May 15, 2017The angles were angry and the sycophant inside, was like the mark, hard to beat. The chief’s baritone drone was incessant and the dame behind the typer who answered the calls, was giggly no more now simply glaring. My veins were like cracks on an old marble statue, but they lay aching under a three-piece suit–moaning for another taste, another stab in the arm.
Reflections in sudden staccato echoed as I honed in on a fly on the wall. The clanking of new shoes approached and I turned in my desk before the knock began. “Yeah, whadya want?”
“It’s me, Thorn.”
Christ, this bastard won’t let up, “Come on in,” I clamored reaching for a smoke and patting at my chest for the lighter.
“Listen, Vinum, she’s at it again, I can feel it in my bones,” he said as he sat in the chair across me.
“Thorn, if it wasn’t for your paranoia, I wouldn’t be able to pay my bills. What do you think she’s done now?”
“For crying out loud, man, don’t I pay you enough? A little respect wouldn’t kill ya.”
“All right, all right, Thorn…it’s been a tough week. Let’s not get excited. What do you got?”
“It’s always good to see you, V.”
“Well, you kind of pay me to see you. Not like I have a choice.”
“And that, right there, is why I can trust you. You don’t sugar shit with me, I like that.”
“All right, off your knees. Talk to me…what is going on now?”
“She’s gotta be giving it to someone I thought, me thinking this a few weeks ago, so I relax, right. I mean, I let off with the questions and the hounding. I told her I was gonna go away for a week or two and of course, the broad pretended to not be the slightest excited. Goddamn tramp.”
“Yeah, so she doesn’t like you. No crime in that.”
“Well, no, but I hired a great actress to tail her. I did right this time. I hired an actress and rented the joint a few houses down from mine. She’s the actress who was real big on the papers about a year ago. She did a great job in that Shakespeare play about three witches or whatever. The broad’s got real talent.”
“Sorry, not big on plays,” taking a deep drag of filterless and trying to ignore the cold sweats coming on.
“Anyway,” he said shoving a cigar in that big, red greasy melon he calls a head and started puffing away. “She dressed up like an old bag and laid on this Russian accent and all and walked by in the morning and bumped in to her.”
“And?”
“Well, they ended up having coffee and exchanging stories, almost doing each others nails for christ’s sake.”
“Yeah, yeah?”
“So they get to talking, you know, like broads do. And my wife tells her she’s real sick of her marriage and what not. Bridget, that’s the actress, slips her some truth serum juice in her coffee. They end up having drink, and before you know it, my old lady is spilling the beans all over the floor.”
“Get to the point, will you,” I said throwing my feet on the desk and looking up at the ceiling following that damn fly.
“Yeah, well, here’s where it gets reeeal interesting…my wife claims that she’s always been faithful and never once cheated on me but had been tempted to for years.”
“So?”
“The beauty is, I don’t gotta pay Bridget no more.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because she ran way with my wife.”
“Geez, man, I’d say I’m sorry to hear it but… why the hell you so happy about it?”
“Because I inadvertently caused her to cheat on me.”
“Like some old pulp story with a twist, eh?”
“Exactly, V.! Except, this time I win, because I realized afterwards, that she was the problem of my insecurities. I didn’t trust her even though I wanted to. I just couldn’t.”
“How about that.”
“So much for being cliche characters in a pulp story, eh?”
“Yeah, so much for…hey, did you hear that?”
“The tapping?”
“It’s gotta be the secretary at the typer. She’s always picking at that thing like some god damned chicken.”
“The gal left as soon as I came in.”
∞
