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“Of course. It’s clear you can’t handle him alone.”
Gordon’s eyes sharpened. “I thought you wanted me to play it safe,” he said slowly. “To cover your ass. To cover Helix’s soft, pimply white corporate ass, too. If you want me to go mano a mano with that crazy fucker, I’ll do it. But you’d be rolling the dice right along with me. The guy’s extremely dangerous. And he’ll be on his guard.”
“Hire whoever you need,” Osterman snapped. “Just keep it contained.”
“I’ll need people for surveillance. The McClouds would notice us watching, but the Endicotts are idiots. I’ll tap their phones…”
Gordon droned on, but Osterman was no longer listening. He was lost in the memories of those four amazing days he’d spent playing with Kevin McCloud’s brain. Released from any responsibility not to injure his subject, since thanks to Gordon’s machinations, the young man had already been officially dead. Ashes, floating on the breeze.
Which meant that the unhappy creature strapped to that chair had belonged, completely and utterly, to Christopher Osterman.
What a feeling it had been. Utter power, total freedom. Bliss.
He’d been trying ever since to repeat the experience. In vain. He hadn’t found a brain with anything near that capacity to diddle with.
This was dangerous. Gordon was nuts. Things were slipping out of control. He was risking everything he’d spent his whole life building.
But this temptation Osterman could not hope to resist.
“I can’t figureout what we’re doing wrong.” Cindy fast forwarded through the audio file of Javier’s audition to see if that wobbly wah-wah sound was constant throughout. It was. She tried not to groan.
“It sounds like I’m playing underwater,” Javier said glumly. “I can’t send in that piece of shit. They’d laugh their asses off.”
Cindy couldn’t deny it. The tape sounded horrible.
She really wanted for Javier to get into the Young Artists’ All Star Jazz Program. He was more than good enough for a scholarship, even if he was barely thirteen. He played the hell out of that sax.
It wasn’t his fault that the recording wasn’t great. Her mic sucked, the acoustics sucked, and the recording device sucked, to say nothing of what she herself might be doing wrong. She needed a decent mic, a soundproof room, someone who knew what he was doing. In short, she needed Miles.
Too freaking bad, honey. He thinks you’re a brainless snow bunny.
“I’ll ask around, see if I can find a better recording setup,” she offered. “We’ll try again. Don’t get discouraged.”
“Nah. The application said it had to be postmarked by tomorrow.” Javier was downcast. “Thanks for trying, though. Don’t sweat it.” He gave her a smile that hurt her heart. He’d been disappointed so often, he’d come to accept it, with an adult grace that put her to shame. She was ten years older. She bitched and moaned ten times as much.
“No, really. Don’t give up yet. I have a friend who’s a sound magician. I’ll see if he can help us out,” she said rashly.
Javier gave her a “whatever” shrug as he took his sax apart and lovingly laid it in the nest of crimson fuzz inside the case.
She wanted that scholarship for him so bad, she could taste it. She’d bonded with Javier at the beginning of band camp. They were about to throw him out for fighting, and she’d taken him aside to figure out what the deal was. Turned out that the spit-shined mama’s boys in the brass section had been ragging him because his dad was in jail.
“No kidding? So’s mine,” she’d said. “Sucks the big one, huh?”
Javier’s eyes had narrowed to liquid brown slits, hyper-wary of being messed with. “No shit,” he said. “How long’s he in for?”
“Life.” Her throat still clamped down painfully on the word. It had been years, but she just couldn’t get used to the idea of Daddy in jail.
“No parole?”
She shook her head. “Not a chance. They slammed him but good.”
“What’s he in for?” Javier demanded.
“Murder, mostly. Some other stuff, but that was the biggie.”
That had impressed the hell out of Javier. “Wow,” he breathed. “Bummer. Mine’s just in for pushing dope.”
She’d won him over with that little bit of one-upmanship. She’d had a sharp word with Mike, who led the brass section, and things had evened out. She discreetly gave Javier twice as many lessons as camp curriculum called for. It was no chore. He wasn’t so hot at reading music yet, but who the hell cared? His improvisations blew her away.
