Fantasmagoria (20 page)

(TWENTY-ONE) What Lurks under the Bed

“Hey! How did it go with Yuni--Damn, man . . . What happened to you?”

“Nothing.”

“Like hell. Your eye is all bruised. Is that dried blood on your arm?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay. But look, you should go to the hospital.”

“I’ve been to the hospital, all right? I just came from there. Can we just drop it? I just want one drink and then I’m going home.”

“Should you really be drin--Okay, have a drink.”

“I am.”

“It’s just . . . the Empire’s here.”

“Yup.”

“Aren’t you worried?”

“I just want to have a drink.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t want to talk.”

“Okay.”

“Then I’m going home.”

“Okay.”

“Besides, they’re gonna start with the aminals anyway.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I heard the cops talking.”

“Cops? What cops?”

“At the police station.”

“When were you at the police station?”

“Before the hospital.”

“No shit? What the fuck happened?”

“I told you, I don--”

“Fuck that shit. This has something to do with that ’noid, doesn’t it?”

“Stop calling her that.”

“Okay, but answer the question.”

“You know I don’t like it when you call her that. Why do you always have to be a jerk? I mean, I’m obviously upset. Are you really so stupid that you can’t see I’m hurt? I tell you I’ve been to the hospital. I’ve been arrested for fuck’s sake. And then you go and say that. I hate you. I fucking hate your guts, and I wish you’d just leave me the fuck alone.”

“Hey . . . man. Look. I’m sorry, all right? I didn’t know you got arrested.”

“Why else would I be at the FUCKING POLICE STATION?”

“Look, calm down. I don’t know. I thought maybe you went to report that money stolen, or the tickets.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, I was gonna be all excited that you stoo--you know, that you were lookin’ out for yourself.”

“Okay.”

“Yeah, like I was gonna buy you a drink even. I still will, okay?”

“No, it’s all right. I mean, that kinda makes sense.”

“I’m sorry, man. I really am.”

“I’m sorry I yelled.”

“No, it’s okay. And if you don’t wanna talk about it . . . Hey, I got your back.”

“She wasn’t there.”

“Where?”

“At the club. I couldn’t find her when I went to give her the poem, so I went to her apartment. I figured I’d wait. And I did. For a really long time. Like a half hour or something.”

“What happened?”

“I was sitting there in the hall, catching mean glances from the neighbors that went by, and I got to thinking about what you said.”

“Me?”

“Yeah. And I thought maybe there was something to what you said. But I had that poem, ya know?”

“Yeah. It was really good, too.”

“I wanted her to have it. I spent a lot of time on it. I was gonna slip it under the door so she’d find it, but then I realized I didn’t put my name on it or anything. And I didn’t want her to read it and think Dobie had written it and then have her fall in love with him.”

“No way Dobe could write something like that.”

“And I didn’t have a pen, and I was standing in the hallway there, and I looked at her door and I thought, shit maybe it’s unlocked. Long shot, right? But what the hell.”

“Sure, you were right there.”

“But I didn’t break in.”

“Right.”

“The door was unlocked.”

“Totally.”

“I’m serious!”

“I believe you, man.”

“I just turned the handle and it opened by itself.”

“So . . . what’d you do?”

“I went in!”

“Well, I figured. But what happened?”

“No one was there. I thought I’d leave her a note, tell her I wrote the poem and how she was really important to me. So, I went looking for a pen. And then I was gonna leave. I wasn't waiting.”

“Right.”

“But when I was writing the note in her bedroom, because I wanted to leave it on the nightstand, I heard the front door open.”

“Oh shit!”

“And I don’t know, I just panicked. Like I didn’t want her to think I was a creepy stalker guy who would break into her apartment. She’d never talk to me again.”

“Right.”

“So, I hid under the bed.”

“Smart.”

“But it wasn’t her.”

“Who was it?”

“Some guy! I don’t know. I could only see half the living room from under the bed, and only from his knees down. But I got a good look at him later.”

“Did he catch you?”

“Just listen. I see his feet and start to panic. Like, I don’t know who he is. I’m in someone’s apartment and I’m not supposed to be there. But he just walks around. He walks into the bedroom, the bathroom, just like I did. Like he’s in no hurry, just hanging around and shit. He even went into her fridge and made himself a sandwich.”

“What was he looking for?”

“I don’t know. Yunique, I guess. But he’s walking around eating the sandwich and he finds the poem with the note I wrote on the nightstand.”

“Oh shit!”

“And I was trying not to breathe too hard, and I couldn’t remember if I signed my whole name or just my first name. And that’s when it happened.”

“What?”

“Another guy comes storming into the apartment.”

“A second guy?”

“He might have been drunk. I don’t know. He’s screaming about his money and how he needs it back to get his family out of the city, what with the Empire and all.”

“Right.”

“And he wasn’t letting her go until she gave it up. Like just yelling at the top of his lungs.”

“Where?”

“He was in the living room. So then, the first dude--”

“He’s in the bedroom?”

“Right. He drops to the floor to hide under the bed too, and we catch eyes and everything’s frozen for a second. We’re just looking at each other. Like he totally didn’t expect to see me down there. Neither of us knows what to do.”

“Wow.”

“And then the other guy walks into the bedroom. He starts yelling at the first guy, who’s on his knees telling the second guy to calm down and it’s not what it looks like and to put the gun away.”

“Gun?”

