Over the Edge With Pete Doherty

The next evening, McConnell sends me a text message, telling me to come to Koko, a cavernous rock club in Camden. When I arrive, the Paddingtons, a punk band from Hull, are in the middle of a raucous set, with McConnell watching from the side of the stage. I ask where Doherty is. McConnell jabs a thumb at the rafters above the stage. We climb a spiral staircase leading up to a catwalk. Doherty, wearing a striped button-down shirt beneath a light-blue sweater, is watching the band, drinking whiskey from a bottle and taking the occasional hit from a crack pipe. With his wide, circled eyes, he looks a bit like Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day, only he's not wearing mascara. He says hello and introduces me to his friend the General, a middle-aged Rastafarian he met in prison, and who subsequently cut a reggae track for Down in Albion. The General gives me a fist-bop handshake and says, "Respect." After a few moments of bobbing his head excitedly, Doherty begins to climb onto the railing to get a better view. McConnell quickly rushes over and grabs him by the waist.

Downstairs in the dressing room, Doherty is greeted by friends, models and a guy who used to work with Oasis, who collars him and says, "I'm telling you, with my rock sound and your talent, your next album could be huge." I ask Doherty when he wants to talk. He looks at me, seeming confused, and says, "What do you want to talk about?" Then he says, "Oh, you wanted to do a piece?" I say yes. His cell phone rings. He says, "Wait right here, I'll be back in a minute." He leaves the building and never returns.

Two weeks later, in Manchester, I make another attempt. It is the final date of a mini Babyshambles tour. The band, whose debut is scheduled to be released in April in the United States, remains a notoriously erratic live act. Matt Bates, Babyshambles' booking agent, recalls a show in which Doherty, playing bass, fell asleep midway through the first song. ("His head just kind of slumped over," Bates says, "and then half of the band just walked offstage.") But on this night, at least, though Doherty arrives nearly two hours late for the show -- greeting the crowd by slurring, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you" -- the band turns in a thrilling performance, covering most of Albion and, rather mischievously, the Libertines song "What Katie Did," written long before Doherty met Moss but playing like a weird divination of the singer's recent past.

"Oh, what you gonna do, Katie?/You're a sweet, sweet girl/But it's a cruel, cruel world . . ." Doherty sang, clamping his fedora to his head with one hand and affecting a sort of damaged croon. "Since you said goodbye, polka dots filled my eyes . . ./ And I don't know why."

The mood on the tour bus after the show is celebratory, to put it mildly. Several young-looking fans inhale lines of cocaine from a table, and a pretty blonde wearing too much makeup smokes heroin off a square of aluminum foil. Assuming she's a groupie, I ask how she knows the band. "Oh," she chirps brightly, "I'm Peter's new publicity manager!"

Moments later, Doherty boards the bus, squints at me and says, "You always manage to turn up at the best times, don't you?" His voice is gentle, its timbre vaguely bruised. After a moment, he flips open the view screen of a camcorder -- as he works the play button, I notice his fingertips are split and blackened from crack use -- and begins to watch his own performance from this very evening. On the screen, a miniature Doherty bobs and sways across the stage, seeming less like he's dancing than dodging invisible punches. The real-life Doherty, smiling delightedly, begins to sing along with his recorded counterpart. After duetting with himself on a couple of songs, he retreats, without a word, to a private section of the bus to prepare for a second, solo gig, at a tiny venue down the street. "It's a way for him to get a little extra money," cryptically notes Babyshambles drummer Adam Ficek.

At the afterparty, Doherty is nowhere to be found, but it's here where I first meet Johnny Headlock, a former drug dealer who works with the group, and a man Doherty trusts like few others. Wiry and belligerent -- one of the first things he says to me is "I know you're from New York, but the Strokes are a bunch of New York City faggots" -- yet extraordinarily charming, Johnny does not touch crack or heroin. I listen as, in the middle of the party, he menaces the young promoter of the show, who has apparently failed to comp the band enough drinks.