Fickle Page 24

  Psycho is a touch freaked at what he’s done. He runs—that’s his initial instinct—then maybe he returns, needing to know if he was spotted. He finds the girl sitting on a bench. He observes. The cops question her, let her go. He follows her out, trails her so he knows where she lives, and then peels off and T’s it on back to the city, where he wipes all signs of his presence from the jeweler’s loft.

  He doesn’t quite know it, but his fun is just beginning. The cops have some reason to suspect that the death was a murder, but no one seems to know a thing about him. The dead man’s wife (X) has never seen him—all she knows is he’s a he. The Peacock knows more than is good for her, but no one knows to come asking her questions and she has no incentive to go to the police and air her soiled delicates. The clerk from the jewelry shop (Slenderbuns)—now, he’s actually seen the two erstwhile lovers together (Pearle and M.H.), but only as collaborators on a commission. Still, like the Peacock, the clerk could become dangerous to our psycho’s peace of mind if the cops get lucky and start putting two and two and two together.

  And how to keep in touch with what is going on? Well, there’s the girl (me), a little fool of a thing whom the cops are sniffing around. So he follows her, moving in slowly when she turns out to have a sharp eye and a good memory for himbos. And so to the present…

  webmaggot @ February 3 03:53 pm

  That’s a lot to swallow in one sitting.

  chinkigirl @ February 3 04:02 pm

  I’m likewise kind of boggled right now.

  i.went.to.harvard @ February 3 04:05 pm

  It’s really a smaller tale than it reads—jealous hothead kills his ex-lover, then scrambles to protect himself against discovery.

  wazzup! @ February 3 04:10 pm

  BRILLIANT NEO-NOIR!!!! LOVE IT!!!! NEXT LET’S MAKE M.H. KILL THE PEACOCK, RIGHT? THEN HE GOES FOR THE GIRL AND THE COP JUMPS IN TO SAVE HER AND COP AND PSYCHO KILL EACH OTHER, LEAVING HER ALIVE BUT ALONE, SO SAD AND ALONE!!! PERFECT NOIR ENDING, YES? WRAP AND PRINT!!!

  36-D @ February 3 04:13 pm

  Umm, wazzup, hon? I don’t think you’re quite on our wavelength. This is real, not fic.

  webmaggot @ February 3 04:14 pm

  Give him a break—guy wears poplar shoes.

  roadrage @ February 3 04:15 pm

  I think I need to reanalyze everything, get the timing down, before I can swear I’m in.

  marleybones @ February 3 04:16 pm

  Ditto. Also, I sense some sort of puppet-master here, someone as yet unidentified whose presence will explain away any seeming coincidences.

  hitman @ February 3 04:18 pm

  So, okay, some fat-chewing going on, but basically it’s unanimous. Your bloggies are with you. What do you do now, fick? Take the tale to Burly-Bear?

  fickel @ February 3 04:20 pm

  Sigh. How can I do that when, in spite of all of your support, I don’t believe the story myself?

  proudblacktrannie @ February 3 04:23 pm

  Lawdy—she’s ready to defend the man she’s scared of.

  fickel @ February 3 04:28 pm

  I am, actually. I mean, sure, we don’t know the secret demons that lurk inside the strangers we meet, but something just feels wrong about the idea of the M.H. as a full-blown psycho.

  Look, let’s put it this way: this whole buildup started from someone observing that the M.H. may suffer from a mild case of homophobia. If that makes a man a psycho, well which of you men isn’t one of those?

  proudblacktrannie @ February 3 04:30 pm

  I’m assuming I’m an honorary woman for present purposes, hmm?

  i.went.to.harvard @ February 3 04:32 pm

  Well, I’m not homophobic, but it could be that they beat the “compassion for all” thing into you in div school.

  webmaggot @ February 3 04:35 pm

  I’m not homophobic either, but maybe that’s because I shared a room with a gay brother for fifteen years and never once woke up with a sore butthole.

