Epiphany Jones (26 page)

‘OK,’ she begins…

‘No, no, no,’ I tremble, spasms rippling through my soul. ‘Please. I can’t make it without you.’

‘I go now,’ she smiles at me. ‘See you later, alleegator.’

‘No! Please,’
I beg. I hold her tight. I’ll pin her to this spot. I’ll never let her go again. I’ll never hurt again. I won’t allow it. I
will
her to stay with me.

But it doesn’t help.

My arms ensnare nothing but air. I look like a human basketball hoop kneeling on the sidewalk. On the street the pharmaceutical characters are at a standstill. The grandparents clutch their grandson. A shop owner is on his cordless calling the police. But it doesn’t matter. I’ll have shot myself by the time they get here.

And out of everyone staring at me there’s this young kid who stands a little closer than anybody else. He’s got a balled-up piece of newspaper in his hand and wears a playful grin. He can’t be older than five. The world is still good and beautiful to him. God is loving. His parents are caring. Bad guys always go to jail.

The pure pools of his eyes stare into mine as his amusement grows at my frozen basketball-hoop body. Then with the flick of his wrist he sends his balled-up newspaper sailing towards the day’s perfect sky, where it appears as if it could be a piece of broken coral floating in a calm, blue sea. Then the balled-up newspaper, it completes its arc and begins its descent towards the earth where it, much to the boy’s satisfaction, drops between the rims of my arms.
‘Dois pontos!’
he shouts.

And feeling the gun in my pocket pressed hard against my thigh, I gaze at the balled-up newspaper resting at my knees. I watch it unfold, blossoming like a flower in a time-lapse video. Black-and-white letters bud into florets of words until one headline – one sign – stands out. It’s the only sign I’ve ever needed.

T
his is me, forty-eight hours after leaving Porto on a train.

This is me, faking my way through life again.

This is me, standing on the Promenade de la Croisette, pretending everything is just great.

A fifty-foot Jordan Seabring looms over the Croisette, Cannes’ main boulevard, which has the beach and boardwalk on one side and the most expensive hotels in Europe on the other. On the banner, Jordan is wearing a surprisingly conservative red dress and holds a 3D-generated creature – something of a cross between a porcupine and a snail – in the palm of her hand.

Every building on the Croisette is plastered with more of these massive banners promoting the summer’s sure-to-be blockbusters. There’s the grim and gritty superhero movie about the alien from another planet staring Hugh Fox; the vampire-romance with the pretty-boy actor; the final part of that geek-turned-mainstream fantasy trilogy.

The Croisette crawls with stargazers and hopefuls. The people who look rich are most likely the poor ones – having spent their savings trying to impress the truly wealthy who are here. Desperate people stand on corners asking total strangers if they have an extra ticket to spare for this event or that showing. And everyone here,
everyone
, speaks English. You don’t come to the festival if you can’t speak English. English is the language of Hollywood. Even the gypsies that come from all over Europe to pickpocket the people here speak English.

Just past a huddle of street vendors hawking DVD movies and
glossies of the stars I find a semi-classy shop where I buy some off-brand shoes, shirts, pants and a tux.

This is me, knowing I need to fit in.

As the clerk wraps up my new clothes, I flip through the Cannes edition of
The Hollywood Reporter
someone has left in the shop. The cover article is about the film that’s opening the festival:
The Princess of the Sands.
It’s an animated CGI film about an Arabian princess named Houda who discovers a race of creatures living below the Sphinx. Her evil half-brother, the king, has enslaved these magical creatures. Jordan Seabring voices the princess. This is Hollywood’s sex kitten trying to appeal to the under-twelve crowd.

Growing up, reading about the festival in
Entertainment Weekly,
everything looked so magical. The palm trees, the red carpet, the fancy limos. I believed the fantasy that the festival was about celebrating the best of film. But my father explained that Cannes is really about the backstage deals. For every film that’s in competition there are a thousand films being viewed privately in hotel rooms, and on yachts, and on portable DVD players between courses in fancy restaurants.

