since they bowed under the weight of a coffee cup.
Ben and I had been best friends since middle school, when I was Lancelot, Galahad, and La Belle Dame sans Merci rolled into one—or actually, considering that my parents were the owners of the largest used/new mystery bookstore west of Kansas, Miss Marple, Poirot, Perry Mason, and Nero Wolfe—forever running off in defense of those younger than I or those in peril of some sort. Or again, perhaps not, since the only small, young, or shy teenagers that those four were likely to rise in defense of would be those who had been unjustly accused of murder, while I ran to the defense of any smaller person who was being bullied or otherwise abused or ganged up on by people bigger than them.
At five foot five—which was to be my adult height—and weighing less than a hundred pounds, soaking wet and with lead in my pockets, I’d been constitutionally incapable of sleeping at night if I thought that someone, somewhere, was getting away with committing blatant injustice against his fellow man or woman, or snively, pimply middle school kid.
Ben had first come to my rescue when I’d taken on three bullies—each of whom were twice my weight—at once and had insisted on helping me despite my outraged howls that I had them surrounded.
We’d been best friends ever since and cooperated in an unusual way—I charged in and got way over my head, and he jumped after me to rescue me and incidentally finish off whatever dragon I’d been fighting. But now, I thought, staring at him, my eyes misting with tears, I would simply have to kill him.
“Why on earth are you crying?” Ben asked, as E came back in and whirled around him three more times, before speeding back out to the dining room, causing a hollow sound in his wake that I was afraid was the knocking down and breaking of the potted plant my boyfriend’s mother had given me for Christmas.
“Because I really am going to hate having to kill you. And then, you know, at your size and in the middle of winter, with the ground frozen solid, there is no way that I can dig a hole large enough to bury you in. And that means that either you’ll be found right away, and I’ll have to figure out a system of misdirection so they think someone else is the culprit, or I’ll have to figure out a way to dissolve your body, so I can flush it down the drain or something.” I thought a moment. “Given how dirty that bathtub was when I moved in, do you think there would be any noticeable difference if I used it as a container to dissolve you in muriatic acid?”
He sighed heavily. “Don’t you think that buying enough muriatic acid for that purpose would call attention in and of itself? Besides, from what I’ve read, it doesn’t dissolve the body completely. You’d end up with clogged drains, and they’d find pieces of me in the plumbing.” He had to shout the last part because E had come back for a whirl around the living room and, this time, was blaring the horn continuously, which created a sort of siren effect. “Besides, your neighbors upstairs would probably complain about the smell.”
“Why not?” I said, as the siren receded toward the kitchen, followed by a series of thuds that meant that E was trying to open the door to the bathroom by dint of knocking on it with the front wheel. “They have already complained about the noise. Which means I’ll get evicted before the month is out and I have no idea if the security deposit will cover impact marks on the bathroom door.” I brightened up, as the noise indicated that E had hopped directly from the motorcycle onto the toilet, which was, at least, an improvement over the last time, when he’d brightly informed me that the bike was plastic and washable. “Where did you say your ex lives now? I wonder if I might simply make it seem like he did you in. I mean, the police already know he set fire to the inside of your condo when you broke up.”
“Only that part of the police force that is currently dating you,” Ben said tartly, and then in the tone of one defeated, “Fine, fine, fine, fine. Do you want me to take the boy out for a spin on the sidewalk, to tire