Page 153 of Antihero

“No?”

“When I go off, I keep going. Nothing stops me. I saw a decapitated rattlesnake once. My buddy’d took its head off with a shovel blade. Its body was still squirming around, writhing like they do. And the head? The cut-off head? Bit the body. It bit its own fucking body. That’s me, motherfucker. Nothing can stop me once I—”

Evan palmed the back of Mikey’s head, slammed his face down into the tabletop, the Velvet Kitty move redux. The plates and milkshake glass jumped but didn’t break. When he drew Mikey’s head back by a fistful of hair, his nose was shattered nearly flat, smeared along his right cheekbone. Moisture had exploded from his eyes, the tear ducts running freely. Half conscious, he drooled out a long vowel sound reminiscent of the extended moans he’d made on the video. Evan tilted him against the window, his dead weight shifting, cheek smashed to the pane. He slumped there. Irregular breaths fogged the glass.

Over the din of the restaurant, no one had noticed.

Finn-Finn remained perfectly frozen, hands laced together on the table, thumbs sticking up like rabbit ears.

“How about you?” Evan asked. “You got a little speech, too?”

Finn-Finn shook his head.

“Names.”

Finn-Finn shook his head again.

Reaching across the table, Evan grabbed the bowl of his clasped fingers, seized the thumbs with his other hand, and ripped them back, tearing them right out of their sockets. They dangled in the wrong place, way up by the juncture of hand and wrist.

Finn-Finn stared down at the wreckage, disbelieving. A soft wail barely made it out of his mouth. He couldn’t remember to breathe.

“You say you’re an animal,” Evan said. “Animals don’t need opposable thumbs.”

Finn-Finn was going into shock now, trembling, lips quivering. He held his hands up before him, thumbs drooping grotesquely. That was good. Both of them would require ER visits. When Evan left, he would text Templeton their GPS locations and she could mop them up there.

He swept their phones off the table into his pocket. He didn’t want them calling ahead to warn the others.

He snapped his fingers in front of Finn-Finn’s face. “Names. First and last. Or else we move to your wrists.”

“T-Taz.” Finn-Finn’s teeth chattered, the name shoved through pale lips. “Taswell Kinley.” He pushed the words out one at a time. “He’s … in charge of tech. And B-Roll … Brandon Burke.”

“What’s he in charge of?”

Finn-Finn’s eyes juddered in their sockets. They stared at Evan, unseeing. “He’s in charge of fucking.”

“All set here, guys?” The waitress stood over them, coffeepot slung low at her hip. Then she took notice of the tableau in the booth, her jaw going slack, a dot of bright pink bubble gum visible back by her molars.

“Yes, ma’am,” Evan said, sliding out. “I believe they’re ready for the check.”

56Gentleman

Like the gentleman he was, B-Roll met Blanca downstairs. His pad was on the third floor, walk-up, and he wanted to make sure she didn’t lose her nerve on the way. She was done up real cute, hair pulled back, shiny makeup, loose-collared crop sweater so a strip of that flat brown stomach showed. She had a little belly-button ring in, too, a hoop with a star. She wore PJ bottoms, thick flannel ones that she’d cuffed twice at the waist to keep the bottoms from dragging in the street. Perfume, too, one of those ones named Rain or Sky or whatever, that smelled all clean and natural, like you just snorted it off the back of a unicorn.

When he came out to the street, she kicked one foot behind her, tapping the toe of her lavender-check Vans high-top on the sidewalk. She had something in her hands, a little gift bag with purple tissue paper fluffed up out of it.

“Hey, Beauty.”

She gave him that big smile. “Hey, Beast.”

B-Roll jerked his chin at the bag. “What’s that?”

“Oh, this? Just a little gift. For Luce.”

“Really,” B-Roll said, bored. “That’s sweet.”

“It’s a Polly Pocket koala family. You said she had the purse playset so … I know, lame, right?”

“No,” B-Roll said, ushering her in. “No. She’ll dig it.”