Hitman Melodies Section 10

X.
The love scene between Sebastian Chronic and Maddy High cannot be written; the music of it, if such could ever be heard, would reduce the striving words to gibberish. To describe the sex part of it would undoubtedly excite the prurient interest of any low mind, and might, from that level of observation be indistinguishable from any other episode in which two beautiful bodies might be seen fucking their brains out. But if the complex relationship of mental and spiritual energies in play, at that apocalyptic meeting, were even partially perceived, the witness could not fail to recognize a cavalcade of archetypal scenes passing before his eyes--a medley of mythological moments ranging in character from Eros and Psyche on their magic bed, to Baby Jesus sucking the perfect breast of Mother Mary. Every configuration of human meeting and giving was explored on that hearthrug; and when their mutual climaxes had come and gone, the weeping began again, and after that the stillness, now familiar, now almost habitual. They hallowed the hearthrug with their tears, and receded slightly back into themselves covering their nakedness with the quilt, still slightly warmed by the sinking fire.
Sebastian might have lain there in silence until dawn, in that sacred place; but Maddy invoked that denouement that women always feel is necessary after sex--talking. Sebastian went with it.
"What got you into--" she hesitated.
"Contract killing?" he finished for her.
"Yes." Mother Mary's breast snuggled against him, Jughead's Veronica.
"Long story."
"Tell me."
Oh well, sure, why not. "Okay, it's not such a long story. It was personal, the first one. I must be a murderer by nature, you know; just because I'm a cool dude doesn't mean I'm not also a scumbag."
"We'll see."
"Don't argue. I'm still going to kill you."
"I know." It was a joke now. She kissed his collar bone.
"The first one was revenge. I was 16."
"My God."
"You'll never guess what my first instrument was."
"Piano. No, the violin."
"Nice try. The French Horn."
"My God."
"Yeah, I was just another waspy jr. high public school music student, and there was a spare horn. Teacher gave the last saxophone to Freddy Neidermeyer. Imagine if Freddy Neidermeyer had been sick that day, or my real name wasn't Nelson--"
"No shit."
"Nein scheise. The world as we know it would have been different." The musing was irresistible. "Freddy Neidermeyer. What a pig. Sally Osterman got the tuba. Wrap your mind around that one for awhile."
"About the hit."
"The hit. Hit is a professional term for a paid-for assassination. This was murder most foul, a 16-year-old passion turned awry." He sank into the memory, and somehow he didn't hate it, damn him. "We were doing the 1812 Overture for the 4th of July Celebration in Podunk, New Jersey--"
"Where?"
"You writing my biography or what? Don't make me tell you where."
"Sorry," she pouted, just a little bit. "Journalistic curiosity, you know."
"Okay, okay. It was somewhere around here."
"Cool."
"May I continue?"
"Sorry." She kissed his left shoulder. He kissed her right nipple. There is a lot of kissing. Then let this meeting come to order.
"So we're doing the 1812 Overture replete with canon--"
"No shit."
"I was not an underprivileged child. There's tons of money in New Jersey. The Civic Society of Podunk New Jersey is funded by Rockefeller, or some minor Rockefeller relative. Anyway, we have rehearsal after rehearsal, OUTSIDE in the park, WITH the CANON. And the canon never comes in right."
"Never comes in right?"
"The canon part in the 1812 Overture is not improvised. It is not noise. It is written into the percussion section of the score and is supposed to fire precisely at certain times. That guy, Mort Snyder was in the fucking musician's union, for Chrissake! It's supposed to be music."
"Philistine."
"Damn straight. So I talk to him several times, I talk to the conductor, nothing happens. The asshole just likes to fire off the canon when he feels like it--looks at the fireworks or something, wrong length fuse, whatever. You know what his answer to me was? You know what he said when I told him he was firing the canon at the wrong time?"
"I'm spellbound."
"'What the fuck.' He said, 'What the fuck.'!"
"Asshole."
"Damn straight. So I stuffed the canon with ten pounds of cotton balls that morning, and at the performance the Goddamn canon blew up in his face."
"Wow."
