Compact with the Devil: A Novel Page 31

  “He needs a doctor,” Kit said.

  “The paramedics are on their way,” said Nikki.

  “Um, I say,” said Richie, interrupting. “We just want to be clear. Your mum is a spy and your father was IRA? And your bodyguard is your uncle?”

  “Declan was quitting,” said Duncan and Camille at the same time, then exchanged rueful glances.

  The director had recovered enough to crawl toward his headset, which was making little tiny yelling noises.

  “Mum is with the security department of Carrie Mae. Duncan is my uncle and used to be with the IRA. He’s been masquerading as my bodyguard to protect me.”

  “Holy shit,” said Hammond, mopping sweat off his brow. “I’m going to have a bestseller.”

  “I need to stop smoking hash,” said Richie.

  “Kit’s mom’s kind of hot,” said Burg.

  “Shut up, Burg,” said Holly, and smacked him in the back of the head.

  “Great!” interjected the director, clawing his way up a table leg and onto his feet. “That’s all taken care of then. You”—he grabbed Burg out of the middle of the group and threw him toward the stage—“out onstage.”

  Burg went with the shove, tumbling in a somersault out onto the stage. There was a burst of applause.

  “I don’t think the instruments are plugged in,” said Ewart, coming out from under a table.

  “You two next.” Richie and Hammond went flying out after Burg.

  “I can’t play,” said Kit. “I have to go to the hospital with Duncan.” He stopped and turned to Nikki. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t play. Everything’s different.” He shook his head, clearly confused.

  “You’ve got to play,” said Duncan, opening his eyes. “That’s what we did all this for, wasn’t it? So you could play?”

  “Well, that’s a bloody stupid reason,” answered Kit, looking shocked. “Forget about it. I’ll go with you.”

  The director was reaching for Holly.

  “You want to spend some time on the floor again?” she demanded.

  “Right, right, whatever, just move!” hissed the director. Holly looked at Kit with a shrug and walked onto the stage under her own power. Kit looked around the room, at Duncan and Camille, at the pleading director, and finally at Nikki.

  “We’ll be here when you get done,” said Duncan.

  “We’ll be at the hospital,” corrected Camille.

  “What they said,” said the director, and began to push Kit toward the stage.

  “Mr. Masters,” said Ewart, interjecting hurriedly. “Maybe you don’t remember me …”

  “Sure, you’re Ewart, you handle the mechanical stage,” said Kit numbly, still leaning against the pushing hands of the director. Ewart blinked; he hadn’t been prepared to have his name remembered.

  “Yes, only Mr. Dettling fired me, because of that little snafu the other night. And I swear that wasn’t my fault! But Nikki said that if I came here I could talk to you and maybe—”

  “Now?” screamed the director. “You’re asking about your job now? My entire career is on the line and you are worried about your job!”

  Kit looked at the director and Ewart and then at Nikki.

  “What do I do?” he asked.

  “Whatever you want,” she said. “Same as always.”

  “Damn free will,” Kit said. Then he nodded and walked away from the director so abruptly that he nearly fell over.

  “The instruments still aren’t set up,” said Ewart, pointing to the disconnected cables that ran from the sound system to the instruments.

  “Well, go fix them!” screamed the director.

  “You’d better go,” said Nikki as Ewart looked to her for further instruction. “You wanted your job back, and the band can’t play without instruments.”

  “Right,” said Ewart with a startled nod. “The show must go on.” Crouching over, he ran out onto the stage; he was going to save the day.

  Kit walked out onto the stage to a smatter of applause. The audience had been confused by the stage fight, uncertain if it was real or part of the entertainment. Kit looked at his band; they stared back in pie-eyed panic. The crowd was murmuring restlessly. Kit looked back at Nikki, who grinned encouragingly.

  “Well,” said Kit, walking to the mic and adjusting the height. “Needless to say, this isn’t going like it did in rehearsal.” That got a nervous laugh from the audience. Ewart ran out onstage and dove under the drum kit to fiddle with some cords. “Um …” Kit looked back at Burg, who shook his head and shrugged. “Sorry about this, but things got a bit screwy backstage. I think someone just tried to kill me.”

