Chapter 8
Angel Kisses
THE TWO HANKS dragged me to the coffin-tank and waited while Max Kliener stomped over. His grin was so wide it looked like his face had split open, probably to let his brain out before there was a major overload.
He stood in front of me and looked me up and down. Mostly up, him being so short. He gestured with his cigar in nothing like the emphatic and effective way that Winston Churchill would soon make famous.
‘So, Miss Malone, no final words of regret? No pleading for your life?’
‘I’m not intending to die,’ I pointed out.
‘Don’t mean it ain’t gonna happen.’
‘If I get a last request,’ I told him, ‘it’s that you learn to speak proper English.’
I don’t think he really took this to heart as he responded with: ‘You want a last request, you got it. Within reason.’
On the evidence so far, he wouldn’t know reason if it came up to him wearing a big badge marked ‘Reason’, shook hands, and introduced itself. But rather than risk his wrath, or worse his mirth, with a request to leave and go home I asked:
‘May I have a minute to compose myself before this ordeal?’
‘No problem. But it ain’t an ordeal. Soon you’ll be the most beautiful woman in the world.’
‘That is a matter of opinion,’ I said. ‘And I’ve a feeling that sort of beauty fades. Fast.’
He nodded, clamping the cigar back in his mouth. ‘So compose yourself,’ he said rather indistinctly round it. ‘You need Hilda to come back and give you the once-over?’
Hilda, I assumed was the hag with the make-up. The notion of her ‘giving me the once-over’ was almost as unsettling as the prospect of having my flesh and bone re-arranged and then getting snogged by a stone-cold killer. So I declined his thoughtful invitation.
Instead I whipped out my lipstick. One of the Hanks reached for his gun, then realised that I wasn’t actually brandishing a weapon. Well – it depends on your definition, I guess.
‘There is one other thing,’ I said sweetly, noting carefully where each of the four Hanks was positioned. One either side of me, one at the equipment, the last away by the door.
‘Shoot.’
I wish, I thought. Though what I actually said was: ‘You know, I’ve always admired you, Max.’ Sometimes I surprise myself. ‘You’ve been a hero of mine for so long now.’ Remember what I said about shameless. I was laying it on thick, just like the lipstick.
It certainly got his attention. He frowned for a brief moment, but then his vanity got the better of whatever common sense he had. It was obvious that he believed me and was soon lapping it up.
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘No, really. It’s a shame about the ageing thing, but even so… The chance to be a genuine Starlight Studios Starlet. Even for just a few days.’ My eyelids were fluttering like the wings of a trapped wasp. If he had an ounce of sense he’d realise they were about as safe and friendly.
‘My pleasure.’ He sounded like he might mean it.
‘If only things had worked out differently. But I understand, honestly I do. It’s all about protecting your investment, isn’t it? I mean, you can’t have any old Thomasina, Nicky or Harriet knowing what goes on here, how you’ve built your success. No matter how clever you’ve been.’
He made an ‘it was nothing’ gesture with his cigar which positively dripped with immodesty.
‘So I only have one request really,’ I told him. ‘Because I’m going to forget, aren’t I?’ I paused to sniff, and then dab a tear from the corner of my eye. ‘I’ll be such a star. I’ll be Giddy Semestre. But me – the real me, this me… I’ll never know about it.’
He was all sympathy and ‘there-there’. Even the Hanks were looking a little moved as I sniffed some more and a real tear rolled down my cheek. Well, I was impressed.
‘But you know,’ I said through my sobs. ‘You know, that’s all right. That’s absolutely fine.’
I turned away so they wouldn’t see me crying. Or rather, so they wouldn’t see me give in to the urge to roll my eyes and take a deep breath. When I turned back, it looked like I had managed to compose myself again.
‘Maybe there’s some other way, boss,’ one of the Hanks said. I was more disturbed than I expected to see that there was a tear in the corner of his eye too.
‘Perhaps it’s not too late,’ the other Hank agreed.
Well, excuse me – this was my show. My limelight moment. I wanted to look back on this and be able to say: ‘All my own work’, thank you very much.
I shook my head and waved away their sympathy. ‘No, it has to be. I can see that. What choice does poor Mr Kliener – poor Max – what choice does he have?’
Maybe I was overdoing it just a touch. Go too far and I’d lose credibility. Now was the moment, so I flung my arms out wide. ‘Max – my hero!’
