Remember To Floss

They snatched her, and now they’ve sent somebody else to finish the job.  To terminate any witnesses. 

 

I lie in the milk and listen.

 

Traffic below the window.  Taxi horns.  Prostitutes slamming car doors.  A bar fight spilling out onto the sidewalk.  

 

Then another click.  Coming from the bedroom.  And the white noise of a radio tuned in between stations.  Followed by the pained squeal of mattress springs heaving under the weight of a healthy-sized backside.

 

If I stand up, I run the risk of dripping and giving away my position.  So I roll silently from the puddle of milk to my purse near the bedroom door.  I’ve got dental floss inside.  Cinnamint.  (Here’s a Heloise Hint for you:  unwaxed dental floss, when wrapped carefully around the index and middle fingers of both hands, has the tensile strength of piano wire and can slice through neck skin like a cheese cutter slides through a good smoked gouda.)

 

From my purse, I roll toward the bedroom and peek inside.

 

Male.  Fat.  Hawaiian shirt.  Wispy hair slicked back in oily furrows. He is at the far edge of the bed, facing the opposite wall which makes me smile:  he is defenseless as a lard sculpture in the sun. Rolls of his back fat ripple from side to side as he frantically punches buttons on an old tape recorder in a way that suggests he has no idea what he’s doing. 

 

“Piece!  Of!  Shit!  I AM pressing ‘play’ and ‘record’ at the same time!”

 

An idiot.  I’m sensing opportunity.

 

I roll next to the bed, stand up lightly behind him to do the math.  If the floss is too tight, it will break.  Too much slack and it will never burrow through all that neck fat to hit windpipe.

 

I tighten it just enough to turn my fingertips cold and purple. 

 

He’s still punching buttons.  I reach for him.  Now.  

 

“Isn’t it ironic?”  His voice stops me cold.  

 

 “There’s a completely naked woman behind me dripping with milk.  And me, without a single cookie.”