His Favorite Girl (3 page)

With an hour left in my shift, I finally talked myself into tearing up the note and flushing it down the toilet in my tiny office bathroom.

As I was returning to the desk, there came a thunderous knock at the door, so loud it made me jump.

"Who is it?"

More pounding on the door with no verbal response, so I opened it to find Sean standing there, grinning as always.

"
We fucked up," he said.

"What?  How?"

"Come with me."

"Where are we going?"

But he was already headed to the elevator.  I caught up to him as the doors were retracting and we rode in silence to Level B, where Sean stepped out ahead of me.

I hesitated.  Brian's apartment was creepy.  The pit and pendulum.  The shelves with jars of mutant creatures backlit by soft LED lights, tiny failed experiments glowing in their soups of formaldehyde.

I had to go through Brian's apartment twice a day, and it never got any easier.  Always empty, always silent, always dimly lit.  Sometimes I would tiptoe through, fearful of what might lurk behind a door, Brian or otherwise, and thinking about the way he inspected me when I awoke on his stainless steel table.

The elevator doors began to close and I quickly stepped out to find Sean, his guards, and Brian all standing around the pit, staring down at the pendulum.

"What's this about?" I asked, approaching slowly.

Brian looked at me, his cosmic eyes filled with rage, and pointed down into the pit.

I stepped up to the edge and looked down.

Trent Sampson leaned against the wall, completely naked, shying from the swinging pendulum as though it were electrified.  His amputated leg looked like some shriveled deformity that had never been a complete leg at all
, and in his hand he held his rock-hard erection--still recovering, I assumed, from whatever time he'd had with Doll Girl.

"Mr. Shriver is on his way," Sean said to no one in particular.

"What did he do?" I asked.

"He was wearing a wire," Br
ian said.

I looked down at
Trent again, then around the pit at the five men standing before me.  Suddenly I felt vulnerable.  Any one of them could grab me and throw me down in there with the one-legged soldier as punishment.

"How is that my fault?" I asked.

"You're supposed to be frisking clients," Sean said.  His tone was indifferent, and it occurred to me that Brian was the only one angry about this.

"No one told me to frisk anyone," I said.

"Bullshit," Brian barked.  "Sean?  You trained her."

"
She's right," Sean said, to my surprise.  "I took her through Kate's routine, but I neglected to emphasize the importance of seducing the client for the purpose of performing a pat-down without the client's knowledge."

"So
you
fucked up," Brian said, staring Sean down.

Sean just smiled and shrugged, which seemed to infuriate Brian even more.

"What are you going to do with him?" I asked, directing my question at Sean.

"Interrogate him," Sean said.

One of his guards snickered and the other two followed suit.

I could hear Mr. Shriver coming up the hallway.

"Can I leave?" I asked.  "I don't want to be here for this."

"Go ahead," Sean said.  "Straight to your room."

I turned to go but Brian grabbed me by the arm.  "You wait for Mr. Shriver," he said menacingly.

I jerked
my arm from him and backed away, but he advanced on me quickly, grabbing me around the waist and growling like a dog.  I let out a shrieking string of curse words, trying to throw an elbow into his side, and then suddenly he let go.

I turned and found Sean gripping Brian by the neck
, choking him with one hand.  Brian clung to Sean's meaty wrist, eyes bulging, face turning red.

"She's my employee, not yours," he said calmly.  When he let loose of Brian's neck, Brian collapsed to the floor coughing and wheezing, then cursing when he found his breath.

I ran to hallway, meeting Mr. Shriver as he came around the corner but not stopping, even though he called to me.  In the elevator I pushed the Level C button frantically, keeping my eyes on the hallway in anticipation of Mr. Shriver sending one of Sean's guards after me.

It didn't happen.  I took deep breaths until the elevator opened and then rushed through the lobby.  When I entered the hallway I ran to my door, keyed into it, and slammed it shut behind me.

Dub-step music blared from the stereo system while Flora and Liu danced in their underwear with drinks in their hands.

Flora noticed me and broke from their grinding to run over and give me a hug.  Liu turned the music down and followed, an embittered expression on her face.

She wasn't even supposed to be off work yet.

"Of course the day Patton lets me go early, you get off early, too," she said, making no effort to hide her mood.

Normally Flora would acknowledge Liu's rudeness, but instead she was staring at me with a peculiar look about her.  Like a teenager buttering up her parents for permission to stay out late.  I knew the expression all too well.

"Are you gonna ask her or what?" Liu said.

"Can we invite James over tonight?" Flora asked immediately.

"No."

"Why not?" Liu demanded.

I stared her down.  "Because I said so."

"You're not our mother."

"We just want to watch a movie," Flora said softly, head down, and of course I wanted to oblige just because I hated to see her sad.  If it were anyone else in the world, I would take her sheepishness as a play for sympathy, but Flora's emotions and actions were completely honest.

Liu, on the other hand, was a duplicitous little snake, possibly capable of manipulating Flora into lying on her behalf.  The jury was still out on that one.

"Okay," I said.

Their eyes lit up instantly and Liu started jumping up and down, clapping her hands and squealing.

Flora just looked up at me and said, "Thank you."

"I have certain conditions, though," I said, "and I want no arguments."

"What conditions?" Liu asked, her tone cynical once again.

I went to the kitchen to grab a soda, gathering my thoughts along the way.  It occurred to me that I might need a flashlight for exploring the air duct.  I'd seen one in a drawer, but Flora and Liu followed me like dogs begging for the treat in my hand.

