by D. K. Greene
He follows the clerk to a kiosk near the back edge of the store. It’s equipped with a register, but looks like it’s only used on the rare occasion the store’s overrun by customers. The salesman takes care of the entire transaction, including making up a false address, name, and birth date for the activation. “That way,” he explains, “if your wife sees it, you can say you found it on the sidewalk. If she gets snoopy enough to call the company, the information looks legit.”
They shake hands as they part ways. The bushy-haired clerk seems happy to be a silent partner in Peter’s conspiracy, but he doesn’t know the consequences of his help. Peter decides it’s good he’s only going through the motions of this murder experiment. If he were to hurt anyone, the clerk would have blood on his hands.
Ollie always says most men are stupid, and will do whatever you want if you ask the right way. Peter’s starting to believe him.
Peter’s real cell phone feels heavy as he pulls it from his pocket to do a web search. He wants to see if there are any payphones left in Portland. He’s surprised to find one listed just up the road. He drives in that direction, eager to ring up the prepaid phone to test it.
When he arrives, he’s greeted with a call box coated in the filth of a thousand unwashed hands. The whole booth is in rough shape and he counts himself lucky the box still has a receiver. Peter’s not willing to touch it. He decides it’ll be good enough to call the line to see if it rings.
He gets as close as necessary to make out the number stamped on the payphone’s label and dials it into the prepaid phone. Half a second later the handset springs to life, screaming out at the world that someone has remembered it exists.
The rings peal into the frigid air a dozen times before Peter hangs up. The phone falls silent on its hook, once again a forgotten fixture, useful only to kids hanging up band posters, illicit women leaving calling cards, and families hanging ads for lost kittens.
Cord limp, the handset is cold and dead in its cradle.
Peter knows just how it feels.
Twenty-Five
At three-thirty, Peter returns to Jeanne’s office. He doesn’t want to seem paranoid about being on time for the appointment, so he parks in the far corner where he can’t be seen from the reception desk. He thumbs through the menu on the disposable phone to kill time, but there isn’t much to explore. He won’t be entering contacts, and he doesn’t have a desire to play solitaire on a two-inch screen.
He shoves the phone in a pocket and leans back in his seat to close his eyes for a minute. He hasn’t been sleeping particularly well. Inspector Douglas called to say Ollie’s ready for another field trip. Just hearing the voice mail has brought on a slew of graphic nightmares, which hasn’t helped his exhaustion. Peter deleted the message and hasn’t wanted to call back since.
A wild vibration against his thigh startles him. Aerosmith’s Come Together blares at him and Peter thrashes around the front seat, trying to dig his phone out. He thinks he finds it, but the prepaid phone appears in his hand instead. He tosses the cheap disposable in the center console and fishes his actual phone out, answering it just before it kicks over to the automated answering service.
Peter glances at the clock. “Hello?”
You have received a collect call from an inmate at the Sheridan Federal Detention Center. Will you accept the charges?
“Yes,” he says with a weary sigh as he hits the key to approve the call. The auto-attendant quotes the per-minute rate, and Peter imagines a twenty-dollar bill floating through the phone lines. “Hey, Dad.”
“I can’t believe you.” Oliver’s voice seethes with frustration. “I’m giving you another chance to prove yourself, and your response is to ignore Inspector Douglas?”
“Sorry? Oh, I’d forgotten he called. I’ve been busy.” Peter gives into the obstinate feeling building inside him. “You told me to make something of myself, and I’m working on it.”
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” his father grumbles. “And I can’t see anything from in here.”
“What do you need me for? If you want Dougy to know where another victim is, just tell him.”
Ollie lowers his voice, and there’s a rubbing noise on the line. Peter imagines his father cupping the phone close as he speaks. “I can’t tell him. If I do, there’s no leverage to make them let me see you. And Henry, I need to see you. To set things right.”
“What do I get out of it? You string me along, only to put me down and make me feel worthless. It’s not fun, Dad.” Peter squeezes his handbrake until his knuckles turn white.
