The Last Days of John Lennon Read online

  Copyright © 2020 by James Patterson

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104

  littlebrown.com

  twitter.com/littlebrown

  facebook.com/littlebrownandcompany

  First ebook edition: December 2020

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.

  ISBN 978-0-316-42907-8

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2020945289

  E3-111020-DA-ORI

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  —

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  —

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  —

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  —

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  —

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  —

  Chapter 44

  —

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  —

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  —

  Chapter 60

  —

  Chapter 61

  —

  Chapter 62

  —

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  —

  Chapter 68

  —

  Notes

  ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Photos

  Coming Soon

  On June 1, 1969, John Lennon gathered with some friends at a hotel in Toronto to record a song called “Give Peace a Chance.”

  “Sing along,” he told the members of the chorus as he launched into the opening line, “Everybody’s talking about…”

  To this day, people are still talking—and singing—about John.

  Thank you for your words…

  Harry Benson

  David Bowie

  Bob Dylan

  Dr. David Halleran

  Mick Jagger

  Billy Joel

  Elton John

  Ken Mansfield

  Paul McCartney

  Keith Richards

  Geraldo Rivera

  Prologue

  December 6, 1980

  He sits in the airplane, inside a cloud of cigarette smoke. He opens his wallet and looks at the permit for his handgun. He was going to buy a .22 when the salesman steered him toward a .38.

  Well, if you get a .22 and a burglar comes in, he’s just going to laugh at you, the salesman said. But if you have a .38 nobody’s going to laugh at you. Just one shot with a .38 and you’re going to bring him down.

  The safest way to transport the weapon, the Federal Aviation Administration told him over the phone, was to pack it, along with the ammo, inside a suitcase—which he did. The gun was purchased legally—personal protection, he told the salesman—in Hawaii.

  The ammo is another matter. Hollow-points are illegal in New York. If security decides to search his bag, he could be arrested.

  It’ll be fine, he keeps telling himself as he exits the plane. The biggest threat these days is skyjacking. He doesn’t look like a terrorist.

  He stands at the carousel inside LaGuardia, keeping an eye out for his bag while covertly watching the security people from behind the reddish-brown tinted lenses of his aviator-style eyeglasses.

  No one is paying attention to him—a good sign. He picks up his suitcase.

  No one comes running for him.

  He heads for the exit.

  No one comes looking for him.

  The people he passes—business travelers and those who have come to the Big Apple to enjoy a few days of Christmas shopping—don’t even acknowledge his presence. No eye contact, not a nod hello, nothing.

  It’s like I’m invisible.

  And in a way, he is. He’s been invisible his whole life. He’s not remarkable in any way, which gives him a distinct tactical advantage. He can blend in anywhere, and he doesn’t look threatening.

  And I have to stay that way. I have to appear normal at all times.

  Which means staying out of his head as much as possible.

  His mind is a dangerous neighborhood.

  He steps outside the airport, into the bright sunshine. The air is unseasonably warm. He drops his suitcase at the curb and, sweating and out of breath, hails a cab, his thoughts turning to the five bullets packed next to his gun. The FAA also told him that changes in air pressure could damage them.

  He only needs one of them to work.

  The five hollow-point Smith & Wesson +P cartridges are designed for maximum stopping power—and maximum damage. When one hits soft tissue, the tip mushrooms into a lethal miniature buzz saw that spins and bounces its way through the body, shredding tissue and organs.

  One shot is more than enough to ensure John Lennon’s death.

  A yellow cab slides up next to him. He puts his suitcase in the trunk, then gets into the back seat. He gives the driver the address for the West Side YMCA, off Central Park West. It’s only nine blocks away from his true destination.

  He puts on his best smile and tells the cabbie, “I’m a recording engineer.”

  The taxi pulls away from the curb.

  “I’m working with John Lennon and Paul McCartney.”

  The cabbie ignores him.

  He glares at the back of the man’s head. If you only knew what I’m about to do, you would be paying attention to me. You wouldn’t be trea
ting me like some nowhere man.

  “Nowhere Man” is a song by his favorite group of all time, the Beatles. Well, they used to be his favorite, until they broke up. And he still hasn’t forgiven John Lennon for saying that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus.

  That was blasphemy.

  The taxi gets in line with the bumper-to-bumper traffic heading into Manhattan. Everyone is rushing to Rockefeller Center. A sixty-five-foot Norway spruce has just been delivered, and electricians are working feverishly to prepare for the annual Christmas tree-lighting ceremony, which is only a few days away.

