full Tilt (Rock Star Chronicles) Read online

  He reached for his ringing phone. It was Mary calling from Ohio. His sister had seen on CNN that Dominic Badino had been set free, following lengthy questioning by NYPD detectives. Everett also confirmed that there was still no sign of Eddie and no valid leads.

  “How’s Wesley coming along?” she asked.

  “Physically, he’s good. Mentally, he’s up against it. There’s a lot of baggage.”

  “Are Sheila and Madison still staying at Twin Streams?”

  “Yeah, at least until all the damage is fixed at their place,” Everett said. “It’s been good for them. The band’s been in and out practicing all week. Jacob and Sarah are there. All good distractions.”

  “Do you think Jerry and I should try to come?”

  “Not now.” He sighed. “There’s nothing you can do. The tour’s ready to kick off and we’ll be gone. Madison’s gonna join us as often as she can, at least on weekends. I’ll tell you, I’m ready to get out of here for a while.”

  “Are the police doing all they can? I mean, are they on this thing?”

  “Oh, yeah. I’ve been talking on and off with a couple detectives, even some FBI guys, feeding them info. They’ll let me know the second anything turns up.”

  “What do you mean, ‘feeding them info’?”

  “I’ve been telling them as much as I know about this whole mob thing, Dominic Badino, his son, everything I’ve seen. They want the Mendazzo family, bad.”

  “Dangerous, Ev.”

  “No kidding!” A pressure valve was releasing just talking to her. “I thought Badino was gonna be satisfied letting Eddie keep betting and me paying his debts, but it went way past that. It got personal. These mob families put their honor above everything else, even money. And in their rulebook, I’ve dishonored them.”

  “Well, if you think they’ll try to do something to you, where does that leave Eddie?”

  “That’s what worries me.” As he maneuvered the backroads from Stamford to Bedford, Everett told her more about the continuing Wesley saga.

  “Karen was so ticked at me for inviting him on the tour.”

  “Well, you should have asked her first, ding-a-ling!”

  “Believe me, I know that! Can we drop it? The thing is, Wesley wants to come with us, but Karen’s still getting red flags, big-time.”

  “And you’re not?” Mary said.

  “I have my doubts. I do. But I just keep thinking about what Karen did for me, just kept reaching out, loving me. I feel like maybe I’m supposed to be the one who does that for Wesley.”

  “She’s concerned about the tour, about all of you, and your safety. It’s understandable,” Mary said. “She’s probably having a hard time getting past having a gun pulled on her. I don’t blame her!”

  “I know…”

  “Ev, here’s the thing: If God wants Wesley to go on this tour with you guys, He’ll have to change Karen’s mind. That’s all there is to it. But you guys definitely need to be in agreement.”

  “If Wes isn’t supposed to come, I want Him to change my heart. Because right now, I still feel like he’s supposed to be with us the night we open at Madison Square Garden.”

  “Well, then,” Mary said, “we’ll just have to see what God does, won’t we?”

  The lights were dim at Twin Streams, and the old house was silent as Everett entered the kitchen through the garage, thankful that Jacob was there to watch over things—two things in particular: Karen and Sarah.

  There were no notes for him on the island. Rosey stretched and greeted him with a wagging tail. He gave her a small dog biscuit from her treat box in the pantry, turned off the few lamps that were still on, and sauntered back to the master bedroom.

  “You still awake, babe?” he whispered toward the big bed.

  “Yeah.” Karen pulled the covers down, sat up, and turned on a small lamp next to her. “I’ve been waiting for you. How’d it go?”

  “Great.” He bent over, kissed her, then began unbuttoning his shirt and walking to his dresser. “The service was a tearjerker. Cassidy was something special.”

  “How’d Wesley do?”

  “He was glued. He opened up on the way home. It was good.”

  She crawled across the bed in her red flannel pajamas, which were dotted with reindeer and snowmen, and patted the mattress. “Come here and sit down a minute.”

  “Uh-oh,” he teased. “What’s this about?”