  36-D @ February 3 04:40 pm

  Look, not to come off like a broken record, but my Rottweiler works with some PI’s who could check this M.H. guy out quick and quiet. I’m not talking about you learning anything personal—I’m just talking about peace of mind.

  fickel @ February 3 04:42 pm

  Yeah. Hire a detective to investigate a guy I’m just starting to…I don’t know.

  hitman @ February 3 04:43 pm

  You like this guy? Geez-US. I mean, you can sit there pattering out a tight, logical tale in which the guy’s a killer whose current vic list may include you, and at the same time you can like him?

  fickel @ February 3 04:45 pm

  …a little.

  proudblacktrannie @ February 3 04:46 pm

  The female of the species is romantic to the end. It’s our fatal flaw, and often the death of us.

  marleybones @ February 3 04:48 pm

  Yes, well, putting aside the legendary failings of “the female,” I think that what fickel’s trying to say is that the tale she just wove about the M.H. isn’t hers—it’s ours, the one we were driving at, and just because she has the presence of mind to articulate it doesn’t mean she buys it.

  chinkigirl @ February 3 04:52 pm

  Okay here’s a question: why would Mr. Suicide refer to the M.H. as “E?” His initials (I mean, besides M.H.) are G.F.

  fickel @ February 3 04:53 pm

  Sigh. Could be a hundred nicknames, chinkigirl, although I appreciate the attempt to back up my skepticism. But the way things are, I don’t know what I think, and I don’t want to eff this thing up with the M.H. if I’m wrong.

  proudblacktrannie @ February 3 04:55 pm

  I am absolutely tearing up! It’s so frighteningly romantic. And you cannot go to Burly-Bear with this, even though on one level you do feel endangered. How can you confide in one potential lover about another in a way that pits them against one another? It would be the ultimate betrayal.

  hitman @ February 3 04:59 pm

  Groin time. Time to bitch-slap your lawyer into doing something useful.

  fickel @ February 3 05:02 pm

  And how, pray tell, does a charity case bitch-slap her lawyer?

  hitman @ February 3 05:03 pm

  You lay a few facts out, chickenheart. Let me get you started: (1) He’s your lawyer, and free or not, that means he’s got professional responsibilities, so it’s about time he started meeting a couple of them. (2) He has to keep your confidence, and you got issues, so maybe it’s his turn to shut up and listen. (3) He’s trained in logic and might be able to fill in or show you flaws to this whole story about the Peacock, and if he doesn’t want you going to the cops with everything you know and think, he’d better start doing so. (4) He took you on as a client to please the Colonel, who obviously shovels him enough dough to make it worth it.

  fickel @ February 3 05:06 pm

  Wow. Y’know, you’re actually making a little sense, there, pardner.

  hitman @ February 3 05:07 pm

  It’s a plan. Beats doing it on a table with the prime suspect.

  fickel @ February 3 05:08 pm

  Not sure about that, but…

  leo tolstoy @ February 3 05:10 pm

  Without knowing what I am and why I am here, life’s impossible; and that I can’t know, and so I can’t live.

  fickel @ February 3 05:11 pm

  So, uh, leo t? Don’t you have another blog to lurk around on, tossing out the occasional brutally morbid and condescending quote? Please? :)

  26

  02.03 @ 6:00 pm:

  I make headlines—about arfing time, too!!!

  The partially decomposed corpse of a hideous old scag will be discovered two weeks or, hell, maybe two months from today, tucked into a small hollow about fifty yards up the tunnel of the Hynes T station, her face half chewed off by rats, her stinking clothes ravaged and blackened from having been burnt. The old bitch used to frequent the station, where she would haunt the edge of the platform and occasionally emerg
e to shriek foreign obscenities at one or another John Q. Public. Commuters interviewed after her rotted corpse turned up had this to say: “The old scag? Sure I remember her. Followed a buddy of mine, screaming shyte in Swedish for like two city blocks. Good to know she’s dead—for once, some positive news.” Another commuter: “Oh wow, yeah, the homeless witch from the T. Beaten and burnt to death? Wow. Oh well, that’s my train—will I be on the 6:00 news?” Police might have concluded that the skanky old sack of disease had died from trying to warm her bones by lighting something with kerosene that somehow sparked the greasy rags she called clothing, except that her head was turned completely around the wrong way. Could she have been effed up enough to do that to herself? The BPD spokesman had this to say: “Yeah, when their head’s turned around backwards, that’s a pretty good indication that they either fell down a pack of stairs or got murdered.” Alert readers will note that there is a long pack of stairs in the Hynes T station that could easily do in some raving lunatic homeless drunk, but then how would she have gotten her brittle, broken bones fifty yards up the tunnel? Guess Boston will never know.