“The drunk guy is yelling about Yunique and what a bitch she is and how she stole his money and now his wife knows and they never even had sex or nothing, and now he finds out she’s been cheating on him and here’s the guy in her bedroom holding a love note, and a sandwich. And the first guy, he’s saying the same thing happened to him, and how he never laid a hand on her—unless he paid, same as everyone else—and how I’m under the bed, and how the guy can totally have the sandwich. But the drunk guy’s not having it. The more the fat guy--”

“The first guy was fat?”

“Yeah, a real porker. And the more he protests, the more the drunk thinks he’s lying to his face.”

“Pisses him off.”

“Exactly.”

“Then what?”

“This goes on and on for like five minutes until BAM. He shoots the guy mid-sentence. Falls dead right next to the bed. And get this.”

“What?”

“He’s still got my poem in his hand.”

“No way.”

“And the sandwich.”

“What did you do?”

“I panicked! I mean, that guy was nuts.”

“Crazy.”

“I didn’t know what he was gonna do. Plus, I really had to pee.”

“Well, sure.”

“I was under there a long time, and when the body hit the ground, those dead eyes were staring at me, and my legs were already shaking because I had to pee, and I just twitched. I hit my head on the bed. The drunk guy turns around, like I can see his feet coming back toward the bedroom.”

“Shit!”

“So, I went for the window.”

“Jumped?”

“Second story.”

“Fuck.”

“I didn’t want to get shot!”

“No kidding.”

“I cracked my knee, and I need a splint in my shin. I cut my arm on the glass and whacked my head on the side of a parked car, set the alarm off too. I think that’s what scared him away.”

“Double fucking shitsicles . . . Dude, are you okay?”

“No! One of the neighbors called the cops when they saw me waiting in the hall all that time. Not that I was doing anything. But the neighbors came out and I got arrested.”

“Do the cops think you killed the guy?”

“They didn’t even go upstairs! They didn’t even check. They just took me in. And when I told them they were being stupid, they hit me. That’s how I got the black eye. And fuck, it took forever. And I kept telling them there was a dead guy in her apartment and they were just like, ‘yeah, whatever.’”

“So, what happened?”

“I got charged with breaking and entering. I gotta go before a judge in a couple weeks.”

“Fuck . . .”

“And I can’t leave the island. So those tickets I bought are a total waste.”

“And now would be a good time to use them what with the Cultural Inquisition here.”

“I know, right? I thought for sure Yunique would go. I mean, Imperials aren’t too friendly to mechanoids.”

“What else did the cops say?”

“That’s it. Just booked me and gave me a court date.”

“No, I mean about the Empire. Did they say what was gonna happen?”

“Seriously? You care more about that than my story?”

“No! Man, relax. It’s just, there’s a giant Imperial zeppelin moored at City Hall and everybody knows it’s got tanks and soldiers and shit inside and we know what the Cultural Inquisition does and we’re all freaking out a little. So, relax, okay? It’s totally a fair question.”

“They didn’t say. Just that everyone was being called in, like maybe they were planning something big.”

“All the cops you mean?”

“Yeah, one guy was complaining about having to cancel his vacation. They were pretty pissed. I guess that’s why it took so long.”

“Fuck.”

“I know.”

“Are you gonna be all right? Like, the docs checked you out and everything?”

“Yeah. I mean, it’s just been a bad couple days.”

“No shit, man.”

“But the worst part is, that was the only copy of the poem. Now there’s no way I can give it to her.”

(TWENTY-TWO) A Drag Off of Death

“I warned you this was a dangerous game.” Marcelline glowered at Gilbert with her one good eye. The contrasting beauty of the multi-hued pearl in the center of the white patch made it seem that much more sinister, that and the large revolver she trained on him as the pair sat facing each other in the back of the limo.

Gilbert, still flushed and panting, kept his hood tucked under his broken arm, which had frozen stiff. His other hand leveled the Amazon’s pistol at his benefactor. He coughed. The car was smoky.

Marcelline lifted a lit cigarette from the ash tray in the car door.

Gilbert’s voice was soft. “I’m sorry. It seems my arm has locked up. I can’t put my hood on.”

The old gangstress smiled as the smoke hung in front of her face. “Oh, you’re too late. These little things beat you to it.”

“You’re dying?”

“I can’t tell you how many times in my life I’ve expected to die. You learn quickly in this business that when it happens, it happens, and there’s nothing you can do but greet every day with your best.”

Gilbert swallowed dry. The barrel of the Amazon’s pistol was shaking beyond use, and he set the gun down. The adrenaline was fading, and he felt a tear trickle down his eye. Everything hurt.

“I just want my life back,” he whispered.

All those years of solitude searching for a cure, collecting his fairies, designing his experiments, Gilbert had wanted nothing more than to rejoin society, to hold hands and talk to people and go to the movies and walk in the sun. Now, he would trade it all just to have the silent comfort of his apartment. He’d collected the withering sprite not two days earlier, but it already seemed like ages ago. He hoped it had survived.

“There’s still a chance of that.” Marcelline set her gun on the seat. “Your arm is broken.”

Gilbert nodded. He didn’t think to ask how she knew.

Marcelline asked the driver to pull into a nearby alley. He was the same mechanoid that had driven Gilbert to Kosi’s. He was silent and did as he was told. The car passed a busy intersection, turned down a delivery ramp, emerged from the other side, and banked into a blind alley. Steam drifted from a manhole cover at the dead end. The noise of the evening commute was distant.