Lust Demented Part 11

"That I'm always late."

"Oh you remembered that I write. Don't worry beauty is always worth waiting for."

"I respect that about you." It was the only time she said that. I wasn't sure if she was talking about the writing or the waiting.

{XLVI}.

FIGHT THE MEMORIES. A FADED crimson cage of thin iron to keep out yesterday's demons. Slide through the crack, propped open with a cement block and a jade statue of Buddha. The dim bulbs in the hallway lamps didn't seem to get enough power. Floors and walls trapped in time. The old door shut at my back killing the street.

"Chiara." I whispered to myself. Stomach in my throat, trudging up the timeworn stairs. Senses pushed beyond their peaks. Infantile whines and wails. Cantonese and Spanish resonated through the walls. The building was panting.

Each step taken was to be totally absorbed by the floor. Creaks kept to a minimum. Apt 5E was at the top of the walk-up facing the street. A pair of black leather boots were jammed in the door to keep it open. She was waiting for me.

Immediate sweat covered my forehead. The brick oven was filled with tenement ghosts that life painted over. The overhead lights were off. Large candles burnt a third down were placed haphazardly. The flames were trying to escape the wax, but the breeze cutting through the windows wasn't strong enough. A large claw foot bathtub was arm's distance from the stove and small dinner table. Terrible orange linoleum tiles with brown diamonds blighted the kitchen. There were two other small narrow rooms lined up in a rectangle. It was the type of place that would always be dirty. The apartment was missing furniture. It didn't appear to be a place that was recently lived in.

"Missy?" She sat there cross-legged and silent in the murky bedroom.

"I was going to tell you Farrow." Kiko, the imposter was waiting for me in an almost meditative stance on the bed by the window. Indestructible, Chiara bounced up and down in her lap. Keeping her body stiff, Kiko's eyes examined my pummeled face, ending on my handcuffs, shaking her head in disbelief as if her revelations came true.

"I was going to tell you Farrow."

"I heard you the first time. What is it Kiko?" I shook the cuffs to keep the quiet from conquering us all.

"Missy wasn't into being a mom. She disappeared even before Chiara was out of the NICU. You picked the wrong girl Farrow. Wish I knew you sooner."

"I don't believe it."

"You don't want to believe it, but it's true. Percy was going to put the baby up for adoption. It wasn't blood. I told him to give her to you, but he said you're too f.u.c.ked up."

"I'll find him in the afterlife."

"Hawaii threatened the old man. Saying she was going to tell you. Percy fearing for his life worked out a deal with Hawaii letting her collect Missy's royalties."

"Missy never popped up?"

"She went ghost and n.o.body's seen her since. I found all this out from Gloom, who was planning to write her next book about it."

"Capitalistic b.i.t.c.h."

"Hawaii dangled this in front of Percy's face coaxing a generous offer."

"And you?"

"I threatened to turn Hawaii in and took what I could for myself. I've been raising Chiara, so we could be a family. I wasn't sure why I wanted it so badly, until I got to know you." A wariness floated in Kiko's voice. I took a few steps closer trying to get a good look at Chiara, but all I got was the shadow of a baby and the moon outside reflecting off a large rectangular cleaver.

"A family?"

"Mr. Michael. It's true." Kuroneko's voice echoed from the closet.

"I wasn't seeing things?" Except the cleaver that wasn't there.

"I tried to make you love me. I know it's fast and love is only a word created by a poet." Kiko had to know she lost me. Some acts were unforgiveable.

"The money's in your apartment in Queens." Kuroneko burst of the closet. "You can't go home Farrow, they'll be waiting for you there."

"Why don't you f.u.c.king say something? If not to me say something to our daughter?" Kiko was in a panic. She was confused that the baby was born from inside her. She was confused how love could creep up on you quickly and slip away even faster.

"Please don't make me f.u.c.king cry."

"You can't die from crying."

"You can die from lots of things." Kiko carefully rested Chiara on the middle of the bed and stood up. Insane laughter preceded the windmill of her stick thin arms.

{XLVII}.

PURE LOVE. BLESSED WITHIN THE laws of nature for the first time I stared in my daughter's eyes. Organically they channeled Missy. The look behind them was somehow mine. The little girl showed up on the planet just in time, challenging the scribe's code I lived by. Chiara was an explosion of bliss. Time slowed. The apartment was small and there was little room to maneuver. The three of us stared at each other eyes bulging from our faces. She couldn't inflict any pain. I was immune. Stunned, Kuroneko kept her distance.

