Free Love Is the Law by Nick Mamatas Page B

daydreams was still active. He ’ d been touching himself through his jeans with his other hand, and had orgasmed. The smell filled the car.
    “Holy fuck,” I said, and I laughed aloud. “You ’ re totally fucking insane.” As I released his throat he started coughing and sputtering. I grabbed the keys from the ignition and left him in the car. My Will guided my fingers around the correct key for the front door on the first try, and I was inside and had the door locked behind me before he even tumbled out of the car and onto the lawn.
    I suppose the apartment was typical. Lots of board games and books, a small pond of dirty shirts, VHS tapes with handscrawled labels. And a computer, with a printer! A Macintosh with a case half-brown from cigarette smoke, and gosh, fliers for last night ’ s Abyssal Eyeballs show were still in the printer tray. I had the computer on and was clicking on the folders when he finally came in.
    “I had a spare key,” he said, triumphantly. “What the hell?” I turned and made a point of staring at his crotch.
    “You have complaints?” I said.
    “What the hell!” he repeated, his voice still mostly trapped in his throat.
    “I knew you were hiding something,” I said. “Because I am a fucking genius.” I held up the flier. “Didn ’ t know anything about it?”
    “I was told you might be coming. Are you someone ’ s sister?”
    I snatched a VHS tape at random and waved it around. “Is this child porn?” He sat down, defeated. “What is Urotsukidoji ?” I said, reading from the label.
    “Well, not really child porn. It ’ s an anime ,” he said. “You know, Japanimation?”
    “I ’ m not anyone ’ s sister. Did the older man with the Chelsea girl—”
    “Chelsea girl?”
    I put a hand to my head and made the shape of bangs with my fingers. “Did he say I was someone ’ s sister? The Chelsea girl ’ s sister.”
    “He said it was a surprise party for you,” the man said. “Uhm . . .”
    “What ’ s your name?”
    “Joshua. And you ’ re Dawn.”
    “You have access to the pull lists at the comic store,” I said. “It ’ s not hard to guess I was the ‘Dawn ’ —how many other girls are regulars, or buy anything good? I ’ ll perform the Holmesian displays around here.”
    “How did you know I printed out the fliers?”
    “Oh, that I didn’t,” I admitted. “I just knew you were hiding something, because you made no effort to pretend that you weren’t. But now that you mention it, they do kind of look like the fliers the store makes for itself.”
    “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t call the police right now,” Joshua said. “You could have killed me.”
    “And with both hands, you could have freed yourself, but you were too busy jerking off,” I said. “How does it feel, the shoe being on the other foot? You were asking for it, just like a girl in a short skirt.”
    “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just kill you and rape you for real,” he said then, his voice a cold dead thing. I showed him my Swiss Army knife, and opened the blade.
    “That all you got? You can ’ t kill me with that.”
    “I can ruin your day with it.” I showed him my spiked ring too. “And this. And more. And after we had such an intimate moment in your car, too.”
    Joshua put a hand up to his neck. He’d have a story for work. “Do you always run around striking up conversations and then attacking people?”
    “I have been making a habit of it this week,” I said. “Listen, the older guy you met, with the girl? He’s dead. Shot in the head. I’m trying to figure out who did it, and why.”
    He laughed. “Maybe he blew his own head off. Ever think of that?”
    “That’s what the cops think, but I know better.”
    “Well, I can’t help you,” he said. “I met the guy once. He bought a shitload of comics— Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns and all the other stuff we can’t keep on the shelves because of all the news and hype.