Super Meals: Part Thirty Nine

“I’m on my way,” said Mimi, thumbing the phone off and slipping it into her pocket.

“What was that about,” asked Walter?

“We gotta go. Now.” Mimi pushed past them and went to the door, but stopped when she saw that they weren’t following her. “Come on! I said we gotta go!”

Walter jerked and grabbed a jacket from a hook by the door and tossed it to Adam. “Oh! Sure thing,” he said. “Come on, mate. Let’s go.”

They followed Mimi out the door, with Walter hanging back to close and lock his door, and as Adam went down the steps to the sidewalk he said, “Seriously, where are we going?”

Mimi stopped at the driver’s door and leaned on the roof of the car until Walter caught up with them. As he approached the rear passenger door he stopped as Mimi said, “Walt? That guy that beat you up this morning?”

“He didn’t beat me up…” muttered Walter.

“Adam,” said Mimi, ignoring him, “that guy who brought you your dinner last night?”

“Yeah? What about him?” asked Adam.

“He’s at the morgue, right now, doing something in the laboratory across the hallway from my ex-girlfriend’s dead sister. You guys want answers? Get in the car.”

Walter and Adam shared a quick look, then got in the car without another word.

They drove the first few blocks in silence before Adam asked, “Wait, your ex-girlfriend works at the morgue?”

“Yeah,” said Mimi. “She’s the county coroner.”

“What was her sister’s name?” asked Adam.

“Bethany, why?”

“She’s dead!?”

“You knew her?”

“Holy fuck…” said Adam, dropping his head.

“What’s going on?” asked Walter.

“Yeah,” said Mimi. “What do you know?”

“You know what Bethany did for a living, don’t you?” asked Adam.

“Yes,” said Mimi.

“No,” said Walter.

“She was… She offered…negotiable affection,” said Adam.

“She what?” asked Walter.

“She was a prostitute,” said Mimi. “Jane tried getting her out of it over and over again, but it never stuck.”

“And now she’s dead?” asked Walter.

“Yeah,” said Mimi. “She is.”

“When did it happen?” asked Adam.

“Last night,” said Mimi. She paused in thought for a minute, then said, “Right before your house blew up, actually.”

“What?” asked Adam? “How do you know?”

“Because I was the investigating officer.”

“Where’d they find her?” asked Adam. “Was she in her room at the Down Town Motel?”

“Yeah, how’d you know about that?” asked Mimi.

“I told you, I knew her.”

Mimi threw him a nasty look and he said, “Relax, I wasn’t a customer. She and I used together a couple years back, but when she got clean, so did I. We helped each other out – kept each other accountable. Now that she’s gone…” He sighed. “It’s gonna be rough without her.”

They drove another block in silence, then Adam asked, “Did you show that picture of the guy to Ronnie?”

“What picture? And who’s Ronnie?” said Mimi.

“The guy who’s picture you showed me – the guy who brought my food last night. Did you show that to Ronnie?”

“Ronnie who?”

“The guy who works the front desk at the motel. Maybe he saw your mysterious dude when Bethany checked in.”

They were only a block away from the morgue now, but Mimi swung the car in a hard turn and pulled her phone from her pocket, hitting the redial button. As soon as it picked up, she said, “Jane? Mimi. Stall him, I gotta make a quick stop on the way.”

Doctor Ralph measured out the ingredients very carefully in the lab, and added them to an assortment of beakers. He wanted the mixtures to be stable, but volatile, so he could carry several of them in pockets but have them explode on impact. His firearms lay on a side table next to a hacksaw, a fine metallic dust sprinkled around them. He’d sawed the barrel off of the AR-7, along with the stock, making it little more than an oversized, awkwardly shaped pistol. The shotgun was now several inches shorter as well.

He hummed to himself as he worked, and smiled. It wasn’t going to be pretty, but he would get his test subject.

Out in the hallway, Jane slammed the phone down on the receiver and swore. She immediately covered her mouth in surprise and hoped that Doctor Ralph hadn’t heard her.

He did.

The Down Town Motel was about six blocks from the morgue, and Mimi ran through every intersection on the way. When she finally pulled in, she stormed into the office and slammed her phone on the counter, face up, with a picture of Doctor Ralph displayed.

“Ronnie, is it?” she said.

