The Man on the Washing Machine

by Susan Cox

  I hastily brought the conversation back to Nicole. If this was a wake, dammit, she should stay in center stage. “What were her big issues when she was a student?” I asked Derek.

  “She wanted to make a difference. She was ready to take on anyone over anything! The color bar at the Adelphi Club, rebuilding the Embarcadero, green spaces on the Presidio, getting toilets placed in the parks for the homeless—man, she was relentless.” He shook his head with a smile.

  Helga snatched up another beer; she lifted it to the room in a little salute before drinking it more or less in one gulp. “I’ve got to get back to my ovens,” she said. I put a hand on her arm as she passed me. “Stay a little longer,” I said.

  She looked down at me blankly. “The croissants won’t bake themselves.”

  “C’mon. Another half hour. What made you open a bakery, anyway? You work half the night.”

  “True,” she sighed. “I was born a princess and, alas, an evil queen stole my fortune. Luckily I’m a natural night owl,” she said. “Okay, half an hour.” She picked up another beer, which she dispatched with equal efficiency. As far as I could tell they were having no effect.

  “I’m sorry, honey; I know this isn’t a great time for you,” I said, but it was the wrong thing to say.

  Her face darkened and she sniffed, rubbing the back of her hand against her nose in an effort to stop a tear escaping. It didn’t work and she looked away from me over to Kurt, who was staring at the top of Sabina’s head as she concentrated on her crochet hook. Crap.

  Besides the obvious there was something wrong here that had nothing to do with Nicole’s murder. The undercurrents—what a poet friend once called the ocean under the sea—were dragging me in directions I didn’t want to go.

  Nat came back with a bottle of Scotch in one hand and gin in the other. “Forget the herbal elixirs,” he said cheerfully. “Let’s all have another drink.”

  So I did. And another. And a couple more. The effects of alcohol, I’ve been told, are exaggerated by emotional stress. I was feeling seriously stressed. I’d been asked not to mention rhino horn to anyone—even before I found it; my suspicions about Tim Callahan’s death being murder were presumably infra dig too; I was sorrier than I could admit about Nicole, more frightened than I could admit about the idea of a killer on the loose; angrier and more worried than I could admit about Lichlyter not being on hand when I needed her. I forgot that I hadn’t eaten for the best part of two days. And every time I picked up my glass it was full.

  “This is a great idea,” I said at about midnight. “That damn inspector has me tied up in knots.” There was a chorus of “Me, toos” from everyone. “She’s all over us like a blanket for days and when I have something to tell her, she’s nowhere around.”

  “What are you going to tell her? Have you thought of something?” Kurt’s cheeks were bright. He waved his half-empty glass for punctuation. I got a grip on my loose tongue and shook my head casually.

  Haruto, whose ponytail was shaken loose around his face so that he looked more dissipated than usual, said: “The professor was trying to tell her something this morning, but you know how he is, he gets more and more Italian and hard to understand and he blames whoever he’s talking to and—” Several people laughed. “—anyway, he decided she was an idiot and refused to talk to her. He called her ‘the knows one.’”

  “Nose? What about her nose?” Kurt said, looking puzzled. “I didn’t notice anything about—”

  “No, ‘the knows one,’ because she thinks she knows it all.” Haruto shook his head fondly.

  Speaking for all of us, Derek said: “What was he trying to tell her?”

  “Yeah. What could he know?” Kurt asked a bit belligerently.

  But Haruto either didn’t know or wasn’t saying.

  I got up to go to the bathroom and on my way back down the hall I zigzagged drunkenly into the wall and stood there for a couple of moments trying to steady myself. I could hear fragments of an argument coming from somewhere; two voices so low and angry they sounded like cats hissing. I peered around the doorway into the kitchen, but the lights were off—no one there. Must be in one of the bedrooms, I thought, sluggishly, listening hard.

  I crept quietly toward the back of the flat, feeling my way along the wall. I heard a burst of laughter from the living room.

  “No! You’re not getting it!” a woman’s voice hissed somewhere close by. “Kurt’s a bastard.”

  “You will, or I’ll—”

  “Or you’ll what? Kill me?” A hysterical laugh accompanied a fumbling noise, followed by a small thump. Then Nat’s voice: “Leave it!”

