Melody Burning (13 page)

The phone rang again. He snatched it up.

“Where is he?” It was a female voice, young—and familiar.

“Excuse me?”

“Let me tell you something. You might work hand in glove with my mother. You might suck up to her, but you
will
suffer for what you did. Damn you!” And then
click.

He did not need that little fireball on his ass, that was for sure.

The detectives were watching him. They looked like a couple of poured-out old doofuses, but that, he knew from too much experience with detectives, was just a shtick. The thing about detectives was that until they suspected someone, they suspected everyone. They were never without suspicion, not the good ones, and the LAPD had a lot of good ones.

“If there’s anything else I can help you with?”

For a moment, they both stared at him in silence. Finally, the tall one unfolded himself and stood up. “We’ll get it figured out,” he said. “It all comes together in the end, am I right?”

They left, wandering off down the hall, seemingly oblivious but, he felt sure, taking everything in. They’d be suspicious as hell now. They’d assume that he was concealing something, because how could this kid have been in here without being noticed?

When they went after Frank’s records in the system, what happened then? If there was the least thing wrong with whatever paperwork Szatson had used to get him released, there was gonna be a world of trouble coming his way.

He opened his bottom desk drawer and took out the bottle of vodka he kept there. Took a big swig, then again.

The phone rang. Szatson. Dammit.

“Mr. Szatson, may I help you?”

“Get over here now—we need to talk pronto.”

Frank hung up, took two more long pulls on the bottle, and left.

He drove the streets almost blindly, trying to convince himself that the thing to do was to just keep driving. Head east, maybe to Vegas. You could get lost there, live on odd jobs. There was always something to do in Vegas, if you were willing to work the bottom.

Problem was, if he went into the wind now, the detectives would certainly follow.

He went up Szatson’s driveway, stopped for the entrance gate, then parked his old Plymouth. For a moment, he sat still, trying to get his mind to slow down. He was gonna be raked over the coals here. He needed his wits about him.

Szatson pulled the door open.

“Frank, this is a mess.”

“It got away from me.” He followed Szatson into the dark, silent cavern of a house.

“Let’s get it fixed,” Szatson said.

“Mr. Szatson, I collected the materials that—”

Szatson turned on him. “That what?”

“That the kid saw.”

“Goddammit! And you’re certain of this?”

“We have to assume it.”

“And he’s in the juvenile system.”

“He’s at Westview, transferring tomorrow to the Willamette Camp above Los Feliz.”

“Well, then let me ask you another question. Can you handle it?”

“There’s nothing for me to handle. He’s gone. He’s in the system.”

“Frank, do you understand how much money is involved here?” Szatson asked.

He nodded.

“A whole world of money. Money that is
obligated
.” Szatson fingered what appeared to be some sort of college ring. “All over the world. Russia, China, Myanmar.”

If people in places like that didn’t get repaid, they killed you. So Mr. Szatson was in danger, too.

“We need to get this done, Frank,” Szatson added. “I’m giving you a chance to fix it, but understand that it’s a last chance.”

Frank nodded. But he still didn’t understand. “Fix it how?”

“Do the damn kid! Reach in there and do him!”

Was this possible? Of course it was. It was always possible to hit somebody on the inside.

“You don’t need to worry about the kid,” Frank said. “The kid is finished.”

“When?”

He would have to reach into juvie, which meant going to the gangs. He had some connections there, guys who did fires for him.

“Couple days.”

“Tonight, damn you! No later.”

He nodded. So he was committed to his first murder, and the most dangerous kind. Hits went wrong. People sang to save themselves from hard time.

“Tonight,” he said. “For sure.”

C
HAPTER 13

You never forget a boy who touched your soul but had to go.
Your heart follows him until it ’s lost.
But you’ ll never stop, no matter the cost.

I
have to get him out. I have to get him back. But I still don’t even know where he is, and I have no name! I think I’m going to go totally insane here.

I want him. I can help him grow and become a real person. He is so innocent and vulnerable, and I am so upset that my brain is buzzing with images of him being beaten up or screaming his lungs out in some cage. I don’t think I can bear another night of the sleepless hell I endured last night.

I tell myself, “Girl, you hardly know him—he’s some kind of a freak who lives in walls,” but then I remember the joy sparkling in his eyes when he looked at me, and I think love that pure has value.

Innocence like his is almost unknown in this world, and to touch it as I have is an incredible privilege. I want to take him in my arms and make him safe. And I can, I know I can. If only I can find him.

And yet, work goes on. My concert is Saturday night,
this Saturday night
! I look at my MySpace and Facebook pages—they are swarming. Speculation. Anticipation. The story of Mom’s freakathon over my music is all over the place.

One thing, Mom is aware of her mistake. Today we went up to the Greek for rehearsal, and she didn’t have her sweet old composer there to feed me ditties. Of course she ruined all my scratch tracks, so my music won’t be available for download and the album is delayed six weeks, but at least it will be my music, my real music.

The
People
reporter got right to her blog and went all hissy, and, guess what, now my fans want my music as never before. Mom as the Wicked Witch of the West is laughing all the way to the bank. She staged that one brilliantly.

If it’s to ensure my success, Mom isn’t afraid to make me hate her. She isn’t afraid to make my fans despise her. It’s an act so good that even I believe it.

So, the Greek Theatre. I looked out off that stage and was amazed at how huge the Greek actually is. And get this: there were fans waiting for me when I came this morning for sound check—a couple hundred of them who had been hanging out there for hours just hoping to say hello.

I was supposed to be driven right up to the stage entrance, so their wait would have been for nothing, but Mom made the driver stop, and I got out and hung with them for a while. Julius was so nervous that he practically exploded. A couple of guys gave me phone numbers. Everybody who had the CD of my first album got it signed in metallic blue ink.

