The Liar's Lullaby (2 page)

She stalked out the plate-glass doors onto the balcony and stared down at the forty thousand people who filled the ballpark. The music bounced off the glass, distorted echoes of the Star-Spangled chorus.

Rez followed her outside. “Let’s get you rigged. It’s going to be fine. It’s just a stunt.”

The breeze off the bay lifted her hair from her neck like swirls of caramel smoke. “It was a stunt in the movie. But in the movie, the star didn’t do this. You know why?”

Because she’s sane
. “Because she’s not you.”

Because the star wasn’t as ravenous for stage time as Tasia McFarland. Because the star wasn’t brave or wild enough to hook herself to a zip line and fly forty feet over the heads of the crowd as fireworks went off from the scoreboard, singing the title song from the movie.

Bull’s-eye
was the latest in a series of action films that featured guns and slinky women.
Long Barrel. Pump Action.
The stuntmen had their own names for these movies.
Handguns and Hand Jobs. Planes, Trains, and Blown Brains.

But the flick was a hit, and so was “Bull’s-eye,” the song. Tasia McFarland was top of the charts. And she wanted to stay there.

“Movie stars don’t do their own stunts because they don’t know jack about life and death,” she said.

Her eyes shone. Her makeup looked like an overstimulated six-year-old had applied it after peeping at
Maxim.

“Stop staring at me like that,” she said. “I’m sober. I’m clean.”

Too clean?
Rez thought, and his face must have shown it, because Tasia shook her head.

“And I’m not off my meds. I’m just wound up. Let’s go.”

“Great.” Rez forced encouragement into his voice. “It’ll be a breeze. Like Denver. Like Washington.”

“You’re a lousy liar.” She smiled. It looked unhappy. “I like that, Rez. It’s the good liars who get you.”

In his ear, Andreyev’s voice rose in pitch. “Two minutes.”

Tasia’s gaze veered from the empty suite to the heaving field. She squirmed against the tight fit of her jeans.

“The harness feels wrong.” She pulled on it. “I have to adjust it.”

A carabiner was already clipped to the harness. Rez reached for it. She slapped his hand. “Go inside and turn around. Don’t look.”

He glared, but she pushed him back. “I can’t sing if my crotch is pinched by this damned chastity belt. Go.”

And she thought that adjusting her panties in full view of a stadium crowd was the modest option? But he remembered rule number one: Humor the talent. Reluctantly he went inside and turned his back.

Behind him the plate-glass doors slammed shut. He spun and saw Tasia lock the doors.

“Hey.” Rez shook the door handles. “What are you doing?”

She grabbed a chair and jammed it under the handles.

“This isn’t a stunt, Rez. He’s after me. This is life and death.”

 

 

O
N THE FIELD, sunburned, thirsty, crammed on a plastic chair surrounded by thousands of happy people, Jo Beckett sank lower in her seat.

The band was blasting out enough decibels to blow up the sonar on submarines in the Pacific. The song, “Banner of Fire,” was hard on the downbeat and on folks who didn’t love buckshot, monster trucks, and freedom. The singer, Searle Lecroix, was a pulsing figure: guitar slung low, lips nearly kissing the mike. A black Stetson tipped down across his forehead, putting his eyes in shadow. The guitar in his hands was painted in stars and stripes, and probably tuned to the key of U.S.A.

The young woman beside Jo climbed on her chair, shot her fists in the air, and cried,
“Woo!”

Jo grabbed the hem of the woman’s T-shirt. “Tina, save it for the Second Coming.”

Tina laughed and flicked Jo’s fingers away. “Snob.”

Jo rolled her eyes. When she’d offered her little sister concert tickets for her birthday, she figured Tina would pick death metal or
Aida
, not Searle Lecroix and the
Bad Dogs and Bullets
tour.

