Compact with the Devil: A Novel (8 page)

“I agree,” said Nikki. “But Astriz seemed to think Voges was too much for one agent to take on.”

“It’s the twenty-first century,” said Jane. “We don’t need to take him on. We need to take on his computer.”

“OK. Let’s just say we’re in agreement on the solution for problem number one, but since I’m not a computer whiz and you’re on vacation, we’re going to have to table it for right now.”

“Mmm,” grunted Jane, clearly dissatisfied with that answer. “Problem two. You need to reconnect with Astriz, figure out where Cano is, and then smack the crap out of Camille.”

“Sort of a three-part problem, but yeah.”

“I’ve got Astriz’s number here now. Got a pen?”

“Uh-huh,” said Nikki, digging through Trista’s equipment for a piece of blotting paper and a stick of eyeliner to jot down the numbers Jane recited.

“I think I’ll make a few calls when we’re done,” said Jane abruptly after finishing. “Astriz may have phoned in to her home branch. Won’t hurt to check it out.”

“You’re supposed to be on vacation,” protested Nikki.

“Whatever,” said Jane. “Anyway, problem three is Kit Masters. Do you think he’s really Cano’s target?”

“At this point, yes,” said Nikki. “Cano has knowledge of Carrie Mae and Camille, and whoever was wearing that gray tracksuit had a backstage pass and came directly here.”

“So what are you going to do? Chase Cano or chase Tracksuit?”

“I’m not sure,” answered Nikki. “I feel like Tracksuit is still here. Which makes Tracksuit an easier target than Cano.” Nikki sighed and rubbed her head. “I need to talk to Astriz, see what her situation is.”

“Good thinking.”

“Thanks for talking to me, Jane.”

“No problem. It’s what I do. Ooh, wait … final question,” said Jane.

“OK, final question,” said Nikki tolerantly.

“How hot is Kit Masters in person?”

“Very hot,” said Nikki. “You should see him in his underwear.”

“Underwear?” shrieked Jane.

“Gotta go, Jane, duty calls,” said Nikki maliciously, and hit the “off” button.

Before she could dial Astriz, the phone began to buzz violently. Scrambling to stop the buzz, Nikki hit the “view” button on the incoming text message.

“Call me after,” was the entire message, and with a shock, Nikki realized that it was from Camille.

“Everything all right?” asked Trista, reappearing in the doorway.

“Uh … yeah,” answered Nikki. “Just making one last call.” She dialed Astriz’s number.

“Hallo, hier ist Astriz. Bitte hinterlassen Sie eine Nachricht nach dem Piepton.”
Grumbling, Nikki hung up the phone and dialed again; the phone went to the answering message.

“Astriz,” said Nikki. “It’s Nikki. Call me back at this number. I chased Cano’s contact to the backstage of the Kit Masters concert. I’m with a former Carrie Mae agent. Call me.” She hung up the phone and tapped her fingers on the countertop of Trista’s work space. If Astriz was as much like Val Robinson as Nikki thought, there would be no call back.

She needed to find Tracksuit, which was going to be difficult. She needed to see more of the crew and stage area. Nikki sighed and went to stand beside Trista in the doorway.

“What are you going to do now?” asked Trista.

“I’m going to wait for my German contact to call me back and
then we’ll see.” Nikki hoped it wouldn’t occur to Trista to ask what she would do if the German contact never called.

“But you have to stay and help protect Kit!” exclaimed Trista.

“I’m going to help Kit by finding whoever was meeting Cano,” answered Nikki. “I can’t spend a lot of time worrying about the internal politics of a rock concert. He’s got bodyguards, right? Let them do their job and I’ll do mine. I’m going to have a look around, see if I can spot Tracksuit. I’ve got your phone. Call me if you see anything suspicious.”

Trista opened her mouth, but Nikki didn’t give her a chance to speak, walking away before the makeup lady could protest.

Nikki toured the perimeter, trying to make sense of the scene in front of her. The mechanical stage apparatus took up the center of the room with a snaking octopus of wires that all fed into a central panel manned by the plump, donut-eating tech she had noticed earlier. She could see Kit and the band on a small TV monitor at the currently unmanned desk; the tech was back at the craft services table. Taking a deep breath, she sidled up to him.

