Читать книгу Murder Boy - Bryon Quertermous - Страница 6

I WOKE up the next morning still wet, but not in the hot tub. It took several minutes for my brain to reactivate from whatever shut it down and acclimate to its current surroundings. I soon realized I wasn’t back at my place and that the wet feeling probably had something to do with the guy standing over me with a spray bottle.

“I use it on the cats,” the man said. “They’re pretty dumb but this still gets them off the couch. But you…”

There was something about the voice I recognized, but I couldn’t quite place it. I tried to latch onto what I last remembered. The party, the home improvement store, oh yeah, the hot tub. There was a girl. Shit. This was probably her boyfriend. Wait. The girl was from my class. Oh shit. Her boyfriend was—

“Professor,” I said. “What are you doing here? I mean, wait, this isn’t your house is it?”

“There’s coffee in the kitchen. Your clothes are on the floor here next to you. They smell like vomit but I don’t think the washer here works.”

I sat up and felt around for my clothes, trying to figure out how to play this. But my head was barely ready to process standard movement and anti-vomit commands, let alone create complex scene reconstructions from the night before and place them in a context in which I’d be comfortable making my next move.

In fact, my brain only seemed to be able to focus on one task at a time and when pulling on my shirt and pants became the prime focus, the anti-vomit walls went down. I threw up all over the inside of my shirt, and while trying to remove the vomit shirt, the rest of my body gave up its fight against gravity and collapsed in a pile between Posey and Farmington. Posey squatted next to me and helped me squirm out of my vomit shirt.

“I was telling Parker about our conversation last night,” she said.

Oh?

“Oh?”

That didn’t have to mean anything. Posey and Farmington probably talked about a lot of things. They shared many of the same interests and some common acquaintances.

“I was telling him about your plan,” she continued.

Oh. Shit.

“Really?” I asked. “Why would you do that?”

“It certainly impacts him, don’t you think?”

“Uh…”

There was no way to know what Posey already told Farmington. In the sober light of day it was easier to believe Posey could be setting me up than it was that she was my new muse or possible wealthy patron. So maybe I should just say as little as possible and wait and see what happened. Yeah, that seemed like a good plan. And it worked until I got to the kitchen, looking for something starchy to help me regain my inner balance, and heard Posey talking.

“Go ahead and explain it to him. Maybe he has some ideas for better execution.”

That definitely sounded like she was setting him up, but all he could do was stumble along the conversational mine field until he figured out an escape route or blew himself up.

“I was drunk,” I said. “You say things when you’re drunk that—”

“You peed off most of your buzz by the time we ended up in bed. It was a good plan. Tell him.”

My head was starting to spin now. Confusion and panic were adding to my hangover and paranoia.

“What? Bed? Did we—”

“No. We watched TV and I kicked you to the couch when you kept snoring. Now tell him the plan.”

“That’s really not a good idea.”

“See, I told you,” Farmington said. “He’s all talk and bravado in workshop but when given a legitimate chance to do something with his work, he crumbles into a—”

“You really want to hear this?” I asked. “I don’t get it. What are you trying to do to me?”

“To you? I want to do this for you,” Posey said.

I took the insulated Disney princess mug of coffee Posey offered me and sat down at the kitchen table. The kitchen was the oldest part of an old house occupied mostly by students without the skill or desire to provide proper upkeep. The chair wobbled when I sat down and it was enough of a jolt to make me wonder if, instead of hung over, I was still drunk.

“Let’s say we do this,” I said. “How do you suggest we start?”

What was I even saying? Why would Farmington be part of his own kidnapping? They had to have an angle and damned if I couldn’t figure out what it was. I needed to get out of there and get my head clear and see if I could shake anything helpful loose on my own turf.

“I have to go to work,” Farmington finally said. “Maybe you two can—”

“Tell him about the first story,” Posey said. “The one you told me last night. You know, Murder Boy.”

“Story?”

“For the collection. You know. For your thesis.”

“Ohhhhhhh. My thesis. I thought you were talking about the other thing.”

The dominos were beginning to fall and I could feel clouds lifting from my head as the file drawers in my brain that had been knocked loose slid back into place. We were talking about writing, not kidnapping. Apparently at some point during the evening I had confessed to Posey my secret passion of wanting to do a short story collection instead of a novel for my thesis project along with my plans for a boozily plotted kidnapping scheme. Wait, had I just ruined the plan before I even knew what it was?

“What other thing?” Farmington asked.

“Nothing,” Posey said. “Like he said, he was drunk.”

