Risky Business

Cobwebs gathered in the farthest reaches of her mind. It's our job to exterminate them. Our only job. Do you not realize how detrimental—do you not realize how we could lose everything? They'll kill us, you know. But they won't just kill us. No. They'll cut us into tiny pieces and feed us to the pigs. They will. Get that through your head.

Sally Thompson was a tough man. Perhaps it was because he'd been given a feminine name. Not by choice. He was only a baby when his parents had named him. Sally liked babies. Thought they were cute. Thought they were the only truly innocent creatures on this planet.

On this Buddha-damned planet.

Sally was spiritual.

He believed in attaining zen by resetting the balance of the Earth.

The Earth was surely out of balance.

Everyone knew that.

You could feel it. You could feel it in your throat and your gut and your heart and the tingling sensation you get in the back of your head when you see people breaking the patterns. Breaking the patterns. Breaking the patterns.

Like that Buddha-damned man from last month.

He'd gone off-script.

Sally hated when people went off-script.

Sally appreciated a well-made film. The classics turned him on. Turned him on to the fact that life could be lived well. Could be lived to a perfect standard.

When people broke their standards, they felt crushed.

Sally knew it was his job to make sure they didn't just feel crushed. They needed to be crushed. People weren't honest with themselves. Sally was.

Sally was honest with himself.

And Sally was honest with people.

That Buddha-damned man—George Forsyth. That wimp and weasel of a man. That man who'd sold them out for peanuts. For lug nuts. The man was nuts.

And so Sally had taken the man by the head. Sally wrapped his big hands around the man's head. And Sally cracked that man's head as if it were a walnut.

Sally licked his lips, tasting the kill, savoring it, even now, as he recalled it.

The steak arrived before him then. The waiter had set it down softly, which Sally appreciated. Blood soaked out from beneath the piece of flesh, stark against the white polished plate.

Extra-not-well-done is how Sally had ordered it.

A little joke he liked to make.

It always made the waiters laugh, if they were smart.

Some waiters were buffoons wrapped in human flesh.

Either way, Sally laughed at his own joke. Sally loved his laugh. His mother told him it was his greatest feature. It was deep and loud and uproarious. Sometimes Sally laughed at his laugh.

"Gross," said his companion, indicating the bloody steak.

Sally only looked at the much smaller man, Rodriguez.

Rodriguez wasn't actually a small man. He was only small compared to Sally, who everyone mistook for a WWE wrestler. Sally was six foot five, two-hundred seventy pounds.

Mostly muscle.

Carnivore diet.

Dense muscle.

Rodriguez was six feet with a broad frame.

He worked out.

Sally appreciated that.

Sally also appreciated a forkful of meat and blood. He placed the bite of steak into his mouth and allowed the flavors to populate in his mind. Euphoria threatened to grip him. Which would ruin his mission. So he held it at bay. He'd allow himself to reach Euphoria later.

If they let him kill the girl.

If they let him kill the girl, he wouldn't know what to do with himself.

He hoped to Buddha-God-Blessed-Father-World-Peace that he would, in fact, be able to kill the girl. As he took a second bite of meat, he allowed himself to imagine the killing.

He wondered how he'd do it.

Would he dismember her first?

Would he use a knife?

Perhaps he would use his bare hands again.

A tingle started in the back of his neck.

He rolled his neck from side to side, telling himself to calm down. He needed to remain calm. But he was struggling. So he turned to Rodriguez and said, "Remain vigilant."

The girl would arrive at the hotel any moment.

Sally rose up from the table and walked down the aisles, passing so many average, ordinary, pathetic people that it made his heart sick, which helped with the tingle running up and down his spine.

Sally pushed through the bathroom door into a common bathroom. An old man stood at the line of marble-topped sinks.

Sally began beating his own chest, hard. Pounding it. Trying to calm down. Sally was a gorilla. And he loved that he was a gorilla. He was a gorilla of a man. And he pounded his chest, threatening to break the bones within his chest. Part of him longed for the bones to break.

But they were too strong.

The old man in the mirror, terrified, left the bathroom with quickness, with quickness, with quickness.

When the door closed, Sally began barking and growling.

That was when he knew he needed to punch something.

So he moved to the teal-green stalls and punched through the locked one. And he found a mid-forties man on the toilet. Before the man could react, Sally punched the man in the nose, knocking him unconscious. The man's pants were down. Sally didn't care, barely noticed.

The teal-green framework on the stalls upset Sally.

Reminded him of his time in the military.

Sally hated his time in the military.

Lifting his capture into the air, overhead pressing him, Sally began dancing in circles. Sally liked dancing. The military hated dancing. Rather, they hated when Sally danced.

But Sally loved dancing.

He hummed an old song as he spun around, holding the man high over his head. This bathroom was so fancy. And smelled so good. Sally was feeling much better. The Gregory Paige Tower was a good hotel, he decided. He hadn't been so sure just a few minutes prior.

If you don't capture the girl, Guardo had said. This whole operation is over. Dunzo. Big guy, look at me. It's over.

"I'll get her," said Sally. "And I'll crush her."

"After we question her."

"Yes, after we question her."

Sally had smiled.

*****

Anthony's car turned into the parking lot of the fancy hotel. Gold accents wrapped the glass-plated building, demarcating the floors upon floors stacked on one another.

I'd never been inside.

Couldn't afford it.

"I guess this is it," said Anthony. "You ever seen a really old movie: Risky Business?"

"With Tom Cruise?" I said.

He nodded.

"I love that movie," I said.

"Same."

"Why did you ask that?"

He shrugged.

I put my hand on the door handle, preparing to leave, but I couldn't think of anything to say. The man was frustrating, in that he was so handsome but also so vague. I didn't understand his motives or intentions. I wasn't even sure what I wanted.

I felt like this was a critical moment.

Think, Audrey. Think you stupid schoolgirl-creepazoid. Think as if your life depends on it.

Finally, I said, "Have you ever listened to a really old band, Blink 182?"

Anthony nodded. "What does that have to do with Risky Business?"

"What does Risky Business have to do with anything?" I shot back.

Anthony shrugged, and it made me mad.

"Good luck, kiddo," he finally said.

Which made me really mad.

Kiddo. Did I look like a kid to him?

He couldn't have been a day over thirty.

I was a grown woman for priest's sake.

So I said—

"You're a—" But I got stuck. I took a breath. "I'll see you in my dreams," I said. And without waiting a moment longer, I shoved the door open and walked away. Hoping he didn't call after me or follow up on my line.

I held myself as I walked under the covered-entrance, cringing at myself.

I'll see you in my dreams.

I didn't hear the Audi roll away nor did I dare look back.

However, as I neared the revolving glass door, I felt strongly in my psychic senses that I was about to walk into something very, very bad. Bad, bad, very.

I ignored the thought, chalked it up to my consistent take-out Chinese food diet, and entered the Gregory Paige Tower.