Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 35, No. 10, October 1990

Landau strode off. Ax jogged up the concrete stairway to the stage and scrambled up the metal ladder set in the wall. Up, up into the darkness high above the audience, to the catwalk used for servicing the spotlights. Swaying in space only a few feet beneath the vaulted ceiling, he had an excellent view of the theater’s main floor. Nearly every seat was filled, and he began scanning the rows, a face at a time, starting at the rear and working his way down. He was only half finished when the house lights began to dim and a Detroit FM jock came on to rev up the crowd and announce LeVoy Tyrone as the opening act. The response was mixed, mild applause from the white punkers who’d come to see Turco and the Turks, an enthusiastic roar from the blacks in the audience, with most of the noise coming from the front row center, a block of seats occupied by Willis Tyrone and what seemed to be a small army of his cronies, most of them gangbangers from the look of them. If Willis hadn’t come looking for trouble, he was definitely ready for it. Ax closed his eyes for a few moments to let them adjust to the dim lighting out front, then began scanning the crowd again.

It was a slow, painful process. Despite the no smoking signs the air was a hazy, heady smog of tobacco and reefer. Axton’s eyes were burning, watering, but still he continued, squinting I into the fog, forcing himself to focus on each face row by row. Nothing. He hestitated now and again, concentrating intently on faces that resembled the man in the photograph, but rejected each one and moved on.

On the stage forty feet below, LeVoy Tyrone, dressed in a retro-styled gleaming white tuxedo, opened the show, cranking out a blistering uptempo set of urban blues and jazz-tinged ghetto soul. His icepick sharp guitar work won over the rockers in the audience and gradually began to unify the crowd and make it his own. He finished to a huge round of applause, did a brief encore, then gave up the stage to Gary Turco and the Turks.

In the rigging overhead, Ax-ton had scanned through two-thirds of the crowd, but when Turco began his set, some of the punkers scrambled out into the aisle and rushed the stage, mobbing up beneath the footlights. Cursing, Ax tried to search the faces directly below. If Pollack was here, the mob near the stage would be perfect cover.

Impossible. Turco was showboating, strutting around the stage, and the crowd was swarming back and forth, aping him, dancing, shouting along with the lyrics, working themselves into a heavy metal frenzy. Ax could only catch momentary glimpses of the faces below. Perhaps between songs... He spotted LeVoy standing in the wings, digging the show, waiting to be called back on for the finish. Then he caught a flash of a uniform at the edge of the crowd. Landau was pushing his way through the mob to the stage, squirming through the bodies like a dinosaur in a tar pit. He gestured frantically at Ax, waving him down.

Ax clambered down the metal ladder to the stage wings just as Landau burst out of the crowd at the stage steps. The security chief was red-faced, exhausted, his uniform a shambles.

“What’s wrong?” Ax yelled over the amplified roar from the stage. “Did you spot him?”

“No,” Landau gasped, “he’s not out here. I remembered where I saw him. The parking lot. He’s working as an attendant. He’s in uniform.”

Ax bulled past him, sprinting down the steps to the dressing room corridor. Deserted. Everyone was up watching the show, and there was no guard on Mojo’s door. Ax hammered on the door. No response.

“Where the hell’s your man?” he yelled at Landau, trying the door. Locked.

“I don’t know. Cornell’s a good man, dammit! He wouldn’t—”

Axton reared back and kicked at the doorlatch, smashing it in, and charged into the shambles of a room. And stopped. Mojo Tyrone had Cory Pollack pinned to the wall, his powerful right hand clamped around Pollack’s throat, his face a carved mask of dark fury, teeth bared, eyes rolled back, his arm quivering like a high tension wire, holding Pollack a full six inches above the floor. Pollack’s face was bluish, his tongue lolling, eyes sightless. Only his boots showed any life, thudding reflexively against the wall.

“Mojo! Let him go!” Ax roared. “You’re killing him!”

No response. Mojo didn’t even look up. Ax grabbed his arm, trying to break him away from Pollack’s throat, couldn’t budge it. It was like wrestling with a tree. Landau seized the old man from behind in a bear hug, pulling him off. Axton caught Pollack’s body as it slumped to the floor.

“He cheated me,” Mojo panted, his chest heaving, “long time ago. Shouldna come back.” He staggered over to his dressing table and slumped against it, exhausted. Axton pressed his fingertips against Pollack’s throat. No pulse.