High Strung Read online

  “We may be disgusting, but you gonna be dead,” Stink Boy spat back, all the while gradually back-peddling. “And leave our mamas out of it, pansy man.”

  Cafton’s small, Russian-made pistol felt snug in his hand. Reassuringly heavy, about the weight of a can of English peas. Solid. Capable. Cafton had been to the shooting range with this pistol many times over the years. He liked to be as confident in himself as he was in his weapon. Today, he was coming from his monthly range appointment, so he happened to be packing.

  The pistol was as familiar in his hand as his billfold. It was small enough to easily conceal, even though it was a 7.65mm and held a magazine with six rounds, and one for good luck in the chamber. The pistol had fast action. The trigger pull was adjusted to Cafton’s particular liking.

  He never wanted or specifically intended to use the pistol, and had never had to, yet. However, he knew he would not hesitate to do so should the need arise. Him versus a group of thugs constituted extenuating circumstances. Stink Boy and his cohorts didn’t grasp Cafton was a composed, precise, and lethal shooter.

  Cafton had reluctantly decided to arm himself years ago at the insistence of Marty Schwartz, his longtime friend (the fourth friend, if you’re counting) and the publisher of the morning newspaper. He also chose this particular handgun with the guidance of that friend, who packed the same pistol. Marty based his thoroughly researched, informed decision to carry this model mostly on the pistol’s ease of concealment and accuracy, but its history was a strong attraction, as well. He was a sucker for a good back story.

  “Caf, this is the model pistol Hitler used to blow his own brains out when he was too cowardly to face the inevitable punishment for his unthinkable atrocities against innocent victims,” Marty urged.

  “I like it already,” gleamed Cafton. “Commendable history.”

  “Even better,” Marty continued, “This model is also used by Ian Fleming’s James Bond as he conquers evil geniuses and even more evil henchmen. You just can’t get any cooler and more functional than that.”

  “Sold!” Cafton grinned. He trusted Marty’s judgment on many things, self-preservation being one of them, research being two of them.

  Besides his trust of Marty, Cafton had his own set of criteria any firearm must meet for him. The comfort factor was utmost, because if he ever needed to use the pistol, he didn’t want to be hamstrung by any extraneous distractions. This one was small enough to fit nicely in his diminutive hand, giving him a high comfort level.

  A formidable Dirty Harry cowboy gun was too heavy, too big, too unwieldy, and much more difficult to handle. “I look more like Yosemite Sam than Clint Eastwood with this one,” he told Marty as they laughed in the gun shop, trying pistols on for size. The elegance of this smaller, sleek pistol with a big punch was ideal.

  Now, in a standoff with four young brutes, it was gut-check time. Cafton quickly calculated he had seven opportunities to alter their lives forever, should he choose to do so. From this close range, a series of rapid, single shots on each mark could do some very severe damage to the self-proclaimed ass-whipper and his federation of flunkies before they could escape. Good to know, just in case.

  “Leave. Leave right now, or be carried out on stretchers. Your call,” Cafton ordered them in a low monotone. His eyes were riveted on the kid he had jerked down by the collar, who was closest to him and posed the greatest threat. He flashed the Jack Nicholson “I’m-just-crazy-enough-to-shoot-you” glower at the ringleader. In his heart of hearts, he didn’t want to pull the trigger; he wanted to be safe, get the kitten to safety, and to just scare the ever-loving beejeebers out of the hooligans so maybe they wouldn’t do this kind of thing ever again.

  He was confident they would all understand the street language of guns. No translation necessary. Guns were, unfortunately, part of their world. They were all probably each packing enough firepower under their dingy T-shirts to stop Sherman’s march through Georgia, but they couldn’t get to it while under Cafton’s steely gaze.

  Cafton’s emotionless expression and the audacity of his opening gambit caused Stink Boy to decide Cafton might have a screw loose and was seriously dangerous. Not courageous, or smart, or macho, but dangerous like an alligator stuck in a fisherman’s net. Unpredictable. Besides, what’s more dangerous, a little man who has a gun and knows how to use it, or a little man who has a gun and doesn’t know how to use it? Either way, this little man was a dangerous dude. Stink Boy wheeled around, watching Cafton over his shoulder the whole time, giving his gang implied permission to flee. They flushed like a flock of quail, all elbows and asses hopping and tiptoeing through the glass, scattering in all different directions. “Crazy faggot,” Stink Boy howled over his shoulder when he was sure he was out of pistol range.

