As fate would have it, Ian was scheduled to leave Jamaica on the night he spoke to Margaret and Claire. The voice told him what to do: Leave but don’t check out. Be strong. Go to New York. Don’t tell anyone about your plans. Kill Phil. Kill Margaret. Kill me.

He slept during most of the flight. About a half hour outside JFK, though, turbulence shook the plane and he awoke. His first impulse was to machine-gun the passengers with his cock, but the scene wouldn’t have worked with his script. So he thought of opening an emergency door and flying the rest of the way on his own power. That could fit the script, he thought, but with a bit of a rewrite. But by the time he’d figured out how to open the door he fell asleep again.

He worked on his storyboard as he rode home in the cab. He would go home and get his gun from beneath the bed, wait for Phil to come. He would force him at gunpoint to invite Margaret over, then kill him while she was on the way. When Margaret came, he would force her to suck Phil’s dead cock while he fucked her with his gun. Then he would fuck her to death with the real thing. When she was dead, he would put the gun in his mouth and pull the trigger and the bullet would ricochet off his hard palate.

About an hour after Ian had reached New York, Margaret and Phil were having an argument.

“Phil,” she pleaded, “why can’t you see what I’m saying?”

“Because you’re overreacting, luv,” Phil replied, reaching across the bed to stroke her hair. “Ian was just high. He’s not going to kill us.”

“He threatened us and that’s enough. All I want you to do is go over there and get the rest of your stuff before he gets back.”

Phil put his arm around her and pulled her to his side. He kissed her on the forehead and wiped a tear from her face.

“Babe,” he said reassuringly, “in any case he’s in Jamaica. It’s not like he can fly over here in a flash.”

“Please, Phil … please … for my sake … pleeease.”

“Okay, don’t answer the phone,” he told her as he got up to leave. “Let the machine pick up, in case he decides to call again.”

Phil pondered his future as he rode in the back of the gypsy cab. He’d been gigging around a lot, and Margaret had been saying that the A&R people were interested. But these things took time, he knew; in the meantime his money was running out. He didn’t want to depend on her. And fuck, man, he’d had no idea until now that Ian had been feeling this way all this time. Then he began to think about something that had been simmering in his mind.

There was no life in the Navy Yard that night. Even the wind was still. As he stepped onto the curb, a streetlight coughed and fizzled.