Tommy didn’t think that Mara had been suspicious earlier. Well, maybe. Tommy didn\u2019t think so, but maybe. What Tommy really thought was that Mara was his friend. He\u2019d probably looked distressed, begging Mart\u00edn for those keys, and that had made Mara concerned. So, being a friend, she had followed him here, to make sure everything was okay. His head spun, looking around the room like Keyser S\u00f6ze searching for anything he could spin into some bullshit. The fan. The laundry machines. The lemon smell.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Mara was deliberate with each stair, but didn\u2019t want to be slow enough to arouse suspicion or make Tommy think she was nervous. What was she walking into? She didn\u2019t know. Murder? Part of her wouldn\u2019t imagine it, refused to believe that Tommy was The Butcher Of Uptown or whatever, but the part of her that had spent the last however many weeks reading about murderers was certain that she\u2019d get to the bottom of the stairs and see a blood-drenched basement. Some customer who\u2019d asked for extra ketchup disemboweled on the floor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tommy pushed himself off the wall. Sat in one of the thin plastic chairs. Made himself as casual as possible, scrolling around his phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTommy?\u201d Mara said, reaching the bottom of the stairs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOh, hey, Mara,\u201d he said. \u201cShow over already?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s still another band. What\u2019re you doing here?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI guess I must\u2019ve left a pretty odd impression, huh?\u201d Tommy smiled. A friend catching another friend in an embarrassing moment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou kinda barged into the venue, begged Mart\u00edn for keys to the restaurant after hours, and then bolted. You didn\u2019t say hi to any of us. It was\u2014yeah, we were worried, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOh. Nothing to be worried about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOkay. That\u2019s, good? What are you doing here, though?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSome, uh. Personal stuff. Mart\u00edn lets me do this after hours sometimes. Usually, we plan ahead a little bit better, you know, a few days ahead. But it\u2019s nothing. I don\u2019t know why I was all huffy at Alewives. I\u2019ve just, you know, been under some stress lately, you know, I cut my hand, and I\u2019m embarrassed, and\u2014just a weird time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat personal thing does Mart\u00edn let you do that usually requires a few day\u2019s planning?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWell, I did say it was personal. Kinda embarrassing. But. We\u2019re friends, right? It\u2019s not, like, a sex thing, if that\u2019s what you\u2019re thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t thinking it was a sex thing but now I\u2019m kinda wondering if it\u2019s a sex thing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLook, I gotta do my laundry somewhere,\u201d the words fell out of Tommy\u2019s mouth like ice spilling out of a knocked-over glass. \u201cThe machines in my building have been broken for, like, six months. I tried using the laundromat on my block but their driers take two loads to dry. So I asked Mart\u00edn, hey, you know, I can pay, but can I use the restaurant\u2019s machines? And he was cool with it. Mart\u00edn\u2019s a good friend.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIs that embarrassing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA 30-year-old single guy doing laundry in the basement of his workplace?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSometimes things happen in life. I don\u2019t think anyone\u2019s judging you for having broken laundry machines and a shitty landlord.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut you\u2019re judging me for something?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI didn\u2019t say that. You seemed so, I don\u2019t know, distressed<\/em> at Alewives. You didn\u2019t have just-need-clean-clothes energy. And what\u2019s with the fan?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tommy laughed and shook his head. He wasn\u2019t bullshitting, this was true. No bullshit. \u201cI\u2019m a chef,\u201d he said. \u201cI thrive on cacophony, a loud environment. Fan silences all the noises in my head, right? If there\u2019s white noise in the room. As far as laundry, I didn\u2019t have clean chef\u2019s whites or, not that you asked, clean underwear. Didn\u2019t realize it until after I\u2019d had dinner, was trying to catch Mart\u00edn before he went home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n There had always been a faint whiff of bullshit around Tommy, but Mara felt like she was in a pasture. Well, she could make up a lie about the basement, too. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOkay, Tommy,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m sorry to, like, grill you. It\u2019s\u2014we were worried, I said I\u2019d go see what\u2019s up. Also, since I\u2019m here. I forgot my phone charger in my locker.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n She had no idea what she was doing. If she was even looking for anything. Something felt off, though. She wanted to bolt, but she wanted more time in the room, too. The air had a warble. Nothing Tommy said about laundry connected with Mart\u00edn\u2019s side-eyed hints of outlaw mystery. Besides, Mart\u00edn would\u2019ve mentioned letting Tommy use the laundry machines. That wouldn\u2019t be, like, a state secret. <\/p>\n\n\n\n She opened her locker, started to grab the backup phone charger that she kept there, then let it go. Pushed a few other things around. Knelt at the base of the locker. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In the gap, right between where her locker met Diego\u2019s. A red splotch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Blood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Deep, wine-colored, viscous. A blotch that had obviously been one blotch amongst many until very recently. When she bent over, the smell of fresh lemon was an assault on her nostrils. Tommy had been in here cleaning blood. <\/p>\n\n\n\n She took her time standing up. Made a show of oh there it is<\/em> with her phone charger. Put the phone charger in her bag. If that blood spot was still there, that meant that Tommy didn\u2019t know it was there. Now she needed him not to know that she knew it was there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Something she\u2019d picked up from some talking head on some True Crime documentary, she couldn\u2019t remember who the person was or what the case was, but she could remember the woman\u2019s head-shaking admonishment: always have a way out of a room. <\/em>She crossed the basement. The air a little more still now, but charged. Had the fan and washing machines gotten louder?<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo I\u2019ll see you tomorrow?\u201d Tommy asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n She was at the stairs. She could get up to the back door. But she still didn\u2019t know anything, not really. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTotally,\u201d Mara said. \u201cSorry if I intruded.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNo problem. Thanks for being a friend.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cHey, speaking of friends, have you heard from Diego? He was supposed to come out tonight, but never showed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now Mara felt the air change. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now Tommy had a different expression on his face. <\/p>\n\n\n\n She turned and sprinted up the stairs, Tommy quick on her heels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her whole body was starting to react. Her hands fumbled with her bag, dropping her phone charger. Finding her phone. Her knees popped up and down, hopping the stairs. Code to unlock the phone. Recent calls. Parth\u2019s name. The call started to go, but her phone slipped out of her hands. She kept running. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Tommy picked up the phone. Ended the call. He watched Mara reach the top of the stairs. Slam her shoulder into the door. Bounce right off when it didn\u2019t open. Put her hands on the handle, look back at Tommy. Run into the kitchen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Tommy took a breath. Jogged up the stairs. \u201cMara?\u201d he called out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mara crashed through the kitchen. Feet unstable beneath her. These were not non-slip shoes. The kitchen floor was still the kitchen floor. She needed the dining room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Only the emergency lights were up, a single ceiling fixture above the front door and a couple lights on the half wall in the middle of the dining room. She ran toward the front door. Past the host stand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n She heard Tommy call her name. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Being a restaurant equipped for Chicago winters, there were two doors: the glass door that was actually attached to the building, and the plastic storm door built out into the sidewalk. No time to unlock the front door and the storm door. She ducked low and crouch-walked around the half wall to Booth 12. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If Tommy followed her path, walked toward the front door first? Then she\u2019d be able to sprint around the other side of the half wall. Back to the kitchen. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Was she getting a knife, or was she running for the back door? <\/p>\n\n\n\n She tried to slow her breathing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cMara?\u201d Tommy called. There was a knife in his hand. He was in the dining room now. He knew Mara still was, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tommy didn’t think that Mara had been suspicious earlier. Well, maybe. Tommy didn\u2019t think so, but maybe. What Tommy really thought was that Mara was his friend. He\u2019d probably looked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":162657656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[168],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-162657751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-behind-with-knife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162657751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=162657751"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162657751\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":162657752,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162657751\/revisions\/162657752"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/162657656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=162657751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=162657751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lazyandentitled.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=162657751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}