Free The Exquisite by Laird Hunt Page A

talking?
    He wants me to do this? This specifically?
    Let’s just say he thought you might
enjoy
doing, yes, this.
    O.K., but enjoy doing what? I’m supposed to go up there and murder someone?
    Apartment 4A, lock sticks a little, you got gloves? Put them on and go the fuck up.
    It was one of those East Village buildings that hadn’t been fixed up and would likely see a wrecking ball before long. The stairwell was steep and dirty and narrow and badly lit and poorly painted and there were deep cracks at the base of its walls. High-pitched, unhappy sounds came out of a couple of the graffiti-covered doors. As Cornelius had said, the lock did stick but not too badly. I took a deep breath, bit down on my tongue, exhaled, and went in. And while in the wake of my conversation with Anthony I was expecting to come face-to-face with something strange, possibly exciting, more probably unpleasant, it certainly wasn’t
that
.
That
was the knockout, who was apparently, literally, knocked out. Lying on the kitchen linoleum wearing nothing but a sign on her stomach that read, when I got close enough to kind-of inspect her and read it, KILL ME.
    Yeah right, hah, hah, KILL ME, I thought.
    But just then a door opened and the fraternal twins from dinner came out. I can’t even describe what it was they were doing and how it was they were moving. Maybe you’ve seen contortionists in action before. Or at least photos thereof. Basically, something is seriously wrong with their spines. And with other things: their sockets, their primary joints and articulations. They had shucked the loose-fitting gear they had been wearing at Mr. Kindt’s in favor of pale-blue sequined leotards. They made circles around the room—hideous, freaky, fascinating circles—each time stepping over the knockout lying on the linoleum. Once one of them misstepped, or, maybe, didn’t misstep, and joggled one of the knockout’s patently artificial, definitely torpedo-class breasts. Then they rushed me and before I could move I had two grimy feet in my face. Each of the feet was holding a piece of folded paper pinched between the first and second toes. I took one of them, then the other, then the feet went away and the two of them went back to doing their contorted dance around the room. All of this was happening in your basic, crappy, old-school East Village kitchen. There was one long window with the inevitable bars and a couple of bedraggled sun-starved plants. Blech paint job, birdcage with a stuffed parrot in it, some oil-grimed hot-pepper Christmas lights, a sink out of something by Hieronymus Bosch, a view of an air shaft, and all the standard low-budget, largely defective kitchen implements. I unfolded the first piece of paper. It read, “In the drawer next to the stove.” I unfolded the second piece. It read, “Get the knife.”
    I should probably clarify, if it means anything, that on this occasion at least, Cornelius, the murderer, wasn’t really all that much like I have most lately described him. He was more like I described him at dinner—sort of distant and mysterious, given to pronouncing what Mr. Kindt later described as the “sonorous conundrums” of seventeenth-century surgeon-philosophers. He certainly wasn’t overweight. Just like I’m not. He was, if not emaciated, then quite slender, and he wore, with his own floppy black hat, an elegant black hunting cape, and we walked a good deal farther before arriving at our destination than I made it sound like above, and we talked.
    How do you know Mr. Kindt? I asked him.
    Isn’t he wonderful? the murderer said.
    Yes, he’s my dear friend now, I said. How do you know him?
    We are old colleagues.
    Colleagues?
    Yes, in fact, it was Aris who set me out on my current path. And I him on his.
    I see.
    Yes.
    Are you from upstate?
    Near Cooperstown.
    Did you see him swim the lake?
    I lost money on it. Lots and lots of money. More money than I like to think of, even now.
    I’m sorry to hear that.
    We