by Roland Smith
“Huh,” I said.
“That’s it?” Angela said. “‘Huh’? That’s all you’ve got?”
“Well, no. I have a lot of questions, like how P.K. found out all this stuff. But it still doesn’t explain the poof! or what he is.”
“Well there’s one other interesting factoid,” she said. “Tonye Borneo? It’s an anagram for Tyrone Boone.”
“Huh?”
“Again? With the ‘huh’?” She crossed her arms.
“I wonder why he’s stayed with Tyrone Boone so long now?”
“Probably because it’s a lot harder to hide these days. Everything is recorded and monitored. Records are kept. You need ID. So he probably just dances around the issue when anyone brings it up. Like when he says Croc has ‘good genes’ or something.”
We went back and forth on that subject for a while. What was Boone? A vampire? A werewolf? Maybe Greek gods really existed and Boone was the Greek god of roadies? Now that Angela had traced Boone all the way back to the 1100s it just gave her something else to be frustrated about. Was that when Boone started living forever? Or did he go back even further, to ancient Rome or something? It was a lot to think about when we already had a lot to think about. Like not getting kidnapped again. Or trying to figure out the ghost cell’s next move. Out came the deck of cards and I started shuffling. We just stood there a while, thinking and kind of zoning out. I think our brains needed a vacation. I was pretty sure mine did.
About thirty minutes before the concert started Eben showed up backstage. It was a little shocking seeing him there. Truthfully, he still made me a little uneasy. After all, he had held a knife to my throat in Philadelphia. Which was near the top of my list of things I really didn’t care for.
Boone hustled him and us into a nearby empty office.
And he told us what they had learned.
High Stakes
“I left Ziv at one of the other cars we’re using,” Eben said. “He is cautious and said he fears our communications may be compromised. Personally, I think he just needed some alone time.”
“Where is my mom?” Angela asked.
“She’s fine. Ziv is watching her now. But there is news. Someone claiming to be Number Two contacted Malak. She was told the ‘operation’ they planned to undertake here has been called off. And they asked her if she had ever heard of a Tyrone Boone.”
“What did she say?” Boone asked.
“She told them this Boone was a legend, nothing more than a CIA concoction. And even if he were real, he would be far too old to be a threat.” Eben looked at Boone. “Your cover has been blown, I’m afraid.”
Boone frowned and slowly stroked his beard while he considered this information.
“But this is good news, right?” Angela said.
Eben shook his head.
“Not necessarily. I believe so. Ziv is, well, he is Ziv. Suspicious. Malak has been instructed to meet Number Two at Grant Park at 8:30 a.m. tomorrow. Then she will be taken to meet Number One. And they will choose the next two members of their council of Five. For whatever reason, it sounds like a setup to Ziv.”
“I agree,” Boone said.
“What? Why?” Angela asked. “They failed in San Antonio. You said they always pull back and go to ground when something goes wrong. Isn’t that what they’re doing?”
“Usually. But they’re not going to ground. If they were following their usual pattern, they’d just disappear. For a while, anyway. They don’t need to meet in person. I doubt they do often, if at all. I think they’re suspicious. I think they know we’re onto them. And they either suspect Malak or they’re testing her. Everything has gone wrong for them since Kitty Hawk. To them, she has to be the common denominator,” Boone said.
“So you have to pull her out, Boone,” Angela said. Her voice cracked and she sounded desperate. I put my hand on her shoulder.
“I can’t, Angela,” he said. “That’s what they’re waiting for. If she doesn’t show for the meet tomorrow, they’ll know she’s not really who she says she is. Whether they know I’m tracking them or not, I have to pretend I don’t know. If I disappear or pull her out, they’re tipped off. And they’ll find her and kill her.”
“Not if you get her away from—” Angela started but Boone interrupted her.
