Mary, Mary

Chapter 99

THE STORYTELLER WAS DONE KILLING. Fini. It was over, and no one would ever know the whole truth about what had happened. End of story.

So he threw himself a party with some of his best buddies from Beverly Hills.

He told them he'd just gotten a gig writing a screenplay for an A-list director, a big, dopey thriller based on a dopey bestseller. He'd been given license to change anything he didn't like, but that was all he could say about it right now. The director was paranoid - so what's new? But a big party was definitely in order.

His friends thought they understood what was going down, which gave him some idea how little they knew him.

His best friends in the world - and hell, none of them knew him at all. None of them suspected he could be a killer. How fricking unbelievably crazy was that? No one knew him. The party was at the Snake Pit Ale House, a bar on Mel- rose where they'd held a fantasy football league during his early days in L.A., soon after he'd arrived from Brown University to act, and maybe dabble at writing scripts - serious, worthy stuff, not box-office crap.

“The order of the night is free beer,” he said as each of his buds arrived at the bar, “and wine for the wussies among you. So I guess it's vino all around?”

Nobody drank wine, not one of the fourteen pals who came to the bash. They were all glad to see him out and about, and also about his new gig - though some of the more honest ones admitted they were jealous. Everybody started calling him “A-list.”

He and David and Johnboy and Frankie were still at the bar when it closed at a little past two. They were overanalyzing a movie called We Don't Live Here Anymore. They finally more or less stumbled outside and exchanged Hollywood hugs on the street next to Johnny's fucking Bentley - talk about A-list - the spoils of the last movie he'd produced, a 400-million-dollar grosser worldwide, which made all the rest of them sick because all he'd done was buy a dipshit graphic novel for fifty thousand then sign up the Rock for ten mil. Genius, right? Yep - 'cause it worked.

“Love ya, man. You're the best, you sick, obnoxious, ostentatious bastard. You too, Davey!” he yelled as the silver Bentley pulled away from the curb and sped west.

“I know - I'm just a bastard right now,” David yelled back. “But I have dreams of being sick, obnoxious, and ostentatious, too. And talented - which is what's holding me back in this town.“ ”Hey, man - I hear you, I feel ya,” he yelled.

“Seeya, A-list! Ya hack!”

“I'm just a storyteller!” he yelled back.

Then he was kind of floating down a side street to his own car, a seven-year-old Beamer.

Not a Suburban. He was definitely three sheets to the wind. Happy as a pig out of a blanket - humming jimi Hendrix's “The Wind Cries Mary” An in-joke that only he would get.

Until suddenly he began to sob, and he couldn't make himself stop, not even when he was sitting on the lawn of some grungy apartment building with his head down between his legs, bawling like a baby And he was thinking,Just one more, just one.

One more kill and I'll be good.