Unfortunately, so were the two suits who happened to be sitting in the front row. They jumped onstage and tried to hand Shane Billiken an official-looking envelope.
"It's over," one of them said.
"I'm saving that one for the second set," Shane Billiken hissed as he launched into an improvised guitar solo. "And I don't do requests. So get off the stage. "
"We represent Roy Orbison. The original. And this is a cease-and-desist order. You can change acts right now, or you can see us in court."
"But, but-"
"Better decide fast, friend," the other man said.
"Screw you," snarled Shane Billiken. And then he was singing "Crryyiiiing Oooover Yooouuuuuu."
One of the suits snapped his fingers and a pair of plainclothes cops hustled Shane Billiken off the stage to a chorus of boos and catcalls.
Shane Billiken barely made bail that night. At the trial, faced with a battery of high-powered lawyers, his own attorney suggested that he plead no contest. Shane Billiken reluctantly agreed, and they made him sign a paper in which he promised that he would never steal Roy Orbison's act again.
Once more Shane Billiken's career in music had hit a brick wall.
If anything, he grew more embittered. A zillion Elvis Presley impersonators were making individual fortunes and everyone knew that any warbler with a bay window and a spit curl could impersonate the King. But mimicking Roy Orbison, with his high, haunting bel canto tenor-that took skill.
For a time, Shane Billiken flirted with the idea of having Roy the Boy whacked. He went so far as to initiate contact with a hit man. But at the last minute he chickened out. It was too risky. Besides, how long could Orbison go on? Almost all of his contemporaries were dropping like flies from drugs or booze or some damn thing.
Shane Billiken decided to wait the guy out. How long could it take? And so he returned to his former trade. But by this time mysticism was no longer the province of dippy girls in tent dresses and guys with earrings. Now it belonged to the yuppies and the housewives. The Age of Aquarius was over. It was the New Age.
Once he got into the swing of it, Shane Billiken found that by working the exclusive-clientele angle, he could make ten times the money for one-twentieth the effort. Meantime, he practiced his singing in the shower.
A limo was waiting for him at LAX airport. Shane hustled the princess into the back. She spat at him. Some days she was touchy. Like the last time he tried to get into her pants. He hadn't been as much interested in that as he had been in getting another look at those silvery coins of hers. She guarded them jealously. She even slept with them, which was more than she did for the man who fed and clothed her and got her on talk shows all over the nation, thought Shane Billiken bitterly.
Even months after he had first taken her under his wing, after a battery of linguists had assured him to his own surprise that her language was not merely unidentified, but bore no linguistic resemblance to any tongue known to the modern world, Shane Billiken still had no idea where Princess Sinanchu came from. She resisted all his efforts to teach her English.
All he knew was that if no one could understand what she was saying, no one could possibly disprove his claim that she was the avatar of Princess Sinanchu of Atlantis.
For all he knew, it was true.
Returning to his house, Shane Billiken instructed Fernando, his Filipino valet, that he was not home.
"And I don't mean not home to visitors or callers, I mean not home. As far as you know, I'm in New York. Got that?"
"Yes, Mr. Billiken."
"And lock the princess in her room. She's been acting up again."
"Yes, Mr. Billiken," said the valet, gently but firmly taking Princess Sinanchu by the arm and escorting her to her room. He locked it, thinking that it was a shame that such an attractive woman should be a virtual prisoner in this house. But he dared say nothing to the authorities. He was an illegal alien himself and Shane Billiken constantly held the threat of deportation over his head.
When the doorbell rang hours later, Fernando was afraid to answer it. Mr. Billiken had ordered him to get his lawyer on the phone and then had ordered him out of the room while he took the call. Fernando was afraid that he had called the immigration authorities. He feared them.
But not as much as he feared his master. So when Mr. Billiken had yelled at him to answer the "freaking door," Fernando wiped the palm sweat on the side of his black pants and straightened his white housecoat properly.
They were not immigration authorities at the door, he was relieved to see. Not unless they had an international force. The white man wore a T-shirt and slacks. There was an Asian man, very old, who wore a kimono. No, not Immigration, Fernando thought with relief.
"We're here to see Shane Billiken," the white one said simply.
"Mr. Billiken not home."
"I didn't say he was. We're willing to wait." And the white man breezed in. The Oriental started to follow, but Fernando tried to shut the door in his face.
The door, instead, kept on going. The knob flew out of Fernando's stung hand. It sailed over the tiny Oriental's head and hit the driveway like a fallen tree.
Fernando stepped aside quickly to let the Oriental pass. "What's that noise?" demanded Shane Billiken from the den.
Fernando looked sheepish when the white man turned and shot an accusing glare at him.
"Not in, huh?" Fernando shrugged.
Shane Billiken took one look at the fruity-looking man and the old Oriental's saffron costume and said, "If you're here for the Harmonic Convergence Open House, you're too late. That was last month."
"We're not," the white man said.
"Then who are you'?" Shane demanded. "Not cops?"
"No, not cops," the white said.
"Lawyers, then. Process servers?"
"Interested parties."
"Yeah. What are you interested in?"
The old Oriental spoke up then. His voice was low and reserved. He was an Eastern type in a robe. Probably some fakir or something.
"We wish to speak with her highness."
"About what?"
"It is a matter that concerns her house and my house."
"Yeah, well, this is my house, and I have a right to know what your business is."
"Don't look at me," the skinny one said. "I've been trying to pry it out of him for hours."
"Fernando, get rid of them," Shane Billiken ordered. Behind the two, Shane Billiken noticed Fernando pointing at the open door. He kept pointing. Shane blinked. He noticed the door was not there. Then he saw a corner of it lying out in the circular driveway. The corner was splintered.
"Hey, what'd you do to my door?" he demanded.
"Let us see the princess and we won't do a repeat demonstration on every door in the place," the white man said.