  You don’t exist, you filthy swine, until you make it onto Boston—dot—com.

  TALK, NIHILIST DOGS

  boytoucher @ 02.03 08:12 pm

  You a dead bag lady, full frontal, or am I missing som’n?

  fullfrontal @ 02.03 08:18 pm

  You are missing som’n. Like a brain, wizard.

  losmuertos @ 02.03 08:29 pm

  Dude. You sayin you did this? Zup wi dat?

  fullfrontal @ 02.03 08:30 pm

  Ain sayin shit, captain.

  garbo @ 02.03 09:11 pm

  Are you on a rampage? First you take out that punk, now this homeless woman. Who’s next?

  fullfrontal @ 02.03 09:14 pm

  Got a couple in mind.

  garbo @ 02.03 09:15 pm

  As in a couple of additional victims or as in some married people you’d like to kill?

  fullfrontal @ 02.03 09:16 pm

  Whazzit t’u? Too deths iz too deths.

  garbo @ 02.03 09:17 pm

  I’m just puzzling over the idea that a degenerate like you would have dealings at all with a married couple.

  fullfrontal @ 02.03 09:18 pm

  Such a slice you are. Where does it end?

  garbo @ 02.03 09:19 pm

  You don’t…get it yet?

  fullfrontal @ 02.03 09:28 pm

  Wid U and Me, til death do us depart.

  garbo @ 02.03 09:30 pm

  oh looooooooord you are so hopelessly romantic. I am all aflush.

  fullfrontal @ 02.03 09:31 pm

  Rip your larynx out, hunny, and don’t think I’m lyin.

  garbo @ 02.03 09:32 pm

  Hey look at that: you can spell “larynx” but you usually can’t spell to save your life. Such an enigmatic guy. Will you puzzle me foh-evah, luvah? (bats eyelashes coyly)

  eddielizard @ 02.03 09:45 pm

  Mahn this b’yotch NEEDS to die with huh fingahs cut off and a severed dick in her mouth.

  garbo @ 02.03 09:51 pm

  A severed dick? Are you volunteering or should we look for one the cops will actually notice?

  boytoucher @ 02.03 09:53 pm

  G’damn, is all b’yitches like this?

  bonitoestoria @ 02.03 09:54 pm

  for showah.

  garbo @ 02.03 09:55 pm

  (indulgent laugh) Ah, but your little “friends” are so useless, double f. Can’t we be alone?

  fullfrontal @ 02.03 09:57 pm

  You vahn tuh be alun?

  garbo @ 02.03 09:58 pm

  Save the sweet talk for the big event.

  fullfrontal @ 02.03 09:59 pm

  Whut big event wud that be, she-dog?

  garbo @ 02.03 10:00 pm

  My “rape,” your “death.” You rid me of my pesky virginity, I rid you of your pesky life.

  fullfrontal @ 02.03 10:01 pm

  You’re underage after all, eh, sparky?

  garbo @ 02.03 10:02 pm

  No more than you are, Mr. Evah-so-Worldly. (Petulant flounce) Look, I haven’t been wasting my time here, have I?

  garbo @ 02.03 10:31 pm

  oh, looooooooooooo-verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr?

  garbo @ 02.03 10:35 pm

  did I scare you off?

  garbo @ 02.03 10:44 pm

  (whispering) chugga-chugga-choo-choo?

  fullfrontal @ 02.03 10:45 pm

  Now THASS sum sounds I LIKES.

  27

  February 3 @ 11:03 pm

  >NIGHT OFF<

  I’m checking in because I don’t want anyone to worry. Frankly, I don’t have it in me to write tonight. If you’re in Boston, turn on the local news. It’s the story about the couple in Concord.

  I should have gone to Burly-Bear. I screwed up. I will fill you in as soon as I’m up to it.

  GIVE IT TO ME STRAIGHT

  webmaggot @ February 3 11:32 pm

  Okay, there’s this story running about a couple in Sudbury (Sudbury’s like “the other Concord,” to Bostonians) who had something happen that might be murder. They keep looping the same snippet about carbon monoxide poisoning. This other local station that’s more sensational (you should see the tewl behind the anchor desk) but it’s reporting a possible suicide/homicide in Sudbury and showing the street view of a mansion—the kind with those rounded red-striped awnings hooding the windows and ivy all over everything. They didn’t say the owners’ name because relatives haven’t been notified. That’s all I got. Yeah, I suck as a detective.

