Wanted: Single Rose

by Skye, Mav

  “No!” Sir Sun grabbed his head. He grimaced as he hit the bandage on his nose, and moved his fingers upward, over his bald spot and into his hair. This couldn’t be happening. Couldn’t be.

  “We need rope to stage the scene. It’s Halloween. No one will think twice about a skeleton hanging from a tree. And when they do,” she shrugged again, “they’ll think suicide. College students do it all the time. Especially those who are estranged from their families. Sad, sad thing.”

  “Fuck no, Velva.” He thought of the sweet living Ah Lam, then her dead desecrated body below.

  She made for the door. “We’ll need to go to the hardware store. Let’s go to your place first. I need a shower.”

  Sir Sun blocked her in the hallway. “Over my dead body.”

  “Yours? What about hers?” She hitched a thumb towards the living room and laughed. It was fresh and engaging. If only she were giggling over a cute picture of a kitty cat making a grumpy face on Facebook while they sat at Starbucks with coffee for a mid-afternoon pick me up. Instead, Velva found joy catapulting the body of a poor, dead college girl that’d been murdered in her own home.

  “You’re sick.” He stormed out of Ah Lam’s apartment and down the hall to his place.

  Velva raced to Ah Lam’s front door. “Fine! I’ll use her shower. And Sir Sun?”

  He turned and glanced back at Velva.

  “Don’t look in your bedroom closet.” She smiled and winked, then slipped back inside the door, closing it quietly behind her.

  He rushed to his apartment. The door was unlocked. He looked both ways up and down the hallway, hoping no one had heard their exchange and slid into his apartment, double locking the bolt and chain. He leaned his head against the door. What to do now?

  He went to the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of Advil out of a cupboard, then made his way to the candlestick phone. He collapsed in the green chair beside the side table, picked up the receiver and listened for a dial tone. It was there. He dumped four Advil into his mouth and chewed while dialing the rotary: 911. The dial clicked, then curled back in place after he placed every number.

  The taste of powdered medicine hit his throat, and his saliva glands worked double time to get rid of the stuff. He foamed at the mouth while frantically trying to swallow the putrid taste. The phone rang.

  Sir Sun felt relief wash over him. They would figure this out. He and the police and the hospital. And then there was a slight click.

  Silence replaced the purr of the ring tone.

  “No, dammit, no!” He dialed the rotary again. Hung up, dialed again. The dial swiveled around with its gentle swoosh! But no ring tone.

  Someone knocked at his door.

  He knew who it was. Velva. He stood and marched over to the door. He took a minute to breathe, thinking of the things he’d say to her, and then unbolted and unchained the door. He took a step back.

  The person at the door was not Velva.

  It was Juan, the telephone and cable guy, dressed in a dark green jumper with a tool belt around his waist. “Hola! Sir Sunny.” The Hispanic grinned a wide happy smile.

  “Um, hello?” Once again, Sir Sun felt the carpet had been ripped from beneath his feet.

  “Are you okay, Sunny? You look pale.”

  Sir Sun’s mind leapt a million miles an hour. Did Velva send Juan? Did Juan write the note?

  “Maybe you should see a doctor or somethun’. You look like you’ve seen a ghost, bro. Anyways, I’m letting the residents know the telephone lines are down. Don’t know why. Probably rats gnawing at the cables again.”

  Sir Sun forced a grin. “Huh, imagine that. Thank you, Juan.”

  “De nada.” Juan turned to go. “Oh yeah, muy bonita down the hall asked me to give these to you.” He drew the shears out of his tool belt like a gunslinger and pretended to shoot. “Pow!”

  “Ah!” Sir Sun jumped back.

  “Ha! Ha!” Juan laughed putting his spare hand on his belly. “Gotcha, bro! Anyways, here you go.” He held out the shears to Sir Sun.

  Quick as a mouse, Sir Sun withdrew them, hugging them to his chest.

  Juan’s happy smile unhinged at the edges. “Okay. Well, bye now. We’ll try to get the phone lines up soon. Have a good one.” He saluted and turned, walking towards the stairwell. His work boots squeaking on the carpet.

  Sir Sun closed the door, bolted and locked it. He inspected the shears. They had been wiped sparkly clean as if nothing had ever happened.