  Although Cafton detested violence due to his volatile childhood, he had started carrying that same pistol on him all the time just a couple of days ago at Marty’s insistence after he’d told him about the dozen or so threatening anonymous phone calls. His private phone number was unpublished, as was the café’s. Only hand-picked people were privy to this number. He was baffled someone who knew his private number was trying to terrorize him. He never knew when the caller would ring him up and make a quick, hushed threat. The phone would ring, Cafton would pick it up, and before he could say hello, a muffled voice would make a threat or say something hateful, and then the line would go dead. “How rude,” Cafton always responded before hanging up.

  What had Cafton gleaned from the calls? Not much that would be of use to the authorities. The caller didn’t like Cafton. He intended to snuff Cafton out. He sounded like he was faking a Boston accent with a hankie over the phone mouthpiece. The most worrisome part was he called Cafton by name. “Stop playing God, Cafton.” Or “What goes around, comes around, Merriepennie.” Or, “Get your will updated, Cafton.”

  Cafton thought about calling the phone company and having his number changed, but so many of his friends and business customers had the number, it would totally muck stuff up. Besides, except for this nut job, he thought it was still private and unpublished.

  But right then, he had a kitten to save. He secured his trusty pistol in the holster and headed for the kitten, who had watched the standoff from its protected situation underneath the car, crouched behind a rear tire. The gritty, sizzling asphalt filth oozed through the knee of Cafton’s well-broken-in khakis as he knelt down. When he extended his hand around the tire, the kitten immediately scrambled into his palm like he knew him.

  “Chum’ere, darlin’.” Cafton snuggled and murmured sweet nothings to the greasy, grimy kitten under his chin as he carefully made his way back to his car through the glass shrapnel. The petite piece of fluff and tiny bones weighed about the same as a deck of cards. Its teeny ribs showed like tiny rake tines through a patchy covering of sparse beige-and-black fur. The kitten started purring and kneading its minuscule razor-sharp, black-tarred claws into Cafton’s tender neck, but he held him there regardless.

  “Well, you’ve got a fine roar-buzzer, and you already know how to make biscuits,” Cafton complimented the kitten. “If you hit my jugular, it’ll just be a pinprick, won’t it? I think I’ll live, so if that makes you happy, have at it, little one!” The kitten clung to Cafton’s neck and shirt collar the whole way home.

  First things first. This baby needed to eat and to be hydrated. Animals equate food with love, with trust, with safety. “Let’s find you something luscious. I think you deserve it after all you’ve been through today, don’t you? I haven’t had a kitten since I was a kid, but I remember that kitties are lactose intolerant. Join the club. No milk for either one of us!” Cafton poked around the fridge for something besides milk that would be irresistible to the tiny mite. “I’m a vegetarian and you’re a carnivore. You need stuff I don’t even eat, but our customers do. Let’s see what we can find until I can get to the store and get you some kitten food. A nice Greek salad? No? How about some leftover pot roast and gravy?”


  Cafton pulled a pinch of juicy pot roast off and spooned a dollop of gelatinous gravy in a saucer. The kitten tore into it, lapping up all of the gravy first, then gnawing the tender, beefy strings, making the best use of its tiny, spike-like teeth. “You look like a furry piranha with a mouthful of needle toofers,” Cafton told him. The kitten’s prickly tongue eagerly lapped up more semi-congealed gravy off Cafton’s fingertips.

  Cafton gently turned the kitten around to face the wall so he could inspect its undercarriage. “Hmm. I think you’re a boy. It’s difficult to tell for sure at your age, but I think you have a couple of little BBs.”

  “What shall I name you?” Cafton turned the kitten around to face him. “Dagwood. Yes, I’ll call you Dagwood, because you have a copious appetite and the wild fur coming out of your ears makes you look like Dagwood Bumstead.”