  36-D @ February 3 11:38 pm

  Nothing on Providence TV. Guess the thing to do is to wait for fickel to report out.

  webmaggot @ February 3 11:45 pm

  Anyone got the feeling that we are sitting around with our dicks tucked between our haunches while some badass shit is raining down that we might have been able to do something about?

  chinkigirl @ February 3 11:52 pm

  Sort of.

  webmaggot @ February 3 11:55 pm

  Okay that’s cool just thought I’d ask. Think I’ll go j.o. to Instagram.

  marleybones @ February 3 11:56 pm

  Goodnight, quixotic world.

  28

  February 4 @ 6:23 pm

  >COLD DAY IN PARADISE<

  Thanks for understanding my need to black out last night. In spite of that, it’s gotten so I can barely think without my fingers moving, so I actually need to be here. I will fill you in.

  So yesterday, acting on hitman’s advice (hmm, a phrase I’ve written before), I did the prudent thing and set up a meet with Mr. Groin. Well, to be more precise, I called the Colonel and let him set up a thing with Mr. Groin for last night at the Colonel’s. And, yes, that’s because I am a chicken and vaguely afraid of Mr. Groin.

  My excuse for including the Colonel? Well, it occurred to me that if my little “tale” about the M.H. were true—and it did seem less and less plausible as the minutes ticked by—but IF it were true, then someone who had the Peacock’s interests at heart had a right to know about it. It also occurred to me that the tale as told to the Concord crowd need not include any of our—okay, my—tawdrier speculations of the relationship between Mysterious Hottie and the Peacock. I thought that this simpler version might go down a tad smoother:

  Point A—Artist paints lady with imagined necklace;

  Point B—Lady sets up artist with jeweler to construct said necklace;

  Point C—Artist and jeweler become lovers;

  Point D—Things go sour and artist kills jeweler;

  Point E—Folks who know about connection between artist and jeweler start dying.

  Tight, tidy, logical, yes? And not a finger pointed near the Peacock’s virtue. BTW, the Colonel did not ask me why I needed to see him and his lawyer. I found that telling. More so now.

  So, after signing off yesterday, I set out to keep my appointment with the Colonel and Mr. Groin. I had the sketch of the Peacock’s necklace that I’d
snitched from the M.H’s loft and, basically, nothing else to support anything I had to say. This was fine with me, and I was undecided about whether I’d even present the sketch. I wanted it crystal clear that what I brought to the table was a theory. I wanted them to poke holes in it a mile wide. For once in my life, I wanted a couple of alpha males to be very patronizing toward me. To withhold what I’d conjured up would be unfair to them. To have them buy it would be disloyal to the M.H. See my dilemma?

  It’s with that profound sense of ambiguity that I roll along the windy roads toward the Colonel’s villa, enjoying the way the setting sun occasionally blinds me to everything—trees and road and pretty rock walls and all the secret mansions tucked inside this scenery. The Colonel’s place is along a relatively flat stretch, its lawn wide and open, making the villa itself visible from the road, although the facade is buried to the second story in hillocks of fleshy black rhododendrons. I round a bend and see the vehicles first—a colorful local police cruiser half blocking the road, and six or seven neighborhood cars—mostly Mercedes and Beemers with the occasional antique Volvo among them—pulled over for decency’s sake, their owners standing along the shoulder, hands deep in coat pockets, peering up the Colonel’s drive. I crawl past the chubby lad on street duty who waves me through with that overwrought patience cops acquire as a means of coping with the lady-folk out in your more exclusive suburbs. I pull over just past the shrub barrier and slip back along the road’s edge, doing my best imitation of a rich housewife—eyes wary, face still, fingers clutching my coat lapels closed. I move among the other gawkers, feeling very incognito, and stop by a mauve-colored BMW. Over its roof I can see up the lawn to the villa.

  This is not your normal-sized lawn, I ought to clarify. It’s a football field that got lost on its way to some university, making the people up near the house the size of board game pieces. From that perspective, here is what I see: