In the sudden black, I feel the world wobble, the way a spinning top will shake and right itself as it slows. Did I see something before the lights quit? The way he moves his plodding feet, his listless hands, the shapes his lazy mouth will make, this is the scope of my hard-earned authority. Really, he’s a stranger. Really, we’re all strangers. Gabby is a stranger to me, and Patricia, too. Rosalyn is a stranger. Who is Arthur Jacob Pennyman? A person could follow me for years and never find an answer.
Cross’s voice still warbles in the darkness.
Is this it? I wonder. And I tell myself I don’t know what that question means.
60
Peter knows about festivals in India where paper flotillas are set alight on holy rivers. The ships contain offerings to the dead. He hasn’t seen the festivals in person — he learned about them watching Globe Trekker; after Lucy moved out, he watched the show a lot. Despite the fact that they traveled with a cameraperson, the show’s hosts always manage to seem alone — walking across desolate beaches, hiking into rain forests, riding trains beside shockingly poor natives. Peter liked that the hosts didn’t resemble other women on TV; each had some obvious flaw, a crooked tooth, a heavy bottom, a too-round face. They favored hiking boots and knee socks — sometimes you’d spot a zit.
What reminded him of the burning ships was something he saw at the end of the show. Cross dismissed his band to play a slow and halting song. Peter wondered if the audience found it indulgent, the inwardness of the music, but they looked mesmerized. A ramp of light connected Cross to the rafters. Then the light quit him. That’s when it happened. Like those burning envoys, a swaying constellation appeared. It wasn’t like concert footage a person might see from the ’70s; these weren’t lighters. It was strange and beautiful. He was looking at cell phones.
As Peter watched, a dark hole appeared in the fabric of light. It grew larger, eclipsing the audience. Coming off the stage, Cross walked smack into Peter, put his arm around the doctor’s shoulder, and said, “Get me out of here.”
The singer’s clawlike hand stayed fast to the collar of the Peter’s shirt. People crushed against them. Where, Peter wondered, was Cyril? He pressed on, towing Cross behind him, the general of a retreating army. Where was Bluto? Following a fissure in the crowd, Peter headed down a set of stairs, through a hallway choked with gear and bodies.
Cyril, with his extraordinary timing, stuck his head out a doorway. “Big Man coming through,” he said.
But when Peter tried to squeeze in, Cyril’s hand found his center of gravity, freezing him.
“It’s okay,” Cross said.
Cyril pulled the doctor in, shut the door behind him.
They were back in the dressing room. The singer paused before a buffet table draped with white linen; he lifted a bottle of water from an ice bucket, then pointed it toward the bathroom. “Is he still in there?”
“The band sounded good tonight,” Cyril said. “You about tore the place down.”
Peter checked the bathroom — Allie was gone.
Cross must have read Peter’s face. “Does anyone know where he’s off to or did he just split?”
“He went out to get a bite,” Cyril said. “Wayne’s tagging along.”
Cross nodded at trays of fruit and sandwiches waiting beneath cellophane. “So I guess this isn’t food. And who the fuck is Wayne?”
“You know Wayne.”
“Are you feeling all right?” Peter asked.
“He’s okay. Aren’t you, boss?”
Cross toweled his hair, then headed into the bathroom; he didn’t bother to close the door. The sound of halting splashes hinted at an enlarged prostate, par for the course.
When Cross returned, his face appeared scrubbed. “Is Bluto avoiding me?”
“He went to fire Fletch.”
Peter heard his own voice ask, “Why?”
Cross poked at the sandwiches under the plastic. “Do we have a replacement lined up?”
“Bluto always has a plan,” Cyril said. “He won’t play chess because he knows how it ends.”
Cross picked his baggy sweatshirt off the back of a chair and threaded his head through the neck hole, tugged it on. “What about the French guy? He’s run the boards before.”
“Patrice left last summer.”
“Do either of you have any idea where Allie is?” Cross barked.
“Give me a second,” the bodyguard said, heading out the door.
“Lock it,” Cross said.
Peter went over and shot the bolt. When he turned around, Cross was pressing the palms of his hand into the tray of sandwiches, mashing them down.
“I was hoping you’d hear those songs tonight, but I guess you were down here looking at Allie.”
Peter remembered Ogata’s advice, Shut up and listen.
“The problem with a Hippocratic oath is it can be used against you.”
“How can it be against me?”
“If a person wants your attention, all they have to do is hurt themselves.”
“Luckily, people don’t do that.”
Cross lifted a bunch of green grapes. “Do you think I was the only audience Allie had in mind for his little command performance? You’re the reason he’s here.”
Someone knocked on the door, three quick knuckle raps.
“Is that Cyril?” asked Peter.
“It could be anyone. Let’s see if they go away.”
“Why am I the reason Allie’s here?”
“I mean here on Earth and here on tour.” Cross dropped the grapes back on the platter. “When I told him you were coming on tour, he caught a flight that day. He hadn’t left Paris in six years.”
“How did he know who I was?”
“You were his prototype. When I was in the studio recording Midnight at the Bazaar, the working title was Me and the Boy.”
“Are you saying I was ‘the Boy’?”
“The songs are about childhood, about getting lost in the woods and my competing desires to settle down with a family and to sleep with strangers on the road. They’re my songs, but I didn’t know I could write them before I met you.”
“How old was I when you knew me?”
“You’d just turned three the last time I saw you.”
“I was just some kid.”
“And now you’re just some doctor.”
Peter walked to the wall and rubbed his forehead against the cool concrete.
“You’re not going to throw up, too, are you?”
The knocker had returned.
“That’s Cyril. Let him in.”
Peter didn’t move.
Cross cleared his throat, then walked to the door and opened it.
Cyril said, “Allie’s bingeing on sushi a couple blocks away.”
“We need to go to the hospital tonight,” Peter said, surprising himself.
“There’s no rush,” said Cross.
Peter turned from the wall. “Did Dr. Ogata call you earlier?”