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“Yeah. That’s right.” He didn’t seem impressed. He tugged on the white feather earring. “Listen, I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but if you’d had a portfolio, you would of had something to fall back on after you was washed up.”
“I’ll remember that for the future.” The door shut behind him, and she realized that she was smiling for the first time in weeks. Around this crew anyway, the Glitter Baby was yesterday’s news. She felt as if she had more air to breathe.
The tour was opening that night at a sports arena north of Vienna, and once Stu came back with the errant roadie, she didn’t have a minute to think. First there was a ticket mix-up, and then the one-hour warning calls to the band. She had to be in the lobby early to double-check transportation and take care of tips. Then she had to make a second set of phone calls to the band members telling them the limos were ready. Stu yelled at her about everything, but he seemed to yell at everybody except the band, so she tried to ignore it. As far as she could tell, there were only two cardinal rules: keep the band happy, and double-check everything.
As the members of Neon Lynx wandered into the lobby, she identified each one. Peter Zabel she’d met. Kyle Light, the bass player, wasn’t hard to spot. He had thin blond hair, dead eyes, and a wasted look. Frank LaPorte, the drummer, was a belligerent redhead with a Budweiser can in his hand. Simon Kale, the keyboard player, was the fiercest-looking black man she’d ever seen, with a shaved and oiled head, silver chains draping an overdeveloped chest, and something that looked suspiciously like a machete hanging from his belt.
“Where’s that freakin’ Barry?” Stu called out. “Fleur, go up and get that son of a bitch down here. And don’t do anything to upset him, for chrissake.”
Fleur reluctantly headed for the elevator and the penthouse suite of lead singer Barry Noy. The promotional kit billed him as the new Mick Jagger. He was twenty-four, and his photographs showed him with long, sandy-colored hair and fleshy lips permanently set in a sneer. From bits and pieces of conversations, she’d gathered that Barry was “difficult,” but she didn’t let herself think too hard about what that might mean.
She knocked at the door of his suite, and when there was no answer, she tried the knob. It was unlocked. “Barry?”
He was stretched out on the couch, his forearm thrown across his eyes and his sandy hair dangling over the couch pillows toward the carpet. He wore the same satin trousers as the other members of the band, except his were Day-Glo orange with a red sequined star strategically placed over the crotch.
“Barry? Stu sent me up to get you. The limos are here, and we’re ready to go.”
“I can’t play tonight.”
“Uh…Why’s that?”
“I’m depressed.” He gave a protracted sigh. “I swear I have never been so depressed in my entire fucking life. I can’t sing when I’m depressed.”
Fleur glanced at her watch, a man’s gold Rolex Stu had loaned her that afternoon. She had five minutes. Five minutes and two and a half days. “What are you depressed about?”
For the first time he looked at her.
“Who are you?”
“Fleur. The new road secretary.”
“Oh yeah, Peter told me about you. You used to be a big movie star or something.” He threw his arm back over his eyes. “I’m telling you, life is really shit. I mean I am really hot now. I can have any woman I want, but that bitch Kissy has me wrapped around her finger. I bet I called New York a hundred times today, but either I couldn’t get through or she never answered the phone.”
“Maybe she was out.”
“Yeah. She was out all right. Out with some stud.”
She had four minutes. “Would any woman in her right mind go out with another man when she could have you?” she said, even as she was thinking that any woman in her right mind would go out with a penguin before she’d go out with him. “I’ll bet your timing was bad. The time zones are confusing. Why don’t you try her after the concert? It’ll be early morning in New York. You’re sure to get her then.”
He seemed interested. “You think so?”
“I’m sure of it.” Three and a half minutes. If they had to wait for the elevator, she’d be in trouble. “I’ll even put through the call for you.”
“You’ll come here after the concert and help me get the call through?”
“Sure.”
He grinned. “Hey, that’s great. Hey, I think I’m going to like you.”
“Good. I’m sure I’m going to like you.” In a pig’s eye, you degenerate. Three minutes. “Let’s go downstairs.”
Barry propositioned her in the elevator between the ninth and tenth floors. When she refused him, he turned sullen, so she told him she thought she might have a venereal disease. That seemed to make him happy, and she delivered him to the lobby with thirty seconds to spare.
Chapter 17
They arrived at the ice hockey arena. The stage had been erected at one end of the rink, and hundreds of fans pushed against the wooden barricades. Ignoring the opening band, they called out for Barry and the group. Stu threw a clipboard at Fleur and told her to double-check everything. By the time she went backstage to watch the show, the crowd’s screams had grown deafening. Just as she put in the pink rubber earplugs the stage manager handed her, the rink went dark. A voice bellowed over the loudspeaker, introducing the band in German. The screams turned into a solid wall of sound, and four spotlights hit the stage like atomic blasts. The beams of light collided and Neon Lynx ran forward.
The crowd exploded. Barry leaped into the air, his hair flying. He thrust his hips so the red sequined star on his crotch caught fire. Frank LaPorte twirled his drumsticks, and Simon Kale slammed the keyboard. Fleur watched as a young girl, not more than twelve or thirteen, fainted over the barricade. The crowd pressed against her, and no one paid attention.
