by Brian Hodge
“They swallow it all down, don’t they,” Sam said. “They take all that and force it as far down inside as they can.”
“I guess they must get it from movies. Who else is going to teach them any different—their fathers? Not in this century.”
The bottle went back and forth as they told each other about the men they called Dad. Not all that different, two Arizona businessmen. They’d never failed as providers and had stood at the center of their families like pillars, confidence seeming to falter only when it came to the raising of girls. With unsure hands they had treated their daughters like vessels that would break.
And the bottle was three-quarters gone.
“You know what I like about this, right now?” Dawn asked. “Not having to pretend. Like a week ago, our neighbor in Denver, Kayla? You think I could’ve had this conversation with her? Leaving aside that she was a ditz-brain to begin with. I mean, marrying a snowboarder…what was she thinking?”
Dawn laughed, and Sam with her, at what neither of them had to say: that shacking up with a fugitive had so much more going for it.
“Sure,” she went on, “it’s fun to go around pretending to be something you’re not. It’s not hard to really pull one over on everybody. You get to watch them from outside yourself. Do it long enough, though, and you start to forget which one is the real you. You can forget how good it feels just to relax and not have to wear that other face and worry about watching every single thing you say.”
“Two faces, that’s all?” Samantha said. “Most people I know have a whole closetful. Only they never realize they’re going in after another one.”
****
Moments after he awakened on their newest motel’s bed, Kristophe got three steps toward the bathroom before collapsing to the floor. If his thighs could have, they would have screamed like souls in Hell.
Fucking bicycle, it should’ve come with a warning label: Extended use may cause excruciating soreness if you haven’t ridden since your early teenage years.
He crawled the rest of the way to the toilet for his urgent piss, then lay on the linoleum to regain composure. Realizing soon after that it wasn’t stray water from the shower he was lying in. No, at some point, Blayne and his mangled head had come in here with less than pinpoint accuracy.
“Eyes on the prize, Kristophe,” he murmured. Because what was a little cold urine, when put in perspective. “Eyes on the prize.”
He hauled himself upright along the doorframe and hobbled back to his bed, checked the clock and moaned. For over four hours he’d slept? Was this possible? That wasn’t just a cloudy afternoon at the window; it was night.
When he’d ridden the bike back here late in the afternoon, a quick nap had sounded like a capital idea. He’d spent all day fretting over why even modest levels of exertion were leaving him winded, until he realized he was a mile or more up in altitude than he was accustomed to in Los Angeles. Maybe L.A.’s air wasn’t fit to breathe, but at least it was dense enough you could drag it into your lungs.
“Blayne,” he croaked at the mass stretched out on the other bed. “Blaaaayne.”
Blayne stirred and answered with a thick-tongued muddle of obscenities.
“You are ready to do this now? You are nice and rested, ja?”
More terrible things Blayne would someday regret saying to Hollywood’s most promising young wunderkind director.
“Tonight, Blayne. It must be done tonight. We know where he is for tonight, but not for how long. If he leaves in the morning then we start this all over again.”
From the lump on the bed came a huge groaning sigh. “Think of the worst hangover…you ever had in your life…multiply it by ten. That’s me now.”
With his one good eye, Kristophe peered at him in the light bleeding in from the bathroom. Out of mercy, he’d left off the table lamp between the beds. Even in shadow Blayne looked a fright, head still swathed in tape and his golden-red Viking’s hair caked with dried blood. After they’d checked in last night, Blayne had peeled off the gym cap and used a washcloth to dissolve the worst of the clots away, then gone to bed insisting that the wound had bled itself clean. One thing about bloody unwashed hair—it smelled bad.
“Have you eaten today? Anything?”
“Just my juice and C powder.”
“You need more than these, my friend. To heal you must eat. ‘Starve a cold, feed a head wound,’ this is what my dear mutter always would tell us.”
“Bullshit.”
“Okay, so maybe she didn’t. But is the advice any less sound for it?”
“Not hungry.” A hand drifted in slow motion up from Blayne’s waist to his skull, where he probed around the tape with a weak finger. “My head itches.”
“This is a good thing.” Kristophe trying to keep it positive. “An itch means healing is going on up there. Your all-Vitamin C diet must be working wonders.”
“I’ll have a scar…in the morning.” Blayne wasn’t sounding entirely coherent now.
“Good for you, then. Scars are sexy. Scars give a man character.”
Blayne made a quavering sound that may have been a laugh. “How long you been in L.A. again?”
All right, so scars running down the center of the head were for monsters. They could argue about the aesthetics later—Kristophe still wanted one for his right cheek. Nothing too showy, nothing pretentious, just a nice German-style dueling scar. Great for his image. Lately he’d been thinking that somewhere in L.A., there had to be a cosmetic surgeon who could give him exactly the scar he had in mind, and probably give him a good deal, too, since it wouldn’t be half as much trouble as removing one.
“Okay, Blayne, up and at ’em!” he barked. “It takes two to make a death squad!”
But the more he encouraged, the clearer it became that this was not going to happen, Blayne wavering in and out of sensibility, and not once trying to budge from the nest he’d made of the sheets and blanket.
