Compact with the Devil: A Novel (18 page)

“Well, if you’re looking for a motive, I say follow the money.
Find out who benefits from his death financially. I’d go talk to that Angela girl. She’s sounds a little suspect—go find out about her.”

“I could stand to know a little more about all of them,” said Nikki.

“Room search?” suggested Jenny.

“How’s she going to search rooms?” objected Ellen. “She doesn’t have any equipment.”

“Actually, I do,” said Nikki. “I guess Carrie Mae retirees don’t entirely give up the life.”

“Trista’s packing?” asked Jenny gleefully.

“Lock picks, a small fingerprint kit, knife, and an early version of knockout gas perfume.”

“Ha!” said Ellen. “Once you’re Carrie Mae, you are always Carrie Mae.”

“So it would seem,” said Nikki, pulling on her mostly dry bra and reaching for the T-shirt. “Although … I know I didn’t ask for this stuff, but I’m pretty sure that their existence is something that I should have been told about. I’m not trying to step on anyone’s toes, but I’m starting to feel like I’m not being taken seriously.” Nikki knew she was drifting off into whining, but it had been a bad day.

“Nonsense,” said Ellen. “We take you seriously.”

“Yeah, but you like me. I’m starting to think that everyone else just sees me as some redheaded…” Words failed her and she reverted to the one thing she was afraid she’d always be labeled. “Cheerleader. I mean, I’m not like Z’ev. He looks solid and reassuring and people just assume that he knows what he’s doing. Or Val. Well, mostly people were scared Val was going to shoot them, but people still did what she told them. Or Kit. He just smiles and suddenly people want to take care of him and be with him. But I’m just some twenty-six-year-old Twinkie. Nobody’s even questioned
that I could be a makeup artist; they think it’s totally reasonable.”

“That is ridiculous,” scolded Ellen. “You are not a Twinkie. You are a smart, kick-ass woman. And you’re undercover; no one is supposed to question whether or not you could be a makeup artist.”

“It’s just kind of hard,” said Nikki. “Did I tell you about the groupie? She looked like a six-foot-tall supermodel and he kicked her out. I mean, she had drugs and everything, but it’s just hard not to feel a little … short.”

“You like him,” said Jenny, and Nikki could hear the smirk in her voice.

“No, I don’t,” snapped Nikki.

“Yes, you do. You have a crush on the rock star. You’re not mad that people trip over themselves when he smiles; you’re mad because you trip over yourself when he smiles.”

Nikki drummed her fingers on the bedside table.

“Maybe,” she said, admitting it finally. “But that is irrelevant to my point about leadership. And besides, he has bigger issues than I do, which is a serious red flag. Plus, I just broke up with Z’ev.”

“Yes, and you seem to be taking that awfully well,” said Jenny.

“I haven’t had time to think about it,” said Nikki, fighting the lump that unexpectedly welled up in her throat. If she thought about Z’ev she would break down and cry. And crying, even in front of Jenny and Ellen … Well, she just couldn’t do it. Better to not think about the bad stuff, as her mother said. “This isn’t really the time to think about me anyway,” said Nikki, trying to reroute her emotions before they became dangerous. “I’ve got a job to do. Got to figure out just what the hell Camille and Cano are up to and save the rock star from whoever’s trying to kill him, yadda yadda yadda. And I get to do it all on about four hours’sleep.”

“Oh, stop your pity party,” said Ellen with good-humored acerbity.

“See?” said Nikki, smiling. “I don’t want to hear that. People don’t tell the leader that.”

“Yes, they do,” said Ellen. “That’s one of your problems with Kit—no one is telling him the truth, and he’s not insisting that they do. It’s hard to be a leader when all you hear is the echo of your own voice. But that’s not you. You thrive on collaboration and information. It’s part of what makes you a good leader.”

“I’m a leader without a pack,” said Nikki plaintively.

“OK, fine,” said Ellen, “lone-wolf it then. You’re suspicious of Duncan; you think someone is attempting to sabotage Kit’s sobriety and you’re pretty sure Cano’s trying to kill him. Time to get busy. What are you going to do?”

“Trista knows something,” said Nikki, giving in. “I’m going to search the rooms tonight and then talk to her in the morning.”

“Well, call us back afterward,” said Jenny. “I want to hear what you find.”

“Probably a lot of dirty laundry,” said Nikki realistically.

“That’s what we’re hoping for!” exclaimed Jenny, mistaking the actual laundry in Nikki’s mind for a metaphor.

