BLACK Is Back (17 page)

“Good. Just another night in paradise.”

“How was the restaurant?”

“If you like eating with your hands… I prefer McDees, honestly. At least there’s supposed to be cow in some of their products, and you can kind of tell which ones.”

She laughed. “That’s really popular now.”

“I don’t know. It didn’t really agree with me. And the dessert was a big letdown.”

“What did you have?”

“Mac-10 cake with a gutter slime garnish.”

He told her about the drive-by shooting, watching her eyes. She looked shocked. Then again, he sucked at reading women, as his ex could vouch for.

“Oh, my God. That’s…but you weren’t hurt?”

“No, Sylvia and I both escaped without a scratch.”

“Mmm. Sylvia. That’s a relief,” she said in a tone that indicated that it was anything but. “Did they catch them?”

“Not that I know of. You can guess how that goes. The cops have their hands full, too many shootings to deal with in anything but an assembly-line manner, so they focus on the obvious ones where a perp’s caught holding the gun. Same old story. If nobody’s killed, it gets back-burnered.”

The receptionist interrupted them by clearing her throat, and they were shown to Sam’s office, where he was standing on a small putting green with a golf club, talking on a headset.

“Don’t give me that. This was an act of God, no matter how many shysters you get to parse the contract. He got poisoned, for Christ’s sake. What was he supposed to do, go onstage and die for the box office?”

Sam appeared to listen, then barked at the caller again. “Look. Let’s work something out. The audience got most of the show, so that shouldn’t be a full refund, right? So we book another show, and give ticket holders half off. But if you stiff him, you’ll be in court by nightfall, you got that?”

Sam pressed a small button on the headset and then made his putt, missing by a scant few millimeters. He shook his head and went to his desk, waving them forward to the three chairs in front of it.

“B-Side’s nervous. He thinks that the juju man’s out to get him. And apparently your discussion with him didn’t help matters, Black. What do you think you’re doing, anyway?” Sam demanded.

“He wanted to see me. I went. He told me about the voodoo stuff. Do you think there’s any chance that he’s nervous because a boat exploded beneath his feet, killing everyone but him and the girls? That might have thrown him a little. It would throw me.”

“He says it didn’t faze him.”

“Sure it didn’t. Because he’s bulletproof and invisible,” Black said, his voice tense.

“Any word on what the cops think? You’re connected. You should be able to find out.”

“I talked to them. There’s no proof it wasn’t accidental, so that’s a dead-end unless something else surfaces. No pun intended.”

“Then what am I supposed to tell him? He’s all but refusing to do the tour now. That would be a disaster. Sales will plummet if there’s no tour to support the album. Besides, nowadays, all the money’s made off the box office and T-shirts. That’s our bread and butter.”

“Wait. So he’d rather stay alive than make everyone rich?” Black asked.

Genesis cut in, staving off a confrontation. “If he had to postpone the tour, that wouldn’t necessarily be the end of the world.”

“Did you hear a word I just said?” Sam barked.

“Hear me out. I could get a lot of coverage out of him having to pull dates because some crazy killer is on a rampage. Controversy sells. And a killer is about as controversial as it comes.”

“It still wouldn’t make up for the money we’d make with him on the road for a year.”

“True, but hopefully the police or Black will figure out what’s going on before long. So it’s not going to be a year.”

“Do you know how hard it was to get these venues for the tour? These things are booked years in advance. I had to beg to get most of them on six months’ notice. If he doesn’t do the shows, he won’t get another shot at those cities.”

Genesis nodded. “That’s probably true. For now. But if the man doesn’t want to do the tour because he’s afraid of being killed, what can you do?”

“If I could make a suggestion?” Black asked, cutting in. They both looked at him. “Hire a professional security team to work with him round the clock. Not his homies. Professionals. Bodyguards that do it for a living and are licensed to carry. I know groups that do that kind of work. They’re not cheap, but they’ll protect him like a visiting head of state. Some are ex-Secret Service. They don’t screw around.”

“What would that cost, you think?” Genesis asked.

“Couple hundred grand a month, at least.”

“What? Are you insane?”

