Glitter Baby (Wynette, Texas #3)(73)

After he got off the phone, he slouched down on the couch and propped his boots up on the coffee table. They had three-inch Lucite heels with embedded goldfish. “I’m the only one in the band who looks to the future,” he said suddenly. “The other guys think this is going to last forever, but I know it doesn’t happen that way, so I’m building a portfolio.”

“Probably a good idea.” She reached for the backstage passes and began to stamp them.

“Damned straight it’s a good idea. What’s your name anyway?”

She hesitated. “Fleur.”

“You look familiar. You a dyke?”

“Not at the moment.” She slammed the stamp down on the VIP pass. Whom did she think she was kidding? Three days was forever.

Peter got up and headed for the door. Suddenly he stopped and turned back. “I know where I saw you. You used to be a model or something. My kid brother had your poster up in his room, and you were in that movie I saw. Fleur…what’s it?”

“Savagar,” she made herself say. “Fleur Savagar.”

“Yeah. That’s right.” He didn’t seem impressed. He tugged on the white feather earring. “Listen, I hope you don’t mind my saying so, but if you’d had a portfolio, you would of had something to fall back on after you was washed up.”

“I’ll remember that for the future.” The door shut behind him, and she realized that she was smiling for the first time in weeks. Around this crew anyway, the Glitter Baby was yesterday’s news. She felt as if she had more air to breathe.

The tour was opening that night at a sports arena north of Vienna, and once Stu came back with the errant roadie, she didn’t have a minute to think. First there was a ticket mix-up, and then the one-hour warning calls to the band. She had to be in the lobby early to double-check transportation and take care of tips. Then she had to make a second set of phone calls to the band members telling them the limos were ready. Stu yelled at her about everything, but he seemed to yell at everybody except the band, so she tried to ignore it. As far as she could tell, there were only two cardinal rules: keep the band happy, and double-check everything.

As the members of Neon Lynx wandered into the lobby, she identified each one. Peter Zabel she’d met. Kyle Light, the bass player, wasn’t hard to spot. He had thin blond hair, dead eyes, and a wasted look. Frank LaPorte, the drummer, was a belligerent redhead with a Budweiser can in his hand. Simon Kale, the keyboard player, was the fiercest-looking black man she’d ever seen, with a shaved and oiled head, silver chains draping an overdeveloped chest, and something that looked suspiciously like a machete hanging from his belt.

“Where’s that freakin’ Barry?” Stu called out. “Fleur, go up and get that son of a bitch down here. And don’t do anything to upset him, for chrissake.”

Fleur reluctantly headed for the elevator and the penthouse suite of lead singer Barry Noy. The promotional kit billed him as the new Mick Jagger. He was twenty-four, and his photographs showed him with long, sandy-colored hair and fleshy lips permanently set in a sneer. From bits and pieces of conversations, she’d gathered that Barry was “difficult,” but she didn’t let herself think too hard about what that might mean.

She knocked at the door of his suite, and when there was no answer, she tried the knob. It was unlocked. “Barry?”

He was stretched out on the couch, his forearm thrown across his eyes and his sandy hair dangling over the couch pillows toward the carpet. He wore the same satin trousers as the other members of the band, except his were Day-Glo orange with a red sequined star strategically placed over the crotch.

“Barry? Stu sent me up to get you. The limos are here, and we’re ready to go.”

“I can’t play tonight.”

“Uh…Why’s that?”

“I’m depressed.” He gave a protracted sigh. “I swear I have never been so depressed in my entire f*cking life. I can’t sing when I’m depressed.”

Fleur glanced at her watch, a man’s gold Rolex Stu had loaned her that afternoon. She had five minutes. Five minutes and two and a half days. “What are you depressed about?”

For the first time he looked at her. “Who are you?”

“Fleur. The new road secretary.”

“Oh yeah, Peter told me about you. You used to be a big movie star or something.” He threw his arm back over his eyes. “I’m telling you, life is really shit. I mean I am really hot now. I can have any woman I want, but that bitch Kissy has me wrapped around her finger. I bet I called New York a hundred times today, but either I couldn’t get through or she never answered the phone.”

“Maybe she was out.”

“Yeah. She was out all right. Out with some stud.”

She had four minutes. “Would any woman in her right mind go out with another man when she could have you?” she said, even as she was thinking that any woman in her right mind would go out with a penguin before she’d go out with him. “I’ll bet your timing was bad. The time zones are confusing. Why don’t you try her after the concert? It’ll be early morning in New York. You’re sure to get her then.”

He seemed interested. “You think so?”

“I’m sure of it.” Three and a half minutes. If they had to wait for the elevator, she’d be in trouble. “I’ll even put through the call for you.”