Chapter 17
It was 7:00 on Wednesday morning.
Danny tossed and turned the whole night in bed and got only a few hours of sleep. Seeing his grandmother last night was on his mind the entire night.
Danny decided to see if he could get some coffee at the dining room, so he got dressed and headed over to his door.
He opened his door and started to step outside, but he stopped dead in his tracks when he saw something. His mouth dropped in shock when he saw Diane walk out of Jackie’s hotel room. He just stood there and watched her rush away from Jackie’s room with a spring in her step.
He went back into his room and closed the door.
He moped back to his bed and sat down. “My grandmother’s a slut,” he mumbled to himself and still could not believe what he just witnessed. He sat there in a depressed stupor while he stared down at the carpet.
He looked at his iTravel 2 device on the bedside table. He picked it up and saw the ‘4 Days – 14 Hours – 22 Minutes Left on iTravel 2 Mission’ message. He wondered if the mission would be a success. He had nothing concrete so far, so he racked his brain to figure out a way to stop that bus from leaving the diner.
An hour had passed, and there was a knock on Danny’s room door.
He opened the door and saw Cindy standing outside.
“What’s wrong?” asked Cindy the second she saw his depressed look.
He motioned for Cindy to step inside his room. She did, and he immediately closed the door.
“I saw my grandmother come out of Jackie’s room an hour ago.”
It took a few seconds for it to dawn on Cindy. “Oh.”
“My grandmother’s a slut.”
Cindy looked a little upset with his rude comment. “I don’t believe you. She’s a young woman. She’s entitled to a little fun, and you know. I mean, don’t you have that same urge on your mind?”
Danny looked at Cindy, and of course, he had fantasies of being alone in bed with Cindy. Many fantasies. “I guess you’re right. But it’s still weird,” he said but maybe why he was upset was the fact that he was still a virgin.
“Let it go. The guys want us to join them for breakfast,” she said then he grabbed Danny’s hand, and they left the room.
A little while later, Danny and Cindy joined Gus, Tom, Kenny, The Rocking Tones, and Roger for breakfast.
“How many did we have last night?” Sig asked Roger.
“A little over twelve hundred,” replied Roger.
“When are you going to schedule some concert in maybe a stadium?” asked Jackie.
“We have the fan base to fill up a stadium if it’s in a large city like Philly or maybe Washington,” said Burt.
“Especially after the Ed Sullivan show,” added Jackie and he looked confident.
“And when will we get our next share of the profits?” asked Delmar.
“We haven’t received anything in two months,” added Carter.
Roger looked bothered by their questions. “You’ll get your shares next week. Now, I need to go take care of some business for our next concert,” he said then got up from the table, and his half-eaten scrambled eggs.
The guys looked at each other while Roger walked away and headed out of the dining room.
“I know we could fill the stadium. Why does he insist on these small concert halls every night?” asked Delmar.
“Maybe a stadium once a week would give us a little break,” added Sig.
“That way all of our fans can attend our concerts,” said Jackie.
The other guys all nod in agreement.
Then something bugged Delmar. “He buys a new fucking Corvette, and we don’t get paid for two months,” Delmar said and looked a little pissed.
The other guys nodded their heads in agreement.
Jackie did not look concerned while he drank his cup of coffee.
Danny and Cindy glanced at each other and lightly nodded that Roger was definitely their prime suspect.
“Well, Kenny and I are going to go over to that music store across town and get some guitar strings and extra drum sticks. Then we’ll head off to Levittown,” Tom said then he stood up.
Kenny downed the rest of his coffee.
“Get some picks too,” Burt called out.
Tom and Kenny gave a little wave then walked away from the table.
Everybody else stayed behind and finished their breakfast.
An hour had passed, and Gus had the bus engine running, and the door opened while he was parked at the rear of the Holiday Inn.
The Rocking Tones, Danny, and Cindy walked out of one of the rear hotel exits.
They all boarded the bus.
Gus closed the bus door, started the engine then, and drove off through the parking lot.
