My Soul to Take (6 page)

“Carlos, what happened?” she said, sitting beside him. She held his hand.

Gently, Carlos pulled his hand away. Instead, he laid his palm
across her fuzzy scalp. “Later,” he said. “After Marcus is in bed. I don’t want to tell it in pieces.”

Daylight lingered like his two-week absence, but night finally came. Phoenix brought Carlos a plate of chicken and rice, but he ate only a few bites and said he had an upset stomach, maybe later. He pushed the plate far away.

They heard Marcus’s music from down the hall, the African lullabies they had played him since he was in his crib. Otherwise, the house was quiet.

“Tell me, baby,” she said.

Carlos was nearly hoarse by the time he told her how he’d found his mother in the observation room in the facility outside Maricao. Phoenix covered her mouth with her open palm, afraid she might scream. Mami had been one of her favorite people left in the world.

“I was in a lab coat, so it took a while for someone to figure out I didn’t belong,” Carlos said. “They were Americans, Germans, I think … an Asian man. They were talking about the infection. Something about the family from Hong Kong. They had all seen cases like Mami’s.
All
of them. The Asian man said there’d been riots in North Korea. They talked about how fast it spreads, maybe in the air. There’s already a name for it in Puerto Rico:
La Enfermidad de Rezo
. The Praying Disease. Because of the hands. The body seizes up—it makes them look like they’re praying.”

All the words Carlos had been saving for her spilled from him.

“Then I slipped out. No one checked my ID on the way out of the gate. The guard was just a kid. I knew it would be a mistake, but I blogged about it. Not everything, but enough. That was the night I called you, before I changed my mind and deleted the page. But the internet is forever. The history was there. By morning, police were knocking on my door. Cameras had caught me at the facility. I thought I was going to prison.

“My father knew someone in the governor’s office. That’s the only thing that kept me from being locked up. But they said I had to be quarantined because I’d been exposed. I didn’t buy it. The ‘quarantine’ was just a way to try to keep me quiet. If I had admitted
myself to a hospital, I might not have been free to go for a lot longer than thirty days. They’re hiding a plague, Phee. Worse than the flu strains. Right in Puerto Rico!”

Carlos went silent, emptied.

A low wind flurried against the house, setting off the cacophony of wind chimes outside their bedroom window. Phoenix wondered if the coyotes were out hunting.

“I know, Carlito,” Phoenix said in the hushed voice she saved for ballads. “I know.”

That night, she told her husband about the visit from John Jamal Wright. And the websites he had led her to, and the stories being told. And the Glow she had refused, but now wished she had kept.

Phoenix and Carlos talked all night long.

Los Angeles

One Week Later

B
lack roads roll beneath a blind-eyed sky
, Phoenix thought, trying out infant lyrics as John Wright’s SUV ferried her and her family high up narrow, darkened Mulholland Drive, past the secluded mansions hidden behind gates, sentries, and jungles. Occasional lights twinkled through the foliage to remind her that they were passing homes instead of journeying through wilderness, although roadside signs at every other house proclaimed that the neighborhood was for sale.
Armored in marble, we can’t hear the children cry
.

It had been a long time since lyrics appeared spontaneously, and rarer still that lyrics came without chords, so maybe Carlos was right about the gig: once she was on the stage, it would all come back. Like a trained dog.
Thatta girl
—
sing! Play! Roll over!

“I must be crazy,” she muttered.

Carlos gave her a baleful look, shaking his head. “You’re fine. Just breathe.”

After she’d vowed to retire from performing, she was doing a
corporate
gig? Even if Clarion World Health was doing the work it claimed, how could she have convinced herself that singing for eight hundred of Clarion’s handpicked faithful would have any impact outside Beverly Hills? She would reach more people plugging in her amp at Times Square, if she could get security clearance. At least that would have some integrity.

“Why did I agree to do this again?” Phoenix said.

“You committed,” Carlos said. “Ride it out, baby.” Slipping into
their familiar roles already. Phoenix the fragile artist; Carlos her patient wrangler.

Wright was driving. The young white woman in the passenger seat beside him was stoic, and had barely moved except to tap the keys on her wristphone’s keyboard. Her smile when she had introduced herself in Paso had been tight, forced, as if she was as reluctant to take Phoenix to L.A. as Phoenix was to go. Like Wright, she looked like she was barely old enough to be out of college. Was the company run by kids?

