Meg Gardiner - The Liar’s Lullaby

Bull’s-eye was the latest in a series of action films that featured guns and slinky women. Long Barrel. Pump Action. The stuntmen had their own names for these movies. Handguns and Hand Jobs. Planes, Trains, and Blown Brains.

But the flick was a hit, and so was “Bull’s-eye,” the song. Tasia McFarland was top of the charts. And she wanted to stay there.

“Movie stars don’t do their own stunts because they don’t know jack about life and death,” she said.

Her eyes shone. Her makeup looked like an overstimulated six-year-old had applied it after peeping at Maxim.

“Stop staring at me like that,” she said. “I’m sober. I’m clean.”

Too clean? Rez thought, and his face must have shown it, because Tasia shook her head.

“And I’m not off my meds. I’m just wound up. Let’s go.”

“Great.” Rez forced encouragement into his voice. “It’ll be a breeze. Like Denver. Like Washington.”

“You’re a lousy liar.” She smiled. It looked unhappy. “I like that, Rez. It’s the good liars who get you.”

In his ear, Andreyev’s voice rose in pitch. “Two minutes.”

Tasia’s gaze veered from the empty suite to the heaving field. She squirmed against the tight fit of her jeans.

“The harness feels wrong.” She pulled on it. “I have to adjust it.”

A carabiner was already clipped to the harness. Rez reached for it. She slapped his hand. “Go inside and turn around. Don’t look.”

He glared, but she pushed him back. “I can’t sing if my crotch is pinched by this damned chastity belt. Go.”

And she thought that adjusting her panties in full view of a stadium crowd was the modest option? But he remembered rule number one: Humor the talent. Reluctantly he went inside and turned his back.

Behind him the plate-glass doors slammed shut. He spun and saw Tasia lock the doors.

“Hey.” Rez shook the door handles. “What are you doing?”

She grabbed a chair and jammed it under the handles.

“This isn’t a stunt, Rez. He’s after me. This is life and death.”

ON THE FIELD, sunburned, thirsty, crammed on a plastic chair surrounded by thousands of happy people, Jo Beckett sank lower in her seat.

The band was blasting out enough decibels to blow up the sonar on submarines in the Pacific. The song, “Banner of Fire,” was hard on the downbeat and on folks who didn’t love buckshot, monster trucks, and freedom. The singer, Searle Lecroix, was a pulsing figure: guitar slung low, lips nearly kissing the mike. A black Stetson tipped down across his forehead, putting his eyes in shadow. The guitar in his hands was painted in stars and stripes, and probably tuned to the key of U.S.A.

The young woman beside Jo climbed on her chair, shot her fists in the air, and cried, “Woo!”

Jo grabbed the hem of the woman’s T-shirt. “Tina, save it for the Second Coming.”

Tina laughed and flicked Jo’s fingers away. “Snob.”

Jo rolled her eyes. When she’d offered her little sister concert tickets for her birthday, she figured Tina would pick death metal or Aida , not Searle Lecroix and the Bad Dogs and Bullets tour.

Despite her taste in music, Tina looked like a junior version of Jo: long brown curls, lively eyes, compact, athletic physique. But Jo wore her combats and Doc Martens and had her UCSF Medical Center ID in her backpack and her seen-it-all, early thirties attitude in her hip pocket. Tina wore a straw cowboy hat, a nose ring, and enough silver bangles to stock the U.S. Mint. She was the human version of caffeine.

Jo couldn’t help but smile at her. “You’re a pawn of the Military-Nashville complex.”

“Sicko. Next you’ll say you don’t love puppies, or the baby Jesus.”

Jo stood up. “I’m going to the snack bar. Want anything?”

Tina pointed at Lecroix. “Him. Hot and buttered.”

Jo laughed. “Be right back.”

She worked her way to the aisle and headed for the stands. Overhead, sunlight glinted off metal. She looked up and saw a steel cable, running from a luxury suite to the stage. It looked like a zip line. She slowed, estimating the distance from the balcony to the touchdown point. It was a long way.

A second later, she heard helicopters.

ANDREYEV PUT THE BELL 212 through a banking turn and lined up for the pass above the ballpark. The second helicopter flanked him. The sunset flared against his visor.

“Ninety seconds,” he said. “Rez, is Tasia ready to go?”

He got no reply. “Rez?”

He glanced at the video monitor. It showed the balcony of the luxury suite.

He did a double take. The doors to the suite were jammed shut with a chair. Rez was inside, rattling the doorknob.

On the balcony Tasia stood with her back to him. She reached around to her back pocket, beneath the extravagant ruffles that trailed from her corset.

“Shit. Shit. Shit, ” Andreyev said.

From the door of the chopper, Hack Shirazi shouted, “What’s going on?”

Andreyev yelled into the radio. “Rez, she’s got a gun.”

REZ POUNDED ON THE PLATE-GLASS DOOR. “TASIA, OPEN IT. FOR God’s sake, nobody’s after you.”

In his ear Andreyev shouted at him. “…a gun. Rez, stop her.”

Rez put his hand over his earpiece. Tasia turned around. In her right hand she held a pistol.

“What are you doing with that?” he said.

The gun was a big mutha. It was a goddamned Colt .45 automatic.

“Is that from Props?”

“It’s from the department of authenticity,” she said. “With a grand finale, it always comes down to a gun.”

“On-screen, not in real life. Put it down.”

“You keep thinking this is a show. So call this a solo with high-caliber backup.”

“That thing drops on somebody’s head and we’re sued up the wazoo. Don’t get me fired.” He rattled the door again. “You can’t take a weapon out there.”

She smiled angrily. “Everybody else involved in this stunt has a gun.”

“But theirs are fake.”

“Exactly.” She held up the pistol. “Fame can’t protect me. Just Samuel Colt. And my music, ‘cause the voice is mightier than the sword. Melody, harmony, counterpoint, lyrics. Remember that—if they get me, remember. The truth is in my music. Number one with a bullet, glory, halle- lu- jah.”

“Nothing’s going to happen, Tasia.” Rez raised his hands placatingly. “Please put it down.”

“Do you think I’m an asshole? I won’t drop it.” Her eyes swam with a feverish heat. “God, you actually think it’s loaded.”

For a moment her swirling hair took on the look of snakes. But the snakes were only in her head.

From the chopper, Andreyev said, “Is the gun a prop? Rez?”

“I don’t know.”

Tasia’s voice hit him low and sharp, like a blade. “No, you don’t. You have no idea what’s out there. What’s waiting. I’m talking about violence. I’m talking about propaganda of the deed. I’m talkin’ ‘bout a revolution—yeah, you know, we all want to change the world.”

In his ear, Rez heard the director. “What’s happening? Shirazi, for the love of Christ, what’s she doing?”

“Tasia, put down the weapon.”

She shook her head. “I put it down, and he gets me. Then it’s open season. Car bombs in cities. Death squads cutting down women and children.” She held the gun up, and turned it, seemingly checking that it had all its working pieces. “I used to think they wouldn’t dare. But I was naïve. I was a child. A freaking child, playing around. Round, round, get around.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Martyrdom.”

Rez felt faint.

“It ain’t always religious. Sometimes it’s ungodly, and sometimes it’s at the hands of the angels, not the devil. And this gun is from the source, the alpha and omega.”