‘Otherwise it’s trial by talk show. I’ll tell Oprah you used erection creams-’

‘Mommy! Don’t be gross.’

Wayne roared with laughter and poured himself another drink. This was better than he could ever have hoped.

Bruce was desperate now. He threw caution aside. ‘You can have what you want, Farrah, everything, the last cent. I’ll sign today. Just get Velvet out now.’

At last it dawned on Farrah that something might be wrong. She was hardly the most sensitive of souls. She lived in Hollywood, and other people’s problems were other people’s problems. She had been born with a thick skin, and it had been pulled so taut by cosmetic surgeons that these days bad vibes tended just to bounce off it like dried peas off a drum. But when Bruce started talking about handing over everything, she knew something was very wrong. Also, clearly it must have something to do with the dangerouslooking people who seemed to have invaded Bruce’s life. She decided to pursue her claims at a later date.

‘I’ll have my lawyer call. Come on, Velvet. We’re outa here.’

But alas the penny had dropped too late. Wayne was already blocking the doorway.

‘No need for them legal parasites to get involved, Mrs Delamitri. Fuckin’ lawyers are eating away at the soul of this country. So fuck ‘em I say. Fact is, I’ll be handling Mr Delamitri’s side of the negotiations from now on. Is that OK with you?’

‘Come on, Velvet. We’ll talk with your father another time.’ Farrah took Velvet’s hand and tried to push past Wayne, but he held his ground.

‘Truth is, Mrs Delamitri, Bruce here wants you dead.’

He let this sink in for a moment before continuing, ‘He’s said so himself, and I have decided, in view of all the pleasure your husband has given me in the past, to fulfil his wish.’

With this he produced his gun and smiled a big smile.

‘For God’s sake, Wayne, let them go. You said you’d let them go.’

Wayne raised the gun to his shoulder and aimed it at Farrah.

Velvet screamed, shedding about thirtyfive years in three seconds arid turning into a fourteenyearold girl.

‘Daddy, do something!’

‘ Wayne, please!’ Bruce shouted.

Wayne kept his eye trained along the barrel and straight into Farrah’s face.

‘You said you wanted her dead, Bruce. You said that. He admitted he said that, didn’t he, Scout?’

‘I heard him.’

‘You don’t go saying stuff you don’t mean, do you, Bruce?’ Wayne did not take his eye off Farrah.

‘It was a figure of speech,’ Bruce pleaded, his voice cracking with fear. ‘For God’s sake, man, it was a figure of speech.’

‘Bruce, Bruce, calm down, buddy. It is not such a big deal. People get killed every few seconds. Listen, in South Central LA they’re pleased if they make it through lunch. Man, if you live to see your balls drop, you’re a survivor, you’re an old man! C’mon, let me waste the bitch. I’ll take the rap and you get to keep everything.’

Bruce’s brain was thumping. He had to think of something, say something.

‘C’mon, Bruce,’ Wayne continued, ‘this is the luckiest night of your life. I’m a wanted killer, dropped a hundred people. One more or less won’t make any difference to me, but for you… Hey, you’ll never have to hear this bitch’s voice again, never have to put up with that scrawny fuckin’ skullhead in front of your face. You said you wanted her dead, Bruce, you know you did.’

Wayne hadn’t taken his eye off Farrah. It was still trained along the barrel of his gun, while he spoke his killing pitch.

‘Look, Wayne.’ Bruce spoke slowly, every syllable a miracle of mind over fear. ‘I said I wanted Farrah dead because I was imagining something that in thought might or might not be desirable but in reality is obnoxious. Like, have you ever said, “I could eat a horse”? I’ll bet you’ve said something similar. Now of course you don’t actually want to eat a horse but-’

‘Bruce.’ Wayne finally looked up from his gun.

‘Yes?’

‘Are you patronizing me?’

‘No, I’m just-’

‘You think I don’t know the difference between a figure of speech like “I could eat a horse” and a man who’s telling the truth, even though he’s such a spineless, un-American, Lamborghinidriving faggot that he don’t have the guts to admit it? You hate this bitch. If she’d got killed in her car coming here today, you’d have been dancing a jig, I know you would. If fate was to take this fuckin’ fossilized Barbie doll bag o’ bones out of your life, that would be just fine. Well, fate’s working good for you here. The bitch has met a psycho killer. Ain’t your fault, so don’t fight it. Watch me drop her, and count your blessings.’

Wayne took aim again. Farrah screamed and covered her eyes.

Bruce stepped in front of Wayne ’s gun. ‘Look, I don’t want her dead, all right? I don’t care what I may or may not have said in the past but I’m telling you now, I don’t want her to die and I don’t hate her! So if my opinion means anything to you, which you keep saying it does, I’m begging you, pleading with you, don’t kill her. Just leave her alone. Please!’

Wayne lowered his gun. ‘OK OK, just trying to do you a favour. No need to get worked up about it.’

At this point, to everybody’s surprise Brooke, who had appeared to be something of a spent force leapt across the room and jammed a pistol into the side of Scout’s head.

While all attention was focused on the debate about whether to kill Farrah, Brooke had been preparing to mount a counterattack. She had reached down into her bag, which still lay on the floor beside her crumpled pantyhose – the hose which she had removed so beautifully in an earlier and happier life. In the bag was the pistol with which Brooke had scared Bruce and won herself the promise of an audition for his next movie.

Brooke’s movement had been so surprising and so sudden that Scout had had no time to produce her own weapon from under the cushion and so was now very much at Brooke’s mercy. The balance of power in the room had suddenly shifted considerably.

‘Drop your gun right now, Wayne, you sadistic bastard,’ Brooke shouted, ‘or I’ll blow this sick little fuck’s brains clean across the room!’

Brooke was an intimidating figure, with congealed blood caked around her beautiful mouth, her glamorous gown torn and grubby, her body heaving with tension beneath the soiled satin. She had come a long way in a short time, and as Bruce could testify she had not been exactly without spirit in the first place. Now she seemed genuinely capable of anything.

Wayne certainly took her seriously. ‘Don’t you go pointing no gun at my baby, now.’ Slowly he swung his own gun away from Farrah and Bruce in order to cover Brooke. In reply, Brooke pushed her own weapon harder into Scout’s head. Scout winced.

‘Brooke, girl,’ said Wayne ‘you do know that if you kill Scout, you and Bruce and these other two will not get to draw one more breath.’

‘Maybe so, Wayne, but you love Scout, and I don’t love any of these shits. What is more, killing us will not bring your baby back if I have just put a bullet through her tiny brain – that is, always presuming I don’t fucking miss it altogether!’

It was a classic standoff. Any decent moviemaker would have spent a good two minutes lingering on every aspect of the scene. The tense trigger fingers, the narrowed, steady eyes, Brooke’s heaving bosom.

Wayne smiled. ‘You know, when this kinda thing happens in the movies – when two people are pointing pieces at each other and sweating and all – I always think to myself, what’s the problem? Why doesn’t one of them just quit talking and pull the trigger?’

Then Wayne shot Brooke.

The impact threw her backwards against the drinks cabinet like a rag doll, except rag dolls don’t have blood pouring from between their ribs.

‘I mean that has to be the sensible thing to do, hasn’t it?’