“Signal!” said Ellen suddenly.

“Ooh! That’s us. Gotta go. Talk to you later, fearless leader!”

The line went dead, and Nikki sighed again. She wished her friends were with her now. Things always seemed so much more manageable when they were around.

Nikki found a pair of Carrie Mae purple sweats that had faded almost to gray in Trista’s bag and put them on, rolling the top down several times. Then, packing Trista’s roll of bad-girl tools into a bath towel, Nikki stepped out into the corridor, hoping she just looked like a guest searching for the hot tub.

With everyone else still at the hospital, Nikki set out to search the rooms. Trista’s tools were archaic, but fortunately, so was the hotel. They still operated off of actual keys and locks, even at the penthouse level—her first stop. It was on the top floor, but Nikki had the impression from Holly that it was below Kit’s usual standards. She bypassed Kit’s luggage and went directly to the phone and dialed the front desk.

“Hullo,” she said. Her English accent wasn’t perfect, but it would fool a French person. If the phone call ever came under suspicion the limited number of French speakers on the tour would make her a suspect. But a random British female widened the pool significantly.

“Yes, hullo, I’m part of the Kit Masters tour and I need a record of what rooms the Kit Masters tour is currently occupying.” She listened to the person on the other end of the line, as she searched the desk drawers. “Yes, I’m afraid we’re all a bit confused and no one can find anyone. If you wouldn’t mind just running down
the names and numbers of our rooms, that would be smashing.” Turning up nothing of interest other than stationery and a fax machine, Nikki waited impatiently for the clerk to finish looking up the room numbers.

She had just finished jotting down the numbers when she heard a key in the door. She ran into the hall, ducking into the bathroom just as the front door opened.

“This is it?” asked Angela disdainfully. “This is the penthouse? God, I don’t even want to see our rooms.”

“Well, we must make do with what fate hands us,” said Brandt, sounding as if he was only half listening.

“It ought to be your room anyway,” said Angela. “You’re the head of a major record label. He’s just an
artist
.”

Nikki blinked at the major sucking up from Angela.

“Just drop your stuff,” said Brandt. “We’re not staying that long. We’ll see what Kit’s doing at the hospital and get out of here as soon as possible. Probably tonight.”

“I don’t know…,” said Angela. “He’s awfully attached to that stupid Trista. He’s not going to leave.”

“Well, he’ll have to,” said Brandt, sounding more stern. “He has contractual obligations, which I will remind him of.”

“This wouldn’t be a problem if he were boozing again,” said Angela. “We could just feed him a bottle of Jack and some E and pack him on a plane to Paris.”

“Yes, his sobriety has been surprisingly long-lived,” said Brandt, not sounding in the least perturbed by Angela’s suggestion. “Who would have thought he’d develop willpower at this stage in his life? Maybe he’ll take one of your little hints one day.”

There was the sound of bags being put down as Angela laughed nervously.

“The champagne was just a joke,” said Angela, clearly defensive. “I thought you’d be into it.”

“Leaving a bottle of champagne in every greenroom? Hilarious. But don’t worry about it,” said Brandt. “Between Duncan and Trista he hasn’t seen one of them. You’re really going to have to try harder.” Brandt didn’t sound mad—just annoyed in a distant way.

“Do we really have to go to the hospital?” asked Angela in the uncomfortable silence that followed.

“We don’t want to seem rude,” said Brandt. “It’s expected, after all. And besides, we need to get Kit out of there and back on the road.”

“Those people hate me,” said Angela bitterly. “I’ve done nothing but run an efficient tour and they all hate me.”

“They don’t hate you,” said Brandt.

“Yes, they do,” said Angela. “None of them will sit next to me on the bus.”

“Why would you want to sit with them anyway?” asked Brandt. There was the sound of the door opening and then closing over Angela’s whining reply.

Carefully Nikki exited the bathroom and surveyed the bags left by Brandt and Angela.

“Let’s do yours first, peaches,” said Nikki, reaching for the Louis Vuitton carry-on bag that she presumed to be Angela’s. Carefully she unpacked the bag on the coffee table, laying everything out in the order she removed it. It was a boring collection of items. Designer brush, designer soap, designer underwear, all packed in separate designer pouches.

Nikki didn’t know how much tour managers made, but she was pretty sure that at any salary a designer life was still going to stretch the budget. The remaining item of interest was a binder filled with clipping after clipping from Kit’s career.

