Like most kids her age, she’d had almost no exposure to black-and-whites and didn’t like them. Except for King Kong. She’d cried at the end of her first viewing and for days afterward went around the house repeating in a perfect imitation of Robert Armstrong’s delivery, “Oh, no, it wasn’t the airplanes… it was beauty killed the beast.”
That had inspired Jack to hunt down a copy of Turner’s colorized version. He considered himself something of a purist when it came to movies, especially ones he liked, so the idea of tinting and tinkering with a classic offended him. But mildly. The world offered a wide array of far more important issues to get crazy about.
Yet when he watched it with Vicky he’d had to admit that it was kind of nice to see a blue ocean and a green jungle. And Vicky had loved it. What could be more important than that?
“What should we watch next?”
Gia clung to him. “Why don’t we just sit here.”
“We can do that. But I’d rather not feel like a condemned man waiting for the executioner to knock on the door.”
“It’s not going to happen,” Gia said. “That’s the only way I can get through tonight. Just keep telling myself it’s not going to happen… it’s not going to happen… and maybe if I repeat it enough times, it won’t.”
Jack searched for something to do, something to say to ease her pain.
“Got as good a chance as anything else.”
Crummy, but the best he could come up with. She snaked her arms around him and squeezed.
“Maybe if I hold on real tight it won’t be able to take you.”
“Now there’s a thought.”
“How do you stay so calm?”
Calm? He wanted to scream, he wanted to break things.
“Who says I’m calm?”
“Look at you. Our lives are about to be torn apart, you’re about to be taken God knows where, maybe to your death. Yet you sit here watching movies. The more disordered and crazy and desperate things get, the calmer you are. Tell me how you do that, because I want some.”
I do it for you, he thought.
To help Gia keep it together. He sensed she was just barely holding on, hanging by the slimmest of threads. If he kept thinking about the two ends of the Stain snailing closer and closer together, he might fall apart. And then what would happen to Gia?
“I think that somewhere down in the deepest recess of my psyche I’m convinced I’ll come through this. Don’t ask me why. It’s not logical. And because it’s not logical, my conscious mind doesn’t buy it. So the films help distract me. They make it easier for me. But if they don’t make it easier for you—”
“No-no. They distract me too. What else do you have?”
“Well, I brought Citizen Kane.”
“We must have watched that four times in the last year. I’m tired of it.”
Jack never tired of it—every time he watched it he found something new—but let it slide. He looked through the short stack of tapes.
“Casablanca?” he said and realized immediately what a bad choice that was.
“Dear God, no. That final good-bye scene… I can’t handle that. Too close to home.”
“All right then, I’ve got Gone with the Wind, The Maltese Falcon, and To Kill a Mockingbird.”
“All too much like real life. I need some sort of fantasy—far, far from reality.”
“How about The Wizard of Oz? That far enough?”
“Perfect. I could use—”
Her voice broke off as her head snapped to the right. Jack sensed it too—movement. He stiffened when he saw it. A small cry broke from Gia.
The Lilitongue had joined them in the sitting room.
If floated to a corner and hovered there. Waiting.
* * *
CHRISTMAS EVE
-0:53
Jack started at the sound of a bell and felt Gia jump beside him.
The first thing he’d done after the Lilitongue’s appearance was to angle the couch so they didn’t have to look at the damned thing. He felt as if it was watching him.
They’d followed The Wizard of Oz with To Kill a Mockingbird. After that, with Vicky asleep a few feet away, they’d snuggled and tried to create a day-by-day review of the good times and bad times in their too-few years together.
Tried. Gia kept returning to their baby, saying that Jack would never see his child and the baby would never know her father.
Jack tried to lighten it up just a little by correcting her—his father—and insisting that the baby was going to be a boy.
And then a chime.
Gia started. “The doorbell? Who could be—?” She broke off. “Unless…”
Jack had the same thought. “Tom? Can’t be.”
“Can you think of anyone else who’d be out there at this hour? The sun’s not even up.”
Jack couldn’t. He pushed himself upright and headed for the door.
“I’ll get rid of him.”
Gia followed. “Don’t be too hard on him.”
“Yeah, right. He’s why we’re in this spot.”
“I know. But still…”
Jack pulled open the door and, sure enough, there stood Tom with a small shopping bag.
“Hello, Jack… Gia. I—”
“This isn’t a good time, Tom.”
“I know it’s not. I mean, how could it be? But I just wanted to sit down with you for a couple of minutes and tell you a few things while we have a drink.”
“I’m not thirsty.”
“Please, Jack? Please? Just a couple of minutes?”
