Megan Abbott - Mississippi Noir

Sometime later, most of the hot dogs gone and nothing to show for them, I joked that it was too bad we didn’t have the organ with us. That if we planned to stick around out here, we could’ve changed our strategy some. Maybe have given his lung a go.

Yoknapatawpha County

An open box of doughnuts on the coffee table. Little bullets lined up in a pretty little row. The girl working on the chamber of a revolver with a little tool like a Q-tip expressly designed for the purpose. Her yellow hair hanging in her eyes.

Girl with a half-fastened holster, like a male gangster in a movie.

Girl in a sleeveless corrugated T, low-scooped neck, like a male gangster in a movie.

Girl in striped boxers, like a male gangster in a movie.

She looked up.

Humphries jerked back his head, away from the dirty window into which he had accidentally peeped.

What was he supposed to do now? Something?

She opened the door.

“Hi,” said Humphries. “I’m looking for a cat.” His eyes went to the empty holster. “Are you a policeman?” he blurted.

“What gave me away, the doughnuts?”

“What doughnuts?”

She laughed like a sexy crow. The way she talked was also like a sexy crow, one of those crows that can talk. But sexy. Her teeth were so white they were almost blue. They looked like happy ghosts. She said, “Have you ever seen the movie Hardly Working?”

“I don’t think so. What’s it about?”

“Jerry Lewis is on a job interview at the post office. He’s really hungry. He hasn’t eaten for days. So while the guy’s trying to interview him, all he can see is this box of doughnuts on the desk. He’s not listening at all. The guy finally asks him, Do you want a doughnut? And Jerry goes, Where ARE DEY? Just like that. Where ARE DEY?” She laughed some more.

Humphries made himself laugh. He was nervous because where was the gun? In the dewy small of her back, tucked in the waistband of her boxers? He had seen something like that in a movie.

“I’m not a cop,” said the woman.

“My wife’s cat is missing,” said Humphries. “He’s orange? Sometimes I see a black cat on this porch, sitting on this thing.” He pointed to the rusted glider, its filthy vinyl cushions illustrated — defiled — with big blotchy flowers. “I don’t know, I felt my wife’s cat might have sought out the company of another cat? He’s not used to being outside and she’s very worried, understandably. We recently moved here to Mississippi from Vermont, which is generally considered a more civilized state, no offense, and my wife is understandably concerned that there might be some barefoot children who have reverted to some kind of savagery and walk around trying to shoot little cats with a bow and arrow.”

“I’m from Chicago, dude. I don’t give a shit. Want to know what I would have told you if you hadn’t seen the gun? My cover story is that I’m looking for a place to live out in the sticks because I want to have a baby. I’m thirty-nine. If I wait any longer, there’s some danger involved for the baby. I mean, there’s a pretty good chance of something going wrong chromosomally, am I right? Where am I going to bring up the baby I want to have? Chicago? All the neighborhoods are getting too expensive, even the bad neighborhoods. There was a torso on a mattress. Where we lived. In the alley below our apartment. They found a headless torso on a mattress. And the place was still too expensive for us. Is that where I’m going to raise a kid? Like, Look out the window, there’s a torso on a mattress. Like, Mommy, what’s a torso? And we can’t even afford that . Like, Sorry, lady, the torso on the mattress is extra. Jocko had some prospects down here — my cover-story husband who doesn’t actually exist, that’s Jocko — so here we are, anyway. He wants to do voice-overs. He wants to be a voice-over guy, my made-up husband does. He can do that from anywhere. He just needs a good microphone and a special phone line.”

Humphries couldn’t believe she was thirty-nine. She looked like a girl, like a college kid or something. Like an inspirational young teacher fresh from the academy with a lot of exciting notions about how to change the world. She had a gun.

“Come on in,” she said.

“I really need to keep looking.”

“Could be I have some information about your cat. Sorry. Your wife’s cat.” She said it like she didn’t believe he had a wife.

“Really?”

She shrugged.

Humphries was scared but titillated. He followed her inside.

The place was dank. It smelled the way other people’s places always do: like the long-unwashed pillowcase of a much-sought-after courtesan — sour milk and violets.

“What’ll it be?”

“Ovaltine?” said Humphries.

She turned from him without humor and headed for the kitchen, scratching her ass in an elegant way.

Humphries sat on the couch where he had seen her sitting. The bullets and pistol were magically gone. The doughnuts remained. There were two flies walking on the doughnuts. He thought the seat cushion felt warm from her, or maybe everything was warm.

Who was she? Why did she need a cover story? Obviously she knew nothing about Mr. Mugglewump. Chicago was where hit men came from. Something awful was going to happen and Humphries would never be seen again. Part of him thought that would be okay.

She came back with a couple of Rolling Rocks and handed one to Humphries. It was fairly warm, like everything else.

She sat catty-corner to Humphries, on an armchair that looked to be upholstered in some sort of immensely uncomfortable material, like tweed. It would make little red marks on the backs of her bare legs, he thought. Fascinating crosshatched patterns.

“This place is a hole,” she said, then twisted the switch on a shabby lamp. It seemed to have a brown bulb. At least it leaked a brownish light that made things darker.

“Please, officer, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know,” joked Humphries. He shielded his eyes as if from the bare bulb of a searing interrogation.

She didn’t get it.

When Humphries and his wife were trying to find a place, they had attended an open house for which the realtor had decorated the gates with brown balloons in welcome. Brown balloons! It was an odd choice. It was odd that expensive factory machinery would be put into place to manufacture brown balloons.

“Stay right there,” she said. “If you ever want to see Fluffy again, ha ha.” She got up and went back to the kitchen. For cigarettes, Humphries assumed somehow. His hands were sweating. There were sexual feelings mingled with terror. He got up and ran out the door, knocking over a small table, clattering.

He ran down the street. He hadn’t run anywhere since boyhood.

Thank goodness Mr. Mugglewump came home that night.

“Where have you been?” Humphries cooed over him, as did his wife, Mrs. Josie Humphries.

The cat couldn’t tell where he had been. Neither could Humphries.

Now I have a terrible secret, he thought.

He lay in bed next to Josie and had private visions of torment.

It was a small neighborhood. He would run into the mysterious siren. Maybe Josie, who loved a pleasant stroll, would be on his arm when the confrontation occurred! All scenarios were distasteful.

He couldn’t sleep.

Humphries read the New York Times on the Internet every day like a big shot. He disdained the local rag. It was a way to get back at his wife, who had moved to this Podunk burg for a job. Humphries was a landscape painter, so he could live anywhere. That’s what Josie said. But what was he supposed to paint around here? A ditch? He stood on the back porch every day and painted pictures of turds for spite. Josie said they were good.