"Kiko. Thank you."

"f.u.c.k you Farrow."

"f.u.c.k me? You kept my daughter safe. Thank you."

"I did. I did it for you. The whole world is a false flag attack Farrow, but it's okay. I was listening to you before you even said a word. There's no room for guilt. I did it for you. I did."

"And I will forever appreciate that."

With the worst possible timing, Detective Anderson entered the room, deer caught in headlights. Kiko screamed trying to claw out his eyes. Kuroneko pounced on his back. All three ended up on the floor. The scuffle resembled a grindhouse pinky violence flick more than a modern day L.E.S. beatdown. In the struggle, Detective Anderson lost his baton, gun, and the keys to his handcuffs.

Carefully I stepped around them, kicking the keys my way and shoving them into my backpocket. Staying out of reach, I sat down next to Chiara who was lying on the bed without a care in the world. The sounds of the psychopaths menacing each other didn't seem to upset her. Sirens, horns, death, and destruction were all blowing in our ears, but that wasn't for her yet. She had her whole life to make sense out of that nonsense. Now was just time for her to chill her father. I wanted to hug her until the galaxy combusted, but my hands were still cuffed and behind me. I turned my back to her. I stretched out my pinkie finger. Chiara grabbed it and didn't let go.

{XLVIII}.

HEELS CLANGING ON THE FIRE escape. An outline of a woman. Two hands popped in the open window. Chiara's grip slid from my pinkie as she was s.n.a.t.c.hed out of the bed. She wasn't scared in the least bit. No wails. No tears. Her mother came to retrieve her. The little girl was waiting for the very moment. Without a doubt in her mind, she knew it would happen, and it did.

The brick towers across the street lit up the block. The Manhattan Bridge sat a little south. The Williamsburg Bridge stretched slightly north. Missy was already on the second floor, holding her heels like a pair of daggers in her hand. Chiara babbled musically, wrapped snug in a baby sling on her back. Heels dropped to the sidewalk below.

"Missy..." I called down to her, but she played diva, lowering herself to the pavement with a gymnast's grace.

It was strange seeing a species thought extinct. Even more baffling how she took her time to bend over. Slithering to pick up her heels. Missy knew the pregnancy only put more sand in her hourgla.s.s. Chiara smiled up at me, waving like a canva.s.sing presidential candidate.

Slide down the ladder and drop. Soles. .h.i.t the cement. The body follows. A seagull without wings. Knees bent. Force transfers accordingly. Missy could only be steps away. I cut across the street through the gauntlet of towering housing projects.

A sliver of the Manhattan Bridge was visible between the towers. Women's footsteps trailed behind.

"Farrow wait..." Adelora's voice hung in the gallows of the night.

"Adelora in my pocket... the keys."

"Stay still Farrow." She fumbled a little before slipping the keys in and releasing the lock. The handcuffs clanged hitting a pile of trash bags and old furniture. Even with them gone, I could still feel the reinforced steel on my wrists.

"Which way?" Adelora lost her bearings. She spoke a little loud. Missy turned her head out of the shadows, staring me down in the grainy light of the Manhattan Bridge.

"Don't say anything. All I ever hear are words." Missy spit out orders as such on occasion, but for the first time - it felt like it may be the last. There was very little that could soothe us from the moment's bleakness. She just kept running her mouth as people do when they finally lose all hope. "Well Farrow. You were warned. You said don't worry something good will happen. Don't be so serious. If we're patient we'll get some luck. You're too f.u.c.king patient. I can't believe this. How am I going to get my things out of there? Of course you don't care because you own nothing. You can go anywhere at any time and that is why I was a complete idiot to think there was ever any future in you." The officially stamped City of New York Marshall's eviction notice helped distinguish what was dead from what was alive.

"At least we don't have a kid. Nothing too serious." Frustration. Anger. I shouldn't have let it slip.

"I hate writers. I wish you all horrible deaths. Painful. Gruesome. Humbling. Deaths." Missy turned her back on me and walked off. It was the last time I would see her until this very night. No way I was going to go after her. I learned restraint a second late. Enough harm was inflicted. I waited until I heard her heels. .h.i.t the lobby steps before ripping the eviction notice off the door and taking a seat in the hallway. I flipped the page, pulled a pen from my pocket, and got started on filling the empty s.p.a.ce.

