Sticky Fingers (32 page)

“Okay!” The music director raised her voice to address everyone on the stage. “Show’s in two hours. Please don’t leave the venue between now and then. Stay in the designated backstage area. There’s food set up, and lots of drinks, but go easy on the booze, okay?” She gave Stony’s musicians significant looks. “We want a good show tonight.”

At the edge of the stage, Jeremy Dranko snapped shut his cell phone and barked, “Backstage, everyone! House opens in half an hour.”

While the guys stashed their instruments, the people who’d been watching from the stadium filtered down to the stage.

Sage bounded up to me, her face alight. “Mom, you were so cool!”

Sugar was right behind her, eyes glued to her phone. “This is so boring, I can’t stand it.”

Jane Doe had the baby in her arms and her daughter by the hand. They all looked beat. Any minute, the three of them were going to bust out bawling.

I said, “Let’s go backstage and find a place to relax.”

I’d never been behind the scenes for a big concert. In the greenroom, I was prepared to see young groupies in skimpy clothes and a smorgasbord of recreational drugs. The clichés of the business. But everybody was disappointingly average—relaxed and hanging out in front of a couple of big-screen TVs watching ESPN and reruns of a sitcom. Mountain Dew and light beer seemed to be the beverages of choice. The roadies were all covered in tattoos, but they huddled together, straddling folding chairs and playing some kind of group computer game that sounded like machine-gun fire.

Jeremy disappeared down a hallway marked Dressing Rooms. I guessed only Dooce rated his own private place to chill.

What surprised the hell out of me was finding Flynn supervising a buffet. He slung a few hot trays and directed his assistant where to put the silverware. Wearing his black ninja chef outfit with the skullcap, he managed to look dangerous while peeling plastic wrap off a big bowl of salad greens. But just barely.

“Hey,” he said when he saw me. “You sounded great out there.”

“You could pick out my voice in all that noise?”

He grinned. “Not exactly. But the whole thing sounded good to me.”

Sage rushed up and threw herself into Flynn’s arms. “Dad! What are you doing here?”

He hugged her. “Hey, honey. Helping out, that’s all. You should try the hot wings.”

“Oooh, I’m starving!”

She launched herself toward the long tables of food. Still in her school uniform, she drew a few sidelong glances from the video gamers.

I threw flame their way. But to Flynn, I said, “Hot wings? That’s not your usual menu.”

“No,” he admitted. “But a request. It’s some kind of good-luck charm for the band, I guess. There’s some better stuff. Lamb chops. A gumbo, too.”

“Has Dooce asked to marry you yet?”

He allowed a wry grin. “In a way, yes.”

I felt my own smile fade. “What does that mean? You’re not going on the road with him, are you?”

“He asked. I haven’t answered.”

What about Sage? I almost blurted out the question.

He responded as if I had. “I don’t want to leave Sage.”

I tried to seem nonchalant about it. “Is there any of your famous soup here?” Because I didn’t intend to eat any.

“Not tonight.”

“I saw Jeremy, Dooce’s assistant.”

“Did he try to scare you?”

I smiled. “I haven’t lost my touch completely.”

“I get it. His mood must have improved. A while ago, he was screaming about losing his purse.”

“His purse?”

“I dunno. Some kind of bag. He claims somebody stole it. He had a temper tantrum. I’m betting he dropped it somewhere.”

“Was it, like, a messenger bag?”

“What’s a messenger bag?”

I thought about the bag the bomb squad blew up. If it had been Jeremy’s, that meant he’d been at the Crabtree house. He’d gotten out of the car, too. Maybe he’d snatched Clarice? If so, was it on Dooce’s orders? And why?

Flynn said, “You okay?”

I pulled myself together. “Sure.”

“Look, I don’t want to be a jerk, but is this the right place for Sage to be?” He had also been watching the roadies ogling our daughter.

“I’ve seen bridge clubs more exciting than this scene.”

“Things are cool for the moment. But that will change.” With a jut of his chin, he pointed toward the unopened bottles of liquor standing alongside the soda pop and fruit drinks. “There’s other stuff going on, too.”

“Drugs?”

“Big-time in the men’s room. This is not exactly a wholesome environment for kids.”

“Sage probably passes six drug deals on her way to school every morning. She knows how to handle herself.”

