Pariah

compound. She’s holding out, bro. I know it. I can feel it in my bones.”

Dave didn’t feel like arguing. Instead he slurped another wedge of syrupy peach out of the can, letting it roll against his tongue and lips, hoping the suggestive visuals would derail whatever scheme Eddie was hatching. Instead, Eddie just snapped at him for eating like a pig and then left the apartment. Dave gulped down the rest of the sweet liquid and followed Eddie into the hall, then downstairs. Two flights down Eddie placed a small flashlight between his lips and, aiming the focused beam on Mona’s top cylinder, began to pick the lock with some small, spidery tools.

“Where’d you get those?” Dave asked.

“Had ’em,” Eddie said, his hushed voice slightly slurred by the flashlight. “Keep your voice down. I don’t want the rest of the jerks in the hizzy to catch me in the act.” And with that the top lock opened. “Fuckin’ Yale,” Eddie smirked, removing the drippy flashlight from his mouth. “Never would’ve gotten it open if it was a Medeco.”

He opened the door and in they slipped. Dave didn’t feel like a groovy master criminal. He felt more like Dumber to Eddie’s Dumb. Or worse. The apartment was almost unchanged from when Mona had taken occupancy, the only difference being she’d moved Mr. Spiteri’s recliner next to the left front window. Also, various CDs littered that area, some in their jewel cases, others loose. Several were arranged haphazardly on the windowsill, some data-side up. Eddie scoffed and said, “Bitches never know how to take care of CDs.” He lifted one off the ledge and looked at its playing surface. “Look at this shit. Nicks and fingerprints all over it. Remember Gina Copaseti? She never treated shit right. I lent her my Bee Gees box set and it came back like she’d stuck it up an elephant’s asshole. I stuck somethin’ else up hers for good measure. Payback with interest.”

“So what are we looking for, Eddie?” Dave said, nerves and impatience straining his voice.

“Hey, you don’t have to be here,” Eddie snapped. “I’m perfectly happy to do this investigation on my own. You wanna help, great. But if you’re gonna honk like a woman, beat it, a’right? ’Cause I don’t need that shit.”

After a cursory couple of circuits around the apartment, Eddie began to prospect in earnest, opening drawers and riffling through them, closing them in disgust when nothing extraordinary was unearthed. Though he’d never been here before, he had the sneaking suspicion all was as it had been in Spiteri’s time, and he didn’t even know from Spiteri because his building had a different super. Drawer after drawer revealed nothing but tools of the custodial trade, Spiteri’s family’s clothes, and other plebeian junk.

“C’mon, Eddie, Mona will be back soon.”

“How the fuck you know that? Sometimes she doesn’t come back for hours or till the next day. She left less than an hour ago. One more complaint an’ The Comet’s kickin’ you to the curb, bro. For real. Help or vacate. Your choice.”

Eddie opened one of the hall closets and began rummaging, cursing softly as a small avalanche of shoeboxes pummeled his scalp. “Your mother’s ass!” he shouted, clapping a hand over his mouth and cursing himself for making noise. He lifted lid after lid, finding nothing. “These shoeboxes got nothin’ but shoes in ’em,” he griped, filing them back on the upper shelf. Board games for stupid foreigners, a scuffed soccer ball, a beat-to-shit toaster oven, two garbage bags full of ratty clothes-it was all rubbish. And clearly not one bit of it was Mona’s.

Eddie stepped into the bedroom and switched on the solar camping lantern within. The bed was immaculately made, with taut hospital corners. Either Mona was quite the skilled domestic-which seemed unlikely-or she didn’t sleep in the bed. Who knows, maybe the little freak didn’t sleep at all. With diminished enthusiasm Eddie opened dresser drawers and foraged, turning up nothing but the former occupant’s unmentionables and workaday clothes. There was a box of condoms well past their fuck-by date, but Eddie palmed them anyway. What a waste of-

“Hey, Eddie,” came Dave’s voice in a whisper-hiss. “Check this out.”

