“I’m dreading it,” the manager admitted. “All right, the black gauze. It’ll look great with your hair, Fionna, love. Lots of jewelry, now.” He pointed at the box on the table.
“I’ll get it,” Elizabeth said, pleased to get her hands on Fionna’s personal effects without anyone being the wiser. She turned over various necklaces and bracelets, trying each against the touchstone of her memory for protective characteristics. Not surprisingly, everything was a protective amulet of some kind. Fionna’d been doing a little reading up on her own. Again, not surprising, since as Phoebe she had taken a first-class degree. She understood research, and here was the fruit of it. Based on what was in the box Liz was beginning to feel that Fionna, at least, believed herself in real danger. Intuition was nothing Liz could put in her daily report to Mr. Ringwall, but it satisfied her that Fee was not merely crying wolf. Liz handed over several silver chains, all charmed for safety and peace, one at a time, and Laura arranged them around Fionna’s neck. As for a colored piece to set it all off, a bulky carnelian necklace looked the best with the mystical outfit they were shoving Fionna into, but it was a fire magnet. Not the best omen, in Elizabeth’s opinion, but it could channel outward as well as inward. She dropped a friendly cantrip of protection into the carved orange pendant just as the piece was snatched from her by Laura Manning.
“Just the thing, love,” Nigel said as the necklace was fastened around Fionna’s neck over the silver threads on the breast of the dull black tunic. He pulled her arm across his shoulder and stood, forcing her to her feet. She dangled loosely against him. “All right, Fionna, up we get. We’ll be meeting the public in twenty minutes.”
The magic word “public” was just the kind of impetus Fionna needed. Elizabeth was amused to see the rag doll turned suddenly into a dynamic superheroine on the short drive from the hotel to the broadcast facility. Patrick Jones and Lloyd Preston joined them in the limo. The hulking security man, dressed all in black like Frankenstein’s monster, gave Elizabeth a slightly resentful look as he sat down beside Fionna in the rear of the car, but he didn’t utter a word through the entire trip. Patrick sat close to Fionna on one side and drilled her on the upcoming interview while Laura sat on the other side and touched up the wild paint job on the star’s face. Boo-Boo and Elizabeth sat jammed side by side at one end of the padded bench opposite the manager, who was sharing his seat with a box of equipment and tapes.
“You’re meeting a woman called Verona Lambert,” Patrick Jones said, reading out of a well-worn binder. “She’s been at WBOY ten years, Fee. She’s a real fan. I’ve got a sheaf of photos for you to sign for her and the crew. Be a good girl and do all of them, won’t you?” He held out a large manila envelope.
“Right,” Fionna said, holding her hand out. Patrick slapped a fine-point permanent marking pen in it. Fionna opened the envelope and slid out a stack of black-and-white enlargements of her clutching a microphone in taloned hands. The image of her face was a pale canvas for the dramatic makeup that brought out her eyes, lips and cheekbones in chiaroscuro. Liz nodded her head in approval. Just the kind of photo fans would love. Fionna signed her name through the bottom right corner of the photo over the back of the left hand and wrist, circling the capital F around a Claddagh hands-and-crowned-heart ring on the forefinger. “Verona Lambert. Have we got the other names?”
Patrick read them off from his list. Fionna personalized each picture in turn. Liz, reading them upside down, realized that Fionna was making each dedication a little different than the others. A real pro, she thought with surprise. She’d been judging too much by the appearance. Green Fire ran like a machine, and Fionna was truly part of it.
Elizabeth admired the staff. They were organized, genuinely concerned for Fionna’s well-being, but very businesslike. Nigel had a cigarette for Fionna, but held it out of reach until she drank a repulsive, thick, pink shake he offered in his other hand.
“Brain food before you ruin your lungs, darling,” he said, waving the glass under her nose. “Come on. You can’t do an hour on an empty stomach. The cook in the Sonesta made it up just for you.”
“Ugh, it’s horrible,” Fionna sputtered, after downing the shake in three or four gulps. She seized the cigarette, lit it from the flame Nigel held out to her, and drew smoke deep into her lungs. Liz scented fresh strawberry before it was drowned out by the stink of tobacco. “It’s a sad thing when nicotine tastes better than something to eat. Thank God they let you smoke in this city. I thought it’d be another San Francisco.” She blew a plume of smoke out of the corner of her mouth toward the ceiling. “Anything else I have to know, Pat?”
“That’s all about the staff,” said Patrick Jones, with his palms pressed together like an altar boy’s. “Verona has the gen on the concert itself. All you have to do is talk about you. Now, remember, Fee, not a word about the attacks. They don’t exist, right?”
Fionna took a deep breath, and clasped a hand around the carnelian necklace and placed the other hand in Lloyd’s. He clenched it possessively, and shot an expression of triumph toward Liz. She refused to react. Let him protect her on this plane. Liz’s job was to deal with the Unseen, not the Seen. “Right. Let’s go in there.”
* * *
“So what brings you to N’Awlins, Ms. Kenmare?” Verona Lambert asked, her voice as smoky as the studio air. She was a chocolate-brown-skinned, plump woman with round cheeks, round eyes, and a huge pouf of straightened brown-black hair flattened over the top of her head by the earphone set she wore. The party was jammed into a small, dim room with pinholed acoustic tile on every surface but the floor. There were only three chairs, one for Verona, one beside her for Fionna, and one for the sallow-complected, thin, male producer/engineer who sat across the cluttered, beige console from them. Lloyd Preston inserted himself in between a couple of high consoles so he could stand next to Fionna. Occasionally she reached up to hold his hand. The rest of the party stood against the walls, not more than a couple of feet away. Square plastic cartridges stacked on a floor-to-ceiling rack jabbed Elizabeth in the back. The room was so close and hot she wondered if she might pass out. Her white, raw silk jacket was already sodden with sweat.
“Call me Fionna, me lovely. I think it’s one of the finest places I’ve ever seen,” Fionna said. Her accent made the word “foinest.” She looked Verona straight in the eyes while she talked. If she wasn’t sincere, she was one hell of a good actress. “Music’s me life. I’ve got to love a place where it’s on every street corner every night, where everybody plays or sings or listens to something every day. Music broadens your soul. I could click into this scene like I was born here.”
“Do you find much in common here with your music?” Verona asked, with a lift of her brows. “N’Awlins is a kind of a mix of Acadian French style with Afro-Caribbean rhythms. Jazz is like nothing else in all the world, honey. I have all Green Fire’s recordings, Fionna, and you’ll forgive me for saying so, but they don’t sound a thing alike to me.”
“They all come from the same place,” Fionna said, pounding her fist to her chest. “The heart. I’ve seen some people here, they’ve got nothing at all in all the world but their music. It’s lovely. It’s the same way I was as a child. I had nothing else, so I put my heart into the beauty I could hear.”
That was rich, Elizabeth thought. For someone who’d gone through finishing school, Oxford University and at least fifty thousand pounds of Daddy’s money, Fionna/Phoebe was very convincing as a North Dublin waif. She talked touchingly about her fictional childhood, her poverty, and the spirit that she felt that wouldn’t let her stop until she could share her songs with the rest of the world.
The radio presenter took it all nonjudgmentally, though, and led Fionna through a good interview, bringing out interesting facets of her career and the founding of Green Fire. She’d certainly done her homework. At five minutes to the hour, Verona looked at Fionna confidingly.
“And now, I’ve got to ask you, darling, why all the magical themes in your music? Is it a sincere interest on your part, or just a little something you throw in to please the fans? Because, I warn you, N’Awlins is a very magical place. If you fool around with the spirits, they’re goin’ to gitcha.”