Finn watched the calculation in her pale eyes. She then tucked the pistol back into her purse and gave a nod. Finn released the pent-up breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
There was a reason Stan had survived in Hollywood for fifty years, Finn thought.
Finn didn’t bother to take Stan home. He just drove the make-up man straight to Kelley’s house.
“Is there a reason you’ve brought me here?”
“It’s your home, isn’t it?” Finn countered.
“Home is where the heart is,” Stan said lightly, but there was a shadow in the back of his eyes.
“Then that would be here. I figured out about Mexico. You married her, didn’t you?”
The net of wrinkles around Stan’s blue eyes deepened as he smiled. “You’re a danger, young Bradley. Well, let’s go in to her.” Stan climbed out of the van.
They went around to the back where Stan unlocked the kitchen door. “Grace, my dear,” he called.
They heard her steps overhead. Stan led them into the foyer. Kelly came running down the grand curved staircase and into Stan’s arms. Finn sidestepped his way through an archway and into the living room. A few minutes passed and then they joined him. They were holding hands. It was really sweet.
“Would you like something to drink, Bradley?” Stan asked. “Would you get him something, dear, while I get my kit?”
Stan took a step only to be caught by Kelly. “Stan, wait. I’ve been thinking a lot during the past two days.”
Stan started shaking his head. “No, Grace. This is a beautiful movie, don’t…”
She put a hand over his mouth. “I’m tired, Stan. My back hurts. I’m hungry all the time, and I have to exercise twice as long now to stay the same size. I’m not twenty-three. You just let the mirror give me back that picture.” Stan stood silent, just staring at his wife. A wave of insecurity passed across her face. “You can’t love me like this?” She touched a wrinkled cheek.
Stan grabbed her into a tight embrace. His voice was thick as he murmured against her hair. “No, my love. I just want you to be sure before you give it all up.”
Kelly wasn’t trying to hide her tears. She kissed him hard. “But I’ll finally have you. For whatever time remains to us.”
The emotions-love, regret, joy-were like electric currents in the room. It was overwhelming, and Finn had to get out of that room. He placed each hoof with elaborate care. They still rang hollowly on the wood floor of the foyer, but neither Stan nor Grace noticed.
Amazingly, the movie continued. Kelly offered to split the cost of the reshoot with the studio. Benton recast, and the production moved to England. The tabloids made much of Kelly and Stan’s love story. SHE GAVE UP BEAUTY FOR TRUE LOVE! Stan hired bodyguards. And Finn started back to school.
One evening the phone rang.
“Hello,” Finn said around a mouthful of Chef Boyardi ravioli.
“Hi, Bradley.” It was Tanya.
Finn swallowed, and felt the inadequately chewed food hit his stomach like a lead ball. “Hi.”
“I was wondering if I could take up the offer of a native guide to Santa Monica?”
“Last time we met you aimed a gun at me, and the time before that you tried to trick me into a porno movie.”
“So? It’s not like it was personal.”
“And that’s why I think Santa Monica is a bad idea.”
“Coward.” He could hear the laughter in her voice.
“Tanya, would you fuck a pony?”
“No. But a centaur might tempt me.”
FATHER HENRY’S LITTLE MIRACLE by Daniel Abraham
This being my first time speaking to a genuine Jokertown congregation, I thought I should make something clear. I myself am not a joker. I looked like this before I drew the wild card, my daddy looked more or less like this himself, and his daddy before him. I stand before you now as a testament to the charitable nature of Southern women.
[Pause for laughter]
– From the notebook of Father Henry Obst
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 1987
James Spector-Demise-surveyed the carnage. The overhead light fixture had been shot during the attack, a bare bulb left shining from a neck of frosted glass with edges sharp as teeth. A low haze of gun smoke filled the apartment. Three jokers lay on the floor or the cheap kitchen table, red and green and florid purple blood spilling out of them. The Gambione men-both nats-lay among them. One joker moaned in pain, another tried to crawl for the kitchen at the back of the apartment-a dead end, but away from Spector’s slow footsteps. He walked among them, turning the bodies over with the toe of his new leather shoes, staring into the eyes of the dying, adding his own constant pain to theirs, pulling death into them a little faster.
“Could you not do that?” Phan Lo snapped from the front room.
“What?”
“Whistle.”
“I was whistling?”
“The song from I Dream of Jeannie. I hated that show.”
“Sorry,” he said and went back to killing people.
The apartment belonged to Zebra, a small time Jokertown drug dealer who’d thought the gang war was his chance to make it big by selling raw heroin to the Gambiones. But the Shadow Fist had found out about the deal, and Danny Mao had arranged a complication. Spector leaned over, peering into the eyes of a young Gambione. Nothing. The guy was already gone.
Zebra lay on the floor by the table, riddled with Phan Lo ’s bullets. Demise considered the corpse, the last blood blackening on its breast, and snorted. “Hey Phan. What’s black and white and red all over?”
“Go back to whistling.”
“How many you got up there?”
“Two,” Phan Lo said. “Maybe three. One of them looks like he may be-you know-two. One of those conjoined things.”
“I’ve got a five back here,” Spector said.
“Yeah, but you got shot.”
“A couple times,” Spector allowed. The wounds were already closed, and he’d been careful to wear a suit he didn’t care about much. “They all dead?”
The businesslike crack of a pistol split the air. “Yeah,” Phan Lo said. “Yours?”
“Dead as fish on Friday.”
“Great. Let’s get the shit and get out of here.”
“What’s the rush? It’s not like the cops are going to come to this part of Jokertown.”