by Tim Maleeny
Jill nodded against his shoulder. “Oliver. He said you should call him back.”
Sam continued to look toward the kitchen but didn’t budge.
“Maybe you should call him back,” said Jill. “It might be good news.”
“Not likely.” Sam was about to describe Twisted Oliver’s penchant for doom when there came a knock on the door.
“Shit.” Sam stood, naked, and grabbed his gun from the counter.
“Who do you think it is?”
“I don’t know,” said Sam. “But it might be bad news.”
Chapter Sixty-three
Sam held a pillow in his left hand and a gun in his right. The gun covered the door while the pillow covered his crotch.
He checked the peephole and sighed, relieved it wasn’t Zorro knocking. But he wasn’t expecting any visitors tonight, especially the two in the hallway. At his signal, Jill unlatched the deadbolt and pulled open the door. Sam took a step forward, gun raised.
Larry and Jerome raised their hands in perfect synchronization, as if they’d practiced as understudies for the touring company of Bob Fosse’s Chicago. Their eyes became perfect circles to match their open mouths. Larry was the closer of the two, so Sam dropped the pillow and dragged him into the apartment before his vocal chords caught up with the expression on his face. Jerome came trailing behind.
Jill shoved the door closed behind them.
“We come in peace.” Jerome kept his hands up.
Sam studied the startled pair before lowering the gun and saying, “Live long and prosper.” Then he turned and walked back to the living room, where he set the gun on the mantle before reclaiming his pants from the floor. By the time he pulled them on, Jill had come over to sit on the couch. She curled her legs beneath her and watched the two brothers with an amused expression on her face.
Jill had thrown Sam’s dress shirt on for cover, but her legs were bare and her breasts swayed suggestively under the fabric. Sam noticed Jerome taking mental snapshots for retrieval later and was going to say something when he realized Larry was looking at him in the same way. Frowning, he cleared his throat, which had the desired effect. Both brothers immediately tried to make eye contact with him.
“What do you want?” Sam asked.
“A beer would be great,” replied Jerome. Larry smacked him on the shoulder. Jerome flinched and added, “Or coffee would be cool. Whatever’s easier.”
“We need your help.” Larry cut in.
“With?”
The two brothers looked at each other. As if some silent exchange had taken place, Jerome turned and said, “With Zorro.”
Sam took an involuntary step forward. “What do you know about Zorro?”
Larry looked at his feet. “It’s a long story—”
Jerome nodded. “—about two brothers and their toaster…” Larry smacked him again but Jerome was on a roll. “…a story of hope, betrayal, and the search for true love—”
Larry managed to get his hand over Jerome’s mouth long enough to say, “We’re in trouble—” Jerome shrugged him off and added, “And so are you.”
Sam stared at them and tried to figure out what was part of their act and what was the result of years of unsuccessful therapy. Finally, he gestured at two chairs adjacent to the coffee table and said, “What’ll be, then? Beer?”
Larry sighed with visible relief and said, “Got any Tab?” Jerome shook his head in embarrassment and took the nearest chair.
A minute later Larry sat sipping a Diet Coke. Jerome held a bottle of beer. Jill gathered up her clothes and said her goodbyes. Sam walked her to the door and said, “You’re welcome to stay.”
She leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the mouth. “Tell me about it later.”
Sam smiled. “Thanks for coming.”
Jill lowered her voice. “I should be thanking you for that…”
Sam blushed despite himself. “OK, then. We’re even.” He stepped into the hall and watched until she reached her door and opened it. She waved once and then was gone. Sam turned and crossed into the kitchen, where he grabbed a beer of his own.
“OK, let’s hear it,” said Sam.
“Well,” said Larry, “we make sandwiches—”
“—but not just sandwiches—,” said Jerome.
“—we also make a lot of money—”
“—a lot of money—”
“—because Zorro is our business partner—”
“—sort of a silent partner, only—”
“—lately…”
“…he hasn’t been so silent—”
It went on like that for almost an hour, neither brother finishing a single sentence. Their story was one long, unbroken narrative that Sam couldn’t have interrupted if he’d tried.
