Two weeks later
Carlinda marked in her notebook as she saw the man leave from her kitchen window. As the day before, and the ones before that, the man left about 3 pm for a beer run. How he had money for that, she had no idea, since he didn’t seem to work. She closed her notebook and went down to switch loads in her laundry. She knew she had at least 23 minutes until he returned carrying a case of Icehouse beer.
7:30 pm
Jessup let his beast out for the evening. Carlinda had looked up his name on the property tax web site. It fit, she thought. She twitched aside the curtain just enough to see the white menace of a dog bounding up and down his tiny strip of a yard. She took her pencil and marked in her notebook the time. She shook her head in a moment of humor: This guy was so punctual he was wasting his talents being a neighborhood nuisance. He ought to consider the career of courier instead. She closed the notebook and started to pull off her clothes to go to bed. Since she wasn’t getting quality sleep she had started focusing on quantity. She methodically pulled on her pajamas, twisted her earplugs into tiny tubes and slid them into her ears, pulled the shades, turned on her box fan and hunkered down for the night ahead. She relaxed slightly at the silence, then a little more. She began to drift peacefully into sleep, smiling softly at the dreams that teased into her still awake mind. Hoooooowwwwwwlllllllll. Carlinda leapt under her covers, then began to weep at the misery of it all. “One more night …. One more night … One more night,” she chanted again and again, her fingers jammed into her ears. One more night.
The next day, Carlinda dressed with a lightness she had not felt in a month. She chose her silly striped socks and her favorite pink fuzzy sweater. She looked at the clock on her phone; it was 11:20 am. She had three hours to kill before her plan commenced. She grinned to herself and thought, “Ha. Kill. Hilarious.”
As 3 pm approached, Carlinda began preparing Lucky’s treat. She wished that she could just rent a gun and blow his brains out (“Can you do that?” she wondered. “Rent a gun?”), but the NAME required more finesse. She had to make it clear that Lucky’s death had nothing to do with her, or she feared his rage and violence. She smiled as she pressed the small bits of ketamine into the rich, marbled red meat. Her finger pushed in. Then again. “Not enough to knock out the dog,” she said aloud. “Just enough to make him loopy.”
Jessup left for his beer run and Carlinda wasted no time in letting herself out the side door, walking through the back gate and through the alley to his yard. Lucky set off with a riot of barks, and Carlinda hurried before the neighbors on the other side were alerted by his barking. She reached the fence, and Lucky leapt and spun on the other side, growling, barking and (Carlinda imagined) foaming at the mouth. She wasted no time in casting the juicy beef over the fence, then turning and running as fast as she could. Just 30 minutes and the first part of her plan would be underway.
Carlinda burst through her door and fell back against it hyperventilating. She had a moment of terror wondering if anyone had seen her. After a minute of shallow breathing she calmed herself down and grabbed hold of her fear. “I will not,” she said, “I will not let my fear control me. It is time to prepare for phase two.”
At about 7 pm, Carlinda dressed in a lovely pink linen dress and white open-toed heels, combed her hair into a sleek bob with a headband and added pearls to her ear. She looked like what she thought a 1950s housewife should look like. She gathered up her courage and a special blueberry pie she had baked the night before and walked out of her house. She walked out of her front door, pasted a smile on her face, and chanted “June Cleaver” in her mind. She walked right up to Jessup’s house, rang the doorbell and waited. After a few moments and an eerie lack of barks, the door thrust open.
“Whaddaya want?” Jessup slurred. The Icehouse was already taking effect and he looked even sloppier and nastier than usual.
“I am so sorry, Mr. Jessup. We seem to have gotten off on a really bad note. I care about my community and my neighbors and it is important to me that we get along. To let you know how bad I feel about our last encounter, I baked a blueberry pie. I hope you will accept it with my deepest apologies,” Carlinda finished smoothly. Jessup stared, finally at a loss for words.
“You brought me a pie, sweetheart?” he asked. His lip curled in a sneer. She couldn’t even tell if he was mocking her or if his stupid face was just stuck that way. He looked her straight in the eye as he reached down and scooped two fingers in through the top of the pie, bringing a dripping piece of crust up to his chapped, puffy lips. Carlinda had to hold herself steady so that she didn’t recoil at the sight.
“That’s pretty tasty. So you wanna be friends, huh?” he asked, taking another large scoop.
“I want to have a positive relationship as neighbors,” she replied, stilling herself inside lest she let him see her quivering in anticipation with each bite he took.
“Good. Cause when you ain’t being a cunt, I like the way you loo…..” His words trailed off as he slid down into a boneless puddle in the middle of his doorway. The saccharine smile left her face as she dropped the housewife pretense and became Carline, woman in charge. She stepped over the blueberry mess and his sloppy body. She dragged his prone form into the house and shut the door. She heaved him over to the couch, and unable to lift him, she left him propped up against it. Then pulled over a kitchen chair and straddled it. Almost an afterthought, she reached down to grab the .38 she had strapped to her inner thigh. She settled in, waiting for him to wake up.
As she sat still, she finally noticed the white dog in the corner of the room. Lucky looked a little out of it. Lying prone on his pillow, he lifted his head to show her a slightly snarling lip. She wasn’t fazed. If he hadn’t eaten her already, she figured she was safe. She had about 45 minutes before either threat woke up fully. She had a moment to let her muscles relax before Phase III.
To be continued....
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