“Hey,” she said, “I’m Nikki. I’m helping Trista out.” Donut Eater nodded and wiped his fingers on a napkin to shake hands. “Am I the only new person on board today?” She added a winsome smile.

“Well,” said the tech, looking around as if he wasn’t sure she was talking to him, “there’s the walk-on help.”

“What’s walk-on help?”

“Them,” he said, waving at the black-clad men currently carrying equipment toward the loading bay. “The tour can’t bring
enough people to really do just labor, so we hire out. Some towns are better than others. The Germans, at least, seem to live up to their reputation for efficiency. Things are going pretty well tonight.”

“What about—”

The tech’s watch beeped, interrupting her. “Time to start the prep for raising the stage,” he said, pivoting on his heel and leaving without another word.

Nikki watched him leave and shook her head. Nerds … so smart and yet so stupid. Why were the technologically savvy so frequently undersocialized?

She followed some of the walk-ons, keeping a wary eye out for security. Somewhere there was a large man who would be pissed at her when he woke up.

A groupie was waiting by the back entrance, a backstage pass dangling from her neck and a cigarette from her fingers. Nikki leaned against the wall and scrutinized her; she’d never seen a real live groupie before. Plaid mini and spike-heeled boots that left the pale expanse of her thighs exposed for all admirers to see. A cascade of pale blond hair that fell down her back in a straight curtain of corn silk. A thin, youngish man in a dark suit, his blond hair in a faux-hawk, approached her and the two talked for a moment before he escorted her outside.

The way in which the man rested his hand on the small of the girl’s back reminded her of Z’ev. Z’ev’s fingertips would rest with the lightest of touches on her spine as they walked through restaurants or onto the dance floor. Nikki could never quite figure out if she liked it as an old-fashioned gesture of courtliness or disliked it as a patronizing gesture of ownership. She couldn’t quite shake the idea that he thought she needed his guidance to do things, as if she couldn’t take care of herself.
Even when he had proof otherwise, he still didn’t seem capable of accepting it.

“What the hell was that!?” demanded Z’ev, slamming the door on the apartment. “You go out for butter and forty-five minutes later I find you answering questions from the cops.”

“I was helping,” said Nikki.

“You were helping?” repeated Z’ev. “The policeman said you did a flying side-kick across the counter and beat the guy unconscious with a brandy bottle.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Nikki. “It was tequila. Longer neck, better grip.”

“Nikki!”

“What? What do you want me to say, Z’ev?” asked Nikki, heading into the bedroom to take off her sweatshirt. Z’ev followed after her. “Poor Mr. Singh was getting robbed. What was I supposed to do? Just stand there?”

“You could have called the cops!” suggested Z’ev, glaring.

“Yeah, and by the time they got there Mr. Singh could have been dead and definitely would have been out all the money in his till. He’s putting his son through college, saving for his daughter’s dowry, and sending money back home. He can’t afford that!”

“Nikki, you are not bulletproof! You could have been killed.”

“Meh. That guy didn’t know what he was doing.”

Z’ev sighed and sat down on the bed. “You are not a professional. You can’t keep doing things like this,” he said, reaching out his hand for her, and she went to him. “One day you won’t be so lucky.”

What did he mean, “lucky”? She hadn’t been lucky; she’d been good. Clearly he hadn’t seen the surveillance footage. Although,
she decided, she should call work in the morning and get that quashed. Mrs. M wasn’t going to want to have that appear on one of those reality clip shows.

He put his arms around her and buried his face in her stomach. Her anger dissipated and she wrapped her arms around him tightly, wanting to hold on forever.

“And besides,” he said, leaning back to look her in the face, “you’re going to give me a heart attack.” Nikki laughed and leaned down to kiss him.

“Cut back on red meat,” she suggested.

Shaking her head, Nikki made her way back to Trista, trying to forget about Z’ev. She knew she’d better face facts: she and Z’ev were broken up and she’d lost Tracksuit entirely.

Trista was standing by the stage tech’s desk, watching the concert on his monitor. On the little TV, she could see Kit was surrounded by the dancing girls and had wrapped himself in a red feather boa that someone had managed to toss onstage. She didn’t understand the girls who did things like that—losing it over a celebrity defied her comprehension. The stage rose higher and even at this level Nikki could hear the swell of cheers and applause.

“So what happens now?” asked Nikki.

“Fireworks,” said Trista, and, as if on cue, fireworks shot in arcing streams of light across the crowd-filled soccer pitch.

