Read Online Painted Black by Greg Kihn - Free Book Online Page B

words came. Clovis blunt statement caught him by surprise. After all, Acid King was welcome everywhere he went, wasn’t he? Clovis paused a moment to let his words sink it. Then he punctuated the statement with one more remark.
    â€œNow!”
    They looked to Bobby for sympathy. “Are you gonna let him treat us like that?”
    Bobby said, “You heard the man.”
    Leon took his briefcase, and Skully took a brown leather shoulder bag. Bobby didn’t see them come in and didn’t know whom the shoulder bag belonged to. He said nothing, though, and watched them leave.
    Thirty minutes later, Brian sat at the kitchen table and sipped a cup of tea. Bobby made some buttered toast with strawberry jam that smelled so heavenly they all gulped it down like starving men.
    â€œDid you know those two before last night?”
    â€œSkully works for Jimi,” Brian said. “At least that’s what he told me.”
    â€œHold on a second, pardner.”
    Clovis held out a hand making the universal stop sign.
    â€œI haven’t seen that guy around and I just worked with Jimi at Olympic. I know most of Jimi’s roadies. There’s Neville Chesters, who shares an apartment with Noel Redding; a long-haired kid named Lemmy who’s always crashing there; and Tappy Wright, who was hired by the management team.”
    Brian shrugged. “Are you saying Skully lied?”
    â€œWell, he sure ain’t tellin’ the truth,” Clovis said. “I just a got a funny feelin’. I’m gonna call Noel Redding.”
    â€œOf course,” Bobby said, “Jimi’s bass player ought to know.”
    Clovis looked in his address book and called the bushy-haired bassist for the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
    â€œNoel? How are ya, pardner?”
    â€œClovis?”
    â€œOf course it’s Clovis. Who else you know talks like this? Hey, I’m checking somebody out and they claimed they worked for you.”
    Noel listened.
    â€œA guy named Skully and another guy named Acid King Leon? I don’t know if Skully is the first name or last.”
    On the other end of the line, Noel tapped the mouthpiece rhythmically as he thought. His sense of humor was as dry as Vermouth. He delivered his punch lines like Noel Coward with a martini glass and a smoldering joint in a cigarette holder.
    â€œDid you say Acid King Leon? Jimi has several freaks who follow him around and give him acid. We’ve got an Acid Queen Marcy; we’ve got a Captain Trips; we got Tony Baloney, the King of Pepperoni; and Rasheesh, the Sheik of Hashish. Jimi draws royalty wherever he goes. No Acid King Leon that I can remember, though. I’m not really part of that scene. Acid is not really my thing.”
    â€œHow about Skully?”
    â€œFirst name or last?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œDoesn’t ring a bell.”
    â€œNo Skully? You’re sure of that?”
    â€œHold on a sec.”
    Noel cupped the phone and shouted into another room. Bobby could hear it.
    â€œYou ever heard of a roadie named Skully?”
    A moment later, Noel was back on the line.
    â€œNo Skully … Although there was a guy named Skull working for The Pretty Things briefly a couple of years ago.”
    â€œCould it be the same guy?”
    â€œI doubt it. Somebody told me that other guy was a junky, and we never hire junkies.”
    â€œThanks, bro.” Clovis signed off.
    Clovis looked at Brian and Bobby.
    â€œNoel says he never heard of either one of them.”
    When Bobby returned to his apartment, he was beginning to feel human again. The LSD had taken over a day and a half to wear off, and he still had occasional flashes of wild disorientation. He bought a newspaper on the way and read about the airline strike. There was no resolution in sight, according to the Times . He’d been waiting for a chance to collect his thoughts and call Cricket. It was nine o’clock at night in London,