“It’s local. You won’t be in the car for over thirty minutes. Plus, there’ll be naked ladies this time,” Ollie says, his voice just above a whisper. “Live ones.”
“What?” The statement catches Peter so off-guard that for a moment his grievances are lost. There are a hundred strip clubs, peep shows, and adult super centers in Portland. He’s not sure which venue Ollie is suggesting, but although Peter is the first to admit he’s a messed-up guy, he doesn’t want a stripper grinding on him while his convict father looks on.
“You like women, don’t you?” Oliver’s tone is harsh.
“I like women. What kind of question is that? I have a girlfriend. She probably won’t want me hanging around some sleazy place with hookers, or whatever.” Peter looks at the clock. His breath is heavy, and he feels heat building in his cheeks. He’s got to get off the call so he can calm down before seeing Jeanne.
“You broke up with that reporter girl,” Ollie remarks as if Peter’s forgotten.
“I got a different girlfriend. A better one. A banker,” Peter sputters.
“Oooh-eee! A banker!” The quiet privacy that Oliver had been pretending to project is shattered with his announcement. “My kid’s knocking the skirt off a banker!”
Peter shushes heavily into the phone. “Knock it off, Dad.”
Oliver chuckles. “Okay. I’ll stop. But you’ve got to come on this trip with me. Otherwise, maybe I’ll see if her bank takes collect calls. I’d love to tell her what a good boy you are.” The line clicks. A low hiss like a deflating tire fills the speaker, and then it beeps to signal the call’s end.
Peter looks at the phone’s screen just as it goes dark. He shakes it in his hand for a couple seconds, pretending he’s shaking his father’s head in frustrated violence. It slips from his fingers and flies across the dash, smacking into the windshield. He gasps, fighting the seatbelt to release him so he can scramble forward to retrieve it.
The phone’s powered itself off, but the battery’s intact and nothing looks broken. When he hits the power button, it boots right up. Peter glances at the corner of the screen and curses when he sees it’s five minutes to four. He pushes the disgusting call out of his mind and shoves his phone in his pocket. He secures the cheap prepaid cell phone in the glove box along with the cash he’s still got stashed, then jumps out of the car, locking it behind him.
The forgettable receptionist peeks over her desk as Peter shoves the door open. The lobby is empty aside from two mid-eighties office chairs and a plant getting baked in the afternoon sun.
“You made it,” the woman announces.
Nodding, Peter signs the guest log. He takes a seat next to the dying plant. Jeanne opens her office door as he peels the brown edges off the crumbling leaves. Her smile is bright. Peter feels his chest swell as he takes her in.
“I’m so sorry I missed our appointment yesterday.” Peter stands and walks toward Jeanne as he apologizes.
“No worries,” she replies with a wry grin. “It gave me an extra hour to nap.”
They chuckle together as they move into her office and get comfortable in their respective chairs. She pushes the box of tissues to the back corner of her side-table. Peter’s glad they both feel the days of tears and nose-blowing are behind them.
“Does it happen often?” Peter notices the confusion spreading across Jeanne’s face and he stammers, “Getting stood up for appointments.”
<
br /> “It does, here and there.” Jeanne places her pen and paper beside her, ready for note taking should anything interesting crop up. “Truthfully, I leave the four o’clock time slot open in case there are emergencies that need tending to. If someone’s missed an appointment because they’re in crisis, I want them to know I still have time for them.”
Peter wonders at how considerate she is. “Well, I’m not in crisis. But I’m glad I could come see you, anyway.”
“I’m glad to see you, too.” Jeanne uncrosses her legs and leans forward in her chair. A lock of hair the shade of midnight falls across her forehead. It makes her look younger and more vulnerable than she probably is.
“I’ve been seeing someone.” The statement is abrupt and awkward, a thought left over from the conversation with his father. It wasn’t really what he’d planned on leading his session with. Now the confession floats around in the air, sucking the life out of the room.
“Oh?” Pen to paper. “Tell me about her.”