“That’s not all. I think Ziv is right. I don’t think this is just about Malak. I think they’re using the meeting as a distraction. They’re planning something bigger than car bombs. And if Malak doesn’t show, they’ll have accomplished two goals. Knowing she’s not who she says she is, and successfully launching another attack,” Boone said.
“How do you know?” Angela asked. Her arms were crossed now and she was biting her lip.
“Because we’re getting too close,” he said.
“Why did they ask about you, Boone? Why did they ask my mother about you?” Angela asked.
Eben and I watched in a sort of stunned silence as Boone and Angela went back and forth.
Boone held his hands up, almost like he was surrendering.
“Angela, the truth is, I don’t know the answer to that.” He rubbed his hands over his hair. I remembered thinking, down in Texas, how tired Boone looked. If possible, he looked worse now. There were dark rings under his eyes and when he stood he was kind of stooped, like it took all of his energy to stand up. “What I do know is, I’ve been around the spy game for a long time. In and out of more places than you can count. If I had to guess, maybe somebody in the ambush crew this morning recognized me and got off a phone call before we took them out. After all, they called Malak right after they tried to hit us.”
Angela just spun on her heel and left the room. The door swung back on its hinges but didn’t shut all the way.
“Let’s go,” Boone said. “We’ve got work to do.”
Ding Dong
As it turned out, the dustup between Boone and Angela wasn’t the only drama of the night. Right before the concert started, I tracked down Angela, who was busy pacing back and forth and sulking. I talked her into coming with me to the greenroom and wishing Mom and Roger good luck.
“Sure. Whatever,” she said.
When we went in, the room was packed. There was some tall, thin guy there, talking to my mom and Roger. Though he looked pretty young he had streaks of gray running through his hair. He was also holding a gigantic key, which he handed to Mom and Roger.
“I think that’s the mayor of Chicago,” Angela whispered.
“What do you suppose the key unlocks?” I asked. Angela slugged me in the arm.
“You did that on purpose!” she hissed.
And she was right, I did, but I knew she was stewing about Boone not calling off the op and I wanted to get her laughing. Or at least less stressed.
We got a dirty look from Buddy T. because the mayor was about to give a speech.
“Ms. Munoz, Mr. Tucker, I wanted to thank you for making the great city of Chicago one of your stops on the sensational Match tour. I’m here to present you with a key to the city and also to ask you a favor. Tomorrow, we will be holding a free concert in Grant Park. It will start in the morning and go all day. We’re asking attendees to bring nonperishable food items and make cash donations as the price of admission. All the items and money will go to aid local food banks and the recent bombing victims in Washington, D.C. I would consider it a personal favor if Match would consent to being a part of the concert. We already have several groups and local Chicago musicians agreeing to perform and if we could add Match to the lineup it would—”
“Of course! We’d be delighted and honored. Just tell us where and when!” my mom interrupted. Only my mom would interrupt the mayor of a major city midspeech.
The mayor’s little entourage clapped and cheered. Buddy T. was standing right next to me. He made this weird gasping, choking sound when he heard the words “free concert” and when my mom said, “we’d be delighted.” I looked over at him to find his face nearly purple.
“Buddy?” I as
ked. “Are you okay? You look like you might have swallowed a chicken bone or something.”
Buddy T. didn’t answer; as usual, he pretended I wasn’t there. I nudged Angela with my elbow and nodded toward him. She peered around me and had to cover her mouth with her hand to keep from laughing. At least she was smiling about something.
There were handshakes and thank-you’s all around and then the mayor and his group left. Roger was still holding the giant key. I really wanted to get my hands on it. I figured I could make it part of a magic trick somehow. Turn a regularsize key into a giant key. Or something.
After the mayor left there were just Mom and Roger, Boone, Heather, Buddy, and me and Angela left in the room. As soon as the door closed, Buddy T. went off like a Fourth-of-July rocket.
“You can’t do this concert tomorrow! I forbid it!” he said.
Oops, Buddy, pal, I thought to myself. You just said the absolute wrong thing.
