David Nickle - Monstrous Affections

“Fuck you,” said Trudy as they pulled out of the parking lot, and at that, Mitchell felt himself smile. He would get the laptop back. Of course he would.

The Explorer pulled right onto Starling with only a little room to spare before it joined the early evening traffic and subsumed itself to its pattern: drive a bit and stop awhile. Watch the light from red to green, red to flashing green, red to red while the other side got flashing green. Wait and go. Go and wait. Mitchell was feeling better and better. The laptop would be his again. It was part of the pattern.

“So they treat you okay?” said Trudy.

“Why wouldn’t they?” said Stefan.

“Cops are fucking fascists. They get a kid like Mitch here and they’ll just be pricks to him.”

“They got your laptop,” said Stefan. “You have anything on the hard drive?”

Mitchell didn’t know what he meant and said so. Stefan and Trudy shared a glance, and Trudy pulled into the left lane so she could turn onto Bern Street when her turn came.

“We’ve got some friends coming over,” said Stefan conversationally. “From the news group. I think you’ve met some of them. Remember Mrs. Woolfe?”

Mitchell thought about that. He put the name to a tall woman with glasses and a dark tattoo that crept over the edge of her turtleneck sweater like foliage. “Was she the one who was always sad?”

“Lesley?” said Trudy. “She wasn’t sad.”

“She just wasn’t smiling,” said Stefan. “But that doesn’t mean she was sad.”

Mitchell nodded. Those were two expressions that Mitchell was always mixing up. “Not sad. Just concentrating.”

“Right.”

The Explorer swung vertiginously through the intersection about a second after the light switched to amber. Mitchell glanced back sceptically. Sure enough, it was red before they’d cleared it. He was sure someone was going to honk.

“So what did they ask you?”

Stefan was half turned around in his seat, so only one eye looked back at Mitchell. The skin of his forehead was puckered up over his raised eyebrow. He was either being worried or casual.

Mitchell said: “They asked me how well I knew Delilah. They wanted to know if I ever emailed her or knew her in this chat room that I guess she went to.”

“Our chat room?”

Mitchell shook his head. “Another one. Not like the one we have. Hers was for wrestling. They asked if I had any pictures of her on my computer or anything.”

“Which you don’t.”

“Pardon?”

“You don’t have any pictures of her on your computer,” said Trudy. “Right?”

“Oh. Right. I don’t.”

“And you didn’t bookmark the chatroom.”

“I use the computer at the library for that.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about.”

“Why would I be worried?”

“No reason,” said Trudy, and Stefan said, “You might have something to worry about if you did something. I mean—”

“No reason,” said Trudy again.

“Okay.”

Mitchell leaned back in the Explorer’s seat so that Trudy’s eyes were gone from the rear view mirror and all he could see was the dark roof of the Explorer. He unzipped his jacket because the heat of the car was getting to him. The Explorer turned right at Sparroway Circle, and then turned right again at the entrance to Number Five Sparroway Circle’s parking garage. Mitchell did a little cha-cha thing on his left thigh with the first two fingers of his right hand as the Explorer made its way through Level One of the garage, which included most of the guest parking, then his fingers made their way to the lock switch as they prowled across the slightly better-lit Level Two. He locked and unlocked the door three times then made himself stop when they pulled into Space 152. Trudy and Stefan pretended not to notice — just locked up the car for good using a button on Trudy’s keychain, took him to the elevator which they opened using a card on Stefan’s keychain, and got on board. The door closed on them and the elevator started going up.

“School was bad today,” said Mitchell.

Stefan pushed his hands into the pockets of his dark leather coat. Trudy bent her head forward like she was looking at her feet, then suddenly turned her eyes to the side so they were looking at Mitchell.

“What are we,” she said, “your parents?”

“No.” Mitchell’s parents were another story. “You’re my friends.”

When the elevator got to the very top of the building it opened up on a wide hallway. There were only two apartments on this floor — one at either end of the hallway. Stefan and Trudy’s apartment was on the right. The other one belonged to a guy named Giorgio Piccininni, but it was basically vacant because Giorgio was in Italy doing real estate or something. There were voices coming from Stefan and Trudy’s place and Mitchell thought he heard the sound of their Media Centre. He recognized the voice on the home theatre from the news channel and he thought he recognized the voices talking but it was hard to tell.

“I’ll wait out here,” he said.

Trudy took his arm. “Come on, scaredy-cat,” she said. “We went to a lot of trouble to make sure this place was safe for you.” Then she pushed the door open the rest of the way and gave him a little push. “Inside.”

Mitchell stumbled through the double doors. The main room was high, with a big sleek chandelier hanging down from a ceiling that was two entire floors up. At one end was a kitchen that opened up on a dining room. At the other end was a sitting area, which faced a television set that was almost as big as the Explorer. Five people were sitting around it, watching the 24-hour news channel. Mitchell couldn’t remember who all the people were, although he had met them all before — three times in person, and many, many times online in the chat room. Three of them were men and two were women. He didn’t think either of the women was Mrs. Lesley Woolfe. The news anchor on television was Gloria Stahl. She was talking about Delilah Franken and her high school sports record.

“Just make yourselves at home,” said Trudy.

One of the men turned to the door and waved. He was completely bald and his eyes were jiggly.

“Hey, Mitch,” he said. “Hey, guys. Everything going okay out there?”

Stefan smiled. “You know as much as we do.” He walked over and sat down on the arm of the sofa. “More, maybe. What’s she going on about?”

The woman nearest Stefan rested her hand on his knee and smiled up at him. “The Police Chief’s had another press conference,” she said. “He just did the usual: asked that anyone with information about poor Delilah’s disappearance should call CrimeStoppers. Didn’t have anything new to say.”

“Well of course he didn’t,” said Trudy. She put her hand on Mitchell’s shoulder. Her thumb touched the back of his neck and he took a sharp breath.

“Can I go on the computer?” asked Mitchell.

The woman by Stefan shook her head, but she smiled or seemed to. “Mitchell Owens,” she said, “you are a prize.”

Trudy’s hand slid off Mitchell’s shoulder and she took him by the hand. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll boot it up for you.”

“I know how,” said Mitchell. But he let her lead him to the sunroom anyway. He stood there for a moment, looking down over the flickering lights — the patterns of brake lights and headlights and signs and window lamps. Mitchell looked back when the computer chimed up to its logon screen.

“You are a prize,” said Trudy, typing the password which was BLENDER. “Shelly was right about that.”

“Ah,” said Mitchell. “Shelly.” That was her name.

Trudy’s eyes flashed again. “Do you like her?”