Farraday grunted, apparently not noticing anything strange in my reaction.
“Consider yourself lucky, my dear.” Smiling, he led me through another door as the security guard opened it for us. “God help the poor woman he does claim publicly,” he added, winking. “Can you imagine? Especially now that he’s decided to subject the rest of the world to his insanity.”
Chuckling a little when I managed a smile, he gave me a more serious look.
“Truthfully, the rest of us are a lot more worried he might scare you away. You may not realize this, but he’s a different person since you came into his life, Miriam. A much better one on balance, if you don’t mind my saying.”
Ruefully, I glanced over my shoulder, watching Black as he walked a few paces back with Cowboy, the two of them muttering back and forth as Black gestured smoothly with one hand.
I wondered what that was about.
I wondered if Black would tell me the truth if I asked.
From his face and the more guarded feel of his light, it was something serious.
Even as I thought it, he was grinning at one of the studio executives, clasping his hand warmly and leaning closer to say something in his ear. The man laughed, his expression briefly surprised before he broke out in a broader grin, pumping Black’s hand in return.
My husband, the celebrity.
“Indeed,” I murmured belated to Farraday. “God help us all.”
I hadn’t really meant to say it aloud.
Farraday burst out in a laugh, throwing his head back and squeezing my arm against the side of his body. Still grinning, he patted me on the hand.
“Indeed, my dear. Indeed,” he said, chuckling.
Shoving thoughts of Black from my mind, at least as best as I could, I clasped Farraday’s hand in return, smiling back as we entered the studio’s backstage.
2
TALK SHOW
COWBOY’D LEARNED, WELL before he left home at fifteen, if you stayed still enough, you turned invisible to most people.
Lurking in the darkened opening at one end of a television sound stage, he put that truth to practice now.
The lit part of the stage stood to his right, where three different cameras aimed from the dimmer section of floor just past the arc of those brighter lights. Most of the actual crew he saw hung out in front of the stage, clustered together wearing headsets and peering into monitors. Cowboy’d gotten ID tags on all but a few of those faces; he verified the rest via the psychics and that other cop from San Francisco, Nick.
So far, no one seemed to be doing anything suspicious. Those not focused on some immediate task were staring at their phones.
Still, Cowboy’s radar was definitely more in the up position than down.
Thinking about that, he glanced to the other side of the stage, looking for Miri.
He still hadn’t seen her. He knew Dr. Miriam Fox wasn’t his responsibility right now, not directly, but the studio had too many people wandering around; it felt too exposed to him here, even with all the security precautions Black had in place. Cowboy didn’t like her being here at all, truthfully, not without someone on her directly.
Someone apart from Black alone, that is.
Pushing the thought from his mind, Cowboy focused back on what he was being paid to do, for the moment, at least.
The studio audience took up most of his actual vision, partly due to the angle and height of the ceiling, but mostly from the sheer number of people filling the steep rows of seats. Scanning rows of faces all the way up to the double doors at the top of the V, he made a mental note of anyone who struck him as a potential problem, or even just a question mark.
He’d been watching people file through those doors for the last twenty or so minutes, and only noted a handful who landed in either category.
He checked his watch. After the barest hesitation, he lifted his sleeve to his lips.
“Hey,” he said into the microphone nestled there, clearing his throat. “Angel, my love? You still in the lobby?”
There was a slight pause, then a now-familiar voice rose in his ear.
“Stop calling me that... Elvis.”
Cowboy grinned. “Who told you that name, Ang?” When she made an annoyed sound, he grinned wider. “Things’re about to start up here. Everything look okay where you are?”
“Everything’s fine. You’d know if it wasn’t.”
“You alone?”
“Dex is with me. So is Efraim.”
He nodded. Efraim. One of Miri’s mysterious uncle’s employees.
Cowboy knew Black didn’t fully trust that lot, even though he used them. Cowboy trusted Black enough at that point to not trust them either, by extension. Still, Black appeared to take to some of those psychics more than others. He’d definitely spent a lot of time with Ravi lately, and with Miri’s Uncle Charles. A few dozen others came and went out of his rotation, however, seemingly more all the time, and Cowboy couldn’t tell if Black even knew a lot of their names.
The peculiarities of that bunch encompassed more than Cowboy’s mind had fully grappled with yet. Black told him a few things, sure, but a lot of Black’s answers only spawned more questions.
He glanced to the other side of the stage, scanning faces for Black’s wife, Miri.
He still didn’t see her.
“Cowboy?” Angel said. “You still there?”
“Ayuh,” he said. “Still here.”
Her voice grew exasperated. “Well? Did you actually want anything? Or are you just calling to be a pain in my ass?”
“I got a feeling. Thought I’d check in.”
“What kind of feeling?”
Cowboy gazed out across the stage, but didn’t answer her directly. “Who told you my name’s really Elvis? Did Black tell you that?”
“No,” she said, exhaling in annoyance. “Your little buddy Black didn’t tell me.”
Cowboy smiled. Mostly at the idea of Black being anyone’s “little buddy.” His smile faded as his eyes returned to the stage. “You talked to Miri?”