Roger walked over to his Corvette. He got behind the wheel, started up the engine with a roar then drove off in the opposite direction in the parking lot.
A little while later, Gus drove the bus south on Interstate 95.
“Now, where did we leave off with your article?” Jackie asked Cindy.
Cindy glanced down at her note pad. “You mentioned how your fathers wanted you to become police officers,” she read the notes.
“Let’s head over to the table,” Jackie told Cindy.
Cindy, Jackie and the other guys all got up from their seat and headed over to the table and sat down on the bench seat.
“Oh yeah,” Jackie said then he paused for a few seconds. “Well, we now needed an audience after we practiced our heart out for a month.”
Danny remained seated in his seat and rolled his eyes. He wanted nothing to do with Jackie at the moment, as the sight of his grandmother coming out of Jackie’s hotel room was still vivid in his mind.
“It was Saturday, May second in fifty-nine. That’s the day we had our first official concert,” said Delmar.
“We performed it in my dad’s garage,” said Burt.
“I recalled we had about fifteen kids from the neighborhood in the driveway,” said Carter.
Cindy jotted down that information but knew it already.
“Let’s see, we played That’ll Be the Day, Rock and Roll music, said Sig.
“Sweet Little Sixteen, Wake Up Little Suzie, and Twenty Flight Rock,” added Burt.
The rest of The Rocking Tones nodded in agreement and smiled when they remembered that day.
“The fifteen neighborhood kids loved our playing, and that’s when we realized he had what it took to make it as a band,” said Jackie.
“One of those kids was Sandy Springfield who became Jackie’s first girlfriend,” blurted out Burt.
“We don’t need to mention girlfriends in our article,” said Jackie.
“I think she snapped a picture of that little concert,” said Delmar.
Burt and Sig nodded in agreement with Delmar’s comment.
“Anyway, for the next three weekends in that May, we performed a concert on Saturday out of Burt’s garage,” said Jackie.
“The attendance increased with very concert when word got around the neighborhood about our band,” said Delmar.
“Then on May thirtieth, we had about thirty kids crowded by Burt’s driveway and front yard to listen to us play rock and roll,” said Carter.
“Amongst those thirty kids was young Roger Beaumont,” said Delmar.
“He lived two streets over and attended Hesser College working on a degree in Marketing,” said Jackie.
“Roger approached us and stated he was taking the summer off from college. He wanted to manage our band for ten percent of the takes from any gigs he could muster up,” said Sig.
“So after we discussed it for two days, we agreed to let Roger be our manager for the summer,” said Burt.
“We figured it wouldn’t hurt,” added Delmar.
“He said that if he failed, he would part, and we would never see him again,” said Sig.
“But since we were graduated from high school, our dad’s wanted us to join the Manchester police department,” said Jackie.
“We did not want a life of wearing a badge and carrying a gun,” said Burt.
“No fucking way,” added Carter.
“Bad guys scare me,” added Sig with a light chuckle.
“So our moms, who also did not want their sons being police officers, stepped in and convinced our dads to let us try our band deal,” said Delmar.
“Our dads reluctantly agreed and figured we would fail in six months,” said Burt.
“But we surprised the hell out of them,” Jackie said with a huge smile.
The other guys all nodded in agreement with huge smiles.
“So then during the summer of fifty-nine, Roger got us gigs at some of the local places around Manchester,” said Sig.
“We started to make some money,” said Burt.
“But our instruments were shit and becoming a hindrance to our growth. So Roger used some of his money and upgraded our instruments,” said Carter.
“We finally had nice instruments for a professional band look,” said Burt.
“And drums,” added Sig.
“We were looking like a real rock and roll band,” said Delmar.
“Roger also bought a used fifty-three Chevy panel van to haul our instruments around that he drove,” said Burt.
Danny got up from his seat and joined everybody around the table. He figured he should let it go about his grandmother. After all, she was a young woman in sixty-four.
“Glad you could finally join us,” Jackie told Danny while sat down on the bench seat.
“Roger drove the van to our gigs, and we had to set up our instruments,” said Carter.
