“Let me up,” he said, struggling to hold on.
“Who would have ever thought that you’d have a Hollywood ending, Stan?” I said with a chuckle.
“Seriously, kid,” he said as he glanced down.
The letter itself must have been at least forty feet high. Then the mountainside added a few more dozen feet or so.
“Give me a hand up,” Stanley said.
“You know, there’s a reason they no long allow people to come up here.” I looked down below him. “There’s a really good reason.”
“Fuck you!” he shouted. “Fuck you! What the fuck do you want? What do you want?”
“I want you to know who the Tin Man is, Stan,” I finally said, willing to at least let him die with that knowledge. “I’m the Tin Man.”
“No,” Stan said with a grunt. “That can’t be. The Tin Man… that was Dante. Dante Black…. The Condor’s kid. They died. Both of them.”
“You’re partially right, Stan,” I said with a menacing grin. “The Condor did die… thanks to you and yours. He was following orders. But the Tin Man lives on. Yeah, that heartless man that you all so diligently trained to be a cold blooded assassin… He lives on, Stan. And he will continue to live on. But the Tin Man will live by his own rules… not yours.”
I raised my fist and came down hard on his fingers, leaving him holding on with one hand.
“Shit!” Stanley let out. “Live your fucking life! I don’t give a shit! Just let me…”
I climbed up to sit on the very edge of the letter and looked down.
“Where the hell were you going with this, Stan?” I said, looking out over the horizon before bringing my gaze back to him and down at the fatal fall.
“Get me up!” he screamed hysterically.
“You never did have a good sense of direction,” I said calmly. “You only became successful because you relied on everyone else, because you spit on everyone else, everyone you stepped on.”
I wacked his fingers with my fist and he let out a final hysterical cry as he released his hold and fell. The scream took on an eerie, phantom-like quality as it fell away then suddenly stopped, replaced by a distant thud.
“And that’s a wrap,” I said.
Epilogue
Katherine/Summer
I walked up to my mother’s house and noticed my reflection in the glass door as I rang the doorbell. While she’d been happy with the transformation from the start, I wasn’t so sure.
While I liked the long auburn hair as opposed to my naturally black hair, I hated having to wear the contacts that made my brown eyes hazel.
“Katherine,” my mother said as she opened the door. She looked around as if to see if anyone else was around. “Or should I say, Summer?” she added in a soft conspirator voice.
“Please,” I said as I walked past her and entered the house. “I’m sick and tired of being Summer. How would you like it if instead of being Claire, you had to be Bernadette… and what if Bernadette was as boring as fuck?”
“Oh, Katherine,” Claire said. “I think that all things considered, playing the part of Summer can’t be all that bad. I mean, you’re playing the part of a beautiful and sexy girl who has several handsome men in love with her. Including Parker James.”
I headed straight into the kitchen and opened the fridge. “Mind if a take a beer?” I said as I looked into the well-stocked refrigerator.
“Serve yourself,” my mother said. “What? Does that Parker James not allow you to drink when you’re with him?”
I let out a sardonic snort. “The occasional glass of wine with dinner, but apparently Summer was a little more health conscious than you led me to believe. And she likes to go hiking, if you can believe that. Shit…”
I opened the can of beer and took a few refreshing gulps. “One thing, I can say though. At least that Parker James is a good fuck.”
“I’d rather not hear about it, if you don’t mind,” Claire said.
“Oh, stop being a prude,” I said. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been a virgin. Surely, you’re aware of that.”
“My mother wasn’t a virgin, either,” Claire said. “But that doesn’t mean that I was interested in hearing about her sexual escapades.”
“Fine,” I said and took another swig of beer. “I’ll spare you the luscious details. Suffice it to say, that just for the sex alone, I’d be willing to go back to him. The guy is a beast.”
“And you sound like a slut,” my mother said.
“Well,” I said flippantly. “Be thankful for that. If I wasn’t prepared to fuck the guy, my cover would be blown. I mean, even Miss Goody liked to get down and heavy every once in a while.”
“Well, I’m happy to hear that because you may have to spend a lot more time with him.”
I glanced in the mirror over the kitchen sink. “Well, at least all of this plastic surgery will have been worth it. For a while there, I thought I’d gone to all this trouble for nothing.”
“You’d have nothing to complain about either way,” Claire said. “You can’t very well say that taking on Summer Jone’s appearance was a chore.”
“Are you saying that this is an improvement on what I really looked like, Mother?”
She chuckled and I let it slide.
“Argh,” I said as I set the beer down on the counter and rubbed my hands over my new face. “It’s not just that. It’s all the mannerisms. That silly little laugh of hers that Parker seems so enamored with. This damned obsession with hiking every fucking mountain in the area. It’s just the stress of always being ‘on’.”
“So, what have you found out while you’re suffering so?” my mother said with mock concern for my circumstance.
I picked up my beer again and looked at her. “Dante Black is not dead. I can tell you that.”
She barely looked shocked. “Are you sure?”
“I’m certain that Parker James is Dante Black. His very love for Summer is proof of that. He doesn’t realize it, but he’s always trying to get me to go to places he’s gone to before… with her. He brings up little tidbits of the girl he knew years ago. Parker James couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t know who the fuck Summer was. Only Dante Black can know all that.”
“Good job, Katherine,” Claire said. “The members of the Inner Circle will be very happy to hear that. I’m very proud of you.”
“Then why can’t that be enough?” I said. “Why do I have to go back?”
“You heard about Stanley Campbell?” my mother said.
I nodded. “Yeah. I heard that this morning.”
“Were you with Parker… or should I say Dante when you heard the news?”
“Yeah,” I said. I took another swig of beer. “He didn’t even bat an eye. He didn’t look at me. It was as if the newscaster had simply mentioned some inconsequential information.”
“But you know that he’s responsible for Stanley’s death,” Claire said.