Chapter 9 : We Didn't Do It
Brad got out of bed and tilted his head to the right, looking at the face, verifying that yes, this was the same obnoxious teenager who Lucas had brought to the VIP party tonight.
Karen glanced from Brad to what lay on the bed in disbelief. “What do you mean? Are you playing some kind of sick, tasteless joke on me?”
“Well, I didn't turn on the light on this side of the room,” Brad said. “I just plunked down on the bed, and then you went to the bathroom ... ”
“So, you're saying that you didn't do this? You didn't put some dummy on my bed to freak me out? Who else could have done it?”
“Well, she was kind of a dummy,” Brad said, pressing his fingers into the flesh of the left side of the girl's neck, feeling for a pulse. There was none to be found. “But now, she's a genuine dead body in your bed.”
“ ... That's a real body?” asked Karen, her face turning a bit gray. “That's not a dummy you snuck in while I was in the shower?”
“Karen? Sweetie?” Brad locked eyes with her. “I had nothing to do with this. This isn't a joke. You need to stay calm, you need to stay with me, or we're both thoroughly fucked. And not in a nice, 'I'll buy you dinner and call you later,' kind of way.”
“Police ... we need to call them.” She backed up a few steps, hoping the phone was near her. “How did she get here?” She realized that the phone was on the other side of the bed, and that she had to try to remain cool and rational.
“No ... no ... no. No police,” Brad said. He was shaking his head. “If we call the police, they will take us to the precinct and talk to us. We'll be the immediate suspects. They can hold us for twenty-four hours, and they probably will, and they'll most likely spend most of that time talking to us about what happened. At dawn, our personalities are going to change, and we're going to give completely different answers, because Ian and his partner have no idea what happened tonight. And at that point, the police will book us ... no, they'll book Ian and his partner, who just happen to be using our bodies for the day, put them in cells, arrange for psychological evaluations. Long story short, we'll be in prison, through no fault of our own, and we'll have to hope that the police can find some evidence somewhere proving that we had nothing to do with killing this wench.”
“I can't go to jail ... This ... ” Karen shook her head, and stood as far away as possible from Brad and the body. “Whatever you do, don't touch her, how did she - what? -- I don't understand.”
“I don't get it, either. Turn around ... don't look at the body. Take a few deep breaths,” Brad said. “It's hard to see, it's hard to think about, so just don't. Just think about the situation we're in. We don't know what happened, but we have a serious problem, and if we don't take a few steps to help ourselves out, it's going to go very, very badly.”
Karen nodded and turned away. A few deep breaths ... then, she'd find a way out of the situation. She breathed deeply once, then twice. The third time she inhaled, she heard a knock on the door. She stared at it in shock.
Brad's mouth fell open. He snapped his head to the right and left, then yanked the comforter over the body. He winced and lay down beside it, so that his body was mostly blocking the view of the blanket-covered corpse from the door. “Honey,” he said, feeling his face start to sweat, “could you get that?”
Karen nodded slowly, and managed to make it to the door just after the second knock. “I'm sorry, we were busy,” she managed to say as the unfamiliar young man in the uniform tux pushed the cart into the room.
The young man glanced at Karen, then Brad before nodding. He stood there for a moment, as Karen stared at the cart.
“Honey,” Brad grimaced, “could you give the guy a tip, please? Not sure where my wallet is.”
“Oh.” Karen nodded and went over to her purse. She grabbed the first bill that she could find and handed it to the young man. “That will be all. Thank you.” She felt strangely disconnected from the situation as she watched him leave.
Brad waited until the door closed, the he jumped off the bed and made disgusted noises and brushed off his arms and legs as though the bed had been infested with bugs. “Gah, I didn't even like her when she was still alive! That's just disgusting.”
“We have to get her out of here.” Karen said, after a few minutes. “She's got my blanket on her ... They'll charge me for that.” She had obviously watched a lot of crime dramas.
“How the hell can we get her out of here?” Brad asked. “The windows don't open, and even if they did, they'd be able to figure out where she fell from. And she's not a goldfish, we can't just flush her.”
“I don't know!” exclaimed Karen. “But she can't stay in here. She's in my bed, and people will come looking for her, right?”
Brad looked puzzled. “If I knew her, I sure as hell wouldn't go looking for her,” he said, “but that's just me.” He looked at the cart that held the pitcher of hot chocolate, mugs and bowl of mini-marshmallows. “She wouldn't fit in the cart,” he decided. “Not without some creative ... uh ... trimming. And I don't think I could stomach that.”