Phoenix’s mind went back to her new lyrics, which were still missing music.
Waking up is easy if you never go to sleep / Have you seen the soul you promised you would keep?

Phoenix made a sour face. Those weren’t true lyrics, only self-judgment. Damn, maybe that
Vibe
critic had been right when he called her the “self-proclaimed prophetess of self-righteousness.” No wonder those kids in Chicago—

Phoenix’s stomach gave her a vicious stab.

Carlos squeezed her hand, as if he’d heard her thinking about Chicago. He leaned close to her ear. “Let Marcus see who his mom is.”

You mean let Marcus see how his namesake got shot at the Osiris
, Phoenix couldn’t help thinking, but she squeezed away thoughts of Sarge, too. Marcus had been only a year old when she retired, and he’d never seen her perform. That was the only reason they’d brought him, and part of the reason she’d agreed to do the show at all.

Although it was eight o’clock and just getting dark, Marcus had tired of his GamePort and fallen asleep against the plush leather seat during the long stretch of drive on the I-5. A couple of weeks ago, she would have fretted that he would wet his pants during a long nap, but his recent spate of daytime wetting had magically stopped as soon as Carlos was home.

If Phoenix was honest with herself, she knew that she had come out of hiding for the Glow, already jonesing for a drug she’d never tried. After Carlos’s stories about Maricao, she wanted the vial Wright had offered her whether it was legal or not. She wanted it for her breast, now that she’d seen the alarm on her doctor’s face, his hurry to schedule a biopsy.

She wanted it for her future. Her son. She cursed herself daily for letting it out of her hand.

So far, Wright hadn’t offered the vial again, and the stone-faced young woman with him didn’t look like she was ready to extend special courtesies. Her black-dyed hair hung across her brow in a sheepdog cut, nearly hiding her eyes. If she was a fan, nothing in her face had shown it. And Wright was different around the girl—more businesslike, less playful. Phoenix wondered what had sculpted the girl’s jaw so hard already.

“Excuse me,” Phoenix called to the front seat. “What’s your name again?”

Wright turned to glance at the girl, who didn’t look back at Phoenix. “Caitlin,” she said.

“You like music, Caitlin?”

“Used to,” the girl said.

Phoenix and Carlos shared a look. Phoenix had carried this girl’s kind of weight after the gunshots that killed her father at the Osiris, and then after three strung-out college kids chewed cyanide pills at her Rose Garden show in Chicago. She knew what weight sounded like.

“Music takes you to another world. Believe me, I know,” Phoenix said. “Caitlin, I’m gonna help you remember what music is for.”

“Amen,” Wright said softly.

Caitlin turned around to look at Phoenix. She gave her head an economical shake to move a swatch of hair out of her eyes: bright blue glass. No smile, but her face was a little softer.

“No pressure, ma’am,” Caitlin O’Neal said softly. “But I sure as hell hope so.”

The street went from darkness to an unearthly red glow as brake lights lit up the trees within half a mile of the house on Beverly Drive. Wright turned on blue dashboard flashers to skirt the traffic jam, weaving in and out of the lanes. An hour until showtime, and the line for the valet parking was long, with Day-Glo cones set up to bring order to the crush.

Phoenix hadn’t realized that Marcus was awake until she saw
him staring at the spectacle through his car window. “Whoa,” he said. “All these people are coming to see
you
?”

Phoenix and Carlos laughed at the shock in his voice.

“You know your mom’s famous,” Carlos said. “Lots of people like her singing.”

“Mom, are you a
rock star
? Like Bluefish?” Bluefish was the rage on kiddiecasts, although Phoenix didn’t consider the comparison to the costumed teen band a compliment.

Phoenix shrugged. “Something like that. Believe it or not.”

Wright spoke up. “Marcus? Your mom is more than a rock star. She’s a legend.”

Marcus looked at Phoenix, nose scrunched as if to say,
What the hell
…?

Phoenix decided she would put on a show her kid would never forget.

With polite honks, Wright ferried them across an ocean of driveway tiles until they reached the entrance of the palatial home, styled like an Italian villa with windows flaunting enough electricity to bring daylight to a village. Wright drove past porticoes and the crowd huddled at the valet line to a narrow green canopy roped off with black velvet. A security team waited, dressed in black.

