Still hanging on to Owen’s arm, Max raised himself up out of his chair.
“Leave the gun,” Owen said. “We don’t want to give them any reason to shoot.”
“Quite right, boy. Quite right.” Max set the snub nose on the chair. “You know what? Why don’t we have me sit in the chair and you wheel me out? Make a regal entrance.”
“Max, you’re not directing this, I am. We go out together, we lie face down on the sidewalk, hands above our heads. And no sudden moves or they’ll kill you. All right?”
“Face down. No sudden moves. Roger that. Did you know that ‘roger’ used to mean shtupping? Samuel Pepys used to regularly roger the female members of his staff.”
Owen tightened his grip on Max’s arm as they reached the door. “Remember, there’s going to be about a hundred guns pointed at us.”
“Yes, yes. Tedious trolls.”
Owen pushed open the door and the two of them stood arm in arm, blinking in the sunlight.
Someone, probably Saperstein, called over a megaphone, “Hands up, now.”
They both put their hands in the air.
“Face down on the sidewalk. Now.”
Owen started to kneel, saw Max wasn’t moving, and stopped halfway.
“Max, no funny stuff. Just do what they say.”
“Keep away from me, boy. They may shoot anyway, and I don’t want you to get hurt.”
The megaphone again: “Face down! Now!”
“Max, just lie down on the sidewalk. Please.”
“Stop fussing, lad. I know how to hit my marks.”
They both got down on their knees. Owen lay down and spread his hands over his head.
There was a pause. A murmur of activity went up among the squads of police.
Then Max said, “Sorry, lad. Can’t go to prison again.”
He pushed himself up and started to run-a hopeless manoeuvre, since he was long past the age of swift acceleration. He didn’t get ten feet before a shot rang out, and he slammed against the plate glass of the bank before sliding down to the pavement. Owen crawled over to him. Max was slumped in a crooked seated position like a puppet from which the controlling hand has been withdrawn. In the sunlight, his makeup was obvious-the putty he had used to alter the shape of his nose, the sheen of glue at the edges of his added eyebrows.
Blood was pouring from the wound in Max’s chest. Owen pressed a hand over it, and blood flowed hotly over his fingers. “You’re gonna be okay.”
Max was trying to say something.
“Don’t talk, Max.”
Max’s voice was barely a whisper. His words emerged in a long, slow gasp, as if blown by a distant wind. “I have it,” he said. “And soundly, too.”
“Max, you’re too old to play Mercutio,” Owen said. “Be quiet now.”
Four cops surrounded them, guns pointed, as two more cops frisked them.
Paramedics appeared, wheeling a gurney.
Max was trying to say something else. Owen leaned closer to hear.
“You guys have any brandy?” Owen said. “He wants some brandy.”
The cops pulled Owen back. One of the medics felt Max’s neck; his head had lolled to one side.
The paramedic glanced up at Owen. “This guy a physician?”
Owen shook his head. “Actor.”
“Not anymore, kid.”
TWENTY-SEVEN
Monk’s Castle on Seventh street had always been Max’s favourite pub, not just because they served Guinness and a healthy variety of British ales, but because they had no television, their sound system played only classical music, and-best of all-the bartender and waiters wore monks’ robes complete with hoods, sandals and belts of knotted rope. Downstairs the place was all dark wood and stained glass, but the upstairs was a bright and lively space that the “monks” rented out for parties.
Max himself had held more than one celebration on the premises, so when it came time to choose a suitable venue for a memorial get-together, it had been the first place Owen thought of. The rafters were hung with huge posters of Max that he had had enlarged from his Photoshop files. Except for the presence of a jovial fat man in the foreground, they could have been used for a high school geography course. From the redwood forests of California to the rocky coast of Maine, from the badlands of the Dakotas to the boardwalks of New Orleans, Max had been there. In every photograph he was laughing, smiling or striking a pose, the camera his natural ally.
With the help of a schoolmate, Owen had dressed up a series of mannequins in a selection of Max’s favourite costumes-Catholic priest, Saudi sheik, British major-and stood them up around the tavern with mugs of ale in their hands, like an exhibition of multicultural bon vivants. He had painstakingly gone through every contact in Max’s tiny, pencil-smeared address books and sent out invitations with plenty of notice.
And now the place was crammed with villains of wildly divergent shapes and predilections, but they all had one thing in common: they had worked with Max at some point or other, and cherished the memory. There were many Owen didn’t really know, who offered condolences and a funny story. There were lots of old guys, quite a few British accents, and there was Bobo Valentine, whose weight had doubled since Owen had seen him last and must now have been approaching metric tonnage. Sylvester Keech arrived in black silk Vietnamese pyjamas, being currently in love with a young chef at Indochine. Jimmy Coughlin came all the way from Dallas, tattoos and all, toting a case of single malt. And there was Ted “Brick” House, whose grey hair had unaccountably turned orange.
Best of all, Roscoe showed up and nearly broke Owen’s heart by bursting into tears when he saw the photos. After a few snorts he pulled himself together enough to give a speech; Owen was too emotional to manage it himself.
“Max Maxwell was a great man,” Roscoe told the crowd, “but a truly mediocre trivia player. His knowledge of geography was mostly restricted to the rivers of Warwickshire, his astronomy didn’t go much farther than the Big Dipper, but his Shakespeare …” (Here Roscoe was interrupted by much cheering.) “His knowledge of Shakespeare delighted all of us who knew him, even if we didn’t know Shakespeare.”
He told several Max anecdotes that even Owen hadn’t heard before, and finished up by saying, “Max loved three things, no, four things, no-wait, I can’t count the things Max Maxwell loved, because he pretty much loved everything. He loved beer, he loved acting, he loved food, he loved Shakespeare, he loved thieving. But most of all-and way beyond all the others-he loved his one and only son, who organized this wonderful afternoon for us-Owen Maxwell.”
Owen was barely able to smile and wave to the peculiar gang that swirled around him. He thanked Roscoe and went downstairs for a moment to pull himself together. The bar seemed pitch-dark after the noise and brightness upstairs. All of the booths were empty, except for one where a young couple talked in hushed tones. A monk came over to Owen, but he shook his head.
His breathing was just about back to normal when someone approached his booth from behind him.
“Is it okay if I join you?”
Light from one of the pub’s stained glass lamps turned Sabrina’s face shades of rose and royal blue. She was wearing jeans and a white shirt, and those two everyday items had never looked so good. She seemed a lot taller than Owen remembered.
He didn’t reply, but she sat across from him in the booth anyway, setting her backpack on the floor. “I came to say I’m sorry.”
“Don’t you have someone else to fuck over? Personally, I’m not interested.”