by Jeff Strand
“Sorry.”
I sat down on the bed next to him. He was small for a seven-year-old, though not quite into runt territory. I’d fought against his current buzz cut and been on the path to victory until he’d managed to get three whole pieces of chewed gum in his hair, so it all had to go.
Considering what he’d been through, the little guy was doing as well as could be expected. Not as well as Theresa, who now seemed mostly unaffected save for occasional nightmares, but not too bad. Upon the recommendation of several doctors, we’d put Kyle in a special school for emotionally disturbed children, but most of the time he seemed perfectly fine.
“So what’d you do?” I asked.
“Nothin’.”
“They just called Mom for no reason?”
Kyle shrugged. In his hands, Captain Hocker saved a planet from the dreaded Gleeker Force of Doom.
“C’mon, buddy, you can tell me.”
“I spit.”
“You spit?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Where?”
“On people.”
“How many people?”
He shrugged again. “A lot.”
“Why did you do that?”
“I dunno.”
“You just decided, hey, I’ve got some extra slobber, might as well share it?”
Another shrug.
I sighed. “Look, buddy, you know that stinky kid in your class that nobody likes?”
“Joey.”
“Yeah, Stinky Joey the Skunk Boy. Well, spitting on other kids is kind of like smelling bad. People don’t like it. And remember how I told you that they don’t let stinky kids become astronauts because it messes with the oxygen system? If you spit, it floats around the space shuttle and gets in the gears and people die. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Kyle nodded.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“So you won’t spit on anyone else?”
“No.”
“You promise?”
“Yeah.”
“Shake on it.”
We shook hands, and then I gave him a hug.
“Andrew, get down here!” Helen called out from downstairs.
“She’s on the warpath again,” Kyle said.
“Don’t say that anymore. I mean it.”
“You said it first.”
“That’s exactly why I don’t want you to say it!” I stood up and hurried out of his room and downstairs.
Helen was seated on the couch, holding an ice pack to her head. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t mean to yell, but it’s just so frustrating. Where were you today?”
I shrugged. “Nowhere.”
THE NEXT night was Wednesday, which meant Helen’s parents took care of the kids. I tried to convince Helen to take the night off, so we could go out to a romantic dinner, but she was still mad at me for letting her yell at me for so long without explaining that I’d been kidnapped by lunatics.
So I drove over to Roger’s apartment. He greeted me at the door with three scratches that ran from his left eye down to his jaw. The ones on the other side of his face were healing nicely.
“I don’t want that cat anymore,” he told me.
“That’s a terrible thing to say,” I said, stepping inside. Reverse Snowflake lay sleeping peacefully on Roger’s couch, the sides of which the black cat had lovingly shredded. “This precious animal saved my life.”
“So you take it! It scratches me all the time. It sheds all over my furniture. It chews on my ears at night. I found cat hair in a carton of milk that I just opened!”
“Is my Reverse Snowflake a pretty kitty?” I asked, scratching him behind his ears. “Yes he is! Yes he is! Yes he is!”
“I’m serious, Andrew! There’s kitty litter all over my bedroom! You’re the one whose life it saved!”
“Yes, but because he saved my life, I was able to save your life, remember?”
“If that cat had been smart enough to let you die, my life would never have been in danger,” Roger said. “Take it. For the love of God, take it.”
“Helen’s allergic to cats. And they scratch up everything...I mean, look at this place.”
“I’m not kidding around! The cat meows all night and I think it’s trying to impregnate one of my pillows.”
“All right, all right, I’ll see what I can do,” I promised. “My in-laws might take him. But he’s such a sweeeeeeet kitty!”
“You’re a rotten person,” Roger informed me.
WE DROVE over to The Blizzard Room, a coffee shop where we usually spent our Wednesday nights complaining that we didn’t have anywhere better to spend our Wednesday nights. The place had virtually nothing to recommend about it besides the fact that it wasn’t on fire, and yet we almost never missed a week.
“Why do we come here?” I asked. “The coffee isn’t any good, the table shakes when you—”
“Andrew, we go through this every time,” said Roger with a sigh. “Every single Wednesday you sit there and count off everything that sucks about this place, and every single Wednesday we come right back.”
“And don’t you find that depressingly pathetic?”
Roger shrugged. “It’s our destiny. Our path has been chosen, and there’s nothing we can do to alter it.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” I took a sip of coffee. “Maybe next week we’ll go bowling.”
“We could get up right now and go bowling.”
“Nah.”
“Didn’t think so.”
After a few more minutes of intellectually draining conversation, Roger got up to use the restroom. I reminded him that the restrooms were far below average, especially the air hand dryer that was about as effective as having somebody pant on your hands. He informed me that he was well aware of the inadequacies of the restroom facilities and that it would please him greatly if I would keep my opinions locked up in my brain where they belonged. I said okay.
A couple minutes after he left, the door swung open and a woman entered. She looked about sixty. She’d obviously had a facelift, which was probably supposed to make her look younger but really just made her look like a sixty year-old with her skin yanked back. Her hair was blonde, too blonde, and piled high above her head. She wore an expensive-looking blue dress and high heels, and carried a blue purse that matched the dress exactly.
