What Happens in the Penthouse...Chapter 2/B
What Happens in the Penthouse
Chapter 2, Part B
Words: 2,784/73,138
Rating: PG-13
Chapter 2, Part B; The Second and Third
Summary: It’s Halloween night and Spinelli is planning to spend a romantic evening with Maxie at a costume party when he stumbles across a dead body in the penthouse. His plans are indefinitely shelved as he and Jason deal with their unexpected visitor. The night involves a series of bizarre and increasingly nerve wracking events while they try to evade nosy neighbors and solve the mystery.
Chapter 2/Part A
The noise had been enough to reach Jason and he came running into the kitchen skidding to a halt with an almost comic expression of amazement on his face as he took in the disarray before him. “What the hell,” he started to say and then stopped as he saw the most significant item in the mess on the kitchen floor. “Not again, this can not be happening!” he moaned. For one crazy instant, he considered just leaving, grabbing Spinelli and locking up the penthouse. They could find a nice farmhouse out in the country where they would only have to deal with normal infestations of mice and termites.
He shook his head and rubbed his eyes trying to focus on this newest problem. He looked over at Spinelli who was leaning against the counter looking beaten and exhausted. He heard a squawking noise and looked down at the forgotten cell phone still clutched in Spinelli’s hand. Jason reached down and gently removed it from his roommate’s flaccid grasp.
He couldn’t even get the phone close to his ear because Maxie was shouting so loudly as she tried to get a response. “Spinelli, if you don’t answer me right this minute, I am coming over!”
“Maxie! Shut up!” Jason utilized the opportunity to vent some of his pent up frustration by yelling himself. He was rewarded by blessed silence as Maxie adjusted both to the fact that Spinelli was no longer on the phone and that she had just been told off by that oaf Jason Morgan.
Fuming, she started to retort, “Who the hell do you…”
Jason grimly interrupted her again, “You will listen to me!” he stated with absolute authority. “Spinelli is helping me this evening. He can not dance attendance on you at your stupid Halloween party.”
Enraged by both his dictatorial attitude and his casual dismissal of what was a career enhancing event; Maxie responded indignantly, “Stupid Halloween party, stupid Halloween party! I’ll have you know that everyone who is anyone-not that you would have any idea-in the world of fashion is here tonight. This is an extremely vital evening to my career Jason and I will not have you screwing it up by having Spinelli hacking into something for you just because you can’t wait until tomorrow!”
Jason sighed, he realized that she had no idea what was going on. It wasn’t Maxie’s fault that the penthouse was acting as an understudy to a mortuary tonight. In a more reasonable voice, he tried again, “Maxie, I really need Spinelli’s help this evening and it isn’t anything that can wait until tomorrow. It isn’t something that’s just important to me, it is also critical to Spinelli as well. He very much wanted to be there for you tonight but what is happening is something that no one expected and it is not under our control.”
Maxie had also calmed down, it was clear she had absorbed the seriousness in Jason’s tone. Now there was a note of fear in her voice as she asked, “Is Spinelli okay? Is whatever it is dangerous? You better take care of him Jason or you’ll answer to me!” Then she said in a smaller, more lost voice, “I don’t know what I would do if something happened to Spinelli… You tell him it is all right about the party and my birthday and everything. You do what you need to do and we will celebrate another time. Jason,” the unending cascade of words paused, “I am trusting that you will make sure nothing happens to him. Promise me?”
Jason was touched both by her genuine concern for Spinelli as well as her faith in his ability to keep him safe. “I will take care of Spinelli, you can count on it. You enjoy your party.” He looked over at Spinelli who hadn’t moved during the entire exchange, “Maxie, the outfit you picked for Spinelli? It’s perfect, it looks great on him.” Without waiting for a response he flipped the phone shut and placed it on the counter.
“I failed her, Stone Cold,” Spinelli said miserably, “I failed Maximista. On this most significant evening, I wasn’t there to support her as she takes the first pertinent steps towards her future in the fashion industry.”
“That isn’t how she sees it at all, Spinelli. She was just upset in the beginning. When she understood that nothing except an emergency would have kept you from her side tonight all she could do was worry about your safety.”
“Really?” Spinelli asked uncertainly, “I just thought she was so disappointed in me.”
“She was really mad at me,” Jason said ruefully rubbing his neck remembering her unadulterated rage. “As for you, she said you needed to be careful because she doesn’t know what she would do without you. She made me promise that I would take care of you and that you could celebrate another night.”
Spinelli smiled wanly and said, “That’s a tremendous idea… The Jackal will plan the nights of all nights to make up for Maximista’s dashed hopes for this evening.”