  He takes out a bag of coke. Snorts a line off his fist.

  The cabbie is now watching him in the rearview mirror.

  “Want some?”

  The driver shakes his head and returns his attention to the road.

  The coke isn’t working its magic. Instead of feeling a wave of intense pleasure, he’s sweating and working himself into a rage, all of it aimed at Lennon.

  “But I’d plug him anyway,” he mutters. “Six shots through his fat, hairy belly.”

  He arrives at his destination. He pays his fare, and as he steps out of the cab, he imagines police swarming him, their weapons drawn, ready to arrest him. He sees himself locked inside a jail cell for the rest of his life.

  The thought brings him comfort.

  Peace.

  He turns back to the driver. “I’m Mark Chapman. Remember my name if you hear it again.”

  Chapter 1

  Isn’t he a bit like you and me?

  —“Nowhere Man”

  You’ll like John,” Paul McCartney’s friend Ivan Vaughan says. “He’s a great fellow.”

  Paul knows John Lennon, but only by sight, really. John is older—almost seventeen—and the two have never spoken, even though they ride the same Allerton-to-Woolton bus to school.

  Today John’s singing with his band, the Quarry Men, at the St. Pete’s Church fete, and fifteen-year-old Paul and Ivy have bicycled over to check them out. Well, Ivy’s interested—Paul wants to check out the girls.

  It’s Saturday, July 6, 1957, and already hot when the Quarry Men take the outside stage.

  John’s wearing a “shortie”—a knee-length coat—over a checkered red-and-white shirt and black drainpipe jeans. He starts to cover the Del-Vikings’ doo-wop tune “Come Go with Me.” Paul has heard the American song only a handful of times, on the Decca Records show on Radio Luxembourg and playing in one of the record-shop booths.

  Paul half listens and goes back to scouting the crowd. He’s thinking about which girl to approach first when he hears John change the lyrics without skipping a beat. Paul knows a lot about the guitar, and he can’t figure out what style John is playing as he breaks into a rockabilly cover of Gene Vincent’s “Be-Bop-a-Lula.” John dominates the stage. Owns it.

  Which isn’t much of a surprise. Everyone knows John Lennon is cocky and confident—and a local Ted, or Teddy Boy. Here in Liverpool, the Teds, with their long sideburns and oiled-up hair swept together in the back like a duck’s arse, are hard, rebellious working-class men and boys who love getting into fights.

  Paul follows Ivy inside the St. Peter’s church hall, where the band’s setting up to play another set. John is widely considered a hoodlum. He lives with his aunt instead of his mum. The talk around town is that John’s father abandoned him, and now John’s mum lives in sin with another man. They had two daughters out of wedlock.

  The memory of Paul’s own mother suddenly crowds his thoughts.

  This past October, on the twenty-ninth, Mary McCartney went into the hospital. She didn’t tell him or his brother, Mike, why. Then, two days later, on Halloween, she died—from breast cancer, Paul found out eventually. Eight months have passed, and the loss still pierces him.

  And that’s when he became consumed by music. As his brother puts it, “You lose a mother—and you find a guitar?”

  If you can sing or play an instrument, Paul, you’ll always be invited to the party, his dad, Jim, a jazz musician in his youth, tells him. Paul starts on the trumpet, but after hearing Elvis Presley and Lonnie Donegan, the so-called King of Skiffle, he takes the horn back to the Rushworth and Dreaper music shop and swaps it for a Zenith guitar.

  The problem is he’s left-handed, and guitars are made for right-handers. So he’s learned to play the guitar in reverse—right hand working the fret board, shaping the chords, while strumming with his left.

  Paul picks up one of the guitars in the hall and starts to play “Twenty Flight Rock”—a song Eddie Cochran performed in the movie The Girl Can’t Help It—which he only learned a few days ago. It’s an immensely tricky song to play, even more so if you’re forced to play wrong-handed. But Paul’s only ambition in life is to be like Elvis, so he puts a lot of swagger into his impromptu performance. John stands nearby, his eyes narrowed, almost slanted. It’s the same look he had earlier while performing onstage, as though he were looking down on the crowd.

  And now he’s looking down on me. Thinks I’m just a fat schoolboy.

  * * *

  Paul finishes the song, then starts to tell John about how he works out his own lyrics: “Like I’m writing an essay or doing a crossword puzzle.”

  John nods, uninterested.

  Paul goes over to a nearby piano. He sits and starts to play Jerry Lee Lewis’s hit song “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On.” Paul really gets into the music, even pounding the keys like Jerry Lee does.

