‘Sorry, sir. Busy tonight. What would you like?’ a waiter who has appeared out of thin air says. I give him my order and he glides back through the crowd. That’s when I notice a redhead facing the bar. And for the next few minutes I watch this redhead as she refuses drink after drink. The redhead, she’s wearing a shimmering blue dress with silver heels. She’s wearing a black choker around her neck. She’s wearing her hair over her ears. And of all the girls in this bar, I immediately know she’s unique. Of all the girls in this bar, I immediately know it’s her that doesn’t belong.
‘Hey, I can get any woman I want,’ Mark bleats out at the American table, silencing his teasers. ‘Just don’t tell my wife.’
‘Deal!’ says the manicured man. ‘The lonely girl at the bar – that one with the beautiful red hair. She’s been casting off men all night. You get her and I’ll trade rooms with you. You can have the penthouse. You don’t get her and you’re buying drinks for everyone the rest of the trip.’
And I, along with the Americans, watch as Mark makes his way to the bar and tries to chat the redhead up. We watch as Mark touches her arm and she recoils. We watch as the bartender delivers the drinks and Mark picks his up to toast her but she doesn’t touch her glass. We watch as Mark places his hand on the redhead’s cheek and says, ‘Hey, loosen up.’
And we watch as this girl with the beautiful red hair who doesn’t belong here digs the heel of her silver shoe into Mark’s foot and grabs him by the tie, causing him to spill his drink all over himself. We watch her lips say, ‘I said, leave me alone.’
And the reason this girl doesn’t belong is because she isn’t here to sleep with a producer, or get a movie part, or find a rich husband. No, the reason this girl doesn’t belong is because her name is Epiphany Jones and she believes she’s on a mission from God.
Back at the Americans’ table, over his colleagues’ laughter Mark mumbles that the redhead was clearly wearing makeup to cover a bruise on her cheek (‘probably a hooker’).
‘Next time I won’t keep you waiting so long, sir,’ the waiter says out of nowhere. I swear, he’s a damn ninja. ‘Here’s your Coke, triple rum.’
If you’re about to take a life a little liquor never hurts. I swallow the glass in one gulp. And as I wait for the alcohol to take effect, underneath the table, I fidget with the revolver. I spin the chamber around and around as I fixate on Epiphany, who’s facing the bar again.
I rehearse it again in my head: Walk up behind her. Say, ‘This is for Bela.’ Shoot her in the head. Watch people scream and run. When the police show up, fire my remaining bullets into the air so they’re forced to shoot me.
‘Another drink, sir?’ The ninja waiter says from out of nowhere, startling me. And I accidentally eject the gun’s chamber, spilling its bullets to the ground.
The ninja waiter, he sees something small and shiny hit the floor. ‘I’ve got it, sir.’
‘No,’ I shout, immediately afraid that I’ve been too loud; that Epiphany will turn and see me and run.
‘Of course, sir. Sorry, sir.’ And the ninja waiter evaporates into the crowd again. Epiphany is still at the bar, her back towards me.
Beneath the table, hidden from view, I finger the chamber of the gun. I finger three empty slots where bullets should be. As I bend under the table, I snatch two bullets from the floor and quickly jiggle them back into the chamber. My fingers crawl along the floor for the last bullet, all the while keeping Epiphany in my line of sight from just underneath the lip of the table. Then I glance and see the last bullet laying by my shoe. But when I glance back towards the bar Epiphany is gone. I jump straight up in my seat. But Epiphany hasn’t left. She was only blocked by a crowd of people who have moved on.
At the next table, the manicured American looks my way. His face furrows a little before he turns back to some inane story one of his lackeys is telling. I make sure that Epiphany isn’t going anywhere before I bend underneath the table to snatch up the final bullet, but my movement is too awkward and my foot pinches it against the ground and sends it spinning across the floor until it hits the leather loafer of the manicured man. My eyes go wide. And as the manicured man bends down to see what the little gleaming piece of metal is by his shoe, I slam the chamber of the gun shut. Around his feet, the manicured man walks his fingers awkwardly across the floor. And, bent low under the table, head cocked sideways, he squints as he catches me in his sight. His jaw drops a little.
