Shame

the questions,” she said.
    He’d drugged Queenie earlier and tied her up. Even if she had somehow gotten free, she wouldn’t be, couldn’t be, talking like this. She would be in a stupor. What the hell was going on?
    He heard the patter of bare feet and reacted to it. Junior had been faking his helplessness. Now he was trying to makehis break, trying to escape into the fog. Feral fired three shots, heard a scream, and then watched as Junior started to fall. For a moment the mist cleared and Feral’s vision was unobstructed. Everything was unclouded, but everything looked wrong.
    Tits, Feral thought. That’s what he’d glimpsed earlier when the wind had been pulling at Junior’s shirt. And that’s what he saw now. A bleeding man with tits. How could that be?
    “Polo.”
    It wasn’t Elizabeth’s voice coming from the phone. It was Junior’s. What the hell was going on?
    The car engine started. The headlights turned on him. Feral couldn’t see the driver, but he suddenly knew who was sitting there. The car started toward him.
    Feral raised his gun, got off two quick shots at the car, but it didn’t stop. He started running, but the car was gaining on him. Without breaking stride, Feral pulled the trigger in rapid succession. The car was on top of him. It was so near Feral knew he couldn’t miss. And he didn’t. Glass shattered, and the car braked to a sudden, violent stop.
    Got ’im, Feral thought.
    It was his moment of pride before the fall. The edge had caught up with him.
    As Feral went over the cliff, he started screaming. His screams pierced the fog and the night. He’d courted death assiduously but never looked it in the eye.
    The screams suddenly stopped.
    He who was so fond of last words never offered any of his own.

36

    T HE MEMORIAL SERVICE was more of a wake than a somber occasion. The color of the day wasn’t black. Most of those in attendance were wearing vibrant tropical outfits. The individuals were as flamboyant as their garb, and fully half the people there were drag queens.
    A minister led the service. He was equal parts cheerleader and spiritual leader and had a talent for getting others to do the talking. And remembering Lola took a lot of talking. A life was discussed—laughed over and cried over.
    “Lola never liked to miss a good party,” said Michelle Donnelly. Michelle had very broad shoulders. Some of her older friends called her Mike, evidently the name she had been born with. “I keep expecting music to start up and Lola to begin singing.
    “She’s here, though, center stage, people. I feel her. All we have to do is listen to our hearts and we can hear her last, and best, performance. And Saint Peter, you better watch out, baby, cause Lola’s going to come up and rock that house.”
    Amid all the cheers and whistles, Caleb found himself reaching out for the microphone, accepting the handoff from Michelle. He hadn’t wanted to speak, had hoped others would say all that needed to be said, but he realized he owed Lola thislast tribute, and much more. He took a deep breath and waited for the noise to stop and his heart to settle. Caleb hated that all eyes were upon him and that he had to speak, but he confronted his fears. No more running. The media, under orders not to be intrusive during the memorial, suddenly came alive. Caleb tried to ignore all the cameras pointed at him.
    He cleared his throat and looked out upon a very different Torrey Pines Gliderport than the one he had experienced only three nights before. The day was bright and sunny, and the ocean blue and inviting. Caleb swallowed hard. Lola had a lot of friends.
    “The local newspaper called Lola
an unusual hero,”
he said. “Any hero is an unusual person, an extraordinary person. And that’s how I’ll remember Lola—as a hero and an extraordinary individual.”
    Caleb blinked away his tears. Not far from where he was standing Lola had died in his arms. He found himself looking at the spot. Everyone followed his gaze. There were piles of flowers there, solemn reminders that brought a quiet and stillness to the crowd, but a hang glider broke the spell. He ran past the spot where Lola had fallen, let out an exuberant yell, then soared straight out toward the blue expanse of the Pacific Ocean. The hang glider caught a thermal and started to rise higher and higher.
    Very different, thought Caleb, from the last man he had seen go over the cliffs.
    Everything had happened so quickly that night. Caleb