by Skye, Mav
They walked to the door, opened it. Sir Sun felt the fine hairs on the back of his neck rise. He felt as if he’d been twilight zoned into a game, a morbid game of a mythical god. “Its throat was slit wide open. And the blood, my God, it was everywhere!”
“How was it slit—clean or dirty?” Velva’s eyes sparkled, and she slammed the door shut behind them.
“Wait.” He patted his pants pockets. Did he forget again? He turned back to his door. “My keys.”
“Never mind that.” Velva grabbed his arm and they walked toward the stairs. “Did you see what kind of cut it was?”
“Huh?”
“Don’t be dull. The cat, remember?”
“No, no… I wouldn’t know a clean slit from a dirty one anyhow.” Sir Sun swore and checked his pockets again. Then sneaked a look at Velva. Her eyes were glowing, once again amused, and completely intent on him.
“You kill me, Sir Sun. You absolutely do! How was it hung?”
They passed the elevators. Sir Sun’s eyes caught on the red words Fix Me on the second elevator. Had Mr. Fiddler fixed it?
“Sir Sun?” Velva tugged on his rolled up sleeve.
“Huh?”
“What was the bloody cat hung on?”
Sir Sun grimaced. “The chandelier.”
“Oh, how clever!” She squeezed his arm.
He glanced at her sidelong, frowning. They paused by the stairwell door. “Okay. Yeah, well, you better prepare yourself. This is pretty gruesome. It’s not hanging anymore. The head popped off and it, well…” He shook his head.
Velva squealed in delight. “This is so exciting, don’t you think?”
Sir Sun’s frown deepened, and he didn’t bother to reply. He pushed on the stairwell door, motioning to Velva with an implied ladies first gesture when he heard the sharp sound of the elevator’s familiar ding! From the corner of his eye, he saw movement down the hall. He turned just in time to see a flash of the man’s red hat as he stepped in through the elevator’s open doors.
He spun on his heel. “Mr. Fiddler?”
Sir Sun broke free from Velva’s grasp and ran towards the elevator. “Mr. Fiddler!” But he was too late, the door, along with the bright red words Fix Me had clicked together and the elevator was descending.
Velva reached his side. “What is it? What are you doing!”
“We’re going down the other one.” He pushed the down button and to his surprise he heard the other elevator rising.
Velva said, “But it’s clearly broken, don’t you see the sign? Come, let’s use the stairs.”
Ding! The doors opened.
“I’ll be damned,” said Sir Sun. “You said yourself you used it earlier.”
“I meant the other one—”
“Come on!” He grabbed her arm, and they jumped into the elevator just as the doors closed.
The box descended smooth as a ribbon. Velva said, “What is this about? I thought we were going to see a dead cat.”
Sir Sun shook his head. “No, we’re going to make sure there isn’t a dead man.”
6
Game On
“Oh.” She raised one eyebrow, then crossed her arms and rubbed them. “Seems the elevator is working.”
Sir Sun nodded. “Seems so.”
“I’m freezing!”
“I’d offer you my coat, but I’m not wearing one.” He glanced at his shirt, attempted to straighten his tie.
“Allow me.” Velva grasped the silk tie from his hands, their fingers touched. Sir Sun sucked in his breath, melting into their closeness.
Velva puckered her lips and smiled. “That’s how I like it, soldier.” She loosened the knot and readjusted the tie. When she finished, she tilted her face up at him. “At ease, soldier.”
And just like that he relaxed, his arms to his side. She giggled, and before he knew it, her arms wrapped around his waist and she snuggled her dark head under his chin.
“This is the loveliest night ever, Sir Sun. I feel like I’ve been invited to a real game of whodunit.”
Sir Sun breathed in the scent of her hair, strawberry wine. He couldn’t remember ever receiving such erratic affection or giving it. And despite the madman in the building, the men in trench coats stalking him, the screaming woman and missing Super, he and Velva were safe inside the four walls of the elevator. He wrapped his arms about Velva squeezing her back.
He didn’t feel the same sense of ecstatic adventure that Velva felt. Instead, he felt melancholy—sober—as he and Velva exchanged the affectionate embrace, one stranger to another, a sad longing filled him, an emptiness that the impatiens had sang to him that day in Miss O’Hara’s backyard.