When they had finished, Larry looked at his can of soda and said, “I have to pee.”
“Me, too.” Jerome placed his empty beer on the coffee table.
Sam almost shook his head in wonder. Maybe they were born Siamese twins, joined at the hip from birth? He gestured down the hall. “There’s two. First right, or keep going through the master bedroom for the second one.”
Jerome stood. “I’ll make the long walk.”
Larry followed him down the hallway. While they were gone Sam tossed his beer bottle into the recycling bin and started a pot of coffee. He suspected this was going to be a long night.
Next to the coffee pot, the Ziploc bag of cookies Gail had forced upon him sat neglected. Sam tried to remember all the flavors but only came up with macaroon. That morning seemed a lifetime ago. One day you’re chatting with the nice old lady down the hall, a few days later you’re waiting for someone to cut your eyes out.
Just to the right of the untouched cookies, the answering machine lobbied for his attention, its red eye blinking mournfully. Sam glared at it but it kept blinking, even when he didn’t. Sam sighed. Sparing a glance down the hall, he pushed play.
Twisted Oliver’s unctuous voice filled the room.
Sam stared at the answering machine as the tape unspooled, his expression changing from anxious to confused as he tried to reconcile what he was hearing with the more pressing problem of Zorro. It was a litany of medical terminology, chemical names, facts and figures, Oliver getting excited about puzzle pieces that still needed to be fit together. Words that needed to be translated into plain English. When the message was over Sam took a deep breath and looked at the clock to see if it was too late to call. Oliver and his theories would have to wait. Unless Sam could figure out how to survive the next twenty-four hours, Danny was going to have to connect the dots, right after he attended Sam’s funeral.
The brothers returned to their respective chairs. Sam took the loveseat across from them and started asking questions. Cop questions, one right after another, not giving them time to think or manufacture any bullshit. He kept on them for half an hour, at which point they looked more exhausted than defensive. Finally, Sam leaned back in his chair. “It took balls coming here.”
Larry and Jerome looked at each other, their expressions clear that they’d considered it an act of desperation.
“You could run,” said Sam.
Jerome shook his head. “That never works. Seen too many movies.”
Sam didn’t argue. “You could have done what Zorro asked and set me up.”
Larry frowned as Jerome said, “You think Zorro’s gonna leave us alive, after he kills you?”
“Not a chance,” said Sam. “He’s planning to kill you both.”
Larry sucked air through his teeth, as if hearing the threat spoken aloud had knocked the wind out of him. Jerome put a hand on his brother’s shoulder and ground his teeth together before saying, “Zorro thinks he’s going to kill us, but he’s wrong.”
“Sounds like you have a plan.”
The brothers nodded in unison.
“Good,” said Sam. “So do I.”
Chapter Sixty-four
“That will never work.”
Gail pulled the cookie sheet from the oven and surveyed the damage. The sugar cookies should have been the easiest to bake, but the oven was almost as old as she was, and the temperature fluctuated wildly from one rack to the next. The perfectly round cookies had risen uniformly in the middle, but some had brown edges. That would never do, not for company.
Shaking her head in disgust, Gail strode purposefully over to the garbage can, stomped the foot pedal and used her spatula to scrape the cookies into the trash.
“Should have used the top rack.”
Grabbing a fresh cookie sheet, she painstakingly doled out equivalent masses of dough, her wrist as supple as a velvet rope. When she had finished the tray was covered by a perfectly symmetrical six-by-five matrix of sugar and flour.
“Much better,” she said to her dead cat Simone.
Simone didn’t answer, since she’d been buried more than five years ago, but she was still very much alive whenever Gail was in her kitchen.