My mom turned her focus to Buddy. I love my mom. She’s even-tempered most of the time. But when she’s mad, I mean really mad, you don’t want to be around her. What’s worse, she has two kinds of mad. The screaming, angry mad, and the worse mad. When she gets all quiet and almost calm. Like on the plane yesterday. Now she was still, jaw set, eyes glaring, defiant. Buddy was going to be lucky to leave the greenroom with all of his body parts still attached.
“Excuse me?” Mom said, her voice barely a whisper.
“We can’t do any more of these free shows. It’s going to kill our gross revenues and the next time we tour—”
“Buddy, if you keep acting like you own us, there won’t be a next time,” Mom said.
“Listen, Blaze, this little charity act is cute, but we are losing money an—”
Oh. Buddy.
“Buddy, you remember what I said about making all the remaining dates free? Having all the people who come to the shows just make a donation to the bombing victims?”
“Yes,” Buddy grumbled.
“Open your cake hole one more time about how much money we’re losing and we’ll do it, won’t we, Roger?” She looked at Roger.
“Yep. In a heartbeat,” he said.
“You can’t do this, Blaze! This schedule has already been thrown off-kilter by all of your free little extra concerts and public-service announcements! And then tomorrow you’ll do a live show and everyone with a smartphone will record it and it will be all over the Internet! For free! Is that how you want it to work? You’ll get no income from that music. We’re not doing it. We need to get to San Francisco and get this tour back on track—”
“No,” Mom interrupted him.
“What?” Buddy had his hands on his hips and was trying to stare down my mom. Good luck with that, Buddy. I think Buddy kept forgetting Mom was once married to Speed Paulsen. He’d already lost the argument. He just didn’t know it yet.
Buddy gathered himself and threw open the greenroom door.
“You know what!” Buddy screamed. “Go ahead! Make the biggest mistake of your so-called careers. I don’t need this. I’m out of here! I quit!” He stamped off toward the exit door.
The roadies clapped and cheered. One of them hollered, “Ding, dong, the witch is dead!”
Everyone in the greenroom was quiet for a second. Then Heather spoke up.
“Okay. So maybe I was a little off base at the beginning of the tour. When I said you’d love Buddy by the time it was all said and done, it was because he’s the best manager in the business. I guess something has him rattled. He’s been acting weird lately. But don’t worry. This was just Buddy being Buddy. He’ll be back by the end of the concert. And whoever said ‘ding dong’ will be out of a job. Now you guys have a show to do, so knock ’em dead.”
And Mom and Roger did just that. The crowd went crazy. They had to do three encores.
Buddy T. never came back.
The Show Must Go On
No one paid attention to Buddy disappearing. At least at first. Heather just said maybe he was extra mad this time. Everyone just went into normal postconcert mode. The roadies had to work extra hard tonight. They had to break down all the equipment at the arena, then set up for the Grant Park show. The other truck with the duplicate equipment was already in California, ready to set up for the next concert. Boone gave them their instructions because he was personally going to make sure we got back to the hotel safely—probably because he didn’t trust that Angela wouldn’t try something stupid. Like rappel out of her hotel window with bed sheets tied together, so she could go find her mom. I had a feeling Croc would be sleeping with us tonight. My nose twitched at the thought.
I tried very hard not to think about it, really I did. However, I kept puzzling over the fact that there was going to be a concert at the very same place Malak was scheduled to meet Number Two. And how the ghost cell always kept kidnapping people and trying to blow up stuff wherever Match was scheduled to perform. The White House, the Alamo Memorial—and now Malak was being ordered to go to Grant Park when it would be full of hundreds of … targets. And if I was wondering about it, there was no question Angela was thinking the same thing.
We were driving back to the hotel in one of the big limos. Heather once again assured everyone that Buddy would be fine.
“Sadly, this isn’t the first time this has happened. Every tour, Buddy feels like he’s not being listened to and he explodes and takes off. He gets over it, though. The thing is, Buddy T. loves the music business. I don’t think he could survive without it. He just needs to cool down, is all,” Heather said.