The technician rolled smoothly from one side of the table to the other and began flipping switches, ignoring the TV footage.

“Cool,” said Nikki. The fireworks were blowing out the contrast on the tiny screen.

The platform was nearly five feet up from the main stage, and more than twenty from the cement floor and the machine that powered
the pneumatic arms that lifted the stage into the air, when there was a sudden grinding jerk and it tilted dramatically to the right. One of the drummer’s drumsticks flew out of his hand and hit the bassist in the head. Next to her, the keyboard player clutched his keyboard in a full-body hug. The guitar player and Kit, who had been in the midst of moving, both fell and slid toward the edge of the platform. From the other side of the stage, Duncan, the bodyguard, hurtled through the flames and landed on the stage.

Trista made a helpless whimpering noise, her fingers clenching and unclenching in fists at her sides, but she was apparently frozen otherwise.

“Hey!” yelled Nikki to the technician. Donut Eater was talking on the phone as he poked underneath a panel. “The platform’s tilting; get it down now!”

“Tilting,” he repeated, sitting up and looking at her seriously. “That’s not a funny joke.” He surveyed his array and shook his head. “No, that would cause an alarm on my board. See, no alarm.”

Nikki spun the monitor around and shoved it at him.

“Tilting!” she yelled, and the technician went white, beads of sweat suddenly standing out on his forehead. Nikki looked down to the floor, then picked up a coiled piece of cord and jammed it into the empty slot on the board. The board lit up in a blinking cascade of red.

“Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” yelped Donut Eater, and began thumbing controls in a rapid-fire sequence.

“Get it down!” yelled Nikki. “There are people up there.”

“Jonesy, Jonesy, kill the goddamn pyros!” he yelled into his headset. Crewmen were running upstairs toward the stage. “Jesus, Jesus.” Donut Eater prayed some more. He stood and was yanked back into his seat by his headset. “It won’t come down!” Donut Eater shouted in terror at Nikki as he fought the headset.

“Why not?”

The technician scanned the octopus of black wires and air compressors.

“It’s jammed!” he yelled, and Trista moaned in horror, still frozen in place, covering her hands with her mouth. Nikki followed his pointing finger, tracing cords up the riser where a wrench, locked around one of the air tubes, had literally been stuck into the works. At a certain height the wrench had pinched the hose, cutting off power to the piston that pushed the telescoping arms of the stage mechanism into the air.

Nikki sighed in exasperation. This was not her night. Taking a deep breath, she ran toward the scaffolding, climbing hand over hand until she reached the level of the wrench. Extending her arm, she found the wrench just out of her reach. She took a long look at the grease-covered arm and then jumped. Grabbing the wrench, she slid down until her feet connected with the next section of the piston. She felt her shirt pull up and winced in disgust as she felt grease cover her skin. The floor was less than six feet away, so she jumped, landing in a low crouch and covered in a black film of grease. She stayed there a minute, panting, as the ragged edge of adrenaline started to take its toll.

Donut Eater was already pushing buttons as she landed, and, with a sucking noise from the compressors, the platform righted itself and began to descend. Nikki watched anxiously as the platform sank down into resting position. The bodyguard had made it through the flames mostly unharmed—his mustache looked a little singed. He had one beefy arm hooked around Kit and the other holding the guitarist by the belt. The bassist and the keyboard player had their arms wrapped around the firmly anchored keyboard and Burg, the drummer, had a white-knuckled grip on his snare drum. As the stage touched down, no one moved for a long second.

“Bloody hell,” muttered the bassist, standing swiftly and walking shakily to the edge of the stage. Nikki reached up a hand to help her down, but she shook her head.

“Help Hammond,” she said, gesturing to the keyboard player. “He’s afraid of heights.”

“Holly, Holly,” whispered Hammond, “don’t leave me.”

“Here,” said Nikki, extending a hand. He crawled to her as if not wanting to remove more than one limb from the ground at a time. The bodyguard lifted Kit and the guitarist to their feet and then began to stalk toward the stage technician.

“What the hell did you do?” bellowed Duncan. Behind him, Kit and the guitarist clung together.

“Duncan,” squealed Trista, but whether in protest or fear Nikki couldn’t tell.

“Oi! It wasn’t me!” shouted the technician. “Some cowboy’s been messing with the machinery!”