"Headache?"
"Stop yelling, there's a love," Brian grunted, falling into a chair with easy grace.
Shannon looked at him over her cup of coffee and noted the wan pallor and the dark glasses. "You were drinking again," she guessed, putting her cup down.
Brian didn't react. He only reached out blindly until she leaned over and nudged his cup further towards his questing fingers.
Coffee was the elixir of life to Brian Slade. It hadn't changed with Tommy Stone.
So Shannon held her tongue and kept her thoughts on the subject to herself while her client tried to put himself back to rights. She nibbled her toast and drank her coffee, and occupied herself with planning for the rest of the two weeks that they were in England.
"Reviews?" Stone asked.
"Good, mostly," Shannon allowed, jerking her head to the newspapers and magazines she'd dumped on the couch, "A few thought you weren't invested in the show."
"That obvious, eh?"
She laughed softly at that rueful sigh and shook her blond head. "You were good, Tommy. Great. The show was great."
"Yeah, the band nailed it last night."
"Tommy, I said you were great. Most of those kids wouldn't have cared if you had Brian May or Eric Clapton in that band. You sang your heart out." She laughed again, holding out a hand as though to offer him a memory. "Did you hear them when you did 'Crackerjack'? I thought they would storm the stage."
He grinned too, though it was reluctant at best, and finally took off his dark glasses. Behind them his eyes were swollen, bruised with stress, and shot with thin red capillaries that showed up against the dirty whites.
He really did look a mess.
Shannon took pity on him and poured him another cup of coffee, wishing the tours weren't always so hard on him.
As if he were reading her thoughts, Brian rubbed his already sore eyes and groaned. "I can't do this any more."
"It'll get easier."
"It's the touring," he continued, as though she hadn't spoken at all, "I can't stand the touring."
She bit her lip and sympathized in silence, resting her hands in her trousered lap, crossing them neatly at the wrists just as she crossed her legs neatly at the ankles and stowed them beneath her chair. She'd had etiquette lessons in Los Angeles; she'd wanted to present the right image.
Brian stirred his coffee absently, staring into the milky concoction. "It's too fucking tough."
"You've done it before."
"Yeah. I don't want to do that again, Shannon. Taking a bullet to get out ruined things the last time."
"You don't have to take a bullet this time," she offered, leaning forward and putting her arms on the table so she could rest across them. Use them as leverage to push closer.
People always did that with Brian Slade. They wanted to get closer because they just knew that if they didn't, they'd miss something spectacular, something important. Shannon didn't do it as much any more because years with the man turned her blind to most of his charms. But she found he still had it, when it really mattered- that vulnerability.
"Really?" He smiled a thin, tiny smile at her that stretched his cheek muscles and didn't reach his eyes.
"Sure," she declared robustly, "You can come clean about everything. No one will care now. It was ten years ago. We can make a big deal out of it. Do the interviews, check into rehab, release a lot of the old material. Find new markets!"
"You think these kids want the old stuff?" Brian asked.
"I think these kids will get a hell of a shock," Shannon laughed, "It's not up to them. They don't own you."
"Try telling the hellhounds that."
"Forget about the reporters. We give them our story and let them run with it."
"Nice try, love. It won't work." He stretched his arms up above his head and listened with sadistic pleasure as something clicked into place. "Shannon, could you…?"
"I'll set a massage up for this afternoon," she agreed, already making a note on a pad, "Anything else? How about that holiday you wanted? Have you got somewhere in mind?"
"The place in France should do it," he said vaguely.
She nodded, calculating something under her breath. "That would be the eighth and let's say Paris for three days and then a car down to the farmhouse." She looked up to ask, "Will a month be long enough or should I plan for more?"
He was just looking at her, grinning like a mischievous little boy with so much affection in his eyes that she almost smiled back without even knowing what the joke was.
"Do you know," he told her, "How much you let me get away with?"
"Just don't kill anyone," she ordered, "I'm not arranging an alibi for you with a stripper."
He laughed and she knew it was alright. He didn't want a serious discussion about it. He took it for granted, mostly, what she did for him. She took it for granted too. She grumbled and fussed and made certain demands, but really she only did it for the same reason every other manager had ever taken his case. Brian charmed them into thinking he was something wonderful.
Sometimes, Shannon had her doubts.
After all, how fertile could one person's creativity be? Brian had explored a whole range in ten years. How long could he keep going?
Knowing Brian- another ten years.
