“You’d be surprised. Look, there’s a reception for Rager tomorrow afternoon at the Mill-brook Manor Hotel in Times Square. Come early, about one o’clock, and we can have lunch first.”
A young woman in a black leather miniskirt and too much makeup appeared in the corridor behind him. “Les, Rager needs you.”
“Be right there.” He shook hands with both of us. “One o’clock at the Millbrook Manor.”
When we were alone I said to Simon, “I have no intention of publishing Rager’s autobiography. We’re an old-line quality house.”
“You can tell him that later. I’d like very much to meet Mr. Rager and this looks like our best opportunity.”
“Simon, he’s just a kid trying to shock other kids. All this business about Satan in his act is so much window-dressing.”
“We shall see,” Simon Ark said.
Millbrook Manor was a hotel chain that had gotten its start in national parks and recreation areas. It kept the name when it expanded into the cities, and even when it built a sixty-story glass and steel luxury hotel with a huge indoor atrium in the heart of Times Square. Neither the name nor the building seemed out of place in a city that sees everything. Somehow it went well with the Marriott Marquis across the street and the two other hotels under construction in the area.
Like the Marriott, the main feature of the atrium was the bank of glass elevators which rose in full view of the lobby, carrying guests to all sixty floors. A few of the elevators even continued on, seemingly through the roof, transporting visitors to the Skytop Restaurant with its magnificent view of the city. That was where the reception for Rager would be held to introduce his latest record album.
“Stay for the reception,” Les Fenton urged Simon and me over lunch the following day. “When you see the sort of important people flocking around Rager, I know you’ll agree the chap is much more than another fad performer.”
We weren’t alone at lunch. Fenton had brought along a stunningly dressed young woman named Clare Goddard who handled Rager’s publicity. She was American rather than British and spoke with a slight southern accent. I wasn’t surprised when she revealed she was from North Carolina. “I’ve been up here five years, but Rager is the first client who’s really excited me. The kids go crazy over him.”
“They’re interested in doing his book,” Fenton told her.
“Wait a minute. I didn’t go that far.” They were ready to sign a contract before we finished lunch. “Actually, it’s my friend Simon here who’s really interested in Rager.”
“It would be a great book,” Clare Goddard insisted, warming to her sales pitch. “And I’m certain he’d help promote it.”
“I understand he’s quite aloof,” Simon said. “Insists on riding alone in his limousine and even in elevators, never waves to fans or signs autographs.”
“They love it,” Fenton replied. “They love that manner of his.”
“At the conclusion of his act, when he calls upon Satan to take him to Hades, has anything unusual ever happened?”
The manager laughed. “What do you expect, some great homed monster to appear and snatch him away? Might not be a bad gimmick, I suppose, but we haven’t done it yet.”
Clare Goddard tapped Fenton on the arm. “I think Mr. Ark is a believer, Les.”
“Hell, no one believes in Satan any more. He’s got even less of a following than God. You think Rager’d be doing that act if he really thought there was a Devil?”
After lunch we all went down to the lobby to meet Rager when he arrived. Actually we went to the floor below the lobby, where the cars pulled in off the street. Les Fenton hurried along the bank of elevators, checking the arrangements for the rock star’s arrival, making certain there were no groupies hidden behind the potted palms. I followed him, noting there were a dozen elevators in all, arranged around a central core. Down here in their closed shafts they appeared perfectly ordinary. It was not until they rose above the lobby level that the glass sides revealed the splendor of the entire atrium with its revolving fountain and full-sized trees. There was even a small waterfall illuminated by colored lights.
Rager arrived alone in his limousine shortly before two thirty. There were police officers to keep back the crowd, and we could only watch from a distance as Fenton and Clare Goddard greeted him. As usual Rager refused to wave or acknowledge his fans. He said a few words to Les Fenton and then followed his manager to the elevator marked SKYTOP EXPRESS. He was wearing the same silver vest with bare arms that had been his on-stage costume the previous night. Obviously he didn’t believe in more formal dress for promotional appearances.
A teenaged girl broke through the police line and ran up to the elevator, but Fenton waved her away. “No autographs,” he said sharply. “Rager doesn’t sign autographs.” Then the elevator doors slid shut as a red arrow pointed upward. Fenton was left waiting for the next car. Even he didn’t get to share an elevator with Rager.
Simon and I took an escalator to the lobby floor directly above and we were in time to see Rager’s glass elevator emerge from below and rise quickly up the entire height of the sixty-story atrium. He stood away from the glass with his back to the elevator door and never moved, refusing to acknowledge the waves from fans clustered in the lobby. “The young man has some ego,” Simon remarked.
“It’s all part of the act.” As the express elevator disappeared through the ceiling of the atrium far above our heads we boarded a local with some hotel guests for the ride to the Skytop Restaurant.
I recognized one of the passengers as the leather-clad young woman we’d observed in the backstage corridor the previous night. “You’re a friend of Rager’s, aren’t you?” I asked her.
I introduced myself and Simon Ark. “We’re to see Rager about a book idea,” I explained, not bothering to tell her the idea was Fenton’s rather than mine.
She warmed up a bit as the elevator stopped to discharge the last of the hotel guests at their floor. “I’m Susan Yantz. I met Rager on his first American tour last year, and I’ve been with him ever since.”
Beneath the layers of makeup I could detect the face of a young woman barely out of her teens. She had the voice of a native New Yorker and she still wore the black leather miniskirt or its twin. “Are you from here?” I asked.
“Yeah. It’s good to be back for a week. We’ve been touring all over the world — Australia, even!”
The elevator came to a stop and we got out at the restaurant. The luncheon crowd was gone, replaced by the invited guests for the record launch. But I saw at once that something was wrong. There was no sign of Rager and television crews seemed confused. One cameraman even aimed at us as we emerged from the elevator.
“Where’s Rager?” a bald man asked, fighting his way through the crowd to Susan Yantz’s side. “Isn’t he with you?”
“No, stupid. You know he always rides alone in elevators. He’s already up here.”
“No, he isn’t.”
“He came up on the express elevator. I saw him get on it myself. Everyone saw him.”
“We were waiting for that elevator. But when the doors opened it was empty, except for one of his fireballs burning a hole in the carpet.”
Simon Ark moved then, pushing past me. “Take me to this elevator at once.”
I followed along. “We’re holding it here until the hotel people can assess the damage,” the bald man told us. “I know it’s a damn foolish stunt—”
“It may not be a stunt,” Simon said.
He opened the elevator door with a key from outside. It was still full of smoke, and a large scorched area was visible just inside the doors where we’d seen Rager standing. “What’s that odd smell?” I asked Simon.