One heck of a gig

His name was Harold Reeves. He was the competing head of my head of the whole operation. Like my boss Gary, he worked at a label. Strangely enough he was an executive and not the owner. They had a more complex system down there. No one person took the reins like where I'd worked. Perhaps that was their problem. Anyone with even a crumb of involvement got some cut of the whole thing. At least that's what I was told.

The guy was about sixty and looked like a bloated aunt. Even his usual cowboy attire couldn't hide his doghey face and fading red hair. Every morning he'd come in wearing a tanned buckskin jacket, snakeskin pants, a gun holster belt, and a ten gallon hat. It was the only thing that looked a tad good on him if I'm being honest, but alas it wouldn't last the day. That whole building had shit air conditioning. At 4:34 pm he'd take most of it off and saunter from his office for a late pot of coffee.

Harold was resourceful, but that didn't make him not a weird prick. I only had to visit the place a few times to see the subtle leers people gave him. During a sales meeting I'd crashed, he talked a good ten minutes about sheep herding in a bloated attempt to tie it back to earnings figures in metaphor.

The man had side gigs in the narcotics trade, dog fighting, and even child traffiking, but what got people really worked up was that fact that he discontinued their Christmas bonuses. I still consider my work with him as my most satisfying "prank". Not a single person called the cops. That's how it was around there. If something like that happened to you in broad daylight, you had it coming, and you deserved it, no questions asked.

I think you've never felt the true fruits of fame until your teenaged fans are washing your hair and giving you a quality pedicure like an emperor. Some times they even brush my teeth for me without being asked. I find much of this excess pandering annoying and unnecessary, but I can't ignore its crucial utility.

Every five hours post concert, a few dozen pickpockets and mild muggings occur within a two mile radius of the show grounds. Most of these incidents go unnoticed until the departing concert goer finds a small tear in their backpack, or an empty space in their jeans. By then they're on the night train, on a permanent away journey from their cash, credit cards, and drivers license.

A reward of pot is enough to get them on board. Often its nothing at all. It's the same setup in every city, the nearby blocks the hunting grounds, my hotel room home base. On a typical night I collect around three thousand dollars. On a great night around five thousand. The key is to take advantage of VIP crowd. Anyone with minimal robbery skills is fair game. There's no shortage of these types in groupie crowds. They've got a good taste for mischief. Something the public at large doesn't give them enough credit for.

As etiquette, I give them some more pointers before handing them a pocket knife and sending them on their way. I make sure my road crew plays loud music from the speakers when the show is over. As a plus, there's mediocre lighting and barricades that encourage crowd pile ups, an easy environment for wallet snatchings. Most of my recruits go for the gullet in the front. More seasoned veterans take assignments further into town.

ATM machines and noisy arcades are ideal areas to score. Anyone exiting a bus is a win too. In that case its strength in numbers. The groupies must strike like starving children in a third world country, ambush anyone with their shoes fresh to the pavement, shredding hard through their jackets, pants, and purses until nothing is left, save for those lucky passengers with pockets in their baseball caps.

The only time things get out of hand is when the rush of beginners success gives them an inflated sense of ego. I had an incident a year back when a girl staked a knife through a man's achilleas tendon. The only way I learned about it was through word of mouth. I'm glad I did. I bailed her out of jail the morning after. She hadn't told a thing about me to the cops. That's the rules. I've kept her around since. Her name is Darla. She's the only girl I don't think is lying when she claims to have killed a guy.

I've gotten better at spotting Darla types. I keep my eyes peeled in poorer cities. You find more hardened folks in those parts. I'll talk to any girl that seems a little too crazy for her own good. A rabid dependence on cheap drugs is a plus, so is a maximal celebrity worship for yours truly. I've found a good few of these people through observing their behavior at parties, but in general their discovery is a happy accident. I got Darla secretary work at the label I'm part of.

After a good run of "focus testing" I ended up with fourteen girls. Most of them had to be around sixteen and eighteen as they where the tallest. Each one had to be capable of lifting forty pounds and throw a bowling ball six feet. Above all else, a steely stomach was mandatory. I whittled down the original group of twenty four with a visit to the morgue. I had a buddy that owned the place and we had free reign. I landed on a former sales rep for a downtown Chico's in LA and a tall smoker named Maxwell Laurence. Both were set for cremation in the following two days. They looked like stuck pigs by the time we were done with them.

