Chapter 36: Closures and Beginnings

I looked at Saul Levin in amazement.

“How do you know that Rockwell is a member of that church?”

“He’s been after the staff to quit this sinful place and go to his church. He keeps telling the kids here that they’re going to hell for their lifestyles and for supporting the abuse of the O’Dell children.”

I was stunned. I tried to remember when we’d hired Rockwell as the club manager. I knew he wasn’t in the first bunch that was there when we opened the Club-Club. I’d have to look at the employment records.

“Thanks for the info Saul. If he comes back and gives you trouble, come and get me.”

“Maybe I won’t want any witnesses when I deny him entry, Mr. O’Dell.”

“Saul, don’t do anything to get yourself in trouble with the law.”

“Who? Me?”

We shook hands and after finding the door to the office locked, I walked back to the club side of the building to find the rest of the band had showed up. I walked to the edge of the stage and waved the band over. I looked up at the men and women who made music with me and didn’t see a smile in the bunch.

“I assume that you’re all not happy to be here because of Rockwell.”

Most of them nodded in the affirmative.

“He’s just been fired. We’ll be looking for a new general manager as soon as possible.”

Everyone seemed to lighten up.

“Good, this means that we can play on Saturday nights,” Boomer Banks, the drummer, said.

“Why wouldn’t we play on Saturday nights, Boomer?” I asked.

“Rockwell said he didn’t want us playing on Sundays and I heard that the church he belonged to was going to start having services here on Sunday mornings.”

I was speechless. I looked at Ronnie and he shrugged his shoulders.

“Boomer, are you sure about that?”

“Yeah, I was late breaking down one night and heard him talking to a guy. He said that his church had lost their lease on their building and he was going to have them meet here until he could come up with another option.”

As Boomer spoke, I pulled out my phone. Walked away from the stage area, and called Lynn.

“Hi Lover.”

“Lynn, I was just talking with Boomer and he told me that Rockwell was going to have the Church of Heavenly Light and Grace meet at the Club-Club until they could find another place.”

“Well that’s not going to happen.”

“Saul Levin the day security guy said that Rockwell was a member of the church.”

“Then we need to keep an eye out for him. Tell the rest of the security crew. How is rehearsal going?”

“I’ve been dealing with all of this other stuff. The band just got here. They didn’t look too happy to be here until I told them Rockwell was gone. Hey, you don’t think that he was trying to ruin the Club business instead of like the Bar where they shot it up, do you?”

Lynn was quiet for a moment, I could almost hear her brain cells firing over the phone.

“That would explain how the three men could have known that we were in McCall, Paul. Both bars closed, the wives assaulted. Our home destroyed. The kids would have been turned over to DFS. My God, I wonder if Margaret Williams could have been in on this!”

“No way, Lynn. But I wonder if there is a department at DFS that has a separate department head that could have made some arraignment without having Margaret in the loop.”

“I’m going to call her right now. Margaret would have known that the Foundation was supporting us and not the bars. I bet you’re right. There is someone in her office who would have seen that the Church took custody of a family so large. I’ll call you when I know something.”

“OK ... OH! Don’t tell Erin. If she finds out, I could see her heading out loaded for bear.”

“Right. I’ll call you later. I love you, Paul.”

“I love you, Lover. Bye.”

The band was set up and was just doing some mindless jamming when I came back to them. They stopped and looked at me like they were expecting some news. So, I gave them some.

“Rockwell has been fired. He’s not to come back into the building. Saul is passing the word in Security. From what I’ve heard he appears to have been trying to run us out of business. It looks like he is a member of the church that tried to kidnap my kids, who attacked the Savannah, who attempted to rape my wives in McCall over the past few days, and shot up the Bar-Bar and injured Marcus Marks.

“I have no idea how far this will go so please be careful. This group apparently has no problem hurting friends of the O’Dells and I love you guys too much to see you hurt. Questions?”

Everyone stood in silent shock and looked at me.

“No? OK, then I have one more thing for you, Ronnie, play that piece for me please.”

Ronnie set up the mystery sheet music and began playing. The opening hook immediately got Boomer bobbing his head and shadow playing the drums along with it. Carla began to play along on the bass and when she did Boomer started to hit the drums. Rodney began to insert guitar fills in naturally appropriate places and when Wendy and Lamar began to copy him on sax and trumpet, Rodney changed to rhythm guitar.

In a matter of two or three minutes the song seemed to be naturally fleshed out, so I stepped in and began to sing the lyrics. I got done with the first verse and the catchy chorus and I stopped everyone.

“Does anyone NOT think this is a really good piece of music?”

I was answered by a collection of No’s and head shakes.

“Good. So, which one of you wrote it?”

Everyone looked at others in the band. Heads moved left and right and then Wendy asked, “You don’t know who wrote this? This is a great piece of music. I mean, this is hit song type of stuff.”

“I know! That’s why I’m asking. I got into the Green Room today and found it on the table. The sheet music has no name on it. Somebody wrote this great piece of music and left it here. None of you know anything, huh?”

“In that case, do we put it into the song rotation and just attribute it to anonymous?”

“If you all want to play it, then yes, that’s what we do,” Ronnie injected. “Maybe when we play it and people react to it like I think they will, maybe the composer with come forward. It could be they don’t think it’s very good. It could be that a previous band left it here.”