Jason nodded his head in agreement and then reluctantly pointed to the kitchen floor, trying to pull Spinelli’s attention back to the grim reality facing them. “I recognize him also,” Jason had been studying the dead man all throughout the highly charged conversation with Maxie.
“Karpov’s or Zacchara’s?” Spinelli queried, his curiosity piqued
“Neither!” Jason growled as the twists in the maze that was this never ending nightmare further increased. “His name is John Smith and he is…was a freelance gun for hire. He is one of the few true sociopaths that I have ever run across. He will kill anyone for money and if he gets to torture his victims all the better from his perspective. This is one man you should not consider a loss to humanity, Spinelli. Because he is dead it means that others, innocents, will live.” Jason made this speech with a quiet intensity that underlined the disgust he felt towards the dead man.
Spinelli wondered if Stone Cold had lost someone important to him as a result of the deadly craft practiced by the deceased. He seemed grimly pleased that this man in particular was no longer breathing. Now was not the time to inquire into the matter though.
Instead he had to ask, “John Smith, really?” it just seemed outlandish for a notorious killer to possess such a patently false sounding name.
“I don’t know if that is his real name or not. It is the only name I have ever known him to go by. It fits his M.O. which was to be as inconspicuous as possible.”
Indeed, this body again varied from the two previous ones. Where they had required a richness of adjectives to describe their appearance and their ethnicity, John Smith only required two words-average and grey. He was an entirely forgettable man of average weight and height. His features were nondescript and his hair was a medium brown and cut to an average length. He was dressed in a grey suit, as had been the Slavic intruder, but this suit hinted at the inner arrogance of the man. It was a bespoke suit of fine Italian raw silk and had a classic cut that was timeless. Spinelli was amazed to find that he recognized both the fabric and the design of the suit. He spared a brief and fond thought for the memory of Maximista’s tutelage in the male sartorial arts. Smith’s shoes were also grey, they were hand stitched and the sheen on them reflected the ceiling light. If Spinelli had passed this man on the street he would not have been able to describe a thing about him except that he was exceptionally well dressed.
Jason said reflectively, “I have looked for him off and on over the years. When he isn’t working, he is invisible. I had no idea he was back in Port Charles. He knew better.”
The last was said with a cold ferocity which reinforced Spinelli’s theory that Smith and Jason had crossed paths at some point. He conjectured about the nature of what was clearly an unpleasant personal tragedy involving both men and occurring in the past long before he had entered his mentor’s orbit. He knew Stone Cold well enough to understand that whatever had inspired this magnitude of bitterness and hatred had been soul searing indeed.
There was one further aspect of John Smith’s body that separated it from the first two corpses. The cause of death for the Slavic soldier and Louie-strangulation and knife wound respectively-had been obvious to the naked eye. On the other hand, John Smith’s body was free from any discernible marks or injuries. He simply wasn’t breathing. Since the penthouse was not in possession of a fully equipped forensics laboratory, Spinelli presumed the enigma of how precisely Smith died would have to be added to the ever growing, ever more frustrating list of mysteries which had been accumulating all evening.
“Did Stone Cold find anything suspicious upstairs?” Spinelli asked Jason, trying to find a way to bring him back from whatever distant and disturbing memory seemed to currently possess him.
“No, nothing, it seems that three is our current quota,” Jason replied distractedly.
“And two of those three are in current occupancy in our domicile.” Spinelli was trying to arouse some sense of urgency, some idea that action was required to address the situation. “Surely Stone Cold has no intention of letting these…these interlopers remain here for any sustained interval.”
“Of course not!” Jason said vehemently, as he seemed to regain his awareness of his surroundings and the necessity to respond with some type of plan to resolve the predicament they found themselves mired in. He sighed heavily, as he once again took up the burden of leadership, “I’ll go back to the storage locker and see what we have left but I think you better go find some old sheets. If I had known about tonight, I would have stocked up accordingly, but lacking any idea of something like this…” he gestured at Smith’s corpse, “I missed that last tarp sale at the hardware store.” His stab at levity fell flat; neither of them had found much humor in the night’s events.
There had indeed been an additional tarp in the storage locker and Jason allocated it for wrapping Louie’s body since he was concerned about a possible bleed through from the knife wound. Fortunately, there was plenty of rope available to securely wrap both corpses within their makeshift shrouds.
Spinelli suggested that they move Smith first; he wanted to get this man, who seemed to affect Jason so deeply and so negatively, out of their home as quickly possible. So, they once again found themselves with an unholy cargo working their way down countless stairs to the subterranean parking garage. Smith might have indeed been evil incarnate, but he was definitely a less challenging burden than the Slavic one had been.