Shannon put the note pad by her plate and fumbled for her cigarettes. She glared at the outstretched white fingers from across the table but passed the packet over before diving into her bag for her lighter.
Brian waited for her to finish before he lit his cigarette and took a long pull on it.
It was relaxing, smoking. He didn't do drugs any more but smoking was one vice he allowed himself. Smoking and drinking. Perhaps he should stop drinking, however. He was beginning to lose seconds and minutes, dragging his mind back to the present to find he was forgetting something. It didn't happen often, and never unless he let his mind wander away on a moonbeam, but when it did happen it scared him. So perhaps he should stop drinking?
"I should tell you now," he said suddenly, "I, er, had a bit of an accident in my room last night."
The cigarette paused on its way to her mouth. "What happened?" The softness in her face was gone, replaced by the hard look of the businesswoman.
"Drinking, coping, throwing a fucking tizzy." He laughed a little. It really was funny in a morbid kind of way. "The place is a little broken."
"How broken?"
He only said, "Pay the bill, right?" in a voice of such studied casualness that she knew it had been bad.
She pursed her mouth until her lips went thin but she didn't haul off and yell at him for wasting good money they had worked too hard to get just for a few seconds of mindless violence. Sometimes, it really was going too far to mother him and push at him the way she was forced to do. He usually snapped back. Well, it was bloody boring for her, too, only Shannon didn't think he'd ever thought about it from her side before.
"Okay, then. I'll go finish that now."
"You, er, might want to wait," he broke in.
She stilled and she wondered what he had done this time.
"There's someone there," he said, "Asleep."
"One of the band? The crew?" Brian shook his platinum blond hair and Shannon thanked God for it. "One of the maids? Stewart."
"Arthur, yeah."
Shannon sat down again. "You did it," she moaned heavily, "You really fucking did it."
"You should have seen him. He was beautiful."
"I. Don't. Want. To know."
"You should. I'm thinking this could be something new."
Shannon dropped her head. "Brian…"
"Oh, no more Tommy?"
"Tommy Stone is not half as stupid," she said harshly, head snapping up, "What the hell were you thinking? Arthur Stewart is a reporter. He's got you by the balls and you fuck him?"
Brian just smiled and stubbed out the remains of his cigarette. "You're taking this the wrong way."
"I am? Oh, ta, luv, I'll remember when the sodding tabloids have your arse, and mine with it!"
"He's not going to go to the tabloids, Shannon."
"How do you know?"
"He's just pissed with me about Brian Slade," Brian dismissed, "He got his head messed up when Maxwell Demon got shot. That's all. Nothing about money or scandal."
"And how do you know this, may I ask?"
Brian shrugged. "I asked around."
"Bullshit. I do the asking. You open your Goddamned mouth and croak. How do you know?"
"I talked to his editor."
"I spoke to his editor, Brian."
The rock star kicked himself for walking into that one. It would have sounded better to have just said it straight off- "Curt told me. I called him up about this and he said he'd checked him out. He swore the kid was honest."
"Honest. Curt…" Words failed her. But she tried again, swallowing so she could speak around the lump in her throat. "Curt Wild wouldn't know honesty if it bit him."
Brian's face lost its amiable good humour. "Let's not start," was he all he said.
Shannon tightened her lips and gracefully extracted herself from the situation.
Brian calmed down and sighed. He hated upsetting Shannon. She was harder to placate, now that she was so used to him. He quite cared for her, in his own way. They didn't often agree, and he hardly ever remembered to treat her with any civil dignity, but he did know what he owed her.
But there were times… his temper kindled again and he scowled at the door she had exited. There were times he really did want to just strangle her.
Stupid bitch. Mindless; really. No soul in her.
Brian got the note when he was sitting there, sipping coffee as though nothing was wrong. He accepted it with a smile and nod, opening it with dexterous fingers and a lot of regard for the papers. He'd learned very fast that one needed to be careful opening letters; one didn't know what impossible news was in them. In an emergency, he preferred to have any written documents ready to be produced.
"For fuck's sake," he chuckled.
He stalked to the phone and put a quick call down to reception. "No, tell him to wait there. Yeah. Won't be moment. Course not! Great friend of mine." He proceeded down to reception and there he was.
Ray was trying, bless his heart, to be as discreet as he could be. No make-up, no outrageous clothes, no off-colour jokes.
Tommy Stone came forward with a hand outstretched and a very exuberant exclamation of surprise. "Good to see you."
"Hello, Mr. Stone," Ray grinned.
