The Radioactive Redhead with The Peach-Blonde Bomber

by John Zakour

  “She’s like eighteen!”

  “She’s twenty, Zach, which means that she’s no longer a teen sensation.”

  “So she’s retiring?”

  “Retiring is a very relative term,” HARA replied. “This is informally being referred to as her first farewell tour. Common theory is that it’s a prelude to her triumphant comeback tour.”

  “When will that be?”

  “Probably when she’s twenty-one. She’ll be able to do alcohol commercials then. It’s a whole new demographic. Still, from what I can tell there are many people who aren’t too happy about her retiring.”

  “Such as?”

  “Legions of teenage fans, tabloid reporters, and lecherous middle-aged men.”

  “Interesting, but none of that explains why she’d want to hire me as a bodyguard.”

  “I think we’ve safely ruled out naive schoolgirl crush as her motive.”

  “Funny. Check the police records. See if anyone connected to her has reported anything out of the ordinary recently. See if you can check her finances and those of her companies as well. Let’s make sure we know as much as we can going into this.”

  “Got it. You don’t want any surprises.”

  “Trust me, there will be surprises,” I said. “I just want to minimize them. And net with Carol at the office. Tell her we’re swinging by to pick her up.”

  “You’re bringing Carol to the meeting?”

  “I have a feeling I’m going to need a translator when I meet Sexy’s people.”

  “I thought you didn’t approve of Carol doing fieldwork.”

  “Like I said, I have a feeling that I’m going to need all the help I can get on this one.”

  “Don’t be such a worm in the data, Zach. If you can’t babysit a pop star for a couple of days then I’m not sure I want to be the Laura Holt to your Remington Steele.”

  “You’re not my Laura Holt.”

  “All right then, Pussy Galore.”

  “Yeah, well, kafloogle,” I said softly to myself.

  “What was that?”

  “Nothing.”

  “I’m telling you, Zach,” HARA said, putting her holographic arm around me, “this is going to be as easy as calculating pi to the hundredth digit.”

  “You know, you always say that just before people start trying to kill me.”

  9

  For her stay in New Frisco, Sexy commandeered the top five floors of the Paysans D’Elite Hotel downtown, which wasn’t surprising. The Elite has been the city’s premier lodging place for A-list recording artists since it opened last year. Nearly all stage performers as well as most actors and actresses visiting the area have commandeered one or more floors when they visited the city. One reason for the hotel’s allure is that it’s posh beyond belief in both décor and amenities. The other, more important, reason is that staying anywhere else would be a felony.

  It’s no secret that the antics of recording stars (and celebrities in general) are outside the realm of normal behavior. The industry breeds a certain lifestyle. The lifestyle breeds excess. Excess breeds erratic behavior and erratic behavior, when it comes to hotels, restaurants and other hospitality-oriented businesses, breeds rampant, wanton vandalism.

  For over a century, hotels around the world have been subjected to the outlandish and often destructive behavior of celebrities. Smashed windows, broken furniture, destroyed walls, fish battered groupies, etc., etc.

  The publicity a hotel received from a celebrity’s stay became minimized when compared to the cost of repairs, lost business, rising insurance rates, and the occasional grievous bodily injury or loss of life of non-celebrity bystanders and passersby. So five years ago the province of California passed the Celebrity Temporary Housing Bill, which mandates that all celebrities of a certain stature stay only in government-operated hotels specially designed to withstand their eccentric, bizarre and/or eldritch behaviors.

  The Elite is the first of these specially designed celebrity-proof hotels. The furniture, appliances, and the building itself are all fireproof, bulletproof, and stain guarded. Several of the more expensive suites are equipped with regenerative furnishings so that when a celebrity in an alcohol-, drug-, or tantrum-related rage destroys the room, it can rebuild itself after the celebrity passes out. Room rates are exceptionally high but celebrity doctors and accountants have begun claiming that the hotel provides an excellent venue for rage therapy so the cost of extended stays has become tax deductible.

