Compact with the Devil: A Novel Read online

  “Maybe, but I wouldn’t leave Kit alone with either of them, just in case.”

  “Easy enough. Brandt left a while ago and Angela stormed out just now. Looked plenty pissed, too. What’d you say to her?”

  “We just talked about fashion,” said Nikki with a shrug.

  Kit came offstage, started to speak, and then caught sight of Nikki.

  “What happened to you?” he asked, laughing.

  “There was a slight incident with the airbrush,” Nikki said, trying to wipe the surliness out of her voice but not entirely succeeding.

  “You’d better go change,” he commented.

  “All my stuff is back at the hotel,” said Nikki, grumpiness taking over even further.

  “Even better,” he said persistently, refusing to give in to Nikki’s attitude. “I need my stage outfit for tonight anyway. So you can go back and get a shower”—he dug into his pocket and handed her his hotel room key-card—“and be back by teatime.”

  Nikki glanced doubtfully at Duncan.

  “You said you needed to pick up your friends at the airport anyway,” said Kit, and Nikki reluctantly nodded. “If you stay here, you’ll be sitting around watching me sit around. The director wants me to sing an @last song, and I’m not doing it, so he went to call Brandt and complain. Go get changed; Duncan and I can watch TV in the dressing room with the rest of the band. Besides, you look like some sort of mad footballer. I do have an image to protect, you know?” Nikki looked to Duncan, who shrugged and twitched his head toward the door.

  “You’re not going to go anywhere, right?” she asked, eyeing the proffered hotel key. “You’re going to stay here?”

  “I can’t go anywhere without my tour guide.”

  “Well, all right,” she said conceding with a smile. “I’ll be back in an hour. Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone and don’t listen to Burg.”

  “Oh please. I can keep myself out of trouble.”

  “Just be alive when I get back and I’ll be happy.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, throwing her a mock salute, and Nikki grinned.

  “Yeah, well, I’m counting on you,” she said to Kit, but made eye contact with Duncan, who nodded his understanding.

  PARIS XII

  Have to Answer to Us

  Nikki entered her hotel room and saw that Holly’s natural-disaster mode had spread to the bathroom. There was stuff everywhere. It shouldn’t have bothered her, but it did. She needed an orderly space for some orderly thoughts. Speculatively, she eyed Kit’s key-card to the penthouse suite. Penthouse usually meant a giant bathroom. With giant showerheads and fluffy towels. Ignoring the twinge of guilt, she scooped up her luggage and headed for the elevator.

  Once in the penthouse, Nikki dropped her purse and jacket by the door and pulled out Kit’s clothes, laying them out next to her luggage in the bedroom. She was planning on taking the specialty items and ditching most of the rest. She stripped as she made her way to the shower. She was really looking forward to the multiple showerheads. She had to admit that rock star living had its perks.

  As Nikki exited the shower, tucking one of the coveted velvety towels into place and running a comb through her hair, she opened the door to the living room, intending to get a glass of water.

  “Well, this is a surprise,” said Brandt. “You are most definitely not Kit. Angela really is incompetent. You wouldn’t think an instruction like ‘send Kit back to the hotel’ would be hard to follow, now, would you?”

  Nikki smothered a startled reaction and leaned against the door frame, staring at Brandt. Brandt tossed aside a magazine and showed all his teeth in an Angela-type smile. His .38 rested on the coffee table in front of him.

  “She was a little distracted,” said Nikki. “I think she got some paint on her jacket.”

  “Not the new one from Ralph Lauren? Tsk. She’ll be devastated. You know, I can see now why he likes you. You are pretty.”

  “Smart too,” said Nikki, wishing she were clothed. “You’re the one who gave that groupie the drugs. You set up the semitruck accident. And you were the one who met with Cano in Stuttgart.”

  “You can’t prove any of that,” replied Brandt, but his smile was a little too wide, and the glint in his eye sparkled with acknowledgment.

  “Why do you want to kill him?” asked Nikki, hoping to keep him talking.