Simone had lived with Gail long enough—almost eight years—for them to strike up quite a relationship. Like most relationships with cats, it was almost entirely on the cat’s terms. Simone would shower Gail with affection by rubbing against her legs and shedding on her slacks, her couch, her bed. Cajole her with insistent purrs, chastise her with disapproving glances, berate her when she came home late. Once she had even demonstrated her great loyalty by leaving a present for Gail at the doorstop, a gray dormouse with a broken neck.
But Simone was an excellent listener, so it seemed only fair Gail should give Simone something in return.
Gail would talk nonstop to Simone while she baked, and in exchange Simone was given small tastes of the cookie batter. Depending on how Simone reacted, Gail knew if she was onto something. Gail remembered once adding some extra vanilla into a tollhouse recipe, then turning her back just long enough to check the oven. By the time she came back to add the chocolate chips half the batter was gone, Simone’s whiskers sticking together. Gail whipped up another batch immediately and never went back to the original recipe.
It broke her heart when that cat died. For the longest time, Gail blamed herself. Maybe she should have been more careful about what she fed her. Taken her for walks. Not had her neutered. Brushed her more regularly. But then Gail got tired of feeling guilty and blamed the vet.
She got old, the vet said by way of explanation, as if the cat’s age had been some kind of curse, a death spell of numerology. Not something you say to an old lady.
Then he chided her for feeding the cat cookie dough, saying it was bad for the cat’s metabolism. Clogged the arteries, weakened the heart. The whole time, Gail felt like the vet was talking about her and not her cat, describing a time bomb that was set to explode somewhere in her old body. What a smug little prick he was, probably never let his kids have dessert. Looked like a teetotaler, too.
But Gail thanked him for his trouble, left the cookies she had baked, and silently prayed that his liver would explode. She kept that thought between her and the Almighty, which was easy because she was an agnostic, but the moral victory was hers. Always be gracious, her mother had said, even when they treat you like dirt. Even in grief, Gail was a class act.
But she never got another cat, even when the ASPCA came calling. She gave them money and a small bag of cookies but asked them to leave her alone.
She still talked to Simone whenever she baked, and tonight she was baking up a storm. She was expecting company. Eight, maybe ten people at least. It would take at least eight hours of baking to finish all the cookies she had planned.
She flicked on the oven light, checked the color, then took a quick inventory of her supplies. Ingredients were laid out across the counter in near-military formation. The standard bag of flour, a box of brown sugar, baking soda. A colorful assortment of bottles—flavors like vanilla and nutmeg, food coloring, other extracts designed to linger on the palette and compel even the most disciplined dieter to reach back into the jar for just one more. Bags of chocolate chips—semisweet—enough to make cookies till the end of time.
Gail’s number one rule, don’t be stingy with the chocolate.
Her eyes wandered toward the end of the counter where the liqueurs, nuts, and spices were arranged in a rainbow of temptation. More adult fare, a little kick in your cookie, a sweet afterthought to the drink in your hand.
Gail grabbed one of the bottles and titled it toward her mixing bowl, thinking why not? She hadn’t had guests in some time, unless you counted her visits from Gus or her chats with the girls down the hall. Or her recent conversations with that nice man Sam.
He was an interesting one. Smart, and handsome—looked his age, not like a man trying to recapture his lost youth. And the saddest eyes she’d ever seen on a man. It almost brought a tear to her eye, thinking about the way that man talked about his wife.
“He’s a keeper,” she said, knowing Simone would have agreed with her. “Maybe I shouldn’t have stirred him up like that, getting him poking around, but I couldn’t help myself. Besides, I think it’ll be good for him.”
Simone made no comment.
“Fella like that needs to be out in the world meeting people.” She bent down and cracked the over open a fraction of an inch. Perfect. “Like that nice girl Jill; such a lovely voice. I think it’s good they met—good for everyone.”
Simone didn’t disagree.
Gail slid the tray out and smiled. Thirty perfect circles stood in formation, awaiting their deployment on the cooling tray. Then came the icing. “Maybe red this time, just for fun.”