  The bedroom door immediately in front of me burst open and Sabina marched past me, rigid with fury. I flattened myself against the wall but I don’t think she even saw me. Nat came out into the hall almost immediately. He put an index finger to his lips.

  “Everything okay?” I said.

  “Couldn’t be better,” he said cheerfully. He offered his arm theatrically and we waltzed back down the hallway.

  “Is anyone else thinking Tim falling had anything to do with Nicole being killed?” Sabina was saying as we got back into the brightly lit living room. “Otherwise it’s all too weird.”

  Helga, who had decided to stay, slammed another beer. Those croissants tomorrow were going to be one hell of an odd shape.

  I was trying to get back to my seat without falling over and succeeding only marginally, so I wasn’t paying attention to what I was saying: “You want weird? What about those crates of—stuff—in my garage.” I slid gracelessly to a stop. I didn’t exactly cover my mouth with my hand, but damn near.

  “Crates?” Kurt said, looking puzzled. “You mean like trunks or something?” He came over with the gin bottle.

  “Sort of,” I said casually, falling back into my chair and trying to concentrate on the lemon peel in my glass. Kurt topped it up with more gin and I smiled at him mistily. I had more attention than I wanted, even if everyone’s mind was nearly addled from Nat’s liberal hand with a bottle, and I tried to think of something innocuous to say that didn’t involve wooden packing crates and rhinoceros horn. Derek’s face floated in front of me. He was shaking his head. Fine. He never drinks so he could afford to look superior.

  “I’m hungry,” I announced.

  “I think you’re drunk,” Nat said, plopping an ice cube into my glass. Why had he and Sabina been arguing in the bedroom? I tried to focus on his face. It looked the same as ever. No. He looked relieved about something.

  “We’re all drunk,” I announced, with a swing of my arm that nearly decapitated a table lamp.

  “When did you last eat?” he said.

  “I told you I was hungry,” I said wisely. “I don’t remember. Breakfast. Doughnut.” I waved at Helga, who looked vaguely disgusted.

  Nat snorted. “Five gins on an empty stomach. Come on. Let’s get you home.”

  Derek caught me as I lurched to my feet and nearly fell over the coffee table. Lucy growled from underneath it. “Maybe you should spend the night in our spare room,” Derek said with a grin as he swung me over his shoulder. I thought fondly that friends who stay sober and can still be amused by drunks are true friends. Everyone laughed a little too loudly. Derek carried me down the hallway. Someone took off my shoes and I put my head on the pillow with a snort. This was a good idea. I nodded to myself and wished I hadn’t. The dresser—complete with some of Nat’s simpering Royal Doulton figurines—floated up to me and do-si-do’d back against the wall. I stared at the ceiling and concentrated very hard on making the light fixture stay in one place. I grabbed hold of Lucy as if she were a life buoy. Nat opened a drawer on the bedside table and I felt him slip something small into the pocket of my jeans.

  “Whassat?”

  “I told you—in case those icebergs keep breakin’ up. Protection in fluorescent orange.” I thrashed around trying to reach into my pocket to throw the small packets at him, but got tangled up in the comforter and g
ave up.

  “Sleep tight; don’t let the bedbugs bite,” Nat’s voice said affectionately from the doorway. The light went out.

  “Hey!” I said. “It’s dark!”

  The moon came out from behind a cloud. I could see the pale outlines of furniture. “How’s that?” Nat’s voice said.

  “S’very good. G’night. Smart-ass.”

  I heard him chuckling to himself as he went back down the hall. When I concentrated fiercely, the ceiling light fixture stayed still, and without noticing it, I drifted off to sleep.

  I dreamed of machetes and koi ponds, of muttering voices and a glass breaking; of big silver lockets and a woman’s voice, shrill and weeping. And a quieter argument between two men. The Brokenhearted.

  My eyes popped open and I knew that the worst was about to happen. If I didn’t get to a bathroom in the next fifteen seconds, Nat would never forgive me. Badly disoriented and still very drunk, I stumbled into a closet before tottering down the hallway to the main bathroom.

