Page 5 of Saving Mr. Bell

“You didn’t hear? Wonder boy has officially started his burnout tour. They’ve canceled all future dates until next year. And if you think they’ll actually happen, then you’re more of an optimist than me.”

“Harsh.”

“But true.” I could hear the shrug in his voice. “He’s not the first person the industry has chewed and spat out, and he won’t be the last. Shame though, because that boy could create magic on a piano.”

“He’s postponed his concerts, but he hasn’t postponed his public appearances. Can you get his schedule for me or not? And when I say schedule, I mean where he’s staying as well.”

Bryce let out a low whistle. “That kind of information isn’t easy to come by.”

“No, it isn’t, but if anyone can get it, you can.” I figured there was no harm in massaging his ego a bit. As one of the longest serving publicists in the industry, anyone Bryce didn’t know wasn’t worth knowing.

“Why?”

Even though I’d expected the question, it still made me wince. “It’s probably better you don’t know.”

“Arlo!” There was a world of warning in the way he said my name. “What are you up to? And why on earth does it involve Rudolf Bell? You made a documentary on him once, right? One that never got finished. Do you harbor some sort of grudge against him?”

I laughed at the ridiculousness of Bryce’s assumption, when, if anything, it was the opposite. During the time I’d spent with Rudolf, I’d liked him far more than I’d expected to. I’d expected him to be brash and cocky, and instead he’d been sweet, sensitive, and funny, the two of us bonding when the cameras weren’t rolling over everything from losing mothers early in life to our love of films made before either of us were born.

Nothing had happened because he was only seventeen to my twenty-three. Yes, I’d been a precocious talent too, something else we’d had in common. But there’d been an undercurrent there. Something that said if he hadn’t been so young, and a rising star, and had I not been working, and had his father not been lurking in the background, that something more than friendship might have been there for the taking. However, since receiving my marching orders, I hadn’t seen him since. I’d thought about him, though. More times than was healthy. And even if I’d never crossed his mind, I couldn’t just sit back and watch his life go down the drain.

“I’d rather you agreed not to ask questions.”

“That does not engender confidence in me.”

I shrugged, even though he couldn’t see me. “Well, it’s all you’re getting. Can you get the information for me or not?”

Bryce’s sigh held a world of pain and went on for longer than necessary, presumably in case I hadn’t caught it in the first five seconds. “Fine. I’ll email it to you.”

“How long?”

“Oh, so you’re in a rush for it now, are you?”

“How long, Bryce?”

“I don’t know. This afternoon probably. I’ll polish up my magic wand and wave it around a bit. Just so we’re clear, if you’re up to no good, I will deny this conversation ever happened.”

“Understood. And I’d expect no less.”

It was less than an hour before the email landed in my inbox. That was one hell of a powerful wand Bryce had in his possession. I made notes while I studied the list of dates and places, and then I spent the rest of the afternoon carrying out research and weighing up various possibilities.

Once I had a workable scenario scribbled on my notepad, I sat and stared at it. What the fuck was I doing? People went to prison for stuff like this. Common sense dictated that I stop letting my imagination run away with me and try something more traditional, like, oh, I don’t know, emailing him or getting hold of his number and calling him. Except, I already knew there’d be zero chance of success with either of those scenarios, and that it wasn’t what Rudolf needed. And I was doing this for him. Or at least I told myself I was.

Present day

There was a moment of stunned silence from Rudolf as I tore the phone from his hand. Adrenaline had me almost throwing it from the car window before I reined myself in. We might need it at a later date, Rudolf unlikely to have memorized any important numbers in this technological age. I settled for ending the call and removing the SIM card so the phone couldn’t be tracked instead.

The task was fiddly enough that Rudolf recovered from his shock enough to realize we were at a standstill. He did what ninety-five percent of the population would do in that situation: he went for the door. It didn’t seem to matter that I wasn’t stupid enough not to have engaged the central locking, desperation making him think he could prize it open if he just used enough force. “Don’t! Think of your fingers.” Rudolf’s hands as the tools of his trade were insured for millions, but that wouldn’t matter if he did something career-ending to them.

“Fuck my fingers! You can’t keep me here.”

I flicked on the interior light, undoing my seatbelt at the same time and twisting round in my seat so he could see me. “Rudolf, don’t be stupid. It’s me. You remember me, right?”

He blinked at me, the glassiness in his eyes and his struggle to focus, a dead giveaway for how drunk he was. Not that I’d expected anything less when I’d followed him from his hotel to a nightclub, and then sat outside it for two hours, trying to work out how I was supposed to lure him into the car without attracting attention.

I’d mentally prepared myself to follow him back to the hotel, where I’d sit outside and contemplate how out of my depth I was in thinking I could pull off an intervention like this. But then something wondrous had happened, Rudolf mistaking me for his driver and getting in of his own accord, and all I’d needed to do was drive away. Which is exactly what I’d done, getting outof Salzburg before Rudolf suspected things weren’t what they seemed.

“Arlo?” There was a note in his voice that said he thought he might be dreaming.

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