Arthur was not expecting to enjoy any part of the show. For the most part he didn't. But somewhere along the line, he found that the music really was infectious. It bounced and buzzed and wound itself around his brain until he could feel his pulse hammer in time to the synthetic beat.
He didn't like it. But he was resigned to putting up with a lot of things he didn't like.
Two other reporters sat close to him and he certainly didn't like them. They talked about football in bored voices and commented that rock stars were all the same- packaged products.
"This one's better'n most," one of them bawled, making no attempt to keep his voice down in spite of the death glares he was getting from the others around him, "Good beat, good style. I like him."
His companion nodded and Arthur wished strongly he could tell both of them to shut up.
He saw a girl pressed against the railing, her lips parted and her eyes shining. On impulse he took a photo of her. After all, if he wanted to give the whole story, he might as well include a picture of the effect that Tommy Stone had on the general public.
The kids really did love him. They danced and jumped and screamed. Tommy Stone did everything to get them to jump higher, scream louder. The man himself was… Arthur didn't like to say he approved. He didn't, not really. But Tommy Stone was a good performer.
A good actor might have been the better noun. Arthur could see the act because he knew. Neither Tommy Stone nor Maxwell Demon was real. Neither was Brian Slade. Somewhere in that confusing labyrinth of masks, the naked truth resided. Arthur didn't want to know what the truth was.
"Hey, you got a light?"
The American voice so close to his ear made him start. "What?"
"A light. You got one?" The reporter showed him the unlit cigarette in explanation.
Arthur shook his head and looked down at the other girl's press badge in reflex. "Daily News," he read, "Sorry, no."
"Shit," she swore, diving back into her bag, "I could really use a cigarette right now and just my luck, I forgot my lighter. Damn!" She threw the cigarette back into her bag and frowned down at the receptacle for two seconds.
"Maybe one of these other guys," Arthur suggested, looking around them.
"Forget it." She gave him a harried smile and shrugged bony shoulders. "I'm just nervous, I guess."
He nodded and concentrated on the show. For the next three songs, he managed to forget about her and go back to his depressed mental ruminations. That guitarist up there took centre stage and the star vanished for a little while into the dark, sweating and panting and probably hoarse from taking those notes so loudly.
Arthur looked out over the crowd and counted quite a few young boys in those dapper suits and platinum blond hair.
"Shit!"
Arthur looked around and the girl reporter was scrambling under her seat, frantically collecting up all the bits and bobs that had spilled from her bag. He bent down and picked up a lipstick that had rolled under his seat. "This yours?"
"Oh, thanks. It just… fell. I don't know how it happened." She laughed nervously and came back out, stuffing a notebook into her hapless bag and zipping it up firmly. "Thanks."
"No problem."
He looked at her and she held out her hand. "Stacy Keller," she introduced, leaning close to yell in his ear, "Daily News."
"Arthur Stuart," he said, "New York Herald."
"No kidding!" Her green eyes went huge and for a second her mouth opened and closed as if there was too much she wanted to say and not even breath for her to say it.
Arthur wasn't sure he liked this sudden interest in himself. "You work for an English paper?"
"My first assignment," she said, "This is strange. Er, could I talk to you? Somewhere else? Oh! You're watching. Fine. Er, later. It's okay. Don't worry."
Arthur was really curious now. "Is something wrong?"
"No, I'm being an idiot," she said, "It's okay. Forget I said anything."
He nodded and turned back to the show. Tommy Stone was back on stage, joking with the audience as he strode up and down. The blue suit jacket was shrugged off and tossed negligently into the wings, the thin black tie loosened and the shirt neck opened up.
Arthur remembered seeing that slender neck flush just that shade once before. It wasn't a memory he wanted to cultivate.
He tapped Stacy on the arm and pointed away from the stage. "Want some coffee?" he mouthed.
"Coffee? Aren't you watching?"
He looked back up at Stone and then shook his head at her. She actually seemed excited by that, nodding eagerly. "This way."
Arthur followed her out.
They showed their passes to security and got out of the entertainment venue, setting their watches to get back in time.
"So why all the interest?" Arthur asked bluntly, "Have we met before?"
"Oh, no. I was thinking of something, that's all."
He nodded and didn't speak. He didn't need to. Nervous people talked on their own initiative if they felt compelled to. Arthur had practised at creating compelling silences. It was good for his job.
"A friend of mine told me about an incident with Tommy Stone in New York. She sent me some clippings when I told her about this article."
"What article?" Arthur asked tensely. He knew, but he was hoping. Hoping… hoping…
"You know, about Tommy Stone and Brian Slade." She lowered her voice and looked around. "I found out a few things. I'm pretty sure I can tie them together."
Arthur felt his chest tighten.
She looked at him and seemed to take his silence as an approving sign. "I guess you've been doing your homework too, right? You're probably down here looking for final proof."
Arthur took a deep breath. "Not really," he said, "I just came here to interview Stone."
"Excuse me? That's impossible. He wouldn't dare!"
"My paper offered an interview. Mr. Stone was agreeable," Arthur evaded, "Nothing weird about it."
She scratched her head and frowned again. "He's got balls," she commented, "Doing this. With you, no less."
Arthur saw it from her point of view and it was quite admirably humorous. "I'm just working to pay the rent," he excused. Keep her guessing, keep her happy- she'd talk. And Arthur wanted to know how much she knew. If only because it was his secret and he didn't like it being bantered around the place like another British Rag rumour.
"I'll bet," she joked, "You saw right through him, didn't you? How'd you find out anyway?"
"Depends what you're asking for," Arthur evaded.
