Saving Mr. Bell

Chapter Two

Arlo

Two weeks earlier

I stared at the newspaper’s headline. Musical sensation, Rudolf Bell crashes and burns in a spectacular fall from grace. Did I really want to read on? Something made me, though. The same something that’d had me following his career for the last few years.

Twenty-three-year-old Rudolf Bell, the piano wonder kid who dresses like a rockstar but plays classical music like an angel, flounced off stage halfway through his show the other night. His unexpected departure came after a succession of uncharacteristic bum notes, leaving the audience clamoring to know whether they’d get a refund.

I contemplated the information so far. Too right, it was uncharacteristic. The Rudolf I’d known couldn’t have played badly, even if challenged to do so. His fingers had been like lightning over the keys. Lightning that teased and tormented, that filled the eardrums with an emotion that went straight to the soul. It had left me and everyone else on the documentary crew in awe.

It had been a documentary that never saw the light of day, Rudolf’s father pulling the plug long before we had enough usable footage. I could play the piano. It was the reason I’d been interested in making the documentary. But compared to Rudolf, I was a rank amateur. One who’d refused to play in front of him for fear of humiliating myself.

That had been six years ago, and I’d kept tabs on him ever since, following his meteoric success: the sell-out tours, the girls who screamed for him like he was Justin Bieber. Which, in a way, he was, the messy blonde hair, the Kohl-lined eyes, the tight leather outfits that molded to his muscular physique, and his trademark bare feet, making him just as alluring as any popstar. But where they crooned or danced their way into girls—and boy’s hearts—Rudolf let his fingers do the talking. And they were very persuasive, sparking a craze, where people who’d never shown the slightest bit of interest in classical music, suddenly declared their love for Beethoven, Bach and Rachmaninov, amongst others.

I skimmed the rest of the article, not surprised to find the usual overdramatized tabloid narrative, the last paragraph really hammering its point home.

So, it seems Rudolf Bell’s hedonistic lifestyle has finally caught up with him. Is he going to be the latest star to go the way of so many others, his talent—and it’s undeniable that he is talented—not enough to stop him from spiraling into the gutter. Such a waste. We hope we’re wrong, but history tells us we probably aren’t, and that the descent has already begun.

Rudolf followed me around for the next week, metaphorically speaking anyway, the newspapers obsessed with speculating what would become of him. With all the public interest, it didn’t come as a surprise to switch on Michael Carter’s chat show and find Rudolf as the hyped-up star guest. I sat through a comedian pimping the tickets for their latest tour under the thin veil of ‘catching up with the host,’ and then an actor. Same process, only it was a film, not a tour, before Rudolf came onstage to thunderous applause.

I moved closer to the TV so I could study him. Barefoot, of course. People would be disappointed if he wore shoes for a public appearance. They seemed to be disappointed when he wore them out clubbing. He was presumably meant to stroll over broken glass just to satisfy some sort of fetish.

He wore a suit, rather than leather, but a designer one with the sleeves rolled up to look effortlessly casual. No tie and an open collar completed the look of having gotten dressed in the dark. His hair was in his eyes as usual, many people speculating over the years how he could even see to play the piano. I could answer that for them. Rudolf didn’t need to see. He was good enough that at his best, a blindfold wouldn’t have held him back. He felt the keys; he didn’t see them.

It was only when you looked closer that you could see the signs of a ‘hedonistic lifestyle’ as the media phrased it: the shadows under his eyes that no amount of make-up could hide; a slight redness to them; and a restless energy he did his best to bring under control, but with limited success.

The interview started amicably enough, the lead-in questions little more than small talk. Michael Carter had been in the game long enough that putting a guest at ease was second nature. He even made Rudolf laugh a time or two. That changed when he got onto the subject of Rudolf’s last concert, the one Rudolf had abandoned halfway through. “So...” he said as he leaned forward slightly in his seat, “want to tell my audience what happened at the Barenboim-Said Academy? Did you just not fancy it, or did you have something better to do that night? A hot date, perhaps?”

His attempt at turning it into a joke didn’t stop Rudolf’s lips from firming into a thin line. Nor did it stop his shoulders from rising until he forced himself to relax both, flashing a smile at the camera that most people would have taken at face value. I didn’t. I’d spent two weeks with him while we’d made the documentary, and I could tell a genuine smile from the ones he plastered on his face for his adoring public. They were as different as night and day. “Well, you see, Michael, my fans only deserve the best.” My phone rang, and I ignored it, not taking my eyes off the screen to see who it was. “And that night, I couldn’t give them my best, so it didn’t seem fair to continue.”