The public face of Cannes is about the big-name stars and the best of ‘art cinema’. It’s about Hollywood telling the world that film is noble, that film is profound. But the private face of Cannes is all business. It’s a marketplace. It’s about sales. It’s about desperate directors trying to get a meeting with a big producer so they can sell the film they mortgaged their house to shoot. It’s about fading stars trying to be photographed to get back into the public’s eye. It’s about young and beautiful women prowling the large hotel bars, hoping to catch the attention of someone important who will invite them to an exclusive party. And at these parties, these young and beautiful women, they’ll do anything to become the next big starlet – the next Jordan Seabring.

And it’s at one of these hotel bars where I know I’ll find Epiphany. If Matthew really does have her daughter, she’ll need to find someone with a way into his party.

I pay the clerk when he’s done wrapping my clothes. Everything’s designer imitations, but it still costs me almost a thousand euros. But
I won’t get into the hotel bars if I don’t look the part. Everything in Cannes during these three weeks is about image.

Outside the Carlton Hotel life-size statues of two of the characters from
The Princess of the Sands
flank the doorway. One is Jordan Seabring’s princess; her large eyes and wrist-thin waist sure to give eight-year-olds eating disorders for the rest of their lives. The other statue is the princess’s evil half-brother, the king. He’s got a triangular grin and barrel chest and holds an Arabian sword in one hand and a football-sized red jewel in the other.

The Carlton is the hotel where my father always stayed. Matthew wouldn’t be here but some of his lower-downs might be, which means Epiphany could show.

This is the best plan I’ve got. This is my version of Paulo’s, ‘You find a way to find her.’

The concierge tells me with a hint of snideness that he’s sorry, but the best rooms have been booked for almost a year – just after the last festival ended. ‘You understand.’

Meaning, if I really was important, I should know that.

So I put two hundred euros on the counter and the concierge takes the bills, folds them and puts them in his pocket.

He says they do have a single room left. It’s small and is only on the second floor. No bigger than a closet, really. Desk. Bath. DVD player. Normally it’s for the help working night shifts. ‘You understand.’

I place another hundred euros on the counter that disappears just as quickly.

He says that, at this late stage, however, the room is as much as their normal single-bed suites. That is, four thousand for the week. ‘You understand.’

I hand the money over.

He raises his eyebrows. ‘And the name? For the register?’

‘Jerry Dresden,’ I say. And I spell it for him. ‘Give it to anyone who asks, got it? Anyone.’

‘I understand,’ he says.

This is me, breaking down again. It happens as soon as I’m in the
room. Just like I did on the train coming here this morning. I break down and I cry. I hurt so bad.

Then I take the gun out of the paper bag Paulo gave me. It’s the kind that you need to pull the cock back on. Like one of those Wild West Howdy Doody guns. It’s got a barrel chamber with six bullets in it.

And Paulo’s wrong. This is revenge, not justice. Justice would have been Epiphany going to France – on her own – without murdering Bela.

Justice would have been everyone leaving everyone else alone.

In my mind I can still hear Bela’s little giggle. I can still feel her hands on me.

What was she thinking as Epiphany strangled her? Did she know what was going on? Did Epiphany tell her that she was my punishment for not going to France; for not believing in her voices? And as she died, was she angry at me?

With the gun in my hands, I know Bela would be angry at what I’m about to do.

But she’s dead. And the dead don’t see. They don’t feel.

This is for her memory. It’s to show Epiphany she can’t take an innocent life. That she can only push the weak and cowardly around for so long before they push back.

‘T
hey put you on a boat and knock you out. You wake up at the party on some island off the coast, and the only way they let you leave is by knocking you out again.’

‘I’ve heard if you’ve never been in a picture with a twenty-mil opening day, there’s no way you’ll be invited.’

‘I’ve heard it’s thrown by Matthew Mann.’

In all the swanky hotel bars, Cannes’ most exclusive party is talked about in whispers.

‘How would Mann afford it? I heard all the glasses are made of diamonds and the plates are solid gold. The guests get to keep them, too.’

‘I heard guests have to sign a non-disclosure agreement!’

‘I heard you go to bed one night and you wake up the next morning with the invitation laying next to you. No one knows who delivers them – or how they got in to your room.’

