The guy posted at the side entrance wore blue jeans and a flannel shirt, but there was no question that he was a guard. When he noticed Donovan and Waxman headed his way, he came to attention and ditched the cigarette he’d been sucking on. “Can I help you boys?”
Waxman showed him his badge. “We’re here to see Tony.”
The guard unclipped a radio from his belt and was about to flick the call button when Waxman grabbed his wrist.
“No need to announce us.” He twisted the radio out of the guard’s hand and dropped it in his pocket. “You’ll get it back when we leave.”
They pushed past him, pulled open a heavy, padded door, and were immediately buffeted by a dark wall of noise, an industrial-techno beat and gut-chugging guitars that, to Donovan, felt more like nails being pounded into his head than music. Unused theatrical flats formed a makeshift corridor just inside the doorway, flickering light playing at its far end. They navigated the narrow space and moved toward the light.
For a moment, Donovan was transported to another place and time, an odd sense of deja vu overcoming him. Vague images formed in a corner of his mind but refused to surface. A sickly sense of trepidation rolled over him.
Had he been here before?
He shook off the feeling and forced himself to concentrate on the matter at hand. The flats narrowed at the far end, and he and Sidney continued single file, Sidney in the lead. A moment later, they emerged to find — a vision of hell.
On a raised platform at the center of the cavernous warehouse was a scene straight out of Dante’s Inferno: a network of shadowy caves, intermittent bursts of fire. Sweaty female bodies, in torn fishnet and skintight leather, shook and shimmied to the driving beat, as a guy strapped into a Steadicam rig lovingly recorded them with his Arriflex. Strobe lights flickered, giving the entire scene a kinetic hyperreality.
In the middle of it all, a bare-chested, leather-clad rocker with tousled dark hair-and horns-thrust his hips to the beat of the music as he mouthed the brutish and not particularly inspiring lyrics that played over a loudspeaker:
Give me what I want, baby
Give me what I need
Do it till we burn, baby
Do it till we bleed
He was simulating sex with a diaphanous, winged beauty on her hands and knees in front of him, her wings fluttering with each and every thrust.
Donovan and Waxman exchanged glances.
This was certainly a first.
Sidney leaned in close. “Reminds me of college,” he said, and the warm breath against Donovan’s ear pulled him away again, churning up something he couldn’t quite put words to.
Something dangerous.
When he looked again at the scene before them, he was jolted by what he saw:
The rocker was Gunderson, eyes black as death, a malevolent smile fixed on his face as he assaulted the angel in front of him.
He turned those eyes on Donovan, the smile growing wider, the forked tip of a serpent’s tongue flicking between his teeth. For a moment, Donovan felt as if he were staring into a fun-house mirror. Somewhere in those black eyes, he could see himself.
Give us a kiss, Gunderson mouthed.
Donovan sucked in a sharp breath as the squawk of a megaphone sliced through it all.
“Cut! Cut! Kill the music! Give me some light!”
The music abruptly stopped as a bank of overhead lights came on, and before Donovan could blink Gunderson was gone. History.
The rocker was just a rocker. A tousled-haired punk drenched in sweat.
The residue of that brief moment, however, spread through Donovan’s body like a malignant growth and settled in the pit of his stomach-hard and sour, a terminal case of acid reflux.
Then Tony Reed stepped out from behind a towering light stand, the megaphone tucked under an arm. “As much as I appreciate the sight of a very lovely nipple,” he said, loud enough for his entire cast and crew to hear, “the key phrase is Standards and Practices, folks, and I doubt very much that MTV will be as appreciative as I am.”
The cast and crew chuckled obediently. Tony gestured to a mousy woman on the sidelines, then pointed to the nameless supermodel who played the part of the angel. The model’s left breast was in full view, its containment apparently hampered by her costume’s shortcomings and her enthusiasm for the part. Looking down, she sighed and popped the offending orb back into place.
“Sorry,” she said, offering Reed a wan smile.
“Maggie,” Reed said to the mousy woman, “do us all a favor and break out the duct tape.”
Tony Reed considered himself a patient man, but that patience was wearing thinner with each and every setback he was forced to endure. Sure, an exposed tit was nothing to cry about, but this was merely the latest in a long string of screwups that had made this shoot nearly unbearable.
The band he’d been hired to immortalize-a neophyte group of techno-metal punks who called themselves Scream, of all things-had about as much talent as Justin Timberlake’s evil twin. The song they’d chosen for their debut video was a weak imitation of Nine Inch Nails-as was their entire act-and Tony had little tolerance for imitators, no matter what style they chose to rip.
But, as usual, the record company embraced such larceny as if it were the second coming of Nirvana. The publicity machine had been pumped up so hard and high that it would be nearly impossible for the band to recover from the inevitable letdown of their first release. By this time next year, they’d be back at their jobs painting cars or rehauling transmissions or doing whatever the hell it was they did before fate threw them a nice, juicy bone.
While Tony didn’t care about the band or their music, he did care about his vision. Working with new, untested acts like this one allowed him greater creative freedom than he’d get with older, established artists. Now, if he could just keep the screwups to a minimum-which had so far proved impossible-and get this thing on film, he could retire to his office where the real creativity was born: in the editing room.
Summoning up every bit of patience he had left, he waited as Maggie crossed to Naomi with a roll of duct tape and got to work. He had no doubts that when Maggie was finished, the game of peekaboo would be over, but he couldn’t help wondering what the next screwup would be.
“Hey, Tony.”
Swiveling his head, Tony looked off toward the left side of the warehouse where the flats were stored and saw two familiar figures walking toward him.
Oh, goody. Agents Donovan and Waxman.
What an unexpected thrill.
“You got a minute?” Waxman was doing the talking, which wasn’t surprising. Donovan looked like he’d been stomped on, then run over by a truck. Tony had no idea what had happened to the guy, but he thought about Sara chained to those machines in Saint Margaret’s Convalescent Center and sent up a silent thank-you. At least somebody had gotten it right today.
“We need to chat,” Waxman said.
Tony sighed and threw a forlorn glance at his assistant director, who stood nearby, jotting something on a clipboard. “Take ten, Jimmy.”
The AD pulled his own megaphone out from under his arm and repeated the command to the rest of the crew.
Tony smiled at the two agents. “Let’s go to my office.”
On Reed’s office wall was a framed poster for Francis Ford Coppola’s One From the Heart, an obscure little gem that few people had ever heard of. In some circles it was believed to be a cinematic masterpiece. Donovan had seen the movie with his ex-wife, Joanne-Jessie’s mom-who had promptly labeled it a pretentious piece of crap.