They knew him. And they knew his secret.
No one else could ever know, which meant no one else could ever be let in. He whispered into Velva’s strawberry wine hair. “Velva, I don’t know you. You don’t know me.”
The elevator doors opened, and their embrace ended with Velva clasping Sir Sun’s hand. “But I do know you. Better than you think.”
She winked at him.
He raised an eyebrow back, and soon they were both trampling the hallways calling for Mr. Fiddler, but Mr. Fiddler wasn’t in sight.
“Show me where he lives,” said Velva, back in commander mode.
They walked to Mr. Fiddler’s apartment door, which was now closed.
Sir Sun turned and looked back at Velva. He whispered, “It wasn’t closed before.” He knocked several times. No one answered.
“Try the door.” Velva wiggled the door handle.
“It’s lock—”
The door popped right open. She said, “No. It’s not.”
Sir Sun, embarrassed he hadn’t thought of trying the door knob, called out, “Mr. Fiddler?” and pushed the door open all the way.
No reply. And the lights were off.
Sir Sun drew the butcher knife out of his pocket, stepped inside and flipped the hallway light switch.
Velva gasped.
The place was ransacked. The family photos had been thrown from the walls and stomped on. The picture Tamika had drawn of Spindler’s Roost (on fire) was torn in half, but still clinging to the wall. This time the face in the window looked as if it were screaming instead of smiling.
In the living room, papers and glass were strewn everywhere, dishes broken, silverware scattered. The card table was trampled on and broken in half. The tube TV looked as if it had been bashed in with a sledgehammer.
Sir Sun said, “If he was here, he isn’t now. I’m going to check the bedrooms.”
Velva said, “Wait, there’s a note on the TV.”
“What?” Sir Sun rushed back in the living room, and they both inspected the note taped over the broken glass of the TV. “How curious.” Sir Sun reached for it.
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” Velva grabbed his arm, and reached her hand inside her purse. His best guess was she held something small and deadly in there. “Finger prints, you know.”
Sir Sun hesitated, then moved in, ripping the note from the TV. Fuck fingerprints—there was a madman on the loose.
Velva laughed out loud, startling him.
He said, “It’s not funny. Mr. Fiddler would never do such a thing. Some one is up to no good.”
“Gee, ya think?” She pulled a cigarette and the Zippo from her purse, Wicked flashing in the dim light of the room. She lit up.
“And where’s his damn cell phone?” Sir Sun grew quiet and looked around the room, expecting the cell’s ring to set off like the Everlast monkey with cymbals.
Velva sucked on her cigarette, then released a swirl of smoke from her lips. “What about your phone, hero?”
Sir Sun crossed his arms. Stupid. He was so stupid—locked out of his apartment again. And he had a phone! Why didn’t he think of that earlier? Velva. He had been too focused on Velva. “What about your cell, Miss Priss?”
She shrugged. “Dead. I thought we were talking about yours. Why didn’t you call the police earlier? Is there so
mething you’re not telling me? Because I think there is.”
Sir Sun flustered, unfolded his arms, folded his arms, then pointed at her nose. “That… that is none of your business.”
“Touchy now, aren’t we?”
Sir Sun began to stroll from the living room to kitchen, back and forth, back and forth, tapping on his jaw. “I’ve got a right to be. Seems you’re just cozy fine in a soon to be demolished apartment building with a dead cat and a missing Super. How do you know I’m not dangerous?” Sir Sun stopped and glared at her. Aware of the butcher knife he still clutched in hand.
Velva squared him in the eye, glanced at the knife, looked away and breathed out a cloud of smoke.
Satisfied, Sir Sun continued to stroll, back and forth, back and forth. She was the uncomfortable one now, thrown off her game, finally. He liked the feeling it gave him—a funny fluttery feeling in the pit of his stomach. He felt strong. The sharpened steel he held in his hand felt like it belonged there, like he was born with it.
Velva frowned as she smoked. Nervously glancing from his face to the knife, back to his face.
A wave of dizziness struck him, and then a memory.
He remembered.