‘Is this your bullet?’ I expect him to say.
I turn to the bar. Epiphany’s still there. My heart pounds. My ears hum. This is it.
‘Jerry?’ a voice says from the next table. It’s the manicured man. He’s lost interest in what’s hit his foot and straightens himself. ‘Jerry Dresden?’
‘Uh … yeah?’ I say, my arm suddenly powerless to raise the gun.
The manicured man gets up from his table and walks to mine. ‘God, you’re his spitting image.’
I stare blankly, unlike the lackeys at his table whose eyes all burn with jealousy.
‘Sorry,’ he says and extends his hand. I fumble with the gun underneath the table, quickly flipping it from my right hand to my left. ‘My name is Phineas Quimby. I worked under your father for over eight years.’
I take his hand in my gun-free one. Not a stray hair on that beard of his is out of place. ‘I’m sorry, have we met before?’ I say, glancing at the bar.
‘Only once,’ he says. ‘Sadly, it was the night of your father’s accident. Your dad brought you to that wrap party.’ And then he waits as if I’m supposed to react a certain way. When I don’t, he goes on. ‘Your dad was a legend. Any problem Matthew would throw at him he would spin it and turn it to pure gold. He was the best of the PR people.’
Then he sits at my table without asking and says, ‘What are you doing in Cannes?’ And then waits again, looking like I’m supposed to answer in a certain way.
‘Just about to kill someone. Can we talk later?’ would be the honest thing to say. ‘I’m just here for pleasure,’ I say, peering past his shoulder. Epiphany still has her back towards me. She briefly talks to another man before sending him away. Underneath the table, my gun hand shakes. Then, without warning, a pain explodes in my head.
And then I see Bela. She’s lying naked on one of the bar’s tables, bruises around her neck. She lies lifeless as Phineas tells me he’s still working for Matthew; he’s got my father’s old position. He’s here supporting Jordan Seabring and The Princess of the Sands.
On the table behind him, Bela’s dead body smells of generously applied perfume.
I tell myself it’s just a figment, and Bela’s naked body disappears and Phineas is saying, ‘You liked her, huh?’
I loved her. Wait, how could he –
‘Jordan Seabring,’ he smiles a broad, knowing smile. ‘I know how much you liked her.’
How the hell would he know that? She wasn’t even a star when my father was alive.
But Phineas’s mind reading takes a back seat as I fight fresh figments of Bela.
Now Bela is at the bar with Epiphany. They’re having a drink.
At my table, Phineas carries on telling me how he owes his whole career to my father. ‘He brought me into Matthew’s inner circle. I’d be a nobody without your dad.’
Up at the bar, Epiphany sets her drink down and puts her hands around Bela’s neck. Epiphany laughs as Bela struggles in her grasp. And I know it’s just my stupid mind playing with me, but I so desperately want to run over to the bar and save her.
‘What?’ I say as Bela vanishes again.
‘I asked how long you’re here for?’ Phineas says.
‘Not too much longer.’ Under the table, I feel to make sure the safety is off.
Phineas takes a small pad of paper from his jacket pocket. He shouts to his lackeys for something to write with. They all glare at me then fall all over themselves to be the first to give Phineas what he wants. To beat the others someone tosses a pen, but it hits Phineas’s h
and and lands on the floor. And as he bends to pick it up, leaving the view of me wide open, Epiphany turns from the bar and our eyes meet.
My body tightens. A cold sweat breaks out on my forehead. But, to my surprise, Epiphany doesn’t run. She looks at me for a moment and then starts sliding through the crowd towards me.
‘Are you staying here?’ Phineas is saying. ‘Give me your room number. I’d like to meet to catch up in private when I’m not babysitting these yahoos.’ And if I weren’t fixated on Epiphany in her stupid red wig, I would see the yahoos pout, their eyes filled with resentment.
I flip the gun back into my right hand, my eyes locked with Epiphany’s, ready to spring from the table. But before I can, Epiphany stops. Her mouth hangs open a bit as if she’s just been punched in the stomach and gotten the wind knocked out of her. Her eyes, they look almost sad.