The desk clerk backed away a step and hit the wall behind him, rattling the keys on the hooks. “Y…yeah,” he said. “I already answered all that other cops’ questions. What do you want?”

“I want you to look at this picture very carefully,” said Mimi. “And then I want you to show me the guest registry for last night.”

He leaned in and peeked at the screen of her phone, then said, “Yeah, that’s him.”

“That’s who,” asked Mimi?

“That’s the guy. That’s what you wanna know, right?”

Adam and Walter entered the room just then, and Adam said, “What guy, Ronnie? You saying he was here last night?”

“Oh fuck, Adam!?” said Ronnie. “Dude, I heard your house blew up! Thank christ you’re alive!” Ronnie moved to come out from behind the desk, but Mimi put a hand on his chest and stopped him.

“Uh-uh,” she said. “Guest registry. Now.”

Ronnie looked at her and glanced towards Adam, who said, “Dude, don’t look at me, I can’t help you out here. Is that the dude?”

“Come on, man, you know I’m clean,” Ronnie said to Adam. “I’m not dealing, I’m not letting anybody else deal outta here no more, all I do is rent to the girls and whatever tourists and drunks don’t know any better.”

“Um, why are you trying to tell him all this,” said Walter, cutting in. “She’s the cop, remember?”

“Well, yeah, but…I mean…” Ronnie wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence.

Mimi got right in front of him, then, and leaned in. He was easily a head taller than her, but judging from how he was backing away, she was very clearly the bigger person. “Do you have any idea how many assholes I’ve had to deal with who will talk to any man in the room before they talk to a woman, even though I’m a cop?” she asked.

“Look, lady, I –” he started.

“Officer,” she corrected him. “You will call me officer, or I will run your ass in right now.”

“For what?” asked Ronnie.

“I’ll figure something out.”

He stared back at her hard, desperately, and stammered a few syllables, but couldn’t make words. He dared to glance over at Adam again, but Mimi caught his face in her hand and forced him to look her in the eye.

“That motherfucker can’t help you now,” she said. “And you got one chance to help yourself. Now show me the goddamn registry.”

Jane was standing at the door of the lab, pacing. She was trying to find a reasonable way to go in there, but every excuse that crossed her mind sounded weak and obviously fake.

She tried to think of Mimi and what she would do.

She straightened up, set her jaw, and pushed her way into the lab.

Everything was wrong.

It was her lab, after all, and she knew where everything was, and where everything went.

But this was wrong. All of her equipment had been pulled out and used and hadn’t been put away correctly. The mass spectrometer was still on and wasting electricity, and whatever samples had been placed in it were still there, waiting to be cleaned out and sterilized. Beakers and burners were set up at any old workstation, apparently, and several racks of test tubes were lined up and stoppered with an ugly brown mixture in them.

On the table next to the racks was a hacksaw and two guns, which had been cut down to size.

And with his back to her, in the middle of it all, was Doctor Ralph himself, humming.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked.

This jarred Doctor Ralph out of her reverie, but his hands never slipped in their measurements and mixtures. He paused, though, and turned to her and said, “Ah, doctor. Checking up on me, I presume?” He turned back to his work before she could answer, but she moved into the room and spoke anyway.

“Yes, doctor, I was making sure that our facilities here were enough for your needs and that you had everything you…needed.” She felt stupid saying it, but he didn’t seem to notice. He was back to his mixture, and not even looking at her.

He said, “Of course, thank you very much. I appreciate your consideration. Tell me, did you ever determine cause of death for that young lady that you were examining?”

Jane froze at the thought of her sister and felt tears welling up in her eyes, but she swallowed the lump in her throat and blinked the tears away as she opened her mouth to speak.

Then she stopped.

“I’m sorry?” she said. “Who do you mean?”

“The young woman who was murdered at the motel,” said Doctor Ralph. “I’m sure we discussed it previously.”

“No, we discussed an elderly transient gentleman who had been found dead under an overpass,” said Jane. In her mind, curiosity had well overtaken sadness, and rage was knocking on the door. “What do you know about the dead woman?”

Doctor Ralph’s hands shook, ever so slightly, but Jane saw it.

He sighed, stoppered the last bottle in his hand, and shook it as he turned towards her. “I’m sorry,” he said. “But I’m going to need you to step away from that door, please, or else I’m going to throw this and most likely kill you.”

