“I saw it all,” one of the stewardesses said. “It wasn’t your fault. Not at all. But I’m afraid you’ll have to leave the plane so we can clean... this... all... up.”
The Angel saw Ray muttering to himself, barely under control.
“My name is Billy Ray. I’m with the Secret Service. This is my associate. We have to get to New York as soon as possible—”
”I sympathize,” the stewardess said. “But surely you can’t expect to travel in this condition.”
Ray took a deep breath as if to calm himself, then screwed up his face when he got a good whiff of the Angel.
“No,” he said woodenly. “Of course not.”
“I’m sorry,” the Angel said. She grimaced at the vomit-covered front of her pants and blouse, holding her arms out from her body in dismay. “I didn’t mean—”
“No one’s blaming you,” Ray said. He glared at the stewardess. “Are they?”
“No, certainly not, sir. We all saw that she was simply protecting herself from an obnoxious drunk.”
“That’s right,” chimed in an interested passenger. “We all saw it.”
The captain came down the aisle, frowning. “What’s going on here?” he asked. “Trouble?”
“No, sir,” the Angel said in a meek voice. “No trouble at all.”
But of course they had to deplane. She had to clean up, using one of the airport shower facilities to wash off the vomit that had soaked her to the skin. Ray had to buy her another outfit, because all the clothes she had in the world had finally taken off for New York City. Then the cops came and she had to tell the story. Then more cops came and they had to tell the story again. Then they had to tell it one more time, officially, for their statement. Ray’s status helped, but he didn’t want to push it because he didn’t want the locals to look at them too deeply. It was afternoon by the time they’d cut their way through the red tape, and having had the satisfaction of seeing the obnoxious drunk hauled off to the poky with his arm in a sling.
They were saying their good-byes to the airport cops, who, the Angel thought, were googling at her all too avidly in the tight jeans and form-fitting tee-shirt that said “I Lost It In Vegas” that Ray had purchased for her. Fortunately she’d been able to salvage her bra. Without it she would have been too much of a spectacle to be endured. She should have made Ray go back to the airport stores and find something a little more appropriate for her to wear. She supposed it wasn’t his fault. She was difficult to fit in the best of times, and the clothing selection in an airport mall was not exactly extensive.
They were leaving the security office when one of the cops who’d just answered a ringing phone yelled out for them to stop.
“Hey, Mr. Ray,” he called, “it’s headquarters.”
Ray stopped with a sigh and a put-upon expression on his face. He had something, the Angel decided, of a martyr’s complex.
“They need your help.”
He looked slightly mollified. “Sure,” he said, glancing at the Angel. She looked away, rolling her eyes. “What about?”
“It’s Butcher Dagon.” The Angel had a sudden bad feeling that was quickly confirmed. “He’s escaped.”
Ray shrugged. “That’s your—”
The Angel laid a hand on his arm. “We can’t let him run lose. Think of the innocents!”
“In Vegas?” Ray asked.
“You know what I mean,” she replied.
Ray sighed again. His expression was clouded, but the Angel knew that she had him half-convinced.
“I’ll go on ahead. I can handle things at the New York end. You take care of Butcher Dagon.” She added what she realized would be the clincher. “Only you can handle him.”
Ray paused to consider. “Well. Yeah. All right.”
The Angel paused as well. She really hated to do this, but she had no choice.
“One other thing.”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t have any money. I’ll need the credit card.”
Ray’s expression turned pained, but he nodded, somewhat regretfully, the Angel thought, and handed it over.
“Take good care of it,” Ray thought and added, with only the slightest hesitation, “and yourself.”
It was, the Angel thought, rather sweet of him to be concerned.
New York City: St Dympna’s Parking Lot
“Let’s go,” Cameo said flatly. She took off her old, battered hat and climbed into the driver’s seat of the Cadillac Seville she’d hot-wired moments before.
Nighthawk gave a final wave to whoever the fellow was who looked like Butcher Dagon as he and the boy peeled out of Dympna’s parking lot. He looked at Cameo. She looked back. She seemed different, somehow.
“I’m driving,” Cameo said.
Nighthawk shrugged. It was all the same to him. He went around the car and got into the passenger’s side and had just settled down when Cameo gunned it. They hit a pothole, bounced, and roared out of the lot, jouncing about like Mexican jumping beans. Nighthawk grabbed the dashboard and watched Cameo. She had a tight smile on her face. Her eyes, her whole expression, were harder, somehow tougher. As if she were a different person.
Maybe, Nighthawk thought, she was.
“You all right, missy?” he asked.
“No thanks to you,” she replied shortly. The inflection of her voice was different. Her words were as hard as her expression. Nighthawk wondered who he was dealing with now.
“You’re not Cameo, are you?”
She snorted. “We’re all Cameo, honey.”
Nighthawk nodded. “If you say so.”
“Where are we headed?”
“I’ve got some places around town,” Nighthawk said. He thought for a moment. “How about Staten Island?”
“Staten Island?” Cameo asked. “It stinks. It’s the sticks.”
“It’s quiet. It’s out of sight. We’ll be able to rest and talk some.”
“Talk?” Cameo asked. “About what?”
“About a job I want you to do for me.”
Cameo glanced at him as she skidded around a corner practically on two wheels.
“You’ve got your nerve,” she said.
Nighthawk nodded. “That I do, missy. That I do.”
New York City: Jokertown
From far away, from under a league of water or perhaps a thousand yards of cotton batting, Fortunato heard someone call his name. But he couldn’t answer. He was wrapped in a cloak of weakness, a cocoon that isolated him almost completely from the world.
And all of his senses told him one thing: pain. Horrific, mind-numbing, soul-eating pain that should have killed him but ironically was helping him cling to the edge of life. Pain, and from somewhere far away, insignificant insect-like vibrations that touched the edge of his consciousness.
“Father! Father Squid! Jesus Christ, come here, quick!”
There was a momentary cessation of vibration, then the whole floor quivered as if something very heavy was approaching very quickly. Then there was peace again.
“Is he still alive, Father?”
Pressure on his face, gentle, as if tendrils of a willow tree blown across his features by a soft wind that smelled faintly of the sea.
“He is.”
Fortunato was still hiding too deep in his consciousness to understand the surprise in the voice.
“It’s a miracle, Father.”
“I don’t know about that. That mental cry for help must have penetrated nearly every corner of Jokertown. Only a powerful ace could have done it. Only a powerful ace could survive a beating like this.”
“Then the old Fortunato’s back?”