Scott Nicholson - Chronic fear

He’d give it a better search after he finished his job.

Unlike the front door, the bathroom door was locked for some weird reason, just the kind of harebrained shit a woman would do for a false sense of security. But it was a cheap privacy catch, and with the backbeat of Fleetwood Mac providing cover, he slipped a metal slim jim into the catch and bumped the door with his hip.

She didn’t notice him at first. She raised handfuls of bubbles above her head and let them fall. She was low in the water, submerged from the neck down. Scagnelli was relieved in a way, because he couldn’t afford to be distracted by her charisma.

“Evening, Miss Molkesky,” he said, over the vocal harmonies of Christine McVie and Stevie Nicks.

An odd expression crossed her face, a mixture of alarm and anticipation, as if she’d been expecting a special delivery of flowers instead.

Or maybe a boyfriend?

The report said she was not dating anyone, and although her on-screen activities suggested few boundaries, in her personal life Anita appeared reclusive to the point of celibacy. Scagnelli wondered how much that had to do with what happened a year ago. He wished he’d been wearing one of his sharp suits instead of this Johnny-Bob working getup. It never hurt to impress a pretty woman, even if she wasn’t your type.

“You’re late,” she said thickly.

Scagnelli glanced at the open door behind him as if she were talking to someone else.

“You work for them, don’t you?” she said.

“I work for myself.” If she screamed, someone might hear, but the music might disguise it, too

“That’s what they all say,” she said.

The CD player rested on the lid of the closed toilet, the cord snaking up beside the sink. He stepped forward and turned the music up a couple of notches, but not enough to disturb the neighbors. He was careful to use his gloved hand, although it limited his dexterity.

“Fleetwood Mac,” he said. “Crazy band. Probably sets the all-time record for different lineups.”

“Stevie Nicks drags me down,” Anita said. She was still submerged to her neck, and now her arms were beneath the water, too. The bubbles framed her pretty face, making her look angelic. The plastic surgeons had left that part alone.

“You shouldn’t put an electrical appliance so close to the bathtub,” he said. “If it fell in, you’d get electrocuted.”

That’s when he noticed the two razor blades laying flat and clean and silvery on the edge of the tub.

“And the window open this time of year,” he said. “You might catch your death of pneumonia.”

Scagnelli leaned over the toilet and slid the window closed with his gloved hand. The water sloshed, and some of it spilled onto the floor. When he turned back around, she was sitting up and there were those tits in all their charisma. Up close, they weren’t all that special.

Or maybe he was just emotionally distancing himself. In his former life, he’d seen agents get too personally involved in their work and make a mess of things. He had to remind himself he was just doing his job.

He pointed to the razor blades. “That would be real messy,” he said. “And probably hurt, too.”

“I read that if you make the bath real hot, you don’t feel a thing.”

She lifted one lovely calf from the water and wiggled her toes at him. The skin was slick and light brown, and clumps of white bubbles took a sensual rollercoaster ride down the curves.

He sat on the toilet lid and took her foot in his gloved hand, then stroked the instep with his naked hand, careful to use the backs of his fingers. The whiz kids in the forensics lab could do wonders with DNA evidence. Not that a manic-depressive porn star’s suicide would get much scrutiny.

“Can I ask you something?” he said, wondering if she was sizing him up the way she might a costar.

She stifled a giggle. That was good. She was probably halfway to an overdose already.

“What?”

“In those movies, when you’re…” He glanced away.

“When I’m what? I did a lot of things.” She sounded a little impatient now, as if he were breaking the mood.

“Like, when you’re doing it with those guys, how come you never kiss them?”

Now she did giggle, and it rolled up into a laugh, and Scagnelli felt like he had when the high school cheerleading captain shot him down for a date. Why did the pretty ones always turn out to be bitches?

Scagnelli let go of her leg and it surprised her. The limb slapped back into the water. A few drops darkened the legs of his trousers.

“Okay, if you’re going to play rough,” she said. “Here’s why you don’t kiss the guys. It’s too romantic. It’s too personal. When you fuck for money, you’re just doing a job.”

Scagnelli nodded thoughtfully. That was something he could understand. He was about to ask how come it was okay to kiss during the lesbian scenes, but she’d reminded him why he was here.

“Like I said on the phone, they couldn’t let you live, after what happened,” he said.

She nodded, her eyes moist, and she slid back down to her neckline, and Scagnelli didn’t even miss the view. “I’m tired,” she said. “I wish they’d killed us last time. That whole Monkey House thing messed with me. And that other guy, Kleingarten? Were you friends with him?”

Scagnelli had heard the rumors. Kleingarten was a free agent, too, but a low-level thug who was totally out of his league at the government level. The death certificate had him down for a heart attack, but he’d been tied up with Burchfield last year. Scagnelli wanted to make sure he himself didn’t become Burchfield’s latest heart-attack victim.

“What’s this about the Monkey House?” Scagnelli would bet a porterhouse steak she knew the half of the story that wasn’t in the dossier.

“I don’t remember,” she said. “But ever since then, I’ve been a wreck. The lithium made me get fat, and then they switched me to valpro, and-”

“They don’t understand,” Scagnelli said, adjusting his hardhat. “They always think drugs are the answer, but it’s something inside, isn’t it?”

The song ended and the next began, this one featuring a male singer and a cowbell, jarringly upbeat.

“Do you have any Halcyon?” she asked.

“Of course,” he said, noting it was the same word Alexis Morgan had used. He was edging into the other half of the truth, and maybe he could keep her talking with more than just his smile. A hooker had once told him he looked like the actor Steve Buscemi, only with better teeth. He probably could have been a movie star if he wanted. Hell, he’d been acting for years. “That’s what you were expecting, right?”

“I think they should legalize it. Imagine a world where everyone forgets.”

“Yeah, some world that would be, huh? This Monkey House. What happened there?”

She shook her head, glittering drops of water rolling from her cheeks. “All I remember is Kleingarten trying to kill us. But Lex and Roland and Mark saved us.”

“Do you remember a guy named Burchfield?” He didn’t want to spend too much time here, but he hid his impatience so she didn’t spook.

Her pretty lips pursed in distaste. “I think we did it, him and me. You know how it is, when you suddenly come around and you got somebody’s slime all over you, and you don’t know how it got there?”

Scagnelli was tired of her now. She was no longer attractive and sexy and mysterious, no longer special in any way. She was just another job, just like she’d been the job for a lot of guys and gals during her career. “Yeah, I know how it is. I don’t blame you a bit.”

“The last time, they gave us pills every four hours.” A tuft of bubbles dangled from the tip of her nose. “I want so much to forget.” She glanced at the razor blades. “Forget everything.”