* * *
A sultry day in the sunshine. His parents at work as usual, he’d gone out to the fenced backyard, telling himself he would read Christopher Pike’s “Road to Nowhere” and chill in the sun. At first he did, but then he heard her next door. The usual temptation took over. He dropped his book, and pressed himself against the pine fence, gazing through the peephole into Miss O’Hara’s backyard.
She’d had another visitor today, but this one didn’t play nice. He was dressed in a work jumpsuit; the arms cut off to show his muscles and deep tan. The name tag on the jumpsuit read Pedro. He held gardening shears like a knife.
They whispered at first. And he noted Miss O’Hara’s obvious distress.
Their voices rose as they argued, Miss O’Hara slapped Pedro across the face.
Pedro held the shears as if intending to stab her.
Call the police, Timothy told himself, but everything happened so quickly.
Instead of stabbing Miss O’Hara, the gardener bent to her flowerbeds, slicing and dicing the delicate blossoms. Miss O’Hara screamed as their heads fell off one by precious one. Timothy could hear pleas of mercy from the impatiens, the sad cries of the geraniums, the teardrops of fuchsias.
The One-eyed Susans were the worst, though. They shrieked in high-pitched terror as their stems were cut from beneath them. Timothy heard all this.
He felt it.
Sir Sun remembered the grin on Pedro’s face. Miss O’Hara’s horror. She in her slight black nightie, red hair gleaming in the sun, stomping over to the gardener, trying to snatch the shears away. He wrestled her to the ground, over the decapitated heads of her precious ones.
“You owe me!” he roared, climbing atop of her, holding the shears at her throat.
“I don’t owe you anything!” She spat back at him.
He unzipped his jumpsuit, worked his hips between her thighs, then he was thrusting into Miss O’Hara.
Timothy had seen men do this to her before, but not with violence. Usually, she enjoyed it. But this man, this Pedro, he was a bad man.
She didn’t make a peep with Pedro grunting over her, the shears under her chin. They pricked into her neck, nicking her skin. Her tears mixed with blood dripping down, down, down on the severed daisy’s heads.
Timothy wanted to collapse to the ground, curl himself into the garden at his feet. He knew he should run inside and call the police, but he couldn’t draw himself away.
He watched, mesmerized. Pedro sat up, zipped up his jumpsuit.
Miss O’Hara just lay on her dead flower bed, soaked in her own blood and tears.
Pedro said, “Payback’s a bitch, Bitch. I never cared about your violets. I just wanted your—” He grabbed her between the legs and she whimpered. “And the money you owe me, of course. He stood laughing, and spat in Miss O’Hara’s face. The slimy goo mixing with her tears, sliding down her chin into the blood.
When Pedro left, Timothy had sunk to the ground, listening to Miss O’Hara cry. He felt bad for her and wanted to cry, too. He felt funny inside, confused and…another emotion. He’d never seen such a display of power, except perhaps on the nature channel.
He felt excitement with the confusion and sorrow (and later, he’d discover another emotion called guilt.) His jeans were tight. Too tight. And there in his garden, with Miss O’Hara on the other side of the fence, he played the scene with her and Pedro over and over in his mind, only he was Pedro and Miss O’Hara was his bitch.
* * *
The sound of Velva’s voice pulled to him. She dropped her cigarette on the floor of his Super’s apartment and tapped it with the sharp point of her shoe. “Did you hear what I said? Snap out of it.”
The memory faded. He tried to read Velva’s face as she turned toward him. What had she said?
“I said,” she put her hands on her hips and tapped her toe simultaneously, “game on.”
What did that mean? Sir Sun didn’t even want to ask. He was tired of feeling like a mouse in a cat’s world. He thought about Miss O’Hara, the man that had dominated her. Sometimes, he wondered, just for once, what it’d feel like to be the cat.
Oh, you know.
Who had said that? Sir Sun glanced around the room and spotted it in the corner. A palm tree. It had remained untouched in its thick glazed pot. Sir Sun saw a slight wave of a branch.
Before he could respond to it, Velva demanded his attention. “The game has started. But first,” she strode to him, grasped his silk tie between her delicate fingers, pulling his face close to hers, “you’ll have to tell me your real name.”