Missy stopped underneath the Cherry Street tunnel that sliced a path below the Manhattan Bridge. She was waiting for me. I had to know what she would say after all this time. I needed to hold Chiara and help her understand that she would always be safe. I couldn't wait any longer for the words she withheld. The closer I got to Missy, the more she looked and felt the same, as time had never changed. I didn't even realize what I was doing... when I went into lock lips.

Missy's wetness made perfect sense, but the blade of the scissors opening my neck was a bizarre sensation - A flash of desolation. The blade entered my skin. Smooth red velvet. I could taste my tongue frosting over. Pupils filled with snow. I couldn't believe she did it. So this is how it felt. Shock shook me inside out. Cold cold world.

The world went blurry. I was on the ground looking up.

"Writer... Lava will turn us all into stone." The words left her mouth like a phantom baby's first words. It was the only thing Missy said to me in over a year.

Detective Anderson took aim. He was oblivious to the fact that Chiara was strapped to Missy's back. I wasn't convinced that I was still alive, but somehow I stood up again. Flap of skin dangling from my sliced neck. Blood emptying on the street like an open hydrant. Detective Anderson fired and I lurched into the bullet with my hand up like I was hailing a cab.

Empty streets. Two feet of snow under the streetlamps. Missy finally kissed me on the steps of her building. Covered head to toe in warmth. The front door slipped from her hands. I wasn't sure where she was leading me. Either way I had no choice, but to go.

The blizzard hijacked the city. Buses stuck, wheels spinning in the middle of the street. Subways frozen underground indefinitely delayed.

"What do you say when you meet someone that changes the entire course of your life?"

{XLIX}.

DEAD AIR BELOW THE BYGONE bridge, I was street level staring at the tires of the parked cars. Missy and Chiara were nowhere to be found. The gouged tunnel exposed her blue steel underbelly filling with carnival echoes. Distorted voices multiplied. The decipherable few were all too familiar.

"It's a hundred-degree day and you're s.h.i.+vering."

"Does that hole in your throat make you cold Farrow?"

"I got some gashes in the past, but that beauty is unreal."

"It's time to give her up Farrow."

"Don't nod. Don't say a word."

"We inked your statement already." Sgt. Bethany Powers chewed on her words. She seemed to be missing a couple of teeth from the car accident.

"All you need to do is sign Farrow." Detective Anderson had a bandage around his head like a bandana. He placed the pen in my hand. It rolled out of my grasp onto the sidewalk.

"Missy... Missy... are you there?" At first, I could only hear my own voice.

"...Aksa jo zwyiecslizon..." I couldn't make out what she was saying through the static.

"Missy..." I squinted down at her photo on the lcd cellphone screen.

"...faskl asdfil diljasfzi..." She was so close to being there: But just wasn't.

Sgt. Powers' hands around my throat brought me out of the shock. My blood was all over her green leather gloves. Her fingers dug into the wound, pressing the loose flaps of skin together. "I can't give you any more of my time. I got s.p.a.cecases, nihilists, and the working man trying to do each other in so they can all wake up and shop another day away." She was talking crazy. I grabbed at her neck forgetting my left hand was half missing after Detective Anderson blew a hole in it. Unleas.h.i.+ng a cruel chop, the redhead smacked my stump away, quickly pinning it down with a black boot heel. Agony surged through me. I grabbed at Sgt. Powers with my right hand, but only got a pointy t.i.t. I squeezed as you would squeeze one of those stress b.a.l.l.s. I could feel her nipple harden below her blouse. It relaxed me until she jammed an open hand into my teeth. My head jerk backed. The wound on my neck spread.

Pop! Detective Anderson cracked Sgt. Powers in the back of the head with his nightstick. The blow was so hard her face went blank a few seconds. Detective Anderson seemed to be still deciding if he should hit her again as she came to. Dazed, Sgt. Powers tried to hand Detective Anderson the pen, but he wouldn't take it. Instead he motioned for her to give it to me personally. She pressed the tip of the pen in the center of my right palm until I was able to handle it. Detective Anderson pulled the statement out of his pocket and held it steady for me. The world was fading in and out. Breaths were hard to come by. Wheezes came easy.

"Don't nod. Don't say a word. Write it Farrow. Write it."

{L}.