by Dan Taylor
I’m not one for doing kitchen inventories, unless I’m standing in my bathroom, wearing my pajamas, suspecting that the woman waiting in my living room is A) probably a hit woman called Fish, and B) has every intention of killing me.
And if I were to take a guess which knife she’s holding, ready to stick me with when I go out, I’d go out on a limb and say it isn’t the breadknife, regardless of whether it’s eight inches long or not, which I was told by the salesman is more length than any bread-loving man needs to cut his slices on a morning.
Anyway, whether they’re sharp enough to cut through steak and have it still looking pretty afterwards is beside the point. This is a dire situation. I’m pretty sure the woman out there could kill me with my toothbrush.
Detective Dukes, reminding me that I’m still on the phone, says, “Hancock, are you still there?”
“Still here. Any chance the woman out there isn’t this hit woman that’s after Greg/me?”
“I think there’s every chance she’s been sent to kill you, yeah.”
“Fish?”
“What?”
“Is it Fish?”
“No, that’s someone else, a male.”
“Then who’s this?”
“Someone else.”
“Slow down with the detecting skills, Dukes.”
“Look, who it is doesn’t matter. If I were you, I’d get the hell out of your apartment. Maybe stay in a motel for the night.”
“There’s a problem.”
“What?”
“I’ve changed into my pajamas and fur-lined slippers.”
“It’s warm out. Why’s that a problem?”
“Because the only way I figure I’ll make it out before she sticks me with my chef’s knife is if I can convince her I’m heading out to get more wine or some shit. That might look a little suspect if I decide to do that going out dressed like Hugh Hefner.”
“Then get changed.”
“And give her the perfect opportunity to stab me while I’m trying to squeeze into size thirty-four-waist, slim-fit pants?”
“Then put on a bigger pair.”
I don’t own a bigger pair, so I mutter, “Shit.” I think a second. “Do you reckon you can get here and put a bullet in her before she manages to break down my bathroom door?”
“You’re on your own.”
“Why? What happened to protecting and serving?”
“Think about it a second. How do you know there’s a killer in your living room?”
I don’t get the opportunity, at least right now, as the hit woman says, “Jake, are you okay in there?”
“Yeah. I’m just… taking a number two.”
A pause.
“I hope you don’t mind my asking, but why’s it taking so long?”
“I noticed I’d run out of toilet roll just after the fact. And I’ve been trying to muster up the courage to shout out to you to get some more. Would you mind?”
“No, of course not.”
“Great. It’s in the utility room.” I think about how I can buy some time. “It’s somewhere in there. I don’t really have a specific place for it. Sorry, I’m a guy.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m sure I’ll find it.”
With the hit woman searching for the toilet roll, I go over to the toilet, pull down my pajamas pants, and take a seat. And what do you know, I am pretty low. Looking at the thickness of the roll on the holder, there’s maybe a wipe or two if I spin it off the roll in a wasteful manner, which I generally do. And I’m more a three-spins-of-the-roll guy.
I just remembered I’m not supposed to be thinking about the number of times I usually wipe my ass, and that I should be thinking about how I know there’s a killer searching in my utility room for toilet roll that’s in the cupboard above my washing machine.
“Hancock?” Dukes asks.
I think a second, and come up with the answer, say, “You told me she’s a killer, or at least we came to that conclusion based on the fact the woman who the lady in my apartment is posing as is dead.”
“Right. And I found out that…”
“You found out that?”
“I found out that…”
“Is that supposed to make sense?”
“I’m trying to prompt you.”
“Just tell me. Any second the hit woman is going to pop her head in and throw me a roll of toilet paper she might notice I don’t necessarily need.”
“I found out that investigating a crime Captain Horse has already chalked up as a hit-and-run incident.”
“Then he can unchalk it up, or chalk it down. Whatever the opposite of that is.”
“Sorry, Hancock, I’ve done all I can. You’ll have to phone it in yourself.”
“And how long would that take? Less than the time…” I make an estimation. “…it takes to wipe four times, which isn’t my usual number of times?”
“Hancock, talking about the number of times you wipe your ass isn’t going to get you out of this mess.”
He’s right. “Can you do one thing for me before I have to hang up?”
“What?”
“Tell my sister I love her.”
“Can do, Hancock.”
I hang up. Asshole. He was supposed to reassure me, tell me he wouldn’t need to do that, as I’ll be making it out of my apartment alive. And “Can do”? Like I just asked him to pick me up an iceberg lettuce on the way to my apartment.
A second later there’s a knock at the door.
The hit woman says, “Jake, I found it in the cupboard. Do you want me to throw it in?”
When she opens the door, will she instead be holding a throwing star, which she concealed in her bra and will hurl at my forehead?
Cowering, I say. “Sure. Just close your eyes when you do. I haven’t shaved my legs for a couple days.”