He took a step backwards.
‘There is only one thing I want before…’ I choked back a sob. ‘Before it happens.’
I ran a critical eye over his jacket, then moved as fast as lightning. Before either of the closest Hanks or Max Kliener himself could react, I grabbed him and pulled him into an embrace. Then I kissed him long and hard, full on the lips.
To give him his due, he went with it. I had trouble pulling away. But as soon as I did, he was out of it for a while – my lipstick has that effect.
As Max was coming to terms with having been snogged out of his mind, I discovered to my relief and delight that it was a gun in his pocket. I lifted it from inside his jacket, turned and fired in one elegant and I have to admit well-practised movement.
Yes, I felt sorry for the Hanks. But there again, they were dead already thanks to Max. One of them I’m sure already had wrinkles spreading across his forehead. But it was difficult to tell with a hole through it.
My second shot was so close to the first it could have been an echo. In which case it was the shadow of a bullet that drilled through Second Hank’s blazer and stained it red as my lips.
A hand grabbed me from behind, pulling me backwards.
It was Max – after another kiss. His eyes were wide with infatuation and he was breathing heavily while sweating profusely. I shrugged out of his embrace, crouching low – very low in fact – to escape his arms, while simultaneously sweeping the Third Hank’s legs from under him with my own.
He crashed face-down to the floor. As he tried to get up again, Max Kliener stepped on his head in his hurry to get at me, lips revoltingly puckered. The noise Hank’s head made when it connected with the hard floor was almost as revolting. He didn’t get up after that.
‘Mr Kliener…’ the final Hank called from over by the door. He seemed unsure what to do.
‘Out!’ Max yelled at him.
Hank didn’t move, just stared in disbelief.
‘Get out – leave us in peace, can’t you? Me and Miss Malone have…’ His eyebrows crept so far up his forehead they threatened to become a replacement hairline. ‘…business.’
I was tempted to ask him to stay. But Hank was out of the door like a rabbit out of an electrified hat.
Unfortunately that left me alone with Max Kliener. The effect of my lipstick-kiss was that I had exchanged death for what is sometimes termed ‘a fate worse than death’. Opinions differ, I’m sure. But, whatever the relative merits of death versus Max-kiss, I was pretty keen to avoid both.
‘Melody!’ he enthused.
‘Mr Kliener,’ I said warily, backing away.
‘Please call me Max.’
‘Please call me a taxi.’
He didn’t find that as pithy and amusing as many would. I thought it was quite good under the circumstances. But I was unpleasantly aware that backing away from Kliener’s clutching fingers was bringing me closer and closer to the Angel.
The bodies of all three Hanks were disintegrating as I tried not to watch. Kliener didn’t notice at all and cared even less. His bulging eyes were fixed on me and my own bulges. His henchmen crumbled to dust around us as the Angel drew more and more energy. It would take more than that before she could move far or fast enough to be a real danger. But she’d get there.
Not that the Angel needed to move at all if Kliener kept coming at me. It was a straight choice between being smothered by his (let’s say) enthusiasm, or the deadly touch of the creature made of pitted stone. A straight choice maybe, but not an easy one.
‘Melody – you’re just playing hard to get.’
‘Hard as nails,’ I agreed.
‘All I want is a kiss. Just one more little kiss. I ain’t never been kissed like that before.’
Even if I ignored the double-negative, it sounded like I’d overdone the lipstick.
Not that Max cared. ‘It was the kiss of an angel.’
His lips protruding alarmingly, Kliener closed his eyes into tight scrunches, and leaped at me from point-blank range.
If he thought I was going to stand there meekly and give in to the puckered-lips apocalypse, he was sadly mistaken.
‘I’m no angel,’ I said, and stepped to one side with a neatness and poise that would have impressed a prima ballerina. Well, Max Kliener should relate to that.
At the moment, however, he had other things to relate to. With me out of the way, he overbalanced, tripped, staggered a few steps forwards, and found himself in the arms of and kissing a very different sort of angel.
He seemed to freeze in position. The Angel was very definitely smiling now. Her face was undeniably less weathered, her wings less chipped and fractured.
Max Kliener looked grey, as if all the colour had been sapped from him. His face was lined and cracked like ancient stone. Then he simply crumbled away. A scattering of dust fell to the floor at the stone Angel’s feet. Followed by a well-chewed cigar.