director stash it in the back, and if Auntie C doesn’t like it, she can go spit. Tell Holly that, okay?”
The discreetly hovering funeral director shows Hodges into the next room, where drinks and snacks have been arranged. He gets a bottle of Dasani water and takes it out to the parking lot. He passes on Janey’s message and sits with Holly until she takes one of her little white happy-caps. When it’s down, she smiles at him. “I really do like you.”
And, using that splendid, police-trained capacity for telling the convincing lie, Hodges replies warmly, “I like you too, Holly.”
12
The Midwest Culture and Arts Complex, aka the MAC, is called “the Louvre of the Midwest” by the newspaper and the local Chamber of Commerce (the residents of this midwestern city call it “the Loovah”). The facility covers six acres of prime downtown real estate and is dominated by a circular building that looks to Brady like the giant UFO that shows up at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This is Mingo Auditorium.
He wanders around back to the loading area, which is as busy as an anthill on a summer day. Trucks bustle to and fro, and workers are unloading all sorts of stuff, including—weird but true—what looks like sections of a Ferris wheel. There are also flats (he thinks that’s what they’re called) showing a starry night sky and a white sand beach with couples walking hand-in-hand at the edge of the water. The workers, he notes, are all wearing ID badges around their necks or clipped to their shirts. Not good.
There’s a security booth guarding the entrance to the loading area, and that’s not good, either, but Brady wanders over anyway, thinking No risk, no reward. There are two guards. One is inside, noshing a bagel as he monitors half a dozen video screens. The other steps out to intercept Brady. He’s wearing sunglasses. Brady can see himself reflected in the lenses, with a big old gosh-this-is-interesting smile on his face.
“Help you, sir?”
“I was just wondering what’s going on,” Brady says. He points. “That looks like a Ferris wheel!”
“Big concert here Thursday night,” the guard says. “The band’s flogging their new album. Kisses on the Midway, I think it’s called.”
“Boy, they really go all out, don’t they?” Brady marvels.
The guard snorts. “The less they can sing, the bigger the set. You know what? When we had Tony Bennett here last September, it was just him. Didn’t even have a band. The City Symphony backed him up. That was a show. No screaming kids. Actual music. What a concept, huh?”
“I don’t suppose I could go over for a peek. Maybe snap a picture with my cell phone?”
“Nope.” The guard is looking him over too closely. Brady doesn’t like that. “In fact, you’re not supposed to be here at all. So . . .”
“Gotcha, gotcha,” Brady says, widening his smile. Time to go. There’s nothing here for him, anyway; if they have two guys on duty now, there’s apt to be half a dozen on Thursday night. “Thanks for taking the time to talk to me.”
“No problem.”
Brady gives him a thumbs-up. The security goon returns it, but stands in the doorway of the security booth, watching him walk away.
He strolls along the edge of a vast and nearly empty parking lot that will be filled to capacity on the night of the ’Round Here show. His smile is gone. He’s musing on the numbfuck ragheads who ran a pair of jetliners into the World Trade Center nine years before. He thinks (without the slightest trace of irony), They spoiled it for the rest of us.
A five-minute trudge takes him to the bank of doors where concertgoers will enter on Thursday night. He has to pay a five-dollar “suggested donation fee” to get in. The lobby is an echoing vault currently filled with art-lovers and student groups. Straight ahead is the gift shop. To the left is the corridor leading to the Mingo Auditorium. It’s as wide as a two-lane highway. In the middle of it is a chrome stand with a sign reading NO BAGS NO BOXES NO BACKPACKS.
Also no metal detectors. It’s possible they haven’t been set up yet, but Brady’s pretty sure they won’t be used at all. There are going to be over four thousand concertgoers pushing to get in, and metal detectors booping and beeping all over the place would create a nightmarish traffic jam. There will be mucho security guards, though,