Passing Through the Flame by Norman Spinrad Read Free Book Online

between their eagle’s nest and the sea. Stood there smoking joints, not so much looking as listening: sifting the night sounds of dog barkings, crickets, night-bird calls, for that ghost of a sound that now drummed against his ears.
    Soon the sound of Susan’s car was plainly audible. She would soon come down from fourth through third into second to make the sharp right into their private drive. How many times have I listened to the song of Susan’s car returning in the witching hours? Horvath thought bitterly. Enough, maybe, to make a song out of it....
    Melody following the pattern of the gear changes, guitar whining through the tone changes of the engine in each gear, building the volume, adding a second guitar as the car comes up the hill, then a crescendo and a whole different final third of the cut as she arrives, wailing organ, slower tempo, pain counterpoint to triumphal entrance chords.... Call it “Song of Susan’s Pain Returning.”
    Jango’d suck it up, he thought sardonically. Another piece of the pain becoming another piece of the legend.
    Yeeow, rap! Yeeow, rap!D own through the gears she went, and now he could hear the howl of the engine as she roared up the long driveway. She always sprinted the last stretch home up the curving hill road. Did she know that he waited for her out here on the deck sifting the night sounds like a bat, so that 1,000 rpm one way or the other was a message to his love or a massage to his fear of finally losing her? They never talked about that, but then there were a lot of things that never became words between them. One thing was sure: if she knew what the sound of the engine taking the hill at high rpm meant to him, she’d take it to the ragged edge just to produce that chord. That was Susan.
    But maybe it was also Star.
    Susan had left the house with him tonight for Duke’s party. They didn’t go to many parties anymore, but this was a small private thing, a few old friends, good dope, good food, and a little swimming at a very private beach house, fenced off from groupies and hangers-on. A party where they could be just Bill and Susan.
    But still, when the time came, they went to the party in the twin Porsches, another piece of the legend.
    Jango had laid the cars on them, two Porsche Targas: his midnight-black with silver pinstriping, hers done in a metallic rainbow sheen, both with the same red velvet upholstery. And immediately, there were items on them in Rolling Stone , eighty million bubblegum fan magazines, Life , even Road and Track. The two Porsches were a message—from Jango to them, from Star and the Velvet Cloud to the world. And the message was: Star rode on her own wheels, she was a free creature, open to destiny, love to the world.
    But she dressed like Susan in a simple embroidered peasant dress. Did that really matter? The shoulder-length black hair subtly tinted with red dye, the potentially chubby body that Horvath sweet-talked and Jango browbeat her into maintaining within five pounds of perfection, the way she moved, the soft throaty voice with the edge of a powerful musical instrument inside it—that was Star, and it would’ve been Star in a potato sack.
    Her face was where Susan melted into Star melted into Susan. To the world, her bright-green eyes were Star’s jewels of light; Horvath saw Susan’s pain in their depths. To the world, the wan smile that hovered perpetually on her lips was a Buddha sign of Star’s love for the world; Horvath saw Susan’s fear of the thing that was devouring her by inches.
    “Our night tonight, babes,” she whispered in his ear, squeezing his hand as they walked up the steps to the beach house. He hoped, but he wondered.
    Inside, Duke and Marlene, Tanya, Tim Gray and two of his backup men, Joe Dugan and his latest old lady, three guys from Fog, and four high-class groupies were lying around on pillows on the big Persian rug in the center of Duke’s living room. They were smoking grass in four big brass