by Kat Turner
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 the outfit he had on while sitting in a corner suite. Signing new acts. Producing television. Putting his mark on the world, albeit from behind a polished desk as opposed to on a stage.
Brian inserted his curated fantasy of success into his mind and ordered the scenario to stay there, but it refused to drop down and fill his heart.
A watery, impressionistic image of Helen’s face trespassed into his boardroom dream, mingling with the vision of his future in a welcoming way that didn’t make sense. Because nothing about her, about them, made sense.
But that didn’t mean he could forget her. How she made him laugh for the first time in months, with her charming and unpretentious humor. Helen made him see the artist, the creative man with whom he’d lost touch.
How had he made her feel? He knew how he’d like to make her feel, if he got her alone on this bed. The sound of his name, moaned in orgasmic delight in her voice, charged through his bloodstream like lighter fluid. His prick stiffened to full size. Speaking of size, did Helen care about length and girth? If so, she’d be in luck. The stubborn thing got even harder.
Enough thoughts of sex. No more daydreaming of a woman who would make his life more stressful, who would complicate him. Brian palmed his mobile off of the end table and rang Joe, thoughts of the man’s doughy face killing his hard-on right and proper.
The manager answered after many rings, right as Brian anticipated the click to voice mail. Odd. Joe was always so eager to talk, made a habit of being at Brian’s command like a good little Hollywood arse-kisser.
“Hey, man, great to hear from you. I was just about to call. Got, eh, tied up in a meeting.” Joe gasped out his words in a struggle for breath. Rhythmic sounds, like choral music, hummed in the background.
Brian cocked his head. “Is that chanting I hear?”
Joe laughed, so loud and forced, Brian had to hold the phone away from his ear. “Yeah, man. I’m stepping out of a screener for this insane—and I mean fucking bananas—horror movie. Good news for you, though. Producers might want Fyre to supply the music.”
“At first you said you were in a meeting.”
“Right, yeah, they screened the film during the meeting. Like I said, doing the sound would be a great opportunity for Fyre.”
Skepticism coiled around Brian’s heart. “Sounds like the score’s already been produced.”
On Joe’s end, a door closed. “They’re gonna redo the sound. But you let me take care of minutiae and stupid details, man.”
“Ready to head to the gathering?” Once he got this party over with, he could assure himself that he’d leveraged the final leg of the tour to take proactive steps on behalf of his future.
“Uh huh. I’ll be there in ten.” Joe’s voice came out greedy and soured him with the sound of unchecked zeal. What an obsequious runt of a man.
Brian hung up and channel surfed, stupefying his brain in lieu of thinking about the upcoming party.
Sparse city lights faded to blackness. Rural scenery draped the sleek white Lexus as the car coasted down endless stretches of lost highway. A deer crossing sign riddled with bullet holes flew past, giving way to a wasteland of nothing. At the horizon’s edge, an abyss of dark swallowed the headlights of the vehicle chauffeuring Brian and Joe to the party.
Brian stuck a finger in the basin of his collar and pulled, the new car’s chemical odor sickening him. “If I bought a second or third home, I sure as hell wouldn’t pick one all the way out here.”
“The name of the game is discretion.” Joe glanced at his phone, then looked out the window. He wouldn’
t make eye contact. Brian could smell the manager’s sweat, reeking like onion soup mixed with musky deodorant, from the neighboring back seat.
“I thought the name of the game was self-promotion. Why else would they give their event such a horrendously pretentious title?”
Bronze Phase. Good grief. Worse, the series of three parties counted upward to gold, like Olympic medals. Sometimes Brian could not suffer the industry. Perhaps he could fake his own death and fall off the grid with nothing but his voice and an acoustic guitar, see if a truly radical move unlocked his inspiration and got the music flowing with consistency.
“Let me handle this, okay?” Joe spoke in a clipped tone.
The car hung a sharp right and bumped over an unpaved road. Seatbelt locking with straightjacket tightness, Brian clutched the bar above his door. In every direction, the staggering and utter absence of light closed in on their vehicle. The driver switched on his high beams, but twin halogen columns illuminated nothing but lumpy dirt.