  He hadn’t intended it to be, but his deadpan delivery and cockeyed confusion made the line funny, and there was a wave of snickers from the audience. A squirt of white noise came from the speakers.

  “Almost there,” muttered Ewart, running by.

  “So,” said Kit, turning to the audience again and smiling brilliantly. “I’ve been on the road with these guys for about half a tour now, and some for more than that, and we still don’t have a band name. Richie over there”—he pointed to Richie, who strummed a soft chord on his guitar; the speakers picked up halfway through and Richie turned his test chord into a melodic riff—“thinks we should be the Purple Weasels.”

  The audience cheered. The band began to test their instruments. Ewart was running back and forth like a chicken with its head cut off, and the next instrument to be heard distinctly was the keyboard.

  “Hammond, our resident socialist, thinks we should be the Communist Synthesizers.” Hammond’s fingers ran down the keyboard in a waterfall of notes and settled into a funk rhythm to the cheers and hoots of the audience.

  “The eternally lovely Holly, our bass player and backbone, thinks we should be the Rhythm Method.” Holly worked the strings in a bumpa-bumpa-bumpa funk that moved up down and then settled down to match Hammond. The crowd roared their approval.

  “And Burg … What were you shooting for? Dead Mimes?”

  “The Egregious Philibins!” yelled Burg, and hit the skins with a flourish.

  “So we’ve got the Purple Weasels”—cheers and a screaming riff—“the Communist Synthesizers”—louder cheers, and Hammond let fly with hands like Jerry Lee Lewis—“the Rhythm Method”—the crowd went wild as Holly ran and slid to center stage on her knees, rocking the bass line—“and the Egregious Philibins!” Burg nearly drowned out the cheers with a thunderous fusillade on the drums. The band had clicked in now, music had filled in the holes dug by fear, and they had started to jam.

  “But I bet you want to know what I want. Do ya?” Kit was leaning out over the crowd now. “You want to know what I want?” He almost sang the words over Holly’s bass line, and the crowd screamed. “Do you want to know what I want?” He reached out to the crowd, and they reached back.

  “We are the Devil’s Horde!” Kit threw his fist up in the air and struck a pose as the Horde rocked into “Devil May Care.” The crowd was on their feet and screaming.

  “Did anybody clock that?” asked Nikki, looking around. “That was complete disaster to absolute miracle in like two point six minutes.”

  “I want his children,” said the director fervently.

  “You do find the sexiest guys,” said Jenny, shaking her head.

  PARIS XVIII

  After 2+2 Is 1+1

  Kit was rocking into his second song when the paramedics arrived, with Jane and Angela following close behind. Jane had a metal briefcase in one hand and was dragging Angela by the elbow.

  “Where’s Ellen?” asked Jane breathlessly.

  “Hopefully, she’s hunting down Brandt,” said Nikki. She eyed Cano for signs of suspicious movement, but he had lapsed into sullen silence. “Where’s the bomb?”

  Jane raised the heavy-looking briefcase in response. “The police and the Paris branch are both on their way. I brought her along; didn’t know what to do with her.”

  “Sit her next to Cano,” s
aid Nikki, “and can you call down to security and make sure that the police are expected?”

  “I should have known you’d be behind all this,” snarled Angela.

  “Isn’t that my line?” asked Nikki, confused. She shoved Angela down next to Cano.

  “This is your fault!” screeched Angela. “Brandt is going to destroy you.”

  “Apparently she didn’t know about the bomb,” said Jane, watching Angela with a skeptical expression.

  “Bomb?” repeated Angela, looking at Cano and at the rest of the bodies. “Brandt said it was just supposed to be Kit—to save Faustus.”

  “Brandt is a moron,” said Cano, and Angela made an angry squeak.

  “Take care of security, Jane,” said Nikki, shaking her head.

  “I’m on it,” answered Jane. “You,” she snapped as she snatched a headset off the assistant director, and he jerked to attention. “What are the security codes?”

  As Jane walked away, Nikki looked around the backstage area. Jenny was making sure Cano’s gang was well secured, and the director was obliviously stomping among the bodies, shouting directions into his headset. For the moment everything seemed under control. Nikki leaned against a pillar and waited for the next emergency.