While the last batch cooled, Gail returned to her mixing, felt the soothing motion of her arm churning the batter. The honest feel of the wooden spoon in her hand. She loved cookies. Who cared if they weren’t good for your body—they were good for the soul. She dipped a finger into the batter and brought it to her lips, smiled at the decadence of it.
Some people took all the joy out of life just trying to survive. The way Gail saw it, people like that got old long before she ever did, in spirit if not in body. Why all the fuss? Everybody died.
She thought about Simone, a cat who helped fill the void left by her dearly beloved, dead these long years. Her sweet Gus, still a spring chicken in his own eyes but catching up to her in aches and pains. That wonderful woman Marie, taken so young from that nice policeman. And even that dead bastard Ed. Almost made her want to get religion, just so he could burn in whatever circle of Hell was reserved for landlords.
Everybody died, but how many lived without regret? That was Gail’s idea of heaven.
She took another scoop of batter and licked it off her bony finger. Life could be sweet if you just made it that way. She turned to the spot on the counter where Simone used to sit, imagined the cat giving her a disapproving look, waiting impatiently for its turn.
“Give me a break, you old sourpuss,” said Gail as she treated herself to another lick. “I just want to have some fun before I die.”
Chapter Sixty-five
On the chance he was going to be dead tomorrow, Sam decided to spend at least some of the time he had left on Earth looking at naked women.
By all rights, he should have been asleep. He was exhausted. Listening to Larry and Jerome was almost as grueling in its own way as grappling with Zorro’s band of thugs. The brothers had left an hour ago and it was late, too late to walk down the hall and wake Jill. Late enough that Sam should be getting some rest while he could—sleep deprivation wasn’t going to help keep him on his game. But the coffee had kicked in and Sam was restless. Too much caffeine and adrenaline for one day.
The first thing he did was open a kitchen drawer and pull out a pad and pen, which he used to take notes while he listened to Oliver’s message a second time. Then he played it again, scribbling questions to himself. He drank more coffee until the pot was empty, cursed himself, then switched to beer, hoping the two would cancel each other out.
Then he went into the spare bedroom where he kept his files and pulled op
en drawers until he found his old phone list. He found Oliver’s home number, dialed, and let it ring until it woke Oliver up. For some reason Sam didn’t think Oliver slept like normal people or, if he did, Sam assumed it would be during the day inside a coffin.
Sam grilled Oliver for twenty minutes before thanking him and hanging up. Instead of feeling smarter, Sam only felt like asking more questions, but even Oliver had his limits. Part of the problem was that Ed’s accelerated descent from the roof had taken place a lifetime ago, as far as Sam was concerned. With his own life in jeopardy, Sam was having trouble focusing.
Sam fired up what he still thought of as Marie’s computer. While he waited for the operating system to launch, he returned to the kitchen for another beer. He opened an overhead cabinet and was delighted to find the bag of pretzels he’d hoped was there. Tearing it open, he returned to the office and sat in front of the computer. He still felt wide awake.
Jill hadn’t exaggerated. The girls’ website was intoxicating, beginning with the homepage. Some models and actresses looked great on film but surprisingly average or even awkward in person—but the camera loved them and made them more beautiful on film than in life. Given how spectacular Shayla and Tamara were in person, Sam couldn’t imagine them looking any better, but the camera loved them, too. Maybe more than anyone.
The fact that they were often topless or naked in most of the photos didn’t hurt, either. Sam felt himself stir and experienced a pang of guilt over Jill, but he reminded himself she had insisted he visit the site. She had a reason to be proud.
The navigation from one section of the site to another was ingenious, involving a click of the mouse or a scrolling move across some erogenous zone of the girls’ anatomy. And since the cursor appeared as a hand icon, it only heightened the interactivity of the site. But the site had a sense of humor. The copy was irreverent, and most of the images were more playful than pornographic, the girls looking at the camera with a wink and a nod, letting their guests enjoy the view but making it clear they were in on the joke.