  Velva. Her name appeared in his mind. He didn’t know what to do with her, love her or loathe her. Perhaps he did a bit of both. Her name induced guilt, how could someone so lovely, so utterly charming kill like she had? But, he reminded himself, the incident with Ah Lam wasn’t murder—it was an accident. The two women knew each other, obviously. Each had a beef with the other that led to the fight, which led to Ah Lam’s terrible, accidental death.

  Ah Lam. It had been just hours ago she’d rescued him from the elevator. He wiped her skeleton face from his mind.

  What to do next? He walked into the kitchen, holding the shears. The chair was gone, floor wiped up and all evidence of breakfast gone. He walked to the fridge and laid his head against the door of the freezer, dropping the shears on the counter top. Was he losing his mind? He couldn’t even begin to process the events of the morning, of last night.

  He decided to put on a pot of coffee. As it bubbled and brewed, he watched the drip, drip, drip of the dark liquid leak into the glass pot, trying to focus on the moment. On the now. On what he should do next. He walked into the living room and eyed the phone. He picked up the receiver and listened—still no dial tone. Had someone clipped a wire or was it just another dramatic coincidence in the scheme of events?

  His gut told him the answer, but he was tired and didn’t feel like fathoming the implications.

  Perhaps he should walk to the police station, but a glimpse at his hands and sleeves temporarily put that idea out of order. He reeked of blood and puke. He was sure Ah Lam’s blood was on him. They’d think he’d done it for sure.

  He decided to put on some music and shower and go from there.

  He went to the kitchen found the half bottle of wine on the counter. He popped the cork and swigged. Dragging the bottle with him into the living room, he knelt by his Victor Victorola, thumbing through his record collection, filled exclusively with music from the fifties and sixties, and stopped at Connie Francis. He popped the Chordettes out of the record player and put the vinyl back in its cover. He shivered thinking of Mrs. Chow tied to his dining chair in the kitchen while Mr. Sandman played.

  He laid the needle down on the record and Connie’s voice crooned. Connie Francis was looking for love. Feeling better already, he sang with Connie, “Uh huh, oh yeah, Imma justta lookin’ for luuuv.”

  He swigged a quarter of the wine and thought of Velva, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, wriggling her hips on top of him. He sighed and shook his head, trying to get her out of his mind. He wished they’d met under ordinary circumstances without dancing man or monster bird—just look to what that had led to. If he hadn’t written back to Velva, Mr. Fiddler would still be farting around with paint in the hallways, Ah Lam and Mrs. Chow would be yelling at each other behind closed doors in their apartments. But that wasn’t entirely true, Mr. Fiddler had warned him of the men in black sunglasses and trench coats before he and Velva had met.

  He gave up thinking about it.

  In the bathroom, he inspected his bandage while Connie sang on about his and her towels. He wondered what color towels Velva had in her bathroom. The thought left as he gently tore the tape and bandaging from his face. It stung. Black and blue spread from the ridge of his nose and fanned out under his right eye and over his cheekbone. “Great.”

  Explaining his face to the police was going to go down real good. Especially, when filling out a police report about a missing Super, body parts, and a dead girl.

  Connie sang, and he contemplated as he stepped into the show
er. Velva was convinced he was violent. A killer.

  Ah Lam’s words haunted him. You killa my mudda. Had Ah Lam been speaking to him or Velva in the apartment? He had thought it was Velva, but now? He wasn’t so sure. How had she found out about her mother?

  Despite the hot water beating down on him, he chilled. Mrs. Chow—she was still out there somewhere. He had to find her. He wondered if Velva knew where she was. Whose side was Velva on anyway?

  Sir Sun didn’t know, but he did know this: no one else could make his blood electrify and sing like Velva. She was like the sun to his leaves. The sweet nectar to a hummingbird.

  Velva.

  No one scared him more than Velva, either. She was smart—super smart—and knew more than she let on, but she insisted it was for his safety.

  He thought back to the note he found in his pocket this morning: Show me your scars. Show me your fears. Make THEM beg for mercy.

  What scars? He thought of Miss O’Hara.

  Show me your fears. Daisy’s spider plant, the men in sunglasses and trench coats.

  Make THEM beg for mercy. Who were them? He thought of Mr. Fiddler, Ah Lam, and Mrs. Chow.