Her twilight eyes, full of intelligence and all things naughty, were a mere inch from his. Velva twined her fingers about his tie like vines about a tree stump. Hot, flabbergasted and frustrated, Sir Sun blurted out. “What do you mean?”
You know how it feels to be the cat, whispered the palm tree.
“Shut up!” yelled Sir Sun at the tree.
Velva followed his gaze over to the palm, then back at Timothy, then the palm.
“I’m sorry, that wasn’t for you it was for the uh…”
“Hmm… does it bother you?”
Sir Sun slid his fingers over his face, didn’t respond. He heard her slip past him, then the sound of the pot sliding over the floor.
He turned. “What are you doing?”
And then she heaved the pot through the open living room window. He could hear the palm shrieking as it hurtled the short distance to the ground.
He was speechless.
Velva turned from the window, rolling down her sleeves. “Better?”
He nodded. “Thanks.”
“Good, now,” she walked over to Mr. Fiddler’s sofa, swatted magazines to the floor, and sat, crossing her legs at the knees. “You can’t expect me to believe your real name is Sir Sun.”
“But everyone calls me Sir—”
“I know what everyone calls you, but I need you to tell me. What is your real first name?”
Sir Sun sighed, feeling whipped. And relief. “Luke.”
Her eyes blazing, she leaped from the couch, and she snatched the butcher knife from his hands. “Liar!”
“Velva, shit!”
“Oh, Mister Old-Fashioned-Goody-Two-Shoes says a swear word. Sounds like the climax of a Disney movie. Except Mister Goody-Two-Shoes isn’t being honest with himself. He isn’t being honest with me.”
Sir Sun felt a sudden rush of anger. He spoke quietly, “Give me the knife.”
“Sure. After you tell me your name.”
“Velva, give me the damned knife!” He lunged at her.
Velva took a step back, hiding the knife behind her back. She smiled her lily-white smile, teeth as white as his bone orchid.
Sir Sun reached behind her. After a moment of her switching the knife b
ack and forth between hands, she finally handed it to him, grabbing his other hand and holding it for a moment. “All you had to do was be polite, Timothy.”
He scowled at her, afraid of his sudden emotion, all the anger draining out of him. He placed the butcher knife in his back pocket. “How did you know my name?”
“I have secrets just like you. Maybe even more.”
Sir Sun sighed. He was tired, confused—hungry.
“So, Timothy, what do you suggest we do about a threatening note, a dead kitty cat, and a poor old missing Superintendent?”
Velva spoke the words slowly, carefully, as if what they were deliberating had to do with sheets, candles, and rose petals. The obvious answer was copulation, conjugated bonding, a game of stamen tickle the butterfly.
But that wasn’t what they were discussing, so conjugated bonding was out of the question. He swallowed. “I suppose we should…”
Her pupils dilated, a dark rose unfurling. She cocked her head to the side, the cleavage of her blouse angling just so. “Think, Timothy.”
Sir Sun lowered his eyes from hers to her cleavage, and then to the TV. Mr. Fiddler had been set up. He was probably dead. Was Sir Sun to be next? “Leave and find a police station.”
Velva nodded, clapped her hands enthusiastically, and turned. “Right. Off we go then.” They walked out of the Super’s apartment. He first, she second. After a moment, he realized he hadn’t heard the door click shut. He turned and saw Velva leaning inside Mr. Fiddler’s door, looking around. “What are you looking at?”
“Oh, nothing,” she said and went to close the door.
“Leave it open, so that it won’t lock?” he asked. She left it open just a crack.
The foyer was much like a storefront with windows and a double glass door entrance. As they walked down the halls and past the elevators, Sir Sun glimpsed the world outside.
The streetlights burned dim, emitting a comforting glow of normalcy. Occasionally, a car would float down Main Street. Most of the residents of the town of Spindler had settled into their homes for the night, probably watching reruns of The Walking Dead or Breaking Bad. He and Velva strolled to the door casually, as if nothing more had happened than a homemade dinner and conversation. He found himself wanting to break away from Velva and run to that freedom outside. He felt as if the condemned building were going to fall in and suffocate him.
