A fireball spat from the muzzle of the chimpanzee’s revolver when he pulled the trigger, accompanied by a thunderous clap, sending a lead bullet into Jason’s leg. The chimp’s contemptuous smile widened. Like the ape’s horrific beating of the priest, Jason’s death was not going to be quick or painless. Jane Goodall described the chimpanzee as evil, and Jason realized that she was more right than she realized.

There was good and bad news. The good news was that Jason didn’t feel any pain when the ape shot him in the leg. The bad news was that Jason didn’t feel any pain when the ape shot him in the leg, which meant that he was paralyzed from the waist down, at least temporarily. That also meant that his options for fighting back were limited, very limited. His automatics were empty, and the snubbies had fallen where he couldn’t get to them, even if he could crawl.

“Now for a little family planning.” The ape raised his revolver and aimed it at Jason’s crotch. “Not that you’re going to live long enough to have a family.”

The knob of the shillelagh was within Jason’s reach. But he couldn’t stand—couldn’t even feel his legs. What was he going to do? Grasping hold of the knob, he pointed the end of the shillelagh at the chimpanzee, which prompted a dry, dismissive laugh deep in the ape’s throat.

With the barrel aimed at Jason’s groin, the chimpanzee squeezed the trigger, slowly enough that Jason could see the hammer travel backward as the cylinder slowly revolved.

Jason thrust the shillelagh forward, jamming the tip into the chimpanzee’s stomach, and crying out from the pain that radiated throughout his injured back. The resulting explosion stunned Jason, and the blast sent the chimp flying backward, creating a geyser of blood and guts that blew through the ape’s stomach and out of his back, spraying the bathroom door behind him while punching a hole through it. The chimp flopped to the ground, and a pool of blood seeped out from under him. The bleeding ape took several shallow breaths before he became still.

The blast that Jason heard and saw was a shotgun blast, he was certain of it.

Although he wasn’t certain why, Jason glanced at his watch, which was faintly luminous. This was hardly the time to be checking his game score.

What was the ‘T’ for in the prize notification, unless it meant talisman? As incredible as it sounded, in all of today’s events, ambushing the riot squad paddy wagons, fighting the RAPE squad goons and the killing mandrill in the church, burning his jacket to get rid of evidence, and the troubling experience of visiting Father Bannon in the hospital, he hadn’t checked his watch, nor had he thought that he might have a talisman in his possession. The message icon was displayed, so he punched the watch stem several times.

The message displayed raised more questions than it answered, but he knew that a bang stick was used by divers in shark-infested waters. Consisting of a long stick, the bang stick had a cylinder at the tip that held a 12 gauge shotgun shell, so that all a diver had to do was jab the end into the side of a shark, and the impact detonated the shell. If the chimpanzee had received a contact shot from a 10-gauge shotgun shell, he didn’t have a hope in hell of surviving.

Now that he thought of surviving, Jason realized he was in bad shape. He’d been shot twice and felt an odd mix of excruciating pain in his back and numbness from his waist down.

“Help!” Jason yelled, and the effort made his back flare up in agonizing pain. “Help me!”

He heard footsteps coming up the stairway, then there was pounding on the door. “Father Jason!” Sister Mildred shouted from behind the door, “Open up! It’s locked!”

“I can’t get up,” he replied weakly. He heard a scratching at the door, which finally opened.

Sister Mildred shrieked when she saw him on the floor, and dropped the butcher knife that she had used to jimmy the door open. Maureen let out a startled whoop when she saw the dead mandrills and the chimp.

“Father, God bless ya.” She cradled his head in her arms, and rocked him as she wept. “Oh my dear Lord.”

“We heard the shots, but we were afraid to come up here, until we heard you shouting.” Maureen dropped down beside him and took his hand in hers. “You’ve been shot!” she exclaimed, on seeing the blood seeping through his pants.

“Twice,” he replied. “Careful, sister, I’ve got a spinal injury. Get help.”

“Run downstairs, dearie, and call an ambulance, right away. Run! I’ll stay with the father.” Sister Mildred carefully set his head down on the floor. “Ya just lie still there, father, help is a comin’.”

“I told you it was going to be war.” Jason felt weak and thought that he might sleep if it weren’t for the pain in his back. Jason thought of the boxing adage, “When you lose, you get hurt: when you win, you get hurt.” He’d defeated the mayor’s men time and again and had even killed five mandrills and the mayor’s right-hand man, but he was going to pay a steep price for his victory.

* * *

“Can you do a trick with these four quarters?” the boy asked Jason.

“Sure.” Jason set the quarters out in a box shape on his foam mat, then covered each coin with a playing card. One by one, the quarters disappeared, and arrived in one corner. This was the part that Jason loved, the kicker. Suddenly Jason plucked up the cards, and all four coins were back at their original corners. The immediate reaction was stunned silence, then the table erupted in applause.

“Wow, that was amazing!” the mother at the table said.

“I’ve seen magic on TV, but not in person,” the father added. “That was incredible.”

The boy who handed him the quarters had a huge smile on his face.

Jason went to hand the kid back his quarters, when the boy’s mother said, “Those are for you, you can keep them.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Jason told her with a smile and a nod. “I appreciate it.”

Jason slipped the quarters into his right back pocket, where he placed all of his tips. He didn’t have a whole lot in tips, but it was money, and he wasn’t complaining. Looking up, he saw his grandfather seated at a table, and approached him. “I didn’t expect to see you here, Gramps.”

“When you said you were performing at Smoky Mountain Pizza, how could I not show up?” The waitress brought Gramps an individual pizza and set it on the table. “Go ahead, show me something.”

“We’re going to choose a card to represent my mother-in-law. I’m going to riffle down the side of the deck, and you just say stop.” Jason ran his thumb over the corner of the deck, letting cards slip by, and stopped when his grandfather gave the command. He removed the card, which was a Jack, and set it on top of the deck. “Yes, the beard looks just like her. She died, and we buried her.”

At this point Jason slid the Jack into the middle of the deck. “I was depressed, devastated. Any ideas why?”

“You weren’t included in the will?” Gramps suggested.

“She came back.” Jason turned over the top card of the deck, and the Jack had risen to the top. He was pleased to see the look of surprise on his grandfather’s face.

Jason had his grandfather sign the card, yet the “mother-in-law” card kept dying and returning to the top of the deck, until Jason reached the finale. “We buried her yet again, but several days later….”

Jason flipped up the top card, but it wasn’t the signed Jack. Gramps reacted like all audiences did, being surprised, and perhaps wondering if Jason had screwed up. Jason reached into his pocket and slowly withdrew his grandfather’s signed Jack. “Can we ignore the symbolism of that last one?”

“That was great, Jason. I can tell you’ve really been practicing.” Gramps reached into his pocket and removed a five dollar bill.

Jason’s head dropped to one side. “Come on, Gramps. You just gave me $6,000 worth of guns, and now you’re tipping me?”

“No, keep it.” Gramps waved his hand toward Jason. “That was good. Want to join me?”

Jason looked at the clock behind him. It was almost eight. “I’ve got a couple more tables to do, and I’ll be back.”

Several minutes later Jason returned and joined his grandfather at the table. “I’m $25 richer, and I haven’t counted my tips.”

“Not bad for how long…three hours’ work?” Gramps asked. “Can I get you something?”

“Two hours, and I love doing magic.” Jason thought about Gramps’ offer. “Yeah, I’ll have the salad. I was so nervous when I came here I couldn’t eat dinner.”

“This looks like a nice way to earn extra money.” Gramps flagged down a waitress. “Can I get a salad bar for my grandson?”

“Yes, sir.” The waitress had started to take out her pad, but put it back in her apron pocket. “And to drink?”

