LITMIR.BIZ

      Also by Rick Blechta

      Knock on Wood

      The Lark Ascending

      Shooting Straight in the Dark

      Cemetery of the Nameless

      When Hell Freezes Over

      As co-editor:

      Dishes to Die For

      Dishes to Die For...Again

      Introduction

      She had a voice like an angel, smooth and complex as a twenty-year-old single malt, rich as thick cream. Everyone who heard Olivia sing felt as if she could see right into the depths of their souls, that her songs were meant for them alone. This was the magic her artistry conjured. In earlier times, she would have been put to death as a witch.

      The real kicker was that Olivia had no idea how the magic worked. She’d just open her mouth and the song was there, no deep thought about the meaning of lyrics, no analyzing of how she wanted to shape a phrase, bending, stretching, adding notes until everything fit the way she wanted it to. Her pitch was dead on, and her innate sense of rhythm impeccable. Stunningly artless was the only way to describe her performances.

      Her voice could produce with equal ease a mental image of a smoky bar at the end of a long night of drinking to forget a lost love, to highstepping down the sunny side of the street with a bluebird on her shoulder.

      With no apparent effort, she made you believe she knew intimately everything about which she sang.

      Such was the talent of Olivia Saint.

      Chapter 1

      Things might have turned out very differently if the slimeball hadn’t punched me in the eye.

      The knee in the gut that followed hadn’t helped. No one appreciates getting dropped by a sucker punch.

      “That really wasn’t necessary,” said the smaller of the two, the one seemingly in charge, as I knelt on the wet sidewalk, gasping for air.

      The big one shrugged. “The guy was annoying me.” He leaned down until his face was about a foot above mine.“Sorry, bud. No hard feelings, huh?”

      He didn’t extend a hand to help me up, though. Barely able to breathe, I could only watch helplessly as they pushed Olivia into the back seat of their car, and the smaller one climbed in next to her.

      Olivia looked at me once before the door swung shut. Her eyes seemed vacant, her expression devoid of anything that spoke of the spark I knew was there. Since they’d begun talking to her in the club, she hadn’t spoken once, had given no indication that she even knew who I was when I’d followed them outside.

      “Wait,” I finally managed to force out. “Wait!”

      The big brute stopped as he was getting in the driver’s side and smiled over the roof of the car. “No can do, bud. Got a plane to catch.”

      As I struggled to my feet, the car did a quick U-turn and drove off down King Street. As they neared the corner of Bathurst, it stopped, and the back door on the driver’s side opened.

      The smaller man leaned out, holding the lambskin coat I’d bought for Olivia. “Hey, mac!” he shouted. “She says this is for you.”

      He dropped it to the pavement, and the car screeched around the corner into the night.

      I walked as quickly as I could to where the coat lay and bent to pick it up. A greasy smear now marked the back, where it had lain on the streetcar track.

      Shaking my head, I went back to the club, cold, wet, sore and very confused about what had just happened.

      About a month earlier, Olivia had been spinning around delightedly in front of a store’s full-length mirror, telling me how much she absolutely loved my gift, how she’d always wanted a coat like this.

      Just now, had she been trying to send me a signal?

      By the time I stumbled back into the Sal, my eye had begun to swell shut. Slipping into a chair next to Dom,who was carefully nursing his between-set beer, I signalled for Loraine, the waitress. I needed scotch, certainly a double.

      Dom raised an eyebrow. “What the hell did you run into?”

      “Olivia’s gone,” I said distractedly.

      My comment, though, instantly galvanized Ronald, who sat across the table from me.“You mean gone, as in she’s not doing the next set?”

      “I mean gone, as in I don’t think she’s ever going to be doing anything with us again.”

      Loraine came over and took my order with a raised eyebrow. I refused to elucidate until she returned and I’d downed half the scotch in one gulp. With the excitement over, the adrenaline had loosened its grip, leaving me feeling cold and decidedly shaky.

      “You look like shit, Andy,” Dom observed with an expression pretty well devoid of sympathy.

      “Tell me what happened,” Ronald ordered.

      I took another gulp and felt the booze drop warmly into my belly, then looked across at our problematic pianist.“You didn’t see those two guys talking to Olivia right after the set ended?”

      Dom answered, “I did.”

      Ronald’s response was typical. “I had some people I needed to talk to.”

      I held up my glass, signalling Loraine to bring another scotch. At that point, I didn’t care if I got a bit tight. In my increasingly wobbly state, I was more worried about staying on my drum stool.

      “Tell us what happened!” both my band-mates demanded in unison, causing me at least to smile.

      “I was talking to Olivia about trying out those new songs we’ve been rehearsing, when two guys appeared from nowhere. They butted right in and told me to get lost.”

      The change that had come over Olivia had been quite startling. One moment she was all bubbly, obviously very happy and excited about how the first set of the night had gone. The next it was as if someone had removed her batteries. She just went dead.

      When I didn’t move off, the bigger of the two guys pushed between Olivia and me.“Like my friend said, bud, we need to talk to the lady—alone.”

      I peered around his bulk at Olivia, but she just stared back with that blank expression. Against my better judgement, I moved off, but I did stay close to make sure they weren’t hassling her.

      They took Olivia to a back corner of the club, conversed quietly with her for a few minutes – the men actually doing all the talking – then accompanied her to the closet-sized space that serves as the Green Salamander’s dressing room.

      Reappearing immediately, with Olivia wearing her new coat, the party of three headed for the door. Naturally, I followed.

      They had their car waiting out by the curb, and when I asked what the hell was going on, I got bopped in the eye and kneed in the gut.

      Dom whistled after I finished my story, but Ronald looked angry.

      “You mean she’s just left us high and dry? Walked out? Well, that’s a bullshit thing to do after all we’ve done for her!”

      In

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