First Case of Beers by P.M. LaRose

Author:P.M. LaRose [P. M. LaRose]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: -
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2015-07-16T00:00:00+00:00

SLIPPERY

WHEN

WET

Then the guilt sets in as Rosie’s scolding visage replaces the afterglow, and the hallucination fades to reality.

14

Saturday afternoon

Temperature: 24, snow; wind chill, 8

In reality, and regretfully, Tina went to her bedroom solo, got dressed, emerged and said, “C’mon, Beers. Let’s go catch us a crook.”

While I was still in the heavy-breathing stage mentally, Tina dropped on the sofa to put on her sneakers and gazed wistfully at the lamp parts. “It’s gone,” she said with a heavy sigh.

“I’m really sorry. I’ll get you a new one.”

Tina hopped up and put on her jacket. “Nope, you can’t replace that. I’ve had that lamp since I was a kid. Oh well, forget about it.” She grabbed the box and opened the front door. “Coming?”

Piling the guilt of destroying her family heirloom on top of the guilt of mentally ravishing her, I slunk out of the apartment, down the stairs and to the car, promising myself I would somehow purge myself of such thoughts. Somehow.

Tina guided me through the back streets of her neighborhood, past rows of uniformly small houses, an ice rink on the grounds of a grammar school and a corner playground, to a main thoroughfare dotted with old-time service stations and mom-and-pop businesses. It looked like Smalltown, USA. We stopped at a block of nondescript brick apartments. “Go around back,” she said, pointing to a side parking lot that was packed with vehicles. “Over there.” She pointed to a cedar-fenced area adjoining the corner of the building, with an open gate. I parked alongside it and we hopped out.

“That’s where I found the box,” she said, indicating one of the two Dumpsters in the fenced area. Good. Now I had to add consorting with a Dumpster diver to my resume of guilt.

“So you know this is Bibb’s because….?”

“I saw him dump it,” she said. “Sometimes I cut through parking lots on my jogging route. I was coming around the far corner over there and I saw this guy that looked familiar. The Goth Vader outfit is a dead giveaway from a long way off. Anyway, I watched him and he looked a little skittish while he was dumping this box, like he wanted to make sure no one was watching. But I was.”

“OK. Then let’s go ask him about it.” We waited until someone left the back entrance and casually caught the door before it closed and locked us out. The standard wall of mail drops was right inside the entrance. Affixed to #22 was a smudged white label with TOKAN printed on it.

Down the long hallway we went, heading up the stairs when we hit 20 and ran out of doors. No. 22 was a number short, but the outline of the missing 2 made it clear this was the right apartment. Tina rapped out a beat just below the NO SOLICITING sign pasted under the peephole. After 10 seconds and no sounds, she knocked again, this time with both fists, until we heard heavy footsteps approaching and “All right! All right!” from the other side.

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