All anyone knows for sure is that the party hasn’t taken place yet. No one wants to risk saying they were there to a person who’s going and knows it hasn’t happened. The good news is that means Epiphany is still in Cannes. No doubt she’s heard the same whispers and is waiting until she can meet someone who’s going. The bad news is I’ve been going from hotel bar to hotel bar for two days and haven’t spotted her.

It’s the fifth day of the festival and the city is in full swing. The Carlton bar is crowded when I return at quarter to midnight. I’ve wasted the last four hours sitting in the Majestic, hoping Epiphany might show there.

However Bela did it, whatever
it
was, it’s wearing off. I’ve started
to see my figments again. On the walk back I saw Ana Lucia dribbling her soccer ball. Rachel called me from the beach. She said, ‘You haven’t fucked until you’ve fucked in the sea under a full moon.’

The Carlton’s waiters in their white coats double in the large mirror lining the back of the bar as they dash from table to bar and back, ushering drinks to all the Very Important People. The bar is packed with beautiful girls. These are the girls who emptied their bank accounts just to get to Cannes. Girls who spent every last penny on the dress they’re wearing now. And that dress, it’s the same one they’ll wear every night of the festival because it’s the only one they could afford. It’s the dress that perfectly shows off their young bodies. The dress which will, they hope, persuade a producer to sleep with them and then offer them a role in his next film.

I’m at a small table near the back. At the table next to mine are five loud Americans, all dressed in suits, drinking and laughing. All but one of the men looks to be around my age. They laugh extra hard when the older man tells a joke. The older man, his beard is perfectly manicured, like his suit and his eyebrows and his nose hair.

‘Look, Frank,’ the manicured man says to one of the younger guys, ‘This is your first year here, right?’

Frank smiles too big.

‘A little word of warning,’ the manicured man says. ‘If a beautiful woman hits on you – it’s really a man. For some reason Cannes really brings out the transvestites.’

‘It’s true,’ chimes in another American. ‘Just ask Mark!’ Laughter erupts.

‘It was one time, and anyone could have made that mistake,’ a red-faced

Mark says.

More laughter.

Across the bar another group of beautiful girls enter. They scan the room, look chronically dissatisfied, and leave as quickly as they arrived.

‘Sorry, sir. Busy tonight. What would you like?’ a waiter who has appeared out of thin air says. I give him my order and he glides back through the crowd. That’s when I notice a redhead facing the bar. And
for the next few minutes I watch this redhead as she refuses drink after drink. The redhead, she’s wearing a shimmering blue dress with silver heels. She’s wearing a black choker around her neck. She’s wearing her hair over her ears. And of all the girls in this bar, I immediately know she’s unique. Of all the girls in this bar, I immediately know it’s her that doesn’t belong.

‘Hey, I can get any
woman
I want,’ Mark bleats out at the American table, silencing his teasers. ‘Just don’t tell my wife.’

‘Deal!’ says the manicured man. ‘The lonely girl at the bar – that one with the beautiful red hair. She’s been casting off men all night. You get her and I’ll trade rooms with you. You can have the penthouse. You don’t get her and you’re buying drinks for everyone the rest of the trip.’

And I, along with the Americans, watch as Mark makes his way to the bar and tries to chat the redhead up. We watch as Mark touches her arm and she recoils. We watch as the bartender delivers the drinks and Mark picks his up to toast her but she doesn’t touch her glass. We watch as Mark places his hand on the redhead’s cheek and says, ‘Hey, loosen up.’

And we watch as this girl with the beautiful red hair who doesn’t belong here digs the heel of her silver shoe into Mark’s foot and grabs him by the tie, causing him to spill his drink all over himself. We watch her lips say, ‘I said, leave me alone.’

And the reason this girl doesn’t belong is because she isn’t here to sleep with a producer, or get a movie part, or find a rich husband. No, the reason this girl doesn’t belong is because her name is Epiphany Jones and she believes she’s on a mission from God.

Back at the Americans’ table, over his colleagues’ laughter Mark mumbles that the redhead was clearly wearing makeup to cover a bruise on her cheek (
‘probably a hooker’
).