            Out in the hallway, the phone rang.

            Several blocks away, Mimi, Walter, and Adam were in her unmarked squad car with the lights on and the siren warming up. She had the pedal to the floor and her phone to her ear.

            After several rings, the morgue’s ancient answering machine picked up.

            “Shit!” said Mimi, waiting for the message to end and the recording to start. When she heard the beep she said, “Jane! It’s Mimi, get the fuck out of there now. I’m on my way, but if you can, get out of the building, get somewhere safe, and call 911…” She heard a click and paused, thinking that the receiver had been picked up. “Jane? Is that you, honey?”

            Doctor Ralph said “No, Officer Spatchcock, I’m afraid Doctor Jane isn’t available to speak right now, but I am very interested in speaking with you.”

Super Meals: Part Thirty Eight

He was going to have to call the cops. 

Well, the DA, he thought.

He didn’t want to, admittedly, but perhaps, if he was careful, he could get the information he needed and stay out of sight.

But before doing so, he needed supplies.

He’d worked out several plans in his head while he cleaned up his hotel room. He found housework meditative, and the simple acts of straightening up and putting things away helped him center and focus his mind once more. By the time he was finished restoring his room to a state that wouldn’t alarm the housekeeping staff, he’d worked out plans A though F. While he showered and changed, waiting for room service to deliver a late lunch, he worked out plans G through K. And in the car ride from the hotel to the hardware store, he finalized plans L through Q.

He’d never needed to get past Plan D, but it never hurt to be prepared.

Inside the front door and around the corner, the hardware store had a generic ATM next to a pair of vending machines. Doctor Ralph selected one of the credit cards registered to a name with a PO Box on the opposite side of the country and withdrew $200 cash, the maximum amount allowed by the machine.

He then took a credit card registered to a name with an address in a border town in Texas, and withdrew another $200.

Another credit card, another $200.

And again.

And one more time again, rounding his cash reserve up to an even $1,000. He made a mental note to phone each of the credit card companies and report each card stolen once he was done at this store, but before he made it to the next.

Doctor Ralph was systematic and smart, and his preparation required no less than four stores. Five, if he could manage it.

At this store he purchased a number of chemicals used in professional green house fertilization work, as well as a few hand tools. Nothing special, and nothing that would seem to imply he was anything other than a homeowner looking to improve his backyard garden and pick up a few things for the garage while he was at it.

In his car, between stores, he called the accounts department of the first credit card company and reported it had been stolen two days prior. “No ma’am, I just now noticed it was missing. The last time I used it was a couple of days ago, so I figure it must have been taken out of my wallet at the gym while I was showering or something,” he said. He adopted a slight southern accent for the call, in order to make it more memorable for the operator on the other end of the phone, and because he’d discovered that people from all over the country used southern accents. It was less of a regional accent than it was an attitude, a style that ignorant rednecks adopted, regardless of where they lived, he thought. He’d visited all 50 states and heard the accent used in every one of them – Alaska and Hawaii were the most striking examples, but he chalked it up to just another example of how very very odd humanity was.

When he got to the second store, he headed directly to the back.

They always kept guns near the back of the store.

To purchase the firearm and fill out the paperwork, he used an ID matching the name on the credit card that was just reported stolen. He couldn’t purchase any handguns, of course, because of the three-day waiting period, but he could get a 12-gauge shotgun and a charming little sport rifle called an AR-7 and walk away with them both immediately. He didn’t buy any ammunition, though, but insisted that he’d be back before the week was out, “Provided the wife lets me keep ‘em,” he said with a smile.

The sales clerk smiled back and said, “Oh, I got my wife an AR-7 just like that one a few years back! She hated guns before that, but nowadays she can almost out-shoot me!”

Doctor Ralph forced a laugh and gave the elderly gentleman a salute as he took his packages and headed for the door. He checked his wallet upon exiting and realized that he’d used the wrong credit card to buy the guns, but that would end up working in his favor when he reported it stolen. The fake name on the firearms registration not matching the name on the credit card they were purchased with would only lend credibility to the story of the stolen card.

At the third store he purchased another collection of gardening chemicals that were entirely benign. They contained polysyllabic ingredients and chemicals that were impressive, even to Doctor Ralph, but they were entirely harmless unless ingested.

