Industrial Magic (14 page)

He grabbed me by the elbow, tugged me into the room, and propelled me through a mob of drill-wielding men working on what looked like a scaffold.

"You
are
Paige, right?" he asked, moving us along at warp speed.

"Uh, right."

"J.D. I'm Jaime's production manager. They didn't send you around the front, did they?"

I shook my head.

"Thank God. It is a zoo out there. We've been sold out since last week, but some moron at WKLT has been announcing all day that we still have seats available, and now we have a line from here to Cuba of very unhappy folks."

A pink-haired woman appeared from behind a heavy velvet curtain. "J.D., there's a problem with the sound levels. The acoustics in here are shit, and—"

"Just do your best, Kat. We'll take it up with the booking agent later."

He pushed me past the woman, then through the curtain. We stepped out onto a side stage, in front of a rapidly filling auditorium. I stopped to gape, but J.D. tugged me along, crossing the stage to the opposite side.

"What kind of—" I began.

J.D. stopped in mid-stride and I nearly bashed into him.

"I don't believe this," he said. "I don't fucking believe it. Tara! Tara!"

A woman scurried up the steps. She could have been J.D.'s twin, carrying a matching clipboard, just as slight and harried, not balding but looking ready to tear out her own hair.

"Front row," J.D. said. "Second seat right of the aisle. Is that not reserved for Jaime's guest?"

Tara consulted her clipboard. "A Ms. Winterbourne. Paige Winterbourne."

"This is Ms. Winterbourne," J.D. said, jerking a finger at me. Then he jabbed the same finger at the sixty-year-old platinum blond in the second seat. "That is not Ms. Winterbourne."

"I'll get security."

Tara disappeared behind the curtain. J.D. surveyed the theater, now nearly three-quarters full, with a steady stream flowing in.

"I hope they didn't overbook. Houston overbooked and it was an absolute nightmare." He stopped. "Oh, my god. Take a look at what's coming through the door now. Do you see what she's wearing? I didn't think those came in purple. Some people will do anything to catch Jaime's attention. In Buffalo last month—Oh, good. Your seat is clear. Follow me."

He kept his hand on my elbow, as if I might otherwise be swallowed by the crowd. A security guard escorted the platinum-haired grandmother down the aisle. She turned and shot a lethal glare at me. J.D. quick-marched us down the steps.

"Is front row okay? Not too close for you?"

"Uh, no. It's fine. This, uh, Jamey, is it? Is he around? Maybe I could—"

J.D. didn't seem to hear me. His gaze was darting over the crowd, like a sheepdog surveying an unruly mob of ewes.

"We needed more ushers. Ten minutes to show time. I told Jaime—" A watch check. "Oh, God, make that eight minutes. How the hell are they going to get everyone in here in eight minutes? Go ahead, sit down and get comfortable. I'll be out to see you at intermission. Enjoy the show."

He darted into a group of people and disappeared.

"Okay," I muttered. "Enjoy the show . . . whatever it is."

As I sat, I glanced at the people on either side of me, hoping one of them might be this Jaime guy, who I assumed was the necromancer I'd come to meet. To my left was a teenage girl with piercings in every imaginable location . . . and a few I would have preferred not to imagine. On my other side was an elderly woman in widow's weeds with her head bowed over a rosary. Talk about audience diversity. Now I was stumped. I couldn't imagine what kind of show would interest both of these people.

I looked around, trying to pick up some clues about the show from the theater, but the walls were covered in plain black velvet. Whatever the show was, I hoped I wasn't expected to sit through it before I spoke to this Jaime. Maybe after it started, he'd come out and get me. I guessed he was the theater owner or manager. Someone important, from what J.D. said. An odd profession for a necromancer. Unless this Jaime wasn't the necromancer. Maybe he was only the guy who would take me to the necromancer. Damn it! I didn't have time for this. I pulled out my cell phone, called Lucas's number again, but only got his voice mail.

I left a message. "I'm sitting in a theater right now, with absolutely no idea why I'm here, what's going on, or who I'm supposed to talk to. This better be good, Cortez, or I'm going to need a necromancer to contact
you.
"

I hung up, and glanced at my neighbors again. Not about to disturb the rosary-widow, I turned to the teen and offered my brightest smile.

"Packed house tonight, huh?" I said.

She glowered at me.

"Should be a great show," I said. "Are you a . . . fan?"

"Listen, bitch, if you raise your hand and get picked instead of me, I'll pop out your eyeballs."

I turned my endangered orbs back to the stage and inched closer to the rosary-widow. She glared at me and said something in what sounded like Portuguese. Now, I don't know a single word of Portuguese, but something in her voice made me suspect that, whatever she said, the translation would sound roughly like what pierced-girl beside me had said. I sunk into my seat and vowed to avoid eye contact for the rest of the show.

Music started, a soft, symphonic tune, far removed from the caterwauling rock backstage. The lights dimmed as the music swelled. A scuffle of activity as the last people scurried to their seats. The lights continued to fade until the auditorium was immersed in darkness.

More sounds of activity, this time coming from the aisle beside me. The music ebbed. A few lights appeared, tiny, twinkling lights on the walls and ceiling, followed by more, then more, until the room was lit with thousands, all casting the soft glow of starlight against the inky velvet.

A choral murmur of oohs and ahhs surged, and fell to silence. Absolute silence. No music. No chatter. Not so much as a throat-clearing cough.

Then, a woman's voice, in a microphone-amplified whisper.

"This is their world. A world of peace, and beauty, and joy. A world we all wish to enter."

