(no subject)
The next day finds Twoie looking very thick and green, and another foot larger. Seymour doesn’t have much time to look the plant over. Audrey comes into work before the store opens, wearing large sunglasses she doesn’t take off even inside.
“Hi, Seymour,” she says to him without smiling. “Can I see Mr. Mushnik?”
He mumbles, “Sure,” and gets his dad. Mushnik jerks his thumb to the back room and she enters, closing the door behind her.
‘I’ve protected you,’ Seymour wants to tell her. ‘You don’t have to leave us. You can stay and everything can go back to the way it was.’
It can’t, of course. The world has changed - like when the air gets heavy before a thunderstorm. The current has shifted. Even the store seems different; he can’t look at a certain section of wall, even though he put a large bouquet in front of the stain.
“Seymour!” Mushnik barks from the back room. Seymour stops misting flowers and comes in.
“Say goodbye to Audrey,” Mushnik growls from behind his desk. Defeat makes him very surly. News clippings of Audrey II are on the walls, along with phone numbers of suppliers and bouquet prices.
Audrey’s arms were crossed over her stomach - they uncross when she turns to face Seymour. She holds one hand out to him. Seymour shakes her hand with the one he used to club her boyfriend over the head, the one he held an axe with, the one he used to scrub up Orin’s blood with.
“Bye.” Her voice is soft and so’s her handshake. “I wish you all the success in the world.”
“You too. Good luck. At school. We should…we should keep in touch.” He doesn’t want to let go of her hand.
“Thanks - and we totally will, don’t worry, I’ll drop by.” He doesn’t want to let go, but he doesn’t protest when she drops his hand. He can’t even think of anything to keep her here when she says a curt, “Bye, sir,” and leaves.
Four days later, the police show up. Officer Warkentin’s blonde hair is close-cropped, his eyes light grey, his looks handsome and all-American. This is just a routine investigation into the disappearance of Orin Scrivello.
Officer Warkentin doesn’t ask either of them to go down to the station, but he does take a worrying amount of notes.
Seymour admits that, “I don’t know her that well, but, yeah, I guess we’re friends.”
“Friends enough to go to a club together,” Officer Warkentin replies after flipping through his notes.
“Oh, yeah, that. Audrey was trying to get me to, ah, expand my horizons. Don’t really care much for it.” He figures Audrey mentioned something about the confrontation. After a hesitation he adds, “Met her boyfriend, too.”
“Your impression of him?”
“Oh, big guy, sounded real refined….Just talked to him for barely a minute, you know.” He shrugs lightly.
“Were you aware of anything unusual behaviour from Ms. Smith?” the officer asks.
“Unusual? Uh, well….” He could say that of course there was something unusual about a guy beating a wonderful girl like Audrey - but that establishes motive. Means and opportunity would follow quickly.
“She quit her job here,” he supplies after a long pause for thought. “And seems like she’s been getting falling a lot lately. She’s on this diet. Figured it wasn’t really agreeing with her.”
“Were you aware of anything unusual in her relationship with Mr. Scrivello?”
Seymour looks blank, tries to ignore his pounding heart and dry mouth, and shrugs. “She seemed really into the guy.”
The Krelborns saw through his lies. Officer Warkentin will, too. He asks were Seymour was the night of Orin’s disappearance.
“Sleeping downstairs.” He almost says, My dad can vouch for me, but stops at the last second.
Officer Warkentin thanks him for his time and goes to the back room to talk to Mushnik. Seymour waits for the officer to burst out of the room with gun drawn, ordering him to freeze and put his hands in the air.
He tries to look busy; he picks up watering cans and flower bouquets and puts them down a moment later, not sure what to do with them. He’s forgotten what things are for. Customers have to ask him questions twice before he answers.
Every instinct he has is screaming run. He could hop on the bus and be out of L.A. quickly. He could go to the Krelborns…which would be the first place they’d look….He could go to a sleazy motel - he doesn’t know where any are outside of Skid Row, but he’s sure he’ll know one when he sees it. He could lie low there for a few days. Then he could….
Didn’t think of a plan for how to escape getting caught. The most obvious thing in the world to think of and I just didn’t. Stupid, stupid, stupid Seymour.
Officer Warkentin comes out of the back room, nods to Seymour, and leaves. The bell rings.
Mushnik comes out, shaking his head. “What a story, huh?”
“Did the officer say what happened to him?”
“Still investigating, he said. Good riddance, though.”
Seymour has to admit that it is good riddance indeed. He hums Luck Be a Lady as he goes back to work.
A lady wouldn't make little snake eyes at me
When I bet my life on this roll
So, let's keep the party polite
Never get outta my sight
Stick with me baby, I'm the fella you came in with
Luck be a lady
Luck be a lady
Tonight