If the job was going to get done tonight, it would have to be done solo.
Still, how difficult could it be? He would be the one with the machine gun, that beautiful Heckler & Koch MP-5. It was fated, for if there was one thing the Germans knew how to build, it was guns. Take one of the black ski masks they’d bought before leaving Kingman, yank it over his face, walk into the place, one lethal burst of bullets, then spray fascist slogans on the walls with the can of Rustoleum he’d picked up at a hardware store this afternoon. Simple.
Kristophe got his legs stabilized and wobbled across the room to Blayne’s gym bag. He tossed everything out except for the gun, then threw in one of the ski masks.
He stared with longing at his video camera and the tripod, then decided no, there was just no way.
Directing yourself really only worked when you had the luxury of reshoots.
“He used to tell me how he never wanted to be the kind of actor who made headlines for punching out photographers. Well, I guess it sounded good at the time.”
—Erin Hoenigsberg
Former girlfriend
Inside Edition
30
JAMEY wished they had candles, but since neither of them had thought this far ahead, they made do with moonlight. He and Samantha, alone in the room where he’d awakened days ago—everybody had known exactly what he meant when he’d said they should make an early night of it.
For days he had yearned for her. When she started to tug her pullover sweater up from her waist, Jamey stilled her hand, requesting the honor of undressing her himself, as slowly as he could stand. Draw it out, stretch moments into eternities. He wanted to see tomorrow’s sunrise at the window and feel they’d only gotten started. He wanted to make love as if it were to be the last time, because there had been moments lately when he’d wondered if that hadn’t happened already.
Her socks were first to go, then he skinned her jeans down from her hips, letting them gather at her knees while he mouthed each thigh; took them past her feet and kissed each knee, each calf, each t
oe. He rolled her panties down the same way and let his mouth start from the top again. It was the other direction for her sweater, peeled up from her waist a few inches at a time as he stopped to nuzzle at the deep little well of her navel, the smooth arc of each rib, the flat of her breastbone and the soft swells to either side. Higher, until the sweater was past her shoulders, her head, higher still until every last long strand of hair had been freed to spill back to the pillow.
She was nothing but skin then, skin like satin and eyes shining up at him in the night, skin and eyes and hunger, and a mouth that tasted sweet with wine, and arms that reached to pull him down and within, and legs that locked to hold him there.
And if it didn’t last forever, because nothing could, it would reign supreme until the next time. Unless, by some fluke, it really was the last, and if it was, then they had at least shown the moon and stars something that burned brighter than such cold distant lights ever would.
****
“How much more time do you want to give them?” Duncan stood and rubbed his hands together, then cupped them and blew into the hollow. “It’s getting chilly out here.”
“You’ll just sit right back down there and enjoy this brisk night air a little longer—okay, Sundance?” Dawn told him.
He sat. Again. “Is this absolutely necessary, I guess is what I’m wondering.”
“I vote yes, and I guarantee you that right about now neither of them are going to dissent.” She dropped her hand to his thigh. Such tiny hands, Dawn had. Look at just her hand, and you wondered how there could be a grown woman at the other end. “It’s like Jamey got out of prison today—there, that’s something you should be able to identify with easily enough. So they really need this time alone. He does, and trust me on this, so does she. So be glad…you’re giving them this way excellent gift, and it’s not costing you a penny.”
“The doors do close in there. You don’t think that’s enough?”
“And sound carries. Tomorrow morning, let’s not be sitting around at breakfast with Samantha all embarrassed, wondering what we might’ve heard. And when I say ‘we,’ I don’t mean me so much, as you. Because she’s a wailer, Sam is.”
“How do you know a thing like that?” Ye gods—women and their global support group. “For no longer than you two have known each other, she’s telling you details like that?”
“Of course not. I can just tell, is all.”
“No kidding?” Their telepathy was even scarier. “And she seems like such a quiet thing, you know?”
“In conversation, sure.” Dawn talking to him as though he were a remedial student. “Some things, you have to look deeper for.”
And talking about this really wasn’t doing him any good at all. Not with the two of them barred from the premises this way. Sitting out on the deck to face the lights of town, the red rocks turned now to black silhouettes against the sky…
Which might be considered privacy enough, even with the other condos’ decks, thirty feet or so away on either side. None of the rest of them in use right now. A few pines planted in between for added screening.
“I don’t suppose you’d be feeling exhibitionistic tonight, would you?”
“Looking to share a little warmth?” Dawn laughed and slid her hand higher on his thigh, and he tensed as she scratched one fingernail along the front seam of his pants. “You should feel my nips in this night air. They’re hard as little pebbles.”
He reached over to give each a playful tweak. She was right.
“I wonder why it is,” she said, “the two places on our bodies to show arousal, yours and mine—I mean, being really obvious about it—put them in the cold and they react just the opposite.”
“Now you’re just being cruel.”
“Not at all. I think it shows the universe has an amazing sense of humor.” Dawn worked her hand over and around the bulge, then smiled as she got results. “How about that. The elements can be overcome.”