  Fat, happy, and now drowsy after a good meal, Dagwood was immediately at home and part of the family. After a catnap in Cafton’s lap, Dagwood had a gentle bath in the kitchen sink, revealing he was not beige and black at all—he was stark black and snow white! Even better!

  Now, years later they were inseparable.

  At the hotel, Dagwood had already scoped out their temporary digs, seemed sufficiently pleased, and nestled comfortably on top of the king-size bed’s pillow. Meanwhile, Cafton showered to remove the smut and smell of the fire from his body and hair. He slid into his emergency sweats from his gym bag. He was much calmer now. Order was taking hold.

  Cafton set out a plan while he showered. Having a plan in place always steadied him. Having a plan and talking to Bynum.

  After his rejuvenating shower, Cafton wiped the hotel room phone receiver with a hot soapy washcloth and dried it. As he dialed nine for an outside number, he looked at Bynum’s tour itinerary, pulled from his briefcase, for Bynum’s hotel and room number. Bynum was already in New Orleans preparing to kick off his tour tonight. He and his wife had arrived a couple of days ago ahead of the tour bus, to rest and enjoy the calm before the storm of the long haul of the tour.

  Bynum’s opening act, Jump Steady, and the equipment trucks had probably just arrived. They would spend all day today inspecting the setup of the venue, running through the light show, scrutinizing and setting up the swag and merchandise, going through sound check, and rehearsing until late afternoon. It was opening night, so anything and everything could, and probably would, go wrong.

  While the call to Bynum connected, Cafton took his pocket watch from the dresser, pressed the springy button to pop open the etched gold cover, and checked the time. It was a smidgeon past three a.m. “Crescent City Imperial. How may I help you?”

  “Room 306, please.”

  “One minute,” yawned a bored, groggy switchboard operator, plugging in the connection with the clacking of PBX cords. Cafton suspected he had awakened the operator.

  Cafton’s stomach was in knots. Could be from stress or because he hadn’t eaten since supper, or both. Supper was just a scoop of tabouli salad with a side of pesto hummus and crispy pita bread. Light and with protein, but it didn’t stick to his ribs like a big bowl of mac and cheese from his favorite meat and three—or veggie and three, as he called it.

  He usually had a small pre-bedtime snack to quell acid build-up overnight, but he had fallen asleep in his overstuffed chair and gone straight to bed when he woke up hours later. Then, he couldn’t go back to sleep. When he went to the kitchen to get a snack, he realized he was out of sodas. He went to the store to get some and came home to his new reality. And now he was in a hotel room instead of his home. You just never know what a day will bring.

  It was too late, or too early, for room service at the hotel, but he wasn’t about to go out again tonight. He decided to hit up the vending machines for some snacks after he talked with Bynum.

  Cafton gently snapped closed the watch cover and lightly rubbed his thumb over the ornately engraved case as he had done for most of his life when he was stressed. The pocket watch was his adult-appropriate pacifier. It calmed him and helped him zone into a sort of zen place. Plus, it kept good time. To Cafton, these two pocket watch functions were equally important.

  Like his grandpa, Tant Merriepennie, who had bequeathed this pocket watch to him, Cafton was a watch stopper. He came from a long line of watch stoppers and SLIders. This family heirloom, his grandfather’s cherished, 14k gold, vintage French pocket watch, was not a fashion statement but a necessity. People who did not know Cafton well might have thought his pocket watch an affectation, accentuating his eccentricity. Nothing was farther from the truth. Any eccentricities Cafton may have had were more often than not practicalities, managed in a creative style. He had tried wearing battery-powered watches, but they always went haywire or just simply stopped dead on his wrist. He had no desire to wear a deceased electronic bracelet.

  Along with Cafton’s plethora of other quirkiness, he had a very peculiar bio-electromagnetic system. Either Cafton had a weird effect on electronics or they had a weird effect on him, but either way, he was an involuntary serial killer of previously healthy electronic devices. He had been branded a SLIder (Street Light Interference something-or-another) by a fellow who had the same malady. Like other SLIders, Cafton noticed street lights often went dark as he passed by and regained their light after he was gone. He also frequently blew household light bulbs by simply turning the lamp on. Before he was labeled as a SLIder, he attributed the annoying outages to coincidental timing, but after a while, it seemed to be clear he was somehow an instigator.