“No. Why?”
“Any idea where she is?”
Angel’s frown came through the line. “She’s with her husband, Cowboy. Why are you asking?”
Thinking for a minute how to explain it to her, he frowned.
Then he shook it off.
“So how’d you find out my real name’s Elvis?” he said. “You really not gonna tell me?”
Angel let out another annoyed snort. “The internet is forever, Elvis Dawson Graves. Which, by the way, is a mighty odd name, even for a Southerner. You were in the news.” Her voice sharpened. “Hey. Listen to me, Cowboy. Don’t get any weird ideas about Miri. Black’s liable to rip your head off and play football with it if he notices. The two of them aren’t exactly the most stable of people, not when it comes to––”
“In the news?” he said, abrupt. “I was in the news?”
Silence. Then another annoyed exhale. “In Louisiana? For that stunt you pulled that landed you in prison? Or did you forget?” She sharpened her voice. “Did you hear me about Miri, Elvis? I’m serious about this. Don’t go there.”
He glanced over at the other side of the stage.
A few men in business suits stood there now, talking on their phones.
Thinking about how he ended up in that prison in Louisiana, Cowboy frowned.
“I’m choosing to take it as a compliment,” he said after another beat. “That you looked.”
“You really shouldn’t.” Angel sighed. “Are you going to ignore what I just said? Seriously?”
“I heard. It’s not like that, Ang.”
“Fine. And... good. Just bear in mind that if you’re lying, Black’ll know.”
Turning that over as well, Cowboy glanced at the other side of the stage, pursing his lips. “Have I mentioned what a beautiful woman I find you, Angel Deveraux?”
“Have I mentioned how utterly full of shit I think you are, Elvis?” Pausing, she added, “I’m also
armed. At all times.”
He chuckled. “The heart wants what the heart wants, my love.”
“You just keep your heart in your pants, Elvis Dawson Graves. And stop calling me that, I mean it.” That time he could imagine her scowling at him with her full lips. “Anyway, what makes you think hitting on me is any more acceptable than lusting after your boss’s wife? I told you I’m engaged. Or did you conveniently not hear me that time, too?”
“I suspect I miss very few things, in terms of outright observations in that regard, Miss Deveraux.”
“Meaning what?”
He paused, trying to decide whether he should elaborate. At her continued silence, he smiled ruefully. “Based on what I saw of his last visit, your gentleman friend... Anthony, is it?... ain’t too happy about you being here, in New York.” He paused. “Also... you don’t wear his ring. Makes me curious.”
The silence grew stony.
It also stretched longer.
“Did you call for any remotely work-related reason, Cowboy?” Angel said next, her voice cold. “Or do you just miss getting your ass beat by people in uniforms?”
He considered a response to that, too, but thought better of it.
Turning over her first question instead, he grunted, then shook his head, gazing out over the crowd. “You sure your people looked over everyone coming in here? Against those specs Black handed out?”
He meant the vampire specs––the descriptions Black distributed so his people’d know what to look for, in case any of the bloodsuckers showed up.
Angel knew the real score there. So did all of the psychics.
Cowboy wasn’t entirely sure about the rest of Black’s team, meaning the human one. He figured they must know something, given Black’s newfound interest in swordplay and some of the more bizarre training exercises he’d designed over the past month.
Regardless, Cowboy wasn’t too keen on using the word “vampire” over a live radio, no matter how secure.
Angel’s voice grew sharper, but slightly less angry. “We’ve checked everyone. Even the kids. Why?”
“And you haven’t talked to Miri?”
“No. Again... why?”
Pursing his lips, Cowboy returned his gaze to the other side of the stage. Maybe she was in the back with Black, like Angel said. Dr. Miriam Fox most definitely wasn’t his problem right then, but he couldn’t help wanting to know where she was anyway.
“No reason,” he said.
Angel let out an openly aggravated sound.
He smiled. “Don’t let me keep you, Ang. It’s just a real pleasure sharing the line with you. I mean that. Even when you’re angry with me.”
Cowboy heard the radio click off.
Again, he couldn’t help smiling.
Out of nowhere, the studio musicians began to play, falling into an upbeat, jazzy tune. Cowboy turned, right as the saxophone player added his notes to the mix. In the back, an older African-American man who held his sticks the old way kept perfect time with the high-hat cymbals, his foot on the bass drum, and a light tapping of the snare.
Cowboy watched him switch to the toms, running through them like liquid, effortless, before returning to tap at the snare.
Cowboy was riveted.
Something about expert musicianship had always fascinated him.
Then a flicker of motion in his periphery caused him to turn back towards the opposite side of the stage.
A MAN IN a sky blue tie accenting a dark, metallic-looking suit emerged, grinning widely.
Once he became visible under the hot lights, the audience, which clapped with moderate enthusiasm when the musicians began to play, sprang abruptly to life. Louder, sharper applause broke out in excited waves, rising in volume. A few began chanting the man’s name, thumping their feet on the amphitheater floor.
“Steele! Steele! Steele! Steele!”
Grant Steele.
The name meant exactly zilch to Cowboy.
