My heart was still pounding a furious beat after I heard Gary’s steps down the steel stairs and the sound of his diesel truck starting. I watched from the window until he was out of the parking lot, waiting to continue our conversation until he was completely gone. Not that it really made a difference, since he’d been just on the other side of the door when I’d reassured—if that was even the correct word choice—X that Ron was as dead as dead gets.
Laughter bubbled up my throat again, and came out in a hysterical shriek.
X lifted his head from his hands, looking like he’d just aged a few years in a few seconds. “This is funny?”
“I mean.” I pressed a hand to my stomach, as if I could contain the humor. “My PO was just here. A dozen or so feet from my kitchen, where a dead guy is currently just chillin’. It’s kind of funny, in the scariest way possible.”
The laugh kept hiccupping out of me and I pressed a hand to my forehead, checking to see if I had a fever. Maybe this was the shock leaving my body. Gary could’ve easily walked to the island and peeped over. It would’ve taken him zero effort. I could’ve gone back to court—for murder this time. “Oh my god,” I said, laughter bubbling up still, with the sharp tang of vomit following it. I swallowed it down and sighed, leaning against the wall.
“I need to think about what to do,” X said, and made a move like he was going to leave.
I practically skipped across the room and pushed him gently enough to stop him and send him back into the cushions. “Oh, no. You are not leaving me here alone with a dead guy.” My voice was sharper than I’d ever heard, and the laughs had an annoying, hiccup-like persistency. “What if he’s not really dead?” I trilled.
X raised an eyebrow, looking the calmest he had since he’d first arrived to my apartment. How funny that when he’d been losing his shit just five minutes before, I’d been the calm one.
Now, the roles were reversed and all my atoms were threatening to split from my body, to fly in a hundred directions.
“You’re the one who told me a hundred times he was really dead,” he reminded me.
“That doesn’t mean anything!” I shook my head and knew I probably looked like a bobblehead. “What if I need a glass of water in the middle of the night and he pops up and grabs me? Haven’t you seen any murder movies?” I asked, exasperated as his eyebrow grew impressively higher. “The bad guy always gets one more shot in.” I mimicked a gun at my temple and pulled the trigger, instantly lopping my head to the side. “Just like that.”
“Just like that?”
“Shut up,” I told him, the laughs coming slower now, but still there. I pressed my hands to my lips as if I could keep the nausea from spilling out. I spun around, thinking, before I turned back to him. “I know!”
He didn’t ask what I suddenly knew, just eyed me suspiciously.
“Maybe you could hit him one more time, just in case.” I mimicked swinging the cast iron pan, as if my acting was encouraging him.
“What is wrong with you?” he asked.
“What is wrong with me?” I shrieked.
“Hey,” he said, his voice soft as he stood and placed his hands on my shoulders. “You’re going to have to calm your crazy. At least for the time being.”
“I am not crazy,” I said between clenched teeth as I shrugged from his hold on me. “I’m a lot of things—many ignoble things—but I am not crazy.”
“Ignoble. That’s an unusual word.”
“Just because I have a record doesn’t mean I’m uneducated. Besides, the good books were always checked out—sometimes I had to read the damn thesaurus.” I glared at him. “But I’m not crazy.”
He closed a hand over my mouth but still steadied my shoulder with his other. “Fine, wrong choice of words. But you are loud. And that’s exactly the last thing we need right now.”
I debated lashing at his palm, but I knew he was right. Damn if it didn’t annoy me that he was. I nodded, showing him I understood and he cautiously removed his palm.
“I’ll lower my voice. But you can’t possibly be this calm with a guy in the kitchen—a guy you killed, remember—just hanging out. That’s what’s wrong with me. He’s probably leaking bodily fluids all over the place.” I pressed a hand to my stomach again when it rolled. “Oh my God, I have read about that—when people die, they just lose their bowels.” I flung my hands out dramatically. “Boom—shit everywhere.”
“I think you’re thinking of executed convicts—I’ve heard that too.”
I flung my hand toward the kitchen. “Uh, hello. He’s a convict. And you executed him with my favorite pan.”
“Jesus, you’re a piece of work.”
“Yeah, especially on days where a dead guy is just hanging out on my kitchen floor!”
“If you’d just stop running your mouth for five seconds,” he shook his head, exasperated, “I could figure out what we’re going to do.”
“Oh, I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We’re going to go back to your place. And figure it out. You are not leaving me here solo. Especially since you refuse to give him another swat to the head, to guarantee he’s completely dead.”
“Go back to my place…”
“Yes.” I nodded resolutely.
“I don’t want you to go back to my place. Don’t you have friends...” He waved a hand. “People, you could call?”
Now was not the time to explain that thanks to my ex-boyfriend, I had no one except for Kissy—and I didn’t want to go near her doorstep while there was murder associated with me. “I don’t have anyone, okay?”
