Quick Fix (25 page)

“He went to see Laura—he won’t be back until tomorrow morning.”

Damn.
“I guess I’ll just have to take Molly with me,” I said. I hated to do it—I mean, my God, how was I going to explain an orangutan?—but I couldn’t see an alternative. “She can stay in the dressing room while I’m onstage, and I’ll bring her back here afterward. You’ll be here, right?”

“Of course. I don’t want to be seen in public like this.”

A giggle escaped me. Couldn’t help it. It
might
have contained a touch of the hysteria he’d tried to fend off earlier.

“You know what I mean,” he said. “I could start to come back at any time. If someone noticed me—”

“Yeah, yeah. I know,” I said, getting hold of myself. “Hey, what about Auntie Mo? She must be getting antsy about Molly by now.”

“I talked to her earlier—told her Molly was in the bathroom—and said Molly would be hanging out with me at the lab today.” Molly loved James’s lab, and Mo thought it was educational for her to spend time there, so that wasn’t unusual. “Maybe you’d better give her a call and let her know I’ve handed Molly off to you, though.”

“Right. I’ll tell her Molly and I are having a slumber party at your place—will that give you enough time?” I usually wound up taking Molly on some sort of a “girl date” whenever I was in town, and Mo knew Molly adored James’s chameleon, Herbert, so she shouldn’t be suspicious.

“I’ll make it work. And tell Molly not to give up hope—I’m close to a breakthrough.”

“I will.” But first I’d work on believing it myself.

*   *   *

My cell buzzed as I was leaving the lab. Mark.

“Tell Brian to make other arrangements. You won’t be going to the club tonight.” As usual, he got right to the point. Why waste time on the preliminaries? Since he couldn’t see me, I indulged in an eye roll.

“Why, hello, Mark. So nice to hear from you. I’m fine, thanks. How are you?” I said in my perkiest voice.

“I’m serious, Ciel. If Susan Hatcher is involved in this mess, I don’t want you near any of her haunts.”

“Don’t worry—she won’t be there. That was the whole point of me helping out Brian,” I explained, telling myself it was cute how authoritarian he got when he was in protective mode. Not that I actually thought it was, but getting pissed at him was rarely productive.

“Will you just listen to me—”

“Nope. I can’t leave Brian in the lurch. The show must go on, yadda yadda.”

“God damn it, Ciel, I don’t have time—”

“What? Sorry, you’re breaking up.… I’ll call you after the show, okay?”

The string of words I heard coming from the phone as I moved it farther away from my mouth would have done a longshoreman proud.

Chapter 20

Brian was remarkably sanguine about seeing me push a baby stroller into the club. I suspect his reaction might have been different if he’d thought I was the real Suze instead of her body double for the evening.

Thinking of Suze made me wince, and not just because all the body piercings I now sported kind of ooged me out. Yeesh. I needed to warn Brian about her, but I couldn’t, not before he went on. That’s just not a nice thing to do to a performer. He needed to concentrate on his music—I’d tell him about Suze after the show. (There. That sounded much better in my head than “Because I’m a big fat coward.”)

Auntie Mo had been thrilled I was keeping Molly overnight—she said it was good for me to keep myself busy with family while I got over “things” with Mark. Plus, anything that gave her an actual evening alone with Uncle Liam was all right by her.

I sniffed the air as Brian leaned in to kiss my cheek, and detected the aroma of a certain recreational pastime known to be popular with musicians, as well as the unmistakable odor of
eau de Cheetos
.

“Really, Bri? Before a performance?” I said, shaking my head. I knew he indulged in illicit activities occasionally but didn’t think he’d do it on the job.

“It releases my creativity. Gotta free the muse.” His smile was goofy, and
very
relaxed. Probably shouldn’t hit him with the James-is-invisible thing yet, either. In this state, he might find it way too funny, and I didn’t want to deal with a case of the pot giggles.

“Hey, you hungry?” he asked, intensely, like food was the most important thing in the world. Which it likely was for him at the moment.

“No, but Molly might want something. Help me get her to the dressing room, okay?”

“Dressing room? Yeah, I guess you could call it that,” he said, and led me to a large utility closet that had been fitted out with a mirror and a folding metal chair. It smelled rather strongly of the same substance as my brother. When I waved my hand in front of my nose, Brian casually picked up a bottle of air freshener and spritzed the room liberally. It didn’t help. No way could I leave Molly in there all by herself while I was onstage, even if she did deserve it, karmically speaking.

“Geez, Bri, this is where they expect performers to change?”

“Well, mostly we come already dressed to go on. This is just for touch-ups and, you know”—he shrugged—“relaxing.”

“What am I going to do with Molly during the show?”

He screwed up his face, no doubt trying to squeeze a straight thought out of his head. “She can sit behind Steve, I guess. He’s the drummer, and he loves animals—”

Molly objected to that with a high-pitched vocal.

“Sorry, little fur-cousin. No offense,” Brian said, patting Molly on the head. She stuck her tongue out at him.

Geez. Molly onstage with us? Not a great idea by a long shot, but since locking her in the pot closet wasn’t an option, it would have to do.

“Okay, okay. I’ll have a talk with Molly before we go on, and make sure she knows she has to stay hidden while we perform. Now, where’s Suze’s wardrobe?”

His pupils suddenly got even bigger. “It’s hanging on the back of the door. But I sort of couldn’t go with your first choice—Suze sent it out to the cleaners with a bunch of her other stuff.” He backed away. “Look, I have to go check the … uh, amplifiers … and, um, tell Steve you brought your pet—sorry, Moll! How else can I explain you? See ya in a few.”

What had he done? I squeezed into the closet and peeked behind the door, cautiously, halfway expecting live snakes coming out of a hat. Medusa was a look, right?

No snakes, but nearly as bad. Resigned, I put it on while Molly stood guard. I was going to
kill
Brian.

*   *   *

The house was full when I went on for the first set. Must be a lot more conical-bra Madonna fans in the greater New York City area than I’d imagined. Or maybe Lady Gaga fans. Magaga fans? Whatever.

Yeah, Brian had brought
that
costume for me, the rat bastard. But I got him back for it—when Molly and I joined him for sound check, I gave him a great big hug. His eyes bulged, and his yelp was gratifying. Bet he’d have bruises on his chest for a week.

Suze’s biggest fan was the house manager, who’d appeared like magic while we were making adjustments to the mics and amps. (And by “we” I mean Bri and the rest of the band. I stood where I was told and spoke a few words into the microphone when asked. Something really creative, like “testing, one, two.” But I’d said it in rock-star voice.)

Joey Puccinello looked like he’d graduated high school last year. If he shaved at all, it was maybe once a week. He was skinny and on the short side—seriously, I’d been afraid to stand too close to him for fear of putting his eyes out with my armor-encased boobs. The good thing was, he was so entranced by Suze’s charms he hadn’t even noticed Molly peeking out from behind the bass drum.

The bad thing was, he kept hinting I should ditch Brian after the show and spend a little time with him. As if. I’d just smiled, and made no promises.

Molly was still safely stowed behind the drum set. Since the drummer was as “relaxed” as my brother, he was cool with the arrangement. Even offered to let her stomp on the bass drum pedal a few times before the place filled up, which Molly enjoyed way too much. I sensed a basement drum set in Auntie Mo’s future.

Brian was at the mic, having introduced the rest of the band before I came on. I’ll say one thing for Suze—the crowd loved her. Or her costume, at least. The applause was nice, but the catcalls made it doubtful the patrons were expecting much from her, music-wise. Just as well, all things considered.

I strutted across the stage (if you can call a raised platform set up at the far end of the bar a stage), employing Suze’s killer curves to the best of my ability without falling off my stiletto-heel boots, grabbed the microphone from Brian, and said, in Suze’s sultriest voice, “Let’s get this party started!”

There was a
pop!
followed by a
thump,
and then the room went quiet.

Okay, I know I’m not the most musically talented person in the world, but I hadn’t even started to sing yet. Surely this couldn’t be my fault.

I peered out into the house, squinting. The guy at the soundboard stared, big-eyed and open-mouthed, at the man next to him, who was folding a knife closed and putting it back in his pocket.
What the…?
Mark. And he’d just severed the cable connecting the band’s equipment to the board.

He crossed the room and stepped onto the platform, sparing me a steely-eyed glance before he turned to the audience. “Sorry, folks. We appear to be having technical difficulties with the band tonight.”

Raucous boos emanated from the audience, interspersed with some language I sincerely hoped Molly couldn’t understand.

“The next two rounds are on me,” Mark shouted to the room as he took me by my elbow and started pulling me off the stage. The boos morphed into cheers. I jerked my arm away from him, refusing to be led away like some misbehaving child.

My boobs chose that moment to go off like the Fourth of July, shooting sparks in all directions. Molly jumped out from behind the drums, climbed onto my back, and started waving one arm around while she held on to my head with the other hand.

The cheers amplified exponentially.

Mark’s mouth set itself into an even harder line. “Brian, Ciel—in the back. Now.”

*   *   *

“You could have warned me I was set to go all Lady Gaga on the audience,” I said to Brian after I’d changed out of my costume. I’d refused to speak to either him or Mark until I’d rid myself of the conical bra. It was a fire hazard.

Mark had flashed some ID and convinced the manager to let us use his office. It wasn’t much to look at, but it was a hell of a lot better than the pot closet.

“I didn’t know they were loaded,” Brian said, bouncing Molly on his hip like a toddler. “Honest. Suze must’ve reset them when I wasn’t around.”

“Yeah, well, you be sure to thank her for me, okay?”

“Hey, don’t be mad, sis—it was so cool! Man, we’ve never had a reaction like that before—damn! We got a standing ovation before we even started the show!”

Molly clapped her hands obligingly in illustration. She’d snuck in a few bows as we’d walked off the stage, enjoying herself immensely. God help Auntie Mo if she’d been bitten by the rock-star bug. Scratch that. God help Brian—and me—if Auntie Mo ever found out how it happened.

“Did you stop to think people
might
have been standing up to run away from the wild animal and the woman shooting fire out of her tits?” I said, a tad disgruntled by the whole situation.

“Never mind that,” Mark said, obviously impatient. “Ciel, I’m not even going to ask what possessed you to bring Molly tonight. I presume you have a good reason—”

“A really good one,” I said. “Probably way better than your reason for interrupting the show. Want to hear it?”

“Two women have been shot, and you leave me a message that Susan Hatcher may be involved. You honestly think I’m going to let you set yourself up as a target?”

I glanced at my brother, whose usual happy and open face clouded over at the mention of Suze’s name.

“Um,” I said to Mark, “maybe we should talk about this privately.”

“If it’s about Suze, I want to know,” Brian said, his puppy-dog eyes for once showing determination. He wasn’t going anywhere.

Fuck. I took a deep breath and spilled everything, starting with how I went to her workplace and saw her meet up with Zoo Lady (I detoured briefly to fill them in on Zoo Lady and her goons chasing Billy, Molly, and me as we were leaving D.C.), how I followed Suze to Sternberg Park, where she’d met up with my erstwhile client. I skipped the part about Zoo Lady telling Suze where to hold Brian when questioning him. Couldn’t think of a delicate way to put that.

The longer I talked, the colder Brian looked. I felt like I was telling a six-year-old there was no such thing as Santa Claus, and oh, by the way, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy aren’t real, either. Some truths you just don’t want to share.

When I brought up Monica’s relation to my client, even Mark blanched. The idea of someone connected so closely to the adaptor community being a part of whatever this mess was didn’t sit well with him at all.

“So Suze killed Monica. Is that what you’re saying?” Brian said, his normally loose-framed body rigid.

“I got that impression, yes,” I said. “Either that, or she knows who did. She seemed certain Monica is dead, is all I can say for sure.”

“I’d rather not see that aura on you anymore, if you don’t mind,” Brian said, stiff-jawed. Because naturally I was still wearing Suze. I’d arrived as her, and adaptor caution dictated I leave as her. It was the most secure way to handle a job. Even here in the office, there was the possibility the squirrelly house manager might walk in on us.

Screw caution. I dropped the aura gladly. The Suze-size street clothes I was wearing were suddenly too large, but if that’s what Brian wanted, it was okay by me. Mark—Mr. Discretion when it came to adapting in public—didn’t look pleased, but he didn’t say anything.

Brian was so different from the guy he’d been just minutes before that it was scary. His face was harder, his voice harsher. More like Thomas’s when Thomas was in serious shark mode. My happy-go-lucky brother was gone, and I wanted to throttle that bitch for doing this to him.