Gunn crumpled to the floor like the New York Knicks basketball franchise since the retirement of Walt Frazier and the Cleveland Browns football franchise since they sneaked off to Baltimore only to reappear later as an expansion team and have really crummy drafts. "We called her the Lady Macduff," Gunn called with a tear in his eye and a whimper in his voice as he sat on his duff. "This is such a Shakespearean tragedy!"
"Um, doesn't Macbeth have Lady Macduff whacked in that Scottish play?" Thais asked in a wacky way. Thais knew about the curse, and she wasn't about to test it.
Gunn looked up. "Yes, Shakespeare whacks, as you say in such a wacky manner, Lady Macduff only to accent Macbeth's cruelty and provide a counterpoint to Lady Macbeth, who, like you, dear Thais, is in all respects a fine example of an archetypal femme fatale."
"Oh."
"And now the Lady Macduff rests on my floor," Gunn whined restlessly on his duff.
Thais wriggled her sexy tan toes in the dust. "She was certainly a big-boned lady," Thais said with certainty. "I can see where you get your big bones," Thais said with calcium in her voice. "Do you have a Wet-Vac?" she asked, sucking at her teeth.
Gunn stood so he could crumple to the floor like an old dollar bill some cheap customer might give to a pizza delivery driver. "Mama! Mama!" he cried like a man who wanted his mama really, really badly.
He is such a tortured soul, Thais thought. He is tormented. He is suffering. He is grief-stricken. He is beleaguered, beset, and besieged.
I am so alliterative, Thais thought alliteratively.
And we've only just met, Thais thought. He's chock full of angst, and he doesn't even know me yet. How quaint. And he loved his mama very, very much. I have to love a man who loved his mama very, very much. It makes him very, very manly.
Thais felt a jolt go through her like the time she put a fork in an electrical socket one night back at UVA because all the other undergrads there were doing it. Then her thoughts caught like a split toenail on deep shag carpeting.
O-M-G, she thought, one letter at a time. Am I falling love? Am I? Am I really? Am I? Is this love? Is it? Is it really? Is it? Could it be? Could it? Could it really? Could it? Is he the one? Is he? Is he really? Is he? Am I the one for him? Am I? Am I really? Am I? Are Gunn and I a pair of star-crossed lovers in a dusty room covered with shattered Hummel figurines and the cremated remains of his mother, his most recent lover who I killed somewhat warm and rotting in her grave?
Why did I kill her? Why? Why? Why? Why would I kill Cat Mann? Why? Why? What possible motive could I have had? What? What? Why aren't I thinking this all out loud with him in the room as they do on soap operas, which is so cheesy and retarded, I mean, who walks around telling their business to the world out loud? I mean, besides people standing in line on freaking cell phones talking loud enough to implode eardrums, then when they think you're eavesdropping, they say something like, "Mind your own freaking business!" And you're like, okay, wench, stop talking because you're making your business everybody's business, and no one gives a crap about Deron and how he done you wrong and if that skank keep comin' on to him you gonna straighten dat--
"Mama!" Gunn cried again. "Mama!"
So why did I kill Cat? Thais thought. Why? I could say that I hate cats. That's it. I hate cats, her name was Cat, thus her death. Very, very logical. It's not the truth, of course, but if they ever catch me, I'll plead insanity and they'll send me to a psychiatric hospital to inhale happy pills and allow me to help the FBI solve similar crimes. I'd like that a lot since I need a quiet place to keep all my secrets in one place. I mean, it's a really big secret about how Cat and I were sisters in Slovenia a long time ago and how I sold her to the circus once.
What would Gunn do, Thais continued to think for a long freaking time, if he knew that I was actually Scorpion's sister coming from Slovenia to America via Brazil to wreak havoc with my sexy heels and my very big police-issue gun? He'd probably kill me. I guess I had better not tell him that. What would Gunn say if he knew he had been hot for both sisters of his mortal enemy? He'd probably think some pretty vile thoughts, and then he'd probably wait until I vacuumed up his mother before he killed me in a senselessly violent manner.
"Mama!" Gunn cried for the fifth freaking time. "Mama!"
I left no physical evidence, Thais continued to think, evidently, because I am an international terrorist and I watch CSI and Forensic Files all the time. I will never commit crimes in Miami, New York, or Las Vegas. The CSI techs in those cities are good, and they solve every crime in less than an hour if you ignore all the commercials, which I always do except for commercials that have clowns in them. Don't ask me why. Clowns are good sales people. But why does the detective in Miami always stand sideways when he talks to a suspect? That would tick me off. I'd say, "Yo, over here, redheaded detective." But here I am ...
"Mama!" Gunn cried for the umpteenth time. "Mama!"
Yes, here I am, Thais thought yet again, getting my thoughts interrupted by a manly man yelling "Mama!" like Marlon Brando yelled "Stella!" over and over until I just couldn't stand it anymore. "Answer him, wench!" I wanted to yell, but I knew she couldn't hear me since it was an old movie and I know that movie people can't really hear me. I am, after all, a UVA graduate who only once put a fork into an electrical socket. Yet here I am falling in love with Gunn even though he looks so pitiful covered in his mother's bodily dust. What should I do? What should I say aloud? What can anyone say at a time like this? Do I confess my crimes, say, "I love you," and expect Gunn to forgive me?
I've heard it happens in a whopping pile of romance novels.
I mean, the heroine catches the hero "bedding down a kitchen wench" yet forgives his cheating heart even when he says, "If you loved me, I wouldn't have had to bed down the kitchen wench" and then he says, "I love you" to make it all better.
I guess I could go ahead, assassinate Gunn, and make it look like he fell in the bathtub. Or, I could smother him with his own chest hair. A simple up-do, and he's done. Do I do right by my creepy brother, who is really a wimp, cries at chick flicks, and is afraid of moths, and make what's left of my family proud of me, or do I turn my sexy Slovenian, Brazilian, naturalized American heel on everyone--except Cat, who's certainly dead as a doornail--whom I hold dear? I feel so much angst.
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