Chapter 20
Friday morning arrived with a hint of rain in the gray overcast skies.
After everybody had breakfast in the dining room, they all headed off to the bus parked at the rear of the hotel.
Danny backtracked when nobody was looking and stopped off at the Front Desk where a middle-aged male clerk worked.
“Do you have any postage stamps?” he asked the clerk.
“Yes, sir.”
“Good, I need to get this letter in the mail. It’s for a story I’m writing for the Cambridge Chronicle,” Danny said while he removed the letter from his back pants pocket. He placed it on the counter.
The clerk picked up the letter and looked at it. “That’ll be five cents, sir,” he said.
Danny reached in his pants pocket and removed a dime. He handed the clerk a dime dated 2010.
The clerk dropped the time in his cash drawer with the other dimes and gave Danny a nickel back in change. He closed the cash drawer, unaware of the date on the dime.
“Thank you,” Danny said, then rushed off and headed down the hallway that led to the rear of the hotel.
Two hours had passed, and Gus drove the bus east on Interstate 76, heading toward Philadelphia.
It was quiet on the bus then Jackie got out of his seat and walked over to Cindy’s seat. “Let’s finish,” he said then walked away and headed over to the table.
A few minutes later, The Rocking Tones, Danny, and Cindy sat on the bench seat around the table.
Cindy looked at her note pad. “You left off yesterday with the Banging the Beat being number fifteen in the top one hundred, and you knew your band as heading in the right direction,” she read from her notes.
“Okay. We became more popular with the fans, and then Burt and Carter started joining in with writing songs. We completed three more,” Jackie said.
“We wrote She’s My Only Baby, I’m a Loving Man, and Let Me Love You,” said Carter.
“They all made it to the fifty hit list with She’s My Only Baby making it to Number 1,” Burt added and looked proud.
“Yep, The Rocking Tones was making their way to the top,” said Sig while he pointed to the ceiling of the bus.
“So we started working on some more songs for our first album,” said Burt.
“We had it done by the spring of sixty-two, and it was called Rocking Tones a Rollin,” said Jackie.
“I’m the one that came up with that title,” said Sig and he looked proud.
The guys did not notice while Roger’s Corvette raced past the bus in the left lane and roared ahead of them.
“Rocking Tones a Rollin was a success but did not reach gold or platinum sales levels that we hoped for,” said Jackie.
“So the next year rolled around, and we played more concerts across the eastern part of the country,” said Delmar.
“By December sixty-three, we had our second album completed,” said Jackie.
“Don’t put this in the article, but we started to have some issues with Roger,” said Sig.
The other guys looked at Sig with disapproving eyes for mentioning that.
“Please don’t put that in your article,” Jackie said while he looked at Danny and Cindy.
“We won’t cross my heart,” Danny replied and crossed his heart with his right index finger.
“He started having discreet meetings with some mysterious man,” said Carter.
“We still don’t know who,” added Burt.
“But that’s okay because we have our own mysterious man in Chicago,” Sig replied with a smirk.
The other guys frowned at Sig for stating that.
“I know, we won’t mention that in our article,” replied Cindy but she was extremely curious about Kent Sommers, as was Danny. They were both itching to find out more information on this guy but decided to wait.
“And then in July of this year, as you may well know, our second album titled Rock, Rock and More Rock went platinum,” said Jackie.
Jackie and the guys high-fived each other.
“I was the one that came up with that title,” said Delmar with a proud smile.
“We’re on our way to becoming as popular as The Beatles,” Jackie said, and he looked confident they would achieve that goal.
The other guys nodded in agreement, and they looked confident.
Danny and Cindy looked at each other and knew that they guys days might be numbered. Three to be exact if their plan failed.
“Well about the only thing I can add is how all this success had now brought us to perform on the Ed Sullivan show on Sunday night. That’s the big boost we need to start touring all across America,” said Jackie.
“And then we want to do our own little invasion of England and hit the Brits New England style rock,” added Delmar.
Delmar and Carter high-fived each other.
Everybody returned to their seats and relaxed while Gus drove the bus north on Interstate 95 and was near Levittown heading north to New York City.
Then the swaying of the bus, while he drove down the highway, started to put the guys of the band to sleep in their seats
Danny and Cindy remained awake and watched the countryside go by.
Danny reached in his pants pocket and removed his iTravel 2 device. He discreetly looked at the device and saw that it read ‘2 Days – 10 Hours – 9 Minutes Left on iTravel 2 Mission’ message. “Two days,” he quietly muttered to himself and still wondered how he was going to save their lives. He shoved the iTravel 2 device back in his pants pocket. He closed his eyes.
Then Gus drove off Interstate 95 and headed north on US 1.
Meanwhile, Victor drove a black 1960 Buick LeSabre south down a two-lane country road in northern Georgia. Bruno sat in the passenger seat while Arnold sat in the rear seat. It was quiet while they listened to Dean Martin’s Everybody Loves Somebody song on the radio.
“Everybody loves somebody sometime. Everybody falls in love somehow,” Bruno and Arnold sang out in unison with Dean Martin.
Victor rolled his eyes as he hated these moments when Bruno and Arnold sang along with Dean Martin.
They continued to sing along with Dean Martin while Bruno drove down the road.
