Page 290 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

The money was not much, bu

t they were touring America: they would have done it for nothing.

And there were the girls.

Buzz, the bass player, often had several fans in his hotel bedroom during the course of a single day and night. Lew was enthusiastically exploring the queer scene--though Americans preferred the word gay to queer. Walli remained faithful to Karolin, but even he was happy, living his dream of being a pop star.

Dave did not much like sex with groupies, but there were several terrific girls on the tour. He made a play for blond Joleen Johnson from the Tamettes, who turned him down, explaining that she had been happily married since she was thirteen. Then he tried Little Lulu Small, who was flirty but would not go to his room. Finally one evening he got talking to Mandy Love from the Love Factory, a black girl group from Chicago. She had big brown eyes and a wide mouth and smooth midbrown skin that felt like silk under Dave's fingertips. She introduced him to marijuana, which he liked better than beer. They spent every hotel night together after Indianapolis, though they had to be discreet: interracial sex was a crime in some states.

The bus rolled into Washington, DC, on a Wednesday morning. Dave had an appointment for lunch with Grandfather Peshkov. This had been arranged by his mother, Daisy.

He dressed for the engagement like the pop star he was: a red shirt, blue hipster trousers, a gray tweed jacket with a red overcheck, and narrow-toed boots with a Cuban heel. He got a cab from the cheap hotel where the groups were staying to the swankier place where his grandfather had a suite.

Dave was intrigued. He had heard so many bad things about this old man. If the family legends were true, Lev had killed a policeman in St. Petersburg, then fled Russia leaving a pregnant girlfriend behind. In Buffalo he made his boss's daughter pregnant, married her, and inherited a fortune. He had been suspected of murdering his father-in-law, but never charged. During Prohibition he had been a bootlegger. While married to Daisy's mother he had had numerous mistresses, including the movie star Gladys Angelus. It went on and on.

Waiting in the hotel lobby, Dave wondered what Lev looked like. They had never met. Apparently Lev had visited London once, for Daisy's wedding to her first husband, Boy Fitzherbert; but he had never returned.

Daisy and Lloyd came to the USA about every five years, mainly to see her mother, Olga, now in a retirement home in Buffalo. Dave knew that Daisy did not have much love for her father. Lev had been absent most of Daisy's childhood. He had had a second family in the same city--a mistress, Marga, and an illegitimate son, Greg--and apparently he had always preferred them to Daisy and her mother.

Across the lobby Dave saw a man in his early seventies dressed in a silver-gray suit with a red-and-white striped tie. He recalled his mother saying that her father had always been a dandy. Dave smiled and said: "Are you Grandfather Peshkov?"

They shook hands, and Lev said: "Don't you have a tie?"

Dave got this sort of thing all the time. For some reason the older generation felt they had the right to be rude about young people's clothes. Dave had a number of stock replies, ranging from charming to hostile. Now he said: "When you were a teenager in St. Petersburg, Grandfather, what did cool kids like you wear?"

Lev's stern expression broke into a grin. "I had a jacket with mother-of-pearl buttons, a waistcoat and a brass watch chain, and a velvet cap. And my hair was long and parted in the middle, just like yours."

"So we're alike," Dave said. "Except that I've never killed anyone."

Lev was startled for a moment, then he laughed. "You're a smart kid," he said. "You've inherited my brains."

A woman in a chic blue coat and hat came to Lev's side, walking like a fashion model although she had to be near Lev's age. Lev said: "This is Marga. She ain't your grandma."

The mistress, Dave thought. "You're obviously too young to be anyone's grandmother," he said with a smile. "What should I call you?"

"You are a charmer!" she replied. "You can call me Marga. I used to be a singer, too, you know, though I never had your kind of success." She looked nostalgic. "In those days I ate handsome boys like you for breakfast."

Girl singers haven't changed, Dave thought, remembering Mickie McFee.

They went into the restaurant. Marga asked a lot of questions about Daisy, Lloyd, and Evie. They were excited to hear about Evie's acting career, especially as Lev owned a Hollywood studio. But Lev was most interested in Dave and his business. "They say you're a millionaire, Dave," he said.

"They lie," said Dave. "We're selling a lot of records, but there's not as much money in it as people imagine. We get about a penny a record. So if we sell a million copies, we earn enough maybe for each of us to buy a small car."

"Someone's robbing you," said Lev.

"I wouldn't be surprised," Dave said. "But I don't know what to do about it. I fired our first manager, and this one is much better, but I still can't afford to buy a house."

"I'm in the movie business, and sometimes we sell records of our soundtrack music, so I've seen how music people work. You want some advice?"

"Yes, please."

"Set up your own record company."

Dave was intrigued. He had been thinking along the same lines, but it seemed like a fantasy. "Do you think that's possible?"

"You can rent a recording studio, I guess, for a day or two, or however long it takes."

"We can record the music, and I suppose we can get a factory to make the discs, but I'm not so sure about selling them. I wouldn't want to spend time managing a team of sales representatives, even if I knew how."

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