“ ... No.” Karen shook her head and tried to get out of panic mode. “They would find the cart and come after us ... but we didn't do this, right? But she's here ... ”
Brad nodded. He drew back the comforter. There was no blood on it that he could see; the knife was still embedded in her chest, plugging the wound so that nothing was seeping out of her chest cavity. “Okay. In the note the other day, didn't Ian say that if we had trouble, to just hole up in the room, explain the situation to him, and he'd take care of it?”
Karen nodded, then stared at her bed. “Explain it to them and they'll take care of it. But how? What, are they going to body-jack her instead of us? ... and then maybe this all will be over.”
“Well ... she's kind of ... I have no idea if they can animate dead bodies or not,” Brad admitted. “I have no idea how they'll handle it. But consider this; they're spies from some other world, if we sincerely believe what they've said, and if we believe what we can imply based on what they've said. So chances are, they would know more about how to deal with this than we would.”
“I -- ” Karen was cut off by another knock on the door.
Brad snapped the comforter back into place and lay down again. “Is it just me, or has this night been like a thousand years long?” he grumbled.
“It's not just you,” said Karen, heading for the door. She opened it a crack to see who it was.
“Karen?” asked Lucas. “Are you feeling alright? You left my show very quickly. We're concerned about you.”
Brad rolled his eyes and leaned back. In doing so, he made contact with what had been Amber only an hour ago and he recoiled slightly.
“I have the flu,” said Karen, adding a couple of coughs after a moment. Lucas could only make everything worse if he walked into the room. “Brad is taking care of me.”
“That's terrible. Would you like me to call the doctor for you? You looked very ill at the gallery.”
“No,” she said, still holding the door open just a crack. “I think I just need rest. I think that I need to lie down again now, if you don't mind.”
“I'll at least get you some soup,” said Lucas. “Lie down, and I'll have some sent right up. Would you like me to send medication, too? I'll confer with a doctor and find out what you need.”
“No, that's alright.” Karen closed the door. Lucas was already halfway to the elevator.
“Let me guess, he insisted,” Brad said, getting out of bed again, with less urgency this time. It was still gross as hell, but he'd already been there and done that once tonight.
“He didn't give me a chance to object,” said Karen, trying not to look at her bed or what was on it. “But I think we have to move her. I don't know. She's too ... visible on my bed. I don't want to go to jail.”
“Okay. Where to? We can't just leave her out in the open. Ooh ... maybe we can shove her under the bed!” Brad seemed way too happy about that, but that was only because he wouldn't have to look at her anymore.
That seemed like a good idea to Karen. Then again, anything that involved avoidance of both Lucas and jail seemed like a good idea. “Okay.” She inched towards the bed.
“Okay,” Brad said, taking hold of the shoulders of Amber's minidress. “Grab her ankles ... you think you could speed things up? Soup and Lucas will be here any minute now.”
Karen nodded and walked over to the bed more quickly. She hesitated for a second before grabbing the girls ankles. They were skinny and only slightly warmer than room-temperature. Rigor mortis hadn't set in yet, so when both Brad and Karen lifted, Amber's ass remained on the bed. Brad tugged a bit harder and was able to wrestle his share of ninety pounds of very literal dead weight to the carpet.
Karen let the girl's ankles drop to the carpet once Amber was finally off of the bed. “I think I want another shower,” she said, disgusted.
“I'll join you in that. I mean ... yeah, same here.” Brad looked at the body and the knife handle, then at the space under the bed. “Ah, crap,” he said. “If I pull out the knife, it'll be like uncorking a bottle of champagne.” He thought about that and curled his lip. “Really, really icky champagne.”
“What should we do?” asked Karen. “We're going to jail, aren't we? We're going to get executed.”
Brad rolled the body over on its side. He tugged a pillow case off the nearest pillow and wrapped it around the handle of the knife. “Okay, I think I've got it,” he said. “This is just in case she leaks.” He turned Amber over on her side, angling her shoulders slightly forward. The knife handle didn't quite make contact with the floor. “Okay ... help me push her under the bed.”
“Okay.” Karen nodded and pushed the girl's cooling legs under the bed frame. “This feels like a bad dream ... ”
Brad pushed, too, and moments later, Amber was safely hidden under the bed. Brad scrubbed his hands immediately afterwards, and his stomach felt nasty and riled-up, but he was pretty sure he wasn't going to barf.
