Read Online Armageddon Rag by George R.R. Martin - Free Book Online Page B

John’s big knuckles were white where he held his glass. “And then there were the drugs,” he added.
    “Lynch provided drugs for all his groups,” Sandy said. “He had connections, everyone knew it. So?”
    “So. Yeah. So. You don’t get it. Drugs were just like another way of
controlling
us, you see. Oh, hell, I was real fond of hash, still am, and a little recreational trip every now and again never hurt nobody. That’s cool. I could handle it. And Peter never touched the stuff. Not even grass. He was like that. Hobbins and Maggio, though, they had problems. By the time of West Mesa, Hobbit couldn’t even go on without a mess of pills and a slug of whiskey, and Rick was shooting up regular. It hurt his music, too. You don’t know how many times we had to redo some of those tracks on
Napalm
and
Wake the Dead
to get Maggio’s guitar sounding right.”
    “And you blame Jamie Lynch for this?”
    “Hell, Jamie gave old Rick his first needle. As a Christmas present, would you believe it? All wrapped up with a white ribbon. It drove Peter right up the goddamned wall, let me tell you. Lynch didn’t care. Giving us free drugs gave him more control. He was a real moderate user himself. Jamie Lynch was a power junkie.”
    “Sounds nasty,” Sandy said.
    “Yeah, it was nasty all right. That wasn’t the only thing, either. Rick liked the groupies too, especially when he was wired on one thing or another, or after a set. We wouldn’t be backstage for ten minutes before he’d have his pants down and some girl sucking him off. Well, there was this one night, after a concert in Pittsburgh, and Maggio was getting it on with these twins, and all of a sudden Jamie comes barging in with a Polaroid and starts snapping away. Faxon was gone, Hobbit and I were wasted, so nobody did nothing. We all thought it was a big laugh. Maggio giggled and mugged for the camera.” John Slozewski’s scowl was so deep it looked like it was carved into his face. “Turns out those twins were under age. They were
fourteen
! They didn’t look it, I tell you that, but they were, and Jamie knew it. Well, we never saw those pictures, but Jamie joked about them all the time. Just kidding around, you know, about how we better do like he said or he’d sell them somewhere, heh-heh-heh, and we all laughed. Maggio laughed harder than anybody. Only I could look at his face, and he was sweating every fucking time, no matter how hard he laughed.
He
knew Jamie wasn’t joking. The fucker meant it.”
    “Why all the sweat?” Sandy asked. “He wouldn’t have been the first rock star to get caught in bed with jailbait. Half the groupies on the circuit were under age.”
    “Yeah, maybe. You don’t know Rick, though. He was just a skinny Catholic kid from the Southside of Philly. An
ugly
skinny Catholic kid. He never could handle it. He’d try any drug Jamie got him, and fuck anything with two legs that was willing to spread ’em, but all the time he was sort of
nervous
about it. Like any minute some
nun
was going to come along and hit him with a fucking ruler. Those pictures bothered him plenty. Peter took care of it, though.”
    “Faxon?”
    Slozewski nodded. “One night he got Jamie drinking, and managed to convince him that he wanted to ogle the pictures a little, you know, and somehow he got Jamie to take ’em out and pass ’em around. And then Peter just took ’em away and ripped ’em into little pieces, right in front of Lynch. It didn’t make much difference. Lynch had lots of handles on us.” Slozewski finished his drink and set it aside. “Hey,” he said, “you aren’t going to
print
this, are you?”
    “Don’t you want the world to know the truth about Jamie Lynch?”
    “Oh, come
on
!” Slozewski protested. “Can’t we keep this off the record? I don’t give a flying fuck what the world knows about Lynch, but Maggio’s got enough problems. I don’t care much for him, maybe, but that don’t mean I want to mess him up