“Water, please.” Jason then turned to his grandfather. “I’m just subbing for my magic mentor, Steve, who got hired to do a holiday party. If I could do shows like that, Christmas parties, banquets, I’d be making good money. And this twenty-five bucks is going straight toward paying off my college loan debt.”

Gramps had an amused, sly look on his face. “I’m not saying you should cheat on your taxes or anything, but that is potentially tax-free income.”

Jason gave him a knowing smile. “The funny thing is, I’ve received more recognition in two hours of card and coin tricks than I have in three years of teaching. When the first table started applauding, and people were saying, ‘That’s great!’ or ‘Wow!’ I was stunned. I was thinking ‘What the hell is going on?’ Then I realized how sad it is that, as a teacher, I’m not used to being praised or recognized for anything I do.”

“Imagine a cook at your school cafeteria, who doesn’t get a lot of praise or recognition for her work. In fact, she probably gets nothing but complaints. Then she caters a private party and gets complimented for her fantastic cooking. Well, she was capable all along, it’s just that she’s in a shitty system, like you are, where she can’t make the best use of her talents.” Gramps gestured to Jason, pointing at his chest. “You’ve got teaching talent, I know it. You just need to teach someplace that will recognize that and reward you.”

“That’s for sure. I’m almost done with day two on the law enforcement Spanish seminar.” Jason got up from the booth. “Let me go get my salad. I’ll be right back.”

* * *

Sister Mildred paced the hospital room, while Maureen stood beside Jason and brushed his hair away from his face. The young redhead, whose breasts loomed over him as she stood at his bedside, always looked beautiful, and Jason was moved by her expression of concern for him. Both ladies were forced to wear surgical masks because of the mayor’s new Mitral virus rules.

A nurse entered the room and approached Jason’s bed. “Excuse me, miss,” she said to Maureen, “please have a seat for a moment.”

The nurse was in her forties, with tan skin and black curly hair in the frizzy style that Jason liked. Even if she wasn’t big breasted, she had a nice butt, and she was cute—well, she was wearing a mask, so Jason guessed that she was cute—with pretty brown eyes. She put the cuff on Jason’s arm and began to take his blood pressure.

“Excuse me, Miss, are you Dominican?” Jason asked. He was certain she was Hispanic; he just wasn’t certain which country.

“Puerto Rican.” She smiled at him and took off the blood pressure cuff. She then removed a thermometer from a protective case.

“Boricua,” Jason managed to say before she slid the glass thermometer under his tongue.

“You speak Spanish?” she asked in surprise, and set her fingers on the inside of his wrist to measure his heart rate.

Jason couldn’t speak with the thermometer in his mouth, so he was forced to nod yes.

Sister Mildred had stopped her pacing and dropped into the seat beside Maureen, but she fidgeted nervously, and drew the mask down under her nose so she could breathe more easily.

If Jason could pace, he’d be pacing, too. He had a bad feeling, a sense of dread.

There was a knock at the door, followed by the doctor stepping in. The nurse withdrew the thermometer from Jason’s mouth, read it, and stepped aside to write on Jason’s chart.

“Excuse me, ladies, can we speak in private?” the doctor asked the sister and her niece.

“It’s okay, doctor,’ Jason told him. “They might as well hear it.”

The doctor pulled his mask down below his chin so he could speak and be understood clearly. “I’m Dr. Rosenthal. I removed the bullets from your leg and your shoulder. The bullet in your leg missed the bone, and was a through-and-through…”

“Meaning?” Jason looked at the doctor in confusion. Because his hospital gown hardly reached his knees, the bandage on his calf was conspicuous.

“The bullet entered and exited cleanly,” the doctor explained. “The bullet in your shoulder hardly broke the skin and was relatively easy to remove.”

The doctor, who had a receding hairline and a set of thick glasses, paused for a moment. “But those are not your real problem.”

“Being shot isn’t the problem?” Jason was confused.

The doctor rested a hand on Jason’s shoulder. “It’s worse than that.”