  Before he went to the police, he needed to find out how they were connected, or the police would blame it all on him. It didn’t help to have the incident with Miss O’Hara in his past.

  Sir Sun stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around his waist. He wiped the steamy mirror with his fist and lathered up his face with shaving cream. He shaved with a sharp razor. It felt good to do something normal.

  Connie still sang about love and diamonds and pearls. The peppy music from the past made him feel optimistic about the future. It was from a time people still looked for the good in others, when it seemed the human race as a whole wanted one thing and one thing only, to be loved and to give love.

  He walked to his bedroom to get fresh clothes. His attire hung on metal hangers, orderly and organized. He slipped on a pair of dark trousers with ironed creases and a white t-shirt. He felt clean, his mind clear. He could figure out where to go from here.

  He drew his dress shirts apart deciding which one he should wear. Perhaps he’d be taken into custody by the police, perhaps he’d end up in a body bag at the bottom of Spindler River. Perhaps Juan, the telephone and cable guy, would decide to come back and visit him with a machete. He frowned, and as he did, he noticed a spot of blood on a light blue dress shirt. Fresh blood.

  A stench suddenly hit his nose, drawing his eyes downward to the bottom of his closet. He suddenly remembered Velva’s words when they parted. ‘Don’t look in your bedroom closet.’

  He wished he’d taken her advice, for there below his wardrobe, atop his shoes, was a fleshy leg severed at the thigh. It wore a white sock and an old brown leather boot, the kind Mr. Fiddler used to wear. The leg was hairy, pale and sickly. Blood crusted over the veins and sinew at the top.

  For the second time that day, Sir Sun puked. He didn’t turn aside this time. He puked over the pale severed leg, white sock and boot. Making one thing for sure—Mr. Fiddler’s pale leg wasn’t pale any longer.

  13

  The Thigh, The Duck, & Daisy Passes the Buck

  Sir Sun drank two hot cups of coffee in less than a minute flat. His stomach gurgled, threatening to spew again, but he kept it down. He retrieved a plastic trash bag from under the sink and went back to his closet. The leg simply lay there, nude and hairy, with the simple sock and boot and his half-digested ham sandwich. He reached for it, drew back, and then finally, placed the trash bag over and under it. The sock and shoe stuck out the end. He picked it up. The leg felt like a half decomposed tree limb but smelled a lot worse. He walked to his bedroom door, almost smacking the thigh into the doorframe. He rearranged the leg, so he held it thigh up and foot down like a hobo’s knapsack. He felt the acidic rise of coffee in his esophagus. He put the hem of his t-shirt up over his nose and breathed into his shirt. The coffee settled once more.

  Sir Sun walked out the bedroom door down the hall to where the entrance hall, kitchen and living room met, unsure of what to do next. He considered throwing it into the bathroom tub, but then, he’d never be able to shower there again. And what if the cops showed up? How would he excuse away his apartment manager’s hacked thigh with his puke on it?

  “Fuck. Fuck-fuckity-fuck.” Instead of the bathroom, he roamed into the living room, the leg propped over his shoulder like a hobo stick. He asked the orchid above his fireplace what he should do. She remained quiet, but her small dainty petal head turned and looked at him. She seemed to pity him. He pitied him, too. Connie Francis still sang about love, but with his Super’s hacked leg on his shoulder, he was running out of patience with her. The orchid didn’t speak out loud, but in his mind, her voice was meek and mild. Where are you? Where did you go?

  Suddenly, he knew where he and Mr. Fiddler’s leg were going to go, straight back to the horse’s mouth—well, Mr. Fiddler’s apartment, anyway. He marched to the front door and grappling the leg with one hand, used his other to grab his keys and shears lying on the nook. He didn’t recall seeing his keys there when he had stepped in earlier, but items seemed to be popping in and out of existence since the day before. It was the least of his problems.

  Sir Sun slipped down the hall toward the stairwell, slick as quicksilver. He considered using the elevators, but what if they quit working? He’d be stuck in a box with Mr. Fiddler’s thigh. How would that look to police?

  No good. He’d have to take a risk going down the stairs with the cat guts.

  He shuffled the leg again (the plastic of the trash bag rustled), and pushed the stairwell door open. He paused and listened.