  Svenka arrived next. Throwing off her scarf and exchanging kisses with Nikki, she looked positively delighted.

  “Oh, Nikki, this is marvelous! I saw Camille on the way out—she said she would call Madame Feron and clear everything up. And here you have Cano! You are superb! I rushed to be the first on the scene. I wanted to help!”

  “Yeah, well, I’m going to need some help once the police arrive. Can you help with that?” Nikki looked hopefully at Svenka, who beamed.

  “Of course! I was a law student before I was Carrie Mae. I know how to handle things!”

  “Good,” said Nikki with relief.

  “What are we telling the gendarmes?” said Svenka. “They are going to want someone.”

  “Feed them Cano. That should keep them busy; just make sure Carrie Mae doesn’t get mentioned. We also haven’t got the linchpin in this whole fiasco: Brandt Dettling.”

  “Kit’s manager?” asked Svenka, sounding surprised. It was Nikki’s turn to nod.

  “We’ve got his assistant.” Nikki nodded in Angela’s direction. “Brandt hired Cano to kill Kit, so he could sell off his back catalog and save his record company. I’ve got a teammate on him, but I haven’t heard from her yet, so I don’t know his whereabouts at the moment.” Svenka nodded again. “Meanwhile, I want Jenny and Jane”—she pointed to her friends—“to get out of here before the gendarmes show up. If anyone asks, they were groupies the band picked up, and nobody knows where they’ve gone.”

  “Nikki, the police are on their way up,” said Jane, appearing beside her.

  “May I say that I’m representing Mr. Masters?” asked Svenka, and Nikki shrugged.

  “Sure, it can’t hurt, and I’ll tell Kit he’s hired you when he gets offstage.” Svenka blinked and glanced at Jane, who smiled smugly.

  “Very well,” said Svenka, stripping off her gloves. “You may leave this to me.”

  Jenny arrived to stand next to Jane. Nikki smiled at the two of them. Jenny ran a hand over her hair, smoothing the one flyaway strand, and then dropped her hand to rest on her hip. Jane’s hair was ruffled, her Bettie Page bangs had separated and were sticking up, and her T-shirt was untucked and protruding from under her sweater.

  “So the Swedish volleyball team seems to have things under control,” Jenny commented.

  “She does,” said Nikki. “Why don’t the two of you split? Find Ellen; regroup and meet me at Kit’s hotel.”

  “Will do,” said Jenny, tugging on Jane’s sleeve.

  “Thanks, guys. I really appreciate this,” said Nikki.

  “Wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” said Jenny as they strolled away.

  The cops arrived and within seconds had draped everything in yellow tape. Svenka was handling everything with an adroitness that surprised Nikki. Svenka had untapped talents. Cano and his friends were being marched out of the room as Kit began his third song. Nikki sighed and leaned against the pillar again. Things were going to be messy at work. She’d probably be on desk duty for months. Why was everything she touched such an enormous mess? Could she not make things run smoothly, just once?

  A French detective arrived on the scene; he was a tall man with a rumpled trench coat and weary eyes over a curving French nose. Nikki watched him watch Svenka verbally muscling the gendarmes around. The gendarmes were demanding to speak with Monsieur Masters, or see Monsieur Masters, or possibly just get Monsieur Masters’s autograph. Whatever they wanted, the “Monsieur Masterses” were flying fast and furious. Nikki watched the tall detective prepare to swoop in on Svenka, and Nikki squared her shoulders, redying herself to help. She marched toward the yellow police tape that surrounded the area. Just as she was about to duck under the tape, the band came running offstage to the sound of thunderous applause. Nikki changed direction and grabbed Kit.

  “All right, everyone, get your stories straight,” Nikki hissed to the sweating band. “Jenny was just some groupie you picked up. The blonde over there is Svenka, Kit’s new assistant. You don’t know who attacked you or why. Got it?”

  “Wait, if our story is that we don’t know anything, does that mean I actually do know something?” asked Burg.

  “Trust me, Burg, you know nothing,” said Hammond.