“How much will you clear per show, Sam? What’s the box office likely to be? That’s a rounding error, and we both know it. It would be a bargain at twice the price. Which it might wind up being. I’m no expert on all the costs. But they’ll ensure he isn’t killed. Or will do the best anybody could to keep him safe, at least.”

Sam rose and began to pace, clearly unhappy, thinking about what a couple million dollars a year, minimum, would do to his bottom line.

“Maybe we could get the record company to chip in,” he started, already calculating. “And the venues. Put it into the rider – that B-Side needs special security.”

“And we could play that up. Do interviews where he talks about the expense and the level of protection. It would be newsworthy. Drama. Real life,” Genesis agreed. “I could go a lot of miles on that one story. Nobody else has really done it, so it would be a first.”

Sam pivoted and faced Black.

“You said you know people who handle this sort of thing?”

“I can put you in touch. I’ll make some calls and see what the interest level is. A lot of these groups are pretty booked up, and you don’t want the B-team on your B-Side.” Black paused, unable to resist making the joke. “And they might have a problem with some of the publicity. I don’t know. I’m spitballing here.”

“Do it. I can pitch B-Side on it, get him to see reason. We put a professional team around him, they’ll be watching everything, and doing a hell of a lot more than his current muscle. I like it,” Sam said, nodding, already formulating how to convince his client to risk his life for the cause.

The meeting ended there, and Black escorted Genesis to the elevator for the ride down to the lobby.

“At least agents never change. Always trying to calculate how to wring out every dime from a deal. Same as ever,” he said as he stepped inside. Genesis followed him in and pushed the Lobby button.

“Yeah. They’re kind of like pit bulls that way. Except way more vicious.” She considered his profile as the car descended to the ground floor. “You
do
know a lot about this business, don’t you?”

“Too much. A long story.”

“You should come over to my place sometime and tell it over champagne. Maybe help me take a bath or something.”

Black swallowed hard. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear you were trying to flirt with me.”

She moved toward him, and then the elevator slowed. The door chimed and slid wide, and the moment was over. He held it open for her as she stepped out, and then followed her.

“We’ve got some serious unfinished business, you and me, Mr. Black,” she said, and then was gone, the staccato clicking of her heels like the hammering of coffin nails on his relationship with Sylvia if he allowed this to escalate any further.

He wasn’t sure why she found him so irresistible. Maybe it was the fact he was taken. Or maybe it was just something different.

Or…maybe she wanted something out of him besides his attention.

He stopped at the men’s room in the lobby, the coffee having worked its magic on him, and then walked slowly to the Eldorado in the underground parking garage, the squeal of faraway tires marking the passage of vehicles in and out of the area. When he slid behind the wheel, he paused and looked at himself in the rear view mirror, then shook his head.

He would never understand women, even if he lived to be ninety.

The odds of which were getting longer the more he hung out with rappers, he thought grimly. He sighed, twisted the key, and made for the exit, the dark thoughts banished as he considered his next step. He’d contact his friends that owned the security company and arrange for a small commission for his trouble, which would keep him in gasoline for as long as the contract ran. Then, he’d keep digging to find something that would get him closer to figuring out who was behind B-Side’s sudden run of bad luck. Because right now, aside from suspecting everyone he’d met so far, he was no closer to having a breakthrough than he’d been when he took the case – which didn’t portend anything positive for B-Side in his possibly very short future.

Chapter 23

The next morning, Black climbed the stairs to his office, involuntarily contrasting Sam’s edifice to his own shabby building. He felt heavier with each step, like a Sherpa toting a client’s overloaded pack on a Himalayan trail. When he pushed his door open, a wistful gaze at the cat door a constant reminder of his failure to safeguard his charge, he stopped at the threshold and kicked himself for not bringing Roxie a chai. An easy opportunity to earn points, gone, as ephemeral as summer fog over the Pacific.

Roxie was wearing a sleeveless black turtleneck sweater and white painter’s pants covered with multi-colored splotches, and looked on the high side of presentable, for her.

“Good morning to yer, Roxie,” he said in a lame Irish accent that sounded patently fake.

