Hitman Melodies Section 8

VIII.
They awoke at noon to the sound of a buzzing lawn mower. Sebastian went out and got rid of the guy--told him to tell his boss to cancel all the maintenance stuff for the rest of the week; this was fine because the cleaning lady had been there just two days ago, and wasn't due back for another week and a half.
The lawn mower guy, Rinaldo, newly arrived from San Juan, was unconcerned with the change of plan, and was especially pleased with the $20 tip stuffed into his pocket as he was packing up; but when he got back to the office and tried to describe Sebastian to Vic the manager, he realized he had got no clear impression of the visitor at the house. It seems every time Rinaldo looked him in the face, Mr. Sullivan was standing directly in the noonday glare, or turning around, or leaning over to admire the keen Sears Clip-o-matic extension, or angling the brim of his fedora over his eyes. "He kind of stoop over, like theess," said Rinaldo, in his new second language, "and he have a high squeaky voice, I theenk. Old man, may-be, seexty years old may-be." Vic's curiosity was as short as his attention span--anybody willing to pay $400/mo to have somebody collect the mail and dust twice a month deserved his private agenda, which was sure to be beyond Vic's ken no matter how you cut it. "No maintenance on Orpheus St. till next week. Account credited."
Sebastian let Maddy out of the cuffs. After checking the bathroom for any unauthorized blades or poisons, he left her alone for a half hour to have a pleasant bath. There were towels, toilet paper, soap, and not much else in the closet; but, rather than change back into her formal eveningwear, she selected a fluffy gray bathrobe to serve as house dress. When she came out, she initially had that slicked-down-pinched-together look women get after they wash their hair, but as she padded quietly through the living room into the kitchen area, meanwhile drying out a bit, she radiated a charismatic warmth and sense of peace. Ever so slightly deified by the situation, she entered a painting in Sebastian's mind, a Botticelli, a symbolic personification of comfort and well-being. She lifted herself up a step onto a barstool at the white counter, revealing a moment of pale, sexy leg before re-covering it demurely with the gray robe.
Sebastian plunked down in front of her a plate of steaming scrambled eggs and toasted English muffins swimming in melted butter. Timing was everything with him. Nay, PERFECT TIMING was everything to him, and he had listened outside the bathroom door for fifteen minutes to be sure that that first perfect glistening drop of butter dripped off the muffin the second he placed it in front of her.
"Oooh," she oohed. "Yummy!" She dug in. "So you keep this place stocked?" "Yes. These people have been throwing out rotten eggs and moldy English muffins for ten years, just so you could have a pleasant brunch, this morning." And a no more pleasant country scene can verily be imagined: a wide picture window flooded the bright kitchen with cheerful sundrops, and from a point of relative elevation, they watched the elegant suburban green of New Jersey curtsey across the proscenium, in bobbing roundness of elm and oak, the iridescent yellow of the fall sumack just beginning to show. Sebastian was drinking Earl Grey and turned to peer through the steam at his forested back yard.
"Deception," he mused.
"Hmmm?" mouth full.
"Facade."
"What in particular inspires this comment?" wiping her mouth with a ten-year old napkin.
"I was just admiring my Sher-wood out here. It looks like it goes deep into Narnia, but I know that 20 paces past where I can see, there is a wall, and over that wall is a four-lane state road curving around into Apollo, where may be conveniently enjoyed: two smallish shopping malls, a McDonald's, a Burger King, and a Hitmen 'r' Us. Ha ha."
"Hitpersons 'r' Us, maybe?" she countered. Death draped from his delicate fingers round the cup, a J.S. Bach Bi-Centennial mug, with a quotation from the Musical Offering on the side. Such delicate fingers, long pianist's fingers, spidery Wanda Landowska fingers.
"Yeah, right. Come to think of it, I may be the only politically correct hit--uh--person hiding out in New Jersey."
"Don't flatter yourself, Roxy the Pox has been living up the road in Hera Ct. ever since he put down Richie Prizzi. He sings in the Apollo Presbyterian Church Choir. He wears a forged halo."
"What is this, newspaper humor?"
"Just trying to flow along with the traffic, boss."
"Don't be cute. I'm still going to kill you."
"So you keep saying." Her mouth was set in an enigmatic pout, but, reaching for another muffin, she stretched over the counter just a enough to let the robe droop open a little. She had to be subtle, but somehow she had to make him want it--had to let him know she wanted it. That was what was strange to her--with all the handcuffs, talk of killing, and the silence, she wanted it. She felt like a moth before a flame, only it was she, not the flame who played the role of temptress. She wondered how she was going to entrap the flame without getting burned. But she forgot to think about this when his eyes were on her. To be burned by Sebastian Chronic became a consummation devoutly to be wished. Strange. And exciting.
"Deception. Facade," he recapitulated. "It's everywhere. We are caught in a field between the twin magnets of what is and what isn't. We drift first toward one magnet then the other, and neither side is true. Which means, both are true, I guess. Which means that any point on the continuum is also true."
"You wanta demystify a bit, Obi-Wan? Where is this going?"
"I don't know that it's going anywhere. I was just looking at my fake woods out there and thinking of a piece I wrote a few years ago called, Secret Garden, for lute, recorder, and tenor viol."
"Renaissance nouveau, eh?"
"Well, duh. I wanted to capture the antique throwback flavor of these little private backyards that cultivate the illusion of being so small and disconnected from the world, and are so totally not."
"I thought all your music was written for gangland hits."
"It is. This was for Joey Spinelli--it was his secret: his secret garden. I hired a trio from Brooklyn to play the piece, and I conducted. Joey had to step to the music, blindfolded, along a faintly-marked path, like a tight-rope walker, avoiding landmines. I told him, if he made it to the back of the yard without breaking time, I'd let him go. He had good rhythm, I have to say."
"My God. Did he hit any of them?"
"There was only one. I timed it so he made it to the little angel by the fountain on the last cadence. The music stopped, he thought he was clear, and ripped off his blindfold in ecstasy. That triggered the bomb."
"You lied."
"Not really. The device was at his feet. If he hadn't anticipated, he would have made it. Of course, Chico was waiting for him out on the street with a shotgun. It was better this way. You should have seen the smile on his face. His head fell into the angel's lap, and the smile stayed pasted on there till the water washed it off."
"The smile?"
"His face."
"Ah."