LITMIR.BIZ

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the threshold into a wide but shabby hallway “And me,” he said drily, “I’ve always been a fashion plate.”

      BEHIND THE BIG theater screen, the Luxe featured a labyrinth of passages, storage closets, and rooms that no patron had ever visited. With a rolling gait and heavy respiration, Jelly led the way past crates, mildewed cardboard boxes, and moisture-curled posters and stand-ups that promoted old films.

      “Ben put seven names on the letter he sent me,” Deucalion said.

      “You once mentioned Rombuk monastery, so he figured you might still be there, but he didn’t know what name you’d be using.”

      “He shouldn’t have shared my names.”

      “Just knowin’ your aliases doesn’t mean I can mojo you.”

      They arrived at a door that wore an armor-thick coat of green paint. Biggs opened it, switched on a light, gestured for Deucalion to enter ahead of him.

      A windowless but cozy apartment lay beyond. A kitchenette was adjacent to the combination bedroom and living room. Ben loved books, and two walls were lined with them.

      Jelly Biggs said, “It’s a sweet place you inherited.”

      The key word whipped through Deucalion’s mind before lashing back with a sharp sting. “Inherited. What do you mean? Where’s Ben?”

      Jelly looked surprised. “You didn’t get my letter?”

      “Only his.”

      Jelly sat on one of the chrome and red-vinyl chairs at the dinette table. It creaked. “Ben was mugged.”

      The world is an ocean of pain. Deucalion felt the old familiar tide wash through him.

      “This isn’t the best part of town, and getting worse,” Biggs said. “Ben bought the Luxe when he retired from the carnival. The neighborhood was supposed to be turning around. It didn’t. The place would be hard to sell these days, so Ben wanted to hold on.”

      “How did it happen?” Deucalion asked.

      “Stabbed. More than twenty times.”

      Anger, like a long-repressed hunger, rose in Deucalion. Once anger had been his meat, and feasting on it, he had starved.

      If he let this anger grow, it would quickly become fury—and devour him. For decades he had kept this lightning in a bottle, securely stoppered, but now he longed to pull the cork.

      And then…what? Become the monster again? Pursued by mobs with torches, with pitchforks and guns, running, running, running with hounds baying for his blood?

      “He was everybody’s second father,” said Jelly Biggs. “Best damn carnie boss I ever knew.”

      During the past two centuries, Ben Jonas had been one of a precious handful of people with whom Deucalion had shared his true origins, one of the few he had ever trusted completely.

      He said, “He was murdered after he contacted me.”

      Biggs frowned. “You say that like there’s a connection.”

      “Did they ever find the killer?”

      “No. That’s not unusual. The letter to you, the mugging—just a coincidence.”

      At last putting down his suitcase, Deucalion said, “There are no coincidences.”

      Jelly Biggs looked up from the dinette chair and met Deucalion’s eyes. Without a word they understood that in addition to years in the carnival, they shared a view of the world that was as rich with meaning as with mysteries.

      Pointing toward the kitchenette, the fat man said, “Besides the theater, Ben left you sixty thousand cash. It’s in the freezer.”

      Deucalion considered this revelation for a moment, then said, “He didn’t trust many people.”

      Jelly shrugged. “What do I need with money when I’ve got such good looks?”

       CHAPTER 9

      SHE WAS YOUNG, poor, inexperienced. She’d never had a manicure before, and Roy Pribeaux proposed that he give her one.

      “I give myself manicures,” he said. “A manicure can be erotic, you know Just give me a chance. You’ll see.”

      Roy lived in a large loft apartment, the top half of a remodeled old building in the Warehouse District. Many rundown structures in this part of the city had been transformed into expansive apartments for artists.

      A printing company and a computer-assembly business shared the main floor below. They existed in another universe, as far as Roy Pribeaux was concerned; he didn’t bother them, and they reciprocated.

      He needed his privacy, especially when he took a new and special woman to his loft. This time, her name was Elizabeth Lavenza.

      As odd as it might seem on a first date—or a tenth, for that matter—to suggest a manicure, he had charmed Elizabeth into it. He knew well that the modern woman responded to sensitivity in men.

      First, at the kitchen table, he placed her fingers in a shallow bowl of warm oil to soften both the nails and the cuticles.

      Most women also liked men who enjoyed pampering them, and young Elizabeth was no different in this regard.

      In addition to sensitivity and a desire to pamper, Roy had a trove of amusing stories and could keep a girl laughing. Elizabeth had a lovely laugh. Poor thing, she had no chance of resisting him.

      When her fingertips had soaked long enough, he wiped them with a soft towel.

      Using a natural, nonacetone polish remover, he stripped the red color from her nails. Then with gentle strokes of an emery board, he sculpted the tip of each nail into a perfect curve.

      He had only begun to trim the cuticles when an embarrassing thing happened: His special cell phone rang, and he knew that the caller had to be Candace. Here he was romancing Elizabeth, and the other woman in his life was calling.

      He excused himself and hurried into the dining area, where he had left the phone on a table. “Hello?”

      “Mr. Darnell?”

      “I know that lovely voice,” he said softly, moving into the living room, away from Elizabeth. “Is this Candace?”

      The cotton-candy vendor laughed nervously. “We talked so little, how could you recognize my voice?”

      Standing at one of the tall windows, his back to the kitchen, he said, “Don’t you recognize mine?”

      He could almost feel the heat of her blush coming down the line when she admitted, “Yes, I do.”

      “I’m so glad you called,” he said in a discreet murmur.

      Shyly, she said, “Well, I thought…maybe coffee?”

      “A get-acquainted coffee. Just say where and when.”

      He hoped she didn’t mean right now. Elizabeth was waiting, and he was enjoying giving her the manicure.

      “Tomorrow evening?” Candace suggested. “Usually business on the boardwalk dies down after eight o’clock.”

      “Meet you at the red wagon. I’ll be the guy with the big smile.”

      Unskilled at romance, she said awkwardly, ‘And…I guess I’ll be the one with the eyes.”

      “You sure will,” he said. “Such eyes.”

      Roy pressed END. The disposable phone wasn’t registered to him. Out of habit, he wiped it clean of prints, tossed it on the sofa.

      His modern, austere apartment didn’t contain much furniture. His

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