‘Well,’ Phineas says, following my line of sight, ‘this is the second night I’ve seen her here. You’re the only one who’s caught her attention.’
Yeah, lucky me.
Now Epiphany begins backing away, then turns and pushes through the crowd until she reaches the exit.
‘Guess she likes the chase,’ Phineas quips. I slide the revolver into my pocket and tell him to excuse me. And as I get up from the table and begin to push through the packed crowd I feel Phineas tug at my arm and ask for my room number again.
I make it to the bar’s exit just in time to see Epiphany running through the front doors of the Carlton, just past the big cartoon mannequins. Outside, the midnight air is warm. The floodlights bouncing off the hotel exteriors are blinding but I keep her in my sight. The bulk of the gun in my pocket bruises my thigh with each stride as I burst after her. She darts down the wide sidewalk then makes a quick left onto a smaller street. The street’s empty. I close on her, my stomach in knots, blood pounding in my ears. The heel of her silver shoe snaps, sending her towards the ground. I lunge and grab her red hair but the wig comes off in my hands. She tries to scurry to her feet. I lunge again and grab her real hair and drag her into an alley.
I pull her by her raven hair until she falls to the ground. Her white face is blushed red. Her chest is winded. Smudged makeup reveals a scratch on her cheek. My heart wants to explode.
‘I didn’t kill her,’ she breathes, struggling to get up.
‘Bullshit!’ Spittle flies from my mouth and I realise I’m heaving tears. ‘You took her from me! Her perfume … you put her perfume on her so I would think she was waiting for me.’ I pull the gun from my pocket. My arm trembles as a cold strain floods my chest.
‘Jerry, no…!’
‘She didn’t do anything to you! I was out of the apartment. You could have taken me. Why didn’t you take me? Why did you have to take her!’ The way I’m shaking, if my hand touched the ground the quake would split the Earth in two. ‘She had so many plans. She had a father too. Did you know that? She had a father. And you killed her.’
Epiphany puts her palms up for me to stop. ‘I didn’t, Jerry,’ she desperately lies. I move towards her until the gun is an inch from her snow-white skin. Spasms run across her face. Sweat makes her mascara bleed. ‘I didn’t –’
I shake my head and wipe tears on my sleeve. ‘Then how do you know she’s dead?’
I cock the gun and Epiphany’s eyes go wide as she realises how this is going to end. She lowers her hands halfway – a way of telling me to ‘just calm down’, a way of saying, ‘we’re all friends here’. And, as tears pour from my eyes, Epiphany stammers her last lie.
She says, ‘In the bar … when they warned me about the gun–’
Looking into the barrel of it, she says, ‘My voices–’ then shifts her gaze to my eyes.
She says, ‘My voices, they told me how much you are hurting.’
And I say, ‘Stop with the voices.’
And I fire into Epiphany Jones’ snow-white face.
42
Gypsies
In movies the term point-blank is thrown around incorrectly all the time. Point-blank actually refers to a shot fired from within one to two metres of the victim. When you shoot someone within inches of the face, as I just did, it’s called a contact shot. A contact shot will produce what’s called tattooing – a distinctively patterned wound from the powder burns that spray the face.
The sound of a gunshot has nothing to do with the mechanics of the bullet. The bang comes from gases that are released during the shot. In a contact shot the body will act as a suppressor for the muzzle blast, trapping the propellant gases under the skin, causing it to bubble up, thus muffling the sound of the shot so that even people walking on a busy boulevard forty feet away can’t hear it.
Now, what’s meant to happen when you shoot someone in the face at any range is the bullet leaves the barrel of the gun. It enters the victim, ideally between the eyes, travelling through the skull and that lump of grey matter we call a brain. Then the bullet, it exits the back of the head, taking a large chunk of skull and skin and mush with it.
Think JFK.
Think MLK.
Think Honest Abe.
This person you just shot, they’re supposed to collapse lifelessly to the ground. All thoughts, all memories, all pain and all joy, gone from them forever.
That’s what’s meant to happen. But guns, they act differently when you fire them at Epiphany Jones.
She’s still standing. Her eyes squeezed tight. Her breath held. Her whole body rigid like a bronze statue as she stands braced for impact against the half-inch shard of metal that’s supposed to end her shitty life.
