WXYZ - Chapter 4
Though Wesley owned no television and had little use for the popular cinema, he nonetheless recognized the sound of a pistol’s hammer clacking in place.
“Hands where I can see them. Slowly if you please,” the voice, sweet and throaty, commanded and he obeyed. Wesley raised both hands above his head, still clutching the purloined book with his left. He heard the door close and was touched by a zephyr, smelling faintly of gardenia. “Turn slowly with your hands up, please.
“What’s your name, dear? I hate to shoot a man when I don’t know his name.”
“Z,” he responded, noting a brief look of shock on her face.
With a rush of adrenaline, he prevaricated on the spot. He’d rarely had occasion to lie and had little practice with it, but he spun a plausible tale so easily and smoothly he almost began to believe it himself. He told her he’d been called in response to a leaky ceiling in the apartment below. He explained that he had a master key to all the apartments and often backed up the super. He further elaborated that the super had seemed in his duties of late.
“Have you ever seen the damage a Desert Eagle can do, Z?”
Wesley’s eyes drifted to the pistol, a heavy cumbersome affair that looked out of place in the hands of the woman from 4B. He had expected a dainty, feminine gun more fitting to her dress and manner and found he could only stare at the cannon pointed at his chest. This short adventure had quickly gone sour and Wesley wished nothing more than to end it and calm himself with a cup of tea.
“Let’s assume for a minute I believed your story. Shouldn’t you be in the bathroom instead of raiding my bookshelves?” She waved her gun from Wesley to the back hall and back to Wesley to punctuate her sentence. “Maybe you should start over. And stick with the truth this time. You’re a terrible liar.”
“Do you think I could trouble you for some tea?”
“I’m a coffee drinker. But I might have some Lipton. Sit there,” she said, indicating a chair at the kitchen table.
Wesley told Arabella Beatrice, Abby she preferred to be called, everything. He was hesitant and halting at first but Abby drew it out of him. He felt comfortable talking to her in a way he hadn’t felt with anyone since his parents had passed away. More so once she put the gun in her purse. She listened attentively and shared his disgust with the local attorneys who’d been unable and unwilling to help him with his mausoleum. She even suggested she might know someone who could cut through the layers of bureaucracy.
When he finished, and had apologized a second time for trespassing in her apartment, Abby leaned her chair on its back legs and crossed her arms in a manner that seemed off-puttingly masculine to Wesley. She smiled and asked, “Why are you in such a big rush to end your life?”
Wesley clarified that he merely wanted to live a spartan lifestyle.
“Living like that is no life at all. You might as well be dead. Certainly be easier to get your crypt approved that way.”
