I Am (Not) the Walrus by Ed Briant Page B

surprising. All the business of organizing our gig has been done between him and Zack. I wasn’t involved.
    â€œI was going to look at your basses.” I point to the staircase.
    â€œHelp yourself,” he says.
    As I make my way up to the guitar room, I realize that I can do more than just stay dry here while I wait to go back to the park. I’m not planning to give Julie McGuire back her bass, but if for some reason I had to, and she made good on the offer of the reward, then this might not be a bad time to see what two hundred could buy me.
    A quick glance at the Fender and Gibson wall is all I need to know that I’m not even close to being able to buy another Fender Precision. Even the wall of Japanese copies has only a couple of instruments within my price range. I lift one off the wall. A bright red p-bass with a maple neck. I only play three notes before I hang it back up.
    I head to the wall of mystery guitars. There’s a Burns Bison, a Watkins Rapier, and a Vox Teardrop all within my price range, but what really catches my eye is a Strad Bass, exactly like the one Paul McCartney played back in the early days. I take it off the wall. At two-fifty, it’s a little out of my league, but it’s playable.
    I sit down and start thrumming my way through my repertoire of Beatles bass lines, beginning, of course, with “Nowhere Man.”
    I’ve only been playing for a couple of minutes when I hear a loud drumming. I glance over at the window. It looks like someone is spraying a fire hose at the glass.
    The rain has started with a vengeance. Maybe it’ll slacken off before I have to go back to the park.
    I’m just about to start playing again when I hear footsteps on the stairs. I stop and freeze. I really don’t want Harry Haller whisking an instrument out of my hands again. But it isn’t Harry. It’s a lean man in a pork pie hat and sunglasses. Water drips off the brim of his hat and onto the damp-looking shoulders of his leather jacket.
    The hat I can understand. It’s good protection in the rain, but the sunglasses? Even with the lights on it’s so dark in here that I can barely read the price tags.
    â€œGood evening, good sir,” says the man, and raises his hat an inch or so off his head. “That sounded very nice. Don’t let me stop you playing. Everybody loves the Beatles.” He wanders over to the wall of Fenders and Gibsons. “Way cool. Way cool.”
    I go back to strumming, but I don’t feel quite so much like playing with this bloke wandering around. Then I start thinking about the gig. If I feel this self-conscious in front of one person, then how am I going to be able to play in front of a whole audience on Monday?
    I watch him as he wanders. He seems to be interested in p-basses. He examines two or three of them, and then there’s another set of footsteps on the stairs. This time it is Harry Haller, and he really does come and lift the Strad Bass out of my hands. “That’s an instrument to hang on somebody’s wall,” he says, with a slightly warmer version of his almost-smile. “You’ll ruin your technique if you play something that bad.” He hangs it back up, selects the Watkins Rapier, and hands that one to me.
    â€œThanks,” I say. “I was just thinking that Paul McCartney always looked cool playing a strad bass in the old
photos.”
    â€œI can’t say for certain,” says Harry, “but he probably just posed with the Strad Bass, whereas this one,” he points to the one in my hands, “is one of the best basses in the shop.” Harry stands back, rubs his hands together, and actually grins at me. “As good as any Fender, and only one hundred-eighty quid.”
    â€œ One hundred-eighty ?” I say. I immediately think that I could buy this with the reward from Shawn’s bass. That’s if I do give it back. I probably won’t, I