Phoenix was trying to convince herself that the gig might be fun when she saw Caitlin brush her hand across her waist, caressing something hidden beneath her long white blouse the way a Catholic might touch her rosary.

Caitlin had a gun. Phoenix shouldn’t have been surprised, but she was.

“Are you my bodyguard?” Phoenix asked her.

Caitlin looked back at her with a start, as if she’d been discovered. “No, not officially,” she said, sheepish. She straightened her blouse, pretending she’d only been fussing with her clothes. “I’m our boss’s personal assistant. But she asked me to take very good care of you.”

The security team opened the SUV’s doors, swallowing them in lights and sound. What should have been familiar was made dizzying by her lack of practice—circled by staff, rushed past a crowd, doors opened for her in mechanical succession, gentle hands guiding
her at her elbow. Carlos, as always, trailed two steps behind her.

Phoenix never let go of Marcus’s hand, kept her eyes mostly on her son’s pudgy face, finding him grinning, wide-eyed, as if he thought he was the president himself.
Enjoy it while you can, kid
, she thought, remembering why they had decided to raise Marcus away from the noise. An overblown sense of entitlement stunted children’s growth.

The only difference between this scene and her old life was the lack of flashbulbs; she’d stipulated
no photos
, except for Clarion’s event photographer. She’d never liked seeing spots dancing in her eyes. Besides, she might need to distance herself from Clarion one day. There was a lot of gray area between world saviors and crazed bioterrorists.

“Is this a hotel?” Marcus said as an endless marble corridor spread before them.

“Naw, li’l dude, this is somebody’s house,” Phoenix said, wrapping an arm around him. Marcus was a tree trunk like Sarge had been, stocky and already as tall as her shoulder. Before long, Marcus would be as tall as Carlos.

“This big?” Marcus said.

“Your mom had a house this big once,” Carlos said, as if he hadn’t signed the papers, too.

“Our house was a dollhouse compared to this,” Phoenix said.

“A fifteen-million-dollar dollhouse,” Carlos said, and Phoenix gave him a laser look over her shoulder. Carlos had always hated living in Hollywood. She’d ultimately agreed with him, but she never could stomach his whining about having money.

“Pobrecito,”
she said sarcastically. Poor baby.

This house would have cost them fifty million dollars. She couldn’t guess how much it was worth today, but the sparse furnishings told her it had probably sat empty for a long time until Clarion rented it out. The furniture was sterile, showroom pieces. Through the windows, she could see that most of the crowd had gathered in the backyard by a swimming pool that looked as long as a river.

Inside, at least two hundred people were waiting for an early glimpse. The crowd sharpened into faces, and Phoenix was warmed
by their beams of recognition as her family was led past their huddles. “Thanks for coming,” she said, returning their smiles. “It’s great to see you all here. I’m honored you came.”

Her feelings were sincere, but the words were straight from the pages of her reliable script, recited at predictable intervals. She had climbed back into her old skin already. She’d left her costumes in storage, but she wished she’d worn something more than new jeans and her favorite peacock-colored blouse, nearly sheer and fanning slightly at the sleeves. The blouse was elegantly artsy for grocery shopping in Paso, but it was flimsy here. With her head shaved, she felt like a Phoenix impostor. She should have worn a wig!

Most of the people lining the walls were dressed for a special occasion, in cocktail clothes. Like the crowds that had followed her on tour, they were of all races and ethnicities, from teenagers to seniors. The shiny, hairless scalp of a middle-aged white woman in an electric wheelchair reminded Phoenix of her mother. The woman was gravely ill, her floral-patterned dress hanging too loose on bony limbs.
Get that biopsy tomorrow, or that’ll be you
, she reminded herself.

Phoenix paused to squeeze the woman’s soft, dry hand. She squeezed back, tearful.

“Thank you,” the woman said, voice trembling with gratitude.

“Hey, I’m glad to be here,” Phoenix said. “And I’m glad you’re here with me.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” the woman said, defiant.

As the security staff encouraged her to keep walking, Phoenix noticed other infirmities—a teenage boy walking with crutches, a hollow-faced black man who could have been Sarge’s brother except for his gauntness. The faces were smiling, but many of them were weary.