At the fourth store, a tremendously huge big-box store coated in neon orange signs, Doctor Ralph bought another collection of gardening materials. Again, these were perfectly normal chemicals that guaranteed the user that a single dose would keep grass green and flowers blooming for months to come. Another bogus credit card used, then tossed in the trash in the parking lot, and the fruits of the shopping trip placed carefully in the trunk of his rental car.

Placed carefully, because these chemicals, when mixed in the right proportions with the chemicals purchased at the first and third stores, would create a highly volatile compound that was exponentially powerful. One cup, properly mixed, was equal to a single stick of dynamite. Two cups, however, had the explosive power of a bundle of four sticks of dynamite.

With what he had in the trunk, Doctor Ralph could make up to ten pounds.

The final store he visited was a big sporting goods store, where he bought a large duffel bag, a box of 100 rounds of .22 ammunition, and a box of 25 rounds of 12 gauge shotgun shells.

With that, he was out of identities. There was no one left for him to be but himself.

He felt strangely vulnerable, but also empowered. He was so used to doing things as someone else, covering his tracks and make sure that nobody ever knew he’d had a hand in things, that it was quite exciting to think that he was going to pull this off as himself, all by himself.

As he pulled away from the sporting goods store he dialed the District Attorney’s office. Her receptionist picked up and put him through to her immediately – making him wonder if the DA was expecting him.

“So glad to hear from you, doctor,” she said. “I hope you were able to find what you needed and get good use of our facilities?”

“Indeed I did, counselor,” he responded. “But I’m afraid I may have to impose upon you just a bit further.”

“Of course,” she said. “Consider my office to be at your disposal.”

“Thank you very much,” he said. “I’ll be sure pass word along to my colleagues that you’ve been extremely helpful to me and my company. I must say, your professionalism outshines your station, counselor. Have you ever considered practicing in a larger city?”

“I – well, I can’t say that the thought hasn’t crossed my mind…” she said, but her hesitancy had already told him everything he needed to know. She wanted out, and he was rich and powerful and had friends in high places. He could dangle the prospect of a better job in a better place in front of her and ride that opportunity train as far as he wanted to go.

“Wonderful! I think a woman of your talents and capabilities would do quite well in the world. By the way, I’ll need to use the laboratory just one more time. I hope that’s not a problem?”

“Of course not, doctor! I will make a call to our medical examiner as soon as we’re off the phone and give her a heads-up that you’re on your way, and to give you every consideration.”

“Oh,” he said. “I was hoping for some privacy, actually. You know how it is, I’m sure; corporate policy requires I work alone to avoid violating the nondisclosure agreements I’ve signed, and to protect our intellectual properties. We’ve got some rather sensitive materials here, after all.”

“I completely understand,” she said. “And the good news is that you will definitely have privacy. She’s been reassigned to desk duty for the time being, so she’ll only be there to fill out paperwork and catch up on her filing and reports. The labs will be all yours, and yours alone.”

He wasn’t happy about it, but he couldn’t overplay his hand and try to demand that they shut down the morgue entirely just to accommodate his bomb making.

“No worries at all,” he said. “I’ll be in and out in no time, I’m sure, and I will do everything I can to stay out of her way.”

He hung up the phone and was at the morgue within minutes. Parking on the street, he went to the trunk and carefully loaded everything into the duffel bag; chemicals, firearms, ammunition, tools. He shouldered the bag and strode into the building, down the stairs, and through the double-doors.

Jane was sitting behind the one desk, situated to the side of the stairs and in front of a bank of file cabinets. The fluorescents cast the whole hallway in a blue-gray glow, but there was a lamp on the desk that shone a more natural light upon the reports Jane was filling out. She looked up as Doctor Ralph approached.

“Doctor,” he said, smiling as he walked past.

“Doctor,” she responded.

Doctor Ralph paused in front of her and said, “By the way, I want to thank you for the use of your facilities. You have quite an excellent laboratory here, and it has been very helpful to my work.”

“And did you find what you were looking for?” asked Jane.

“Oh yes, indeed,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ll need just a little bit more use of the lab, though. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” said Jane. “Our lovely district attorney just called, in fact, and said to extend you every courtesy.”