  Everett plopped down on the bed and Karen smiled and rubbed his shoulders.

  “I’ve been thinking about Wesley and the tour.”

  He sighed and pretended to faint, flopping back on the bed with his arms over his head.

  “Look at me.” Karen leaned over him with a hand on his chest. “I talked to the folks about it, then Sheila and Madison. We all want Wesley to come on tour.”

  He could only lie there and stare at those gray-green eyes.

  “Well? Are you happy?”

  He grabbed her and brought her down in a bear hug, and her laughter came muffled against his chest.

  “Are you sure, babe?”

  “Yes.”

  “What changed your mind?”

  “My old scrapbook, the one of you and DeathStroke. Madison wanted to see it. I looked at you, the way you were, and I figured if God could save one Lester who was so messed up…”

  She lifted up to look at him, and he swept several lengths of blond hair behind her ear.

  “I can’t believe you,” he said. “You’re so unselfish.”

  “No, I’m not. I still have my reservations.” She ran a hand through his hair. “But Mom and Dad thought it would be good for him, especially after the suicide attempt. And it’s good for him to be away from Tony Badino during this critical recovery period, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  She smiled and bobbed her head. “So, we’re on. Sign him up.”

  “Now, remember, I’m not promising anything,” Everett said. “This could backfire.”

  “We’ll just take our chances, won’t we?”

  On the last day of rehearsal at Twin Streams, the day before the Living Water tour was set to kick off at New York City’s famed Madison Square Garden, Everett and Karen gathered everyone in the basement studio, including Gray, the whole band, Jacob and Sarah, Sheila, and Madison.

  “Everybody just find a seat somewhere,” Everett said, standing next to Karen at an easel covered by a navy sheet. “That’s good…anywhere. Oz, pull up that stool from the kitchen. Gray, can you get Sarah that chair from the sound booth?”

  As each person found a place, the lively chatter quieted. The people in the room looked tired but excited, like they do before a NASA launch.

  “Well, we made it.” Everett paused to enjoy the smiles and congratulations. “Tomorrow night’s been a long time coming. How do you feel?”

  “Yow!” shouted drummer Oz Dublin, as chatter and clapping broke out around the windowless room. Karen and Everett looked at each other and laughed heartily. “Living Water!” yelled guitarist Randy White.

  Everett scanned the room, looking from face to face to face. “Guys, Jesus said if you drink the well water, the common water, you’re gonna thirst again. And we know from Queens and Miami that many of the people who are gonna be coming to our shows have tried all the common things of this world but have found no contentment. Sound familiar?”

  He reached out and took Karen’s hand. “We have the chance—each of us—to help people drink living water, so they’ll never thirst again. And that water will become like a well in them, springing up to eternal life.”

  When he squeezed Karen’s hand and let go, her slender face turned slightly pink and she stepped forward, clasping her hands at her waist. “I just want to say how incredible the music is that you guys have created. Each song ministers to me, and I believe so much in what we’re doing. May God be exalted on this tour.”

  Karen crossed her arms and looked down. “What I’m about to show you is such a God-thing…excuse me.�
�� She put a fist to her mouth, cleared her throat, and blinked back the tears. “Gray called me a while back. He told me when SoundSystems came on board, they wanted new artwork for the tour poster and asked if I had any ideas.” She snickered. “All I could think of was this beautiful painting of a waterfall I had seen. It had Living Water written all over it.”

  She hoisted the navy cloth up into the air like a magician waving a piece of silk in a magic show. Madison let out a squeal before both of her hands muzzled her mouth, and she bent over weeping. Her mother gasped and draped her arms around her daughter, not taking her eyes off of the concert poster for one second.

  “Everybody,” Karen announced above the clamor, “my talented niece, Madison Lester, painted this picture, and as you can see, it is the brand-new, official poster for this year’s Living Water tour!” Karen knelt to hug Madison, who was beaming. Others in the room arose, admired the poster, and congratulated the artist.