  Anything with a circuit board or that was battery operated was in peril around Cafton. His affliction was notorious among the places he frequented. The staff at his record label wouldn’t let him anywhere near the copy machine, answering machine, or fax machine. When he was in rooms with fluorescent lights, they often went berserk, dimming and buzzing, but self-correcting once Cafton left the area.

  Dangcat had even banned him from the sound room during sessions, because the board meters went haywire, and strange, stray buzzing and clicks showed up on the recordings when he was present.

  Cafton laid the trusty pocket watch on the night table when Bynum’s New Orleans hotel phone connected to his room.

  The phone rang several times before an exhausted Bynum picked it up, smushed it between his face and pillow, and mumbled something akin to, “Yeah? What’s up?” The phone mouthpiece up against his mouth made him sound like he had been gagged. Cafton had obviously awakened him. New Orleans is in the same time zone as Nashville, so it made sense he was asleep, since there had not been a show earlier. But this was important. He would want to know.

  “By, sorry to wake you, buddy, but something weird happened here, and I need you to know about it.” Cafton was quiet and calm. His default response to emergencies was uber-calm. Growing up in a home filled with impulsive violence and unpredictability at the hands of his alcoholic father, he quickly mastered the art of tamping down any emotions that got in the way of self-preservation.

  Bynum didn’t immediately respond. Cafton was comfortable with the five-second Bynum delay. People who didn’t know him well sometimes initially thought Bynum was, as we say in the South, “a little slow” or “special,” but they could not have been more wrong. Rather, he had sort of a natural Dolby brain that processed, filtered, and then output a perfect response. Besides being a critical listener, and a complex thinker, tonight Bynum needed a few seconds to pull out of his dog-tired sleep coma.

  “No worries, Caf. What’s up?” Bynum said, rising to full consciousness.

  Cafton continued, “I don’t think it will affect you, but I just like to keep you on top of things.” He was not sure if he called him to keep him on top of things as much as to touch base with him and get some sense of normalcy. Bynum was his rock. He was the axis of his internal gyroscope. The bombing, now coupled with the telephone threats, had tilted Cafton’s emotional equilibrium. He really just needed Bynum’s reassurance everything was going to be okay. Then he would be ok
ay.

  Cafton spoke softly into the phone, like his elementary school librarian was standing over his shoulder, so he didn’t sound like he was as rattled as he actually was.

  It was a toss-up as to who hated Bynum being on the road more, him or Bynum.

  Cafton’s temporary hotel lodging was just a block or so away from Bynum’s penthouse suite in tony downtown Nashville, practically overlooking the Cumberland River. Bynum had sung his way to the top of country music charts and to a permanent, sumptuous Nashville skyline view. But touring was part of the road to success.

  Cafton and Bynum knew how fickle the music industry was and fully comprehended they might be the flavor of the week. While it lasted, they were determined to soak it up. Then, when the ride was over, they would cheerfully settle back into a normal life and reap the rewards.

  “Okay, Caf. What happened?” Bynum sat up in bed and turned on the bedside lamp. He dragged his weary legs over the side of the bed and tried to get his bearings. Where the heck am I? he thought.

  The oversized, generic blotch of muted colors and shapes some high-paid decorator thought would pass as artwork hanging over the garish, tufted, gold brocade headboard reminded him he was in a hotel. An upscale hotel. The first in what would be a string of damn hotels over the next three months.

  “Hold on a minute, Caf. Let me grab some juice.” He got up and stretched his lean 6’2” body before he bent over to reach into the mini-fridge and pull out a half-gallon carton of orange/tangerine/banana juice. He filled a glass with the liquid sunshine and sat back down on the side of the bed. After a big swig, draining the glass, he set it down on a New Orleans entertainment guide on his nightstand. He and his wife, Mattie, had thumbed through the guide to find a place to have a tasty brunch before sound check later, in the afternoon.