  Carol, HARA, and I arrived at the hotel in plenty of time for the meeting and after the extensive security check and screening process, were quickly shown to the private elevator.

  Carol, by the way, is my niece. She’s actually Electra’s niece, but she treats me like an uncle. She works for me part time at my office to help work her way through college. She’s very smart, very feisty, very attractive, and very psionically powerful. Yes, Carol is one of that infinitesimally small group of women who are born with psionic abilities. She can move things with her mind and read thoughts. She can also write as well as read thoughts, which makes her very influential at times. Officially she has Class 1, Level 6 power. That’s a government rating, by the way. Class signifies power (lower is better). Level signifies potential, (higher is better). I have no idea why the people who designed the classifications made them so confusing other than because they were doing it for the government. In any event, to sum up Carol: smart, beautiful, sassy, and powerful. She’s also young and hip, which is specifically why I brought her along to the meeting.

  “Okay,” I said, as the high speed elevator moved us quickly toward the first of Sexy’s floors, “we’re going to need a trouble signal.”

  “Tio, I’m a psi. Just think something to me and I’ll get the message.”

  “I still want an emergency backup plan. Something physical. Humor me. I’ve been in this business a long time.”

  “Fine,” Carol sighed. “How about touching your nose and nodding your head if there’s trouble?”

  “That won’t work,” I said. “I touch my nose by accident all the time.”

  “He has eczema,” HARA whispered.

  “I do not,” I said. “It’s just a nervous habit. All the great PI’s had one. That’s mine. Now, if there’s trouble I’ll blink my right eye three times fast. Clear?”

  “You don’t think people will notice you spasmodically blinking one eye?” Carol asked.

  “That’s the code, okay? Three blinks of the right eye means trouble. And just for the record, four blinks means please shoot me in the head.”

  “You’re the boss, Tio.”

  Carol looked at me as though I were crazy. But I get that look a lot so I’ve pretty much gotten used to it. Two nanos later, the elevator doors opened and we stepped into the hallway.

  The hallway was lavishly appointed with marble columns and intricately woven oriental rugs and tapestries on the floor and walls.

  “Not what I’d expect for a pop star,” I said as we made our way down the hallway.

  Then a man appeared from a doorway ahead of us and approached. “Mr. Johnson, how wonderful you could come on such short notice.”

  He was taller than me by half a head but thinner than me by at least ten kilos. He was gangly in the extremities but moved gracefully, like a mantis. He was dressed in a pink-striped suit with a purple tie and matching purple socks and looked for all the world like a clown going to a prom.

  “Now this is more like what I was expecting,” I whispered.

  “I didn’t know the circus was in town,” HARA snickered inside my head.

  Carol giggled.

  Then the man drew near us, held out his hand, and smiled a smile that amazingly made his wardrobe seem tame by comparison.

  “I’m Sexy’s manager,” he said, “Sammy Smiles.”

  The man had more teeth than I’d ever seen in a human mouth. There were sixty at least and his mouth was somehow large enough to contain them all. When he smiled, his lips spread apa
rt like the curtains on a stage, opening farther than you’d think possible and his cheeks moved upward and out as though they were on pulleys attached to his ears. It was all I could do not to stare as I shook his hand.

  Carol, on the other hand, being somewhat new to this, was a little taken aback.

  Smiles noticed her staring at him but he didn’t seem to mind. “And who, may I ask is the lovely creature?” he asked, reaching for her hand.

  “This is Carol,” I said. “She’s my assistant.”

  “Charmed,” he said, his smile curling ever so slightly at the corners.

  He gently took her hand and kissed it.

  “The pleasure’s mine,” she said, trying to regain her composure.

  Smiles nodded, offered her his arm (which Carol reluctantly took), and motioned toward the great metallic doorway at the hallway’s end.

  “Come,” he said. “Sexy is waiting.”

  The huge metallic doors opened at Smiles’ gentle touch and we entered Sexy’s suite. The words huge and posh, although technically correct, would not do the space justice.