  I threw up for the second time in twenty-four hours, and waited to see if a repeat performance would present itself. When it didn’t, I felt a little better. I sat on the side of the whirlpool tub with my head in my hands and tried not to groan. I looked in the medicine cabinet for Alka-Seltzer and found dozens of paper packets with handwritten labels, some in English, some in Chinese, and some with only numbers. I had no idea what to take, or if one of them would grow hair on my tongue.

  The bathroom was, like the rest of the house, immaculate and beautiful. The twin vanity mirrors had curved metal frames set with panels of luminescent agate. Derek’s work. Various silver-topped bottles were in height-graduated ranks with pale powders, crystals, and lotions inside. Pastel green towels were folded on glass and agate shelves. I looked at my reflection. I was the untidiest feature of the room. I borrowed a comb and tried to return some semblance of order to the shattered wreck in the mirror. I had to open a new bar of soap to wash my face—Nat always keeps a silver bowl full of Aromas soaps. What the hell. I ripped open the wrapper and tossed it in the wastepaper basket in what I hoped was a sufficiently artistic position. Then, because it seemed important the way things do when you’re drunk, I rearranged it. I washed my face and hands and patted them dry on one of the fluffy green towels without unfolding it.

  The house was quiet and so far I hadn’t disturbed anyone; I wanted to keep it that way. I crept like a thief back to the guest bedroom, and fumbled with my phone until it told me it was 2:15. I picked up Lucy, still sleeping soundly, and carried her down the hallway with exaggerated care so as not to wake Nat and Derek. I couldn’t find my shoes and decided to leave without them. I wanted to get home. My heart failed me, however, at the thought of crossing the garden in the dark. I left through the front door—carefully closing it silently behind me—walked up the hill along the silent street and entered my flat from the front. I fell gratefully into my own bed and was asleep in seconds.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I woke suddenly on an intake of breath with a hammering heart, not knowing why I felt frightened and feeling the muzzy aftermath of alcohol and a nightmare. My bedroom was dark. I could see the outline of Lucy’s head and pricked-forward ears against the window, where clouds diffused the moonlight into a soft-focus halo for her. I took a couple of deep breaths and stretched uncomfortably in my clothes; considered getting undressed; reflected that whatever the nightmare was it must have been a doozy to wake Lucy, too; punched my pillow back into shape and prepared to roll over.

  Lucy gave a hesitant little yip and cocked her head at me.

  “What is it?” I fondled her ear gently and listened carefully, but heard nothing. I checked the time. It was three o’clock. “It’s okay, nothing there,” I said soothingly, but stopped suddenly to listen again. There it was. A thud. It was coming not from inside the apartment but from outside somewhere. Lucy growled deep in her throat.

  Thinking of Nicole, and the macabre burial ceremony that must have taken place in the garden only a couple of nights ago, I peered out of the window. All was quiet and apparently normal. The clouds parted. Hard, bright moonlight illuminated the inky garden for a few seconds before the clouds closed over the moon like a curtain. In those brief seconds I had seen the garden as if floodlit, and nothing was moving. I was halfway back to bed when I heard it again—a little louder this time and more easily located. I pulled on a pair of shoes.

  The noise was coming from my garage.

  Feeling melodramatic, I tried to remember where I’d put the little gun. Where the hell was it? I stood, irresolute, and heard another noise from downstairs.

  I was still drunk enough to feel that what I did next was a good idea. I grabbed the brass-handled walking stick I keep by the bed and made my way stealthily down the back stairs. When I got to the bottom, I heard a pastiche of faint, muffled noises and whispers and as I hesitated, the world fell on me.

  * * *

  A sharp clink of metal on metal was the first sound I heard when I woke up. Its tinny chink reverberated like a kettledrum in my brain. It swooped and roared like a furious eagle, coming to rest finally at the back of my neck where it lay throbbing and pulsating and flapping its wings. I passed out again gratefully.

