REAL LIFE/REAL DEATH Chapter Two

"BEING HONEST"

The police sirens began to fade into existence like a Polaroid snapshot. I knew I had to get out of there; unfortunately I was pretty distracted by the girl. There was something about her; she couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. I was suddenly reminded of my daughter, Anne. God, I haven’t spoken to her in so many years. So many memories flooding into my mind, struggling for dominant attention, I couldn’t really focus on anything. Wait, did she just say she was a superhero?

“Holy shit,” I stammered. I admit at this point, though not drunk, I was a little buzzed and subsequently at a complete loss for words. Fortunately, this girl didn’t really seem interested in striking up a strong conversation; she seemed much more interested in resuming her panic attack.

“Oh my God! Oh my God! Azul’s dead!” She repeatedly cried. Then she did what comes naturally to a person who’s not used to being surrounded my dead bodies. She threw up.
Something had to happen, and it was becoming painfully obvious that I had to make it happen. I grabbed the girl by the arm led her back to my car.

She wrestled free from my grip, “What are you doing?” she demanded.

“We have to go,” I grunted.

“Are you going to take me to the cops?” she asked gravely.

“No,” I answered honestly, although it was my back up plan, “but they’re on their way, so unless you want to stay and talk to them we’d better go.”

The girl looked around frantically, probably hoping to find somebody else to save her.

“Okay,” she said, realizing that I was her only option.

We ran back to my car and sped out of the parking lot, passing the brightly lit police cruisers along the way.

What the fuck had I gotten myself into? I was just witness to a murder scene, one of the persons involved was sitting in my car (incriminating the hell out of me I might add), and said person was a crazy girl in a cat fetish costume. Shit, she may have even beaten that other guy to death. I wouldn’t peg this girl for a killer, although one look at her and its obvious wasn’t working to the same standards as the rest of the world. I drove blindly for a few minutes, unable to collect my thoughts. This was a bad idea, one of my worst, probably. There would have been a dead silence were it not for the girl’s sniffling; clearly trying to hold back a torrent of tears. I felt like I had to say something and opened my mouth to do so.

“Put on your seatbelt,” was all that came out.

Surprisingly, she complied. I realized talking wasn’t really my thing and restrategized. I’ll just ditch the girl and drink til I forget the whole night.

“So….where am I taking you?”

“What?”

“Where do you live, where am I dropping you off?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know where you live?”

“I live in New York City.”

“Jesus, what are you doing here?

“Crime fighting.” She said plainly.

“Well, I’d say that was ridiculous, but I can see you’re already in a costume.”

“There’s nothing ridiculous about justice.”

“You don’t need to sell me on anything, girl, I was a cop for thirty odd years.”

“You’re not a cop anymore?”

“No.”

“Did you retire?

“Something like that,” I croaked, my throat hurting from all this talking. Besides, I wasn’t really interested in talking about myself. I tried to turn the conversation back to her, “Look girl, what are you doing out here?”

“Fighting crime.”

“Right, you said that, but what happened, back there?”

“What do you think happened!” she snapped, “We were stopping a drug deal and they shot the Azul Amigo! Jesus Christ, I told them this was going to happen! I fucking told them! And now Azul’s dead!”

“Who? Told who? Were there others beside’s you two?

There was an uncomfortable silence, and this time it wasn’t soundtracked by sniffles and tears. This was graveyard silence.

“I can’t talk about it,” she finally said.

Well fuck. I briefly considered just dumping her off at the nearest street corner and resuming with the drinking plan, but every time I looked at her, her blonde curls a tangled mess, I imagined Anne’s face under the mask. I had to help her.

“Okay, that’s fine. I want to help you,” I said rather straightforwardly, “If you don’t have anywhere to go, we can just go back to my place and figure it all out in the morning. Is that alright?”

She nodded, slowly.

“Okay, it’s settled. Now I know where I’m going. My name’s Frank, by the way. Did I already tell you that? My name’s Frank. Frank Calico. I’m a private detective. You can trust me, okay?

“Okay.”

“So, what’s your name?”

“Night Cat.”

“Hmmm, yeah, I guess you don’t want to tell me your…” I couldn’t believe I was actually saying the words, “secret identity.”

“No, I don’t have a secret identity, when I’m not a superhero I’m Jennifer.”

“Oh, okay…well Jen…”

She cut me off, “No. I’m not Jennifer. I’m Night Cat. Jennifer is safe right now. Night Cat is here.”

I think the car drifted off the road slightly, because I found myself frantically swerving the wheel to get the car steady again. Holy shit, please don’t tell me this girl is crazy. Sad as it sounds, it would explain the costume. I mean, shit, who else would go out in a costume and fight a bunch of gun wielding drug dealers? This girl really needed my help. I could see it all so clearly; it was like, my sacred duty to help this poor crazy girl. Although, really, who was I to say anything. She’s no more fucked up than me, if I’m being honest, which I guess I am.