Death by Sarcasm

Twenty-six

Mary was not proud to admit it, but she was somewhat ambivalent about kids. She had a feeling she would be crazy about her own if she ever had any, but at the moment, there wasn’t a huge attraction there. Some kids were cute as hell. Beautiful, actually. And she did encounter a flare of envy now and then. But she also saw the other side of the coin. The loud ones. Messy. Shit their pants, etc. It really came down, though, to her own thoughts about herself as a mother. It was tough to picture. Being honest with herself, she was about as nurturing as Cruella deVille. Maybe the sight of her own little duckling would bring out her soft side, or at least, help her discover it.

Maybe she’d feel more optimistic about her abilities to be a mother if she ever found the right guy. Yeah, right. Like the guy across the hall who she hadn’t seen in a couple of days. She probably scared him off. He was probably negotiating the return of his security deposit. God he was good-looking, though. They’d have cute kids.

Mary shook her head. Chastised herself. Good Lord, Mary. You sleep with the guy once and you’re imagining what your kids will look like?

She stomped on the Lexus’s accelerator and shot onto the 405. The hell with Wilshire or Santa Monica Blvd. She was going back to a certain apartment building frequented by a smart-ass kid. And this kid in particular, she really, really didn’t like.

Twenty minutes later, she parked two blocks away from Kenum’s dingy apartment building. She was behind a grungy truck that had a paint-splattered ladder in the bed. Mary parked just a hair farther away from the curb than the truck so she could watch the front of Kenum’s building, but remain virtually out of sight.

She sat back and waited. It took almost two hours before the kid showed up.

Mary jumped out of the car, jogged up the street, and ambushed the little smart ass just as he was about to go inside the building.

“Hey, remember me?” she said.

The kid turned and rolled his eyes. “Aw, Christ.”

“Close, but the name is actually Mary. Christ’s mother.”

He started to open the doors to the building, but Mary had climbed up next to him and she put her hand on the door.

“You’re not funny,” he said. “You’re hot. But you’re not funny,” the kid said.

“Aw, stop, you’re such a sweetie,” Mary said. “So who told you to send me down to the boat?”

The kid shook his head. “Don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. That’s a pretty mouth you got, though. Why not put it to better use?”

Mary stepped in, grabbed the kid by the throat and pushed him back against the door.

The kid started to gag.

“Listen you little f*ck,” she said. “Give me a name or I’ll take you around the alley, break your neck and leave you for the rats.”

The kid nodded his head as best he could. He even let out a little fart.

Mary let go, slightly. “David Kenum. Where is he?”

The kid gasped for breath.

Mary waited a moment, impatient.

“Where. Is. He.”

The kid looked at her, then a sheepish little smile crossed his face.

“Right behind you.”