If you had watched my mom during the concert, you’d think she never had a care in the world. There was no indication she’d just had a big fight with her manager. On stage there was nothing but her, Roger, the music, and the audience. It was as if for that brief period of time playing, singing, and the songs took importance over anything else. I guess all great performers are like that. There’s an old cliché in show business: The show must go on. That night the show went on.
When I was growing up, my mom always told me, “People come and pay money to see you, Q. If you want to be a performer you owe it to them to give the best performance you can.” And Mom always appeared on stage like she had no other job to do but give the fans their money’s worth. Putting troubles out of her mind while in the spotlight is probably something she learned during all those years she was married to Speed.
Offstage, different story.
“He needs to cool down, all right,” she said. She was showing her angry face again. “I’ve got to tell you, Heather, I’m grateful to you for everything you’ve done. We both are.” Roger was sitting next to her and patted her on the knee to see if he could defuse things a little. No such luck.
Mom continued. “But Buddy T. is a problem. I know he has a job to do. I’d think by now he’d know how to use a little … finesse. That screaming act is growing tired.”
“I know, Blaze,” Heather said. “He’s temperamental. But you understand as well as I do, he’s the best manager in the business. He’s personally acquainted with every radio station owner, station manager, and disc jockey there is. His press contacts are second to none … he’s just … he’s Buddy T.,” she said, as if that explained everything.
Nobody talked about Buddy T. for the rest of the ride back to the hotel. Maybe we were just tired. Or it could be we were enjoying the calm. Anyway, we made it back to the Four Seasons. Agent Callaghan was there, waiting in the lobby to see Heather. We all stood around chatting and laughing. Mom and Roger are usually a little hyped up after their concerts. Everyone was jabbering back and forth, trying to decide if we wanted to hit the sack or get some food or whatever.
“Buddy isn’t answering his cell,” Heather said. “I’m going to call up to his room.” She stepped away to a line of house phones on the lobby wall. A few moments later she was back, a curious look on her face.
“What’s wrong?” Agent Callaghan asked.
“That’s weird,” Heather said. “Buddy has che
cked out of his room.”
“What?” Mom, Boone, and Roger all said at the same time.
“I don’t know,” Heather said. “I asked to be connected and they told me he checked out, about ninety minutes ago.”
“No messages?” Agent Callaghan asked.
“None,” Heather said. “I don’t recall him ever doing anything like this before.”
“I can’t believe he would just up and leave,” Mom said, sounding slightly guilty. “We’ve had worse arguments than the one we had tonight.”
Although nobody else noticed it, not even Marie and Art, who always kind of hovered around Mom and Roger, Boone and Agent Callaghan exchanged a look. It was brief, but it was there. Eye contact, frown, raised eyebrows, and then gone from their faces in a second. But like I’ve said, I’m going to be a magician someday, so I look for tells.
And then it hit me.
For some unknown reason, Buddy T. was in the wind.
And I had the itch.
In the Wind
“Don’t worry none ’bout Buddy, Heather, I’m pretty sure I can find him,” Boone said.
No matter how many times I heard him talk like that, the good-ole-boy drawl was always disconcerting.
“How would you do that, Boone?” Heather asked.
“Oh, I’ve worked with ole Buddy a long time. Like you said, ain’t the first time he tore out in a huff like this. I ’spect he’s in a bar somewhere, coolin’ off. He’ll be back, hat in hand, soon enough.” We all went to our rooms, mainly so Mom and Roger would think we were turning in for the night. The door between our rooms was open and Angela was plopped on her bed while I slumped in the chair in the corner. After a few minutes Agent Callaghan knocked on the door.
“Boone is waiting in the lobby; we’re going to help him look for Buddy,” he said.
I still had the itch. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why. Or why Boone would want our help in tracking down Buddy. Angela hadn’t seen the look they exchanged, like I had.