“Her name is Valorie. She’s pretty and smells nice.” Peter wrings his hands. His mind has gone blank. He can’t remember anything about Valorie. Jeanne’s curled lashes and dimpled smile push the other woman out of his mind. He can’t remember what Valorie sounds like when she says his name, or what color her eyes are. All he knows is Jeanne’s narrow wrist flicks slightly as she writes. He longs for her slender, French tipped nails to caress his lips.
“How did you meet?” Jeanne pierces him with brown eyes. He’s filled with regret over meeting someone else.
Peter concentrates until the details surface. “She works at my bank. She helped me one day.” He stares at the carpet. It’s worn in funny places, as if it used to be home to different furniture.
“The way you first met Elsie, and now Valorie, it seems you’re good at meeting new people. Do you consider yourself to be an extrovert?” Jeanne’s smile is warm, as if all is forgiven. She understands Peter doesn’t mean to be with other women. Maybe it’s just the way he is. Faithfulness to the woman he loves is another box to check on the extensive list of things he can’t get right.
“I’ve never really thought about it. I don’t enjoy talking to other people. But I guess when they’re in front of me I make myself get over it.”
Jeanne writes, nods and compliments in one graceful motion. “That’s a useful skill. Most people never learn to push through their shyness. I’m sure the ability serves you well.”
“I suppose so.” The air clears with the compliment and Peter finds the ability to breathe again.
After setting her pen down, Jeanne folds her hands in her lap. “What else have you been up to this week?”
“I’m making some headway on a big project,” Peter says cryptically.
“Taxidermy?” This time, Jeanne doesn’t check her notes. She remembers that detail of Peter’s life off the cuff. He falls in love with her all over again.
“Yes. Well, the prep work, anyway.” Peter searches for a way to put his contest idea into taxidermist terms. He falters a moment until the story clicks. “I’m setting up my own shop. My dad will help in the beginning. But overall, it’ll be mine.”
“That’s excellent.” Jeanne reaches over and scrawls a quick sentence on her pad, but Peter doesn’t mind her distraction.
“Yeah, it’ll be great. I signed up for my business phone today.” Buying a burner phone for the purpose of pretending to find someone to kill suddenly feels lighter. It’s not premeditated murder, it’s a business transaction.
“What’s it called?” Jeanne’s smile reaches a little wider with her excitement.
Peter’s face falls. “What’s what called?”
Her laugh vibrates through the office air. “Your taxidermy shop. What are you naming it?”
“I hadn’t thought of a name,” he admits. “I guess Peter’s Taxidermy.”
She chuckles some more and the pink in her cheeks turns a darker shade of red. He chortles with her. The merriment makes Peter dizzy. He grips the arms of his chair for balance.
“When I started my therapy practice, I had a name picked out before I even knew what city I’d land in,” Jeanne tells him.
Peter is touched by this tidbit of intimate information. Jeanne doesn’t talk about herself much. It makes it hard to pinpoint what he loves about her. He grins as he imagines a younger version of her walking out of her college dorm holding the sign hanging in her waiting room.
“How long did it take you to come up with Men’s Resource Center? I bet you spent a lot of sleepless nights before settling on that one.” Peter winks, which cracks her up.
“You must be feeling better. You’re on fire today, Peter.” She wipes a tear from her eye as she sits up straight. She smooths the front of her button-down blouse, looking more professional than Peter thinks the conversation calls for. “Let’s assign you some homework.
“I want you to come up with a list of twenty business names you like. Set it aside for three days and get rid of the five you like least. Set your ideas aside for two days and cross off the next five you like least. Then, bring in the ten names you like best and we’ll look at them together.”
Leaning back in his chair, Peter thinks about what else would be required if he really were starting a business. It occurs to him he wouldn’t want people coming to his apartment. “I need to find some business space, too.”
“How much space?” Jeanne starts writing. She’s so good at keeping him on task. She’s better for him than Valorie. She always follows up and holds him accountable.
He wonders if she’ll still do that when they’re married?