  “I don’t,” said Brandt, stretching out one arm along the back of the couch. “Well, I didn’t at first, anyway. All I wanted was to get him back in the studio. Faustus needed a hit record, and since he can’t seem to make music sober, I had to do something. But he’s been remarkably resistant to my little temptations. Who knew Kit would actually stick with it this time?” Brandt was aggrieved, as if Kit’s sobriety were a matter of personal insult. “He doesn’t really have a backbone, you know. The only thing he’s ever stuck with was music, and if the girls didn’t scream for him, how long do you think that would last? Frankly, I thought between writer’s block and the damn drugs I’ve been throwing at him, he’d break in a minute. But Duncan proved to be a bit too good at his job.”

  “So what changed?” asked Nikki. Brandt seemed eager to explain himself, or at least tell her how smart he was; Nikki decided to let him. “Why the gunmen?”

  “The economy crashed. The banks are calling in their loans and suddenly a hit record wasn’t enough. I needed to get creative.”

  “The letters,” said Nikki, taking a guess, and Brandt narrowed his eyes. “The threat letters to Kit.”

  “It’s funny what we’ll do when the pressure’s on, isn’t it?” he asked. “I spent all that time trying to get a record out of him when I should have remembered about the contract. I wrote it after all. Kit was my invention, so why should his ‘heirs’ get the money? All those royalties and rights? Mine. I’d nearly forgotten it myself, but the ol’ gray matter kicked in eventually.” He tapped his temple with his index finger. “One day Angela walked into my office with the latest batch of crazy letters and I figured, one of them has got to be serious. So I reached out to a few of the top contenders, and I got Antonio Cano. This guy has such a hard-on for killing Kit that he actually broke out of prison when I said I would help. Can you believe it?” Brandt laughed as if Cano were the sucker.

  “Money?” asked Nikki, returning to the bathroom and brushing her hair in the mirror, trying to look calm. She scanned the bathroom, searching for a weapon. All her clothes and gadgets were in the bedroom. “That’s seriously it? You’re killing your best friend for money?”

  “You don’t get it,” said Brandt disgustedly. “This is about business. I’m trying to save Faustus. And I told you … I need something bigger than a hit record. I need a sensation. If Kit dies, I retain ownership of his entire back catalog and unproduced songs, all future royalties, everything. I can put out greatest-hits albums from now till the end of time. I was planning on having him die here in a mysterious shooting; that would have really kept things selling. But since he’s not here, I suppose we’ll have to improvise. Terrorist incident maybe; we’ll see what Cano says. By the time I’m done, Kit will be bigger than Selena. I probably can’t really hope he’ll be as big as Tupac, but I can dream.” Brandt took out a cigar and snipped off the end with his little cigar cutter.

  “You think it’s callous, I suppose. But do you know how much I spent, of my own money, to buy Kit out of that ridiculous @last contract? Not to mention all the drugs and the stint in rehab. I didn’t regret it because I knew my horse was a winner. And Kit, he was right there with me. Faustus Records was our dream. We were going to conquer the world—the two of us together.” Brandt laughed at his own youthful pretensions. “Now at the last furlong my horse has come up lame. Faustus is hemorrhaging and Kit’s not lifting a finger to help.”

  “Does he even know?” asked Nikki, unwilling to believe that Kit wouldn’t help his friend.

  “I shouldn’t have to tell him!” shouted Brandt. “Used to be, he would have known. Now, what? He g
ets sober and suddenly he’s too good for us? Won’t come around to hang with the old friends. Won’t get back in the studio. Won’t release old tracks. Walks out of concerts. Oh no, Kit won’t help. Kit just wants to play with makeup artists.” Brandt ended on a nasty note, his eyes sliding over Nikki’s body. “Not that I blame him, of course,” he said, sitting back and becoming the big-time record exec again. “Like I said, you’re cute. But fun time’s over.”

  He paused to light his cigar.

  The bathroom was disgustingly bare. She ran over the usual ideas. Toilet lid? Too heavy to throw and it wouldn’t beat Brandt’s gun. Shampoo to sting the eyes? There probably wasn’t enough left in the mini shampoo bottles, even if she had the time to stand them head down, so the dregs dripped to the top. That left toilet paper and a hair dryer. Not exactly her weapons of choice. The bathroom was a Jack and Jill style, connecting both to the hall and to the bedroom closet. She wondered if she could make it into the bedroom before Brandt shot her.