“Yes, Drunk,” I said. “Drunk…”

“If we’re going to work together,” Farmington said to me. “You’re going to have to increase your verbal skills.”

“Oh. Yeah. Sure. Wait. Really? You want to work with me on this.”

“Make that your verbal and your listening skills.”

Farmington kissed Posey on his way out of the house and I sighed deeply and then Posey smacked the back of my head.

“What the fuck?” She said.

My head grazed the coffee cup in front of her, sending it rolling off the table and crashing to the floor, which added an extra layer of ringing in my head.

“You could have blown everything.”

“I wake up and the first thing I see is him standing over me with a water bottle?” I said. “Excuse me for being a bit off.”

“I was trying to help you and you almost got both of us—”

“Why are you helping me?”

“Do we really need to go through this again?”

“Again?”

“Last night. We had a long discussion about your goals and dreams. You cried a lot and threw up a bit. That’s when you told me about the story collection and how you hate writing books with plots and want to write little stories of character.”

“That sounds like something I would say...”

“And it sounds great. Great for you, because it’s just the sort of thing Parker likes and good for him because, between you and me, his career’s kind of in neutral and he could use an exciting book like this to generate some buzz for both of you.”

“So you’re out to help him, not me?”

“I’ve got to get to class, but—”

“Class isn’t in session is it? I thought we were done with classes. I hope I haven’t—”

“It’s one of those two week mini semesters. Part of it meets here and then part of it meets up at a ski lodge in Traverse City. Parker’s coming with me, so you two should get as much done as you can in the next day or so to set the foundation. Come back over here around five and I’ll make dinner for all of us and some wine and you two can work while I pack.”

They both then left me alone on the couch to deal with what had just happened. I was happy, until I started thinking more about it. Thinking has always been a weak point of mine. While my own hyper-self-awareness gave me my strength as a writer, it was a double-edged sword that routinely led to paralyzing panic. In this case it led to more vomiting. And then a shower.

I WAS at a table in the university library writing when Parker Farmington found me. Rather, I was doing what passed for writing in my special world. After typing a few words in the open document on my computer, I switched over to Twitter and tried to build my brand. It was a nice place for a socially backward guy who was good with words to build connections in the crime fiction community without creeping anyone out. I managed to ride the line between clever and offensive for a while before typing something stupid and deleting it. Then I typed a few more words before Googling recent book deals. I was always hoping to see a rash of books sort of like the one I was working on but not too similar so I wouldn’t be accused of piggybacking. I padded my total word count for the day with an inane dialogue sequence I was sure would later be deleted and was about to shut down my laptop when Farmington sat down across from me.

“The only reason I agreed to your inane little plan,” Farmington said, “is because I need Posey to keep her mouth shut about our relationship.”

“Because sleeping with your teaching assistant is creepy and against the rules even if you’re the same age?”

I thought about that for a second after I said it. We were all the same age, but Posey and I were stuck in neutral and stuck in Detroit while Parker was a prodigy just passing through.

“Because I’ve got something going that I don’t want stymied. She needs to think you and I are really working on this new project of yours.”

“Even though we won’t be.”

“But if you tell her we are and act like we are, I’ll try to get you an extension and maybe we’ll get your thesis signed and get you out of here next year.”

“If you would have signed my thesis form the first time around, I wouldn’t—”

“If I signed off on that literary swill we’d both be ruined.”

“What am I supposed to do for a whole goddam year? I have a fellowship in New York with money and a teaching job now.”

“Shhhhh. We’re in a library. I can maybe get you something in the writing center to hold you.”

“Maybe? Maybe? No maybe. Sign my fucking thesis or I’ll go to the Dean about you and Posey.”

“I’m a man of letters, a man of taste, a man of education,” Farmington said in a pompous voice as though he were addressing a jury. “How many times have you been on academic probation again?”

I knew he was right. While I’d been able to overcome the bulk of my personality issues that resulted in my spectacular flameout from a top-tier writing program, I still wasn’t a very good student and spent more time writing and reading what I wanted instead of what was assigned. But even if I couldn’t tell the Dean about Farmington’s relationship and get him fired, there was one other person I could tell. While complaining about how badly she wanted to have sex in Parker Farmington’s house and comforting me on my plummeting career prospects, Posey Wade also talked about her psychotic bounty hunter brother and how much he hated the men she was involved with.

If I could get Posey’s brother in the same room with Farmington, maybe we could strong arm Farmington into signing the thesis approval form.

“You’re smiling,” Farmington said. “It’s kind of creepy. Are you on board?”

“Yeah. Yes. Yes. I’m on board.”