‘Next time I won’t keep you waiting so long, sir,’ the waiter says out of nowhere. I swear, he’s a damn ninja. ‘Here’s your Coke, triple rum.’

If you’re about to take a life a little liquor never hurts. I swallow the glass in one gulp. And as I wait for the alcohol to take effect, underneath the table, I fidget with the revolver. I spin the chamber around and around as I fixate on Epiphany, who’s facing the bar again.

I rehearse it again in my head: Walk up behind her. Say, ‘This is for Bela.’ Shoot her in the head. Watch people scream and run. When the police show up, fire my remaining bullets into the air so they’re forced to shoot me.

‘Another drink, sir?’ The ninja waiter says from out of nowhere, startling me. And I accidentally eject the gun’s chamber, spilling its bullets to the ground.

The ninja waiter, he sees something small and shiny hit the floor. ‘I’ve got it, sir.’

‘No,’ I shout, immediately afraid that I’ve been too loud; that Epiphany will turn and see me and run.

‘Of course, sir. Sorry, sir.’ And the ninja waiter evaporates into the crowd again. Epiphany is still at the bar, her back towards me.

Beneath the table, hidden from view, I finger the chamber of the gun. I finger three empty slots where bullets should be. As I bend under the table, I snatch two bullets from the floor and quickly jiggle them back into the chamber. My fingers crawl along the floor for the last bullet, all the while keeping Epiphany in my line of sight from just underneath the lip of the table. Then I glance and see the last bullet laying by my shoe. But when I glance back towards the bar Epiphany is gone. I jump straight up in my seat. But Epiphany hasn’t left. She was only blocked by a crowd of people who have moved on.

At the next table, the manicured American looks my way. His face furrows a little before he turns back to some inane story one of his lackeys is telling. I make sure that Epiphany isn’t going anywhere before I bend underneath the table to snatch up the final bullet, but my movement is too awkward and my foot pinches it against the ground and sends it spinning across the floor until it hits the leather loafer of the manicured man. My eyes go wide. And as the manicured man bends down to see what the little gleaming piece of metal is by his shoe, I slam the chamber of the gun shut. Around his feet, the manicured man walks his fingers awkwardly across the floor. And, bent low under the table, head cocked sideways, he squints as he catches me in his sight. His jaw drops a little.

‘Is this your bullet?’ I expect him to say.

I turn to the bar. Epiphany’s still there. My heart pounds. My ears hum. This is it.

‘Jerry?’ a voice says from the next table. It’s the manicured man. He’s lost interest in what’s hit his foot and straightens himself. ‘Jerry
Dresden
?’

‘Uh … yeah?’ I say, my arm suddenly powerless to raise the gun.

The manicured man gets up from his table and walks to mine. ‘God, you’re his spitting image.’

I stare blankly, unlike the lackeys at his table whose eyes all burn with jealousy.

‘Sorry,’ he says and extends his hand. I fumble with the gun underneath the table, quickly flipping it from my right hand to my left. ‘My name is Phineas Quimby. I worked under your father for over eight years.’

I take his hand in my gun-free one. Not a stray hair on that beard of his is out of place. ‘I’m sorry, have we met before?’ I say, glancing at the bar.

‘Only once,’ he says. ‘Sadly, it was the night of your father’s accident. Your dad brought you to that wrap party.’ And then he waits as if I’m supposed to react a certain way. When I don’t, he goes on. ‘Your dad was a legend. Any problem Matthew would throw at him he would spin it and turn it to pure gold. He was the best of the PR people.’

Then he sits at my table without asking and says, ‘What are you doing in Cannes?’ And then waits again, looking like I’m supposed to answer in a certain way.

‘Just about to kill someone. Can we talk later?’ would be the honest thing to say. ‘I’m just here for pleasure,’ I say, peering past his shoulder. Epiphany still has her back towards me. She briefly talks to another man before sending him away. Underneath the table, my gun hand shakes. Then, without warning, a pain explodes in my head.

And then I see Bela. She’s lying naked on one of the bar’s tables, bruises around her neck. She lies lifeless as Phineas tells me he’s still working for Matthew; he’s got my father’s old position. He’s here supporting Jordan Seabring and
The Princess of the Sands.