She reached over with her free hand to seize one of his and guide it slowly to her mouth. Slipped one finger past her lips, to swirl her tongue around it, then pushed at the tip to force it back out.
Moments later, as Duncan cradled her head in his lap, he stroked the soft, white-blonde hair and thought if there were some way of preserving a day so it would last as long as you wished, this would be the one. Because it was all in balance today. Love and cash, friendship and sanctuary—he wanted for nothing now, had achieved the dreams everyone had, just gone about it differently than most. And if a dream was all it was, he at least wanted to savor it awhile longer before the time came to awaken.
****
If that was what it looked like going on a few dozen feet in front of him, it was almost enough to make Kristophe open fire from his recon position, and forget the fascist slogans. Everybody in the world was having a better night than he was.
After pedaling the medieval torture bicycle back here to Jamey’s hideaway, Kristophe had given his suffering legs a rest, then followed a path around from the parking lot to face the building’s length directly. He’d faded down the gentle slope of the hillside to size up the situation from a cluster of evergreens.
This afternoon, after trailing Jamey and Samantha here, he’d observed that the condos had been built like townhomes, each with its own outside door. Half a flight of redwood steps and you were through the door of your own home. Excellent.
Less than an hour ago, after a few minutes of psyche-up, he’d put on his ski mask, ready to roll it down over his face. Toted the gym bag up to Jamey’s door, unzipped it so the MP-5 would be easy to grab, and quietly tried the knob.
Locked. Of course. Nobody in the world could ever make one thing easy for him, could they, not even in this Tinkerbell town.
He’d retreated back down into the shadows of the evergreens, to nail some kind of plan together. To do a really bang-up job, he would need a smoke bomb, a few concussion grenades, and a battering ram with Blayne manning the other side. A few commandos rappelling down from the roof to crash through windows wouldn’t hurt either. Naturally, Melissa had furnished none of these, and Blayne’s reliability had taken such a downward spiral that, as far as Kristophe was concerned, he’d forfeited the right to be paid a dime. You didn’t pay a guy ten thousand dollars to lie groaning on a motel bed with his scalp taped shut, no matter how big his pecs were.
Kristophe spat with disgust, ready for big-budget backing, had had all he could tolerate of low-budget operations. Assassinations couldn’t be all that different from movie-shoots—no funds meant you had to get more creative. Okay, no problem.
So he’d stared at the door. And stared. And stared.
Then he knew what the problem was. To get creative, you needed people to bounce ideas off of. And Blayne had bounced through a windshield.
And stared. Until two people stepped out the sliding doors to relax on the deck. Ah—now the plan was coming together. Those big glass doors would be his ticket into the place. And this really had to be done inside, to contain the sound of the gunfire. Walking up and blasting away and drawing all of Sedona’s attention would work only if he had a getaway car waiting. A getaway bicycle wouldn’t cut it.
He peered at the deck, wishing for binoculars. At this distance, it was hard to see these two in the near dark, but for sure it looked like Jamey. Height, build, hair —it was him, all right. Except he wasn’t with the same woman he’d brought home earlier. This was not Samantha, short as she was, with hair so blonde it looked luminous. A friend, maybe. A relative.
Then she started blowing him, and Kristophe’s hatred expanded to fill the universe. It wasn’t enough that Jamey was on the verge of undeserved success, was it? Now he had to have a fiancée and a mistress, both under the same roof. Had to come outside and flaunt this ménage a trois to the entire world.
The prick—he’d gone so Hollywood.
Kristophe seethed until they’d had their fun and began to stir again. The mistress rose from her chair, opened the door,
and stepped through for a few moments, then she poked her head out long enough to say something, and Jamey followed. When the door slid shut, the distance was too great to hear the latching of its lock, but he was betting Jamey had been too flushed with decadence to bother with so trivial a detail.
He waited a few minutes to make sure they remained inside, then broke from the cover of the evergreens. An uphill trudge with his thighs complaining every step.
Kristophe tucked himself into the corner where the redwood deck met the building, would climb it here, where the distance up from the ground was barely over four feet. The slope of the ground added more at the front of the deck. He folded the gym bag around the gun, to slip it between the side-slats of the deck. Then, scrabbling with shoetips, hoisted himself up and over the flat-topped wooden rail.
Time-out to catch his breath. Death squads did not wheeze.
Inside, they’d drawn and closed the vertical blinds, leaving just enough light seeping through so he could see what he was doing.
Kristophe arranged the MP-5 inside the gym bag so he could hold it by the pistol grip, then fling the unzipped bag away at the choicest moment. Wide-legged stance, holding the machine-gun—how cool would that look? Even without a long dark coat to flap in the breeze. He would sell the image on attitude alone. See him step through the doorway, and in one twenty-fourth of a second, a single frame of film, they would know helplessness. He would give them just enough time to comprehend that the script of their lives faded out much sooner than they’d ever believed. As he rolled the ski mask down, he wanted a camera crew following him like he’d never wanted anything in his life.
He tugged the sleeve of his black sweater down around his finger like a glove and nudged the screen door aside. Pushed the handle of the glass door—he’d been right, Jamey had failed to lock it. It slid the rest of the way with scarcely a sound.