The daydream collapses. The fog lifts. He remembers they’re having a conversation, and he’d better respond. “I’m not sure. I could do some of it out of my apartment. I’ve got a garage I use for storage that I can do the messier stuff in, anyway. But I need a place to meet customers and set up a display. Can’t really show off a thirteen-foot grizzly with nine-foot ceilings.”
Jeanne’s eyes widen. “Grizzly bears grow to be thirteen feet tall?”
Peter shrugs. The bear they found Sasha in was close to ten, and Ollie said it hadn’t fully matured. “I don’t know. But it sounds good.”
She leans over the edge of her chair and opens a drawer in the side table. Hanging file folders swing forward on metal rails as her fingers dance across their labelled tabs. “If all you need is a place to meet clients, I might have a temporary solution. There’s a company that calls every so often to see if they can lease our conference room. They set up temporary spaces for small businesspeople. You can rent space for an hour, or an afternoon They’ve got offices all over the city.”
Her chin dips when she finds the file she’s looking for. She pulls out a glossy business card and hands it to Peter. He takes it from her gently. She keeps talking as she slides the drawer closed again. “You can make appointments, get in an hour before to set up your display, and break it all down afterward.”
“Thank you, Jeanne. This might be just what I need to get this experiment off the ground.”
Twenty-Six
So many cars are parked along the bottleneck on Southwest Coronado Street that Peter has to leave his at the bottom of the hill and hike to the adult video store. This isn’t the first time he’s been here, but he’s never seen over three cars parked in the lot at a time.
Granted, every other time he’s come, it’s been when he realizes his porn collection needs beefing up. That rarely happens during peak business hours.
The video store’s employees huddle outside the crime tape looped around the lot. The manager is a tall, sinewy man with meticulously groomed corkscrew hair. He invokes the spirit of the brutish high school quarterback he probably used to be as he shouts at the officer in charge of keeping his crew off the property. The pale, pink gloss glistening off his manicured fingernails, and his perfectly arched eyebrows make him just femme enough for the gun-toting man in blue to not take him seriously.
The manager is surro
unded by his staff of misfit girls, all gorgeous in their own nonconformist way. They crowd together under half-length coats and shredded jeans, dressed for a shift in a hundred-degree showroom. No one seems to have forewarned them about the twenty-four-degree winter day they stand in.
Peter ducks under the tape right in front of them, close enough that his goose down coat brushes the manager. Watching him saunter onto the lot they’re exiled from breathes new fire in the manager’s declarations of injustice and he yells that he’ll sue the city.
Shaking his head, Peter doesn’t think the guy understands how criminal investigations work.
Oliver stands in the middle of the roped off parking lot, gleefully watching chaos ebb and flow around him. A combination of search and rescue volunteers and city police move in hurried fits around the property as they try to stay warm. Peter wonders why none of them are waiting from the comfort of their cars, but the grin on Ollie’s face is evidence he demanded they stay in the elements with him. Inspector Douglas and Special Agent Jones are on the far end of the lot. Peter heads their direction.
“Hey,” Peter’s breath comes out in a fog over the zipper of his upturned collar. “Sorry for being late. I didn’t realize everyone was waiting on me.”
Inspector Douglas wears no fewer than three coats. He’s so tightly packed into the third one that he can’t get the zipper shut, making him look more obese than he is. “Oliver says he won’t start without you. Until someone takes off to find a heater. Then, he pretends he’s ready for us to look around.”
“Your dad is a fucking asshole,” Mac says. She’s looking more comfortable than most, tucked in a fitted ski jacket with a thick wool scarf and her signature felt cap. “No offense.”
“None taken.” Peter glances around to see everyone has moved closer, hoping the search will get going so they can all go somewhere warmer. He jogs over to his dad. “You ready?”
“Good to see you, Son!” Ollie lifts handcuffed hands over Peter’s head and slides them down his back in a prison style bear-hug that feels more tender than it probably looks. “I’m ready. Are you?”
