it neatly, and beside the stool he’d laid out his art table, and his inks, pens, pencils and brushes. A closed sketchbook rested on the drawing table.
“That for me?” Max asked, grinning.
“Later, buddy,” Dan said. He opened his arms in a magnanimous gesture. “This is the inner sanctum. Headquarters of The Headhunter.”
“Good thing I’m doing the writing,” Max said, joking.
“You should spread out a bit in here, Danny,” Kate said. “Use the room.”
“Aaah,” he said, waving his finger at her. “There’s more to this room than meets the eye,” he said mysteriously. He ran his hand along the wall, tapping lightly. As he got to the space where the bed was tucked away, the taps sounded hollow. Kate and Max followed him with their eyes, half smiling.
“What’s that? What’s that?” and he stuck his hand into the recess near the ceiling and pulled what looked to be the whole wall down. It came down with a cranky groan of metal on metal and hit the floor a little hard.
Kate laughed and clapped her hands. “That is so cool,” she said.
“I had one of those in a college apartment. They’re not bad. You kick him outta your room, Becca?” Max joked. Becca laughed. Dan met her eyes, smiling. She smiled back.
“Yup, this room speaks to me,” Dan said. He leaned up against the mattressless bed. Katie peered through the metal frame to the wood underneath.
“It looks like a coffin with a bed on top,” she said.
Dan patted it affectionately and nodded. “Could come in handy that way,” he said, joking. “I ordered the mattress for it,” he added casually. Becca looked up, surprised. He hadn’t mentioned it. What had it cost? She tried to catch his eye, but he avoided hers. “It should be here by Tuesday.”
“Then you’ll have a place to sleep,” Becca said sweetly. Max and Kate laughed, and so did Becca, pleased to have made a joke. Dan met her eyes briefly, sheepishly. She shook her head dismissively. It didn’t matter.
She was going to be a director soon.
The three of them, Dan, Max and Kate went out back to smoke a joint. Becca passed. When they were pleasingly altered, Dan and Max went into the inner sanctum to look at what Dan had for sketches.
Kate was left with Becca in the living room. “Great house. You enjoying it?” she asked.
“Yes. Thank you. I heard your show went well at the gallery.”
“Yeah, it was great. Did you see it?”
“No,” Becca said.
“So, how’s the job? You’re still at the…”
“Center for Improved Health. It’s good. Thank you.” She nodded. They both took a sip from their beer.
“Are you planning another show?”
“I’m just starting a new series,” Kate said. Becca nodded. Kate smiled. So did Becca.
And on like that.
They said good-bye just after midnight. Becca and Kate had managed to make conversation for more than an hour while the men were holed up in Dan’s studio, talking about the graphic novel, which they were calling alternately the pages or the book. When they came out, finally, the four of them sat around in the living room and made stilted, general conversation, but it wasn’t long before they got back into The Headhunter, the name of both the book and the title character. Kate got into it with them.
They talked mostly about the Reporter, still nameless and still faceless.
“She’s got to be serenely beautiful, like a beautiful nun or something,” Max said.
“The face of an angel,” Katie said distantly. Her pupils were very small. Her eyes glassy.
“Yes! Exactly!” Max nodded thoughtfully. They would retreat into periods of thoughtful silence. Thoughtful stoned silence. Then they would all talk at once.
“The kind of chick you would call a ‘beautiful creature,’ you know?”
“Chick? Chick?” Kate punched Max lightly on the arm, her face amused and frowning. “What’re you, a sixties’ throwback?”
“You’re such a chick,” he said, with mock derisiveness.
Dan seemed
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