D. Schmidt - They Ate the Waitress?

“No problem,” she replied, rubbing her wrists. “I’m always looking for acting jobs. This was pretty fun!”

“You are an actress?” Todd asked. “You never told me that.”

“Yep!” Jessica chirped. “I even wrote a play: Momma’s Boy , a romantic comedy based on Oedipus Rex …”

A scream came from the hall, followed closely by a loud crash . The security patrolmen stumbled back into the courtroom, one bleeding profusely from the neck, the other holding his hand over what would soon be a black eye. “Dunmore attacked us,” the bleeding man groaned. “He headbutted Frank and bit a chunk out of my neck! Before we could stop him, he ran down the hall and jumped through a window.”

Nick’s face went through several expressions, trying to decide if shock, amazement, or confusion was more appropriate. It settled on rage. “I can’t believe this! I went through weeks of work to find the killer, and you let him escape!”

“What do you think this is, a movie? He jumped through a window! He’s in the middle of the street, bleeding to death.”

An ambulance carried Gordon to the emergency room. The doctors sealed his wounds with artificial skin and transferred him to the high-security wing of the hospital to await his trial. Unfortunately, the adult section was full, so they were forced to place him in the high-security pediatrics ward. Nick made sure there were several guards in place, both inside and outside of his room, before going home to catch up on lost sleep.

When Nick returned to his apartment, he found a note pinned to the door. He carried it inside to his kitchen table and poured himself a cup of coffee.

Nick,

When I first started working at Little Brother’s, you were one of my favorite regulars. I tried for so long to be your friend, but you always held me at a distance. But when I got the trans from the hospital, they told me your file had me listed as your emergency contact. Your only contact. You don’t have anyone else in your life, but you still treat me this way? Why?

When they told me you almost died, I realized something: I don’t know what my life would be like if you weren’t around, and I never want to find out. Every time your work takes you out of town, I miss you terribly. But, at the same time, I feel like I never really got to know you.

Sometimes I feel like I should quit trying. Are we ever going to have the chance to grow closer? Between the drugs and the murderers and people flinging large pieces of furniture at you, I find it hard to believe you’ll always be around. If you don’t leave me, someone will take you away. The worst part is, you just don’t even care.

He placed his transmitter on the table and drummed his fingers. His coffee cup slowly gathered a collection of cigarette butts and ash. A beam of sunlight dropped in through the window, walked across the table, slid down to the floor, and faded away.

His transmitter bleeped and Jessica’s head appeared in the air. In the darkened room, she was the only light. “Nick, how are you? I know you’re probably busy catching crooks and all, but…”

“What the hell do you want?” He reached for his coffee but, remembering that he had turned it into an ashtray, pushed it away.

She didn’t seem to notice his anger. “Now that my little… flirtation … with Todd has come out into the open, I’m not exactly welcome around him anymore. So I’m free to see other people. Aren’t you the lucky one?”

“Why me? Don’t you know what a horrible person I am?”

“Look, I’ll level with you. When I thought you were just a writer, I only flirted with you to make Todd jealous. But now that I know you’re a manhunter, you seem so much more… exciting. Aside from the occasional murder, being a waitress is pretty damn dull. I need someone dangerous to bring a little life into my world.”

“Oh, I’m dangerous, baby. Dangerous like a fork in the eye. …Jessica, I’m flattered, but I’m not in the mood to talk.”

“That’s fine with me. If you come over, we can do everything but.”

He told himself he wasn’t driving to her place. He told himself he was only going out to get something to eat. That was it. But the car always drove where it wanted to go. An hour later, he found himself across the street from the college campus.

Jessica was a good woman. She didn’t make too many demands.

The following morning, Nick was in the shower when he heard his transmitter buzzing in the next room. Not feeling entirely awake, he decided to deal with whoever it was after he’d had his coffee.

And some booze.

And maybe some pills.

A few seconds later, he heard his own voice say “Hi, you’ve reached Nick Wergild, manhunter extraordinaire. I can’t answer your transmission right now because either I’m asleep, with a client, or someone is trying to kill me. The way my life has been going lately, possibly all three. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you. Maybe.”

“Hi, it’s Jessica. I’m sorry, but I don’t think this is going to work. Don’t get me wrong, it had nothing to do with last night. You were… acceptable. That’s not the problem. I found the blister packs from your ‘medication’ in the trash. I can’t be with someone who takes pills to escape reality. The real world is a beautiful place. Maybe you could see that if you spent some time here.”

Another relationship over. He paused for a moment, expecting to be hit by the usual wave of depression, guilt, and self-loathing, the feeling he always got after being dumped or eating too much cake, but nothing happened. He simply didn’t care about her enough for the rejection to hurt. But with Sophia, things were different. Her opinions mattered. She mattered.

“Ever since we first met, I held her at a distance. I never wanted her to discover the cracks in my facade. But when she came to the hospital, she saw me at my absolute worst, and she stayed with me. I had to be unconscious to stop hiding from her, but I did it. Everything was out in the open, and she didn’t run away.” For the first time in months, he sang in the shower.

Nick spent the next three days finishing collecting the evidence against Gordon, working constantly, with barely enough time to sleep. He had to act quickly. According to Gordon’s contract with the insurance company, he couldn’t be held for more than seven days without a conviction. An arbitrator had already ruled that Gordon was healthy enough to stand trial, even though he was still recovering from his encounter with the window. As soon as Nick was ready, he let Todd know it was safe to call Renée’s parents and inform them about their daughter’s death.

The morning of the trial, Nick smoked some breakfast and watched the local newsfeeds. A lantern-jawed anchor with a facial tic frowned in disapproval at a recent plane crash. “And in entertainment news,” he said, showing the camera a disturbingly white smile, “a new book has reached the top of the sales charts: Supernatural Undead Crazy Killers. Authors Eric Spellman and Stanley Aguirre are currently incarcerated in a work camp, but they have been granted a week’s leave to go on a book tour. The authors had this to say: ‘Our first stop will be Vancouver, where we will brutally murder Nick Wergild.’ What a couple of fun, crazy guys! And now for the weather…”

With an exhausted sigh, Nick put out his last cigarette and headed for the arbitrator’s office. “This,” he thought, “is going to be one hell of a long day.”

Along with the Flockharts, Todd, Margery, and Jessica were there, and also some of Gordon’s neighbors. Near the back of the room was the woman with the shaved head Nick had found sleeping in Gordon’s apartment. She looked to have been crying.