  As Everett surveyed the lively room, it touched him as a most bittersweet moment. His heart rejoiced over the newfound faith of his beautiful niece, who had a full and promising life in front of her. Yet behind the mask, Everett was unable to shake the almost palpable fear that taunted him.

  Someone’s going to be in the crowd at a concert. Or in the dark hallway of a hotel. Tony Badino, the wiseguys, someone. They’ll have guns, and they’ll be there with a job to do. They won’t think twice before ending my life.

  Then Karen will be alone.

  This must be how you felt, Lord—knowing the cross was coming…

  It was, indeed, a bittersweet moment.

  36

  DARK WAS DESCENDING ON New York City by four-thirty in the afternoon the first day of the Living Water tour. One of the digital clocks outside a bank on Thirty-fourth Street read thirty-one degrees. Snowflakes the size of quarters bombed the dingy city, cloaking it in a beautiful white blanket as people weighed down in heavy parkas rambled to and fro.

  After the two black stretch limousines passed slowly through a security checkpoint and approached a ramp leading down to the belly of Madison Square Garden, they slowed and came to a halt.

  “Mr. Lester,” the driver of the first car looked straight ahead, “we got a situation.”

  Everett peered out the tinted windows. Blocking the ramp to the Garden’s backstage auto entrance were dozens of people—a sea of long hair, tattoos, and soaked denim. Leaving several homemade fires, the revelers staggered toward the limos holding everything from beer cans and cigarettes to liquor bottles and pot pipes—and signs: Go Home Lester, TRAITOR, DeathStroke or Die! and others.

  Gray was on his cell phone to security within seconds.

  The interior of the car darkened as the mob engulfed it, beating on the windows—some so hard the glass was sure to shatter. Karen scooted close to Everett and squeezed his arm. “I feel like I’m suffocating,” she whispered.

  “Ahhh!” Sarah pointed to a gun that someone had pressed sideways against the window closest to her.

  “Charlie, start driving!” Gray clapped his phone shut. “Security says they’ll back down if we keep moving. Straight ahead. Down the ramp!”

  As the car lurched forward, the crazed crowd began to rock the limo—up and down. Many of the faces outside were enraged. The people screamed obscenities while bashing the vehicle with their fists and flying feet. Others were howling with laughter and falling down drunk as the fancy car bounced even harder.

  “Ma-an!” Wesley’s voice broke with the bump of the car. “I guess the diehard DeathStrokers are alive and well!” He studied the faces and bodies pressed against the window twelve inches from his face. “I hope the clientele inside is a little bit more hospitable—”

  “Would you be quiet.” Madison scooted closer to Jacob.

  As the limo pressed forward, some of the people outside moved along with it, some fell away, and others broke into fistfights.

  “Lord, just get us inside,” Karen mumbled.

  Wesley pounded the flat of his hand against a bearded face smashed against the glass.

  “Cut it out!” Madison yelled. “You wanna get us killed?”

  “He’s cussing at us!” He gave the guy a nasty look. “What losers.”

  “Cool it, Wes.” Everett placed a hand on Wesley’s shoulder. “We’ll be fine.”

  “Check it out!” Wesley peered straight ahead as the mob parted, revealing twenty-five or so police officers who had lined the underground entrance, wearing helmets and riot gear and wielding shields and billy clubs. “You still got some clout, Uncle Everett.”

  The instant the front of the car tipped forward and descended, light filled the interior as the sea of clinging people began dropping away, some falling down on the slippery ramp.

  The lead limo took one last hit—a blow to the hood from a flying Rolling Rock beer bottle—before it disappeared into the mouth of the famed arena.

  Even with the blizzard, more than 11,250 people filed into Madison Square Garden for opening night. There were individuals of all colors, homeless walk-ins, church youth groups, middle-aged couples, DeathStroke diehards, tattooed teenagers, punks, believers, unbelievers, and everyone in between.

