He couldn’t blame them. They were top performers all, maybe the best three unattached musicians in L.A. just now. He’d spent all night begging, pleading, offering his unmarketable soul again, to get them to cancel their other plans and show up here. No, he didn’t blame them for being impatient. These guys were good, damn good, and Sam knew he couldn’t expect them to hang around much longer. The next time he asked for a little more time they would laugh at him.
Meanwhile every half hour in the studio was costing him money, lots of money. Money he didn’t have. The
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WITH FRIENDS LIKE THESE …
only thing that was doing well was his ulcer. He’d been a fool not to drag his discovery home with him, keep him in sight. Damnfool crazy drunken kid! Might have done anything. Might’ve hopped a plane to anywhere, or more likely a freight.
Every five minutes he’d phoned Whitehorse’s apartment, then every ten. The last call had been forty-five minutes ago. If he was still there he wasn’t asleep, he was catatonic. Or dead. Sam’s hopes and visions were dying just as fast.
Drivin’ Jack Cavanack stopped clicking stick on stick and looked up from behind his drums.
“Hey, man, this hotshot of yours better show up real quicklike, or I’m splitting. I got a gig in Seattle tonight and I do not, positively do not, feel like gettin’ in there in the dark and cold. Comprende?”
Uccelo plunked his bass for the thousandth time and didn’t look up at Parker. “Right on.” Vincente Rivera honked a few funky free notes on his harmonica, gazed sympathetically at the harried agent.