“Since we were successful in the summer of fifty-nine, Roger decided to quit college and take the risk on making our band successful,” said Sig.
“And it worked. During the fall of fifty-nine, we started playing gigs in Concord, Haverhill, Portsmouth, and Nashua,” added Jackie.
“That’s when Tom and Kenny became our roadies,” said Delmar.
“As a band, we started playing tighter and tighter,” said Delmar.
“Then the girls started drooling over the sight of us performing,” added Burt with a grin.
“Yep, that’s when Jackie dumped Sandy so he could be with other girls,” said Sig.
“That’s not true, I dumped her because she tried to talk me into quitting the band. She wanted me to join the police department and get married. I didn’t want that kind of life,” said Jackie, and he looked serious.
The other members of the band did not refute his reply.
“Then we started to notice that Roger had a bit of a bad habit,” said Carter.
“What bad habit?” Danny curiously asked.
“Oh, it was nothing that interfered with being manager. So we ignored it,” said Jackie.
Danny and Cindy noticed that Delmar, Carter, and Burt all rolled their eyes.
That caused them to get really curious and knew they had to find out what was this bad habit of Roger’s. It might shed some light on the placement of that bomb.
“Danny plays the guitar, and he’s outstanding,” Cindy told the guys.
Danny’s head quickly looked at Cindy and frowned at her for telling them.
“I would love to hear you play,” said Sig.
Jackie's eyes widened a little then he got up from the table.
He headed back to the rear of the bus over to the closet. He opened up the closet and removed a Gibson acoustic guitar.
He walked back to the table.
“Let’s hear a song, my friend,” Jackie said while he handed Danny the guitar.
Danny hesitated while he gripped the neck of the guitar.
“Go ahead, Danny. Play a song for them,” said Cindy.
“Okay,” Danny said then he got up with the guitar and headed over to an empty seat. He sat down and got ready. He hesitated for a few seconds. Then he started with a little rhythm riff. Then he started singing his We Were Forever Rocking song.
Jackie and the guys looked at each other and made expressions that they liked what they heard.
A little while later, Danny finished his song.
“I love it,” said Jackie.
All the other guys nodded in agreement they loved the song.
“Which band wrote that song? It doesn’t sound familiar,” said Delmar.
“I wrote it,” said Danny and smiled that they loved it.
“You got the talent,” said Jackie.
“I hope you’re not going to steal my song,” said Danny while he handed Jackie back his guitar.
“We won’t steal it, but I would like to collaborate with you on tweaking it a bit. Then you can play it with us at some future concert,” said Jackie, and he looked serious.
“Really? You want me to play along with The Rocking Tones?” Danny said with sparkles in his eyes.
Jackie glanced at the bus windows and saw that they were entering the city limits of Levittown, Pennsylvania. “Well, that’s all for today,” he told Cindy.
Everybody got up from behind the table and headed back to their seats.
Jackie headed back to the rear of the bus and placed the guitar back inside the closet.
Meanwhile, at a Holiday Inn in Levittown, that 1963 black Cadillac pulled out of the parking lot and headed north onto Oxford Valley Road.
Gus drove the bus south on Oxford Valley Road and did not think anything of that black Cadillac that passed by heading north.
The two Chevrolet vans driven by Tom and Kenny were eight car lengths behind the bus.
A little while later, Gus pulled the bus into the parking lot of the Holiday Inn off Oxford Valley Road.
The two vans pulled into the lot and followed the bus.
Gus drove the bus to the rear of the parking lot where Roger waited by the front of his Corvette.
He parked the bus, shut off the engine, and opened up the door.
The two vans parked by the bus.
The Rocking Tone, Danny, and Cindy walked over to Roger.
Gus, Tom, and Kenny soon walked over.
After Roger handed out the room keys, everybody went off to their rooms to relax before tonight’s concert.
Roger remained by his Corvette. He removed a cigarette from his shirt pocket, lit it, and took a drag. He exhaled and went into deep thought while he looked at the bus.