ROSS NATZE, OR, A HORNY NINE-YEAR-OLD
"H-hello?" The woman chirped to match the jays. "Care for a nacho?" She thrust the plate at Kavi. A dauble of neon-orange cheese wobbled and fell.
"Uh…," Kavi peered past the woman's dyed-blonde puff. A massive television dominated the entire wall behind her, its screen flickering with blood and explosions. For a box home in Bakersville's Polish Village, the place seemed furnished well enough.
"Mooooooooom! Where are those nachos?" A thin voice screamed from inside the house.
The woman forced a smile and ushered Kavi in. The plate of nachos tottered dangerously on her arm with every step, chips, cheese and jalapeños sloshing from edge to edge. "Right this way."
The Natze's living room sat left of the entry, segregated by a half-wall. Sofas and recliners dominated its green shag. In a strange way, the room felt like Mrs. Natze personified: small, overstuffed, and smelling faintly of dandruff shampoo.
"Thanks so much for this, Mrs. Natze. I know it seems uncouth but I—"
"More illegal than uncouth." Police Chief Hardcastle emerged from an interior hallway. His massive frame shrank the already claustrophobic space.
Kavi's heart jumped. "P-p-police Chief." She turned her face to the carpet, desperate not to remember Hardcaste's bobbing and dangling.
"I'm so sorry," Mrs. Natze turned to Kavi. "You called; I was afraid to say no…"
"You did the right thing, Mrs. Natze." the Chief stepped toward Kavi, motioned to the door. "Mrs. Adnan-Byrne, you can’t just thrust yourself into these situations."
Kavi hiccoughed through an embarrassed laugh. Did he have to say 'thrust?' She took a giant sip from her travel mug, let the coffee course through her veins.
"Mrs. Adnan-Byrne," Hardcastle said through a grunt, "Did you hear me?"
Kavi wished she hadn’t. Just past them, Ross Natze splayed on the center cushion of a fat leather sofa. His right arm dangled in a cloth sling. His dark hair spurted a fountain of cow licks. A game remote clattered in his hands. Tablet computers, laptops and mobile gaming doohickeys spread beside him. He stared without flinching, without blinking, to the loud, violent slaughter on the television.
"I just have one question." Kavi stepped toward the little living room. "You can stand right here if you wish, Chief. My daughter has informed me about young Mr. Natze and I think we all need to hear what he has to say."
Kavi's chest swelled. This was some real hardboiled detective shit. Chief Hardcastle stepped forward, pushed his massive frame into her personal space. Kavi only sighed, took another sip from her coffee, waiting.
"One question." Hardcastle growled. "And no dickering."
It was a small miracle Kavi didn’t spit-take. Dickering? Thrusting? She clenched through the cough and forced her coffee down. Hardcastle had to know it was them outside the Moonside.
"Mom!" Ross yelled from the sofa. "Seriously! Nachos! I'm decimating a Korean zerg rush on an empty stomach here."
Mrs. Natze gave a small curtsey and crept from the entry. Nachos tottering on her arm, she reached to move one of Ross' laptops. He snapped her away.
"Christ, mom, not that one. I told you, I'm mining crypto with that laptop." He nodded to his left. "Put the nachos over here."
Mrs. Natze dropped to all fours and crawled under Ross' line of sight, contorting to keep the nachos and soda aloft. She slid the plate on the sofa with a slow, steady hand, like stacking Jenga bricks. The cup of soda on the coffee table, perfectly aligned to water-rings of sodas past, Mrs. Natze crawled backwards to the entry and stood.
"I know you think I must be a horrible mother," Mrs. Natze said in a low voice, "but it's been tough on Rossie since his dad left. And now with this shooting thing—lord knows what he was doing at that jeweler's. But he's found something with these video games. Something to focus his mind. He's a professional, you know."
Chief Hardcastle looked at the television. Little purple aliens screamed and exploded in clouds of green blood. "Professional?"
Mrs. Natze flashed a buck-toothed grin. "Amazing, isn't it? He makes enough money playing these video games to keep us fed. I'm quitting my job soon. He's a very smart, very gifted boy." With one final, dopey-eyed look at her precious Ross, Mrs. Natze patted Kavi on the back and stepped through the entry to the house beyond.
The Chief rolled his head over his tree trunk of a neck, took a breath. With a subconscious flex of his pythons, he nodded to Ross. "One question."
"You won't regret it."
The Chief shook his head. "Every time I'm told I won't regret something, it's something I end up regretting. I hope for your sake that this is the exception rather than the rule."
Kavi slid past the brick wall of Hardcastle and stepped into the parlor. For a moment, she watched the flicker of the television. Ross' face didn't flinch. His body kept statue still, while his hands blurred over the controller. Whole hordes of aliens on the screen exloded into purple goo to the grating scream of simulated gunfire. Careful, slow, Kavi sat on an adjacent recliner.
"Ross, I really only need to ask you one quick thing…"
Ross puffed out through his nose. Kavi looked up between the screen, the child, and the Chief, a question wide on her face.
The Chief only shrugged.
"Yes I said it." Ross took a hand from his controller and swooped a nacho into his mouth. Grease trickled over his chin "I told your eldest daughter that you're innocent."
Kavi nearly jumped out of her chair. She hadn't slept since Tuesday. Stress and anxiety had stripped all the color from the world, leaving only cold and grey. But now Ross seemed to open a tunnel of shining bright light.
"What was that?" The Chief swooped into the room, crouched beside Kavi. "She's innocent? Why didn't you tell detective Dalkowski at the hospital?"
"First, I didn't say Mrs. Byrne is innocent. And second, no one ever asked."
"But you just said I'm innocent," Kavi said.
Ross turned from the screen, his little face screwed tight into a scowl. "You're not very bright, are you?" Ross shoved another nacho into his gob and crunched like Jack's Giant, gnawing the bones of unfortunate travelers. Eyes rolling and head shaking, he turned back to his game.
"I didn't say you're innocent, Mrs. Byrne. I said I told your daughter that you're innocent."
"How is that different?"
"Isn't it obvious?" Ross said.
Kavi scratched the crown of her head. "But…"
"Gwyn is the only girl in our grade with boobs. I want to see them. I would have told her almost anything."
"You little shit." Kavi said the words before she could stop herself. Lucky for the little gob of pubescent grease, Chief Hardcastle crouched directly between her hands and the kid’s utterly wringable neck.
"Mrs. Adnan-Byne, please," Chief Hardcastle said. "What's that about your grade, Ross? Gwyn Adnan-Byrne is eleven years old. You're nine."
"It's like mom whispered to you," Ross said. "I'm a very gifted boy. School has problems keeping up with my intellect. I've been advanced a few grades already. I'll probably be advanced a few more by the end of the school year."
Kavi sank into the overstuffed recliner, suddenly very tired. Her stomach jostled and gurgled. Ross' nachos didn't look so disgusting all of a sudden.
"If that's all you had to ask," Ross waved Kavi off with a hand, "then please. I'm very busy here."
Already punched into a daze by Ross, Kavi barely registered the buzzing phone in her palm. Her vision went double, triple. Again, the room started its spinning. Just pick a point and focus. Just pick a point and focus. She sipped at her coffee but it did nothing against the panic. Fighting the tears already wetting her eyelids, Kavi looked down to the phone. An incoming text flashed across the screen.
"No more games, Kavi. Forget the Boy. Irregulars @ my house 2Nite 8 pm—BAL."
Ice-water shot through Kavi's veins. Every muscle froze.
No comments:
Post a Comment