“Let’s do it again. Ronnie, I think you should start it off with the great piano hook then Carla and Boomer on rhythm, then Rodney doing the melody on guitar and Wendy and Lamar filling on horns. After we go around the thing one time, with the chorus, I come in.”

“Paul, I like all of that but I think you should come in on the chorus after we’ve gone through the main body. When you come in on the chorus, the vocals create another hook and when we then go back to the main body and you’re singing the verse, the first hook is established. I think the crowd will love it.”

“I can sort of hear it in my head. Let’s crawl through it. Was there a time signature on the sheet music?”

“Nope. So we can play it a couple of different speeds and see what happens,” Ronnie said.

And that’s what we did. We ran through the song at a fast, medium, and slow tempo. Each one sounded really good and left us with a different feel. It definitely sounded better when I came in on the chorus and then did the first verse. After we’d played it about every way we could, we went through the core of our top two set lists. Everything sounded like we knew what we were doing.

I looked at my phone and realized that I’d had it turned down. There were five phone calls and three messages. I went to the first message and listened.

“Lover, some big problems are coming up. The Church has friends in Family Services and the Police department. They’ve reopened the investigation into our home invasion.”

The second message was, “Paul, I contacted Margaret and she is a pissed old lady. People in her department have been doing things behind her back. I’ll tell you more when you get home.”

The third message was from Erin.

“Sweetie, call me when you are almost done and I’ll come get you. If I don’t hear from you by 5:30 I’ll come get you anyway.”

I looked at the clock on the phone and it was already 5:20. So I helped the gang pack up the things they were going to carry out. Boomer was breaking down the drums, which he never did.

“Boomer! Why are you loading the drum kit out?”

“Rockwell said he didn’t want anything left on the stage. He was going to use it for church in the morning.”

“There isn’t going to be any church meeting here in the morning. And like I said, Rockwell has been fired today. Leave the kit set up for tomorrow night, just like normal.”

“But that’s not been the normal for the past five or six weeks.”

“Man, what the fuck has Rockwell turned this place into?”

“It’s not been a fun place.”

I went over to the bar and looked for the bar manager. There was no one around. With a 7 o’clock opening time people should have been there doing bar prep. I walked over to the restaurant side and found the manager.

“Gill? Where is the bar manager?”

“He quit.”

“Who’s running the bar?”

“To the best of my knowledge, nobody. Before opening some bartenders show up and they run things.”

I shook my head and called Lynn.

“Lynn, we don’t have a bar manager. He quit. Gill told me that the bartenders just show up and run stuff. I’m gonna stick around.”

“Erin will be there soon. She left her a few minutes ago. She’ll want to run the place.”

“I’ll stick around and help. Also, Boomer told me that he was instructed to get his drums off the stage because there was a church service here in the morning. Lynn this place is a cluster fuck. Rockwell has really set the place up to be a mess. I just hope that we still have a core of good employees to rebuild around. I’m gonna go and check out the office. I wonder if Rockwell sold the furniture. I’ll call you later.”

I went to the office and it was a mess. Rockwell must have torn the place up after Lynn called him and fired him. The desk drawers were all open and papers were thrown everywhere. And, the safe was open and empty. I was about to make a call when Erin walked in.

“What the hell happened here?”

“Hi Sweetie. It looks like Rockwell didn’t react well to Lynn firing him.”

“Saul was supposed to keep him out.”

“Maybe he snuck back in during the shift change or while the band was playing. You know how everyone likes to stop and listen to you guys.”

“The safe’s empty, Erin.”

“Call the police!”

I called the police while Erin walked out on the phone herself. While on hold with the police, since I hadn’t called 9-1-1, I booted up the computer and got into the employee files. I found that Rockwell had been hired only six months ago. I’d never seen him at the Club because, I guess, he always left at five o’clock.

When an officer got on the phone with me I told him that the place had been robbed and that Rocky Rockwell was the only person who had access to the area. I gave him his phone number and his home address from the file on the computer. I also mentioned that he was reported to be a member of the Church of Heavenly Light and Grace and that he might be wherever those people might be.

I got off the phone and Erin was coming back into the building. There was a bit of a smug smile on her face.

“OK, Paul, let’s clean up this place and try to get it in some sort of order. Lynn is on her way over with enough cash to bank the Club and the bar for tonight. She’ll hit the ATM since the banks are closed and then go to our grocery store to buy some coin from them. About the time we open she should have the money in place. I’m thinking that we let people in for free tonight and have them call their friend to let them know. You get onstage and tell everyone that we’re sorry for the way things have been run and that the old managers are back and things are going to be fun again.”

“The police have all of Rockwell’s info and will be looking for him.”

“They won’t find him. One of the calls I made was to Bosco. The Brothers are out looking for him. I sent them his picture from our website. My money says that they will find him before the police. I hope.”

“Erin? What did you do?”

She was still smiling when she softly said, “I put a bounty on him. Whoever finds him gets $1000. If they report it to the police and the police get him then I donate $5000 to the police. If someone else finds him, they get $5000.”

“You’re still grinning. What else?”

“I might have hinted at a bonus for each bruise on his body.”