I find the technique of staking in a knife properly an underrated skill. Every girl that didn't walk out was given a through lesson. There must be a stab and twist. If not that then a merciless constant staking through the gut, kidney, or appendix, prison style. It's also good to know formation. In this assignment, numbers were important, so was acting natural, but there was no need to teach them much of the last one.

Harold wasn't a stuttering fogey with a walker, but his knees were quite busted. He used the weigh three hundred pounds. Now he was two hundred. I knew that under those shiny pants were pale exes. His gait was stiff and not compliant to fast reactions. In late spring, their biggest chart topper, Stevie V, was giving a visit to the label. This gave his groupies a free pass inside, an inflow prohibited on most days at the office.

My group came in with everyone else. Harold was crossing the hall, albeit a little slower from the crowd rushing against him. He'd left his gun in the office and nothing was on him except for his snake pants and embroidered dress shirt. The fourteen came up to him and fondled his belt. A few hugged his sides and made suggestive glances towards Stevie whom was entering an boardroom ahead of them. It was a strange moment of coyness until one dug a knife into his side. Everyone followed suit.

Harold had some time to yell and shove. His retorts where drowned out by the massive crowd of screaming fans, so were his legs. The guy was packed within surge like a helpless sardine. One of the taller girls had climbed on his shoulders pre attack. She sliced deep into his neck. Almost no one noticed the moment he hit the ground. He still put up a fight. It wasn't hard for him to throw a few girls out of the way, but there were too many. One getting punched in the face was just replaced by another. He was getting forked in all directions. The girls choose an inmate maneuver, that vicious up and down with the arm.

It took a while for the injuries to get critical, but it was quick enough. Soon he was near motionless on the floor. The sprays of blood had freaked out unsuspecting girls nearby. Soon these kids were running and screaming in all directions. Much of the group joined them, blending in with the crowd. People in neighboring offices looked out confused. A few thought someone had brought out a gun. A few tripped up in the running crowds and got trampled. A few even rushed to Stevie's boardroom expecting an assassination attempt on the guitarist.

The only hiccup was that some of my group decided it was a good idea to start smashing things. A few too many confused secretaries witnessed teenagers screaming into their offices, throwing chairs, and chucking heavy paperweights towards the windows. Someone even found a bat to get a quicker job done. No one knew what to think of this sudden vandalism. No one noticed Harold's body for a good ten minutes either.

They all made it out of there in one piece, save for some big bruises and a set of broken toes. The authorities couldn't follow the blood, even it they wanted to. Anyone within a few feet of the guy was covered in it. Not a soul working there called the cops when it happened. The ones who did were bystanders watching horrified teens pouring out from the building. Rumor has it that another exec stuffed the body in a janitorial closet before more eyes were on them. They explained the incident away as a harsh scuffle between two teens and didn't know where the injured ran off to.

No one knew if the authorities would become suspicious and return. What they did know was some main players were in for a big pay day. The guy was cheap. Too cheap for his own good. One thing you never want to be is cheap in criminal business. I don't know why the guy thought he could hold out for so long. Perhaps those cowboy fetishisms had gotten to his head. A employee of his told me he'd bought two horse ranches and an outfit from a Clint Eastwood movie before he died. He was a sucker from the start, a useless dud, a goner.

This Tuesday, Darla got to handle her first few bundles of cold hard cash. Each girl got a share of thirty thousand. I imagine they'll burn it on booze and coke for the next few months. Passing that girl at work has become a pleasant routine. She's always watching someone or something from a distance, a loose smile on her face. Every month or so she gets fake nails. She likes them beach themed. This time she'd gotten a set with blue oil inside. Within that blue liquid were rubber dolphins and beach balls, all flowing in a joyous bounce each time she taps them against the key board. I get in a mood each time a see them, a taste of catharsis in some sense, a paradise microcosm, something safe, but out of reach, and comforting in its own strange way. Sometimes I wish I had something like that to wear, that feeling. But I can't dwell on the bittersweet, only swig my coffee and return to the studio.