  Paul feels John’s arm on his shoulder. John leans over, contributing a deft right hand in the song’s upper octaves. He’s drunk, Paul realizes.

  When they finish playing, John announces that it’s time for the pub. Paul’s heart thunders with excitement. The coolest kid in Liverpool has just invited me.

  Bubbling beneath it is another feeling: apprehension. Every adult, including Paul’s dad, says about John, He’ll get you into trouble, son. John Lennon, with his intimidating glare and his sideburns and upturned collar. You saw him rather than met him.

  Now that Paul has, he’s sticking around.

  Chapter 2

  Won’t you join together with the band?

  —“Join Together”

  John doesn’t care that Paul is only fifteen. Musically, he’s as serious as John is about rock ’n’ roll. Paul’s already composing songs and knows how to play the piano.

  And he plays the guitar perfectly—upside down.

  Should I ask Paul to join the band? What if he tries to take over? John ponders these questions as he stands on the cobblestones outside the Cavern Club, in central Liverpool, where the Quarry Men played their first gig. The club, located under a fruit and vegetable warehouse, is a well-known jazz venue. “We never get auditions because of the jazz bands,” John says, but now jazz is on the way out, replaced by skiffle, a British version of jug-band music that the Quarry Men play.

  But John’s true love is American rock ’n’ roll, and tonight he wants nothing more than to get onstage and bend the crowd’s ears back with its raw rhythms. Except the Cavern Club doesn’t allow that type of music. No place does.

  Rock ’n’ roll has had a bad reputation ever since the American film Rock Around the Clock came to Britain last year and waves of teenagers ripped up their cinema seats so they could dance to the title track, by Bill Haley and His Comets. Now the old guard is terrified of the music’s destructive power. The BBC won’t play it on radio or TV.

  But rock ’n’ roll isn’t going away. Until just recently, the number-one song in the country was Elvis Presley’s “All Shook Up.” John first heard about Elvis from a schoolmate quoting a music magazine. New Musical Express featured this strangely named American singer who had women screaming and fainting when he sang “Heartbreak Hotel” and thrust his hips onstage.

  John bought the record and rushed home with it. He lives with his aunt, Mimi Smith, not his mum, Mimi’s sister Julia. At night, John gets underneath the bedcovers with his portable radio and turns the volume down low to list
en to medium-wave Radio Luxembourg, which plays all the American rock ’n’ roll hits.

  Mimi does not approve of rock ’n’ roll. She thinks people who listen to it are “low class” and wants him to stay focused on his schoolwork. Mimi doesn’t know that he’s formed a band, let alone that he has a gig tonight.

  “A guitar’s all right, John, but you’ll never earn a living by it.”

  But John’s sure she’s wrong. “I wanted to write Alice in Wonderland and be Elvis Presley,” he says, and as far as he’s concerned, he can—and will—do both. A few days ago, he’d discovered that Mimi had yet again “cleaned” his room, tossing out all his drawings and poems. He was furious and didn’t hold back: You’ve thrown my fuckin’ poetry out, and you’ll regret it when I’m famous.

  John wonders what Mimi’s reaction would be if she found out that the source of his forbidden Ted clothes is Julia, who loves Elvis just as much as he does. Julia, unlike puritan Mimi, has a record player and loves to sing and dance and toss about her gingery hair. She even bought him his first guitar, an acoustic Spanish flamenco-style model with steel strings that have cut painful grooves into his fingertips from his constant practicing.

  By the time John meets up with his mates at the Cavern Club that evening, he’s come to a decision about Paul McCartney. “It went through my head that I’d have to keep him in line,” John later reveals. “But he was worth having.” John seeks out a mutual friend, Pete Shotton, to extend the invitation.

  * * *

  A four-string guitar strapped around his shoulder, John stares out at the middle-aged audience. God, they look stiff. He turns to the band and cues them.

  Rod Davis, the banjo player, sidles up next to him, frantic. “You can’t do that,” he says. “They’ll eat you alive if you start playing rock ’n’ roll in the Cavern!”

  John ignores him and turns back to the crowd.

  Let’s give ’em a taste of the King.

  John belts out Elvis Presley’s “Don’t Be Cruel.” The Quarry Men follow.

  The manager hears the chorus—Don’t be cruel to a heart that’s true—and rushes to the stage with a note.

  Cut out the bloody rock ’n’ roll.

  John tosses the note aside and channels Jerry Lee Lewis and his new favorite, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, as he tears into another rock ’n’ roll number from the American pop charts.