He felt Gia’s hand against the small of his back as she spoke.
“A few minutes, Jack. We can spare him a few minutes.”
A refusal sprang to his lips but he repressed it. Now, of all times, was not the time to argue. Besides, he was too tired for an argument. He’d had maybe three hours sleep in as many days.
He stepped back and opened the door.
“A few minutes. No more.”
“Great. Thanks so much.” He bustled inside. “Gia, could I trouble you for a couple of glasses?”
Jack said, “I told you I’m not thirsty.”
He pulled a bottle of scotch from the bag and held it up.
“You don’t drink this because you’re thirsty. It’s Old Pulteney single cask. It’s thirty-seven years old, a hundred proof, and one of only three hundred twenty-four bottles. Please share some with me, Jack.”
“I’ll get the glasses,” Gia said.
As she headed for the dining room, Jack reconsidered. Though mostly a beer drinker he had always liked Old Pulteney. And this batch had been casked before he was born. He wondered how it would taste.
And who knew when he’d ever taste scotch of any kind again?
“Okay, but just one.”
“That’s all I’m asking.”
Gia met them in the sitting room with a pair of small crystal tumblers.
“Should I get ice?”
Tom uncorked the bottle. “Oh, no. You never dilute something this old and rare.”
He poured two fingers’ worth into each of the glasses and handed one to Jack.
“Prepare yourself for a treat, brother.”
Jack sipped. It burned his tongue but left a wonderful aftertaste.
He had to nod his appreciation. “Good.”
“Good? It’s great! But can we sit down? I’ve got a few things I want to say.”
Gia said, “I’ll leave you two alone. But not for too long.”
“This won’t take long. I swear.”
Jack hated to see Gia go. He didn’t want her out of his sight during the fleeting time he had left. Another reason to resent Tom. But he put on a bland expression and dropped into a chair.
“Okay. A few minutes, but that’s all.”
Tom lowered himself onto the edge of a facing chair.
“That’s all I want.” He sipped. “But keep drinking or this will evaporate.”
Jack complied. Damn, this was good
.
“Look, Jack… I know I’ve been a lousy brother. Hell, I’ve been a lousy husband, father, and judge as well. I simply never had the opportunity to step back and see what I’d become. I was always too tied up with trying to keep all my lies straight. These past few weeks with you have opened my eyes. I look at you and see what I might have been.”
Jack took another sip and cocked his head. Was he for real? This wasn’t the Tom he’d come to know.
“You really believe that?”
“Nah,” he said with a sharp, low laugh. “I don’t mean I could be doing what you do. I mean… I’m not sure what I mean.”
Tom took a sip and put the tumbler down on the rug next to his chair leg, then leaned forward with his hands clasped before him.
“I was sitting in your place thinking tonight how you’re my closest living blood relative.”
“What about your kids?”
He shrugged. “They’re only half me. They’re half Skank from Hell too. No, you and I came from the same place.”
Jack had no idea where this was going, but he’d let him ramble for another minute or two. He gave a noncommittal shrug and drained his glass.
Tom popped out of his chair with the bottle and his own empty tumbler.
“Time for another hit.”
Jack was already feeling a little buzz. But nothing wrong with that. He could handle another taste.
“Okay, but a light one.”
Tom poured with a heavy hand. Three fingers this time into Jack’s and his own. Then he returned to his seat.
“Isn’t it strange, Jack, how you know exactly who you are, but only a chosen few in this whole city know you exist? Me? Even before all the trouble, just about everybody in Philly knew my name. But as for who I was, I had no idea. Never cared to look. And then in these past few weeks, when I did try to find myself—is that an overworked phrase, or what? When I did go looking, I couldn’t find anyone. Nobody home.”
Unable to refute that, Jack sipped his scotch instead.
“It’s a sad truth, Jack, but I’ve realized I have no substance. I’m nothing. I’m like a hologram. A ghost. I’m barely here. My kids don’t trust me—no reason they should after the way I cheated on their mothers. I’m a recidivist womanizer. Consequently the two Skanks from Hell loathe me, and current wifey number three is definitely not a fan. I’m papier mâché, Jack. If anyone tried to lean on me for support they’d fall on their ass.”
Jack blinked. Was that a catch in Tom’s voice? Had to be the scotch.
The room swam before him. Definitely the scotch. Not that Tom was boring, just… God, he was tired. Better put the glass down before he dropped it. Oh, look… almost empty. When did he finish it? He reached to place it on the end table but it slipped from his fingers. He watched it fall… in slo mo. Had to close his eyes, just for a minute… just for a few seconds…
But before he drifted off he thought he heard Tom say something about becoming the big brother again, about it being time to look out for his little brother, about doing the right thing.
