“No, no, that’s all right, Sam, I follow you. I follow you real good.” Onyx eyes blinking, the dark side of the moon. He swayed, caught himself. “Bet you think I’ve been playing for you, huh?
“You—Jack, Milo, Vince—you think I’ve been playing too, don’t you?” He turned back to Sam and smiled that sick, humorless smile. “Well, I got something for you. I haven’t been. Not really. Not back in that filthy backwater club where you found me, not hi the studio that time, not in Seattle. You want me to go out there and play—all right.”
Sam tried to calm the singer but Willie wouldn’t give him a chance.
“What’s the matter, Sam? It’s okay. That’s what you want, that’s what you get. Get yourself a good seat, Sam. A real good seat. One where you can hear well and see, too. Because I’m going to play, yes.” He subsided, mumbled to himself. “Tonight I’m going to play.”
He spun and walked toward the stage. The others had to hurry to make the entrance with him.
A tremendous ovation met them, a roar of expectancy as the four musicians appeared on stage. After the long wait the audience was keyed to fever pitch. Some of them had been hi the Aquarius that night in
200
Wolfstroker
Seattle and had come all the way down to L.A. for this night. They didn’t cheer or yell. They just waited. Uccelo had gone first, running past Willie. He snatched up his bass and hurriedly hummed out the opening warm-up theme • he’d composed. The crowd dropped its frenetic greeting and relaxed into a steady, familiar cheering and clapping, maybe a bit louder than that accorded the average new group.