  Brandt checked his watch and then stood with an easy grace. Nikki put down the brush and tensed, waiting for her moment. There was a soft knock and Brandt opened the door.

  “Right on time,” said Brandt to a man with his hand raised, on the point of knocking. “Sadly, our quarry is decidedly not at home. Not to worry though, we do have a consolation prize.” He turned back to Nikki and smiled. “Cano, meet Nikki. She’s a nosy makeup artist with Carrie Mae. Nikki, meet Antonio Mergado Cano. He’s a—”

  “A Basque separatist,” Nikki said, finishing for him.

  “Anarchist,” said Cano, correcting her. “I no longer support the Basques. They are weak.”

  “Why beat around the bush?” asked Brandt. “He’s a terrorist.” Cano frowned but said nothing. “He’s also, for a very nominal fee, willing to kill Kit.”

  “Among others,” said Cano with a small smile.

  Cano was short, no more than Nikki’s height, but with a squat, powerful build. His dark brown eyes burned out from under a tousled mane of black hair. A three-day stubble coated his chin and he wore a spotted white-on-black tie over a black shirt and suit. The effect was mod with a tinge of mob. He carried a long coat over one arm, and the way he draped it over the back of the armchair told Nikki that the coat held something of a higher caliber than pocket change. He radiated a malignant destructive quality, and Nikki knew at once who had been responsible for the men in the Metro.

  “Whatever,” said Brandt, returning to the couch, seemingly oblivious to Cano’s threat.

  “Finally going to get your vengeance on Camille?” asked Nikki, and Cano smiled.

  “The whole family, really. I hear that Declan’s brother is with him also.”

  Brandt looked from one to the other, puzzled, but didn’t say anything.

  “And of course, I am always happy to kill any of you Carrie Mae women. So meddling. But it seems I’m about to get my payback.”

  “Trust me, having to look at that tie is payback enough,” drawled Nikki.

  “Tough girl,” laughed Brandt.

  “Even tough girls bleed,” said Cano in the same thoughtful, calm voice. It was starting to creep Nikki out. “Where is Christopher?”

  “He’s at the venue. Angela was supposed to get him here, but apparently that didn’t go as planned.”

  “Then I will go to the venue also,” said Cano.

  There was another knock at the door. Cano opened it without taking his eyes off Nikki, and two men slunk into the room. One was tall and wiry, with an olive complexion gone pasty and a bird beak of a nose. His eyes were fixed on her in an overbright, cunning stare, like a mongoose staring down a cobra. The second one was shorter and had a soft, slick face, like he didn’t really have bones, just rounded edges. He wore his black hair greased back; it gave him a ferret-like appearance. Nikki recognized both of them from the Metro; they looked like they remembered her as well.

  “We will meet at the opera house. You will get us in,” said Cano. It was a statement rather than a question.

  “Yeah, OK,” said Brandt, looking slightly uncomfortable, “but wait till after the event’s started. Security lightens up after that. I’ll get you in then. Say in”—he checked his watch—“about two hours?”

  Cano nodded.

  “Count on it,” muttered Mongoose.

  “Well,” said Brandt, stubbing out his cigar in the heavy marble ashtray on the coffee table. “This is where I get off.”

  “Go away,” said Cano.

  “Believe me, I am,” said Brandt smoothly, and left the room. Nikki stared at Cano and his weasels; they were both grinning the same nasty, leering smile.

  “You’re going to kill him too, aren’t you?” she asked after Brandt closed the door.

  “After we get the money,” hissed Ferret.

  “After we kill everyone,” said Cano. “The world should not have forgotten about us.”

  “What ‘us’?” said Nikki tauntingly. “There’s just you and a bunch of thugs. The Basques have publicly denounced you. The Irish have given up bombs. There is no movement anymore.”

  “There will be when I’m done,” said Cano.

  “La chance mauvaise pas seul vient,” murmured Nikki, walking toward the coffee table. It was a favorite proverb of her father’s that roughly meant that bad luck never came alone.

