Alyzon Whitestarr (27 page)

At that moment the waiter came over to say that the restaurant was closing. I looked at my watch and was astounded to see how late it was. I asked if there was a phone I could use to call Da, but Raoul offered his cell.

“It’s me,” I said gingerly when Da answered. “Sorry it’s so late.”

“We’ve just finished rehearsing, and I’m sure it helped Gilly to have a good talk,” Da said.

I felt guilty then, because we hadn’t talked about the fire for hours. We all got up and pulled on our coats, and I noticed the waiters were standing in a group by the bar, looking bored and talking in low voices.

“I should have said I’d take you home to save your father the trip,” Raoul said apologetically as we walked down the ramp with him to the foyer.

“It’s fine. Da was up rehearsing anyway. I think he’s going to do another gig for Aaron Rayc.”

“I thought he wanted your da alone,” Gilly said.

“He does, but Da is working on some new songs with Losing the Rope.”

“How did he smell?” Harrison asked suddenly. “Aaron Rayc.”

I shrugged. “He didn’t smell of anything.”

“I’ll have a look at his Web site,” Raoul promised. “But in the meantime, you do your best to stay away from Harlen until we can figure out how to handle him.”

Comforted by how easily and naturally he used the word “we,” I turned to Gilly “Listen, I feel bad that most of the night has been spent talking about me when we were supposed to—”

“Take my mind off the fire?” Gilly asked. “I think you could say you were successful.” She grinned and moved closer to give me a hug, then she stopped. “Is it bad if I hug you?”

I laughed, relieved at her simple directness. “It’s fine.”

“Good,” Gilly declared, and hugged me hard.

* * *

Wednesday dawned warm but dark, the sky full of scabby brown clouds and the wind blowing hard in several directions at once. It was the kind of day that makes dogs howl and horses twitch their ears and break into sudden, skittish bursts of speed.

At breakfast Da mentioned that he had agreed to the new gig with the other band. He sounded cheerful, but his ammonia smell was strong.
Aaron
Rayc
, I thought grimly, and I suddenly had a clear memory of him and the announcer at the Urban Dingo gig talking to the guy in green shoes, while the journalist, Gary Soloman, stood in the background watching them intently. I thought about him on the way to school, wondering if he had been doing a story about Aaron Rayc. But by the time the bus pulled up, I couldn’t think of anything other than having to face Harlen again.

Reasoning that it would be better to go on avoiding Harlen than refusing him, I managed to skulk in unlikely places between classes. The day seemed to take forever.
Maybe it was that feeling of frustration that gave me the idea of going to the newspaper office and talking to Gary Soloman.

I went out of the school the back way, just in case Harlen was lurking, but I hadn’t gone far before it started to rain. It was so heavy that I sprinted back to the main road, where I knew there would be a bus shelter. There was a woman standing in it already, and we exchanged rueful smiles, then stood together in silence peering glumly out at the rain. When I tired of watching the street, I turned my attention to the ads on the walls of the shelter. They were heavily defaced and I grimaced at a swastika wound about with snakes.

“You’d think no one would ever want to use that symbol again, given what it has been associated with,” the woman said.

“Wasn’t it originally some sort of eternal energy sign? And I think Nazis usually drew it facing the other direction,” I said when we had looked at it a bit longer. A teacher had once explained the ancient origins of the symbol.

The woman studied it. “I’m not sure. But the snakes don’t seem to go with eternal energy, so most likely the gang actually meant to draw the Nazi cross.”

“Gang?”

“It’s the emblem of a skinhead gang over in Shaletown,” the woman said. “I guess they’re widening their territory.” She shook her head and, just then, the bus loomed up.

Inside the foyer of the newspaper office, there was a line of people waiting to book advertisements. I went straight to a receptionist and asked if I could speak to Gary Soloman.

“Is he expecting you?”

“I have some important information for him,” I said, trying to look older than I was. The receptionist just nodded with supreme indifference, pressed some keys on her computer console, and then talked into the mouthpiece looping out of the earphones she was wearing. She wore the earphones slightly askew so that she could hear out of one ear, and now she angled her head toward me.

“Name?”

“Alyzon Whitestarr,” I said.

She repeated my name, and I extended my hearing. I heard a man’s voice come over the earphones. He said my name with a note of surprise and asked if she was sure. The receptionist said I seemed to be sure of my identity, and he laughed and told her that he would come right down.

Five minutes later he emerged from the security door. His
eyes skated right over me, so I stepped closer and was reassured to discover that Gary Soloman smelled a lot like a walk through a forest in autumn.

I said, “I’m Alyzon. My class came here a few months ago, and you gave us a talk on newspapers.”

“Ah!” His eyes widened in sudden comprehension. “You were with the class from hell?”

I laughed. “Not all of us came from hell. Just a couple of the boys. The rest of us come from right here on Earth.”

He smiled slightly. “Fair enough. Well, Alyzon, what can I do for you?”

“You went to see Urban Dingo at the Dome.”

“I didn’t—” he began.

“I saw you there!”

“Yes, and I saw you,” he said patiently. “I didn’t recognize you at first because you weren’t wearing a uniform then. I guess you went to see your … brother?”

“My father,” I said.

“I was about to say I didn’t go to see Urban Dingo, or your father’s band for that matter, although it was pretty sensational. I was there because I was working.”

“On what?”

His face closed up. “It’s my job to ask the questions.”

“So no one else should?” I asked, annoyed.

A faint impatience flowed into his features. “What was your question?”

I swallowed. “Were you at the concert because you were investigating Aaron Rayc?”

His expression hardly changed, but a sharp pickled-onion smell infused the autumn fragrance. “Let’s get a coffee,” he suggested. His tone implied he was bored, but his scents told me he wanted to get me away from other people.

We went out of the office and into a nearby arcade, passing three coffee places before he led me into a rather dingy Italian restaurant beside an old-fashioned barber shop. The door was open but the lights were off inside, and the big sleepy-looking Rasta man who came out at the sound of our entrance looked as if he had just crawled out of an all-night party. He just gave the journalist a wave and headed for the coffee machine.

“What will de lady have, Solo-man?” he called.

“Coffee. Espresso,” I said, because I felt I needed to counterbalance the uniform.

The journalist shouted the order, then turned to give me a speculative look. “So, what makes you ask about Aaron Rayc?”

“Aaron Rayc set up the gig with Urban Dingo because he heard a song Da wrote,” I said. “Ever since the concert he has been coming round and offering Da jobs, only the jobs are not with Losing the Rope. First they were solo and now they are with some other band whose lead singer just happened to get sick.”

I stopped because the man brought the drinks, the silver cuffs on his dreadlocks clinking as he set two mugs down, then shuffled away.

“So let me get this straight,” Gary Soloman said when he
had gone. “You’re bothered because a rich, powerful businessman is showing an interest in your dad. Isn’t that a good thing?” His voice was slightly mocking, and suddenly I was furious that he was using his face and voice to lie.

“I don’t think it’s a good thing and, what’s more, I don’t believe you think so either,” I said very coolly.

“You figured this out from an expression on my face at a gig?” A sharp citrus smell that I guessed might represent curiosity reminded me to be careful; this guy made a living out of finding out people’s secrets.

“Why were you watching Aaron Rayc?” I asked mildly, playing his game.

“I could have been looking at the other guys with him,” Gary Soloman said.

“You could,” I agreed.

He suddenly grinned, looking nicer. “What exactly is it that you want to know?”

“I don’t like Aaron Rayc, and I want to know what he does. He’s not an agent or a promoter; he says so himself. His Web site is weird because it doesn’t tell you anything.”

“I know about the Web site.” He sipped at his coffee, although my hands around my own cup told me that it was scalding hot. Then his scents shifted, and I could distinctly smell newsprint. “I went to the concert because I wanted to get a look at him without his knowing it. I had heard a few things that made me wonder about him, but it turned out to be nothing.” He was watching me over the rim of his cup.

“I don’t believe you,” I said flatly. “I don’t see why you
can’t tell me what you know. It’s not like I’m going to steal your story!”

He sat back in his chair and laughed. “I should confide my love life to you while I’m at it, and maybe my credit card number.”

His snide tone infuriated me. “Well, maybe I’ll just ask Aaron Rayc why a journalist is taking an interest in him.”

I hadn’t meant it as a threat so much as an angry comeback, but the blood rushed to his face and for the first time his expression matched the scents he was giving out. “If you talk to Rayc about me, it might be a lot more than a news story that got hurt, girl. Your father is not the only person involved here.”

I felt ashamed but also triumphant. I said, “I’m just worried about my da. I wouldn’t tell anyone anything you told me, not even him.”

A nerve beat at the journalist’s temple. “Are you a girl of your word, Alyzon Whitestarr?” he asked at last.

“I am,” I said gravely.

“Then I will give you this: Aaron Rayc is bad news to artists. He ruins their lives or their careers or he turns them into something that is the opposite of everything they cared about before they met him. I’d like to know why, and that’s why I’m digging. So far I haven’t found out anything that makes sense, but I have learned that bad things happen to people who poke their nose into Aaron Rayc’s business. Very bad things.”

I felt the blood draining from my face. I didn’t know what I had expected, but it wasn’t this. “My da—”

“Look,” Gary Soloman interrupted forcefully. “If your dad comes into the paper demanding to know what I’m on about, I’ll deny this conversation and my friend behind the counter there will swear on a stack of Bibles that you came in here with a lot of crazy talk and he threw you out. End of story.”

“I said I wouldn’t say anything,” I said quietly.

He calmed down. “I’m sorry to get so heavy, but this is a heavy guy and he has ears in places you wouldn’t imagine. Don’t tell anyone about this talk, and if you’ve got any sense, forget about Aaron Rayc. Your dad looked like a pretty bright guy, and he can probably take care of himself a lot better than you could.” He got up. “Go home, Alyzon Whitestarr.” He reached into his pocket to take out a five-dollar bill and tossed it on the table.

I stood up, too. “Thank you for talking to me.”

He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something else, then he shook his head and left. I was still standing there staring after him when the Rasta man glided over. I don’t know what he saw in my face, but he said, “Eh, gal, don’ look so down. Soloman is a good guy. If he huntin’ a story, he gonna get dat story and he gonna protect his sources. He infamous for it, eh?”

I looked at him, and let the warm chocolate smell of his kindness soothe me. “Thanks,” I said.

* * *

I walked back to the library, determined to do a search for every online mention of Aaron Rayc, but all of the computer consoles were booked. Since I was in an investigative frame of mind, I went to the outdated phone books. Harlen’s friends
had indicated that his previous school had closed, so I reasoned there might be an old listing for a private school in Shaletown. Talking to the others about Harlen the night before had made me feel more than ever that I needed to know what made him tick, and it might be worth visiting the neighborhood where the school had been. It was a long shot, but maybe someone would remember him.

It turned out there had been a Shaletown Boys Academy. I wrote down the address, then I went back to check the computers, but they were all still in use. I gave up and went outside. There were five minutes to kill before the bus, so I went to the phones and called Harrison. It wasn’t until the phone was ringing that I remembered I had promised not to say anything about the conversation with Gary Soloman.

A man answered the phone, sounding drunk. Before I could do more than say my name, he swore and hung up. I stared at the phone, thinking I must have dialed a wrong number.

* * *