“Not even family? A sister?”
“I have no one,” I told him, loudly. “Just me. And, for the moment, you. Since we’re in this shit together.”
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “What are we going to do about him?”
“We’re going to figure it out in a place that doesn’t reek of murder. And then in the morning, early morning, we’ll come back and carry him out.” The nausea had lessened some, so I leaned on the island counter, feeling a small relief. “God, I need a shot.”
Momentarily forgetting exactly what had happened, I made a move to walk in the kitchen and then stopped at the hairy legs that blocked my entrance. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to move him so I could get into my freezer?”
X just looked at me blandly.
“Yeah, I guess that was a stupid thing to ask.” I looked at Ron’s body, careful not to let my gaze trail up to his face. It was easier to regard a dead body when you didn’t have to see the eyes, the mouth open and face drained from color. “Okay, well we need to do something in the meantime.”
“Like what?”
“Hold on, I have just the thing.” I yanked open the drawers that Ron had been rummaging just twenty minutes earlier, and searched blindly with my hand until I felt the cool metal. “Here we go.” I held them up to show X, who’d stopped at the threshold of the kitchen.
“So many questions,” he said, shaking his head. “The first, of course, is what the hell are you going to do with handcuffs?” Before I could explain, he continued, “And the second is, why do you keep handcuffs in your kitchen?”
“I mean.” I held the police-grade handcuffs in my hands as I viewed Ron’s body. “Hook him to the fridge so he can’t go anywhere?”
For the first time since he’d been in my apartment, X laughed. It was such a robust, warm sound—completely out of place in my apartment, especially in our current situation. “You wanted to hook him to your fridge? So he couldn’t up and leave?”
I dropped the handcuffs to the counter with a clatter. “I know.” I ran a hand over the hair that was drying around my face. “There’s a dead guy in my kitchen, and I don’t know how to handle this—not at all.” I heaved a deep sigh and nodded slowly.
“I could really use that drink,” I told him, eyeing the freezer with longing.
“Okay, we need to leave. Now.” He grabbed my bicep and guided me out of the kitchen. “Grab what you need for the night, and make it quick.”
After putting on some real clothes, I washed my face and scrubbed my hands with soap until I felt somewhat normal. I looked at myself in the mirror, taking in the lines around my eyes and mouth from the stress, and the way one of my eyes was twitching. I’d have to get myself under control, and I imagined getting the hell out of my apartment was the first step to that.
When I returned with a grocery-bag full of clothes, he eyed it with confusion. “Not all of us can have matching Tumi luggage sets,” I said, calling him out on his snobbery. “You’re gonna have to put up with my dollar store special.” I tossed it at him, and he caught it deftly. I looked back at Ron, and eyed the glock that stuck up out the back of his pants. “Ron has just as many friends as he has enemies,” I told X without looking at him. “I should probably take that handgun just in case.”
“What are you going to do with it?” he asked, and I raised my eyebrow.
“I was thinking of going down south and competing in wild west shows. What the hell do you think I’m going to do it? Keep it for protection.” Until I could hock it for some cash. Which made me wonder if he had cash on him too. That could wait. “Here, hold onto my hand while I grab the gun.”
“Jesus, you don’t need a gun. Especially not right now.”
“No, I can’t store it here. We’ll have to keep it at your house. Regardless, it’s coming with us.”
He lifted his face, clearly disturbed by the mere thought of housing a weapon.
“Look, you don’t know the kinds of crowd I run in—well, used to run in. That gun is not just a form of protection, but could potentially, if the need arises, be used as a bargaining chip.” I held out my hand for his, not wanting to lean over Ron without knowing X could pull me back if need be. I slid the gun from its holster and held it between my thumb and forefinger as I brought it to the countertop and then wrapped it in a dishrag.
“Do you even know how to hold a gun?”
I paused and rubbed over the worn safety. “Not only do I know how to hold one, I know how to shoot one. And clean one. And load one. Remember? I’m an ignoble person.” I eyed him, making it clear to him that I wasn’t just some dim-witted chick handling a gun for the first time.
“Put this in here,” I said, tossing him a crumpled-up grocery bag. “We’re less likely to get funny looks if we’re carrying a bunch of bags out to your car.”
“It’s disturbing how well you know these things.”
“Yeah, well that’s what happens when you live on the streets for a good chunk of your life.” I hadn’t meant to tell him that. I didn’t really want to tell him anything about my life. As far as I was concerned, we were two people tied together due to an unfortunate circumstance. Not that Ron’s death was all that unfortunate.
“You got everything?” he asked, stepping toward the door.
“Yes—no, wait.” I paused on the threshold of the kitchen again. “Should we cover him with a blanket?”
“You think he’s going to get cold or something?” he snapped and whipped the front door open. “Let’s go before I leave you behind.”