Doctor Ralph smiled and said, “How very kind of her.” He turned to head down the hallway and Jane spoke up.

“You will,” she said, “stick to the laboratory, right?”

“Why do you ask?”

“We have an…” her breath hitched and her voice caught in her throat for a second, but she coughed and continued. “We have a new, active case in the autopsy room. I’m afraid it’s off limits to everybody not involved in the case.”

His smile widened and he said, “Of course, doctor. I wouldn’t dream of interfering with your investigation.” He didn’t wait for her response, but turned away and went straight to the laboratory.

As soon as the door closed, Jane pulled her cell phone from her pocket and dialed. It rang twice, then picked up. Before the other person could speak, she said, “Mimi? It’s him, he’s back. You need to get down here now.”

Looking for a hero...

            In light of the recent election and the ensuing reactions, I’m making a one-time shift this week in order to address the situation. There will be more Super Meals next week, I promise (maybe even this weekend!), but I’d like to get my thoughts on the situation out to share with you all.

            I won’t spend too much time harping on the election and process – it was a messy situation start to finish and the candidates were what they were.

There was, of course, only one who truly stood out as evil incarnate, and yet people still voted for him. Enough people, in fact, to elect him.

When it was all said and done, what I noticed from friends and family was not sorrow at having lost, or anger at having been cheated (for the fifth time in 240 years, one candidate won the popular vote while the other candidate was awarded the presidency); the prevailing feeling has been one of fear.

My gay friends are terrified that their marriages will be nullified, or that they will be forced to grow silent again about who they are and who they love.

My non-white friends are horrified that they will become targets – either for the racist organization now marching in triumph, or the xenophobes who blame them for their plight.

My female friends are scared that there is a self-confessed sexual predator (who is proud of to be so) about to take up residence in the white house, and that their hard-fought rights are now in jeopardy.

And my straight, white, male friends are worried about all of their non-straight, non-white, non-male friends for all of the reasons above, and more.

I’ve spent a lot of time today trying to think of what to say to my friends to make them feel better and assuage their fears…but what do you say to combat the fact that the least qualified candidate in the history of the United States is going to take office in a couple of months?

We need heroes.

We need someone to stand up to the forces of hate and rage and corruption and failure and say, “No. This isn’t us, we’re better than this – I’m better than this. And if you want to come for my friends, you’re going to have to get through me, first.”

It’s a scary thing to say, I know, so I’m not surprised that there hasn’t been a single clear voice ringing out throughout the masses saying it.

It’s okay to be scared. There is this prevailing sentiment in our society these days where the very concept of fear is perceived as an insult or a sign of weakness and it’s ridiculous. Seriously, accuse someone of being scared of something and watch their heads explode (but do it from a distance, many people overcompensate by becoming violent). But think about it - what’s wrong with being afraid of something? Fear can protect us. Fear can teach us. Fear can inspire us.

Fear is only a negative if we let it control us.

This election, roughly half the nation let their fear control them – they were weak, they were scared, and they voted for a comfortable lie because they were afraid to face uncomfortable truths. They were scared that their own lives might be inconvenienced, so they voted to fuck over everybody not like themselves.

I am unimaginably lucky to have the people in my life that I do. I’ve screwed up a lot, made a lot of mistakes, said and done some things that have been so stupid as to be kind of impressive, really…and yet I find myself surrounded by the best people I could ever hope to know.

(As a writer who invents characters on a regular basis, I’ve invented some pretty cool people…but none of them are ever as cool as the people I know in real life)

And every voice I’ve heard lamenting the future has come from a person I know who would take in and protect any one of the others.

Every person I know who’s been saying “What do we do now?” is someone I know would stand next to a fellow human being and help them back up when they fall.

Every friend I have who’s been worried about what the next four years might hold is a friend I know I could call on, should the need arise, to help – whether it’s just someone to listen and comfort, someone to lend a couple of bucks, put me up for a few nights, help me with transportation, etc.

I have a hero.

I have hundreds of heroes.

I have all of you.

The next four years are a scary prospect, no doubt about it, but whoever sits in the oval office can’t change who we are at our core, and that’s what’s going to save us. So when you get scared about what might happen, remember that you’re someone’s hero. You don’t have to do anything other than be who you are – even if you’re terrified – and you’ll be someone’s hero.

And they’ll be someone else’s hero.

