I didn’t know what he meant by that, but I looked at his briefcase. “Whatever.”

The elevators were the old-fashioned kind, zoo cages on cables. An ancient guy in uniform slid the door closed after we stepped in, then wrenched a huge lever to one side. The machine began to rise, the floors passing just through the bars. My hangover started to grumble about the three cups of coffee I’d had.

Astor Michaels turned to me, clutching his briefcase a little tighter. “Pearl, I’ve been doing this since the New Sound was really new.”

“That’s why I tracked you down.”

“And I’ve signed fifteen bands in that time. But yours has something special. You know that, right?”

As I watched the floors slide past, I let myself smile, remembering how thrilled I’d been to find Moz and Zahler. “We’ve got heart, I guess.”

“That heart is Minerva, Pearl. She is what makes you special.”

We came to a stomach-jerking halt. I swallowed, my heart beating harder, wondering where Astor Michaels was going with this. Did he not want to sign the rest of us? Was he trying to make me jealous of Min?

The elevator man was nudging his lever one way and then the other, bouncing us up and down to align our feet with the red-carpeted floor on the other side of the bars. I tried to remember how many glasses of champagne Astor Michaels had bought me last night.

“I know Minerva is special,” I said carefully. “I grew up with her.”

“Indeed.”

Finally the elevator lurched and bumped its way to a halt, and we stepped off into a long hallway. The cage rattled shut and slipped away.

Astor Michaels just stood there. “Of my fifteen bands, Pearl, eleven have self-destructed so far.”

I nodded. That was pretty famous, how Red Rat bands tended to explode. “All part of the New Sound, I guess.”

“And why do you suppose that is?”

“Uh, I don’t know. Drugs?”

He shook his head. “That’s what we usually tell the press. But it’s rarely true.”

I narrowed my eyes. “You mean, you cover up the truth by saying it was drugs? Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?”

“Generally. But certain things are worse than drugs.” He shivered. “Late last night, Toxoplasma had something of a meltdown. Right after their very first gig too. Those boys never really got along, you know.”

I saw a line of sweat roll down his forehead. It was the first time I’d ever seen Astor Michaels looking discomposed.

“What happened?”

“Who knows, exactly? It was all very stressful. And expensive to clean up.” He looked down at his free hand, picking under the fingernails with his thumb. “And messy.”

“They broke up?”

“Not exactly.” He didn’t smile. “As you say, that’s always been the problem with the New Sound. Toxoplasma had heart, but they only lasted a single gig. One gig!” He let out a long sigh. “Morgan’s Army may last forever, but of course they’re not the real thing.”

“Hey, maybe they weren’t perfect last night, but I thought they played a great set. What do you mean, ‘not real’?”

Astor Michaels glanced up and down the empty hall. “I’ll tell you inside.”

He turned and walked away, and as I followed, my stomach started to roil again. My knees felt shaky, as if someone was adjusting the exact height of the floor beneath me. What were we doing here?

Reaching an apartment door, he rapped on it twice sharply, then waited a moment. “Don’t want to disturb the tenants, but I think they’re out.”

“Whose place is this?”

He pulled out a key, opened the door.

Zombie was waiting just inside.

“I could always see them,” Astor Michaels began. “Even before it happened to me.”

I was staring at the couch, where half of Min’s clothes were draped: black dresses and shawls and stockings strewn across the room. Two open suitcases lay on the floor.

My stomach twisted again. Minerva lived here now. Astor Michaels had installed her here, his special girl.

“They were coming to the clubs, leaking sex out of their eyeballs, only a few of them at first. But once they got onstage…” He shook his head. “They’re natural stars, charismatic as hell. Except for that one little problem.”

“They’re bug-ass crazy?” I said harshly, looking at the dresser—the old pink jewelry box I’d bought Min when she was twelve was splayed open, full of shiny things.

“Crazy? I work for a record company, Pearl. Crazy I could deal with.” He leaned forward. “But they’re bloody cannibals.”

I looked up into his eyes. Had he just said cannibals?

But then I remembered how Min had hospitalized one of her doctors in the days before Luz. I thought of all the raw meat she ate, the way her teeth grew sharper every day.

Almost as sharp as Astor Michaels’s.

There in the darkened apartment, something cold crawled down my spine. “Why did you bring me here?”

He looked puzzled for a moment, then let out a snort. “Please, I never even tried it, not once. I’m different than the rest of them.” His eyes twitched; he still looked nervous. “Sane. And I wouldn’t hurt you for the world, my dear little Pearl. You’ve done me such a huge favor.”

“A favor?”

“For the last two years, I’ve been looking for someone like me—someone who’s infected but immune to the hunger. A singer who can get onstage and take the New Sound to the world without…” He looked down at his fingernails again, then shrugged. “Quite so much cannibalism.”

I wondered again what exactly had happened with Toxoplasma the night before. Probably nothing a rehab clinic could fix.

“That’s why I was so thrilled when you brought me Minerva,” Astor Michaels said. “She’s real, don’t you see? Not a mimic, like Abril Johnson. But not like those lost boys in Toxoplasma either.” Zombie jumped onto his lap, and he stroked the cat’s head. “She’s immune to the hunger.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” I said, looking at the clothes strewn around the room. “She had it pretty bad there for a while.”

“Then somehow you’ve kept her together, Pearl.”

“But it wasn’t me. Her parents hired this… esoterica. Someone who knew what to do for her.” I looked around the apartment, wondering how Min was going to get what she needed now. How long would she last without Luz’s medicines?

“Well, if someone’s figured out how to cure this thing, we really do need to move fast. Won’t be long before they bottle it and everyone’s a rock star.” He shivered. “What a disaster.”

I looked at his hands, with their long, sharp, manicured nails. “And it never made you…”

“Crazy? A cannibal?” He shook his head. “Just hungry for raw meat sometimes. And horny, always.”

“Horny?” My skin was crawling now.

“Of course.” He giggled. “That’s how it spreads, you know. It’s nothing but a disease, Pearl. Just some new bug in the water. And as far as I can tell, it’s sexually transmitted. It makes you want to spread it.”

I closed my eyes. So Luz had been right about boys. What else was she right about? I wondered where her angels were, now that I needed them…

Then I remembered that Mark had cracked up too. Had he given it to her? Or vice versa? One of them had to have been cheating…

Zombie jumped up onto my lap, and I opened my eyes.

Astor Michaels was still talking. “I’ve been shagging wannabe singers for two years now, trying to find someone who could keep it together after the charisma set in, and every single one went nuts. Fifteen bands, Pearl. And finally you bring me a rock star already made!” He leaned back, rubbing his palms across Min’s dresses and sighing. “After all my labors.”

I sat there, stroking Zombie, trying not to scream as what he’d just said sank in. Astor Michaels had intentionally spread this disease; he’d been making more casualties like Minerva, broken people stuck in attics by their families, or lying huddled on the street, on subway platforms…