"I'm going to talk to the square badges once more, " Natalie radioed. "Make certain they know how to use the copies of the handout."
We all radioed back confirmations.
"Doors open in five minutes, " Corry said.
Again, we radioed confirmations.
Palmetto finished with Her Ladyship, and it seemed to have gone well, because he left her laughing, then stopped to speak with me before leaving the room.
"Kodiak, right?" he asked, offering me his hand.
"Right," I said, trying to decide what to do with the potential shake. If I took it, one of my hands would be busy. If I didn't, I'd be rude. I decided it was safe enough in the room to be polite. "Nice to meet you."
"Hey, it's my pleasure." He smiled at me the same way he had at Lady Ainsley-Hunter. "Listen, you and your colleagues, you ought to do the show sometime, maybe next week, what do you think? We could do the whole hour with you guys, talk about your job, the work, Skye Van Brandt, stuff like that. We could even get that other writer, the journalist with the book. What do you think?"
"We're busy through the month," I said.
The soothe-the-celebrity smile didn't falter. "No problem. Tell you what, leave me a card or something, we'll get in touch, work it out."
"I'll do that," I lied.
He offered his hand again, and because I'd accepted the first time, I was obligated to once more. Then he went out into the hall, and I shut the door, turned back to see Lady Ainsley-Hunter saying something to Chester and the woman who was touching up her hair; both laughed. The hairdresser was gray-haired, very thin, and kept a long cigarette parked behind her ear.
"Tinkerbell, " Dale said over the radio. "Two of the Lost Boys are here to see you."
"Stand by," I said. "Hook, check six."
"Check six, confirmed, " Moore said. "Be about a minute."
Both Chester and Her Ladyship glanced my way.
"Nothing serious," I told them. "Moore's going to spell me here. I've got to step out for a second."
"Check six?" Chester asked.
"It's a sneaky way of saying 'I need to step outside,' " I said. "Keeps anyone listening from knowing what we're up to."
The hairdresser finished what she was doing and I let her out of the dressing room as Moore arrived. He took over my post, and I went down the long hallway to the back door, passing two security guards along the way. I stopped long enough to make certain both had the handout, asking them to each show me theirs, and they glared at me.
"We know who we're looking for," the younger of the two said. "We've been doing this for a while."
"Prove it to me," I said.
"Just because we're not famous doesn't mean we don't know how to do our jobs," the other one complained. He had the shoulders and upper arms of a person who has spent too much time lifting weights to the neglect of everything below the waist and, apparently, above the neck.
I smiled at the two of them, thanked them for their help, and continued out the back. Bridgett and Fowler were there, standing with Dale by the parked cars. Bridgett frowned when she saw me.
"You're ill," she said.
"And now cranky," I said. "Dale, get inside and have the two guards in the hall replaced with another set, please. They've got an attitude problem."
Dale rolled his shoulders and pretended to crack his knuckles, as if preparing to hand out a beating. "Me go be mean now," he said.
I turned back to Bridgett and Scott. "Keith's not in Newark?"
"We tracked him to a Best Western in Nyack," Fowler said. "He was there last night, checked out this morning. We missed him by maybe an hour. Got a positive visual I.D., but nothing on his transportation and no idea where he went next. He didn't make any calls and he didn't leave anything behind."
"But you two are here," I said.
Bridgett put the back of her right hand to my forehead, and I moved my head back, irritated. "You've got a fever."
"I feel fine. Why are you two here?"
"Because there's a chance Keith's coming here," Bridgett said, squinting at me, as if trying to see the virus clambering about in my bloodstream. "And we don't know where else to look."
"And we're both fans of the show," Scott said. "Where do you want us?"
"If you'd like to head around the front and meet up with Corry, two extra pairs of eyes couldn't hurt."
The door behind us opened and Dale emerged, grinning. "Taken care of," he reported. "I talked to Palmetto, he moved Heckle and Jeckle to the fire exits in the studio."
I nodded, then radioed Corry to tell him that the Lost Boys would be coming around to join him. All posts radioed back a confirmation, and Scott and Bridgett followed me back inside. A new guard was in the hall, and before we had even reached him, he had produced his copy of the handout and held it up for me to see.
"Thank you," I said.
The guard grunted.
When we reached the dressing room Scott and Bridgett kept going, but not before Bridgett stopped long enough to squeeze my hand and give me another kiss.
"Midge wanted to know if we're still friends," I told her.
"We're still friends."
"I'm asking for her sake more than my own."
"That perky bitch wants into your pants. If I sleep at your place tonight, I'll shoot her."
"How do you know she's after me? Maybe she's hoping you're available."
"The only thing that isn't straight about that woman is her perm," Bridgett said.
At oh-nine-hundred, Natalie came on the net to let us know that the house doors were being opened. I passed the news along to Her Ladyship, and we all settled in to wait. After fifteen minutes, the stage manager came back to check on us, saying that if Her Ladyship wished to move backstage, that would be fine.
I got on the radio again. "Wendy and Peter to station two."
The confirmations came back in their normal order, and we headed down the hall toward the stage. The set for the show was designed to look like the living room in some lavish penthouse apartment, with a fake Manhattan skyline painted on the backdrop. The audience noise was muted backstage, but it sounded like a lot of people. We stood to one side while stagehands scrambled back and forth with final preparations, and then Palmetto came by once more, just to check on everything, before heading to his position just off the stage.
"You'd think they'd introduce me to the hosts," Lady Ainsley-Hunter said.
"It's American television," I said. "The assumption is that you already know them."
"Is that really how it works?"
"I have no clue. I don't watch much television."
"Have you ever seen Talk New York!?"
I nodded.
"And?"
It took me a moment to find something to say. "You're going to reach a very large audience."
"Oh, my. That bad, is it?"
"Depends on what you think about papier-mache centerpieces and fad diets."
The lights in the studio dimmed, and the stage lights came up. The audience began applauding, and from the opposite side of the stage the hosts came out, a man and a woman. Both were well dressed and heavily made up, and each carried a mug, presumably full of coffee, that had the show's logo on its front. Both hosts were very white, very friendly, and they began by addressing the audience, telling them that it would be a terrific show, that their "very special guest" today was an actual member of the Royal Family, Lady Antonia Ainsley-Hunter, and that she'd be with them for the full hour. There was a burst of applause, and from the corner of my eye I saw Her Ladyship shaking her head slightly, amused. The host and hostess went on to say who the other guests were, and they mentioned the author's name, so I figured his being bumped wasn't a foregone conclusion.