Stone thought the lack of anything outwardly decadent really didn't make much difference when the man managed that smoky, husky, thickly accented voice. His grin widened a little. "Hey, what's with the formality, guy? You're not here on business, are you?"
It was a very subtle implication. Much as Stone found this man interesting, he wanted no part of him. Not as Tommy Stone. And if Ray had any questions about Stone maybe-sometime-somewhere needing a guitarist, Stone was going to firmly and finally decline the offer.
"Tom, then," Ray said lightly, "No. No business. Came to see that boy of mine."
Stone raised an eyebrow and gestured to a quiet corner of the lobby. "Your boy?"
"Oh. Mistake. I meant Arthur." Ray pulled out a cigarette and lit it, smoking for all the world as if it was as natural as breathing air. "I thought I'd say hi to you while I was here."
"Always good to see a fellow musician."
"Always good to see one of us win," Ray quirked back, "Very good for our collective ego. Little musician mums tell the little musician kiddies to drink their milk so they c'n grow up to be big, strong Tommy Stones."
Brian stiffened ever so slightly in his seat, his grey eyes narrowing. Those words had been vicious, deflected off from actual hostility by the fact that Ray just didn't care enough to be obvious. "I see," he said carefully.
"Did I embarrass you?"
"No." Stone dropped his smile and his mask just a little. Just enough to play.
"Good for you. That young bastard is trying to think of ways to throw me out." Ray glanced back at the receptionist. "Children are so hurtful these days."
"Always have been," Stone said robustly, "Have you had a call up to Arthur?"
"He's not answering. I thought you would know where he was."
"I haven't a clue," Stone returned.
"Right, then. I'll be heading off."
"What's the rush?" It was Brian's grin that came through, "My morning's free. Recovery and rest and all that."
"Oh, yes. The show. How was it?" Ray stopped playing with the tassel on his shirt and looked up to catch that look. "Papers cost money," he whispered, "And I'm broke."
"Would you like a paper?" Stone asked with perfect composure.
Ray was watching him, not quite sure about something in that face. It hadn't changed, but there was something different. Something off. Or maybe it was the words. It could be the words. He wasn't aware of having insulted the rock star. Though Stone was likely to have him thrown out if he was insulted. He didn't seem to be the vengeful type. Loud and brash, but not vengeful.
"I'd like a paper," Ray agreed.
Stone had one of every publication in the hotel brought to them. "What were we talking about?" he laughed, "My damned memory. I swear, I'd forget my own name if I didn't see it on the marquees."
"The show," Ray says, "The reviews seem good." He was glancing through the Herald. "I'm almost sorry I didn't get to see it."
"From what I remember, it's not your music," Stone soothed, "How's La Glace?"
"Getting popular."
"Oh? I must come visit again."
"Is that your type of music, Tommy?"
"I like all types of music."
"English fag rock too? I thought Americans didn't like homosexuals."
"Nothing to do with homosexuals," Stone said easily, "It's all just music. Like chocolate. We don't eat the wrapper, right? I like the music."
"You know, Tommy, you should talk to some of these critics," Ray laughed, throwing the paper back on the pile, "They despise cock rock. Men in make-up? Why, it's shocking." He offered an arch look of comical panic. "They just don't know what the fuck it means."
"I've never thought about that too much myself. What does it mean?"
Ray looked at him and looked startled when his smouldering cigarette burned his fingers. "We had this one guy, see? Back in the Seventies? He was brilliant. Good music, intelligent, great arse. Started this whole business right up. He said it was all masks."
"All masks," Stone repeated. He remembered the analogy going a little differently but it was surreal enough that he felt oddly disconnected from the whole thing. "You think it's all masks?"
"I think it's all beauty. Everyone wants to be beautiful. But little boys, see, we're not allowed to be beautiful." Ray laughed again, but this time with genuine amusement. "So we never learned. And when we said 'Sod it' and did it anyway, we did it the only way we knew how. We dressed like our bloody mothers."
Stone laughed too. Really laughed. Because it was just too priceless. Funny and sad and tragic, but really, so funny at the same time.
He was quite happy to spend a little time with Ray.
Ray seemed to be quite happy where he was, too. "We all want to be something special," he said, "Be famous. Not like the kids, now, see, not like that. Famous in a crowd is what they want. No, we wanted to be special in everything. Say something new, be something new. Beauty was new. For us. Back in those time. These kids will never know what it's like to be bright and coloured and high as the birds on the grey streets of London. They just won't."