Everything but the Squeal

“I think it means you go first,” I said.

“I'm not real fast.” She started to pull the door closed and then turned back to me. “I don't think this locks,” she said.

“I’d be surprised If it did.”

Fast she wasn't. Eight minutes later, when the knock sounded on the door, she was still inside. I went to the bathroom and rapped twice.

“Don't you dare,” she said.

“Oh, for Christ's sake. He's here. You stay inside until he's gone.”

“Okay,” she said. “But if you get into trouble, I'm coming out.”

“I can't tell you how much better that makes me feel.” I tugged at the door once to make sure it was closed, and wiped my hands on my pants. They were wetter than I would have liked them to be. I hadn't counted on Jessica being around when I talked to someone who might have kidnapped Aimee Sorrell. On the way to the front door I stopped at the desk, picked up the ball-point pen in my left hand, and put it behind me.

He rapped at the door again, more urgently this time. A husky voice whispered, “Aimee?” I positioned myself on the hinged side, counted to three, and then pulled it open very fast.

“Yow,” Wayne Warner said, stepping away. I reached out, grabbed his shoulder, and manhandled him into the room. Before he could say anything else, I slammed him around, facefirst, into the wall-he didn't weigh very much- and pushed the sharp end of the pen into his back, hard.

“Hey, ” he said. “Don't. Don't, please? I thought you wanted to talk.”

I pushed the pen a little harder into a spot just above his left kidney and wiggled it. “I'm not a surgeon,” I said, “but I think I could get that kidney out if I had to. Can you get along on one?”

“Holy Christ,” he said. “I didn't do nothing. Holy Christ, I can't stand knives.”

“You didn't do nothing,” I said. “You didn't do nothing to Aimee Sorrell?”

“I gave her a hand.”

“You gave her more than a hand, from what I've heard.”

He was twitching. He was jiggling around like a bag of tics held together by a belt, some buttons, and a zipper. I wiggled the pen around some more.

“Hey, man,” he said plaintively. “Don't do that. I'm jumpier than a flea circus. I'm a nice guy, honest I am. She was just too cute. There wasn't nothing I could do about it.”

“Wayne,” I said, “shut up. Now, put your arms above your head, palms flat against the wall. Spread your fingers, spread your legs. Not a word, now, you hear?”

He did as he was told, but his knees were shaking so badly that I wasn't sure he could remain standing. He had a breast pocket stuffed full of pens and, hanging from a loop fastened through his belt, a pocketknife and a bunch of keys. Other than that, the search told me nothing that I didn't already know except that he wore knee- length white socks, none too clean.

“Use your left hand,” I said. “Reach down slowly and unfasten the knife and give it to me.”

“No problem,” he said shakily. “No problem. Look, watch, I'm doing it. You want cooperation? You got it.”

“Good boy,” I said as I heard the ring unsnap. “Now hand it to me.”

“You got it,” he said breathlessly, extending his hand behind him. I opened the knife and tossed the ball-point to the floor.

“Turn around,” I said, “but slowly.”

He did, trying to keep his hands up on the wall behind him. I heard one of his shoulder joints pop. “Relax,” I said, waving the open knife under his nose. “No point in dislocating your shoulder.”

“Thanks,” he said, staring cross-eyed at the knife. “I do that from time to time. Hurts like a son of a bitch, too.” He lowered his arms to his side and looked penitently up at me. I felt more like his confessor than his interrogator. He couldn't have weighed more than one hundred twenty pounds and he wore a wispy white little Ho Chi Minh goatee. An aging hipster: probably went home in the morning after work, smoked a little grass, played the Modern Jazz Quartet, and leafed through back issues of the EvergreenReview, looking for the juicy parts.

“Aren't you a sorry sight,” I said.

“I used to be okay,” he said.

“I'm sure you were,” I said mercilessly. “I'm sure you used to be six-four, too.”

“Aw, come on,” he said, heartened by the fact that I hadn't killed him yet. “What kind of thing is that to say?”

“Sit on the bed,” I said.

“Sure,” he said. “I'll sit anywhere you like.” He looked around the room. “Are we alone?”

“As alone as we're going to be.” I pulled out the chair next to the desk and straddled it, facing him. I tapped for attention on the back of the chair with the knife blade. “Tell me about Aimee.”

He swallowed, and his Adam's apple did a swan dive. “Why?”

“Wayne,” I said, flourishing the knife. It was an improvement on the pen. “I can take out your kidney from the front too, you know.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “Aimee,” he said. He was all jitters. His eyes shifted left to right and his knees bounced up and down. He seemed incapable of controlling the fluttering of his hands. They flew around him like demented butterflies. First they smoothed his hair, then they laid flat the wings of his collar, then they checked his buttons, and then they brushed the cloth of his trousers.

“The hands,” I said. “Sit on them.” I'd checked his hip pockets, but his hands were making me nervous.

“Sure,” he said, following orders. “Look, I'm sitting on them.”

With his hands imprisoned, the kinetic energy in his body jolted willfully through his other systems. His shoulders twitched as though they had an agenda of their own. He crossed his legs and then uncrossed them. His feet tapped on the floor.

“You're a very jumpy man,” I said.

“Well, who wouldn't be?” he said with a pale attempt at defiance. “I get a call from some kid saying Aimee's here and then you stab me in the back, and all I was doing was having a good time.”

“Wayne,” I said. “You absolutely can't imagine what an asshole I think you are. Let's talk about your wife.”

He retreated into himself, growing physically smaller, if possible, as he did so. “No,” he said, “you win.”

“Aimee,” I prompted.

He sagged on the bed. With his hands under him he couldn't straighten himself. “She wanted it.”

“She wanted someplace to sleep.”

“Aaaah,” he said, blinking. His eyelids were as thick as a lizard's. “She knew what she was doing.”

“No, Wayne,” I said. “You taught her what she was doing. You and some other respectable citizens. You know why she came to Hollywood? To become a star, that's why.” I tested the edge of the knife against my thumb. “She really believed she could become a star. Isn't that a joke? To become a star.”

“Well,” he said, eyeing the knife, “maybe she will.”

“What?” I said. “What does that mean?”

The bathroom door creaked.

“Hey,” he said wildly. “I thought you said we were alone.”

“I said we were as alone as we were going to be.”

“Cops,” he said, standing upright. “I don't have to be afraid of cops.”

“Sit,” I said.

“We're not cops,” Jessica said.

He turned toward her and then to me. I was between him and the door, the knife in my hand. He gave her a long look, tried to make sense of it, and then gave up. “Who's she?” he said, pointing at Jessica.

“The Ghost of Christmas Past,” I said. “Are you going to sit, or not?” He sat, doing a jitterbug of conflicting emotions. He pulled at the crease in his pants and he tugged at the wispy little beard. It stayed on.

“What do you mean, Aimee will be a star?” I asked.

“She got an agent,” he said. He sat back down on the bed.

I didn't believe my ears. “An agent? What was his name?”