On the table behind him, Bela’s dead body smells of generously applied perfume.

I tell myself it’s just a figment, and Bela’s naked body disappears and Phineas is saying, ‘You liked her, huh?’

I loved her.
Wait, how could he –

‘Jordan Seabring,’ he smiles a broad, knowing smile. ‘I know how much you liked her.’

How the hell would he know that? She wasn’t even a star when my father was alive.

But Phineas’s mind reading takes a back seat as I fight fresh figments of Bela.

Now Bela is at the bar with Epiphany. They’re having a drink.

At my table, Phineas carries on telling me how he owes his whole career to my father. ‘He brought me into Matthew’s inner circle. I’d be a nobody without your dad.’

Up at the bar, Epiphany sets her drink down and puts her hands around Bela’s neck. Epiphany laughs as Bela struggles in her grasp. And I know it’s just my stupid mind playing with me, but I so desperately want to run over to the bar and save her.

‘What?’ I say as Bela vanishes again.

‘I asked how long you’re here for?’ Phineas says.

‘Not too much longer.’ Under the table, I feel to make sure the safety is off.

Phineas takes a small pad of paper from his jacket pocket. He shouts to his lackeys for something to write with. They all glare at me then fall all over themselves to be the first to give Phineas what he wants. To beat the others someone tosses a pen, but it hits Phineas’s hand and lands on the floor. And as he bends to pick it up, leaving the view of me wide open, Epiphany turns from the bar and our eyes meet.

My body tightens. A cold sweat breaks out on my forehead. But, to my surprise, Epiphany doesn’t run. She looks at me for a moment and then starts sliding through the crowd towards me.

‘Are you staying here?’ Phineas is saying. ‘Give me your room number. I’d like to meet to catch up in private when I’m not babysitting
these yahoos.’ And if I weren’t fixated on Epiphany in her stupid red wig, I would see the yahoos pout, their eyes filled with resentment.

I flip the gun back into my right hand, my eyes locked with Epiphany’s, ready to spring from the table. But before I can, Epiphany stops. Her mouth hangs open a bit as if she’s just been punched in the stomach and gotten the wind knocked out of her. Her eyes, they look almost sad.

‘Well,’ Phineas says, following my line of sight, ‘this is the second night I’ve seen her here. You’re the only one who’s caught her attention.’

Yeah, lucky me.

Now Epiphany begins backing away, then turns and pushes through the crowd until she reaches the exit.

‘Guess she likes the chase,’ Phineas quips. I slide the revolver into my pocket and tell him to excuse me. And as I get up from the table and begin to push through the packed crowd I feel Phineas tug at my arm and ask for my room number again.

I make it to the bar’s exit just in time to see Epiphany running through the front doors of the Carlton, just past the big cartoon mannequins. Outside, the midnight air is warm. The floodlights bouncing off the hotel exteriors are blinding but I keep her in my sight. The bulk of the gun in my pocket bruises my thigh with each stride as I burst after her. She darts down the wide sidewalk then makes a quick left onto a smaller street. The street’s empty. I close on her, my stomach in knots, blood pounding in my ears. The heel of her silver shoe snaps, sending her towards the ground. I lunge and grab her red hair but the wig comes off in my hands. She tries to scurry to her feet. I lunge again and grab her real hair and drag her into an alley.

I pull her by her raven hair until she falls to the ground. Her white face is blushed red. Her chest is winded. Smudged makeup reveals a scratch on her cheek. My heart wants to explode.

‘I didn’t kill her,’ she breathes, struggling to get up.

‘Bullshit!’ Spittle flies from my mouth and I realise I’m heaving tears. ‘You took her from me!
Her perfume
… you put her perfume on her so I would think she was waiting for me.’ I pull the gun from my pocket. My arm trembles as a cold strain floods my chest.

‘Jerry, no…!’

‘She didn’t do anything to you! I was out of the apartment. You could have taken me. Why didn’t you take me? Why did you have to take her!’ The way I’m shaking, if my hand touched the ground the quake would split the Earth in two. ‘She had so many plans. She had a father too. Did you know that? She had a father. And you killed her.’