And we’ll get through this together.

Super Meals: Party Thirty-Seven

What was he thinking?

Doctor Ralph looked at himself in the bathroom mirror of his hotel room and, for the first time in a year, he honestly questioned himself.

This isn’t like me, he thought. I’ve killed people worldwide in the name of science. Why do I care about Subject 189?

“Because he’s the first one who’s ever survived one of your meals,” he said aloud. He stood up straighter and leaned forward until his face was almost touching the glass. “Because even though you’ve figured out how he does it, you have no idea why, and it drives you mad to not know something.”

You are a brilliant man, he thought. You have PhDs in four disciplines. You are more powerful than the CEO of your company – one of the top fast food chains in the world rests upon your shoulders because of the masterpieces you create. You are an artist and a scientist. You have money spread across more accounts than you even remember at this point, and identities in six countries. Whoever this man is, he is nothing compared to you.

He splashed water in his face and took a deep breath.

Then he said, “But he survived the meals.”

Walter, Mimi, and Adam were sitting in Walter’s dining room. There was a first aid kit tossed open on the table and Mimi was dabbing at Adam’s head with a folded piece of gauze. He was wearing one of Walter’s old t-shirts, a pair of Walter’s jeans, socks, and shorts.

Walter outweighed Adam by a good fifty pounds, at least, which meant that nearly everything was loose and draped on Adam, and he looked like a hobo who had suddenly shrunk.

While Mimi bandaged Adam’s head, Walter had an icepack held on the back of Adam’s neck. Adam himself clutched another icepack to his chest, and he had also shoved a bag of ice cubes down the front of his pants.

“I can’t believe none of that is affecting you,” said Mimi, as she applied butterfly bandages to the gash on Adam’s head.

“Hell, if anything it’s helping. It actually feels really good,” said Adam. He pulled the pack away from his chest and shook it to find a cold patch, then pressed it back to his skin and sighed.

“Why did we decide to come to my house, again?” asked Walter.

“Because I’m not about to take you fuckers to my house,” said Mimi. “I don’t want you knowing where I live.”

“After everything we’ve been through together?” asked Walter.

Mimi leaned over to look at him over Adam’s shoulder, and even Adam turned his head to throw a stare at him. Mimi said, “You mean the, what, 24 hours we’ve known each other? Yeah, we go way back, you and me.”

Adam snorted and said, “Dumbass. Even I know cops don’t ever let people know where they live. Too much of a damn hassle having to worry about someone coming to look for you when you’re off duty or something.”

“See?” said Mimi. “This guy gets it.”

“And we can’t go to my place,” said Adam, “because it blowed up, remember?”

“Yeah, I know – I wasn’t talking to you, though,” said Walter.

“Why not? You think I wouldn’t live in a nice place?”

“You just said it blew up last night!”

“You didn’t know that!”

“You told us!”

“But I only told you that after we decided to come to your place,” said Adam. “I had a nice house. All my stuff was there…” He trailed off into silence, then muttered, “Fuck.”

“Yeah, speaking of which,” said Mimi, “if you survived that blast, someone’s gonna want to know about it. We should take you…” Now it was her turn to trail off.

“Yeah, take me where?” asked Adam. “My house blew up with me in it. I’m supposed to be dead, remember? What do you think is gonna happen when people find out I survived that blast?”

“Probably the same thing that’d happen to me if anybody found out what happens to me when I eat fast food,” said Walter.

Adam turned in the chair to look at him and said, “Yeah, what does happen to you?”

“I don’t really know,” said Walter. “How’d you survive that explosion? Do you even know what caused it?”

Adam’s head dropped. He’d honestly thought about the previous night quite a lot, but hated doing so because it always came back to the same thing; he’d destroyed his house and killed two cops doing it.

“Adam?” asked Mimi.

He didn’t move.

She reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder and said, “It’s okay. You’re safe here.”

“No, I’m not,” he said.

“No, you really are,” said Mimi. “You can stay here as long as you like.” Walter quietly but frantically shook his head and Mimi shot him a look that stopped him. “And whoever blew up your house thinks your dead, so it’s not like they’re gonna come looking for you.”

“Yeah, ‘cause I did it.”

“What?” asked Walter.

