Rayne & Delilah's Midnite Matinee(78)

“Kids like edgy.”

“So I’m told.”

“Anyway, didn’t happen.” Disme takes a long pull on his cigar and blows the smoke skyward. “Hornets,” he says finally, in a tone bespeaking deep reluctance.

“Do what now?”

“Flying bugs. Stingers. Buzzy. Like bees that make sadness instead of honey.”

“Got that part.”

“At the build site. They worked well as a team.” Disme’s look of blissful nostalgia morphs into the thousand-yard stare of a battle-weary soldier. “They seemed almost…sentient.” He doesn’t sound like he’s joking.

“But…they weren’t,” I say. “Sentient. Obviously.”

Several seconds pass. “No…no…of course not. That would be…ridiculous,” he eventually murmurs, sounding unconvinced. “I’ll never forget the buzzing. A room goes quiet? I hear the buzzing again. Like there’s a giant vibrator at the center of the world.”

“What a thing to imagine constantly.”

“I did battle with the hornets one night. A storm was coming in. There was lightning on the horizon. We met in the field, me versus them. Mano a…whatever hornets have instead of manos. Sting-os. Just as we began combat, it started to pour down rain. I was wearing armor I made out of duct tape and cardboard boxes, and the rain made it fall off me like meat from a rotisserie chicken. They stung me on the lips and eyelids. My face looked worse than the time I got Botox while stopped at a red light. It was a long time before I regained my dignity.”

“But you definitely did regain it,” I say.

He snaps out of his pained reverie. “I had to wear a white porcelain mask every time I left the house for the next three weeks. I drank Benadryl chilled from a crystal wine goblet….Anyway, it’s good to see Jackie-boy developing new projects after his thing”—Disme waggles his fingers in the air—“with the Russians.”

“Pardon? Lemme just pump the brakes for a sec.”

“Oh, he owes the Russian mob a pretty penny for financing one of his flops. Hence Yuri.”

“Yuri isn’t his bodyguard?”

“Oh, Yuri is his bodyguard.” Disme wiggles his ears again.

“Even though I know now that’s your way of winking, may I suggest you just either wink or say very clearly what you mean? Easier for everyone. So, about Yuri?”

“His job is definitely to keep Divine alive from the others so Divine can pay Yuri’s bosses back.”

“The others?”

“Jackie-boy’s always approached showbiz with the motto You can’t make an omelet without making some people want to murder you execution-style, tie your body to an engine block, and drop you off a bridge.”

My guts feel like a moray eel is dragging them into a frigid undersea cavern. If you want something enough, you’ll lie to yourself and lie to yourself and lie to yourself. And that’s what I’ve been doing. I got conned. I feel like I’m waking from a NyQuil slumber to find I’ve been sleeping on my neck funny.

I meet Lawson’s eyes. This is not going to happen.

His eyes agree.

What am I going to tell Delia? What am I going to tell Lawson, for that matter? Delia. I pressured her to go see her dad. If that doesn’t work out and then this is a debacle too? Oh man. I begin planning how I’m going to ask Divine to take us back to our hotel.

The door bursts open, and Divine practically skips out. Yuri follows behind, also with a little more spring in his step.

“Jackie-boy!” Disme says.

Divine is sniffling and radiating this live-wire, electric, jittery energy. He gives the vibe that he’ll melt down if he stops talking. “Well, well, well, that is much better. I was practically nodding off on my feet! We stuffed ourselves like debauched Roman emperors at Linda’s Jim.”

“Good place?” Disme asks.

“Good would be an understatement.”

“Wouldn’t know. Never been to a restaurant,” Disme says. “I keep a little truck bread on hand in case I get peckish.”

Divine claps his hands and rubs them together. “All right, folks! Who’s ready to talk a little business? Who’s ready to make some sawbucks? Some cold, hard cash? Some dead presidents?”

Disme chomps on his cigar and leans back in his chair. “Whattya got for me, Jackie-boy?”

“I happen to have the finest show in development for you…thrills and chills abound…Monster Midnight Mash!”

“It’s Midnite Matinee,” I say. “And I think now, in your current state, might not be the best—”

“Midnight Monster Mash,” Divine crows. “Horror hosting for a new generation. Hashtag hip. Hashtag edgy. Hashtag young. Hashtag sexy. iHorrorhosting. Like iPod.”

I have never desired more to be spontaneously vaporized. For my body to return instantly to the stardust whence it came. I had no idea cocaine made people this much more embarrassing than normal.

“And we will bring you in for a mere ten thousand cash on the barrelhead for an executive producer credit and the usual cut of back end. What say you, sir? Many people are interested.”

Disme sighs. “Jackie-boy, I don’t—I’m not sold. Lost my shirt on the last venture. Got something I could look at?”