Sensing blood in the water, Michael leaned forward another inch. Any farther and he’d topple out of his chair and land on Rudolf. “And why couldn’t you give them your best? Is it as the media has speculated that you’d been out the night before, that you were suffering from a lack of sleep and perhaps other excesses?” He flashed a knowing smile at the studio audience, like the fact that he was referring to drugs and alcohol was a secret shared between him and the three hundred of them.

“Not at all,” Rudolf assured him. “Everyone has an off day.”

“Of course,” Michael said. He winked. “And I’m sure I will one day.” The studio audience dutifully laughed. “So you weren’t suffering from a hangover? Or perhaps still drunk?”

A slight twitch in Rudolf’s cheek said he didn’t appreciate Michael’s directness. The questions would have been shared in advance with Rudolf’s publicist, and I doubted that had been among them. But like any good interviewer, Michael pushed the boundaries with what he could get away with. As someone who also interviewed and had used every trick in the book, I could hardly blame him for seizing the opportunity to bend the questions slightly.

“I wasn’t,” Rudolf said. “Either of those.” If it was a lie, it was a good one, bereft of any tells that gave it away as such. “I wasn’t feeling great that day, if you must know.”

“Oh?” Michael Carter’s eyebrow rose. “Nothing serious, I hope? Is this why you’ve canceled all your concerts in the run-up to Christmas?” He dropped his gaze to the cue card on his lap, although I doubted he needed it. It was probably more of an affectation. “Six concerts in three different countries. What about those disappointed fans? Do you think they’ll accept you’re not feeling well next time they see you falling out of a nightclub?”

Ouch! That definitely hadn’t been on the agreed list of questions. I bet whoever Rudolf’s management and his publicist were these days, that they were spitting feathers backstage. Someone’s head would roll, and it wouldn’t be Michael’s. That was just the way things worked.

“Not canceled, postponed,” Rudolf said with admirable smoothness, considering the provocation of the question. “The show will go on, just at another time.”

The chat show host gave a bob of his head in response. “So you’ll be back behind a piano after New Year?”

The slight twitch of Rudolf’s fingers said that wasn’t a given. I doubted that’s what he’d been told to say. Sure enough, he flashed a smile and toed the party line. “Of course. I just need some time away from the piano. I’ll be honoring all the personal appearances I agreed to, though. Like being here tonight.”

“And does that break include a stint in rehab? That’s what all the newspapers are saying, that you have a drink or a drug problem…” Michael paused for dramatic effect. “One that needs dealing with sooner rather than later.”

Rudolf smiled, but it was reminiscent of a shark. “I don’t have a drink or drug problem. I’m twenty-three, and like most twenty-three-year-olds, I like to have fun. It’s just that the paparazzi don’t lie in wait for most twenty-three-year-olds. They don’t follow them around, waiting to take pictures in compromising positions. They’re not there when I spent the night in my hotel room watching a film and get an early night.”

“They’d probably be happy to if you invited them,” Michael quipped.

Rudolf laughed. “Probably. But they’ll be waiting a long time for that invitation.”

The last few questions were much softer, Michael knowing he couldn’t push it too far. Not if he wanted celebrities still to come on his show. I could almost see the relief on Rudolf’s face when the interview finally reached its end, and he made his escape to applause just as enthusiastic as when he’d come on, without having given the watching media—and they would watch—even a shred of ammunition they could use against him. Rudolf hadn’t been drunk or under the influence. He hadn’t been rude or let Michael get to him. He’d been calm and professional and not done his reputation any further harm.

I sat back in my chair and considered the interview. He’d also been dead behind the eyes, as if someone had sucked all the life out of him. Not your problem. No, it wasn’t. Yet, I couldn’t get him out of my head. He had an entire team of people around him, but he wouldn’t be the first celebrity to be viewed as nothing more than a cash cow. And they didn’t care how he was feeling or what happened to him five or ten years down the line, as long as he was making bank now.

What would be the next headline I’d see? Him overdosing in a hotel room? The media would lose their shit with told-you-so articles if that ever happened, and no one would care that at the heart of it, the world had lost a supremely talented individual who hadn’t even reached his twenty-fifth birthday.

A ghost of an idea made itself known and even as I fought against it, I slid my phone out of my pocket and dialed a number. Bryce Carey picked up on the third ring. “Arlo, me old mucker. How the devil, are you?”

“Good. Listen, you remember that favor you owe me?”

Bryce’s sigh was the perfect mixture of regret and resignation. “Yeah.”

“I’m calling to collect.”

“That depends on what it is you want.”

“I need you to use some of your contacts and get hold of Rudolf Bell’s schedule for me.”

“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 out of 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.

“In the flesh.” I grinned at him. He didn’t return it, staring at me without blinking, his confusion understandable. “Long time, no see,” I said.