Just in case she doesn’t, I put the cell phone in my left hand and hide it behind my left thigh. I prepare myself to duck, wondering about how much head movement is available to me in a sitting position. I see any other object in her hand when she opens the door, I’ll lean forward, ducking down, putting my head between my legs like I’m hurtling towards the Atlantic in a Boeing 747.
When she tries to open the door, it jars against the lock.
Then she says, “It’s locked, Jake.”
“I know.” I think fast, not wanting to let on I know who she is. “I always lock it when I go for a number two, even when I’m alone in the apartment.”
“Okay… Do you want to open it for me?”
“Can do.”
See? Really inappropriate response to my request.
Even though I haven’t actually gone two, I waddle towards the door, legs wide apart, so that if she’s listening to the sound of my footsteps she won’t be able to figure out I was just sitting on the toilet bare ass, making a phone call. I unlock it, and say, “I’m going back now. Don’t open it until I’m sitting on the toilet again.” Last thing I’d want is to get caught waddling back to the toilet without having soiled myself.
“Okay.”
I waddle back, say, “You can throw it in now.”
She opens the door. No throwing star, just a toilet roll, which she manages to throw accurately to me despite keeping her word by having her eyes closed. If her toilet-roll-throwing skills are reflective of her ability to kill people, I might not have been too far off the mark with that comment about her being able to kill me with my toothbrush.
Wanting it to sound like an authentic bathroom break on the other side of the door, I wipe my regular three times, spinning it off the roll, folding it so I get two wipes for the price of two, and automatically check the paper after each wipe, checking to see if it’s clean.
That’s always struck me as a strange thing to do. Sure, you want to make sure your ass is clean. But after the first wipe, what do people expect to see? And I’ve never wiped more than five, maybe six times. Why wouldn’t I just play it safe and wipe six times every time and drop the whole l
ooking-at-the-paper-after-wiping thing?
I make a promise to myself. If I get out of this alive, I’m a classy six-wipe, doesn’t-look-at-the-toilet-paper-between-wipes guy.
I stand up, flush, pull up my pajamas pants, go over to the door, and take a deep breath before opening it.
I go back through to the living room, find whoever it is waiting on the sofa, a wry smile on her face.
I stand there, not knowing my next move.
Then she says, “How did the toilet paper work out for you?”
“It… worked.”
“Good,” in a voice way too sexy for the context.
I glance down at her glass. “Can I fill you up?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
I laugh like a girl on her first date, and then take the glass and walk over to the kitchen.
The wine bottle is on top of the kitchen countertop island in the middle of the kitchen. Using only my right hand, I put the glass down on the countertop opposite it, where I keep my knives, take the wine bottle, place it on the countertop where I put the wine glass, and then check to see if they’re all in their slots as I fill up her glass. They are, though I don’t open the drawer to check if the fish knife is still there.
When I go to pick up her wineglass, I do so with my left hand, find that I’m still holding my phone. Shit.
I put it back in my pajamas pants pocket and go back over.
She still has that wry smile on her face. I sit down next to her, wracking my brain for an excuse to leave my apartment, while thinking I got away with the cell phone blunder.
Until she says, “Who did you phone in there?”
27.
THE GAME’S NOT UP yet. There’s a seemingly infinite number of people I could’ve phoned while in the bathroom, for a seemingly infinite number of reasons.
Out of that seemingly infinite number, who do I come up with?
“My mom,” I say.
She frowns. “Why?”
Out of the seemingly infinite number of reasons I could’ve phoned her, many of which include emergencies that would make it less jarring that I did it while ostensibly pooping, I come up with this: “Just to say I love her.”
“You did that while going two?”
“Yep. Doesn’t everyone?”
She raises an eyebrow, thinking.
“What?” I say, not finding any other words in my vocabulary. “It’s not like she could hear what I was doing.”
She looks skeptical. Who wouldn’t be? But skeptical in a fun way, like we’re bantering before getting back to flirting with each other in a way that doesn’t involve talking about my bathroom break. I think I’ve maybe got away with it, until, from between the sofa seat cushions, she pulls out a knife.
She holds it to my chin, says, in a voice completely different to the one she has spoken in since we met, “Don’t move a muscle, or I’ll cut you with this tomato knife.”
I glance down at it, seeing it as a blurry silver mass of pixels in my peripheral vision, but still I recognize it as the knife I identified as being used to prepare fish. So that’s what it is, a tomato knife.
As though explaining why it’s designed to cut tomatoes, or to expand on her threat, she says, “It has a serrated edge, so that it cuts through the tomato flesh without making the juice and seeds squirt out.”
“Cool.”
“Now tell me who you really phoned, before I cut your tomatoes without having the seeds squirt out.”
Now, she’s still holding the knife to my chin, which is neither plural nor contains seeds. I hazard a guess that my tomatoes are a different part of my anatomy. I better come clean.
“The cops,” I say.
She sighs. “I was hoping to get to know you a little better, Jake.”
“We’ve got time. They’re not on the way.”