Mimi tried to wave him away, but Walter ignored her, pulling his chair closer to Adam and leaning in. “Adam,” he said, “it’s cool, man. You can tell me. I’m…special…too, remember? Believe me, if anybody understands how you feel, it’s me.”

Adam looked up at him and stared, hard, for a long time. Finally he said, “You got a smoke?”

Walter jerked in his chair and said, “Huh? Oh, no. I, uh, quit. A while ago.”

“So you do or you don’t have any smokes?”

Walter sighed. “Nah, mate. Sorry. I stopped buying ‘em ‘cause I’d smoke ‘em. I just bum off of people if I really want one.” He saw the look in Adam’s eyes and took a chance. “Hey Mimi? Can you run down to the store and pick us up a pack?”

Now it was Mimi’s turn to look startled. “Huh?” she asked.

Walter took a wad of bills out of his pocket and handed them to her, saying, “There’s about eight bucks here, should be enough for a pack of Spirits. Head down to the gas station or the Pinnacle Mart and get us a pack of cigarettes, would you?”

She pursed her lips, but took the hint and stood up, snagging the money as she did so. “I’ll be back in a few.”

“Take your time,” said Walter.

She was out the door and driving away before Adam finally said, “I did it.”

“What?” asked Walter.

Adam stood up and patted the bandage on his head, wincing at the pain and saying, “I did it. It was me.”

“What was you?”

“My house, all right, fucker? I blew up my goddamned house. You happy now?” He threw the icepack at the wall above the sink, where it splatted open, spraying water across the counter.

“Well, thanks for aiming at my sink, at least,” said Walter.

“I’m not a dick,” said Adam.

“But what do you mean it was you?” asked Walter.

“Look, please don’t tell the lady cop because I don’t want to go to jail or get turned into a human lab rat or whatever,” he said, “but I blew up. I mean I blew up my house. Me. I did it. I mean…”

He was pacing now, and as he grew more agitated his wet skin started to steam.

“Hey, calm down, man,” said Walter. “Just tell me what happened.”

Adam moved towards the front door and opened it, feeling the breeze that blew across his face and then saying, “Some guy brought me a burger. Said it was part of their new delivery service. It was good, but it was hot – like spicy. Lots of peppers and spicy mustard, that kind of stuff. Honestly, I don’t know what all was on it because I couldn’t even finish it. I got about halfway through and the heat was just fucking insane. So I go to my kitchen and turn on the faucet to have a glass of water, and when I put my hand under the tap, the water’s turning to steam as soon as it touches my skin. My hands are getting hotter, I’m sweating like a whore in church, my tongue is hanging out and my mouth is bone dry and I just need to cool off, so I grabbed the spout itself and the metal goes red hot in, like, a second, and the water stopped coming out entirely – the damn thing’s just shooting steam into the sink. So I take my hand off of it and now my skin’s getting red, like glowing, and I smelled something burning and I look down and realize it’s me. My shoes have melted, my clothes are falling off, I’ve got two black footprints in the floor of my house and then…white. Like a supernova behind my eyes. It was like the flashes you get from a migraine, but all balled up into one, right in front of my eyes. And then dark. Everything went black. Next thing I knew I was waking up in…the morgue, I think. It was a drawer – I was in a drawer, naked, on a tray. I slid myself out of there and swiped a lab coat or something and found the exit.”

“How did you get all the way to the campus?” asked Walter.

“Probably looking like a drunk jackass,” said Adam. “When I got out of the morgue I ended up in the alley on that block between Alder and Poplar, just hiding in the trash. I guess I stumbled over to the college and fell into the stream, where you guys found me.”

Walter saw out the front window that Mimi was pulling up, so he asked, “You said someone brought you the food, right?”

“Yeah, some delivery guy,” said Adam. He saw Mimi coming up the walk towards the door and backed away. “Look, don’t tell the cop, okay? Please?”

“No, man, look, you gotta tell her about this. She can help you.”

“How can she help me?”

Walter held up a hand to silence him as Mimi walked in and tossed the yellow pack of cigarettes to him. Walter caught them and said, “Detective? You got that picture of the guy who jumped me?”

“Yeah,” said Mimi, digging her phone out of her pocket. “Why?”

Walter waited for her to find it, then snatched the phone out of her hand and held it up in front of Adam, asking, “Is this the dude who delivered your food?”