“What’s there to handle about a party? It’s work the room and promote what I can do for the Aries brand in a managerial role, not brain surgery.”
Joe teethed on a cuticle. “Gonna level with you. You’re on thin ice. Aries is concerned with your behavior.”
Brian scoffed. By musician standards, he was a monk. How in the world had he managed to ping some Aries Records executive’s naughty boy radar? “I think they have the wrong man in mind.”
“Quit being glib and willfully obtuse,” Joe snapped, a hardness in his gaze as he met Brian’s stare. “It was that fucking interview where you rambled about a side project. Aries doesn’t want to see you spread thin. They want to know that you’re one hundred percent invested in the project, not acting out your midlife crisis with solo shit.”
Brian narrowed his eyes at his manager, turbulence jostling him. “What do you mean the project? I wasn’t aware that there was a specific plan in mind beyond currying favor with the hotshots.”
“You’re off the rails and off message. For your information, I talked Aries out of cutting you loose and managed to salvage your invitation to this party.”
Brian’s guts hardened. Foul tastes filled his mouth. A flailing sensation, like the floor had dissolved beneath his feet, destabilized him. The manager’s tone, an undiluted reprimand, threw Brian for a loop. He hadn’t felt so in trouble since Grandmother had shrieked at him, years and years ago, for failing to put down the bloody guitar and clean her flat before dinner. But he gathered his wits.
“That’s ludicrous. Fyre is Aries’ top act. You think they’re keen to break their best performing cash machine? I think not.”
“Your ego is standing in your own way. Aries has new acts signed, a floppy haired, lip-synching club boy they pulled out of Florida. Some singing, dancing little morsel from Iowa. These guys are looking to the future, and I don’t have to be the one to tell you that over-the-hill English rockers ain’t it. And if you’ve got some indie fantasy swirling through your outsized head, good luck getting that off the ground after alienating the biggest label in the biz. You’ll be blackballed all over Los Angeles. Aries has powerful people in their back pocket, and they will sabotage you at every conceivable turn.”
The warning should have made Brian angry or defensive, but instead he found himself confused and a bit afraid. “Why are you telling me all of this? Why now?”
The bumpy ride smoothed, and the car pulled onto pavement leading them under a canopy of trees. Faint lights gleamed in the distance.
Joe blew out a massive gust of air, his flabby body deflating like a balloon. “I apologize for getting short with you. I just want this party to go well.”
“And you think I don’t?” Though he had to admit, his apprehensions kept mounting. He checked his phone. A black X crossed out pale signal bars. He couldn’t leave. At the end of the tree tunnel, a gated mansion came into partial view.
“It’s, well, what I’m trying to say.” Joe slashed a hand through what remained of his hair, resetting greasy strands into some semblance of a comb over. “What I’m trying to say is try to keep an open mind, okay? Things work differently at these upper levels. Trust me.”
Brian said nothing, though sweat made the fabric of his shirt sticky. The slick way Joe requested trust didn’t inspire any faith. The car approached a fortress wall of an iron gate, and the driver hopped out and punched a code into a box. Bars spread open with a groan. The driver got back in. The car resumed a creep.
Invisible bugs crawled over Brian’s skin as the Lexus advanced upon a Victorian-style estate at the end of a mile-long driveway and manicured lawn. A few lights, too few, lit a smattering of windows on the first story.
Total isolation. Desolation. No neighbors in sight. The kind of place one dumps a body.
Damn Joe for putting him on edge, whipping his unease into a lather.
The Lexus pulled into a roundabout and stopped. There were no other cars. An internal sensation of a ball rolling downhill careened through Brian. He and Joe got out, slamming their doors in unison.
Joe rang the doorbell, rocking on his heels. His cheeks puffed.
“Nervous?” Brian drew out the word. Though Joe had always thought far outside of the box in pursuit of ambitions, Brian had acted in error when assigning a positive value to those traits.
The manager shook his head like he had a lit cigarette on his scalp.
“Hold up.” This from the driver, jogging from the idling car. In each hand, he held an item about the size of a Frisbee.