But Jack figured he was imagining it. Had to be.
* * *
-0:28
“Gia?”
She started at the sound of her name. She’d been sitting at the kitchen table, staring at nothing, lost in a helpless, hopeless funk.
She looked up and saw Tom standing in the doorway. He had a wild look in his eyes.
“You’re leaving?” she said.
He shook his head. “Not immediately, but soon. Maybe.”
“I’m—”
He motioned her down the hall. “Come on back to the sitting room. I need your help with something.”
Wondering what he was talking about, she followed. She gasped when she saw Jack slumped in a chair, his chin on his chest, his head lolling to the side.
“He fell asleep?”
“Well, yes and no. It’s not what you think. Yes, I put him out, but not with my ramblings. I had a little help.”
“I don’t…” She stepped over to Jack and shook his shoulder. “Jack? Jack, wake up.” He didn’t stir, not the slightest. Alarmed, she turned to Tom. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I knocked him out.”
“What?”
He lifted the scotch bottle. “With this.”
Gia felt a cold hand squeeze her heart.
“Talk sense, damn it!”
“Okay. Sorry. Here goes: I got to thinking about a lot of things tonight—how you took the Stain from Vicky and how Jack took the Stain from you, and how I couldn’t imagine a single person in the world taking it from me.” He sounded on the verge of tears as he shook his head. “To have somebody willing to give up their life for me—God, what would that would be like?”
“Oh, there must be—”
He held up his hand. “Trust me: no one. Not after all the bridges I’ve burned. And I got to thinking about the way your eyes glow when you look at Jack, and the way your voice sounded when you talked about him being your rock, which I took to mean your hero. Am I right?”
Dumbstruck, Gia could only nod.
“Right. And I knew there wasn’t a person alive who’d look at me or speak of me that way. I’ve never been anybody’s hero—not even to my kids. A kid should be able to look at his dad just once in his life and say, ‘That’s who I want to be like.’ I can’t imagine one of my kids saying that. Ever. And I don’t blame them. Why should they? I never gave them a reason.”
Gia’s confusion was giving way to fury. She clipped the words as she spoke them.
“But what’s this got to do with putting Jack to sleep?”
“Well, as I was visiting my friendly neighborhood drug dealer—”
“Drugs? You?”
He shrugged. “I’ve been clean awhile, but the events of the last three or so days nudged me back into some old bad habits. So anyway, I’m listening to him list his wares as he’s wont to do, and I hear him mention Georgia Home Boy. Now, he’s mentioned this every time, but tonight, feeling the way I did, it hit me right between the eyes. That was the answer.”
“Answer to what? What’s Georgia—?”
“Georgia Home Boy—the acronym of which is GHB, which stands for gamma-hydroxy-butyrate or something like that. It’s also called Grievous Bodily Harm, which yields the wrong acronym, but then, you can’t expect the folks who use this stuff to be Einsteins. Anyway, it’s one of those so-called date-rape drugs.”
A flash of rage burned through Gia. “You gave Jack a date-rape drug?”
He smiled and held up the bottle. “Right in here. Odorless, colorless, and pretty much tasteless, especially in something like scotch. Mix it with alcohol—this batch is one-hundred proof—and it’s good night, Nellie.”
“But weren’t you—?”
“Drinking it too?” He shook his head. “Just pretending. There’s a wet spot next to my chair where I dumped it. Sorry about the rug.”
Who cared about the rug?
“You… you still haven’t told me why.”
He put down the bottle, reached into the shopping bag, and came up with a familiar-looking container.
“You remember this, don’t you?”
She nodded, her mouth dry.
Tom put the container down and stepped toward Jack.
“Okay, then let’s put it to work.”
Gia’s legs went rubbery. She had to grab the back of the chair to stay upright.
“You can’t. It won’t work. The book said—”
“I know what the book said, and I’m sure it’s right. But there doesn’t seem to be any intelligence behind the Lilitongue. Like it’s designed to perform certain tasks, and allow certain things within certain limits. I got to thinking that if it’s just a dumb infernal device, maybe I can fool it.”
Gia had a sense of where this might be going but dared not acknowledge it. Hoping… believing… she’d be setting herself up for a crushing fall.
“You?”
“Well, people have been
saying how much we look alike. Hell, if I was ten years younger and twenty pounds lighter—okay, forty pounds lighter—they might think we were twins. Our DNA’s got to be similar. And I thought, maybe we’re enough alike to confuse the Lilitongue… allow me to grab the Stain because maybe it won’t recognize the difference between us.”
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