  “Great. That’s settled, off you go,” said Nikki, and shoved them in Svenka’s general direction. Nikki made as if to follow, but Kit grabbed her hand and pulled her away.

  “Don’t go out there!” he whispered, peering around the pillar. “I’ve heard my name six times in the last minute. I may not know French, but I know that’s not good.”

  “Well, between the gunfight and the escaped Basque convict I think they want to ask you what the hell is going on.”

  “You know very well that I don’t know what the hell is going on,” said Kit. “Come on, we’re getting out of here.”

  Pulling her by the hand, Kit wove through the throngs of confused backup girls, celebrities, and crew. He paused briefly at the refreshments table, running his fingers over the bottles until he found one he liked.

  “It’s not champagne,” he said, tossing the bottle to Nikki, who caught it neatly, “but it’ll have to do.”

  “Where are we going?” asked Nikki, holding up the bottle to read the label. It was nonalcoholic sparkling cider.

  “We’re going to do what everyone else in Paris is doing,” he said, looking back over his shoulder. “We’re going to see the fireworks!”

  Nikki checked her watch. It was twenty minutes till midnight.

  “We’ll never make it,” she said as he tossed open the front doors of the opera house.

  “We’re just a few metro stops away,” he yelled, bounding down the stairs. “We’ll make it if we run!” Nikki followed after him. They dashed up the street to the nearest turnstiles. The Metro, free all night long on New Year’s, was still nearly full of last-minute travelers. They scrambled into a car as the doors slid closed and joined a giddy crowd that was singing along to an accordion player’s catchy tune. Kit’s face pulled into a puzzled expression and then he turned to Nikki, who laughed, recognizing “Devil May Care” set to an accordion and being mangled by French teenagers. One of the teenagers ripped open a bag of noisemakers that unrolled in flickering foil tongues.

  “Bonne année!” yelled the girl, and the car answered back. She shoved noisemakers at Kit and Nikki. The car filled with the hollow frog voices of the noisemakers, and the accordion player matched the beat with a new song, something zydeco-ish that Nikki didn’t recognize. The train pulled to a stop and the party moved up the stairs and out into the streets.

  “Come on,” Kit yelled over the din of the crowd. “We’re going to miss it.” Reaching back, he grabbed Nikki’s hand and began to run. He dodged people with a ruthless deter
mination, leaving a trail of squished toes and jostled elbows in their wake. He came to a stop almost directly under the enormous Ferris wheel. Nikki skidded to a stop, laughing breathlessly and clutching their bottle of sparkling cider. Around them, people milled with alternating moods of disinterest and drunken revelry. Somebody had a small radio that was cranking out tinny French pop.

  “Would you look at that?” he asked, looking back the way they had come and wrapping an arm around her waist, hugging her close.

  Nikki looked up the Champs-Elysées to Napoleon’s glowing arch of triumph and understood the awe in Kit’s voice. The six-lane road divided by a generous median was usually crowded with zooming cars, and the sidewalks, wide as most roads, were normally sprinkled with shoppers. But tonight, the entire street was a sea of humanity, swaying and twisting, warming the air with their presence—nothing but people as far as the eye could see.

  “I can’t believe I’m here,” said Kit.

  “It is kind of unbelievable,” answered Nikki, watching as a circle of Australian backpackers began to bounce, chanting something catchy and probably rugby related.

  “No, I mean me. I can’t believe that I’m here. I should be dead.” Nikki looked into Kit’s face, seeing more seriousness than she was used to. “I would be dead if it weren’t for you.”

  “It wasn’t exactly single-handed,” said Nikki, trying to joke him out of his mood; she wasn’t very good at seriousness. “I had a little help from Duncan and the girls.”

  “Right, from my uncle. That’s a hell of a thing.”

  “A good thing?”

  “I … yes.” Kit nodded. “But talk about a total shocker. I just feel like … I’m not at all who I thought I was. No wonder Mum wanted me to be an accountant. And no wonder I always wanted all the thrill-seeking crap—with my genes they’re lucky I didn’t become a soldier of fortune. So much stuff makes so much more sense now! Like no wonder Nan always seemed so fond of Duncan. She kept knitting him socks.” He shook his head, still seeming perplexed.