Miri told him Steele was some kind of hotshot talk show host, popular with urban types. Now that he saw him, Cowboy found he vaguely recognized him.
“Hallooo!” the man in the metallic suit called out, giving a dramatic wave. “How are you all doing this evening? Everyone happy to be here?”
The crowd responded with a delighted roar in the affirmative.
Steele grinned wider, right before his face shifted to a somber expression.
“Terrible news about Texas,” he said, shaking his head. “Horrible. Just horrible. Have you seen the videos coming out on this?” He paused, letting the audience react. “The smoke can be seen from space, folks... it’s like some kind of shadow of death hovering over the southern part of the United States. They said the first series of explosions were like a 5.2 on the Richter scale. They felt them all the way to Florida...”
Shaking his head, he continued in that more somber voice.
“...They’re saying now China might have been involved. China?” Steele’s eyes met the cameras, holding an incredulity that seemed real. “Pretty scary stuff, if it’s true.”
The crowd murmured in agreement of how awful it was.
Cowboy found himself listening, in spite of himself.
He’d seen the news about the bombs in Texas that morning, along with everyone else.
Most of Black’s team spent the morning in front of a wall monitor in the conference room they’d been using as a staging area. Meetings continued to happen around immediate, day-to-day things. Some came and went to do other jobs––but all of them returned to stare at the news tickers and listen to the pundits argue about what had occurred in Texas.
Most of the guys on Black’s team were either ex-spooks or ex-military, so Cowboy listened as they translated and interpreted briefings coming out of the White House and law enforcement, speculating about what was (and wasn’t) being said, and why.
Whoever’d done it, they hit one of the Strategic Petroleum Reserves on the Gulf.
That was oil owned by the United States government for use in emergencies, or shortages of whatever kind. According to Black’s guys, no one had ever hit one of those before.
The authorities thought at first it was some kind of fuel-air explosion, that the containment had been compromised in some way via natural causes, which brought on the explosion and subsequent fire. Such a thing was rare, but not unheard of.
Then, about twelve hours into the crisis, Homeland Security announced terrorism as the cause. Bombs caused the explosions, not some kind of containment breach.
Someone had done this deliberately.
Once that came out, everything changed.
Military was brought in to lock down the remaining sites comprising the SPR. Feds swarmed the area around ground zero, and everyone else was booted out. They were estimating four more days just to put out the main fire. All but a small percentage of the containers in that segment of the SPR were burning so hotly they couldn’t get anywhere near them.
Whoever did it hit the attached refinery, too.
The death toll was still unknown, but it looked bad. The refinery explosions alone killed a few dozen people, and they said it should have been a lot worse, but apparently the attack happened on a night they were operating with a skeleton crew.
People in nearby buildings were killed instantly, as well.
From there, the ring of destruction continued to widen, as well as grow more arbitrary. Windows in towns twenty miles away had been blown out. Gas mains exploded. Buildings lost structural integrity from the blast and had to be emptied. Even now, people were being evacuated due to the dangers of smoke inhalation alone.
Over a hundred more were missing.
It was being called the worst terrorist attack since 9/11.
Steele continued, “They’re saying now it could be weeks before they’re able to get all of the fires completely out, since so many are burning underground. They still can’t get close enough to dump foam on the main fire, without risking the lives of the helicopter pilots from the
heat... and they’re worried about polluting water sources if they do anything like try to collapse the remaining wells. China’s denying everything, of course... and there’s still no word from the Pentagon on how they could have gotten in.”
Then, the spell was broken.
Steele broke out in a grin, right before his tone altered abruptly.
“On a lighter note, did you all get a load of that intelligence agent they had break the news? Hubba-hubba! Am I right?”
Wolf-whistles broke out in the audience, laughter.
“She was something, wasn’t she?” Steele said, laughing with them. “It’s like they’re trying to distract us from the apocalypse by having a Victoria Secret model deliver the news. Yes... China is trying to kill us all in our sleep, but it’s okay, Bambi is here to break the news...”
The crowd erupted in raucous laughter.
Cowboy grunted, shaking his head.
Jesus. Only a rich guy could joke about something like that.
Steele went on doing the pacing and monologuing thing, now peppered with jokes and witty quips as he wandered about the stage. Cowboy went back to scanning faces in the crowd. In his periphery, laughter rose and fell in the audience like waves on the ocean.
Every now and then, he’d glance toward the other side of the stage, looking for Miri. He considered trying to raise her on the radio, then decided to wait, remembering Angel’s warning.
“...Well, enough about that,” Steele went on, grinning. “We have a special treat for you tonight, folks.” A giant camera panned, tracking Steele as he grinned up at the audience, flashing shockingly white teeth. “He’s a man of many hats. Private eye. Philanthropist. Security to the stars. Defense contractor. He just made a big splash on Wall Street, raking in a reported five hundred million dollars in just three weeks, betting on futures and call markets. I met him in the back just now and I have to say, you’re going to love this guy!”
Cheers broke out in the audience, excited yells.
Black Of Mood (Quentin Black: Shadow Wars #2): Quentin Black World Page 3