“You fell off the Columbus monument.” She steadied herself in brown boots with matching big brown eyes kept growing until she swallowed me with her smile.
“From the top?”
“No from the bottom, but you didn’t land right.”
“Everybody died.”
“Nobody died.”
“Not even me?”
“No. Not yet.”
“…hmmm…” My mind was always deserting me. I was always falling. It couldn’t be healthy, but I wasn’t the only one. People were dropping all over. Their markets were crashing. Their parachutes weren’t opening. They were listening to mp3s instead of the cab blowing the red light. They were reading the pill bottles upside down and forgetting how to wake up. They were telling the guy jabbing their spine with the pistol to “Fuck off.” Giving up minutes before the grim reaper realized she couldn’t hold it in any longer and had to piss on everything in sight.
“Are you Michele Giacomo Aurelio Faro?” A smooth diversion. It sounded too official. A funny way for a girl with such heaving boobs to talk. She pronounced the Italian name with a Medellin accent, but it felt nice to have another identity. So close, yet so far from my penname.
“Yeah by birth, but I go by Mikey or Farrow, that’s what most people seem to call me.”
“I’ve been seeking you out. I’m Adelora Rosario, Mr. Wildman’s lawyer and the executor of his estate. Mr. Wildman wanted me to contact you immediately.” Adelora stayed a whispers distance from me. I suspected the good news only lingered to soften me up for the creeping horrors.
“You’re a lawyer?”
“Yes. I’m here as a provision of his will. Lars inherited Featherton publishing from his father and in turn left it to you. He told me that he could forsee his own demise.”
“Ahh… yes… demise.” I gargled, spitting up the East River. Veins overflowed ink. Ears whirled in an empirical pool of psychosis. Heart gushed ocular. The city emptied, snorting the entire stash of sewer steam until it was frozen wasteland falling back into its own echo.
{XXIX}
A DRAPE OF SILENCE DESCENDED upon us. There was more she wanted to divulge. Adelora stopped traffic leading me across Central Park South into the lobby of a time portal to a classier era.
“Miss Rosario you have a package.” The porter couldn’t help, but be pleased to see her.
“Oh I do Diego?”
Adelora balanced the package between her melons, jabbing at the translucent circle until the elevator light lit up. She seemed to be going through a to-do list in her mind.
“There used to be an elevator guy, but the building’s cutting back lately. Touch economic waters we’re wading through.” Adelora mumbled dressed in a hodge-podge of Dior, D&G, and Yamamoto.
“I wade through them regardless. Once you get used to it.”
“Don’t get too used to it. Already slipped your mind what you inherited?”
“A punji pit of paperwork. I don’t forsee myself sitting in the boardroom anytime soon.”
“With that attitude it’s hard to believe you didn’t experience success much sooner.” Adelora rolled her eyes at me as the elevator opened to an empty hallway. Once again balancing the package in her bosom, she fished a magnetic card key out of her purse, and unlocked the door. The apartment door opened to a breathtaking southern view of Central Park and a minimalist modern décor.
“Now that’s something to wake up to.” I stared in her big brown eyes forgetting the park.
“You should see it at night. This is my favorite direction to look at the park from. It makes you feel like you own the entire city.” Adelora motioned to a painting on the wall. “Lars also left me something priceless that Percy Featherton once owned.” The painting was of a woman dressed only in a white blouse sitting on the floor. You had a better view of the hair on her pussy than her face. She was leaning against a bed that was blocking an unlit fireplace. A rectangle of light was on the floor. She apparently chose not to sit in the light, although a few of her toes seemed to sneak into it.
“It’s called Summer Inferior by Ed Hopper. Something about the woman’s isolation makes me uneasy.”
“Yeah. I usually have that effect on women. As soon as I leave she’ll feel better.”
“But I’ll miss you.” Adelora stretched and crinkled her toes, letting down her hair.
“Lars was one of the few that understood me. It really fucks me up that he’s gone.”
“I feel the same way. Despite his primitive womanizing, crazy artist bullshit, and the fact he was only a tad bit older than me… Lars played a fatherly role in my life. Strange thing is I don’t even have anything from my own father after he passed. My uncle tells me that he was so proud that I was going to be a lawyer until he realized that I was practicing corporate law. Supposedly, he always introduced himself to everyone as a communist. Second thing I heard he did was show off his Patek Phillipe watch. One of the richest communists you’ll ever meet. Your best friend and I had similar feelings about our fathers, except my mother never allowed me to meet mine.”
A buzz at the door. Diego seems stressed. Something’s wrong.
“Excuse me Ms. Rosario. The police are waiting downstairs for your friend.”
“Farrow. Be a good father.” Teflon for the gunfight. Adelora pulled me close, laying a deep kiss on me, before sending me down with Diego.
“I hate that look on you face like a dog searching for food.”
“It’s all in your imagination.”
“Am I in your imagination? Is our baby growing inside just a dream?”
“The girl in the elevator.”
“The girl in the elevator?”
The elevator had a strong chemical smell. I felt a panic coming on, wondering what would happen if the elevator got stuck between floors and how long it would take before the toxic fumes dropped us on the floor.
“I saw you on the news.”
“Did I look guilty?”
“Yes. To me you look very guilty. What does it feel like to kill someone?”
“I don’t know who you are anymore.” Missy seemed to really believe in the words.
The elevator opened to Sgt. Bethany Powers putting on a last touch of lipstick. Twisting the cap closed, she retrieved a plastic bag clenched between her legs.
“We found Missy.”
“I’ve heard you say that before.”
“Don’t miss your last chance to look her in the eyes and say goodbye.”
“I’m not going this time. Let me have my book back.”
“Which one…” My book dangled in the evidence bag like a squid she just reeled up from a pier.
“The one you stole from my apartment. The one in your hands.” I grabbed my book in the evidence bag allowing Sgt. Bethany Powers to use it as a leash to steer me outside.
“Hop on Farrow. We’re burning daylight.” Detective Anderson posed ten feet above the ground sitting on solid brown muscle. The giant cop waved his pistol, saving every bullet. The police horse neighed raising his snout at me, both nostrils flaring.
{XXX}
HOOVES ON COBBLESTONES OR MAYBE just cracked cement and torn road. Bucking up a cruel storm, Detective Anderson and his trusty steer locked in on the 6th Avenue entrance leading into Central Park. I was just a tick on their back. A tick they didn’t care to tear off until it was goddamn certain the fangs wouldn’t stay in their skin.
“Sometimes I’m convinced that it was you, Farrow.”