My fans made me feel better. Some of them look really fierce. Bikers. Gang boys. Go figure.

For a few minutes, I didn’t think about him. But the second I was on that big, lonely stage, my mind went back to a torment of worry: Where is he? What’s happening to him now? Will I ever see him again? And when? Last night I lay awake in bed just wishing that he would somehow escape and I would hear his breathing through the wall again.

If only I hadn’t been scared of him. If only I hadn’t complained to Mom, he would still be there and we’d have our little secret nest in the crawl space. No matter what happens to him, he will never return to life in the walls of the Beresford. I’ll teach him about the world; I’ll teach him everything he needs to know. I’ll even hire him. He can be a roadie, and I’ll get a tour bus, and we can live on it together between tours.

It’s all a total fantasy, I know that. They will never let him out. The building will accuse him of all kinds of crimes, because Mom says the super told her he did robberies and all. I fear that our love will be, for him, a brief spark lost in the past. But for me, it will still be in my heart just as it is now.

The one good thing that has happened is that my band is coming together. We had some strong rehearsals today, and I had the added fun of watching Mom suck her plastic cigarette when I did “Flying on Forever.” She hates that song the most because she thinks it’s about teen suicide. I don’t know. I just like being on the edge.

I’ve thought up a plan to save my beautiful boy. I disguise myself and pretend I am his mother. Yeah, right.

Another plan: I break into the juvie tank. I looked at it online, and this does not look impossible . . . for a professional safecracker or whatever.

When I got home, I had a frozen burrito for dinner—bad girl, slap your hand—it was cheesy and delish. I also drank a beer, which was great until I discovered that Kaliber couldn’t put a buzz on a gerbil. Now that dear Dr. Singer has gone the way of all her other instant boyfriends, Mom has replaced his Chimay with something I could safely steal.

Okay, girl, you have to get with the program and stop coming up with ridiculous plans because you need to do two things: First, find him. Second, get him out of there.

I thought of calling our lawyers, but they would instantly call Mommy dearest, and then I would probably end up chained to my bed with duct tape over my mouth—except for rehearsals tomorrow and Friday, of course. And the concert. Oh, how amazing,
the concert
. The last one had, what, two hundred and fifty people? It looked great because the room was small. I know they call the Greek small, but that’s not how it looks to me. It’s this positive
ocean
and incredibly scary.

I’m all over the place. This is happening because I can’t figure out a thing to do to help him. Except—what if I were to report him as a missing person? How do you do that? Is there a Web site? Or, no, you probably have to do it in person at the police station, which is where?

What if I just go to the big juvie facility in East LA and say he’s my autistic brother? I’m his guardian, except I think you have to be twenty-one for that.

Maybe the thing to do is go down to the parking garage, get in the Mercedes, and drive over there. Except I’ve had my license since my birthday, which was less than twelve months ago, therefore I can’t drive between eleven
P.M
. and five
A.M
.—thank you, California.

I could take a cab. Get there, talk my way in, get visitation. I know it says on the Web site no visitation, but maybe it’s not all that cut-and-dried—you never know. Does money talk? Bet so.

I pull down my hair, wash my face totally plain, then put on my dark glasses. I look sort of like a vampire who’s pretending to be me. I put on this Vincent Napoli lipstick, “It’s Not Me,” which is this sort of Goth-insane purple-black color. I hit my face with a bunch of white foundation, and now I look like some punk moron trying to do Angelina Jolie as if she was a punk moron.

Okay, heavy disguise and I am gone. Mom left a while ago, so hopefully she’s reconnected with Dapper D or the Wolverine or whoever and is off playing house somewhere far away.

Julius is on call. Do they have something rigged up that lets him know if the door is opened? Probably, so I have to move fast.

I hit the hallway and run down four stories, then take the elevator, clever girl. As I go down, I hear the faint
whoosh
of the car beside this one going up.

“A cab. I need a cab, please.”

“And you are?”

I lean close to the building attendant. Lower my glasses just a tad, look over them. “I’m Angie Jolie.”

“Oh, wow! I mean, sure! Uh . . .”

Angelina Jolie would, of course, never need a cab, but the woman makes the call anyway, and I go out and sit on one of the benches, hoping that Julius does not—“Hello, Mel.”

“Hi, Jules.”

“You goin’ out?”

“Not to a public place, so you can go back to your room.”

He sits down beside me. “We can take the Mercedes. I’ll drive you.”

Actually, it might work if he doesn’t go apeshit on the spot. If I say the truth, either I’m ruined or I get my chance.

“Will you take me to juvie in East LA?”

“Where that streeter was taken?”

“He lived here! This was his home!”

“Whatever. Look, you got a thing for him, don’t you? Your mother already ripped me about it, although she had to admit that I’m not gonna be able to monitor the crawl space.”

“Take me, Julius, please!”

“You tell her we went to the Star Room, and it’s a deal.”

“Will she believe that, Jules? That I would go there, ever? I mean, they do the foxtrot there.”

“She won’t believe it. But she will believe me when I tell her it wasn’t some rock-’n’-roll pharmacy like M&M.”

So I agree to say I went dancing the foxtrot, and we get in the Merc to go to the juvie facility.

I am so incredibly happy until we arrive. Now what? What do I do—go in with my bodyguard and say I want to see a big blond kid with no name, the one who came out of the wall at the Beresford?

As Julius stops the car, he tells me, “You will see some real sad stuff in there, Mel. Saddest stuff you’ve ever seen, so be prepared. And don’t bring me out a bunch of vagrant kids to feed, okay? Promise me.”