"That he was a fag," she said.
Loud, too loud. The people in the shop looked up automatically and then looked away again. Arthur shushed her and pointed to the counter. "Let's get the coffee and talk outside, eh?"
"Right. Sorry. Americans," she rambled, "We're loud. Everyone knows that. And embarrassing. Everyone knows that too. Fuck!"
She dropped her bag and Arthur scooped it up as a matter of course. Because he was raised right. Even if he was torn between gagging her with the bag and taking the unfortunate thing away before she mistreated it any more. His own bag was resting like a lead weight on his shoulder, considering the topic of conversation, but he ignored it.
They gave their orders while she told him that she's been a junior reporter for so long she'd jumped at the chance for a promotion even when it was in another country and on another continent.
"This is my first big break as an investigative reporter," she said, "I told my editor and he didn't want to do it. But I showed him the clippings from New York and he let me run with it."
Arthur took her back outside as soon as he could, ostensibly because he didn't want to miss the brief few minutes after the show when Tommy Stone met the press.
"So you're going to ask him right there?" he questioned.
"You did. It worked in New York. He'll be rattled and maybe he'll say something. It'll be better if he doesn't, you know. Walking away; a girl can print so much more if he just walks away. Too scared to come out."
"What proof d'you have?" he asked.
She burned her tongue and cursed again, raising her fingers to her lips in a grimace of pain. But when she spoke, it was quite openly. "No real proof. Just stuff that doesn't fit. Like that big house he has, up in Los Angeles? Three people go there- Mr. Stone, his manager and his housekeeper. No one else."
Arthur couldn't see the connection. So he sipped on his coffee and kept quiet.
"You can't see it? Okay, if you were a once-famous rock star who didn't like appearing in public, and you were the lover of another famous rock star who didn't want the public to know he was gay, where would you go?"
"Los Angeles?" Arthur was being deliberately obtuse. But he was trying to wriggle more information out of her. Sometimes, the most obvious things were not what they seemed.
"No, silly. A house that only three people are allowed in. It's perfect! I managed to get in touch with a contractor who worked on the house a little just before Stone moved in." She leaned closer. "He said he got the feeling it wasn't just Tommy Stone that was going to live there. He said he had to get a door fitted between two bedrooms, like those old-fashioned kind of husband and wife deals. Who else can it be, right, except a lover?"
Arthur nodded as he absorbed this. Knowing what he knew, he doubted that Tommy Stone was capable of sleeping with Brian Slade. It added a whole new meaning to the term 'fucked up'. But it looked as though Tommy Stone really had had a lover at the time.
Or was it something non-sexual?
After all, if Stone wanted a lover, they could share a room. That level of privacy and he could probably walk naked through his mansion without anyone knowing. Why be coy about it? Stone wasn't a coy person.
Arthur had seen that first hand.
"And then there's the characters," Stacy continued, throwing the coffee away, "Brian Slade was as queer as they came. Everyone knew he liked blond rockers after that little affair with what's his name- the American guy he brought down here?"
"Curt Wild?" Arthur murmured.
"Him," she nodded, "Man, he sucked his guitar strings on stage like some rabid nymphomaniac. There's no doubt about him. And there's something about Tommy Stone that I can't get. A gut feeling. Like he's all an act. And no one knows where Stone came from, either. All that bullshit about clubs in Europe and the mean streets of Boston is unbelievable. No one remembers him there. So maybe he was in London. And he met the infamous Brian Slade. And maybe things started then."
Arthur marvelled at the fable. The woman was wrong, no doubt about that, but she wove a pretty convincing set of lies. It reminded him of those puzzles that kids did- joining the dots according to numbers. Only, Stacy Keller had managed to join the dots and find a cat where the dots were clearly outlining a dog.
"So no evidence," he sighed, settling the strap of his bag on his shoulder, "You talked to any of Brian Slade's old friends?"
"No," she groaned, "My editor won't let me have the budget."
"What about the people here?" Arthur asked, "There must be someone."
"Couldn't find them," she said, "Changed numbers, names, addresses… all of it. A few people, yeah, but none of the guys who'd know."
Arthur thought about it some more. And then took her shoulder and stopped walking as something occurred to him. "I just thought of something," he said, "What'll Stone do if you mouth off a question like that?"
"I'm hoping he runs away," she laughed.
"Yeah, but I've already done that," Arthur reminded her, "That Shannon's no idiot. She'll have an answer all set. But," he went on, "But what if you don't say anything now?"
"What d'you mean? I won't get a reaction if I don't do it now."
"Yeah. But what about if you got the story first? Who knows, you might get a deal out of it."
Arthur was surprised this was working. Stacy Keller was so desperate she just took an idea and ran anywhere. Al would foam at the mouth if any of his reporters worked like that. Besides, he'd thought she'd grow cynical after all the shit she must have seen in the States.
But no. Her eyes were shining and she was biting on her lower lip and those skinny shoulders were tensed in a moment of contained exhilaration.
"You're right," she breathed, "I can do that. I'll have the whole thing. Better copy, better quotes."
"Word of advise," Arthur pushed just a bit more, "Try Jack Fairy."
Jack Fairy. He almost felt sorry for Stacy. The woman would get more than she'd ever bargained for. Fairy would suck her in somehow, and the club would turn her mind. She'd be so busy with glamours and unravelling the cheap fabric of masks and masquerades she wouldn't have the time to do anything before Stone left England.
There was just another week to go. Arthur had another week to gather his notes for the interview and Stone had another week to pay for Arthur's silence.
"It's late," he said, "The show'll end soon."
She followed him like an eager little puppy.