Act of God

?”
    “That’s what I mean.”
    “I was on tour, man.”
    “Tour.”
    “Yeah. Me and some of my buddies from the old group were opening for this mega-band. Maybe you heard of it.” He named the band; I hadn’t. “Anyways, we went all around the northeast, playing tight and getting raves, man, raves. But their drummer, he like OD’ed one night doing a college gig up here, and the manager stiffed us on the bread, like it was our fault their drummer couldn’t balance his shit. My buddies kind of freaked, but I’d saved my money and stayed on up here when they went back to Maryland .”
    Murl-lind. “They leave you their equipment?”
    “Huh?”
    I inclined my head toward the heap of bagged shapes. “The instruments?”
    “Oh, not. Those are for my new group, man. Bass, drum kit, and keyboard. I’m lead.”
    “Lead guitar.”
    “And vocals.”
    I looked at the heap again. “Seems like a lot of cases for just instruments.”
    “It’s not just the instruments, man. We got to bring our own amps and effects rack and all when we play a club. House just provides monitors and mikes.”
    “Monitors?”
    “Like the speakers, you know?”
    “You play a lot around here, Teagle?”
    He got cagey. “We do awright. What’s this got to do with Darbra?”
    “Never know till I ask. And you answer.”
    Teagle worked his jaw. “I did answer, man. You asked me if we play a lot, and I said we do awright.”
    “How’d you spend this past weekend?”
    “Spend it? I went out Friday night.”
    “Where?”
    “No place in particular. We could of had a gig Friday night, but we turned it down.”
    “Why?”
    “Aw, it was at this queer place.”
    “A gay bar, you mean?”
    “Yeah, only they try to pass it off like it ain’t. It’s mostly married guys from the ‘burbs come into it, buying the hustlers drinks like they were big brothers to them, counseling them instead of feeling them up. It’s disgusting, you ask me. That’s why we call it the ‘Fag Dad Cafe.’ Got the nickname from that weird movie like a couple of years ago about the diner in the desert.”
    “ Baghdad Café?”
    “Yeah.”
    “They also made a television series from it.”
    “You say so. I don’t watch TV.”
    I looked over at the nineteen-incher. “What’s that?”
    “Oh, I just like use it for tapes, maybe check out what the hot groups are doing for videos.”
    Teagle smirked at me for no apparent reason.
    I said, “And Saturday?”
    “Huh?”
    “What’d you do this past Saturday.”
    “Oh, we had a gig at this place in Kenmore .”
    “ Kenmore Square ?”
    “Right. We were boss, man.”
    “You see Darbra when she got back from her trip?” Teagle stopped. If my jumping around threw him, he wasn’t making much effort to cover it. “No. Like I said, I was out.”
    “So you don’t know if she did get back?”
    “Huh?”
    “She left a week ago Saturday, and supposedly came back this past Saturday. You didn’t see her, you don’t know if she’s back or not.”
    Teagle worked his jaw again. “Sure I do, man.”
    “She called you?”
    A pause. “No. No, she like left me a note.”
    “A note.”
    “Yeah. Under my door here.”
    “What’d it say?”
    Another pause. “Not much. Just like, ‘I’m back, call me. Darb,’ you know?”
    “Can I see it?”
    “See what, man?”
    “The note.”
    “Oh, man, I didn’t like keep it. What for?”
    “You threw it away?”
    “Yeah, sure.”
    “Would it still be in your trash?”
    “My trash?”
    “Yes.” I looked to the messy kitchen. “Doesn’t seem like you’ve taken out the garbage for a while.”
    Teagle was clearly trying to think his way through something. “I, like, I didn’t throw it away here.”
    “You didn’t.”
    “No, man. I took it with me upstairs, and knocked on her door, then pitched it outside when she didn’t answer.”
    “Pitched it where?”
    “In the street, man. You gonna get me for littering?”
    He tried, but like one of Traci Wickmire’s lines, the light tone just didn’t quite come off.
    “When did Darbra leave you the message?”
    “I don’t know, man. She didn’t like time-stamp it or anything.”
    “When did you notice it?”
    Again he seemed to be thinking something through. “After I got up.”
    “Which day?”
    “Saturday, man. I was a little hung from Friday.”
    “Hung over.”
    “Right, right. So I didn’t get up till like maybe two in the afternoon, and there it was.”
    “Could it have been there when