TOY CRIME STORY PART 12

 

CHAPTER TWELVE

Nightbeat opened his eyes. He was in the closet with Felix, who stank of gin. He looked a bit unbalanced even though he was sitting down. “Look who came back to life. Need a drunk . . . a drink?”

Nightbeat sat up, rubbing his eyes. “What happened to me?”

“Cat shotgunned you,” Felix said. “You’ve been dead for maybe three hours.”

“Feels like a lot longer. And yes, I’d love a drink.”

Felix handed the bottle of gin over, and Nightbeat drank deeply before handing it back. He gagged on the taste. Gin never suited him. He was more of a scotch kind of guy. Gin tasted like poison.

Worse—he still felt the echoes of Joey’s death and accusations. He didn’t trust himself enough to stand. “It’s my first time being dead,” he said. “What’s it like for you?”

“I don’t know,” Felix said. “Usually I’m drunk and don’t remember anything.”

“I felt like I went through hell.” He paused. “I saw Joey.”

“I see him, too. Sometimes.”

“No, I meant Joey. For real. He said that I might as well have killed him myself.” Nightbeat cricked his neck and grimaced.

“Nightbeat,” Felix said, “I’m hammered out of my goddam mind, and even I know that’s not true. I know you seem pretty adamant on it being murder, but maybe you’re wrong. You ever think about that?”

“I’m not wrong,” Nightbeat said. “This was murder. One hundred-percent.”

Felix sighed. “Have it your way. Just leave me out of it. I’m drinking to fucking forget about the whole thing.”

Nightbeat staggered to his feet and shuffled away from Felix and into the bedroom proper. It was dark, and even though he’d been dead for a few hours, he somehow still felt tired. He wanted to rest. The thought of kicking the shit out of Cat occurred to him, but he knew it would be futile. Instead he found a dark corner to lay in and fell asleep.

He didn’t sleep for long. The door to Joey’s room creaked open, and Wally stepped in with a box. His eyes were red and bloodshot, and his breath smelled of bourbon. He set the box down on the bed and sat next to it. He picked Bunny off the floor and closely looked at him.

“Mimi doesn’t want me to get rid of you,” Wally said. “She wants to keep everything the way it was when Joey was still with us. I remember when I was a kid, and I used to sleep with you. We were like best buds before I started getting real friends.”

Nightbeat’s guts clenched a little at that. He liked to think they were Joey’s friends, but deep down he knew that toys couldn’t sit in for real companionship. For that, you needed fellow humans.

“All I see when I look at you is Joey,” Wally said. Tears overflowed from his eyes, but he didn’t sob. He hugged Bunny to his chest for a moment.

Oh fuck, Nightbeat thought.

Wally looked at Bunny one more time before placing him in the box. He tried to close it up, but he just couldn’t. Finally, he broke down and wept, pulling Bunny out of the box and setting him back on the floor. He left without taking the box with him.

Bunny sprang to life. “I don’t want to be boxed up! I want to be left alone!”

“Hey,” Don Draper said. “We all get boxed up eventually. It’s part of the deal. You live, you get boxed up, you die.” He sipped from his scotch. “No different from anyone else.” He finished off the scotch and wandered away to find more.

“Don’t worry about it,” Nightbeat said. “We can’t be boxed yet.”

“Why’s that?” Bunny asked.

“I haven’t solved Joey’s murder.”