Later that day, Gus drove the bus north on Interstate 95 and entered the city limits of New York City.
Everybody on the bus was awake and looked out their windows. They saw the skyline of tall skyscrapers. This meant the big time for them.
Gus hated this part of driving a bus, but he had to navigate through the hectic streets of New York City to arrive at the hotel.
It took an hour, but he finally drove the bus to the Warrick Hotel in Manhattan.
But this time, everybody had to share a room with someone else.
Jackie and Burt settled in their room.
Sig and Delmar settled in their room.
Carter and Gus settled in their room.
Tom and Kenny settled in their room.
Cindy had a room all to herself.
Danny had to share a room with Roger. Roger requested Danny as a roommate so he can keep a watchful eye on him.
After dinner in the dining room of the Warrick Hotel, everybody headed back to their rooms for the evenings.
This was extremely awkward for Danny being in the same room with Roger.
The air was tense in the room while they lay on their beds and watched Rawhide on the TV.
Roger glanced over at Danny. He stared for a few seconds.
Danny could sense Roger’s eyes were glaring at him, so he got a little nervous.
“How’s the article about the band coming along?” asked Roger.
“Ah, good so far,” said Danny and kept his eyes on the TV.
“I have something I want you to add,” said Roger.
“What’s that?”
“We’ve been having this religious nut named Elmer Watson from Montgomery, Alabama following us around to the concerts during the past two weeks. I just hope he doesn’t do any harm to the band. So print that,” said Roger.
“Ah, Elmer Watson from Montgomery, Alabama. Got it,” Danny said while he knew this was part of Roger’s plan with setting up Elmer.
It was still awkward for Danny while he stayed in the hotel room with Roger. They just watched TV and remained quiet during the remainder of the night.
Then while Danny slept, he slid the iTravel 2 device under his pillow. He was so nervous with being in the same room at Roger that he only got one hour of sleep.
Saturday morning arrived.
It was 7:00 that morning and someone knocked on Danny and Roger’s door.
Roger snored in bed.
Danny woke up to the knocking, got out from under the covers in his tee-shirt and boxers.
He walked over to the door, cracked it opened and peeked outside.
“Get showered and dressed, we’re going on a little tour of NYC in thirty minutes,” said Jackie.
Danny nodded that he was okay with their plan, then closed the door.
Roger was sound asleep while Danny took a quick shower and got redressed.
He tiptoed out of the room and met Cindy and The Rocking Tones out in the hallway.
“What about Roger?” he said.
“Fuck him,” said Carter.
“Let him sweat for once,” said Delmar.
“Come, the limo should be waiting downstairs,” said Jackie.
They all rushed away.
“Roger will shit when he gets the bill for the limo,” said Sig with a smile while they all rushed down the hallway.
So during the next three hours, Danny, Cindy, and The Rocking Tones were driven around in a 1964 black Cadillac limo seeing the sights of New York City.
Then later that day, the limo driver dropped them off at the rear entrance of the Warrick Hotel.
A little while later, they walked down the hallway and headed to their rooms. They chatted and laughed and had a blast, and this was a break the guys of the band needed. They did not notice that the door to Roger and Danny’s room was cracked opened.
Then Roger stepped out of his room, and he was pissed. “Where the fuck were you?” he asked the guys.
“Cool it, Roger, we decide to relax and take a tour of New York City,” said Sig.
“Tour? I didn’t authorize a tour,” he yelled.
“Listen, we haven’t been paid in two months now. And we’ve been doing concerts pretty much every night for the past months. We deserve a fucking break,” Jackie said in a raised tone, and he looked pissed and ready to take on Roger.
“I said that you’ll get paid when we get to Chicago,” said Roger and looked sincere.
“I hope we do,” said Burt.
“Don’t worry. You’ll get paid, I promise,” said Roger.
Danny and Cindy looked at each other knowing Roger lied through his teeth.
“Now, go freshen up, we have a rehearsal for the Ed Sullivan Show in an hour,” he said then he went back inside his room and slammed the door.
The guys looked at each other, and they all thought the same thing; they could not wait until they got to Chicago.
Danny and Cindy headed off to the Ed Sullivan Theater in Manhattan with The Rocking Tones.
They watched backstage while The Rocking Tones started up their first song for the show.
Danny looked around the stage and audience seating. “This is the same stage that David Letterman uses for his shows,” he told Cindy.
Not far behind them stood Roger, and he looked suspicious. He walked over. “Who is David Letterman?” Roger asked Danny the second he stood by his side.
Danny jumped a little as Roger’s presence startled him. “Ah, he’s a, ah,”
“He’s a small-time comedian in Cambridge. He said he wants to make it big and perform on the Ed Sullivan Show,” Cindy blurted out.
“Oh, Roger said then he saw Ed Sullivan standing twenty feet away. “Excuse me,” he said.
Danny and Cindy watched Roger walk away then they stared in awe at the sight of Ed Sullivan alive and in the flesh.
After rehearsal was over, The Rocking Tones, Danny, Cindy and Roger headed back to the Warrick Hotel.
The second night of sleeping in the same hotel room with Roger also had Danny on edge. He only got about two hours of sleep.
Roger, on the other hand, snored the whole night.