The Devil's Graveyard (35 page)

Nigel Powell was going to have to think on his feet, but this was obviously something he was good at. And he knew it. From his seat in the centre of the panel, he gestured for the crowd to calm down, his every move repeated, hugely magnified, on the screen at the back of the stage.

‘Okay, ladies and gentlemen, it appears that Dorothy has got lost somewhere on the Yellow Brick Road!’

The audience laughed heartily (in spite of his joke being no better than Nina’s earlier effort). When the laughter died down, he carried on. ‘So, what we’re going to do here is pick the sixth best contestant from the heats. Would you please put your hands together for a performer who surprised us all with his musical talent. Ladies and gentlemen, contestant number five in the final will be…
Elvis Presley!’

Elvis strutted to the front of the stage with the confident swagger of a man whose place in the final had never been in doubt. He blew kisses and waved to the audience. After kissing Nina Forina and grabbing her ass for a good squeeze, he made his way over to the other finalists. He looked over to Sanchez and gave him a thumbs-up with both hands as he took up a spot next to Julius on the end of the row.

Nina, who was blushing after Elvis’s inappropriate (though not altogether unwelcome) grab at her tush, raised her microphone to her lips and gestured for the crowd to be quiet.

‘Okay everyone,’ she yelled. ‘We now have our five finalists. Let’s please give them all one more round of applause!’

The crowd was up on its feet, loudly cheering, stamping and clapping once more. After a few seconds of cheering, however, Sanchez noticed the volume of noise from the audience go up a few decibels. At first he wondered if someone had fallen over onstage, for it sounded as though the audience had worked itself into an overexcited frenzy. He craned his neck and twisted his head from side to side, hoping to see evidence of some horribly embarrassing pratfall. He’d be sick with disappointment if he’d missed it. There was nothing Sanchez loved more than seeing people trip over in public.

Then he saw the reason for the extra loud cheers.

Out of nowhere, Judy Garland had rushed on to the stage. She looked flustered, but with every step she took towards Nina Forina and every ringing cheer from the audience, she began to regain her composure. This young woman was undoubtedly the crowd’s favourite, and by the look of the wide, beaming smile on Powell’s face, she was his, too. He stood up from his seat and once again gestured for the audience to be quiet. When they calmed down, he kept them waiting in silence for a little while longer, before making the announcement they all wanted to hear.

‘Okay, folks. Who has a problem with us having
six
finalists this year?’

The crowd went wild. The screams of approval became deafening. Sanchez looked across at Elvis. Elvis looked back at him with a frown of deep concern darkening his face. Julius’s chances of being crowned winner with his James Brown impression had just taken a serious knock.

And what had happened to Gabriel?

Emily had come frighteningly close to not making it to the stage on time. She had the Bourbon Kid to thank, she supposed. He’d saved her life, after all. (Well, okay, Gabriel’s gun hadn’t been loaded. But he could have bludgeoned her to death with it. Or strangled her. Or… Emily could rationalize with the best of them, when necessary.) And he hadn’t killed her for openly defying him. When he’d reached inside his jacket, she’d feared he might be about to draw out a weapon. Instead, he had pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He was probably capable of killing someone with a cigarette, but he’d chosen not to in her case. Which was a relief. Whichever way you looked at it, he was famous for killing people over pretty trivial matters. Like
nothing,
for instance.

As she stood on the stage reflecting on all that had happened, she became aware that Julius was staring at her. She looked over and nodded to him, offering a half-hearted smile. He glanced at her curiously before flashing a brief and insincere smile in return. If what the Kid had told her was true, Julius had expected her to be dead. No wonder he was looking at her oddly. Emily shivered. She didn’t feel safe. There was only one person who could help her. Nigel Powell.

As everyone slowly departed the stage in the wake of the announcement of the finalists, Emily walked tentatively over to the panel of judges. A twenty-minute recess had been called. Many of the audience had deserted their seats and gone off to stretch their legs. Powell’s two female companions, Lucinda and Candy, had also left their seats and vanished, which gave Emily a perfect opportunity for a quiet word with Powell.

He smiled at her when he saw her approach. ‘Hello, Emily,’ he said, getting to his feet. You could say what you liked about Nigel Powell, but he had good manners. When it suited him. ‘I thought you weren’t going to make it for a minute. You cut it a bit fine there, didn’t you?’