  By the time I was conscious for the second time, everything had resolved into an excruciating headache. I was lying awkwardly on my stomach. My eyes were screwed shut, which was hurting my eyebrows, so I opened my eyes. Nothing changed. It was as black outside my head as inside. I blinked slowly a few times. It hurt like hell even to move my eyelids, but things stayed soot black. The renewed clinking noise distracted me for a few seconds by causing tears of pain to start into my eyes and roll down my cheeks, but I still couldn’t see. Had I gone blind? It didn’t feel like it. Why couldn’t I see?

  I rolled over onto my back. I’d been lying facedown on something cold and rough. My mouth must have been open; there was grit on my tongue. Ugh. I tried to wipe my mouth, which is when I discovered something new. My hand was immobile. I tugged it uselessly and the chinking exploded into a virtuoso performance. Gritting my teeth, I used my free hand to grope along the length of my arm and came to—a metal ring? A bracelet? The feeling of unreality expanded. There was a short loose chain—a handcuff? My fingers continued to probe delicately and found the second half. I was handcuffed to a metal pole.

  For a second, the relief was tremendous. I don’t know why but it felt great to know something, even something that should have been alarming. The euphoria lasted long enough for me to pull myself into a half slouch against the pole. But the metallic chinking quickened. Chink. Chink. Chink. Rat-a-tat. Rat-a-tat. My hand was shaking and then my entire body was trembling. It went on for too long; nausea rose to the back of my throat. Why couldn’t I see? Why was I handcuffed in the dark?

  “Think!” I shouted aloud, and that helped a little.

  That’s what was needed here. Bring a little intelligence to bear on the problem. I started with the pole, which, literally and figuratively, was the only thing I could get a grip on. I clasped my hands around it. It was three, maybe four inches thick. But how tall? What if it only reached above my head and I didn’t bother to check? I ignored the thumping in my head as best I could, pulled myself up, and dragged the handcuff up the pole as far as it would go. The stretch pulled air into my lungs; I expelled it in a tiny cough. But the pole went up higher than I could reach and the stab of pain caused by the effort nearly made me faint again.

  After a few minutes’ rest I leaned out as far as I could, straining against the handcuff until it pulled at my flesh, and the fine bones in the back of my hand felt about to snap. I circled the pole twice to be sure and waved my free arm around in all directions. Nothing. Nothing but cold air.

  I slumped down again onto the floor and scrunched up my knees to rest my head on. None of this made sense. The last thing I remembered—what was the last thing I remembered? I’d been outside the door of the garage. Was I in my garage? I thought hard. I
couldn’t see, but I could use my other senses; what could I figure out about my prison? I could hear a faint humming noise that might have been a piece of distant machinery; an occasional chink from my handcuff as I shifted; my own breathing, quieter now. And something else. Every hair on my body rippled as I identified the other sound.

  Someone was breathing near me in the dark.

  Before I could catch another breath, a thick moan came from somewhere behind me.

  “Hah? What—uh—can’t move—what—?” A furious thrashing noise followed. “Shit!”

  “Haruto! Haruto, is that you?” My voice was sharp with fright.

  “Hah? Theo?” His voice was thick and muzzy. “Tied up. Hands behind my back.” He grunted.

  The thrashing noise came again. “Why can’t you—wait, are you tied up, too?”

  “Handcuffed.”

  “What the hell’s going on?”

  “Do you remember anything?” We were talking in hoarse, macabre whispers, which did nothing for my composure, but it seemed wise, all the same.

  “I was asleep. I heard a noise. Thought it was the raccoons in the trash, came outside—uh, maybe someone hit me. God my head hurts.” He made a few more grunting noises. Having been through the process myself a few minutes earlier I could sympathize with the disorienting waves of clarity and fog. “How long you been awake? Where are we?” His tone was getting sharper.

  “Not long. Not sure. Can you move?”

  Some rustling noises, then: “Uh—tied to—uh, pipe maybe? With plastic padding.”

  “Can you reach anything?”

  Shuffling, followed by a dull thump. “There’s something—cardboard box, uh”—more thumps, smaller this time—“Bottles. Plastic bottles.”

  Relief flooded me. In unison, we said: “The garage!”

  “It’s not long ’til daylight. Someone will hear us then if we yell.”

  “Unless whoever put us here comes back first.” He sounded dispirited. “Good thing this isn’t creepy or anything. Do you think—well, that whoever killed Nicole…”