To what end, he couldn’t say, but he could say with certainty that Joe would not blab what he knew unless offered an incentive or given no choice. Which was the purpose of the party, to back Joe into a corner and get him confessing.
Helen: I know. Can I come see you? I have some explanations. I think we should go over the situation in person.
A numbing sensation marked Brian’s emotional retreat, blotting his nerves in an anesthetizing current. Perhaps he ought to cut ties with Helen and block her number. He had enough on his plate with Joe and didn’t need another problematic person in his life, strength of the pull he felt toward her be damned.
But three bouncing white dots on his screen, the signal of an incoming text alert, prompted him to keep looking in anticipation of what she’d say next.
Helen: The original crystal is being used for nefarious purposes. Demonic stuff to hurt you. I’m guessing they think they can use the second one to enrich their power. I already told you who’s in charge. I might be able to stop the plot, but you need to listen and be in this with me.
A shudder swept over Brian. He held his phone at arm’s length, shaking his head though his conviction wavered. Tilly had seen things of a sinister persuasion. So had Jonnie’s ex.
Made minimal sense, though, why Joe would want to harm him. Even if a murderous plot was afoot, Helen could have fingered the wrong antagonist. Or, acting on some unknown motive, she might be blowing a smokescreen to confuse him.
At worst, she was spinning a yarn to distract him from his goal, prodding him to cut Joe loose and renounce his mission to get his foot in the doorway of the entertainment industry’s executive ranks. Anyone’s guess why. People jonesing to get at celebrities schemed for all sorts of selfish reasons, most of them boiling down to greed.
Brian held off on messaging back. Helen was a black box. He didn’t know who she worked for, what master she served, what hidden agendas or vested interests cooked beneath her surface. Joe, at least, was a devil he knew and could, quite literally, manage.
Brian: I don’t think so, Helen.
Yet he watched the screen for a few moments, setting the device back down with a palpable sense of defeat when she didn’t respond. Brian stripped to his boxers, folded his jeans and shirt into neat piles, and tucked them into dresser drawers.
He went to the closet and pulled out the rented suit for the evening’s networking soiree, plastic dry cleaning sheath crinkling as he tossed the bag onto the bed with a rather startling degree of force.
Ripping off the protective cover filled him with destructive joy. He didn’t want to go, would rather veg out to the news than attend some tiresome function and endure Joe’s company.
But he must. He must, must, must. After using this gathering to his advantage, he’d interrogate Joe and figure out what he knew about cults and sacrifices and switched talismans of a crystalline sort.
For now, at least, he needed Joe’s contacts. Brian wasn’t established or connected enough yet to make the jump from stage to suite, a fact borne out by experience.
Remaining relegated to performing while he continued to age, however, was untenable. The show Fyre had played a couple of hours ago confirmed Brian’s rising suspicions about the band’s downward slide. He slipped the dress shirt over his arms, tailored material sheathing his skin.
It was a perfectly respectable venue. They’d performed in a retro theatre with an old marquee out front. Inside, gilt balcony seats and a musty aroma of grandmother’s attic added to the place’s vintage cool. The set was stripped, the band’s showy prop forgone.
He swallowed, pulling on the trousers one leg at a time and tucking in the ends of his shirt. Abandoning making music would leave a sucking void inside of him. Perhaps he could continue to churn out the hits from years past, even if he wasn’t creating anymore.
Nagging thoughts about the earlier show undermined his rationalizations while he did up his zipper and buckled his belt. Lots of irritating irony filled the crowd. He couldn’t deny or downplay the self-aware scene: over-affected rock and roll horns, handlebar mustaches, T-shirts bearing the logos of other classic, veteran bands.
Hipster money was as good as any, Jonnie and the others insisted, but the inauthenticity of Fyre’s emerging fan base made Brian squeamish. He craved the undiluted, unfiltered adoration of pure fandom. If that made him an egomaniac or narcissist, fine.
An executive job wouldn’t give him fans, but it would bestow fresh prestige upon him, which beat retiring. Fame was all he had and all he’d known. Did anything even exist on the other side of celebrity?
Brian’s clothes no longer fit. A starched collar strangled him, and blended synthetic fabrics chafed his torso and legs. He cut a glance to the mirror above his bed, looking into his own eyes as he knotted a cobalt tie. Though his body boasted the lean, conditioned results of his daily running regimen, his face looked tired. Women still responded to his natural handsomeness, his good bone structure and facial symmetry, but feminine attention hadn’t filled him up for quite some time.
He loved to fuck women as much as any other straight man with a sex drive, but not in shallow, soulless encounters. Relationships, though, caused anguish. So that pretty much ruled out all options except celibacy, undertaken with begrudging resignation.
In any event, his needs eclipsed those of the flesh. His work demanded the majority of him, the bulk of his libidinous passion, and he wasn’t about to squander that by wiling away aimless days in his mansion like some eccentric recluse. So no, nothing of merit existed on the other side of fame. Nothing in terms of his identity.
Throwing his shoulders back, he imagined himself wearing