Eddie stepped into the kitchenette and found Dave standing on the kitchen counter holding a bumpy sheet of something shiny-it was a blister pack of pills. “Whuzzat?” Eddie said, snatching it from Dave.

“It’s drugs,” Dave said, sotto voce. “But check this out.” He opened the top cabinet. Inside were mounds of similar and identical blister packs, as well as prescription bottles of various sizes, all full. Eddie looked at the assemblage of pharmaceuticals and felt both vindication and annoyance that he hadn’t discovered the goods.

“See what I told you?” he said. “You see?”

“I see a lot of drugs, Eddie. But what does it tell us about Mona? That she’s a drug addict? That would explain her zonked out disposition, but…”

“But, but, but. You sound like a fuckin’ Vespa. Maybe it’s her whole everything, bro. It could…”

Both trespassers froze at the squawk of the home walkie-talkie, which heralded Mona’s return.

“That was fast,” Eddie seethed, stuffing the blister pack into his pants.

“Shouldn’t we put that back?”

“Fuck that shit. I wanna know what this shit is. Like she’s gonna miss one sheet of it, whatever it is.”

“But…”

“But me no buts. We gotta lay low while they help her in. How we gonna get out without being noticed?”

“We can’t be in here when she comes back,” Dave said, sweating.

“Tell me something I don’t know. What’d I just say?”

Dave pressed his ear to the door and when the clangor of footfalls subsided he looked through the peephole. He turned to face Eddie and gave the thumbs up. As he opened the door a crack, Dave felt like a burglar in an old- timey silent comedy. Everyone seemed to be in the neighboring apartment-he could hear Alan calling out to Mona. Dave and Eddie stepped into the hall.

“What’re you guys doing in Mona’s place?” Karl asked. He was standing on the landing out of the fisheye peephole’s range, clutching his Bible. Eddie’s first impulse was to snatch the Good Book, give the top of Karl’s pointy head a good hard swat and growl, “The fuck is it to you, midget?” but he thought the better of it. Instead he stalked over to Karl, allowing the full impact of their disparity in height and brawn to sink in-physical intimidation was often more effective than verbal, Eddie found-then he smirked and thug-purred, “For all intensive purposes we were never here, capisce?” Karl nodded. “Bene,” Eddie said as he and his compatriot ascended the steps. “Molto bene.”

30

Alan didn’t share Ellen’s optimism, if that’s what you could call it.

If anything, Alan took some comfort from the hypothesis that he and the others were the last of their kind. The reign of man-nature’s biggest mistake-was nearly at its end. What an honor, to be cognizant of the end of your own species, to be members of The Last Generation. The dinosaurs didn’t know that their number was up. Alan didn’t mourn mankind much. It was a shame that all of humanity’s finer contributions-art, literature, music, architecture, some science-would in time completely disintegrate, but the notion that the Earth would be free of man’s influence, that the planet could heal itself and be cleansed, was heartening. Certainly more so than giving birth to another stupid, miserable, pointless human being. Still, if he wanted to stay-or more to the point get back-in Ellen’s good favor-and he did-he’d have to quash that kind of thinking.

Or at least dilute it.

He swirled his brush in some linseed oil and studied his subject. Mona sat on a stool between the front windows, one leg perched on the footrest, the other dangling limply a few inches above the floor. Though fully dressed-Alan didn’t wish to invite further scorn from Ellen-Mona was barefoot and once again Alan was attempting to not be aroused by Mona’s sumptuous calves and now, of all things, her well-turned feet. Most feet he’d encountered, male or female, were functional but unattractive collections of jutting tendons, knots and joints, often rough and calloused. Mona’s were just the opposite, their tops smooth and doll-like, almost like adult baby’s feet. How could a girl who did so much walking have such pampered-looking tootsies?

An unbidden boner sprang to life and Alan’s posture involuntarily hunched. He wore another oversize shirt to