She scanned the coffee shop for a moment, clearly not impressed, and then saw me and walked over to my table.
“Andrew Mayhem?” she asked. I’d expected her voice to be the ultimate in snottiness, but it was actually quite soft and pleasant.
“Yeah?”
“May I have a seat?”
“Sure. Here, let me get you a chair with all four legs.” I reached out and dragged one over from the next table. The woman took a seat and gave me a hint of a smile.
“Thank you. My name is Patricia Nesboyle. I’m a busy woman and I’m sure you’re a busy man, so I’m going to get right to the point. I’d like to pay you to accompany me to a party tomorrow night.”
“What kind of party?”
“A dinner party. A simple affair, just myself and four friends.”
“I see. May I ask why you want to pay me for this?”
She nodded. “I’ve read about you, the way you handled that awful situation with those atrocious people. You’re something of a celebrity amongst my friends. They would all be very impressed if you were there, and then you could protect me.”
“From what?”
She lowered her voice to a whisper. “One of my friends plans to kill me tomorrow night.”
“Just one?”
She leaned back, offended. I immediately realized what I’d said. “No, no, that’s not what I meant. I was just asking if...okay, I was asking if it was just one, but not in a way that I meant it should be more, I mean, it shouldn’t be any as far as I’m concerned, but—”
“Will you do it?”
“How do you know somebody wants to kill y
ou?”
“It’s very complicated. Suffice it to say that I overheard something I shouldn’t have.”
Something about her tone of voice made me suspect she wasn’t telling the whole truth. Not that I would put much faith in my own instincts, being a bumbling incompetent and all.
“Okay, so, I’m not really sure what good I would do,” I admitted. “I’m not a bodyguard.”
“He’s right, he’s not,” said Roger, walking up to the table. “You should see what happened to my body.”
“I did,” said Patricia. “It was quite grotesque. Would you mind excusing us?”
“Not at all,” said Roger. “I was just about to sit by myself at that corner table anyway.”
He left. I ran a hand through my hair and took another sip of coffee. “Look, Ms. Nesboyle, I’m flattered, but I’m really gonna have to pass. How much are you offering?”
“Five hundred dollars.”
“And what exactly do I have to do?”
“Nothing,” she promised. “Simply show up at the party. With you there, nobody will try anything.”
“Why not just cancel it?”
“I can’t. It’s a...special party.”
“Special parties are the best kind. But seriously, if your life is at stake, shouldn’t you hire a real bodyguard or a cop or something?”
Patricia shook her head. “That wouldn’t be as much fun, now would it?”
There was something deeply wrong with this lady. “So let me get this straight. I show up at the party. I mingle with your friends. I go home. Is that correct?”
“That is correct.”
Around this time, my inner voice decided to speak up. “Hey, Andrew, buddy, this lady’s completely nuts! Don’t get involved with her! Remember last time you let some strange lady pay you for a favor? Huh? Remember it? You remember it, don’t you? Wasn’t all that much fun, now was it? If I were you, which I am, I’d tell her to MMMmmmpph! ” I mentally gagged my inner voice and spoke up.
“Six hundred, plus one hundred for my friend to watch my kids.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Five hundred, plus the hundred for your friend.”
“Six hundred, plus nothing for my friend.”
“Done.”
“All right, sounds good,” I said, offering my hand. She shook it, making only the lightest contact with my fingers.
“I need to be going,” she said, digging a small card out of her purse. “Be at this address at eight o’clock sharp tomorrow night. Dress nicely.”
“I can handle that,” I told her, hoping I still had the suit jacket I’d bought six years ago during my half-week stint as a lounge singer.
“Very good. I look forward to seeing you.”
She got up, nodded politely, and walked out the door. Roger returned and took her spot.
“Who was that?”
“Patricia. Can you baby-sit tomorrow night?”
Roger’s eyes lit up. “Kyle will bring his Nintendo, right?”
“Of course.”
“Sure, yeah, I can manage that.”
“Plus I made you a hundred bucks.” Damn guilt. That was a pretty darn generous babysitting fee, but I still felt bad that Roger never got the ten grand we were each supposed to make when I talked him into accepting the graverobbing gig last year.
Roger looked suspicious. “And what exactly are you doing tomorrow night?”
“Just a party.”
“Just a party?”
“Just a party.”
“You’re not getting yourself into trouble again, are you?”
“No,” I said. “I hope not.”
Chapter 3
“ANDREW Mayhem, gigolo,” said Roger, adjusting the radio station in my car. “Nice ring to that.”
I slapped his hand away. “I’m not a gigolo. I’m a bodyguard.”
“I dunno, I’m picking up some serious gigolo vibes from this whole setup.” He waited for me to grip the steering wheel, and then began messing with the station again.
“She’s probably sixty years old!”
“And you’re a strapping lad of thirty-three! She’s probably looking for somebody to stretch more than her face.”
“Don’t be sick,” I said, slapping his hand away. “It’s just a party.”
“It’s a naked party!”