One second passes. Two. And she opens her eyes a little. Three. She exhales. Four. She says, ‘God,’ and crosses herself. I flip the chamber open. Five. There are only five bullets in the revolver. The one that should have gone into Epiphany’s skull is lying somewhere on the floor of the Carlton’s bar.
‘Not God,’ I say, snapping the chamber shut, ‘luck.’
And maybe she’s convinced I’m right for once, because she doesn’t give me a chance to take another shot. With the broken heel of her silver shoe she kicks hard against my shin and grabs my wrist. And she slams my hand against the alley wall until I drop the gun. She’s relentless with her kicks and I stumble from the alley, tripping over a curb, landing in the middle of the street.
She kicks off her snapped heels and races barefooted down the street then turns onto the main boulevard. I grab the gun and sprint after her. I weave between the nightlife lovers and the celebrity seekers that fill the Croisette. A mass of people huddled around a DVD stall selling two-for-ones slows my pursuit. I push though them and run into the street. A black Benz blares its horn as it swerves to get around me. Epiphany is just twenty feet ahead of me on the sidewalk, and I’m gaining on her. Suddenly the mirror of another car hits me as it tries to swerve around me on the street. I leap back onto the sidewalk into the thickened crowd again. Then I realise it’s not just the crowd, but one of the roving bands of gypsies that have slowed my pursuit.
The gypsy and her children, they circle around me. The gypsy mother lifts her baby to my face and mumbles something about food. The longer the gypsy blocks me the smaller and smaller Epiphany gets down the boulevard. So I wrench the baby from the gypsy’s arms.
And I dropkick it.
And from behind me, someone yells, ‘My God!’
Someone yells, ‘That man just punted a baby!’
Someone yells, ‘Nice range!’
And I probably forgot to mention this before, but the gypsies that come from all over Europe to festivals like this – my dad told me all about them. They’ll roam around in packs, a mother and her gypsy children. The mother will always carry a baby wrapped in a blanket in her arms. As she carries this baby, she’s followed by her other little children, who weave through the people on the crowded sidewalk. The mother gypsy, she’ll hug her baby tight, whispering prayers in its ears. And the other children, they’ll wait for a cue from their mother. They’ll wait for a cue from their m
other because, that baby she’s holding? It’s not real.
My father explained that what these gypsies will do is find a crowded area and ask people in broken English if they can spare some change to help feed the children. When no one offers any money, the gypsy will scream and scream until she’s attracted a lot of attention. Then she’ll toss her baby into the air. And the onlookers, they’ll all stand dumbfounded as this small baby sails through the sky.
While this is going on, while everyone’s attention is on the baby, the gypsy’s children will deftly pick the pockets of the onlookers. They do this in less than five seconds. And as the baby lands on the ground or is caught by a Good Samaritan, the onlookers will breathe a collective sigh of relief when someone shouts, ‘It’s just a doll!’ Everyone will slowly depart, crisis averted. ‘The woman is mad,’ they’ll say. They won’t realise until much later that their pockets are lighter.
And across the street a man has his hands stretched towards the sky. ‘Mine!’ he calls, like he’s Shoeless Joe Jackson waiting in the outfield. And soon three men are on me. Two wear tuxes. The third looks like paparazzi. They’re forcing me to the ground, and as a hand presses my head against the sidewalk, I gaze down the boulevard, my view all sideways. Epiphany has disappeared.
‘Someone call the police!’ a man is shouting.
‘Oh, take his picture, darling. The help will never believe this!’ a woman says.
Across the street, Shoeless Joe catches the baby to loud applause. He beams like he’s single-handedly won the World Series. But, ‘Wait! Wait!’ he says. ‘It’s not real!’ And he gives the baby a squeeze and it squeals like a dog’s toy.
The men holding me down, they apologise. They help me up now. The anger on the boulevard turns towards the gypsy.
‘You should be ashamed!’ someone says.
‘Get a job,’ another shouts.
But the gypsy, she just gathers her real children and walks away. Their pockets stuffed full of wallets.
Epiphany Jones Page 28