“Why not?”
“Because there’s no way of me knowing you’re a killer that doesn’t get the detective I’m buddies with in trouble.” I pause. “You are a killer, aren’t you?”
“The best.”
“Oh goodie.” It’s time to come completely clean, hoping she’ll believe me. “I’m not Greg, you know.”
“What?”
“The guy who conned Jimmy ‘Nine Fingers’ Beanbloom or whatever his name is.”
She shakes her head. “I don’t understand. You ripped Jimmy off?”
“Not me, Greg.”
“How?”
“Greg, the little shit, posed as me, ripping people off, which is the reason you’ve been sent to kill me, right? Because you think I ripped off your boss?”
Her eyes narrow. “No, Jake Hancock ripped his sister’s husband off, and you’re Jake Hancock.”
“His sister’s husband? That’s not what I was told.”
She sits there thinking a second. Pensive.
Then I say, “Jimmy thinks it was me, but it’s actually the guy he had killed in the first place.”
She says, “Gregory Hewter-Pickle…”
I’m taken aback. “That’s the guy. Looks just like me, at least he did, before we cremated him this afternoon.”
She gazes at the wall, lowering the knife, and I start to think my tomatoes will live to spray their seeds another day, until she puts the knife to my chin again, says, “How do you know this?”
“My cop buddy. He told me over a beer earlier tonight. And can you put that thing to my throat? Because if you slip, I don’t think I have the face to pull off a chin scar.”
“Oh, sorry,” then puts the knife to my throat. She thinks a second, then says, “That son of a bitch.”
“That’s what I thought. You think you know someone until they commit identity theft on you and con a crime boss, leaving you to face the consequences.”
“Not him, Jimmy.”
“I’m not too hot on Jimmy, either, though I don’t know him personally. But I think a good rule of thumb is if someone has a nickname involving a body part, you’re probably best off steering clear of a person like that.”
“Will you stop talking? I’m thinking.”
“Sorry, I get a little chatty when people hold a tomato knife to my throat.”
We sit there, her thinking, me concentrating on not getting a shitty neck shave, until she says, “Do you think Jimmy knows?”
“Was that question directed at me, or were you thinking out loud?”
She gives me a look.
I say, “Knows what?”
“That he got the right guy?”
“You being here is probably a good indication he doesn’t.”
“Or maybe not…”
Finding out what beef the killer has with her boss isn’t high on my list of priorities, but I figure if I keep her talking she won’t plunge that thing into me or might even hand it over. I think I saw that on a cop show once.
So I say, “Why do you think he maybe does know he got the right guy?”
“Let’s back up a bit.”
“Okay.”
“This cop buddy, he tell you how he got his information?”
“No.”
“He give any indication?”
I think a second. “Not that I know of. All I know is he isn’t supposed to be investigating Greg’s death, and that, if truth be told, he isn’t much of a detective.”
“You think it’s within the realm of possibility that your cop buddy found out leaked information?”
I glance at the bong, aware that we smoked not too long back. “It’s a possibility, I suppose. But why?”
“So that I shoot the wrong guy at the wrong time, go down.”
“You think he set you up?”
“Yeah. And here I was thinking it might be Beans someday.”
“Beans?”
“His right-hand man.”
I have some questions of my own: Why has she gone to great lengths, including killing someone, to tail me? How has this woman managed to convince Cole she’s Michelle Trueheart? And what kind of a guy goes by the nicknam
e Beans?
But there’s a more pressing matter, which I address: “So, are you still going to kill me?”
She lowers the knife, and for good, this time, if her putting it back in between the sofa seat cushions is any indication. My mind’s on what damage a serrated edge would do to fine upholstery, but regardless I notice she looks pensive. She says, “Of course not.” And as though she’s spoken to Andre at some point, she says, “Would a sorry suffice?”
I’m in a generous mood. “It’s more than enough.”
She smiles and looks pretty, for a stone-cold killer.
It’s getting late, so I ask her, “So what now?”
“What now?”
“Between you and me?”
“You promise there are no police on the way?”
I put my hand on my heart, which is beneath the initials monogram on my breast pocket. Don’t ask. These pajamas were a gift. “I promise there are no police on the way.”
She smiles. “Then there is no you and me. We’re done.”
“I think I’ll sleep better tonight knowing that.”
“Good.”
She yawns. Impressive considering she’s just learned she’s the target of a crime boss. Then she says, “Is your offer of staying on the sofa still open, even though you know I intended to come here to kill you?”
I wave it off. “It’s all water under the bridge. Be my guest.” I think a second. “You want to borrow a toothbrush?”
“That would be great, thanks.”
“I keep the spares in the medicine cabinet, along with unopened floss dispensers, if you think I have cooties.”
“I’ll use the one you have open, thanks.”
“Anyway…” I go to get up, but she stops me with a hand on my shoulder. Says, “And how do you feel about my having killed Michelle Trueheart? You know about that, right?”
