Spree by Max Allan Collins Read Free Book Online Page A

before. Kept it to myself.”
    “You don’t like the Boss ?”
    “Never have. New Jersey and cars and off-pitch singing. Who needs it? I know it’s like hating motherhood and apple pie, but there it is.”
    “Goddamn,” she said. “Even your musical taste is bad.”
    “Sorry you feel that way,” he said. “You’re my favorite female singer.”
    “Shut up, Jon,” she said. Sad.
    The floor beneath their feet pulsed with Springsteen.
    “Tell me about the gig,” he said.
    She shrugged. “You weren’t so far wrong. It does have to do with Prince.”
    “You’re shitting me.”
    Another shrug. “It’s his management company. They heard our record. They like my singing. They came looking for me, tracked me down.”
    “ I didn’t see any short black guys in purple capes hanging around.”
    “Jon, short jokes don’t become you.”
    “Hey, Prince is all right with me. I like anybody I can look down to. So. It’s the big time.”
    She smiled, nervously. “I don’t know about that. They’re putting me with a band. We’ll be doing some traveling. It’s kind of like playing the minors when they’re grooming you for the majors. Maybe something will come of it.”
    He patted her knee. “I’m sure something will. Why were you mad at me, when I came in? Why didn’t you tell me, instead of just starting to pack?”
    “You know how I’ve felt about the new band . . .”
    “Sure. I’ve heard the ‘you’re holding me back, Jon’ speech a few hundred times. But I still don’t understand why you were mad at me. I’m the one who should be pissed; I’m the one getting walked out on.”
    “But you’re the one who caused it! Jon, you betrayed me.”
    “Betrayed . . .”
    She shook her head; the spiky dark hair shimmered. “Ah, hell, that’s too strong a word, but we were supposed to be in this together . It’s your fault we got stalled in Des Moines. It’s your fault a comic book seduced you away from me and music, and your fault that I have to take off without you. Shit, if I thought you wanted it, I would’ve fought to take you with me . . .”
    “They didn’t want me, did they?”
    She swallowed. “Jon, I figured you wouldn’t want to come along, anyway. You couldn’t do it without giving up your comic book, and . . .”
    “You’re right. I like doing what I’m doing. Besides, I know it’s you they want. Just you. And I don’t blame ’em. I read the reviews of the album. As a performer/songwriter, I make a great cartoonist.”
    “I . . .  I handled this all wrong.”
    “There’s no easy way. This place won’t seem the same without you.”
    “Jon, uh—you forget. This is my apartment.”
    “Yeah?”
    “And I rented it from Rick, downstairs, right?” Rick was who Toni worked for in the record store, the manager, the owner of the building.
    “Right.”
    “And you remember when you and Rick got in that argument?”
    “You mean, when we got drunk that time and I told him he liked funk because of ‘liberal guilt’ and he belted me and I belted him back and chipped his tooth? Yeah. I remember that.”
    “Good. Then you’ll understand when I tell you that when I told Rick I was leaving, he refused to turn the lease over to you.”
    “What?”
    “He really hates you.”
    “You could’ve sublet to me!”
    “I didn’t think of that.”
    “Great. How long do I have to get out?”
    “Monday.”
    “What Monday?”
    She winced. “Tomorrow.”
    “You mean, you’re evicting me? You’re fucking evicting me?”
    “Well . . . Rick is.”
    “Jesus! When . . . how . . .”
    “Prince’s people called me Friday. I talked to Rick yesterday afternoon.”
    He stood; started to pace, the Boss pulsing beneath his feet; he wished he were walking on Rick’s face—he wished he were walking on Springsteen’s face, for that matter.
    “I leave for two days,” he said, ranting, raving, “and come back, and my life’s shot to shit!”
    Toni seemed genuinely concerned, now.