“Gee, I wonder where my seven year-old gets his immature behavior? I need to find a new babysitter.”
“Are you going to tell Helen?”
“Of course I’m going to tell Helen!”
I WOULD have told Helen, but there weren’t any good opportunities aside from breakfast, dinner, and the hour or so we spent watching television before she left for work. After she was gone, I dug my suit out of the closet, decided against eating the chocolate bar that had survived in the pocket all these years, and drove Theresa and Kyle over to Roger’s apartment.
Patricia’s home was on the far west side of Chamber, Florida. The neighborhoods get richer and richer the further west you travel, and I became more and more self-conscious in my boxy grey sedan that was only a couple of notches up from something that required a wind-up mechanism.
At eight o’clock sharp, I pulled into the long, circular driveway of an immense two-story home with a well lit, perfectly maintained lawn and a huge fountain in the center that sprayed water in perfect rhythm to the classical music playing from speakers on the sides.
Then I checked the card Patricia had given me and realized that I was at the wrong place.
At eight forty-four sharp, I pulled into the long, circular driveway of an immense two-story home with a dimly lit, possibly well-maintained lawn and an ugly statue of a naked kid with a missing buttock. I parked behind five much finer automobiles than my own and hurried up to the front door.
After I rang the doorbell, Patricia answered. She glared at me. “I could be dead by now,” she whispered.
“Sorry,” I said. “I read the address wrong.”
I entered the house and she led me to the exquisitely furnished study, where four other people were standing around having drinks. They all looked to be about Patricia’s age, two men and two women. The men were dressed in suits that made my own feel like an old piece of burlap with dead moths pouring out of the sleeves.
“Our special guest is here,” Patricia announced. “Everyone, this is Andrew Mayhem.”
“ The Andrew Mayhem,” said a gentleman with bushy white eyebrows and a handlebar mustache. “How interesting.”
Patricia took me by the hand and walked me over to him. “Andrew, this is Malcolm. He worked with my husband.” She said this in a way that implied I was supposed to pretend I had some vague notion who her husband was, so I said “Ahh.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Malcolm, shaking my hand. He gestured to the sharp-featured woman standing next to him. “This is my wife Donna.”
Donna nodded politely at me, but it was obvious from her expression that she fully expected me to start picking my nose and igniting farts.
“Hi,” I said, hoping my breath didn’t offend her.
Patricia led me to the other couple. The man was extremely short and thin, but carried himself like a drill sergeant. “It’s an honor, Andrew,” he said, shaking/crushing my hand. “I’m Stephen.”
“Vivian,” said his wife, who stood a head taller than Stephen but appeared to be painfully shy.
“So Andrew, how much of what you wrote in your book was true?” Stephen asked.
“Oh, you’ve read it?”
He shook his head. “I wanted to hold off until I knew how much of it was true.”
“Well, let’s put it this way. If I’d made it up, I certainly wouldn’t have made myself so stupid.”
I grinned. They didn’t.
I stopped grinning and returned my attention to Patricia. “Thanks for inviting me. You have a beautiful home.”
While I’m not positive, I’m pretty sure I heard Donna whisper “Yeah, like he would know,” to her husband.
“Thank you,” said Patricia. “I hired the decorator myself. Would you care for a drink?”
I was tempted to decline on the basis that I’d just finished sampling some moonshine from my homemade still, but I didn’t think she’d be amused. “Sure. I’ll have whatever she’s having,” I said, gesturing to Donna.
Patricia went to the bar and poured me a glass of white wine. Temptation struck again, but I behaved myself and didn’t ask for a straw. Messing with the minds of these people wasn’t worth losing my five hundred bucks.
I ate weird crackers with salmon gook on them and made small talk with the guests for about fifteen minutes, during which I’m pretty sure I overheard the word “inbred” being used by Donna in two separate sentences. Malcolm was pleasant enough, I guess, but I was still far out of my social element. However, snobbish as they were, none of the guests seemed like a potential murderer.
Finally, Patricia clapped her hands for attention. “Shall we begin?”
“Certainly,” said Stephen, and the others acknowledged their agreement.
“Wonderful. Let’s head to the dining room, then.”
Patricia walked out of the study and the other guests followed. I took up the rear, right next to Malcolm. He smiled at me, a glint of mischief in his eye. “Tell me, son, how much is she paying you?” he whispered.
I wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be a secret or not, so I decided to play it safe. “She’s not paying me anything.”
“Oh, come now. You’re not sleeping with her for free, are you?”
“I’m not sleeping with her at all!”
“Really? Then you’re the first.” He winked at me. “Don’t worry, it won’t leave this house.”
Somehow I just knew that word was going to get back to Helen that I’d become a male prostitute who serviced middle-aged women. That’s the kind of luck I have.
We filed into the dining room. A small circular table was covered with a black tablecloth, and there were five thick white candles burning. A larger rectangular table had been shoved against the wall, and was bare. This was apparently not a dinner party like I’d been told.
“What exactly are we doing?” I whispered to Malcolm.
“Didn’t she tell you?” he asked. “We’re going to have a séance.”