"I don't even know that I intended to kill him, I just wanted to blow up the fucking canon. It wasn't obvious I had killed him. The canons are always way backstage and nobody noticed anything except that there was only one canon explosion instead of several. The performance went on to its conclusion; his body was found afterwards, a gash of shrapnel through his brain." And here came the crux of the matter, intimate and spooky. "But right after that first explosion I sensed something and, as I was playing the 2nd horn fanfare notes, I saw transposed in front me the face of Mort Snyder. MORT Snyder? Jesus. He smiled at me, and then he wafted up into the smoke of the fireworks. I can't describe how I felt. And when I heard that he was dead, I can't describe that either. There was never even any suspicion of foul play, it was just assumed that he was a stupid jerk and had loaded up the canon wrong."
"That's a sad story."
"At Tony's it would be a crack-up."
"Don't remind me."
"What fickle memories we all have."
"I can't believe all the shit I heard at that place. Giorgio does this, Chico does that, Chen does this--"
"Chen? You know about Chen?"
"Yeah. Lyang Chen. Merging the Chinese operation with Milano's territory up north--"
"Jackie Junior told you about a MERGER?"
"Not in so many words--you have to speak Jackiejuniorese--but I got the idea that some routine shifting of--"
"Jeezuss!" He sat up, gripping his head in both hands.
"What?!"
"Girl, for the most beautiful, intelligent woman in the world, you are one dumb fucking bimbo!"
"What??!!"
"That's your key. You had it all the time and didn't even know it."
"What do you mean?!" she explained.
"Jackie Junior is planning some dumb move on his own to bring in the Chinese. Jack Milano hates Chen. He would never enter a cooperative business relationship with him, and would move against him if he had enough tactical intelligence. It's been in the back of his mind for months. There has always been something about to happen between those two mafias. Somehow Chen has insinuated his way into Jackie's world, tempted him with an early inheritance, and is undoubtedly using Jackie Junior to set up a hit on Jackie Senior. Sounds like you weren't the only one in bed with Sonny Jim! Ha!"
"You can get all this from an offhanded mention of a MERGER."
"Mafiosos don't merge, they eliminate. If Jackie Junior had even mentioned Chen positively in the presence of anybody in the organization, they would have known something was up. With you, he probably let down his guard enough to let something slip that even he would not normally be dumb enough to let slip."
"So you think I have uncovered an internal Chinese mafia plot against Jack Milano."
"Yes."
"And Jackie Junior, AKA Hamlet Milano, is in on it?"
"Yes."
"And, at this moment, you and I are the only ones on the Milano side who know about it?"
"You're on the money, honey."
A moment of consternated disbelief. "And how is this a good thing for me?"
God I love your stupid airhead. "Maddy, my lovely lamebrain, this intelligence gives you leverage in several ways. It buys you a story, and it sends out a warning for the cops to put a special surveillance on Milano; if they're on top of it, they can either thwart the hit, or watch it go down and then grab Chen's agents when it is over. AND/OR it gets you off the hook with Jack Milano. If you go to him with this, it will mean gratitude from him and curtains for Jackie Junior."
"Damn."
He sat up with enthusiasm, figuring. "In the meantime, there are many adjustments to be made to our current reality. Let me remind you that I'm supposed to kill you."
Maddy was happy. "Remind me of something else instead," she said, and gently pressed his cock in her hand . . .

The second time was slower, more like normal sex, but incredibly drawn out like a Wagnerian overture. This time, they enjoyed each other, explored each other, played with each other; they spread excrescences of sensual delight across the face of night, like strokes of Van Gogh over vast immensities of time. Maddy was happy. She knew he was not going to kill her. She loved him, and he was not going to kill her. What she didn't know was that this was the first time in his life Sebastian had ever made love to a woman twice. This would have made her happier still.
Sebastian was happy for a different reason. Yes, he had lied, again, but, once again it was a tender mercy. Things were not in fact as simple as he had led her to believe--just because Maddy had stumbled onto some critical information, didn't mean all was forgiven. Jack Milano was a son-of-a-bitch whose concept of justice did not easily embrace the concept of forgiveness. To him that reporter bitch was still an informer and a traitor, and it would take more than a lucky break, put together by Sebastian Chronic no less, for him to change his mind about that. But a plan was coalescing in Sebastian's mind, that might mean liberation for all of them.