Brian dropped his gaze to the driver’s offerings. Time slowed to a drag. Two masks. Joe accepted one, an eerie mirrored thing the color of bronze, and slid the costume over his face.
“You’re kidding.” Brian eyed the one meant for him, latex molded to look like a skull. The driver thrust the mask forward, its plastic flesh trembling. They had to be pranking him, having him on. “Nice one, really.”
“You’ve never been to a masquerade ball? I told you, these guys like to maintain their discretion when brokering big deals.” Joe’s voice came out muffled behind the shiny shield concealing his face. Brian almost laughed at the absurdity. Almost.
“Makes no sense.”
“Fine. Have it your way. Get in that car and head back into town. I’ll tell these guys that the deal is off. Good luck getting even a Vegas gig after tonight.”
Cheap, sleazy Vegas imagery invaded Brian’s head, obnoxious bachelor parties and bored non-fans standing on tacky, frayed carpet while they took a break from losing money to slot machines to halfheartedly watch Brian’s show.
What was wrong with him? He could handle some stupid, off-season Halloween party. He accepted the mask and tugged flimsy latex over his head, breath muggy against the material. Its sickly-sweet odor overpowered him, befitting the overwhelming nature of the bizarre event.
From inside, footsteps advanced. Behind Brian, the car engine grew fainter and fainter and vanished. He swallowed a lump of dread. Nothing to do now but roll with things.
The door opened, and there stood a lanky fellow in a mask like Joe’s. A silver platter rested in his hands, the effect rendered dreamy and faraway through the narrow slits of Brian’s eye holes.
“Wallets, keys, phones.” The doorman spoke in robot monotone.
Joe acquiesced, diving in his pockets and forking over the aforementioned things. Brian plunked his items on the tray. The butler walked to some sort of cubby underneath a carpeted staircase, ducked inside, and came out with an empty tray. Good to know where they stashed the personal effects, in case a quick getaway was warranted.
With a scoop of his hand, Joe moved in front of Brian and beckoned him to follow.
Brian stepped inside. Masked, suited-up men and unmasked women in skimpy dresses and sexy heels filled an opulent parlor room.
The space dripped with accoutrements of wealth: velvet furniture, artifacts from around the world. Turkish rugs. A crystal chandelier burdened the ceiling, and oil portraits of monarchi
al subjects hung on the walls. Mellow classical music played, complemented by a soft din of polite chat from guests.
But neither the décor nor the setting disturbed him. No, that dubious honor was reserved for the costuming. Every single man wore a mask like Joe’s. Every single one.
Why was Brian’s different? Why was it a fucking skull?
“I’ll facilitate some initial introductions.” Walking a foot ahead of Brian, Joe moved with determination, though his voice shook.
Mirrored faces reflected Brian’s death mask as men watched him and the manager cross the floor of the main room. This wasn’t right. All eyes were on him, and not in a good way. He was a person of interest, a curiosity, a player in a game whose rules nobody taught him. An outsider. The other.
Brian caught up to Joe. “I need to use the restroom first.” By that he meant steal a private moment to gather his thoughts and plan how the hell to proceed.
“What?” Joe paused, knocked on a door. When nobody answered, he resumed his stride.
Leaned against rose and black damask wallpaper glossed with an ivory shine, a masked man and his date halted their conversation the second Joe and Brian approached. They stared, and Brian caught a disconcerting flicker in the woman’s dark eyes. Recognition, trauma, empathy. Vestigial memories of humanity lurking behind an otherwise dead gaze.
His intuition flashed the truth in a red light. Something was wrong with the woman, with this party. Plain wrong.
“You heard me. Have to take a slash.”
Joe grunted. “It’s two doors back that way.” He bent his thumb in the direction of where they came.
Brian did an about face and hustled to the spot in question, ducking into a washroom frosted with marble and gold accents. He sat on the closed loo. If he could find a land line, he could call a ride service and leverage his celebrity to insist they venture out into these bleak parts.
The doorknob rattled, a feminine voice giggling on the other side. Shite. In his distracted state, he’d forgotten to lock.