Sinner

Onscreen, a little girl plugged in a small orange speaker and clapped delightedly. Cole St. Clair became just that little bit louder.

“I heard that while I was driving in,” Mark said. “I wondered what it was. That’s got to be so loud. That’s got to be illegal.”

None of the players satisfied Cole, though Jeremy shrugged approvingly at some. There was one guy, a crowd favorite, who kept playing and playing and playing. A winner?

But then Cole switched off the amp. He shook his head.

The crowd groaned, but Cole just twirled his hand. He turned away, and the guy didn’t exist for him anymore. I’d always wondered how Cole got anything practical done, how he’d come so far, and now I saw. People were no longer people, they were just parts of the plan, in the goal. And parts could get moved around without thought or emotion.

It made me think about all the girls Cole said he’d slept with on tour. That had seemed like such an impossible feat to me, not because I disbelieved him, but because I couldn’t imagine letting that many people have access to me. It sounded exhausting, frantic.

Now I suddenly saw it, though. How he turned people into objects, and how easily he could be done with them.

Inside my heart was cool and dark.

“This guy is unbelievable,” Mark said, but I couldn’t tell if he was talking about Cole or the next player. A few dozen more speakers had been plugged in since the last time the cameras had focused on them. It was hard to tell where they were all getting their power from. Jeremy had to keep going away to tinker with something.

“I guess I remember some of their stuff. Are you a NARKOTIKA fan?” Mark asked.

“I know him. Cole, I mean.”

“Is he really like that?”

Cole was like that. He was also not like that. It just depended on when you saw him. Wasn’t that everybody, though? “Sure.”

“Next Saturday, we’re having a thing at the house,” he said.

“The others are coming. Are you?”

“Others?”

As Cole dismissed yet another bassist on the screen, Mark waved a hand around the shop. Oh. The other monsters.

“What sort of thing?”

Mark picked up the seagull foot. “Just a thing. No pressure.

Think about it. Yeah?”

I kept all expression from my face, but inside I was a little flattered. I said, “I’ll think about it.” I tried to imagine going to a thing with Cole.

On the show, Cole turned away all comers as yet more speakers got plugged in. The cameraman walked along a string of speakers that trailed out for yards and yards: big black rectangles and palm-sized red ones and square gray ones.

The cops came, of course. They looked as if they expected trouble, but this Cole was not trouble.

“We’re not hurting anyone,” he said, gesturing broadly.

“Look at all these happy faces.”

The cameras swung over the crowd, who obligingly chirruped and cheered and leaped for attention. Cole was right: Most of them were happy. How easily he had surfed their individual thoughts and moods and replaced all of that with his noisy joy.

The cops informed Cole that he was violating noise code.

“I am glad to hear it,” Cole replied, and he really did sound glad. “Do either of you play the bass?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I need a bass player.”

A cop laughed.

So did Cole. Then he stopped. “No, seriously. Give us a whirl and we’ll shut this thing down.”

The cops, captains of reason, eyed the cameras, the crowd, and each other. Cole smiled beatifically at them.

Reason died.

Of course the cops played. Did they have a choice?

One officer played. The other danced. The crowd was apoplectic.

Officer Bass wasn’t the greatest player, but it didn’t matter. It was a cop playing a bass amplified by three hundred speakers and Cole St. Clair’s smile.

The world belonged to Cole.

“Now you stop?” the cop asked. “That was the deal.”

Cole said, “I still don’t have a bassist.”

Surely this wasn’t how it ended. Not all of this fuss for nothing.

The crowd was hushed.

In the quiet, Jeremy stepped forward. He shook his head, as if in disbelief. Tucked a bit of his blond hair behind his ear.

“Fine, Cole. Fine. I’ll do it.”

For a second, a bare, bare second, I saw Cole’s real smile, and then it dissolved into his show smile. He did a complicated man shake with Jeremy, and then grabbed his hand and held it over his.

“We have a winner!” he shouted.

He leaned close to Jeremy then, speaking quietly, as if it was just between them. But I knew Cole, and I knew he hadn’t forgotten the cameras.

This was what he told us all: “Welcome back, man.”

Credits rolled.

It was a brilliant little piece of TV.

I felt unexpectedly proud of Cole. He had been right, earlier, at least about one thing: He knew what people wanted. It didn’t mean he was going to stay out of trouble, but he was very good at what he did. For one brief, crystal moment, I wished he was here, because in this moment, I could have told him that without any of my usual brittleness.

But he wasn’t. So all I could think was: Isabel, don’t fall in love with him again.

Chapter Thirteen

· cole ·

“Dinner,” I told the phone as I walked back to the apartment. I was holding a nine-dollar orange juice that Baby’s budget had paid for. The sign outside the juice store had said change your future with sunshine in a glass. My future was looking pretty great already, and I couldn’t wait to see what would happen if I added orange juice to it. “That’s the next meal.”

“What?” said Isabel. There was something satisfying, really, about just calling her number and having her pick up.

“Dinner. Next meal. You. Me. What a delicious plan we have.”

“I can’t,” Isabel replied. “I promised my cousin Sofia that I’d go out with her. She’ll become a creepy old lady if I don’t take her out.”

“I like it when you’re noble. You could come to my place,” I said. It was hard to tell if the orange juice was changing my future, because I hadn’t known where I was heading before I started drinking it. “There is room in the shower for three.”

“I am not taking my cousin to your shower for a good time.

What sort of lesson does that teach her? You could come out with us.”

I didn’t know what kind of a person this Sofia was, but I didn’t feel up to small talk. Right now I was basking in the contentment of having done a job well and having earned a damn orange juice. “What sort of music is playing tonight?”