  “Do not speak French!” yelled Cano. Nikki looked at Cano in surprise. And then slowly the realization dawned. Cano was Basque. The Basques had been crushed by the Spanish and French governments for decades and were fiercely proud of their language and heritage. Speaking French wasn’t going to earn her any points here.

  “La mala suerte no llega sola,” said Nikki, switching to Spanish. She reached down for Brandt’s cigar and braced for impact. Spanish wasn’t going to go over any better.

  Cano hit her. A backhanded strike, hard but not meant for anything more than punishing pain. Nikki took the hit and bounced up off the coffee table with the marble ashtray in one hand and the still smoldering cigar in the other. Striking out with the ashtray, Nikki caught Cano a glancing blow under the chin, sending him reeling backward. Ferret made a grab for her, and she jabbed into his outstretched palm with the still smoldering cigar. He yelped and pulled back.

  Slower to react, Mongoose made a diving tackle but got nothing more than her towel. Cano stumbled forward, one hand outstretched, as she gained the bathroom; she slammed the pocket door on his arm and then cranked his arm backward against the joint. Cano howled and put a foot through the door. She let him yank his hand back, slammed the door closed, and locked it. Racing naked through the closet and into the bedroom, she knew that the flimsy door would hold him only slightly longer than tissue paper.

  She grabbed a coat from the closet—something long and black—and she reached for her bag just as Ferret came charging through the open bedroom door. There was a rending of wood, and Nikki knew it would be only seconds before she had Cano breathing down her neck. She grabbed the strap of her bag and swung it into his face; he jumped back, throwing the bag away from him. Nikki reached for it as Mongoose yanked at her other arm. She swung around and missed the bag by a fingertip length. Using the momentum of Mongoose’s grab, she spun and elbowed him in the ear. He let go and stumbled into Cano, who came charging through the closet.

  Nikki dashed for the door and sprinted across the parquet floor with Ferret right behind her. He made a grab for her wrist as she reached for the door. She twisted out of his grasp and scooped the vase of flowers off the decorative table with the other, smashing it into his face. Then she was out the door and sprinting down the hallway.

  She slammed into the elevator and thumped the “close door” button repeatedly, watching as Cano came stomping down the hallway, pulling what looked like an antiaircraft gun from under his overcoat. The doors slid shut as Cano pulled the trigger on his shotgun. Nikki heard the explosion and scattered impact of the pellets on the four inches of steel that shielded the elevator.

  She hit the button
for the lobby but then realized that all they had to do was run down the stairs a few floors and stop the elevator. She punched the button for the next floor and got out, dodging a woman in an expensive fur. Dashing into the stairs, she heard a shout from above her. Risking a look upward, she saw Ferret leaning over the railing. Running faster now, she leaped down the last few stairs and jumped over the railing onto the next flight down. The sound of footsteps echoed in the hollow stairwell, and Nikki used the sound to cover her escape onto a random floor. She skidded to a stop on the plush carpeting, tightening the belt holding her coat together, and tried to get her bearings. She heard the stairwell door open and sprinted toward the elevators.

  The elevator was already crowded, and she received a few dirty looks as she wedged herself in, but the looks weren’t half as nasty as the one Cano gave her as the elevator doors slid shut in his face again.

  “Nasty-looking fellow,” said someone.

  The elevator was playing a Muzak version of a song that Nikki recognized but couldn’t place.

  “He’s probably with the band,” someone sniffed.

  “The band?” asked the first fellow.

  “That Kit Masters is staying here. The guy is probably with the band. You know those rock and roll types. Never bathe.”

  “Is this the Clash?” asked a third voice from the back corner. Everyone paused to listen to the music.

  “I say, that’s a bit sacrilegious,” said the man who had insulted Cano’s looks.

  “It is,” said someone from the left. “It’s ‘The Guns of Brixton.’” He began humming in time to the music. The entire elevator was humming along thoughtfully now.

  Nikki looked around and wondered how it was that she, standing barefoot and naked in a packed elevator, wearing nothing but a trench coat, had managed to be the normal one of the group.

  “It really shouldn’t be allowed,” said the first man as the elevator doors opened onto the lobby. “It’s the Clash!”