  “Wow,” Carol said her eyes widening.

  “I agree,” Smiles smiled.

  The suite went on for as far as I could see. I was pretty certain that it was mostly a holographic illusion, but it was still pretty impressive nonetheless.

  “Sexy is in the entertainment area. I wish she’d practice more. But she just loves her video games.”

  We followed Smiles through the suite and after about five minutes of walking (like I said, big suite) we found Sexy sitting atop a round plush levitating couch. She was wearing virtual game gloves and moving her hands frantically as little holographic geometrical shapes danced from the ceiling to the floor.

  Three other girls sat with her on the couch. They looked, for lack of a better description, like Sexy’s slightly less sexy clones. Each of them had long red hair, slim athletic bodies, and expressions of slight boredom and disdain.

  “That’s strange,” HARA said inside of my head.

  “Strange only microscopically scratches the surface here,” I whispered.

  “Some of your hormone levels shot up.”

  “Newsflash.”

  “Not those hormones,” she said. “The ones that stimulate the feelings of euphoria in the brain.”

  “Like I’m being drugged?”

  “In a way,” HARA said. “I’m counteracting the effects though.”

  “Yeah, we wouldn’t want me feeling any euphoria.”

  Sexy spotted me from her perch on the couch.

  “Zach!” she said.

  She rolled off the couch and landed on her feet with far more grace than I expected. She removed her virtual game gloves and gave me a hug and a little peck on the cheek.

  “Thanks for coming to my rescue,” she bubbled.

  “It’s what I do.” I said (and heard HARA silently gag in my head). “This is my assistant, Carol.”

  Sexy gave Carol a little wink. “Pleased to meet you, double-xette,” she said, holding out her hand, pinky finger up.

  “Shay-Rico,” Carol replied, linking her thumb around Sexy’s pinky finger.

  “Wild guess,” I mentally whispered to HARA, “Slang?”

  “Brilliant deduction,” HARA replied.

  “So,” Sexy said, turning back to me, “where should we start?”

  “Let’s start with why you need a bodyguard.”

  “That’s a long story. I’ll give you the full data-flow in my thinking room.”

  “Thinking room?”

  “It’s where I think about business.”

  “You mean like an office?”

  Sexy smiled. “That’s what I love about you, Zach. You are so old school.”

  “Please,” Carol said, “he’s more like prehistoric school.”

  The girls laughed.

  “Have you been coaching Carol?” I whispered to HARA.

  Sexy’s thinking room turned out to be a large, pink-walled tatami room in the far end of the suite. There were silk pillows on the floor and a dark wood knee-high table beside a large window with a stunning view of the New Frisco bay. Sexy ushered Carol and me inside and then turned to meet Smiles who was trailing behind us.

  “Sammy,” she said, “why don’t you make us some of your righteous next-energy drinks?”

  Smiles took a step back, a little surprised. If Sexy noticed she didn’t let on.

  “Sammy makes the best energy drinks on the planet,” she bubbled to Carol. “You have to try one. What about you, Zach?”

  “I’m good, thanks.”

  “Sure thing,” Smiles said. “I’ll be back in a nano.”

  “Take your time,” Sexy replied.

  Smiles cast her a glance then put his happy face back on and eased his way out of the room. Sexy closed the door behind him and took a seat on one of the pillows.

  “I get a thinking room like this at every hotel I stay in. The walls have to be a specific thickness, soundproof, and this exact shade of pink. I bring the furniture. I like the room sparse, so nothing distracts me when I’m thinking.”

  “Cool,” Carol said, with a bit more excitement in her voice than I was used to hearing. “I need a room like this.”

  “Everybody does!” Sexy insisted.

  Carol plopped down on the pillow beside Sexy while I eased my way down to the floor on the other side of the table.

  “Hmm, this is odd,” HARA said inside my head. “The ambient radiation in this room is rather high.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” I mentally whispered back.