This was a bad idea.  James was a little prick
.  I doubted, for the sake of his job--and his life--that he would initiate anything, but if Liu came on to him he most likely wouldn't resist.  I wasn't worried about Liu so much as Flora.  What if he couldn't resist her?  What if Liu turned on the device?

"No alcohol, no drugs,
and no physical contact," I said, taking a seat at the kitchen table and popping open my soda.

Liu let out a long deliberate sigh.  "Are you fucking serious right now?"

"Yes."

Flora sat next to me.  Liu remained standing, hand on her flat stomach, drumming her fingers just above the seam of her underwear.

"We'll be good, I promise," Flora said.

I looked at her intently.  "I know you will.  You would never lie to me, would you?"

"No, never."

"I have a date with Patton tonight," I said.  "Tell James to be here at quarter till seven so I can explain the rules to him directly before I leave."
  I stood, leaving my soda half-finished on the table.  "I'm gonna take a long bath."

"You took a bath this morning," Liu said.

"And now I'm taking another.  I had a really bad day at work and I need some time to myself."

Liu hooked her thumb in her underwear and pulled it down a little.  "Sure you don't want us to join you?"

"I'm sure," I said coldly, patting Flora on the head as I went past.  I stopped at the corridor entrance and turned.  "Oh, I have one more condition.  You guys need to clean this place up.  Pick up all your clothes, make the bed, and light some candles or something.  It smells like mould in here."

Candles.  As good an excuse as any to rummage through the drawers.  To distract them, I demanded that they begin cleaning now and used the time to find myself a flashlight.  Inevitably, Liu asked what I was looking for, and instead of lying I told her to mind her own business.  I found a small LED flashlight, stuck it in my pocket, and continued searching the drawers until I found a half-spent cinnamon candle, which I set on the table before heading into the corridor.

In the shower room, I stepped up onto the ledge at the corner of the pool and walked it up to the space behind the tropical plants.  I scooted the heavy vent cover to the right and sat on my shins in front of the open duct, peering inside.

Mustering the courage to crawl inside was less difficult when I had another huge worry to distract myself.  Images of a threesome between Flora, Liu, and James kept flashing through my mind, filling me with confusing feelings of insecurity, anger, and jealousy.
  Then, of course, guilt.  Some sinister part of me wanted Flora all to myself, wanted to preserve her delicate innocence, like trying to guard a sand castle from the tide simply because I wanted to be the one to smash it.

I took the flashlight out, clicked the button, and pointed it into the darkness.  The air duct was plenty wide enough for me, but I had a hard time imagining
Clifton squeezing himself through.  If nothing else, that smelly sack of shit had determination.

I took a deep breath and crawled inside, holding the flashlight between my teeth.
  I was maybe six feet in when I could no longer hear the splashing of the waterfall.  Silence so absolute all I heard was a ringing in my ears.

Up ahead I saw an intersection.  I approached it slowly, already entertaining thoughts of tentacles slithering around the corner, giant rats barreling down on me like a fighting bull, or, worse than anything, squishing a big sack of freshly hatched spiders with my palm.

I crawled on my hands and knees, surveying the floor with the flashlight, keeping my legs locked into the corners so as not to put weight in the center.  I'd seen enough movies to know air duct floors can pop like the seal tester on the lid of a jar, information I never thought I'd need.

But here I was, breathing dust and sweating my ass off, despite the cool air drifting past me.

When I came to the intersection I stopped to study each direction.  The right came to a dead end.  Light filtered in through a vent cover on either side.  These were dorms.  Lodging for Level C employees, including James and the cafeteria workers.

The left duct looked exactly the same, only down at the end was an opening leading upward.

Straight ahead, I could see another intersection.  I also noticed something about the walls and floor.  The ducts to the left and right were carpeted on all sides by years and years of dust buildup.  Behind me and ahead of me, though, Clifton's travels had swept away much of the dust--or he himself kept his favorite paths clean.

I decided to follow his lead.  Otherwise I was likely to get lost.

As I crawled slowly up the shaft, I began to imagine what I might encounter, what rooms I might peek into, what conversations I might hear--and from whom.  And the deeper I crawled, the more afraid of getting caught I became.

Clifton
's path took me all the way to the end of the duct where it went right and left.  The right side ended as abruptly as those before it.  Its sides and floor were dusty but I could see tracks where Clifton had crawled through it before.

To the left was his most common route, but I decided to go right and peek through the only vent cover.

It was no bigger than a college dorm room.  Tile floor, bluish-gray walls, a twin-size bed and a small desk against one wall, a dresser with a nineteen-inch television on top against the other, right next to a closed bathroom door.

It was clearly a girl's room, which explained
Clifton's occasional voyeurism here.  A set of clothes was laid out neatly on the bed: long cream-colored skirt, white collar top, white panties, white socks, and a white bra.

I realized
I could hear the shower running in the bathroom only when it suddenly turned off.  Then suddenly I became Clifton for a moment, excited to be spying on someone whom I might very soon see naked.

As I waited, I studied the room for any indication of its occupant, and right before the bathroom door opened I spotted the perfect clue.  A pair of glasses on the desk.

Judy's glasses.

She emerg
ed from the bathroom in a towel, wiping her face and walking slowly, almost tiptoeing.

It took me a moment to realize she was crying.

I almost called out to her but then remembered where I was.  She was already upset.  Something this strange might frighten her to death.

Judy removed her bathrobe and I drew in a sharp breath, covering my mouth quickly for fear that she'd heard me.  She hadn't.  She was weeping now as she toweled her face and her hair.  And I could clearly see why.