  Throughout the evening, two or three fights broke out, and the band had to stop playing twice as security personnel stepped in to settle the disturbances. Everett had played the Garden a number of times in his DeathStroke days, but never sober—and never with the depth of meaning it had this night.

  After the last song, “Blind/Faith,” the dazzling stage faded to black. While Everett and the band wiped the sweat from their spent bodies backstage with large terrycloth towels, handed out by Wesley, the ovation climbed to a deafening roar. Everett peered out at the sea of blue cell phone lights and yellow flames that dotted the darkness like a hillside of lightning bugs. Squeezing Karen’s hand, he felt twenty again, as if it were his first time playing a major venue.

  Madison, Jacob, and Sarah were latched together, arm in arm, laughing their heads off. As he stared out at the throng, even Wesley appeared in awe of the Spirit consuming the place. The thunderous volume of the audience made speaking impossible, and Everett was glad for that; it helped him keep focused. Everything looked and felt so crystal clear to him. His purpose tonight was unmistakable.

  Wesley approached him with a big white towel draped over his shoulder. His brown hair was about an inch long and starting to curl. He was still thin, but finally seemed to be getting some color in his plain face. He leaned close to Everett. “You want the black Fender?”

  Everett rested a hand on Wesley’s shoulder and bent toward him. “No,” he yelled. “Gibson, acoustic.” Wesley nodded and disappeared.

  By the time roadies led the band back onstage by flashlight, roses and carnations were strewn everywhere, as were hats and T-shirts and even several old DeathStroke albums.

  “Thanks for coming!” Everett’s voice boomed into the blackness. “Whoa.” He was temporarily blinded by a roving white spotlight. “Here I am.” He chuckled, adjusting the mike stand in front of him.

  “You guys are troopers for coming out on a night like this!” The crowd went haywire. “They tell me we got about eight inches of white stuff out there right now.” Everett suspected it was the cocaine users in the crowd who went especially ballistic with that comment.

  “This song we’re about to do is special to me.” The boisterous crowd grew quiet. “I wrote part of it a long, long time ago, and then I finished it just recently. If you’ll listen to the words, I think most of you will be able to relate. This is called ‘Deep Inside…’”

  The crack of Oz Dublin’s drumsticks sent the band strumming into a dramatic, melodious intro, which included deft harmonica work by Randy White and a blazing violin riff by Lola Shepherd. Everett’s commanding voice rang out like a raspy storyteller of old.

  Can anybody hear me? Hear me?

  Does anybody care how I feel?

  Those closest, they’ve abandoned me.

  My friends,
they’ve proven they aren’t real.

  And so begins the hatred, self-pity,

  Resenting anyone who says that they’ve found love.

  Inside I’m like a ticking time bomb,

  Knowin’ my push will soon become a shove—

  It always does, it always does…

  So I strap on this here guitar,

  I grab this mike in my shaking hand.

  I cry out for your attention, I yell,

  “I’ll become famous—me and my rock ’n’ roll band!”

  And whaddya know, I’m a star now.

  Whaddya know, I’m a wealthy man!

  I finally made your heads turn, didn’t I? Didn’t I?

  Now I’m the rock idol of every fan.

  But what about deep inside, deep inside,

  Beneath this gleaming armor?

  What about deep inside, deep inside,

  Behind this dark star you see onstage—

  Where I’m all the rage, all the rage…

  Let me confess, I’ve been a two-faced liar,

  Yeah, what you see ain’t always what you get.

  Inside I’m just a frightened traveler.

  Yeah, inside there’s a man you’ve never met.

  So I hit rock bottom and that’s when I found Him.

  Yeah, I was all curled up and a-waitin’ there to die.

  Then I realized, “Man, you’re nothin’, you’re no one!”

  I confessed my sins and reached toward the sky.

  So high, so very high…

  My friend, that’s when He came to me,

  Ridin’ on the clouds He crafted.

  Yeah, that was the day He filled my cup,

  He filled it up, He filled it up!

  I had never grasped such glory,

  I had never seen the sacred fire by night,

  I had never heard a voice like the waters,