  “Ambient radiation is usually harmless,” HARA replied. “It’s used by a lot of trendy places these days as a mood setter. I’ll explain it to you later. For now don’t worry.”

  For the record, the words “don’t worry” coming from a supercomputer are never comforting for me.

  “So,” Sexy said, putting her hands gently on the table, “here’s the deal. I need a bodyguard.”

  “You don’t have one already?” I asked.

  “I have several, but I need you.”

  “Why me specifically?”

  “Look, Zach, I know that you’re not the youngest guy out there, or the strongest or the best looking. And you don’t have the best credentials. And Gates knows you’re not hip with my crowd, and …”

  “I get the point, Sexy.”

  “But you know how to get the job done. And that’s what I need, especially now.”

  “Why now? What’s going on?”

  She paused for the briefest of nanos and turned her gaze to the floor.

  “I’ve been getting threats,” she whispered.

  “What kind of threats?”

  “Death threats, from an organization called PATA.”

  “PATA?”

  “People Against Talentless Acts,” she said. “They’re not my biggest fans.”

  It was hard not to laugh but Carol and I somehow managed it.

  “They’re threatening to do whatever they need to in order to prevent me from finishing my tour.”

  “But it’s your farewell tour,” I said. “If they hate you so much, shouldn’t they be happy?”

  “It’s my first farewell tour. They’re expecting me to make a comeback.”

  “And are you planning on making a comeback?”

  “Not in music,” she replied. “But when I turn twenty-one, I plan to run for governor.”

  Suppression of laughter was not an option this time. Both Carol and I erupted into a quick succession of guffaws. It felt good to laugh again. Then we noticed that Sexy wasn’t laughing with us (and that sort of killed the mood).

  “Sorry. We, urn, thought you were joking.”

  “Yeah, I’m expecting that kind of reaction from a certain percentage of voters. But the point is that PATA wants me dead and I need you to keep me alive.”

  “Certainly your recording company has protection for you,” Carol said.

  “Honestly, girlfriend, I don’t fully t
rust my company.”

  “Why’s that?” I asked.

  “They’re not all that wild about me quitting the business. No new music, no annual tours, that’s a lot of wealth they’re losing.”

  “But they’d still want to protect you,” Carol said. “They wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you. Would they?”

  “Spite is a very strong motivator in the entertainment industry,” Sexy replied.

  “Second only to greed and lust,” I added.

  “And let’s just say that if I were to die tragically, sales of my catalog would skyrocket.”

  “And you’re probably insured,” said Carol.

  “And can you imagine the sales of a live album that ends with me being killed on stage?”

  “Wow, that’s morbid.”

  “But the sales would be astronomical. The bottom line is that the only person who would truly suffer, if I were to die tragically, would be me.”

  “So you don’t fully trust the company to keep you safe.”

  “Just because I’m sexy doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”

  I had to admit she had a point.

  “So will you help me, Zach?”

  She looked at me with doe eyes and fully pouted lips. A thin strand of red hair dangled down her cheek like a silken red tear and I felt my blood begin to warm with excitement and dread. Sure, I needed the money, but I knew that this was going to be nothing but fuel-injected, turbo-driven trouble. It would be tough enough babysitting a pop star but trying to keep her safe from a potential assassin on top of that? Any sane man would have run screaming from the room at the thought. But, as I’ve said, I’m not considered the sanest person around town.

  “Let’s start from the first threat,” I said.

  She smiled, gently wiped the corner of one eye with her fingertip, and touched the tabletop. The surface lit up at her touch, the faux wood turning into a luminescent computer screen. She touched the screen again and a simple message appeared. It was handwritten in shaky and sometimes jagged script:

  YOUR FAREWELL WILL BE FOREVER. NO COMEBACK FOR YOU, SEXY

  —PATA (PEOPLE AGAINST TALENTLESS ACTS)

  “This was sent to my personal computer last week.”

  “It’s harsh,” I said, “but surely you’ve gotten hate mail before.”