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A high-pitched commotion was taking place. I tried to wiggle around it, but the press of bodies filing into the hall was too thick. It was the singer who was married to the butthead. Enid. She was having a snit fit. I didn’t want to know the details, but someone was wheeling a fucking piano into the hall, and it blocked my way.
“... cannot believe that guy! That asshole! Can you believe what he said to me?” She caught my eye and promptly directed her outrage toward me before I could slink away. “He shoved me!” she shrieked. “And called me a slut! How dare he?”
“Calm down, baby. Don’t freak. There are concert presenters everywhere,” the butthead pretty boy muttered desperately. “You don’t want to look unhinged, okay?”
“Calm down? Screw you, Petey! I was, like, attacked in public, and all you can say is just calm down?” She turned her bulging-eyed gaze to me. “He shoved me!” she repeated shrilly. “I almost fell! Right on my ass!”
“Who shoved you?” I asked her, out of sheer reflexive politeness.
“The producer asshole! But you know what I think? I bet he wasn’t a producer at all. I mean, he didn’t look like one. He didn’t have that Hollywood gloss, you know? Plus, he was big and beefy, and he had bad breath. Like, nobody’s beefy with bad breath in Hollywood, right? And why would he want to talk to Nancy, and not to me? I mean, like, I’m the talent, right? She’s just—” Enid struggled for a word sufficiently dismissive—“administrative help!”
The hairs on my neck prickled. Ice cold talons sank into my gut.
No. Big beefy guy. Bad breath. Wanted Nancy. Oh no, no, no, no, no.
I grabbed Enid’s arm. “Did he go with her? Where did he go?”
She goggled at me, and I gave her arm an impatient little shake.
“Do you mind?” she sniffed, wrenching away from my grip. “He went after her, toward the restaurant. She’s welcome to him. Rude, violent, sick son of a bitch!”
“What does he look like?” I demanded.
“Hey!” the butthead blustered. “Don’t touch my wife!”
“Fuck off.” I didn’t even turn to look at him. “What does he look like, Enid? Hair color, eyes? Talk to me, goddammit!”
Enid had started to look scared. “Um, longish black hair, slicked back?” Her voice had gone small and uncertain. “A goatee, and, um, a black leather jacket.”
I lost the rest, already shoving my way through the crowd amidst shouts and grunts of protest. Fear propelled me toward the restaurant at a pounding run.
I’d lose too much time if I stopped to get out the gun and load it. I had to run after her without it. I jogged through the restaurant, checking tables. No Nancy.
Think, meathead. Think. The door to the kitchen burst open. A harried-looking waitress came bursting out. Behind her, there was some sort of commotion in the kitchen. People were yelling.
Good enough for me. I pushed through the swinging door. A woman caught sight of me and ran forward, holding up her hands to bar my way.
“Hey! No customers in here!” she yelled. “Get back! Right now!”
“What happened?” I demanded.
“It was so gross!” a girl confided. “This lady was sick to her stomach, and the guy gets the bright idea to drag her through the kitchen? Like, that’s so unhygienic! She could have had some disgusting virus, right? The Board of Health could shut us down for—hey! Where are you going? Hey!”
I barreled through the press of people in the kitchen, ignoring shouts of protest. I slipped, arms flailing, in a long, harrowing slalom down the straightaway between two rows of range tops, sliding in a skid of yellowish sauce, barely keeping my feet.
I lurched out the door, reeling. This was a loading bay. Garbage dumpsters. Nothing moving here. I took off, heart thudding, for the parking lot.
I scanned the lot. Saw a harried mother pushing a stroller. A young couple. A retirement-age man and his blue-haired wife getting out of a sedan, arguing. Their raised voices floated over. A big guy with shaggy hair in a yellow fringed coat was rolling a string bass behind him. There was no black-haired goateed guy, no black leather jacket.
No Nancy. Goddamnit. Think.
I looked around the parking lot again. The man and his wife passed by, still haranguing each other. Their babble did not penetrate my mind. I stared at the parking lot and everyone in it, feeling with my senses. Trying to still my mind.
Doubts assailed me. Maybe Nancy was in the hall, safe and sound, conducting her business. And I was out here chasing phantoms created by my own overheated brain.
Then again … maybe not. Big, beefy guy. Bad breath.
I gave the yellow-coated man a second look. He slowed to a stop and looked around over his shoulder at me. Sun glinted off his mirrored sunglasses. He looked at me for a second, and then turned away, but when he started to move again, he was moving slightly faster. His big instrument case rattled and bumped behind him.