The clippings dated back to his @last days. There were the basics, founding, highlights, implosion, death of the lead singer in drug-fueled car accident, predictions of a similar death for Kit. Brandt was mostly missing in those articles—usually listed under “other members.” Then there was the founding of Faustus Records—
MASTERS AND DETTLING PARTNERS!
Apparently that article had gone for the double entendre about the gay rumors surrounding Kit and Brandt’s close friendship. Then there was Kit’s first number one single.
KIT MASTERS CAUGHT IN SWISS MISS MAYHEM
! The picture showed a sprightly blonde in braids and lederhosen. Nikki skipped that article. A recent article about Brandt was headlined
FAUSTUS SUES ISLAND RECORDS
. Artist poaching seemed to be the problem in dispute. A short article about the helicopter incident rounded out the collection. With a shrug, Nikki was about to shut the notebook when it fell open to the back cover.

The back pocket of the binder was stuffed with letters. Nikki might have dismissed them as fan letters had she not caught the word “kill” in the midst of one of the sentences. Pulling out the letters, Nikki scanned them. They were all threats of some kind. One raving anti-fan blamed Kit for the breakup of his relationship and threatened a whole list of bodily damage. The last letter in the stack seemed the least crazy but disturbed Nikki the most.

“Your very existence is proof that the world has become like an obese man eating ever more while his neighbors starve. You should be put down before you poison the world with the corrupt culture you represent.” The letter was signed AMC. Antonio Mergado Cano? The letter had a Spanish postmark, but she had no idea what the postmark from Puerto 1 would look like. If the letter was from Cano, then it seemed clear that Cano had abandoned the Basque cause for a general hatred of Western culture. And it seemed equally clear that he was aware of Kit’s existence.
Neither was a particularly good sign. She shuffled through the letters again. Angela hadn’t appeared to give AMC’s any special attention, but it was a connection, however tenuous. And Angela had admitted to leaving the champagne in Kit’s greenrooms. Angela was looking even more likely as the figure in the tracksuit, but Nikki couldn’t be sure.

She moved on to Brandt’s luggage—a slim-line Nava briefcase and small overnight bag.

The overnight bag held basic necessities and a small .38 pistol. Nikki contemplated the gun with interest. There was no smell of cordite to indicate a recent firing, but the piece had been oiled and cleaned not long ago. Tucking the contents back in the overnight bag, she turned to the briefcase. It was locked but yielded easily to Trista’s lock picks.

The briefcase was a mess of paperwork. If Angela was precision itself, then Brandt was an explosion of restless disorder. She removed a notebook containing tiny, chicken-scratch writing and doodles; several artist contracts; and a spreadsheet that she couldn’t make heads or tails of. After further digging, she found a copy of Kit’s contract. Nikki checked her watch and mentally cursed. She didn’t have time to go through the legalese and still search everyone’s room. They would all be getting back from dinner and the hospital soon.

Acting quickly, she went back to the desk and opened the bottom drawer, pulling out a fax machine. It took several minutes to fax the entire contract to Jenny and Ellen, but she thought it was worth the effort. Getting the staple back in the exact same holes, however, taxed her patience to the utmost.

Sliding out of the penthouse, she moved on to the other rooms on her list. She went through the band’s rooms first. They had enough physical proximity to Kit to be a threat, but they had been
onstage during the collapse, which made it unlikely that they were behind the accidents or in league with Cano. But Nikki didn’t cross them out entirely. From there she turned to the road manager and top crew members; nothing suspicious appeared. Duncan’s room was last since he was still at the hospital with Kit and was least likely to return without warning.

Turning toward Duncan’s room, she began to hurry. Trista’s semicoherent rambling and Duncan’s own suspicious behavior and knowledge of Carrie Mae had put him at the top of her suspect list until she’d seen the letter in Angela’s carry-on.

Nikki opened the door to Duncan’s room and looked around. His bags, all two of them, had been placed on the bed. Not surprisingly, since she didn’t think he’d left the hospital, nothing else had been touched.

She took the first bag off the bed and placed it on the floor. The main portion of the bag contained clothes, an incongruous but well-worn pair of cowboy boots, and what looked like a hand-knitted sweater of oatmeal-colored wool. The other pockets contained a well-worn bulletproof vest and toiletries, a netbook computer, and a fat novel by Neal Stephenson. The second bag contained an expensive black suit and dress shoes.