Despite her taste in music, Tina looked like a junior version of Jo: long brown curls, lively eyes, compact, athletic physique. But Jo wore her combats and Doc Martens and had her UCSF Medical Center ID in her backpack and her seen- it-all, early thirties attitude in her hip pocket. Tina wore a straw cowboy hat, a nose ring, and enough silver bangles to stock the U.S. Mint. She was the human version of caffeine.

Jo couldn’t help but smile at her. “You’re a pawn of the Military-Nashville complex.”

“Sicko. Next you’ll say you don’t love puppies, or the baby Jesus.”

Jo stood up. “I’m going to the snack bar. Want anything?”

Tina pointed at Lecroix. “Him. Hot and buttered.”

Jo laughed. “Be right back.”

She worked her way to the aisle and headed for the stands. Overhead, sunlight glinted off metal. She looked up and saw a steel cable, running from a luxury suite to the stage. It looked like a zip line. She slowed, estimating the distance from the balcony to the touchdown point. It was a long way.

A second later, she heard helicopters.

A
NDREYEV PUT THE BELL 212 through a banking turn and lined up for the pass above the ballpark. The second helicopter flanked him. The sunset flared against his visor.

“Ninety seconds,” he said. “Rez, is Tasia ready to go?”

He got no reply. “Rez?”

He glanced at the video monitor. It showed the balcony of the luxury suite.

He did a double take. The doors to the suite were jammed shut with a chair. Rez was inside, rattling the doorknob.

On the balcony Tasia stood with her back to him. She reached around to her back pocket, beneath the extravagant ruffles that trailed from her corset.

“Shit. Shit.
Shit,
” Andreyev said.

From the door of the chopper, Hack Shirazi shouted, “What’s going on?”

Andreyev yelled into the radio. “Rez, she’s got a gun.”

R
EZ POUNDED ON THE PLATE-GLASS DOOR. “TASIA, OPEN IT. FOR God’s sake, nobody’s after you.”

In his ear Andreyev shouted at him. “. . . a gun. Rez, stop her.”

Rez put his hand over his earpiece. Tasia turned around. In her right hand she held a pistol.

“What are you doing with that?” he said.

The gun was a big mutha. It was a goddamned Colt .45 automatic.

“Is that from Props?”

“It’s from the department of authenticity,” she said. “With a grand finale, it always comes down to a gun.”

“On-screen, not in real life. Put it down.”

“You keep thinking this is a show. So call this a solo with high-caliber backup.”

“That thing drops on somebody’s head and we’re sued up the wazoo. Don’t get me fired.” He rattled the door again. “You can’t take a weapon out there.”

She smiled angrily. “Everybody else involved in this stunt has a gun.”

“But theirs are fake.”

“Exactly.” She held up the pistol. “Fame can’t protect me. Just Samuel Colt. And my music, ’cause the voice is mightier than the sword. Melody, harmony, counterpoint, lyrics. Remember that—if they get me, remember. The truth is in my music. Number one with a bullet, glory, halle-
lu-
jah.”

“Nothing’s going to happen, Tasia.” Rez raised his hands placatingly. “Please put it down.”

“Do you think I’m an asshole? I won’t drop it.” Her eyes swam with a feverish heat. “God, you actually think it’s loaded.”

For a moment her swirling hair took on the look of snakes. But the snakes were only in her head.

From the chopper, Andreyev said, “Is the gun a prop? Rez?”

“I don’t know.”

Tasia’s voice hit him low and sharp, like a blade. “No, you don’t. You have no idea what’s out there. What’s waiting. I’m talking about violence. I’m talking about propaganda of the deed. I’m talkin’ ’bout a revolution—yeah, you know, we all want to change the world.”

In his ear, Rez heard the director. “What’s happening? Shirazi, for the love of Christ, what’s she doing?”

“Tasia, put down the weapon.”

She shook her head. “I put it down, and he gets me. Then it’s open season. Car bombs in cities. Death squads cutting down women and children.” She held the gun up, and turned it, seemingly checking that it had all its working pieces. “I used to think they wouldn’t dare. But I was naïve. I was a child. A freaking child, playing around. Round, round, get around.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Martyrdom.”

