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Angelo
Inside The Dominion, a kid was sitting on the bottom riser of the main staircase, playing a Nintendo DS. He closed the lid of the game as he looked up at the newcomer.
"Elevator?" Chris asked.
"No," the kid replied, deadpan, "seven year-old boy."
This stopped Chris in his tracks and he stood laughing. The boy smirked back at him.
"That was good," Chris admitted, ebb-flow laughs punctuating the words, "you really got me. What's your name?"
"Angelo," the boy said.
"Angelo?"
"That's my name, don't wear it out."
And once again, the boy stopped Chris dead. Something about that saying... He'd heard it before... Not from a kid though... It was...
From 'Grease'.
John Travolta - Danny Zuko - denying Sandy - Olivia Newton John dropping many years to play a teenager - acting the hood, closing down on what he's really feeling; through his goofy grin, though, the remorse is clear.
"Wha... What did you say?"
The boy, Angelo, stood and stepped towards him; one small step, precise, definite.
The pitch of the cube in his pocket cycled up as the child planted his foot.
"Do you always ask questions?"
Chris was flummoxed; this deadpan child, speaking to him like he were the kid in this conversation.
"I..."
"Don't know what to say?" Angelo took another step.
Thrumming cube.
"No..."
Another step.
The nausea kicking up in his guts again, an unwelcome return visitor.
And then Angelo burst out laughing, twisting and spinning, dancing back to his seat at the bottom of the staircase.
"Had you there, didn't I?"
Chris paused before he nodded. The cube hadn't relaxed at all, its resonance still hummed in his guts.
"Elevator?" he asked again through dry lips.
Angelo simply pointed off to the left. There was an elevator bank with three doors on one wall. Flat lighting hardly reflected off the metal of the doors. The walls surrounding them were nondescript; grey, featureless, with sconces that illuminated their own polite halos but no further.
Chris turned to walk there. As he turned his back on Angelo, the boy spoke.
"Sheesh! I was just playing with you! There's no need to throw a cow." And he laughed again.
Chris stopped, turned back to look at the boy, fighting back the nausea.
"A friend of mine died," he said, "she used to live here. I'm... er... Just not in the mood, I guess."
"You mean Angela?"
Chris nodded, unable to speak. Obviously, Angelo noted this, because he eventually chose to speak in order to break the silence.
"Her apartment's still got all the police-tape and shit over the door. That's if the others haven't trashed it."
"The others?"
"Yup, you're the fifth person to come sniffing around here. I don't think the others knew her, though..."
"Why's that?"
The boy shrugged.
"Well, two of them didn't even go upstairs and the rest didn't stick around for more than quarter of an hour after heading up there."
"Were..."
Angelo looked at Chris, raised eyebrows willing him to ask the question.
"Were... they wearing black?"
And did one of them have a knife sheathed at the small of her back, he almost added.
"Nah!" Angelo exclaimed, smiling, "they were full of the joys of Spring."
And then, like a tour guide treading a well known, oft-repeated route: "Seventh floor, apartment six. It's the one with all the police tape on it."
Then, Chris watched the boy raise his right hand and wave goodbye, picking up his DS and opening the lid.
The conversation was over.
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This Pod rates: 3.5 |
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