Broken Piano for President (48 page)

“Henry,” Roland Winters says with a stern, fatherly tongue. “This takes top priority, understand?”

“Whose priorities?”

“Yeah,” Juan says with a cymbal tap.

“Oh no,” Ireland or Hogan says, whichever is closest to the CEO. “We have lots of time. We’ll gladly wait until after the…
performance
. Right partner?”

His partner agrees.

“Well, alright then, let’s get some drinks, sound good?” Winters says, putting a hand on each detective’s back. “Ever drank merlot from a box? Delicious. My father loved it.”

Henry and Pandemic gawk with foreign confusion.

“Oh, and one last thing,” the buzzcut says. “We have orders to use force if necessary. You know, just in case you get any wild ideas.”

Malinta Redding pushes her on-again/off-again boyfriend down the emergency exit stairwell. His sober senses are scrambled from the recent financial loss. A Hundred. Thousand. Dollars.
Poof
.
His feet don’t even stop shuffling until they realize Malinta’s cattle-prodding him down gray cement steps two at a time.

“Wait, whoa, easy,” he says, as the fog in his brain burns off like San Francisco around lunchtime. The stairs smell like basement. Walls are wet and cold against fingertips. “I need to get back up there. We still have a gig.”

“Just move, it’s almost ten. Go, sweetie, run,” she says, shoving the back of his head, descending a spiral of blocky steps.

His voice echoes from the stairwell basement to the rooftop: “Malinta, are you out of your mind? If we don’t play that show my career is over.”

“Deshler, if you play that show you’ll be
dead
.”

“Psssst, Henry,” a whisper forms in the dark behind the stage. “Henry, quick, back here.”

Hamler flips off the mask and sharpens his espionage reflexes. The handbook doesn’t specifically reference what to do when a strange voice calls your name from the dark. Henry thinks for a second that the book should, though—what could be more spy-like than creepy voices and shadows?

“Hello?” Henry says, stiffening fists, inching toward the black wall of the Beef Club.

For the second time in a day, Henry Hamler nearly jams his boyfriend’s nose cartilage through his brain. Hostility Defense #01
,
some call it.

“Martin!” The clutch of his heart finds an extra gear and stomps the gas. Henry swoops low, out of breath, arms going tight around his man. Squeezing, squeezing, squeezing. Martin’s hair smells, as expected, great. Henry never thought he’d smell it again—it’s a comfort, a thrill. Kisses follow so fast Henry doesn’t even examine them, he just repeats.

“Grab Juan, those two guys aren’t cops.” Martin says, wiggling from the hug. “If you two are left alone with them for five seconds they’ll pry your spine out through your throat.”

“Thank God you’re okay. I thought for sure they killed you.” He stops and takes a deep breath. The moment he’s been dreaming about pauses when he thinks about the band. The urge for another kiss is tough to fight, but he manages. Martin looks so dead serious about this. “I’m sorry, but we have to play a show, I promised Juan. It’s
the
biggest gig of our lives. I’m sorry, I can’t. I have combat training. I can handle these guys.”

“Henry, it’s me. Why would I tell you something if it wasn’t important?”

Hamler leans closer, crouching down to lip-level. Thinking about another round. “Where have you been? What happened?”

Martin comes into the light, so handsome and pure. “Not sure, I woke up in a highway underpass. Didn’t Pandemic see?”

“Don’t ask him.”

“The radio was
really
dirty,” he says from behind the drums.

“Look, I have a hunch. Nobody at headquarters seems to agree, but I can’t see something happen to you. You mean too much to me.”

“Dean, if you play that show you’ll be
dead
.”

The second Malinta’s lips close, the stairs jerk back and forth. There’s a crashing, squealing explosion from the eighteenth floor. Lumps of concrete jar loose and twirl down the stairwell. The noise is so violent it could be a Lothario Speedwagon jam session pumped through nightmare-loud speakers.

Dean smells fireworks. Burnt hair. Bonfires.

The explosion barrel-rolls Malinta and Deshler across the stairs and smashes them against walls. A string of
kabooms
lob the pair further down the concrete.

Lights flicker off in a hellish strobe effect that reminds Deshler of that Butthole Surfers concert so many years ago, but with a higher chance of concussion.

An alien fear finds Dean:
Save Malinta
.
Is she okay?

How’s that alien?
you’re probably saying. It is a foreign jolt when you’ve never, ever, not once since being shipped off to foster care, worried about another person but yourself.

It’s a shock.

“Tonight on a very special
Nightbeat
,” Sharon Smalley says.

It’s ten at night and our show begins. After the bike messenger delivered a DVD with a handwritten note, the producer canned tonight’s initial episode about volcano-proofing your home.

“Shocking footage of the Moscow Two and their captives. Hostage Carl Janomi, better known as imposter cosmonaut, Dimitri Nimov, and his daring undercover surveillance footage.” The theme music rises to its climax. “The mystery of the cosmonaut reign of terror will finally be answered on
Nightbeat
.”

Commercials start.

Malinta is fine. She’s actually the one dragging Dean. She swings open the exit door at the bottom of the crumbling stairs. Bright sunshine ignites above them. The dead Friday night street is lit up like noon as another apocalyptic bomb rattles through the building. The smell of charcoal and tire fires sweep over the city. Dean begins sweating.

Deshler coughs ash and noxious gases outside his old valet post. Black slime drools to the cement.

A rush of relief pillows Malinta’s brain as the Beef Club windows explode like laughter in church. Pellets of flaming concrete and mahogany and body parts rain across the street. The mission is a success.

Things fell behind schedule tonight. Lothario Speedwagon was actually supposed to perform. But rock concerts rarely start on time—too many unscripted moments with voyeuristic valets and buzzcut detectives. Malinta honestly wanted Dean to have that last gig with his friends.

But
, she thinks, marveling at their luck when Dean switched venues.
This works out for the best. More birds, less stones.

Henry’s bass amp was plugged tight as a tube of cookie dough with thirty pounds of plastic explosives. The speaker system shredded apart in a fiery pop that melted the club’s windows at exactly ten o’clock. This triggered Pandemic’s floor tom and the oil drum—both weighed down heavy with an explosive fertilizer compound. At least that’s how Malinta was told it would happen.

She hates not being more hands-on. But Wally is supposed to be an expert at demolition. Her assistant is also said to be pretty slick. Rumor has it Wally spent time in the CIA. The explosives team supposedly had plenty of time to set up the trap. Plus, Malinta reminds herself, she’s been trying not to be such a control freak. It’s no way for a respectable lady to behave.

Nightbeat
grabs our viewers by the throat the instant teeth whitening gel commercials end. Grainy home video footage ignites across the screen like Pandemic’s drum kit. It’s not a great shot, it wouldn’t even fly at Sundance, but it’s pretty simple to make out Henry Hamler and that scrubby beard standing in a bus full of bullet holes. He waves his doughy hands around explaining to his boyfriend, drummer and two terrorist cosmonauts everything we already know: there’s a spy network amongst the two burger giants, he murdered Christopher Winters under orders from Roland and he was told to execute the VP of Bust-A-Gut’s Marketing. Juan Pandemic confesses his sins: he’s actually Timothy Winters—hardcore meth addict, son of Roland and contest winner. Martin explains his role, as well as how commonly he kills with orders from Findlay and Lepsic—he lists off Winters employees, foreign diplomats, rogue fry cooks, and the original Bonzo the Burger Clown as victims.