Karen stared at her hands before heading into the bathroom to do the same thing. She still felt very disconnected from the situation, and she kept hoping she'd wake up, preferably in her own bed sometime around the middle of last week.
“I guess Lucas is having trouble convincing the kitchen staff to send you soup,” Brad said. “But I'm going to go 'way out on a limb and say he's insisting that they send it up. And he can take as long as he wants, doing that.”
“I don't want soup,” said Karen, taking a seat on the edge of Brad's bed. “I want all of this to go away.”
Brad looked around for his jacket and went through his pockets, searching for his cigarettes. The first thing he pulled out of his pocket, however, was a pistol. “Loaded,” he said. “Go figure.” He put it back and started going through the rest of the numerous pockets in his field jacket.
A minute later, there was another knock at the door.
Brad got up. “I'll take care of this. Look like you're gonna be sick.” He glanced at her. “Never mind. Just act natural.” He opened the door.
Karen nodded, and then lay very still.
Lucas stood behind the room service attendant. He looked genuinely concerned. “How is she?”
“Still not feeling one-hundred percent,” Brad said. “It's just the flu; I'm sure she'll be fine.” He moved aside for the cart. He didn't move aside for Lucas. “She needs this soup, and thank you for sending it up, and she needs to sleep. How about we give you a call tomorrow?” Inside his head, Brad smacked his forehead with his palm repeatedly; he'd just committed to contacting this jackass again. Dealing with Lucas was like fighting quicksand.
“I'll stop by,” Lucas insisted. “If either of you needs anything tonight, give me a call, and I'll come by tomorrow evening.”
“Sounds great,” Brad said, though he was actually thinking, “I'd rather slam my hand in the door repeatedly.”
“Are you certain she's all right?” asked Lucas. “She's looking rather peakish. I can call the doctor again, if need be.”
“No,” Brad said firmly. “Goodnight.”
“I'm in room 715,” repeated Lucas. “I insist that you call if anything comes up. If I am not there, I've left a message to ring me immediately. Karen, call me if you need anything, and I'll come by tomorrow evening. The doctor said to be sure to drink plenty of fluids.”
“Right,” Brad said. “Goodnight.”
Lucas looked over at Karen, still concerned. He waved one last time before walking away.
Brad handed twenty dollars to the room service guy. “Thanks, goodnight,” he said. When everyone was gone, he fell into bed beside Karen, not touching her, just lying on the same mattress.
“He's not coming back, right?” asked Karen.
“If there really is a God, then no, no, he's not,” Brad yawned.
Karen looked towards the other bed, and did not say anything.
“You're not sleeping in that bed,” Brad said. “And I totally don't blame you. I'll sleep on the floor, if you prefer.”
“What?” Karen turned to Brad. It took a moment for her to process what was said. “I don't care ... I trust you.”
Brad nodded. “Okay. I, um ... ” He looked towards the other bed, too. “It sucks, her being shoved under the bed like that. I'm gonna move her.”
“Where?” asked Karen. “I know she was annoying ... but still ... ” She trailed off.
“Bath tub,” Brad said. “It's leak proof, it's disinfectable, and we can close a door between her and us.”
“Do you want my help?” asked Karen, after staring at her hands for a minute.
“No. That's okay.” Brad towed her out from under the bed, and he was able to pick her up under her shoulders and behind her knees. “Damn, she's really skinny.” He carried her to the tub and set her down, and blinked. She seemed to be looking up at the ceiling, the lenses of her greenish-blue eyes starting to turn milky. Brad reached down and carefully closed her eyelids. Annoying or not, she had still been a human being.
Then he closed the shower curtain, washed his hands again, peeled off his tuxedo and located a pair of sweats and his lucky Ramones shirt. He left the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
“What do we do now?” asked Karen, looking up. Somehow, things seemed like they were getting better. They certainly couldn't get much worse.
“Ian probably left us a message,” Brad said, lying down again, “and I'd planned to check that when we got back from the shindig tonight. But, honestly, I no longer give a fuck. I doubt it's anything that can't keep for another twelve hours or so. What we do now is let Ian know about the body, lie down, try to go to sleep, and have faith that when we wake up, everything will be okay."
She nodded again. “Write the note... I just can't do it tonight.”
“Fair enough,” Brad said. He picked up the tablet of “Montmartre on the Park” stationary and a pen and wrote:
Ian: Really bad night. There's a corpse in the bathtub. We didn't do it, it was just here when we got back from the party. Please fix it. Have a fucking great day.
--Brad.
Then he turned out the lights and lay down again.