Hitman Melodies Section 6

VI.
Sebastian and Maddy spent an hour or so after Mimi's demise in a little pizza joint a few blocks from Lincoln Center. They traded Puccini for Dolly Parton on the juke box. It was a good trade--Sebastian thought there was no other voice in the universe like Dolly Parton's. With Dolly and Maddy in the room together, it was a tempting diversion to compare cup sizes, but that was just silly. Draped in the dusk of the Coke machine and the cash register, they spoke very little over pepperoni; they were each considering what had passed between them during the last act: Sebastian was figuring how this would influence the character of the hit (the exquisite roundness of her undulating bosom flooded his mind with voluptuous viola melodies of doom and desire, but he still intended to do his job, preferably without spoiling that Attic shape); Maddy's thoughts were wildly searching for a way out, meanwhile noticing that his gaze wandered haphazardly past the emerald broach in a not uninterested rhythmical pattern. In spite of these twin, hidden hysterias, their eyes met more and more often, and attending those meetings a stoic calm began to penetrate the scene; a kind of peace eventually settled over them, and they ate, and drank, and sat together in a void--a stillness that took them both by surprise, but which they neither one tried to resist.
After pizza, they toured Central Park in a cab; the stillness persisted, followed them into the cab and nestled comfortably between them like a great St. Bernard, as they each lurked leisurely out of separate windows, passing the time--time, a concrete quality, now as heavy and sluggish as the stones guarding the 5th Avenue promenade. They circulated five, six, seven times in absolute silence, again and again past the park benches, the picnic grounds, and the horse trails, gloomy and mysterious now, with the trembling shadows of trees disfiguring the surface of the pavement with shifting shapes cast there, as it were, thrown away, by the city's grainy glow. The Afghani driver's gum-chewing face, faintly lit by the light of the speedometer, was the only sign of active life inside the cab. Sebastian and Maddy were both sitting sort of side-ways, their faces glued to opposite windows, their legs skewed toward the center of the cramped backseat, a kind of adolescent posture. A bump in the road shifted their toes into a position of lightly touching each other. Nobody shifted his/her position, but each was aware of the contact, and each was aware that the other did nothing to change it. Sebastian got this weird impression of Michelangelo's Adam touching the finger of God, but instead of touching fingers they were touching toes. Jeezus!
They were meeting Milano at Tony's. 3:00 A.M., after closing. Sebastian didn't know if the whole crew would be there with him, or just Jackie Junior, or maybe nobody else. They got dropped off at the alley in back, and came in through the kitchen. He was gripping her arm, guiding her with subtle pressures and pulls, and when she strayed a hair's breadth from the direction in which he was leading her, she could fell his powerful, wiry strength. It was known that he was a master of Karate and Tai Chi, and his body, though spare and light was exceedingly strong and tough--a cross between Baryshnikov and Bruce Lee.
Sebastian threw aside the curtain separating the miniscule backstage area from the stage, and stepped up onto the trumpet risers. They threaded their way into the restaurant past the piano, a dark brown smudge in the green glow of the exit lights. They paused for a moment amid music stands and drum set. Maddy whizzed a ride cymbal with her fingernail, sending a ghostly sigh out into the empty dark. Sebastian gave her a peremptory jerk on the arm--a territorial gesture indicating that all musical parameters of their relationship were in HIS domain, and keep your fucking fingers off the drums. He was also saying, you can forget that toe-touching, bitch, you're a dead girl, that's for damn sure. Maddy began to hope he protesteth too much. Sebastian wondered if he protested too much.
They stepped down off the slightly raised stage and sat at one of the front row tables. The table cloth was spread crookedly, at a jaggedly jaunty angle; bread crumbs and spilled wine, luminescing in the green, gave its surface the texture of a lunar landscape, a desert or a junkyard. He thought of that clever cartoon he'd seen years ago: it depicts a desolate wind-swept horizon on which appear an old used tire, a rusty soup can, and other useless garbage; the caption reads, "Life without Mozart." In the pulsating emptiness of that cluttered room, two feet away from Maddy High, Sebastian suddenly felt the impoverished desperation of a life without Mozart. He fought to dispel the feeling, but it grew on him, flooding his mind like the headlight of an approaching locomotive. In order to block the light he spoke:
"So you had something to tell me," he said.
"I was just going to blow smoke," she said. "I was going to try to sell you on the idea that Jackie had let slip something. I had to meet you to realize you wouldn't fall for it. You don't fall for much, do you Mr. Chronic?"
"Mozart," Sebastian muttered, inaudibly. They sat. She let it pass.
They waited. The St. Bernard rose up, scratched its ears, and moseyed out past the drum set, sighing the cymbal again with its tail. As the stillness rescinded itself, replaced by a nervous vibration filling the space between them, not once did their eyes meet; and yet their non-meeting was a tangible thing, a riotous, maniacal conflagration of feelings and conflict. The shadows of their spirits striving together on the back wall awakened the dense air to activity and turmoil, and the sound of breathing became a thunderous symphony. Sebastian was imagining piercing her heart with a cello endpin, but each time he summoned up the vision, he found his own breast transposed into the scenario. Maddy, for her part, was a veil of tears, yet, tantric-like, not a single drop moistened her cheek. Her cheek, the soft part right under the eye, was a couch where Sebastian's imaginary lips reclined in blissful repose. He turned toward her. Still the eyes did not meet, but he observed that cheek with the same desire that a man dying of thirst in the desert sees a pool of water, the same attention with which a man on the gibbet, face upturned, studies the guillotine's haughty blade. They were two tough cookies caught in a meat-grinder of emotion. Each was waiting, not for the other, but for him/herself to crumble.
Suddenly fragile, Jesus in the garden, she whispered, "What do you suppose they'll do to me?" The subtle tremble in her voice betrayed her fears. What would they do to her, to make sure she didn't know what they were afraid she knew? If only she knew what she knew they were afraid she knew, but didn't know, damn it! I don't want to die--but even less do I want to learn what a blow torch feels like. Abba, let this cup pass from me.
"I don't know," said Sebastian. "But I hope you don't have any vain attachment to your fingernails." He was sorry the moment he said it. He was sorry he was sorry. and he was sorry he was sorry he was sorry.
It took some moments for the fingernail moment to disperse into shards. Maddy braced herself. "Mr. Chronic, answer me one question."
"No," he explained.
And before he knew what was happening, and before she knew what was happening, and before the shadows in the room could adjust to the unaccustomed flight of wings, he had grabbed her hand and was dragging her past the piano, through the kitchen, and out the back. They met Jonesy and Chico both coming in as they opened the door.
Chico's face brightened in recognition. "Sebastian! You got the bitch! Great work. Hey, Jack is right behin--." Sebastian delivered a lightning-quick karate chop to the throat sending Chico to his knees. A powerful right cross left Jonesy piled on top of Chico, clattered to the floor with a tray full of dirty dishes and silverware. The broken wine glasses glittered like sand on a lunar landscape. One more lurch forward and they were in Sebastian's Jag, parked right out on the street, and they were gone. Sebastian had tried to control his punches. He had tried not to kill Chico. "Chico is probably not dead," he thought.