Flynn nodded at the rest of the brood that had followed me into the greenroom. “What are you doing playing Pied Piper with all these other kids?”

“Long story. Including a chapter that has the police looking for me in a stolen Escalade.”

He turned on me. “Did you steal it?”

“Zack Cleary did. Which would reflect badly on a lot of people, including your daughter and his father, the chief of police, so I’m trying to figure a way to make it all go away.”

“You couldn’t just explain things to the police?”

“Without Zack getting arrested? And ruining his life? No. I’ll figure something out. In the meantime, I’m keeping everybody out of sight. This seemed like a good hiding place, and the security guy at the gate saw things my way.”

“So you’re protecting Zack? Keeping him away from the cops? There must be a hundred of them working in this venue tonight.”

“And he’s one. So far, the security guys seem to be looking at pretty girls.”

Flynn grunted in agreement. “Well, good luck. Who’s the little girl with Sage? The Asian kid?”

“That’s Clarice Crabtree’s daughter.”

“The one whose father was almost killed last night? Why isn’t she sitting at his bedside?”

“That would be boring,” I said.

We both looked at Sugar, who was pouting on a folding chair. For once, she wasn’t staring intently at her cell phone. She ignored the action around her, which was an accomplishment in self-control, considering. How many kids got to see backstage at a rock-and-roll show? But she was acting as if someone had refused to buy her a candy bar.

I said. “Her reaction to her father’s shooting is that she’s decided she wants to be an emancipated minor.”

“No tears?”

“She’s in shock.”

“Either that, or she’s a psychopath.” Flynn’s gaze traveled past Sugar, and his eyes widened. “Wait—is that Nooch?”

I turned around to see my sidekick and Richie Eckelstine come through the door with backstage credentials around their necks. Richie carried a large, squished brown paper bag under his arm, but he managed to make it look like a fashion accessory.

Nooch had been transformed. Instead of his orange-stained sweatshirt, he wore a dark sport coat over a black turtleneck sweater with a checked scarf wrapped rakishly around his thick neck. Someone had brushed his crewcut hair into trendy spikes. He was … almost human.

My mouth must have been hanging open, because Richie said, “That’s a good way to catch flies, you know.”

“Nooch?” I said.

“Hey, Rox. The book says I need to dress like the person I as—asp—the person I want to be. Richie helped me pick out everything.” He opened the sport coat. “What do you think? Do I look like I envisioned myself right?”

“You look like a bodyguard for Tom Cruise.” Either that or a metrosexual professional wrestler. “Kid, how’d you manage to get him stuff that fits?”

“It wasn’t easy.” Richie reached out and tweaked Nooch’s lapel. “And try hiring a tailor at this time on a Friday afternoon. We had to go back to my house to use the sewing machine.”

“That’s why we’re a little late,” Nooch added.

“Did you see your father?” I asked Richie.

“He’s still with the police.”

If Richie guessed his father might be the prime suspect in two murders, not to mention an accessory to a felony involving dinosaur bones, he didn’t show it.

Sugar appeared beside her brother. To him, she said, “I need a cell phone.”

Richie was starting to get distracted by all the greenroom action. “What?”

“My battery died. I need a new phone.”

“Who are you trying to call?” I asked.

“I’m not calling,” she snapped. “I’m on the Web.”

“Hey,” Nooch said. “Are those hot wings?”

“Get a napkin!” Flynn and I said to him in chorus.

Sugar flounced away. I saw her catch sight of Dooce’s drummer, who was tapping the keys of a laptop computer. She headed his way.

While Nooch went over to wreak havoc on the buffet, I said to Richie, “You’re a miracle worker. Nooch looks great.”

“You haven’t seen anything yet.”

“What d’you mean?”

Richie took my hand. “Come with me.”

Flynn said, “I’ll keep an eye on the kids. And Nooch.”

I let Richie lead me to the nearest women’s bathroom. He stuck his head inside and called, “Anybody home?”

When he got no answer, he grabbed my elbow. “C’mon.”

I know it’s not normal for a woman to be completely uninterested in clothes. But in my line of work, it’s just easier to stick with jeans. I have to admit, I had butterflies.

Richie upended his brown paper bag, and a heap of things fell out on the floor—wisps of fabric, stretchy remnants, a thick leather belt. Not to mention a selection of shoes, including a pair of leopard-print stilettos.

“Wait a minute.” I backed against the nearest sink.

“Are you actually afraid?”

“No! But…”

“Don’t worry.” Richie pulled a pair of scissors and a spool of thread from his pockets. “We’ll make it work.”

He ordered me to take off most of my clothes, and then he slipped a sleeveless, boring gray dress over my head. Over that, he pulled a second dress that was printed to look like wallpaper. He took the scissors and began to slash both dresses so that they turned into one, with pieces cut out. I started to look as if I’d been attacked by lions.

It took almost an hour.

But when the kid finally let me out of the bathroom, heads turned and Nooch dropped a quart of gumbo on the floor.

“Mom?” Sage said.

“I feel like a fool.”

Nooch said anxiously, “Rox, is that you?”

Flynn left Jane Doe and came over. “Holy shit. I think that dress is made out of cobwebs.”

“That’s it,” I said to Richie. “I want my jeans back.”

“No, no, no.” Flynn grabbed my hand to stop me from disappearing into the bathroom.

“You look fantastic,” Sage protested.

“And the concert’s starting,” Richie said.

We’d heard the crowd growing in the arena. For the last hour, their noise had steadily intensified to a dull roar. Jeremy had come into the greenroom every fifteen minutes to announce the time, and now he called the opening-act performers to the stage.

The rest of us followed, just to watch. The stage was dark, and the arena lights began to dim. The crowd cheered as darkness fell, then held their collective breath for the show to start.

Dooce’s opening act was a has-been woman singer who’d had a string of hits in the eighties, when female artists dressed in aerobic dance outfits and sang in front of synthesized recordings for MTV videos. She’d been hiding in another dressing room, but she swept past us in the backstage darkness, propelled by two bodyguards and trailed by Dooce’s music director. She wore a dress that looked like a torn nightgown and enough makeup to spackle a retaining wall. Her pointy-toed, thigh-high boots would have looked right on the Wicked Witch of the West if she worked part-time as a dominatrix.

“Tch-tch,” Richie said as she went by. “Someone hire that woman a decent stylist.”

Stony and his band took the stage behind the woman, along with Dooce’s musicians. They started playing before the lights came up, and the crowd roared, recognizing the song. The noise from the arena felt like a tidal wave backstage—a huge roll of sound and energy.

Then the lights blazed. The woman singer grabbed the microphone and held the front of the stage like the captain of a ship in a hurricane. She still had her voice, and she belted her old hits with a confidence that won over the audience fast.

I pulled Sage close and hugged her in front of me so she could see the show, but not get buffeted away from me by the backstage crowd. She sang along and vibrated with excitement. Beside us, Richie looked completely absorbed by the spectacle. Beyond him, even Nooch seemed happily overwhelmed. On the other side of me stood Sugar. She had taken possession of the drummer’s laptop and looked hypnotized by the screen.

The last song in the opening-act set was the singer’s big romantic hit, a ballad with a driving beat called “Hot Kisses.” The whole crowd knew the words and sang the chorus along with her—a familiar refrain known to anyone who’d listened to a radio in the last twenty-five years. It was a good song, one that was probably mixed up in anyone’s memory of youth and the excitement of first love.

From behind, Flynn wrapped his arms around me, and the three of us swayed to the exuberant beat. Sage threw her head back and sang the words along with the crowd. Flynn laughed warmly in my ear, and I thought about hot kisses long ago.

The moment was over too fast. The song ended in a long, dying note, and the lights went down, then up again for the singer to take her bows.

The stage crew arrived and backed us all away from the wings of the stage, clearing an opening for the singer to exit through. She rushed past us, and this time her face gleamed with energy.

Richie must have forgiven her the bad clothes, because he shouted, “Great show!”

She blew him a kiss and disappeared.

Dooce’s music director showed up out of nowhere and began to shout orders. Out in the arena, the audience stomped and chanted for Dooce.

Flynn said, “Have a good show,” and grabbed Sage. They melted away, taking Richie and Sugar with them.

Then Deondra and Kate appeared, and the stage crew shoved us through the darkness and into our places. The sound assistant handed over our earpieces, and we jammed them into our ears. Someone plunked microphone stands in front of us, and we saw the keyboard player take his spot. He grinned at us and flashed a thumbs-up.