‘Yes. I’m terribly sorry about that. Actually, I need to speak to you about that. Can I have a quick word with you?’

‘Sure. Take a seat.’ He gestured for her to sit in the chair to his right and, when she had done so, sat down himself. ‘What can I do for you?’

Emily shifted in her chair; it was still warm. ‘I’ve got a headache.’

‘I’m sorry to hear it. Would you like me to get you some painkillers?’

‘Someone hit me over the head with a gun.’ This was not absolutely true, she knew. But it was shorter than launching into a full explanation.

‘Excuse me?’

‘A gun. A man broke into that room you put me in. He shot both of your security guards dead and then tried to kill me.’

Powell’s face looked about as shocked as it could. ‘Oh my God. Start from the beginning. Who tried to kill you?’

‘He was a big biker guy called Gabriel. Shaved head, arms like tree trunks.’

‘Jesus. Where is he now?’

‘He’s dead. His body’s still in the room, with the two security guards.’

‘He’s dead? Who killed him? You?’

‘No. A guy called the Bourbon Kid. He saved me. For reasons that make very little sense to me, really.’

‘The Bourbon Kid
saved
you?’

‘Yes. And according to him, Julius, the James Brown impersonator, paid this Gabriel guy to kill me. Apparently the other three finalists – the original finalists, that is – are dead too. Did you know any of this?’

Powell nodded, but made no attempt to explain just what it was that he did know. ‘Julius, huh?’ he mused. ‘I should have known. There was something about him that got under my skin the first time I met him.’

‘So you think it’s true, then? About him trying to kill all the other finalists?’

Again, he nodded. ‘Actually, yes I do.’ For a moment, he looked away, apparently lost in thought. Then he turned back to her and said, in his urbane way, ‘Thank you for coming and telling me this. I’ll have him thrown out of the competition.’

‘Are you going to call the police?’

‘Of course. The proper authorities should deal with this. They’ll throw him in jail. And, I should think, throw away the key.’

Emily breathed a sigh of relief. ‘Thank goodness for that. I was really worried about telling you all this.’

‘Not at all.’ Powell stood up. ‘Go mix with the other finalists. Do not say a word about this to anyone, and whatever you do, don’t get split off from the herd. Stay in crowds at all times. I’ll get rid of Julius and whoever else he may have hired to try to help him rig this contest. You just worry about singing. Because, with him out of the show, you’ve pretty well got it sewn up now.’

‘That’s not why I told you this,’ Emily said defensively.

‘I know. Now run along.’ He winked at her. ‘People will start to think the show’s rigged if they see us chatting like this.’

‘Thank you.’ Emily got up from the seat and headed for the backstage area. She could see the back of Freddie Mercury’s yellow jacket descending a flight of steps so she raced after him.
Safety in numbers
, she told herself,
as long as you stay away from Julius.

Nigel watched her trot off backstage and thought hard about what she had just told him. So, Julius was the fly in the ointment, the agent of destruction, trying to ruin the show. Quite why, he wasn’t sure, but that didn’t matter.

James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, would be eliminated before he had a chance to sing in the final.

The members of the Pasadena Hotel house orchestra had been rehearsing for much of the day. They were therefore extremely disappointed to discover that three of the songs they had been practising were no longer required. At the last minute, Nigel Powell had informed them that they would only play for two of the finalists. The others would be singing along to some karaoke backing music that the house deejay was in the process of downloading from the Internet. Understandably, the musicians were all very frustrated, airing their complaints as they made their way through the hotel corridors to the orchestra pit in front of the stage.

Twenty-four musicians in all, all of them, bar the pianist and the drummer, carrying their instruments, made the long walk from the rehearsal area to the auditorium. A number of them did so in the resentful knowledge that their skills and their instruments were no longer required. They would simply be sitting in the orchestra pit and watching the show. One such was Boris, the backup guitar player. His part had now become redundant. It was his twenty-first birthday, and playing in the show had been going to be the highlight of his musical career to date. But now the senior guitarist, Pablo, would be the only one needed for the two specified songs.

Feeling more than a little downbeat, Boris plodded along at the rear of the group, sulking at his misfortune. As they trailed down the long corridor from the lobby to the stage area, he noticed the orchestra members in front of him begin to part, like the Red Sea before the Children of Israel. He saw, walking towards him through the middle of the gaggle of musicians, a muscular-looking man wearing a black leather jacket with a dark hood pulled up over his head, leaving his face in shadow.