  The stairway was empty. He took one step at a time, occasionally glancing behind him when he thought he heard something. The cat gut mess was gone, the stairs sparkling clean. He caught sight of the 50’s chandelier and wondered why someone had hurt that poor kitty and who had cleaned up the mess. But those thoughts couldn’t be answered right now, if at all, so he continued down the to the second floor, and finally, the first. When he reached the stairwell door, he pushed it open just an inch with the thigh. He saw no one, so he pushed it all the way open and entered the hallway. He headed straight for Mr. Fiddler’s apartment at a half run.

  Sir Sun was almost to the elevators when he heard thundering footsteps coming down the stairwell. Sir Sun frantically yanked the trash bag over the sock and shoe before the person entered the stairwell door, but it simply wouldn’t fit over.

  Bam! Bam! Bam! the footsteps drew closer until the stairwell door burst open. A giant yellow duck stuck in the doorframe for only a second before the power and force of its girth and speed pushed it spilling into the hallway. An electronic QUACK! QUACK! echoed throughout the first floor, startling Sir Sun to the point he almost dropped Mr. Fiddler’s leg.

  “Go Seahawks! WOOHOO!” Quack! Quack! The giant rubber duck wore a Seahawk’s shirt and had navy blue paint on his face by its beak. The duck jumped up and down waving its little plastic arms and sprint-waddled straight for Sir Sun. “Hey man! Hey Dude! Happy Halloween!” Quack! Quack!

  Sir Sun pinned himself against the hallway wall, hoping the duck would run past. And it did.

  Sir Sun breathed a sigh of relief, but then it stopped, turned and waddled back. “Dude! Hey, dude!” He could hear the young man inside the duck breathing heavily, probably overheated too. Sir Sun hoped he wouldn’t pass out in the hallway, then he’d have to drag both the leg and the duck down the hall and that would be hard to explain.

  “Yes?” Sir Sun asked. He remembered now that a kid Ah Lam had gone to college with lived down the end of the hall, past the pole, and to the right. He remembered because one night, Ah Lam had asked him to bring the guy a Gatorade when he had the flu. She had been in an argument with her mother and had been banned from leaving the apartment. The hall light at the end was out, and he’d almost walked straight into the support pole, practically in front of the kid’s door.

&nb
sp; “Dude,” the duck waved its tiny wings or arms or whatever they were. “is that a leg?”

  “Um,” Sir Sun stalled. “Well…”

  “Cuz, dude. It’s so totally lifelike. Where the fuck did you get that, man? Can I bring it to the party? That would be the bomb! I could whack people around with it. Totally realistic dude.”

  Sir Sun, in shock, said, “Well… no.”

  “I’d totally get it back to you, man.” The rubber duck quacked and quacked. He reached to take the leg from Sir Sun, but Sir Sun gripping the shoe, swung it out of reach from the tiny wings.

  The duck jumped up and down like a dog to retrieve it. “Ha ha, man. You’re so funny. That’s the greatest!”

  “Actually,” said Sir Sun feeling his face turning purple. He could hardly breathe at the thought of a rubber duck pounding people’s faces with Mr. Fiddler’s leg. “I need it.”

  “Oh yeah! For your party. I get it, man, that’s cool.” He held out his little yellow wing. “High five, bro.”

  Sir Sun shifted the leg to his shoulder and gave the rubber duck a high five.

  “Party on, dude. It’s Halloween. Yahoo!” With that the duck jumped in the air and clicked its ankles together. It spread its wings as if preparing for take off and ran down the hall past the elevators. Sir Sun followed him, glancing behind him often. When he got to Mr. Fiddler’s door, he watched to see where the rubber duck was going. It whizzed down the rest of hall and turned right to go down the next.

  “Watch out!” cried Sir Sun. “Watch out for the pol—”

  Thunk! And then a slow dying electronic qqquuacckk.

  Mr. Fiddler’s apartment door flung open. “Oh!” Velva pressed her hand to her chest. “Oh! You startled me!” She was dressed in a black and white polka dot off-shoulder dress. A thick black ribbon accentuated her tiny waist. A kitty eye mask hung about her neck. Her eyes danced with mischief; she didn’t appear as startled as she had made out to be. She eyeballed the leg covered in the trash bag. Before Sir Sun could respond, she said, “His boot is untied. What was that sound?”