The rosary-widow beside me murmured an "Amen," her voice joining a quiet wave of others. In the near-dark, I noticed a dim figure appear on stage. It glided out to the edge, and kept going, as if levitating down the center aisle. When I squinted, I could detect the dark form of a catwalk that had been quickly erected in the aisle while the lights were out. The woman's voice continued, barely above a whisper, as soothing as a lullaby.

"Between our world and theirs is a heavy veil. A veil most cannot lift. But I can. Come with me now and let me take you into their world. The world of the spirits."

The lights flickered and went bright. Standing midway down the raised catwalk was a red-haired woman, her back to those of us in the front rows.

The woman turned. Late thirties. Gorgeous. Bright red hair pinned up, with tendrils tumbling down around her neck. A shimmery emerald green silk dress, modestly cut, but tight enough not to leave any curve to the imagination. Dowdy wire-rimmed glasses completed the faux-professional ensemble. The old Hollywood "sex-goddess disguised as Miss Prim-and-Proper" routine. As the thought pinged through my brain, it triggered a wave of déjà vu. I'd seen this woman before, and thought exactly the same thing. Where . . . ?

A sonorous male voice filled the room.

"The Meridian Theater proudly presents, for one night only, Jaime Vegas."

Jaime Vegas. Savannah's favorite television spiritualist.

Well, I'd found my necromancer.

Diva of the Dead

"I'm sensing a male presence," Jaime murmured, somehow managing to walk and talk with her eyes closed. She headed toward the back of the theater. "A man in his fifties, maybe early sixties, late forties. His name starts with an M. He's related to someone in this corner."

She swept her arm, encompassing the rear left third of the room, and at least a hundred people. I bit my tongue to keep from groaning. In the last hour, I'd bitten it so often I probably wouldn't be able to taste food for a week. Over a dozen people in the "corner" Jaime had indicated started waving their arms, and five leapt to their feet, spot-dancing with excitement. Hell, I was sure if
anyone
in this audience searched their memories hard enough they could find a Mark or a Mike or a Miguel in their family who'd died in middle age.

Jaime turned to the section with the highest concentration of hand-wavers. "His name is Michael, but he says no one ever called him that. He was always Mike, except when he was a little boy, and some people called him Mikey."

An elderly woman suddenly wailed, and bowed forward, sucker punched by grief. "Mikey. That's my Mikey. My little boy. I always called him that."

I tore my gaze away, my own eyes filling with angry tears as Jaime bore down on her like a shark scenting blood.

"Is it my Mikey?" the old woman said, barely intelligible through her tears.

"I think it is," Jaime said softly. "Wait . . . yes. He says he's your son. He's asking you to stop crying. He's in a good place and he's happy. He wants you to know that."

The woman mopped her streaming tears and tried to smile.

"There," Jaime said. "Now he wants me to mention the picture. He says you have a photograph of him on display. Is that right?"

"I—I have a few," she said.

"Ah, but he's talking about a certain one. He says it's the one he always hated. Do you know which one he means?"

The old woman smiled and nodded.

"He's laughing," Jaime said. "He wants me to give you heck for putting up that photo. He wants you to take that down and put up the one of him at the wedding. Does that make sense?"

"He probably means his niece's wedding," the woman said. "She got married right before he died."

Jaime looked off into space, eyes unfocused, head slightly tilted, as if hearing something no one else could. Then she shook her head. "No, it's another wedding picture. An older one. He says to look through the album and you'll find it. Now, speaking of weddings . . ."

And on it went, from person to person, as Jaime worked the crowd, throwing out "personal" information that could apply to almost any life—What parent doesn't display pictures of their kids? What person doesn't have photos they hate? Who doesn't have wedding photos in their albums?

Even when she misjudged, she was perceptive enough to read confusion on the recipient's face before they could say anything, backtrack, and "correct" herself. On the very few occasions that she completely struck out, she'd tell the person to "go home and think about it, and it'll come to you," as if their memory was to blame, not her.

This Jaime might really be a necromancer, but she wasn't using her skills here. As I'd told Savannah, no one—not even a necro—could "dial up the dead" like this. What Jaime Vegas did was a psychological con job, not far removed from psychics who tell young girls "I see wedding bells in your future." Having lost my mother the year before, I understood why these people were here, the void they ached to fill. For a necromancer to profit from that grief with false tidings from the other side . . . well, it didn't make Jaime Vegas someone I wanted to work with.

***

The dressing room smelled like a funeral parlor. Appropriate, I suppose. I looked for chairs, and found one under a bouquet of two dozen black roses. I didn't know roses came in black.

J.D. had escorted me here before being dragged off by his assistant, who'd been muttering something about a man refusing to leave his seat until Jaime summoned his dead mother.

After clearing the chair of roses, I tried calling Lucas again. Still no answer. Avoiding my calls, I suspected. Damn call display. I was phoning home for messages when the door opened and Jaime wheeled in.

"Paige, right?" she said, gulping air. The glasses were gone, and the loosened tendrils of hair that had looked so artfully arranged on stage now clung, sweat-sodden, to her neck and face. "Please tell me it's Paige."

"Uh, yes. I—"

"Oh, thank God. I was running back here and suddenly thought, what if that wasn't her? and I was winking at some strange girl and inviting her to join me backstage, which is exactly what I do not need. My place in the tabloids is ensured without that. So, Paige—"

She stopped and looked around, then opened the door and shouted. "Hello! Did I ask—?"

A tray appeared from behind the door, floating in midair. Presumably there was some flunky behind the door holding it. Or so I hoped. With necromancers, one can never be sure.

She grabbed the tray, then lifted the bottle of single-malt Scotch. "What are you people trying to do to me? I said no booze tonight. I have an engagement. No booze, no caffeine. Like I'm not bouncing off the walls enough as it is." She eyed the bottle longingly, then shut her eyes and thrust it out. "Take it, please."