“Hey.” She glanced at him. “Nobody called. I hope you’re not angry about dinner.”

“I know my Mom. It’s not your fault. Unless you knew about Nina, in which case you completely suck.”

“I talked to her on the phone, but I had no idea she was coming. That must have been a last-minute thing. Hella awkward, though, huh?”

“Wasn’t the best two hours of my life, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Ah, well. You’re only fifty once.”

“Forty-three.”

“Whatever.”

“Did you read the
L.A. Times
today?” Black asked.

“Why? Is there an article about B-Side?”

“No. Just a quarter inch on page nine about a drive-by shooting at an Ethiopian shithole in San Pedro.”

“Really? Bummer for the restaurant.”

“Maybe it was some diners that didn’t like the hippo testicle stew.”

“You said testicle.”

“I also said drive-by. And hippo.”

They stared at each other, and then her jaw actually fell open. Black had heard the expression, but had never seen someone do it spontaneously. Roxie was his first. For a moment, he felt a kind of kinship. Which fled faster than a looter in a riot.

“Oh, my God. Were you involved in the drive-by?” she asked.

“Either that or I’ve finally been reduced to clipping articles about every senseless act of violence in L.A.”

“But you weren’t hurt?”

“My new hat got the worst of it.”

“Maybe God’s trying to tell you something about the hats,” Roxie said.

“That’s one possible interpretation, I’ll grant you.”

“Seriously, though. You got shot at on your birthday?”

“I normally try to limit it to Christmas and New Year’s. But yes. I did.”

“Wow. What are you going to do for an encore?”

“I was thinking I’d do a
24
and have to dismantle a nuke with my teeth or something while performing an appendectomy on myself with a soup spoon.”

“Is Sylvia okay?”

“Yeah, although she’s reconsidering her choice of dating material.”

“For good reason. Although she did buy you the hat, so maybe she doesn’t know any better. Europeans and all.”

“They have a different word for everything.”

Another pause.

“I got more on your Todd guy,” Roxie said.

Black hesitated.
Todd?
Then he remembered.

“Right. Todd. Bobby’s boy.”

“That sounds like one of those books nobody buys that wins a bunch of awards nobody cares about.”

“Bobby’s Boy. Baaaahhbyyyy’s Boooooooy.”

“It really does freak me out when you do that,” Roxie complained.

“Sorry. Just having a little fun.”

“Wheeee.”

“I see you’re not amused.”

“It’s because you’ve killed all my hopes for a future. Nothing personal.”

“Really? I did that? Not L.A.?”

“Maybe a little. But mostly you,” Roxie said.

“The best example one can have is a bad one.”

“Lucky me.”

“Cautionary tales have more impact. Baaahhbyy’s Boooooy.”

“I’m going to leave if you do that again. I mean it. It’s really serial killer-y.”

“Okay. So what do we have on Todd?”

“It does look like he pled down on dealing charges. Oh, and he’s going to have a showing at a small gallery tonight.”

“Is he?”

“I see the wheels turning. I know that evil look. What are you thinking?” Roxie asked.

Black studied her expression, and then sat down on the sofa across from her. “Do you have a show tonight?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“You up for a little clandestine job?”

“Is that sexual harassment again?”

“No. I had something else in mind. A way to close the lid on Todd and see whether he’s a bad guy or not, once and for all.”

“What do you need me for?”

He eyed her full-sleeve tattoos and cutting-edge look. “Street cred. Didn’t you always say you wanted to get into the field on a case?”

“Um, no, that would have been the voices in your head.”

“They sound like you. I could have sworn you said that.”

“Do they also tell you to kill hitchhikers or anything?”

“Only the bad ones.”

“Bad voices or bad hitchhikers?”

The phone rang, startling them both. The business didn’t get a lot of calls; or more accurately, any calls, most of the time. Black stared at Roxie staring at him.

“What’s that sound? Is it the fire alarm?”

“I think it’s the phone,” Roxie said.

“If only I paid someone to answer it.”

She reached over and lifted the handset. “Black Investigations.” She listened, and then put the caller on hold. “Sam somebody or other. For you.”