Rez felt faint.

“It ain’t always religious. Sometimes it’s ungodly, and sometimes it’s at the hands of the angels, not the devil. And this gun is from the source, the alpha and omega.”

She grabbed her carabiner and clipped it to the trolley cable that hung from the zip line.

Into his radio, Rez said, “Get security. Send them through the luxury suites on either side of us and grab her.”

Tasia turned abruptly and stared at him. “I told him. Warned him. So he’s heard me. But he’s going to hear me again, right now, a whole lot louder.”

Jesus.
“Come on, T—”

She waved the gun haphazardly in his direction. He flinched. She turned back to the crowd.

“Secret Service would have scoped it out beforehand.”

“But they won’t protect me. Au contraire
.
Loose cannon, loose lips, loose woman. I am on my own and in their sights. So it’s just me and my music and the peacemaker here.”

Onstage, the band segued into the intro to “Bull’s-eye.” On cue, the CO
₂
canisters rigged around the balcony began discharging. Clouds of white smoke swirled around Tasia.

Shirazi stared at the barrel of the Colt. He had no way to determine whether the gun was loaded.

“Tasia, if there’s a problem, come inside and let security handle it. You can’t take a gun onstage. You’ll terrify the crowd.”

“No, I won’t.” She smiled again, darkly. “Watch me.”

The director shouted in his ear. “Grab her.”

“I’m trying. Did you call security?” Rez shook the plate-glass door one last time. He ran across the suite, opened the main door, and leaned into the hall. The corridor was crowded. A guard was loitering nearby.

Rez waved at him. “Tasia’s locked on the balcony, freaking out. Go through the suite next door and grab her.”

Behind him, she called, “Rez, you idiot. He’ll get in.”

The security guard hustled to the adjoining suite and pounded on the door. Rez ran back to the plate- glass windows. Tasia looked manic and distraught, her face blurred by the swirling CO
₂
.

“I can’t let this happen.” She turned on her headset mike and began gesturing to the people sitting along the balcony in the adjoining suites. “Hey, everybody. Join the party.”

People looked up, surprised. As if she were hosting a street party, she waved everybody toward her. They held back, unsure.

“Come on!”

“What the hell?” the director said.

First one person, then another, stood up and climbed over the low barriers from the balconies of adjoining boxes. Then they all came. They swarmed over the barriers and mobbed her.

“Damn,” Rez shouted into his radio. “She’s surrounding herself with people so the security guards can’t get to her.”

More CO
₂
canisters lit off. Dozens of fans, hundreds, crowded around Tasia before they were lost in the white mist of carbon dioxide.

And understanding swept through Shirazi. “Tasia, no.”

He grabbed a chair and swung it into the plate glass. It bounced off. The pane was ultra- thick safety glass, and the blow left barely a mark.

The first round of fireworks ignited. Tasia faced the stage and raised the Colt.

S
TANDING CENTER STAGE, GUITAR IN HIS HANDS, SEARLE LECROIX HIT the high note at the end of the verse. The crowd reached toward him, swept up in his performance like wheat pulled forward by a prairie wind. He grinned and pushed the cowboy hat down on his forehead.

In the stands behind home plate, carbon dioxide swirled around Tasia. Lecroix hit the downbeat. On cue, she began to sing.

Her soprano filled the air like silver. The crowd cheered. Lecroix felt a rush.

He hit the chord change to G major. Tasia’s voice gained power.

Her magenta corset swam in and out of view through the smoke. The crowd was spilling onto the balcony around her. What on earth? And she had something in her hand. It caught the light.

A gun.

He lost the beat. The bass player glanced at him.

Theatrically, like she was a gunfighter practicing a quick draw, she swung the gun up, aimed at the stage, and pretended to pull the trigger. The second round of fireworks whizzed into the air from the stage scaffolding. Tasia jerked her hand up, miming recoil. The fireworks burst with a crackle and poured red light on the crowd.