As he passed Liz his next circuit around, he hissed, "Do something!"
"We're trying!" she growled back, frustrated, not wanting to interrupt her multiple chants for long.
Boo's cell phone rang, somewhere deep in his pockets. Liz shot him an exasperated look.
"You'd better answer it," she shouted. Boo scrabbled for the little box. He popped it open.
"This is Tiger," the tinny voice in his ear said. "I think I've seen your lady, man. She walked by with some guy a little while ago. I couldn't get to the phone until now."
"Which way they goin'?"
"Toward Decatur."
Boo reached into Liz's shoulder bag and felt for the little cell phone. He turned it on and tucked it into her neck.
"I know where she's gone," he shouted. "Keep things together here."
Leaving Liz chanting, Boo-Boo trotted out of the Superdome arena, out the back door onto Giraud Street.
A taxi swung into the curb at his wave. Boo-Boo clambered into the back seat. The young black man behind the wheel twisted around to exchange hand slaps with him.
"Hey, Boo-Boo, where y'at? Where you want to go?"
"The Quarter," Boo-Boo said, settling back against the seat. "Run the lights. I'll make it right later."
Chapter 17
Ken Lewis held Robbie cuddled against his chest on the grass in the shelter of the gazebo overlooking the riverfront, hoping passersby would take them for a pair of overamorous lovers in the dark enjoying the fireworks display along with the thousands of other people hanging out along the Moon Walk. At least, he was enjoying it. He doubted whether Robbie was truly aware of them in any intellectual way. She'd had quite of few hits of LSD and one or two of Rohypnol. The "date rape" drug made her easier to manage. She reacted to exterior stimuli, including his voice, without conscious will power. It was too bad he'd had to drug her so heavily, but he couldn't let that strong moral backbone of hers interfere with his last chance to make his plan work. No matter how he played up the provocation she had been suffering, she didn't really want to hurt anyone, not even Fionna. Who ever heard of somebody with the perfect opportunity to take revenge on a hated rival without consequences who didn't take it?
On the way to the park he had picked up a bottle of tequila and a couple of glasses, and he had more acid in his pocket, all the better to make sure she didn't regain control of her faculties before the show was over. He splashed some of the booze into her glass and held it up to her lips.
"Had too much," she said, her voice slurred. Tequila dribbled out of the corners of her mouth.
"No, you haven't," Ken said, wiping up the spill with the cuff of his shirt. "The night's just beginning."
"Oh, all right," Robbie said. She swallowed and made a face as the liquor burned its way down to her stomach. "Oooh."
"Now, concentrate," Ken said. He squeezed Robbie's face between thumb and forefinger and held her head up, making her look at the pulsing waves of white-hot light shooting up into the night. "Follow the sequence exactly. Can't you hear the director? He wants the flames to rise higher. Higher. Higher! Yes!"
Robbie's chin sagged slackly against his palm, but her muddy-colored eyes were fixed on the starbursts filling the air over the river.
"Like that?"
"Wonderful, baby. You're the best. Keep it up. More. Yes, more!"
He caught the indulgent smile of an older couple sitting close by on the grass. So what if they thought he was talking about sex. This was better than sex. This was better than anything.
Ken kept up the description of what he wanted to go on in the arena. Robbie acted as if she could see what he was talking about, responding to cues as he gave them. It was like leading her in a guided meditation minute by minute through the concert, except with added explosions and starbursts and a special surprise ending. Inside her head, the stage was laid out before her. Her slide pots and push buttons were underneath her hands. When she operated her controls, the special effects came to life in her mind. Yes, if he could keep her going like that, he could bring her to cause a disaster when the audience was the most worked-up and the power was at its highest level.
He'd forgotten about the fireworks display. Pure serendipity. To Ken, it was just Satan's way of telling him he was in the right place at the right time.
He found it hard to believe that he could be working magic without any physical contact. He felt naked without the familiar technology surrounding him. But doing sorcery by remote control was definitely the way of the future. The satellite feed from SATN-TV had helped to prime the pump, and now the pump was running full strength. By the time he lowered the boom on the concert center, he'd be able to send Mr. Kingston a bolus of magical energy not just threefold, but three thousandfold. It ought to blow the roof right off SATN. Ken watched the fireworks, feeling smug. He ought to hit Kingston up for a bonus on top of his fee. It would have been worth it just for locating Robbie in the first place.
What a conduit she was. He could feel the edge of the power as it poured through her body. She almost crackled with it, but at the same time was totally unaware of it. She didn't know any more than the paper a message was written on knew its contents. Roberta Unterburger, special effects engineer, was a special effect in herself. The perfect dupe. He and she had sat there in the midst of Green Fire's company for months waiting, while Ken had plotted and planned for just exactly this moment. No one had suspected a thing. Now it didn't matter if they knew the whole story. Nothing they could do would stop the destruction of Fionna Kenmare, and everyone in the Superdome with her. There'd be headlines all over the world tomorrow morning, but only three people would ever know who was responsible: him, Mr. Kingston, and Mr. Mooney.
Ken could even monitor the havoc he was causing. It was a shame he couldn't watch, but now and again he could hear through the earphone on his headset. The audio only seemed to arise in momentary bursts, maybe coinciding with bursts from Robbie exerting her psychic gift and causing something to happen, but Ken felt as if he was sitting at his console in the control room in the Superdome, listening to the chatter. The disconnected cord hung down on his chest, but thanks to Robbie's gift, through the Law of Contagion the headset was still a part of what it had touched. As much as he was having fun giving Robbie ideas, he really enjoyed those little glimpses into the pandemonium at the concert. The crew was going nuts. In the background he could hear the roar of the crowd. They sounded scared. No one understood what was happening, not even those nosy secret agents. The effect was better than he could have hoped.
"Okay, you see those red fireballs?" he asked, lying back on the grass and pointing to the sky. Robbie nodded obediently. "Let's make 'em chase the band around. Give 'em a little hotfoot. It won't hurt 'em," he assured her as she started to writhe uncomfortably. "You have my solemn word on it." She relaxed.
"Okay," Robbie said. "If you're sure."
Ken grinned wickedly above her head, out of her line of sight. He enjoyed feeding her suggestions. "I'm sure, baby. Go for it."
He heard a blaze of static in the earpiece. It cleared to reveal the businesslike mutter of the technical director's voice giving instructions to the crew. Then—
"What the hell... ?" Lowe demanded. The connection cut off. Too bad, Ken grinned. They were making headlines. He'd have to read all about it in the morning.