They returned to the penthouse to retrieve Louie, who wrapped tightly in a blue plastic sheath, made a small, pathetic package. Spinelli felt a wrench of pity as he looked at the undersized bundle that had once been a living, breathing human being. Louie the Rat may have been considered a ‘bottom dweller’ as Stone Cold had referred to him. Still, that did not make it acceptable to turn him into a macabre chess piece in whatever insane game was playing out within the confines of the penthouse.
He rubbed his hand over his face and bent down to pick up the body, but Jason forestalled him. “Look, Spinelli, I can take him, he’s not very heavy. Why don’t you go splash some water on your face and sit this one out, try and relax for a few minutes.”
Spinelli suddenly felt totally exhausted and he nodded his head in agreement to Jason’s plan. He was too tired to even respond verbally.
“Lock the door behind me and don’t open it for anyone but me,” were Jason’s parting words as he headed out the door with Louie hanging over his shoulder.
Spinelli was happily twirling around the dance floor with Maximista’s blonde head nestled on his shoulder. They seemed to be the only two people in the room. He wanted to preserve this moment forever; it was everything he had envisioned. Well, not quite everything, the orchestra seemed to be a little heavy on the percussion section. It was actually becoming very annoying, the noise wasn’t even rhythmic and it was definitely interfering with what should have been a memorable romantic moment. In addition to the beating of the drums, he was dimly aware that someone in the distance seemed to be shouting something at him.
‘Really, couldn’t the world let the Jackal spend some quality time with his dream girl?’ he thought, as he started to become extremely irritated.
“Spinelli! Open up!” Jason was yelling as he pounded on the door
Brutally jerked back to awareness, Spinelli rolled off the couch and onto the floor. As he picked himself up, he realized that he had fallen asleep in the short while he had been left alone. As he ran to open the door, he was just in time to prevent Jason from kicking his way in.
“Where in the hell have you been?” Jason rasped, both anxiety and anger evident in his face. “When you didn’t answer the door, I thought,” he paused, still caught in the grip of the panic that had threatened to overwhelm him when he couldn’t rouse Spinelli, “Something terrible had happened to you…”
“The Jackal is mortified that he was derelict in his duty and fell asleep, Stone Cold. Be assured it will not happen again!” Spinelli responded breathlessly. He was ashamed to have been found in such a compromising position by Jason, whom he knew would never have succumbed to the enticing lure of Morpheus.
Jason calmer now that all his worst fears had been proven groundless said “Spinelli, I wish I could let you just stay here and sleep but it isn’t safe. I need to keep a close eye on you for my own peace of mind. Besides,” he said wryly, “a nap is starting to look pretty good to me too right now. So, if we’re together we can keep each other awake, at least your constant talking should do the trick for me.”
“The Jackal only speaks to impart that which is most salient and needs to be communicated at any given instant!” Spinelli retorted with spirit. Then he looked at Jason’s face and saw a glint in his eye which meant he was teasing his grasshopper. “Well, the Jackal will undertake his assignment in the spirit in which it is given,” he continued with asperity. “There have long been many topics upon which he has been desirous of holding forth in his Master’s presence. This evening would seem to be the appropriate time for such a dissertation.”
“I can hardly wait,” Jason said sarcastically, while inwardly he was feeling happy to have the kid back to some semblance of his usual annoying self. “Why don’t you go catch the elevator down and wait for me in the garage. I need to get a few more things together and I’ll be right with you.”
The first thing Jason did, after he got into the SUV, was hand Spinelli a bottle of orange soda. “You forgot this.”
Spinelli noticed another bottle sticking out of the paper bag Jason had brought with him. “Many thanks Stone Cold, but the Jackal only needs one bottle of the orange elixir to pep him right up.”
“This?” Jason said, with a twist of his lips, as he pulled the second bottle out. “This isn’t for you, this one’s mine. Tonight we’re partners in all things.” He turned to clink bottles with Spinelli, “To knowing that someone has your back.” He took a large swig and managed not to choke as the very fizzy, very sweet, entirely artificial soda tracked its sticky way down his esophagus. ‘Please, somebody shoot me before I ever have to drink another bottle of this swill,’ he implored silently.
Spinelli was so touched by the gesture, that he was speechless. His Master had called him his partner and acknowledged that he trusted his grasshopper to have his back. Not only that, but he sealed the affirmation with a bonding drink of the Nectar of the Gods itself. Except for three dead bodies, Maximista’s poignant disappointment, and a bedroom and a bathroom he was unsure he could ever inhabit again-this was the absolute best night of his life.
Chapter 3/Part A