Cat In A Quicksilver Caper

A life-size poster of Johnny Depp as a pirate had nearly bought it until she recognized another familiar media face in the male photograph on the opposite wall. Had looked like a long-haired druggie at first flash. That beard sure begged for a 9-millimeter shave.

She had to wade through teenage effluvia, kicking away several stuffed animals, to reach the closet and rip that door open.

Just more girly clutter on the floor and unmoving ranks of clothes old and new. She used the gun muzzle to sweep the hangers back, her bare foot to feel and kick the clutter off the floor.

Nothing there. No one.

Back to the wall, backed up by Johnny “Pirates of the Caribbean” Depp. Big help. She needed to re-enter the hall, but someone might have followed her down, or preceded her down. Be waiting for her now. Or have been waiting for her all along.

The bathroom. Shower curtain. Oh, great, Janet Leigh at the Bates Motel time. But too small to conceal much. Then, her own bedroom.

In the hall, she pointed the Glock left, then right. Someone might have been lurking in her bedroom and returned to the living room while she investigated Mariah’s room. The rose petal trail smelled like a trap. There were still rose petals at her feet and they led into her bedroom.

If she goes on toward it, she bottles herself up in an architectural cul-de-sac. Just how well does Whoever know her house? Very well indeed. The music must be coming from the radio alarm clock in her bedroom.

No wonder it sounds so tinny. They never put decent sound systems into those cheap dual-function things.

At least Mariah is out, and safe at . . . someone’s house. Try to keep track of a kid nowadays. Try to remember the kind of September— this is May! Concentrate.

Carmen eyes the hall back where she came from. The perp could be out there, escaping. Or poised to bottle her in. Or . . . not.

She edges along, back to the wall, ready to move, or fire, in either direction.

What if this is just the misguided prank of some besmitten teenage boy, trying to get Mariah’s attention? Carmen overreacts, and disaster.

But she’s the one who’s had strange vintage velvet gowns showing up in her closet. Alien gift boxes left on her bed. She’s the one being stalked.

Carmen nears the door to her own bedroom. That door is ajar.

It always is. This is a two-female, two-cat household. The cats bounce between her bedroom and Mariah’s every night. Several times every night. And their litter box is in the bathroom under the sink with its four chrome legs circa the fifties.

Normal is open doors.

Abnormal is someone lurking behind them. Someone more solid than a poster. No posters in her bedroom. She spots a male figure . . . it’s surrender or shoot.

Her own house has come to this. Ticks her off. She adjusts her hands on the metal grip, the trigger guard. She’s got her forefinger resting on the guard, not the trigger. She moves it slowly and carefully to the trigger itself. Her palms are damp. They just stick to the warming metal better.

Her grip is sure.

She kicks her own bedroom door open and backs into it fast, so the door can’t rebound, hiding half the room.

Everything is so damn familiar. So damn static. But this room has a closet. And a gun safe in that closet.

There are a couple more guns in there. The standard issue .38 she got on her first patrol job in L.A. Another .38 she accidentally took during her flight from L.A. when she was pregnant with Mariah. Rafi Nadir’s, with his fingerprints all over it, like they were all over her past. How do you return an accidentally abstracted police department issue gun to an ex-lover you never want to see again? You don’t.

He’d never see the daughter he’d tricked her into bearing, he’d never see his gun again. Bastard.

She’s mad now. A match for anything.

She takes down the room foot by foot, piece by piece. Her own sanctuary, a crime scene.

After twenty sweaty minutes, she has nothing.

The gun safe is secure. Locked. The alien blue velvet dress still hangs among the other vintage velvet gowns for her secret off-duty role as Carmen, just Carmen, the blues singer.

She sits on the bed, her bed, holding the gun, her gun.

No one is here. She’d barged back out into the main rooms, shocked the cats, looked behind and under and over and into every nook and cranny. Nothing.

The bedside alarm clock radio drones on.

She can’t be sure she forgot to turn it off this morning.

There’ve been a lot of mornings like that lately, tainted by serial worry. About her job, her daughter, her stalker.

Then the alarm goes off—buzzing, buzzing—on her bedside table.

She slams the button down. And listens.

The radio, the damn radio is still playing.

From under her pillow.

She tosses the pillow aside like a lightweight Hollywood rock.

Something remains.

A vintage transistor radio.

A flat box, like nylon stockings used to come in. With a note.